Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Metacrock · 01-23-2005, 09:31 PM

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Your apparent inability to follow what is written from thread to thread is getting tiresome, Metacrock. In fact, you appear to have lost track of the claim you are supposed to be trying to support (ie that the "core story" is historically reliable). Whether this is due to your age or the fact you have too many things going on at once, it makes it very difficult to have a discussion. I fear this effort is doomed.

you are posturing again. You can't produce an alternate version. You just havent' refutted the argument. If there was an alternate version, you would present it. Obviously you dont' have one.

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Originally Posted by Metacrock
(1) show me any circular reasoning I've done.

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Reread the thread and note the specific examples cited. One that really stands out is when you clearly assume the Gospel story is historically reliable to establish that the Gospel story is historically reliable. That is textbook circular reasoning yet you declared it to be a standard method of all historians.

No! I don't do that. That's just thorwing your ignorance around. You can't understand the concept of historical probablity so you just spit out the most obvious pablam you can find. Go read some stuff about historians and how the think about history and stop bothering me with amaturish misunderstanding. History is probalbity, that's all it is. What is the probalbity of some assumed senerio being the case. That's what modern hsitoriography is. like it or lump it.

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I said when you have a document that has a good reason on its face to be taken seriously, you dont' doubt it as a matter of course, you assume it until you have a reason not to.

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You have yet to provide the "good reason" for the assumption. This is just a big circle without it.

If the confluence of 6 different trains of thought from different areas of schoarship arent a reason then I dont know what is. They call agree:

(1) Paul (to some extent)
(2) Clement
(3) Papias
(4) 34 lost Gospels
(5) PMR
(6) Aarchaeology

so that's a damn good reason. that's probably storng evidence than a lot of secular history is built upon.

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why is Papias and Clement not evidence? It looks like that would be almost firs thand. They both say "I knew this guy, he was there, he saw it, he heard it."

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Their names are not evidence and that's all you cited so far. It isn't even "almost" firsthand. Papias' sources are either disciples of the apostles or disciples of disciples of the apostles. As you later noted in your post, Clement is not firsthand either.

again, its a historical document claiming to be evidence of this by witness testimony. you have no reason to doub it, your reason is just "i dont' like it'."

then you give no reason why evdience isn't eviednce. Saying why you disagree with it is not a reason for it not beign evidence.

Metacrock · 01-23-2005, 09:38 PM

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why is PMR not evidence?

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Here is your circular reasoning. It is entirely circular to suggest that the PMR should be considered evidence of the PMR's historical reliability.

that's just foolish. You know very well I didni't say that. The evidence is that the PMR can be dated to AD 50. The early date reduces the probality of mytholgoizing, and it also increases the odds that correction by eye witnesses. So that's evidence. The fac that the PMR is well established is of course just part of the task of arguing to denfend one's evidenc.e nothing circular about it.

but you show me you don't know or under stand what ciruclar reasoning is. Because obviously any X that is evidence is its own evidence to the extent taht X =X. X is evidence of itself to the extent that it proves something.

You have no demonstration that my premises rests on my conclusion and that's what cirular reaonsing is.

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Like all rules of thumb, give or take. I dont' how it got conflated. I said 10 for comp and 10 for travel. So I dont' know. Even if you want to say 60 that's still pretty early.

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For the third time, what is the basis for this alleged "rule of thumb"?

I told you that. I told it's established, I told you experts use it, I told break down in travel time and so forth. I cant' help it if you are both incredulous and ignorant. argument from incredultiy is all you have.

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you are wasting my time, in forcing me to defend basic things that anyone with introductory knowledge to the subject should know you are just trying my patenence. I have things to do. I have atrticles to write.

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If you are unwilling or unable to defend your claims, don't waste IIDB bandwidth with your assertions.

<insults deleted>

METACROCK, this is a warning. Personal attacks of this nature are not acceptable. Knock it off NOW.

.

Amaleq13 · 01-24-2005, 12:11 AM

It is unfortunate that you are unable to refrain from resorting to insults. They have no place in a rational discussion and only make you look bad. On the other hand, that is probably the only way you could make your arguments appear less compelling.

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Originally Posted by Metacrock

The evidence is that the PMR can be dated to AD 50.

A hypothetical source can be given a certain date and it can be considered reliable evidence? That doesn't seem like a very sound basis for a conclusion.

Good luck with your outside efforts, Metacrock. Trying to conduct a rational discussion with you takes too much effort. Maybe the others participating in this thread have more stamina.

Clutch · 01-24-2005, 09:57 AM

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Originally Posted by Peter Kirby

There are at least two interesting figures here. First, the amount of time that it would take for a document to go from point O (Origin) to some point P if there was little "down time" (for example, a letter for which a duplicate is made the same day and which goes on a boat the next day to arrive at the port seven weeks later for a total time to delivery of 50 days). This is a figure which is more easily found (of the two).

Second, the amount of time that it would take for it to be more likely than not that the document would reach point P. There are at least two important factors here, the distance of point P from the origin (measured along the routes that communication takes place) and the average throughput of communications and the priority of the document to be sent along said routes. For example, suppose that the Book of Revelation was written on the island of Patmos in the Aegean in 95 A.D. The seven churches mentioned as recipients would have the highest priority for receiving copies, and they are not a great deal of distance away. Still, making a copy as long as Revelation is a laborious process. One might say (arbitrarily perhaps) that a month's time is the average it took to one of these cities. After that, Rome was both an important church and is mentioned in the text, so the ETA might have an average of six months or so. Meanwhile, although there were Romans in Britain and the boat trip could be made in a few months, I would expect the probability of arrival to be much more than ten years, because of its low priority in the Christian world of the time.

Just being geeky...

best,
Peter Kirby

Thanks Peter. Very interesting.

I wonder, though, about the assumption (if it is one) that there would be any predictable time of transportation, over and above the minima set by copying times plus the initial dispersal. I mean, pretty much any ship or even individual traveler heading to Britain from the seven churches could carry a copy to someone keen to see it -- just as a personal favour. There are innumerable much slower ways for it to happen, too, of course. The point I'm struggling to make here is that it all seems so very contingent, so unconstrained beyond the minimum times, that although there must as a brute fact be some average time of transmission of such documents, I can't see any inductive or theory-based grounds for deciding how long such transportations took.

Clutch · 01-24-2005, 10:03 AM

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Originally Posted by Metacrock

Like all rules of thumb, give or take. I dont' how it got conflated. I said 10 for comp and 10 for travel. So I dont' know. Even if you want to say 60 that's still pretty early.

...

I told you that. I told it's established, I told you experts use it, I told break down in travel time and so forth. I cant' help it if you are both incredulous and ignorant. argument from incredultiy is all you have.

Speaking for myself, I'm not incredulous. I just don't know how such a figure would be calculated. I do not contest that Koester uses it; I'm prepared to take your word for that. What I want to know is, where does it come from? It sounds like you don't know either, which is fine. Just don't carry on as if repeating "Koester says this!" is an answer to the question, "Why would someone say this?"

Clivedurdle · 01-24-2005, 10:23 AM

Just googled communication in the Roman Empire and guess what!

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Roads were very important to the Roman Empire and they had a great ability to build roads. They were the first to build roads on the foundation basis. The roads were paved and they had ditches on either side so water could run off. There are roads still standing which were built by the Romans. They were wide enough to take a Roman chariot with two horses. There were laybys to let other chariots past. Roads were used often and we know this because of the grooves left by the chariots. Communication was good in the Roman Empire due to the roads so architectural ideas spread fast.

Spread of architectural ideas

I would argue ideas spread very rapidly - Tom Holland Rubicon comments that when Caesar was in Spain he was in close touch with what was happening in Rome.

The problem is more what were the ideas and where did they actually start. Paul describes a suspiciously well established church heirarchy for example.

Clutch · 01-24-2005, 10:52 AM

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Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Tom Holland Rubicon comments that...

And any Roman could tell you, that's one guy you don't want to cross!

Amaleq13 · 01-24-2005, 11:10 AM

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Originally Posted by Clutch

The point I'm struggling to make here is that it all seems so very contingent, so unconstrained beyond the minimum times, that although there must as a brute fact be some average time of transmission of such documents, I can't see any inductive or theory-based grounds for deciding how long such transportations took.

My concerns, exactly (though worded much better).

In addition, the time gap currently under discussion is the alleged time it would take for the hypothetical source to reach the author of Mark but doesn't that require that we know where it was written as well as where Mark wrote? There are some educated guesses about where Mark was written but those are based on the specific contents. How can you make anything approaching an educated guess on where a hypothetical source text was written?

funinspace · 01-24-2005, 02:36 PM

I have a question beyond this back-in-forth debate: What is the oldest near complete (or containing substancial portions of) copies we have of the traditional 4 Gospels? I've read that we have one (John I thought) from the late part of the second century. What about the others?

One of the apologist criticisms against the Apocalypse of Peter is that our oldest copy is from circa 400AD. Though our copy is late, it is my understanding that it was considered written in the first half of the second century. If the argument is that this Gospel has been heavily redacted to introduce a mythos, then how could that question not be equally leveled at the 4 Gospels?

Vorkosigan · 01-24-2005, 03:17 PM

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Originally Posted by Clutch

And any Roman could tell you, that's one guy you don't want to cross!

:rolling: :rolling: :rolling:

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01-24-2005, 02:36 PM	#109
funinspace Contributor Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: North West usa Posts: 10,245	I have a question beyond this back-in-forth debate: What is the oldest near complete (or containing substancial portions of) copies we have of the traditional 4 Gospels? I've read that we have one (John I thought) from the late part of the second century. What about the others? One of the apologist criticisms against the Apocalypse of Peter is that our oldest copy is from circa 400AD. Though our copy is late, it is my understanding that it was considered written in the first half of the second century. If the argument is that this Gospel has been heavily redacted to introduce a mythos, then how could that question not be equally leveled at the 4 Gospels?

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