Jeffrey Gibson

For the most part, I already have. Are you going to send your article to them or not?

The issue isn't whether you got everything right, but whether your article is as "thorough" as you claim it is, especially in its stated aim to deal with and respond to "major works" on Hebrews.

Does the limb you are willing to go out on include your admitting that in post 5009976 you misrepresented what I said in post 5007587 and that your charge against me (made presumably to imply that I hadn't done my homework) that I "didn't even crack open Part One of the article" is wrong?

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

Yes. And I can PDF it too.

Jeffrey

gurugeorge

I don't think it's the fact that he's attacking. Everyone here enjoys a ruckus (within reasonable boundaries). The thing I've seen even moderators twit him for is actually not joining in, not mucking in with the actual conversation and contributing his own positive ideas out of his own head (it happened to a ludicrous extent on a thread I recently started that then went on to become a series of plaintive calls to Jeffrey, asking him "well what do you mean then?"). As Earl says, it looks like he just stands on the sidelines affecting scholarly airs and graces.

Sometimes, indeed, Jeffrey gives very useful lists of names and references that we otherwise wouldn't have, and I for one am grateful to him when he does that. But if that's all he does, then what he's doing looks like just carping.

For example, as Earl points out, what would be nice is if Jeffrey gave an example from one of the many authors he quotes that he supposes would demolish or provide an interesting counterpoint to what Earl says. Instead, we just get this "scholarly groupie" stuff - or perhaps one might say, it's rather like somone threatening you that they'll get their big bruvva on to you to beat you up. However, frankly, although I've not seen much NT scholarship, I've seen some well-known stuff that's pretty dreadful, full of poxy assumptions and castles in the air. How am I to know that some or all of the authors Jeffrey lists aren't that kind of NT scholar, rather than the kind of NT scholar (like Ehrman) that we can all learn from, professional and amateur alike, and who nearly everybody agrees is classy? That's how I would be able to distinguish that Jeffrey's lists aren't merely argument from intimidation - sheer bulk being the thing that's supposed to impress us.

I know, I know, read them. But we're not all in a position to be able to do that, so it would be nice of Jeffrey occasionally chucked us a few crumbs of a) in-context examples from his paragons showing what he supposes their strengths to be vis a vis any particular mythicist argument, and b) his own actual fresh, living, here-and-now thought.

Actually, how the Jeffrey Gibson show comes across is as a covert (actually not so covert, only thinly disguised) sign of contempt for people here: the impression he gives is that he won't muck in because we're beneath him - i.e. he couldn't learn anything from the discussions here, in the way that everyone else is here to learn, so there's no point in him bothering. For my part, on the contrary, I feel I can learn things from anybody who's passionate enough about the subject to register here and discuss the matter - some more than others, for sure, but everybody has some angle that's their own, and may be valuable for a side-light, and if their angle involves high quality scholarship, so much the better!

But enough of that: I have no great animus against Jeffrey, and I appreciate it when he does name names, I just find the Majestic Olympian schtick gets a bit old.

Spanky

This sums it up nicely!

I love it when all of those who attack you have not contributed anything themselves (besides criticism). It's sad really.

Ben C Smith

So as not to derail this thread, please see my PM to you.

Thanks.

Ben.

Clivedurdle

Is there a middle ground between internet article and formal academic argument? Some form of discussion document?

In the 1840's someone published a pro evolutionary argument that had sigificant errors anonymously and it got a complete and utter drumming. Darwin saw it was on the right tracks, saw the reaction and decided to keep quiet for a further 15 years whilst he marshalled the evidence.

Is there a way to do this with a good mix of styles?

gstafleu

This, in itself, is a quite valid goal, I'd say. I think the problem is with how it is done, rather than with that it is done. This is a discussion group, and to promote discussion one should do more than raise the possibility/fact that someone doesn't know what he or she is talking about: one should also give some evidence of why this is so. And this evidence should be more than a list of "if you read this you might get a clue." Rather, it should show by some examples how the misclaimant-to-knowledge is wrong.

For example in my thread Jesus crucified "before time began": 2 Timothy 1:8-9 and Apuleius Golden Ass Jeffrey wanted to know which phrase in Apuleius I was taking to mean "when the world began," to which I replied "exordio rerum." Jeffrey then attacked that, while not bothering to show how my interpretation was wrong (actually, it wasn't my interpretation, but that of the scholar who translated Apuleius' work, but that is a different issue). I then managed to show that I (and the scholarly translator) was correct simply by going to a dictionary. My point here is: if Jeffrey, with his vast knowledge of Latin, had simply stated why he thinks "exordio rerum" did not mean 'when the world began," wouldn't then (a) the proceedings have gone much more smoothly, and (b) wouldn't we have learned something? As it stands I still don't know what his objections were, as he abandoned the discussion.

So yes, pointing out that someone is claiming knowledge that he/she does not posses is quite valid. But in a discussion group this should be done in a discussion friendly manner.

Gerard Stafleu

EarlDoherty

I won't get into repeating some of gurugeorge's excellent analysis of Jeffrey, but will simply say that I don't think I am "mistaken" about Jeffrey's motivation. That is clear from the tone that he adopts and from the mountain-out-of-molehill process he follows. My most trivial or irrelevant "errors" are used to try to discredit me personally, while he rarely deigns to address the major arguments themselves. (When he focused, for example, on lambasting my use of the term "verb" in Galatians 4:4 instead of the technically proper "participle," even when I was discussing the principle of using one verb vs. another with their relative meanings, this renders the 'approach' you are trying to attribute to him a matter of questionable motivation.)

Moreover, what is his motivation in indulging in extreme demands which no one would ever meet, thereby thinking to discredit what I have done. The bar is placed so high (and often then further raised), one could hardly meet it, nor should I be expected to. I am hardly in a position to study and comment on every single "major" commentary on Hebrews since the Year One. What other commentator that he lauds has done that, and they are writing books, not internet articles. If he would actually read the thing, he would find that I have been very representative of past scholarship, a couple of them (Attridge and Wilson) in great depth. And given his own alleged depth of knowledge about all the works he lists, he ought to know that many earlier works have even to some extent been discredited or overridden by later ones. All of which does not spell someone who has adopted the approach you outline, Ben, from pure motivations of keeping everyone honest.

Even after my "challenge" posting, he continues to pit-bull my misremembering of his remark about which scholars I have addressed, while ignoring the challenge itself. On that, by the way, I am occasionally guilty of such things simply because sometimes I deliberately don't take the time to look back or dig out something from an earlier page which I think I've remembered correctly, but which is not that important in the bigger scheme of things. I realize it sometimes gets me into trouble, but I'd rather spend my time on the critical stuff. If you called my attention to something like that, Ben, I'd be inclined to apologize. With Jeffrey, I dunno, somehow such an inclination never seems to spring to my lips.

For that same reason, I'd be out of mind to consider having someone like Jeffrey 'edit' my work, or even give me advice on it. Can you imagine Richard Dawkins asking Michael Behe to to do the same? As for my articles not having the "professional polish" or academic approach preferred by something like JBL, they probably don't. I'm trying to make them appealing and understandable to the layman, while still containing standards of content that would be acceptable to scholarship. To engage at this time in a lengthy exercise to recast everything in the procedural approach that academia seems to require to accept someone's work as worthy of their attention, is not something I'm willing to do, especially while working on my second edition. Jeffrey and others can make of that what they will.

My suggestion still stands. Let Jeffrey read my article (all of it, not only so far as he can find something to call into question) and then perhaps we can discuss my case and its arguments on a substantive basis which will show he can put his much self-vaunted scholarship to actual work, to everyone's benefit.

And that's all the time I'm going to waste on this end of the discussion.

Earl Doherty

Amaleq13

Please avoid posts that consistent of nothing but commentary about members and focus on the evidence relevant to the discussion. PM's are the appropriate venue for such a topic.

Thanks in advance,

Amaleq13, BC&H moderator

Ben C Smith

Gerard, please see my PM to you. Earl, ditto.

Ben.