show_no_mercy

It's amazing how Chaucer can hear "the most famous" and interpret it as "the only".

I guess that should be expected...

Chaucer

Excuse me: here is what Carrier says --

Now, one doesn't need to pin a "the only" reading on "the most famous". Of Antiq. 18, Carrier says flat out "a later Christian scribe, who was evidently annoyed that Josephus forgot to mention Jesus". The only possible reading of that remark is that there is no other Josephan mention of Jesus at all(!), which is simply wrong: there is also Antiq. 20. Carrier is wrong here and misleading. Carrier gets away with saying flat-out that there is no other Josephan mention of an entirely human Jesus the rabbi and that the scribe had to put one in at Antiq. 18(!), leaving his audience with the very clear impression that there must be no other Jesus mention in Antiquities at all.

It doesn't matter if Carrier's view of Antiq. 20 may be as questioning as his view of Antiq. 18. He has no way of knowing that his audience already knows of Antiq. 20. To say flat-out that there is no other mention of Jesus in Josephus while discussing Antiq. 18 is tantamount to saying to an audience ignorant of Antiq 20 that Antiq. 20 doesn't even exist!

It's amazing how show_no_mercy can hear "Josephus forgot to mention Jesus" and interpret it as "Josephus may mention Jesus elsewhere, but.....".

I guess that should be expected...

Chaucer

Toto

It is not "simply wrong" if, as Carrier believes he can prove, the Antiq 20 reference is also a Christian addition.

No, not wrong and not misleadeing.

Which is a supportable position.

I think you've repeated yourself often enough. You think that the Antiq 20 reference is some sort of gold standard proof of the existence of Jesus. Carrier doesn't. He seems to think that it is too minor to deserve even a mention in the short amount of time he devoted to Josephus. He thought it was enough to merely refer to the most famous passage as an example of Christian forgery.

If he had been asked about the Antiq 20 reference, he presumably would have responded as he did in the interview linked to above.

If he had omitted any mention of Antiq 20 in a scholarly footnoted paper, you might have a point. But this was just a popular lecture, and you don't in fact have a point. It's time to move on to a real issue.

Chaucer

The real issue is that Carrier ends up misleading his audience. Saying that it needed a Christian scribe's intervention at Antiq. 18 just to get Jesus mentioned in Josephus's text at all is misleading because Jesus is already mentioned by Josephus elsewhere (in Antiq. 20). There's no way one can get around that.

And you do not properly address my point that it matters not what one's own opinion on Antiq. 20 may be. What's critical here is a reasonable audience's own understanding of the situation. Within the four corners of their own knowledge of the moment, which depends solely on whatever they may hear from Mr. Carrier, they are given only two "facts": a "famous example" of a "Christian scribe" intervening in Antiq. 18, and "Josephus forgot to mention Jesus". That's it.

It's not brain surgery to conclude from those two "facts" that the only extant mention of Jesus in the existing text of Antiqs. is Antiq. 18 -- an inaccurate conclusion, given Antiq. 20, but a perfectly reasonable one, given Carrier's remarks. It's not only a perfectly reasonable conclusion. It is, in fact, the only possible conclusion at all, considering.

And that conclusion is wrong and is only possible through the inaccuracies in Carrier's remarks.

Chaucer

show_no_mercy

"The only possible reading"?

Wow.

Chaucer

O.K., the only properly considered reading or conclusion.

And I repeat: It's amazing how show_no_mercy can hear "Josephus forgot to mention Jesus" and interpret it as "Josephus may mention Jesus elsewhere, but.....".

I guess that should be expected...

Chaucer

Toto

Wrong

Do you know that Antiq 20 mentioned Jesus before a Christian scribe added the passage in Antiq 18? I don't think so.

If the audience cares, they will not rely on two sentences from a lecture meant to entertain. But I still don't think that the audience was mislead.

No one agrees with you. You are just straining to find some problem with Carrier's presentation. You refuse to face up to the fact that this was a humorous lecture, not an academic presentation.

Why don't you turn your attention to some substantive matter? Can you show that the reference to Jesus in Antiq 20 is anything other than a convoluted marginal note from a scribe that was copied into the main text?

Chaucer

What we know or don't know about Antiq. 20 is wholly irrelevant in this context. Please try and concentrate. Carrier refers to the extant text of Antiq. 18 in citing "a whole paragraph in the early Jewish historian, Josephus, which nearly everyone agrees was snuck into that book by a later Christian scribe, who was evidently annoyed that Josephus forgot to mention Jesus". Carrier is plainly saying here that had no scribe intervened in the extant text of Antiq. 18, there would be no Jesus mention in the extant text of Antiqs. at all. But that is incorrect, since there is already a Jesus mention in the extant text of Antiq. 20. Thus, Carrier's remark here leaves a misleading impression.

Even Carrier doesn't bother to do that within the four corners of this lecture! You said earlier

The thing is, he doesn't even bother to address it in his lecture at all, letting "Josephus forgot to mention Jesus" hang out there instead. Now that is wrong and misleading.

Chaucer

spin

N E W S F L A S H :
Split hair split!
[hr=1]100[/hr]
In a remarkable effort to get into the Guinness Book of Records for the Most Audacious Hairsplitting our home boy anti-skeptic has boldly gone where no hairsplitter has gone before attempting to stretch the same blunder across a whole thread in an effort at self-convincing that his misreading holds up under the scrutiny of reality.

The first error was to try to read a popularist speech as a scientific treatise. But more impressive is the attempt to twist the non-mention of something into the negation of that something. Clearly this was our homeboy's attempt to gain big on artistic points.

Let's look at this amazing hairsplitting performance more closely. During a speech Tricky Dick, the carrier of the rhetoric, made the claim:

the most famous example [of a reference to Christ fabricated by Christians] is a whole paragraph in the early Jewish historian, Josephus, which nearly everyone agrees was snuck into that book by a later Christian scribe, who was evidently annoyed that Josephus forgot to mention Jesus

This refers to a passage well-known as the Testimonium Flavianum (TF) found in the "Antiquities of the Jews" by Josephus. Of course our canny commentator was quick to note that "Antiquities" features a second reference to Jesus not mentioned directly by Tricky Dick. How dare he not mention this second reference! In fact there are several other references to Jesus left out by Dick that can only be lumped together under the category of other examples, the less famous ones, of reference to Christ fabricated by Christians. Naughty, naughty Dick.

Now here we come to the supreme effort by our resident hairsplitter to try to win the individual class of hairsplitting for the Logorrheic section of the Book of Records.

The aforementioned paragraph -- Dick claimed -- "was snuck into that book by a later Christian scribe, who was evidently annoyed that Josephus forgot to mention Jesus". Our pundit takes this to imply a claim that no other reference to Jesus was in the Antiquities, for had the later Christian scribe not snuck in the paragraph there obviously would not have been any reference to Jesus. This further implies one of two possibilities, either Dick doesn't know that there was a second reference or he deliberately attempted to mislead his listening public. Of course, the later Christian scribe may have been followed by an even later Christian scribe or may not have read every word found in the Antiquities.

So we need to sweep under the carpet the fact that Dick does not exclude other scribal activity to augment the Antiquities, for he only mentioned the one instance in a non-exclusive manner, obviously not wanting to labor the point for his audience, but our teller of the tale doesn't care. He is sticking to this hairsplitting with the daring claim that Dick made a statement that was somehow wrong and misleading because the speaker didn't extend his presentation to specifically incorporate some positive information that precludes the section of his audience (which reflect the thought of our anti-skeptic) from being able to stretch his words in such a way as to impute such an error.

A wilful analyst is usually capable of picking holes in a friendly talk and eke out any number of claimed wrongdoings. We see the sort of thing on Faux News regularly. With such Bill O'Reilly style self-conviction in the face of reality our commentator seems to think that Tricky Dick has got it all wrong -- either by commission or omission -- and has in his crusading zeal made a bid at the finest splitting of hairs in recent times.

Chaucer

But Carrier himself never says as much in this lecture, thereby leaving his audience badly misled. Only sophists like you suggest as much, but that does nothing for the incompleteness -- at best -- of Carrier's remarks. You are not Carrier. Your remarks, however adroit, cannot substitute for the gaping holes in Carrier's.

Chaucer