jjramsey

Carrier used his conclusion of his first syllogism relating to the Cybeleans as the second minor premise of his second syllogism, so I did likewise. In Carrier's second syllogism, there was only one reference to the Cybeleans and so only one place to add the bit about "late Classical Italy," so only one bolded part to add. I didn't eliminate any bolded parts. For Carrier's reasoning to hold, he needs to show that what embarrassed Cybeleans in Tacitus' time was representative of what would embarrass the Cybeleans who first report Attis' castration.

So (gasp!) NT scholars applying the criterion of embarrassment need to show that the supposedly embarrassing report was probably embarrassing to those originally making the report. And (gasp!) NT scholars applying the criterion of embarrassment to supernatural events are failing to take into account the high prior improbability of such an event.

... for reasons which you have yet to explain.

Toto

No - if you carry your changes through, the first premise of the second syllogism woud become

Major Premise 2: A report is either invented in late classical Italy or invented at some other time or place, or it is true.
Minor Premise 2 (= Conclusion 1): The castration of Attis was not invented in late classical Italy.
Conclusion 2: Therefore, the castration of Attis is true or was invented at some other time or place.

Which is logically correct but trivial and of no help.

Your point?

What are you missing? The whole point of this exercise is to discover the historical Jesus. If you don't know who wrote the original story, or what they would have considered to be embarrassing, of what use is the criterion?

jjramsey

And not the absurd result that Carrier was going for. The only difference between what you did and what I did is I just clarified who the Cybeleans were, while you fixed up the first premise and the conclusion to retain a valid syllogism. By your route or mine, we still end up at the same place: Being clearer about the Cybeleans in question derails Carrier's argument.

We don't need to narrow down the possible writers to one person. Narrowing it down to, say, someone from a certain culture is good enough.

Toto

But you can't even do that.

jjramsey

The reason that I said "say" was to give an example. Whether we have to narrow it down to a culture or to some other complex of ideas depends on how what situation to which the criterion of embarrassment is applied.

the_cave

Probably not, but why would someone write an embarrassing historical fiction about a deity? It's not impossible, but there needs to be a reason for it. Remember, the criterion of embarrassment, when properly used, is about probabilities, not certainties.

Yes, in this passage, Peter's actions are symbolic! And the water is certainly figurative. But the things they represent are likely to mean something historically.

Toto

You can't identify the culture or the theological stance of the author of Mark. How can you apply this criterion?

aa5874

Well, just read about the mythical Gods of the Greeks and the Romans and you will find out if people wrote embarrassing things about Gods.

So, if something is embarrassing, what is the probability that it is fiction? 100%, 80%, 50%, 30%, 10% or any percentage you like?



No. Peter must be symbolic or figurative, that is, not real. Or explain how you would symbolically almost drown and figuratively see the symbolic Jesus allergorically walking on what is not real but figuratively wet?

Amaleq13

That's your argument not your interpretation of Carrier. My comments were specific to the latter.

Amaleq13

It is not your "logic" that was in error but your understanding of the logic of Carrier's argument as interpreted by jjramsey and I've already explained that.