Chris Weimer

It's fairly standard to use metonymy (or is it synechdoche here?) when a theory has been made famous by a certain personage. For example, "Darwin proponents".

Malachi151 doesn't help your case here. But I don't think that anyone was claiming that none of the MJ proponents read any literature.

Getting a paper published for this is primary. It, in a sense, legitimizes these minor discussions.

Who cited them?

GakuseiDon

Rejoinders to my arguments by repeating Doherty isn't what I mean. Can you point me to any links to your investigation of Doherty? What areas of Doherty's theory have you investigated?

Have you done a critical review of Doherty in the same way as you plan to critically review Sanders?

:huh:

Ecrasez L'infame

Just once more for the record: by my lights Creationism is not even worth debating, MJ is probably wrong but is most certainly worth looking hard at because it leads to new avenues of research and insight, and cold fusion is probably not fusion at all but likewise is probably worth researching because of the things (about chemistry) we will learn. So, I say MJ is more analogous to CF than to Creationism, and thus a evolutionist sympathetic to mythicism like myself can avoid the charge of double standards. Anyway, all this talk about probabilities is besides the point - probabilities can change with a single big discovery. What's important is the *type* of theory we have. Creationism will never be a scientific theory in a million years (or do I mean 6000?), because it is coming from and aiming at an area outside science. The only way it could ever again become the dominant paradigm is at the death of science itself. But I can easily imagine a world where MJ was the consensus among scholars, or where CF was accepted by the scientific community as a genuine phenomena, whether chemical or physical. This is basically YoungAlex's own point about MJ/HJ being intra-discipline.

Probability isn't my strong point, but I can't see that it's valid to use it on one-off events, like a theory being true or not. Bayes is designed to work out things like the proportions of variously coloured balls in sacks. Try cracking numbers on the origin of the universe, and I think you'll find that it couldn't have happened. Wrong tool for the job.

Niall Armstrong

Apropos Cold Fusion:
http://newenergytimes.com/news/2006/...ryEvidence.pdf

We're still allowed to hope!

Maybe the comparison of MJ with CF isn't so off after all?
Don't forget that as knowledge increases, old mistakes become new truths.

youngalexander

No. In the first place if that were true, it would still be superficial. Secondly, as I have been endeavouring to argue, the substance of the analogy is deeply flawed.

That is not the impression that

look at the double standard here. Your two cents going against ID and creationism means that you're going with the status quo, but here, by taking Doherty's position, you've basically assumed the same position that ID has in biology.

tends to give. I think that this is totally false, and sought to demonstrate the fact. Unless one sees the actual figures, there is a tendency to equate these scientific positions with a completely non-analogous historical debate. That was the point of my previous post, to present the contrast.

A question is 'how do some mythicists view the authority of experts in the field'? I shall spare us all those comments, none of which are mine. Special pleading, misrepresentations, gross exaggeration, imputation of motives, abuse - need one go on. A litany of woe!

Apart from this appalling tripe, I agree with much that MJers say, but not the manner in which it is presented. I think that they should heed the advice of Zeichman and others - but no doubt the 800kg gorilla is more exciting.

Fortunately, the answer is no!

Creationists really are driven by faith. Faith stands above all evidence and reason. Thus they will introduce false evidence, twist to absurd lengths actual evidence, ignore the vast majority of evidence in favor of selected favorites, argue non-scientific positions, misuse scientific laws and repeat these offences despite expose. They are often truly ignorant and have little interest in the 'authorities of evolution'.

The calumnies of some MJers are of a different nature. The essential difference is that creationists have no case to argue and mythicists do.

Zeichman

Obviously, this is tinged towards my reading lately:
-The Deuteronomistic Theology of the final form of Q (or Q2) necessitates that the speaker be a human sent by God, midst the rejection cycle.
-The use of chreiai (whether Q, Mark or pre-Markan) necessitates that the speaker be a human, unless someone is arguing for unparalleled (to my knowledge) uses of the form in antiquity.
-Mack's proposal for a pre-Pauline Christ cult necessitates a human founder
-Pre-gospel miracle sources are a bit odd if placed in the lifetime of an atemporal figure

etc.

This is not to mention major generic associations which would otherwise be unparalleled in antiquity.

Ted Hoffman

I agree but I would expect "Darwinian Evolution proponents" though. Popperian falsification etc.
I wish I knew what you were talking about.
I agree with the latter. I disagree with the former.
Never mind. It certainly was not you.

Steven Avery

Just a note that it is ironic that you mention 'Popperian falsification' since
anti-ID positions above are similar to his expressed concerns about evolution. Special kudos if this was a deliberate synchronism.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Ben C Smith

Oh, but there is a motive for Josephus to have made it up. Josephus is at pains to demonstrate that it was not Jewry as a whole that caused the misfortunes of the Jewish state in 70, but rather that a certain class of Jews caused the problems. Theudas would belong to that class of Jews upon which he wants to blame everything. In order to keep the blame affixed to the right group, he hypothetically has the motive to exaggerate the misdeeds of that group or even to invent a few members of that group who can deflect criticism away from the main body of the Jews. Josephus needs scapegoats; why not invent a few?

Forget the Greek story. Let us look at the OT. The Theudas tale echoes the crossing of the Jordan in Joshua 3. That Theudas called himself a prophet, but was actually a fraud, is based on Deuteronomy 18.15-22. Fadus taking the head of Theudas to Jerusalem certainly resembles David taking the head of Goliath to Jerusalem in 1 Samuel 17.54. Slaying many and taking many alive is Josephan redaction, as this motif appears elsewhere in Josephus.

Now, is the story of Theudas a rip-off of OT storylines and motifs in order to provide Josephus yet another scapegoat?

Ben.

Ted Hoffman

Me neither. Is repeating your beliefs and contrasting them with Doherty's what you call "investigating Doherty"?
Second century apologists and Pauline epistles. Search in google. Every time I open a book on NT, I am weighing the contents with JM hypothesis. Everyday. Its not an event but a process.
I can ask the same question of Sanders. In any event, you and like-minded people have written dozens of reviews of Doherty. Why should I jump to an already crowded bandwagon?