Toto

I strongly believe that the specific passage is not "refuted" and the question of exactly where these mythic events all happened is not a meaningful question. But you still want to ask that question, or pretend that it has been answered.

If I do not continue with this discussion, it does not mean that I accept what you say. I think that you are totally confused about Doherty's thesis.

krosero

Peter, though this suggestion would increase everyone's knowledge and produce good discussion, I'm pretty sure it falls upon Doherty to say what the evidence contains and to propose an anthropological model.

So far Don and others have challenged the set of evidence that he has proposed, and have analyzed the evidence in a basic way, Doherty having given us nothing like a sophisticated anthropoligical model or a sustained analysis of the evidence.

What I mean by "sustained analysis" is not that he hasn't discussed these matters at length; he has. What I mean is that what he's given us has fallen short of explaining why the evidence of first-century religious belief is comprehensible enough for him to locate the crucifixion above the earth but simply too irrational and incomprehensible for a challenger, looking at the same evidence, to locate the crucifixion elsewhere.

These discussions raised by Don and others always return to the same impasse: Doherty was allowed to conclude that the crucifixion occurred in a certain place, but challengers, when looking at the evidence that HE used himself, are told that the evidence is too vague and incomprehensible to locate these events elsewhere.

Clearly it would help if Doherty gave us an identifiable anthropological model and explained why this model allowed him to do what he was doing -- and preferably if he also explained how someone could look at the same evidence and draw a different conclusion.

For Don to pick out an anthropological model -- well, it may not even be one that Doherty agrees with. Doherty is making the original claims about ancient beliefs, not Don. He should define the evidence and say in what ways claims can be derived from the evidence.

Kevin Rosero

krosero

I agree, I will not interpret your withdrawal that way.

I am only waiting for others to say specificallyhow Doherty's statement still stands up as it's written.

Kevin Rosero

jgibson000

Because they are frequently irrelevant and often inaccurate and because Wiki is not a reliable source. Besides that, once one gets to the pages you point to, one has to do work one should not have to do -- namely, slog through paragraph after paragraph of material that has no bearing on the claim for which you were to produce evidence to find the "gem" that you think proves your point.

Ah the appeal to personal incredulity. Because you are unaware of it, it doesn't exist!

Too bad you didn't examine the link within the page you pointed us to where you would have found the following:

The French archaeologist J. Monard speculated that [the Coligny calendar] was recorded by druids wishing to preserve their tradition of timekeeping in a time when the Julian calendar was imposed throughout the Roman Empire. However, the general form of the calendar suggests the public peg calendars (or parapegmata) found throughout the Greek and Roman world (Lehoux pp. 63-65).

So it looks like the Celts borrowed the style of the Calendar from the Greeks/Romans.

It would be extremely odd if he did, since the Calendar and the method of computing the months it uses is neither as sophisticated nor as unfamiliar to first century folks as you claim it is. Moreover, one wonders why, even granting the Calendar's "sophistication" and reputedly "advanced" nature (was it really "advanced", let alone as "advanced" as you make it out to be, compared to any other calendar that the Greeks created/knew and used?), Pliny the Elder and Julius Caesar, who were well aware of these Celtic Calendars, were not terribly impressed by them and most certainly didn't think they were in any way "magical".

Perhaps it's because there alleged references are not as obvious (let alone as real) as you think they are.

Please show me that the language Paul uses in Gal. 4:9-10 is the same as the language used by "Celts" in their calendrical descriptions. After all, if Paul was referencing Celtic calendrical customs, we would expect him to be using the language of those calendars. Does he?

And I'm still waiting for you to answer my questions about whether you authority on things Celtic, Anne Ross, agrees with you in, let alone mentions anything about, your claims vis a vis Gal. 4:9-10 and Celtic calendars.

Why have you not answered? Do you even know? Have you ever actually read any of Ross's books?

JG

jgibson000

Leaving aside the question of how you know -- and whether it is true -- that "Biblical studies people" don't "look at what academics from outside [their field of expertise?] have written about their subject area" (have you ever read Crossan? or Malina? or Neyrey? or Elliot? or Eisler? or Oakman? or anything from the Context Group?), are you now admitting that your claim about what was the "accepted" view of Gal. 4:9-10 among Biblical scholars was wrong, and that in making it you didn't have a clue regarding what is and is not the "accepted" view?

yasaptz

JG

GakuseiDon

How do you know that it isn't a meaningful question? Can you point me to a pagan writer who suggests this? Why do you think that way in the first place?

The one thing that struck me when reading through Plutarch's "Isis and Osiris" is how understandable it is. When I thought about it, it made sense -- a fair degree of our modern thinking developed out of Hellenistic ideas.

Let me give an example from Plutarch (my emphasis):

"Eudoxus says that, while many tombs of Osiris are spoken of in Egypt, his body lies in Busiris; for this was the place of his birth; moreover, Taphosiris requires no comment, for the name itself means "the tomb of Osiris." I pass over the cutting of wood, the rending of linen, and the libations that are offered, for the reason that many of their secret rites are involved therein. In regard not only to these gods, but in regard to the other gods, save only those whose existence had no beginning and shall have no end, the priests say that their bodies, after they have done with their labours, have been placed in the keeping of the priests and are cherished there, but that their souls shine as the stars in the firmament, and the soul of Isis is called by the Greeks the Dog-star, but by the Egyptians Sothis, and the soul of Horus is called Orion, and the soul of Typhon the Bear."

Is there any question about the location of these things, or any difficulty in understanding what they are saying with regards to locations? (Of course, there may be other passages that you'd like to point out that provides support for Doherty -- if so, let's find them!)

I think that the reason Doherty goes on with how hard it is to understand pagan writings in this regard is because he is trying to retroject a modern idea into the texts. But it simply isn't there AFAICS. Once you start reading the pagan texts as they are, you can see that there isn't anything to support Doherty, and in fact, what we do have is against him.

GakuseiDon

What amazes me is that there is little or no interest to look into the texts themselves by those defending Doherty (either implicitly or explicitly) to see if Doherty is right or not. It isn't the fact that scholars aren't looking into Doherty that surprises me, it is that mythicists aren't looking into Doherty.

Since Doherty uses "Middle Platonism"/"pagan ideas about the cosmos" as support for his interpretation of early Christian writings, I think that, if this plank is removed, at best he needs to rework his argument, at worst, his analysis of early Christian writings comes across as ad hoc and unfalsifiable.

youngalexander

GDon: Regrettably, I do not find the ramblings of the religiosi understandable. Like rlogan I generally find discussions of the spirit world highly bemusing. One of the reasons I lurk here, and occasionally post, is to gain enlightenment upon these matters. As for what the 'average pagan' of 2000yrs ago thort, I daresay they could believe six fantastic things before breakfast. Frankly I find vork's remarks seem to make a great deal of sense in the light of my reading of the social context (Malina, Crossan, eg.).

Eudoxus does indeed 'say', (according to Plutarch) and so do a great many others who appear to have a wide variety of views. For instance the sentence after your quote has it
Plutarch then continues to discuss this variety. For instance,
Isis & Osiris seem capable of operating all over the deck.

GakuseiDon

Really? You too? What pagan literature have you been reading where you couldn't understand where they were placing the events? (Keep in mind that I am only interested in passages that relate to the location of events).

My guess is that none of you -- you, Toto, Vork, rlogan, and nearly all other mythicists -- have actually looked into the pagan literature in any depths for yourselves to see whether they are intelligible or not. My guess is that you all have read comments by Doherty and said, "Hey! That sounds right! I agree with that! It must be true!" (Yes, I know how bad that sounds, but I strongly suspect that to be the case).

Vork kind of rambled on about Taiwanese shamanism, and how I'm "using the letter of Doherty to defeat the spirit of Doherty". He didn't really touch on the subject AFAICS. To be honest, if his comments shed any light on what pagans believed about the locations of their gods 2000 years ago, it was purely by accident.

The good thing about Plutarch is that he gives, not only his own view, but the views of others of his time and before.

So, which parts of Plutarch regarding the locations of these things did you find unintelligible? Perhaps we can look at them together. Again, keep in mind that I am only interested in passages that relate to the location of events.

youngalexander

Just before I jump in the shower (it's a trifle smokey round here) I was rather struck (or should that be unstruck) by the opening of Plutarch's I&O.


So Isis was created out of Osiris? Where was that again?
Nothing to do with Alchemy I trust!

Sorry, my bad
Yep, that clears it up.