Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Ted Hoffman · 06-06-2012, 07:15 AM

Hi guys,
First off, let me apologize to spin and the admins for pasting that post by spin to Hoffman's site. I just wanted to see the issues addressed. Hoffman also chose not to post my contribution yesterday. He chose to crib information about me from the net and pasted it on his site instead. Here is what I had written:

Quote:

Alright, lets sum this up.
I stated four problems for Casey's theory that the author of Mark (hereafter AMark) was (a bilingual) translator who wrote the gospel by translating from Aramaic source.
For the purposes of elegance, I will drop the contention that Casey's argument entails the assumption that AMark was a native of Galilee, which steph has stridently maintained is a misrepresentation of Casey's argument. So that is off the the table. In any case, steph agrees with me about the geographical errors in Mark. What we disagree on is the conclusions we can draw from that.
That leaves us with three problems: Insufficiency of Casey's case, Greek translations that are unexplainable as transliterations and lastly Latinisms in Mark.
For all these three, I and spin have provided specific examples and expected specific answers dealing with these examples.
The professor who developed the argument(s) in question provided a brief response which entailed blatant guesswork. When his mind-reading stunt was highlighted and his questionable appeal to DSS (data fudging reloaded) exposed as unsupported, he chose a studious silence as the safest response and has since maintained an unfathomable silence, leaving steph to do the opaque task of being his spokesperson. The good professor chose to leave most of the grunt work to Hoffmann (I got that right this time. Right?) and of course, the zealous and exuberant steph doing support work. In the meantime, his hyperbolic “orthography of the Dead Sea scrolls makes this a perfectly intelligible misreading” remains hanging, like a wallet clutched in a pick-pocketing hand detected before it can vanish.
How has the dynamic duo fared in the wake of the militating silence from Casey?
Hoffmans response has comprised an admission of failure to comprehend some of the arguments, lacking competence in Aramaic and promising that Casey will one day address the gathering difficulties, his hapless confusion over words like “Boanerges,” asking for "sources" of non-specific arguments and sharing the various possibilities swimming in his mind with regard to the provenance of Mark. He has also gone into tangents about lacking a GPS and being in Ithaca, how to spell his own name correctly and generally not dealt with the arguments in a focused fashion.

As for steph, oh steph. Well, steph has attempted a spirited defense even though steph has not been altogether able to avoid being overly scornful and dismissive in her efforts. We are talking about someone who calls Casey "Csaey" making it her task to remind me that "Hoffmann has two enns" The irony is so thick you can lean on it. When the bible mentions about splinters in other peoples eyes against the logs in our own, this is a walking, breathing example.
Stephs responses contain expressions like "stupidly attempts", "He could be related to Buckaroo Roo", "Excuse me but where were you ‘trained’?", "Your cowardly over confidence is astonishing" and so on and so forth. It appears that steph lacks the inner resources necessary to handle an argument she finds disagreeable without also being derisive towards the opposition. But I digress. Please let us look at her body of defense, shall we? Or, rather, to use Casey's expression, lets assess the state of her play. Or is it her state of the play?

For Latinisms in Mark, after finding that she lacks the competence necessary to explain cogently the "straight transliterations of Latin lexical items and translations of Latin idioms, [and] indications of grammatical and syntactical influence from Latin in the gospel of Mark" that spin enumerates, steph allows, rather feebly (after also promising that one day Casey will respond), against Casey, that Mark may have been a trilingual speaker. Casey instead argues, as Carr points out, that the same Aramaic source that AMark (the poor bilingual translator that AMark was!) was translating contained the Latinisms (Jesus of Nazareth , page 341). No problem here for steph. Lack of internal coherence for Casey. Next.

As for the insufficiency, steph does not address the specific arguments presented in any effective manner. She is largely dismissive and simply says 'go read his book.' Please. Spin has cited specific pages in Casey's book!
For the difficulties in Greek translations, steph helpfully refers me to Casey's work on 'translation studies' which talk about mistakes that translators make from the phenomenon known as interference. Interference or interlanguage entails a translator reading his translation with original text still in his mind. So he(the translator) doesn't read the text in the same way a monolingual reader would. Then there is "overliteral translation" and "displaced communication" (translating a text written from a different culture for an audience in a different time and place/culture) and "skopos theory of translation" and so on and so forth among others. These are simply the brush and paint that Casey uses to whitewash his theory where there are holes.
This is called drawing the eye where the arrow has hit and its what spin described earlier as an uncritical attempt to retrofit an Aramaic source to suit Caseys theory. It would be a classic case of plausible deniability in 'scholarship' that renders Casey's theory unfalsifiable.
At any rate, the least I expect is for steph or Casey to classify each of the awkward or inconceivable translations into one of the 'categories' rather than heap all the identified difficulties onto the mountain of "translation problems" then burnish the few non-problematic Aramaicisms that are largely trivial and ornamental and hold them aloft as proof of his case. And this is even made worse when we consider that Casey only chose some four passages in Mark to base his case upon!
I rest my case. Thanks for playing.

At any rate, my assessment is that the "trio" have taken a beating and need time to lick their wounds and Hoffman's censorship is just a desperate way to avoid more damage being inflicted on their collective position - which, as spin has correctly pointed out, is a howling train wreck. I think spin did a great job. I just wanted to be a catalyst and wanted to show Hoffman they cant bully everybody through his style of scorn and ricicule.

spin · 06-06-2012, 07:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ted Hoffman

...Hoffman's censorship...

I just couldn't tell Drusilla the Nun why you misspelt Hoffmann's name.

spin · 06-06-2012, 08:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grog

One striking characteristic of this exchange is Stephanie Fisher's handling of Casey. It is clear from his comments that spin is rude to "Steph," that he is being hand fed a one-sided account. He doesn't seem to realize that the one who is taking this debate into the gutter is his prized student, perhaps his self-appointed heir-apparent.

Yes, it struck me that Casey's probably past the caring stage of keeping up with such things as blogs and leans on Drusilla the Nun, who is his filter to the online world, to translate. So his poor behavior may just be defending his factotum, yes.

But then again, the poor behavior is there in his blog post for RJoe, where he's an amateur psychologist, ripping into the motivations of those naughty misguided mythicists, including Price. I'd say he's a nasty piece of business as well.

hjalti · 06-06-2012, 08:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by "steph"

Casey does not ‘link Aramaicism to historical accuracy’ and neither does he ‘imply Aramaicism as a historical criterion’.

Really?

It seemed to me to be the only basis for his claim that the story of Jairus daughter is certainly historical.

Ted Hoffman · 06-06-2012, 09:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hjalti

Quote:

Originally Posted by "steph"

Casey does not ‘link Aramaicism to historical accuracy’ and neither does he ‘imply Aramaicism as a historical criterion’.

Really?

It seemed to me to be the only basis for his claim that the story of Jairus daughter is certainly historical.

Yeah, steph is a bit of a nut who has now tied herself in knots. She rejects even what she should be defending. The reasoning of Casey and many historicists is, Aramaic source therefore historical.

Ted Hoffman · 06-06-2012, 10:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ted Hoffman

...Hoffman's censorship...

I just couldn't tell Drusilla the Nun why you misspelt Hoffmann's name.

Yeah, Shakespeare would have asked them, whats in an ennn?

Diogenes the Cynic · 06-06-2012, 10:20 AM

That Steph person is like the Ann Coulter of New Testament grad students.

stephan huller · 06-06-2012, 10:38 AM

But the bibliobloggers love her.

stephan huller · 06-06-2012, 10:42 AM

And on the subject of how this type of woman survive and thrive, I have now been contacted by a second stripper I used to know from Toronto's Brass Rail. She was telling me that she is now a nurse thanks to the kindness of a 'customer' who happened to be a doctor. Apparently he was helping guide her to some sort of career after dancing.

She was very, very hot. Café au lait skin. Extensions, but that goes with the territory. I remember walking down South Beach in Miami with her all dressed up. Those were the days. There is nothing like being with an attractive woman with sexual tension charging the air. Mobs of people some even trying to grab her. Seriously. It was surreal. Many much bigger and scary looking people. That's the bad thing about dating hot black women. You end up looking like a customer even when it's not the case.

I can remember speaking French and doing my best to avoid the shoe store the whole time we were there. God those were the days.

I am just thinking of ways to say things I shouldn't say about our esteemed colleague. Bear with me as a go down memory lane. I should dig up a picture and post it here. One of my few accomplishments in life.

Anyway women have it different in life. Not always though. But a beautiful woman is always smiling for a reason. Very few atheists among the beautiful. Someone had to be responsible for them being so gifted.

I will quit while I am ahead.

stephan huller · 06-06-2012, 10:56 AM

Is it against the rules to post that new Kate Upton video to back up my argument here? :constern01:

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06-06-2012, 10:20 AM	#147
Diogenes the Cynic Moderator - Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota Posts: 4,639	That Steph person is like the Ann Coulter of New Testament grad students.

06-06-2012, 10:38 AM	#148
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	But the bibliobloggers love her.

06-06-2012, 10:42 AM	#149
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	And on the subject of how this type of woman survive and thrive, I have now been contacted by a second stripper I used to know from Toronto's Brass Rail. She was telling me that she is now a nurse thanks to the kindness of a 'customer' who happened to be a doctor. Apparently he was helping guide her to some sort of career after dancing. She was very, very hot. Café au lait skin. Extensions, but that goes with the territory. I remember walking down South Beach in Miami with her all dressed up. Those were the days. There is nothing like being with an attractive woman with sexual tension charging the air. Mobs of people some even trying to grab her. Seriously. It was surreal. Many much bigger and scary looking people. That's the bad thing about dating hot black women. You end up looking like a customer even when it's not the case. I can remember speaking French and doing my best to avoid the shoe store the whole time we were there. God those were the days. I am just thinking of ways to say things I shouldn't say about our esteemed colleague. Bear with me as a go down memory lane. I should dig up a picture and post it here. One of my few accomplishments in life. Anyway women have it different in life. Not always though. But a beautiful woman is always smiling for a reason. Very few atheists among the beautiful. Someone had to be responsible for them being so gifted. I will quit while I am ahead.

06-06-2012, 10:56 AM	#150
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	Is it against the rules to post that new Kate Upton video to back up my argument here? :constern01:

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