Robert Tulip

Hi hjalti - here is what Murdock herself says.
And a Prebyterian testimonial
I recommend that you ignore the ignorant comment about allegory made by Zwaarddijk. As I explained above, he deliberately quotes selectively to delete the key meaning of the prostitute allegory he cites from Ezekiel as his example to construct his farce, which would be comical if he were not speaking about a real person. Zwaarddijk has proven himself deeply unreliable on his analysis of Murdock's writing.

Acharya is subject to strange sloppy emotional attacks, as we see here from Zwaarddijk, because of the depth of her critique of religion. Her first book, The Christ Conspiracy, has produced a lively debate. The forthcoming revision of it, taking on board a range of legitimate critiques, is eagerly awaited.

Prominent writers such as Carrier and Ehrman have disgraced themselves as prejudiced bigots through their comments about Acharya's ideas. The deep problem of how Christianity relates to concepts of a New Age has polarised opinion while also producing a rather superficial debate, conducted solely on the internet and in self-published books but systematically excluded from almost all mainstream media, academia and publishing.

The ongoing social and political power of Christ Historicism is shown by its successful covert fatwa against analysis of the real history of Christianity. The exclusion of Mythicism from the public gaze is not a function of the coherence of the mythicist critique of Christ Historicism, but of brittle cultural prejudice. Christians simply cannot cope with the idea that their precious Jesus might not be real, even though this understanding is key to any real potential for Christian revival.

spin

Modern languages are of little use here. We have to look at "cross-reference the Bible in the original Hebrew and ancient Greek", which says nothing about knowing either ancient language. She apparently knows other languages but the statement about cross-referencing suggests she doesn't know anything about the relevant languages.

Hey, fuck, what a miraculous testimonial from some pastor in Houston, Texas. World class.

A breath of self-irony.

Spoken like a true acolyte who knows nothing about the issues but trusts implicitly the words of the guru.



How a new age relates to reality seems rather easy to grasp: it doesn't.

In this forum there are few illusions as the historicity of Jesus. We've seen the wars. Some accept, some reject, and others find the conflict both irresolvable through good methodologies and of little significance. This means if there is any merit in the argumentation provided by Diane Murdock it would not be rejected out of hand. There are even mythicists here who are happy to hear mythicist arguments.

But when we see nauseous stupidity like the comments about allegory, little can be done to raise those comments back to respectability. You Robert Tulip have been asked several times how Hebrew says "it" in the face of the gormless statements about "he" and "she" supposedly used to indicate allegory and have been tacit through ignorance as to how to respond meaningfully.

You give the impression here of being a shill for new age nonsense. That is not a good impression as you are certainly not unintelligent. Yet I see no effort by you to show intellectual acumen when dealing with the material you are purveying here. I don't know why Zwaarddijk spends so much time with Murdock's froth. Perhaps it's some sense of offense at the risible lack of standards of the material. Worse though is why you would spend so much time defending the material when you obviously don't display a solid grounding in the necessary skills to do so. This makes you a wing man of a more reasonable and reserved type than old freethinkadouche, but wing man just the same.

Robert Tulip

Wow Boris, spin by name, spin by nature.

Did you not notice the mention of Homer?

Your assertion that a new age has no relation to reality illustrates rank ignorance and bigotry on your part. This material is a culture war in which the old fashioned like you are emotionally blind.

I do not comprehend your statement about Ezekiel and it. Maybe if someone else can explain what you mean and why it is relevant I can respond, but after puzzling over it I do not have a clue what you mean, as I explained above already in response to Zwaarddijk's deceptive selective quoting. Your comments about gormless nausea just ratchet up your emotions without saying anything sensible, as far as I can tell. It is a very simple point that Ezekiel uses prostitutes as allegory for Israel, and then the pronouns are ambiguous as to whether they refer to the prostitute or the nation. The pronoun it is irrelevant.

See for example http://bible.cc/ezekiel/23-19.htm Here "she" apparently refers to a woman, but is allegory for a nation. That is really very simple.

tanya

...

spin

It always amuses me when one shows oneself such a dullard to think they can score intellectual points by such novel games with names. This gets a well-earned doh! As I have never played with your name, Robert Tulip, you should pay me the same courtesy. Besides, it is against the user rules of the forum.

You are still making contentless ad hominems, Robert Tulip.

I asked you a straightforward question: how do you say "it" in Hebrew. Your response is functionally "I don't know." That means you are incapable of commenting on the issue.

It gets tiring how you can come here and show absolutely no knowledge of what you are trying to talk about. You insult yourself.

You got that right. It is so fucking obviously allegorical given the writer's efforts to let you know, which certainly does not allow one to claim allegory when the writer does not make it obvious that that is the intent. As I pointed out in a previous point the text explicitly says that Oholah and Oholibah were Samaria and Jerusalem. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that there is allegory here. You fall over it. Just as Paul puts it in your face: "it's allegory!"

You are confusing two issues.

The fact is, there is no pronoun "it" in Hebrew. The use of "she" or "he" is grammatically necessary because Hebrew has no neuter. The discourse of allegory based on pronouns is simply ignorance.

Jeffrey Gibson

No, it's not, especially if you are confusing allegory with metaphor.

Jeffrey

hjalti

You are right, but I was interested in Acharya's language skills because I would assume that if she knew a language that had grammatical genders similar to Hebrew (e.g. Italian, which I know we both know, and apparently Acharya claims to know it too) she would know that it's perfectly normal to talk about countries/nations by using something like 'he' or 'she' when that's the grammatical gender.

outhouse

OMG its a conspiracy! everyone put your head in the sand and follow the ignorance!


Your funny bud.

Jeffrey Gibson

What reason do you have to believe her claim? More importantly, what actual evidence do you have that she is proficient in Koine and Attic Greek and Classical Latin (I note with interest that she does not mention Hebrew)?

And are you actually capable of judging whether any arguments she makes on the basis of ancient languages are any good? Are you yourself proficient in any ancient language?

Jeffrey

aa5874

Your line of questioning makes no sense.

How would people who are NOT proficient in ancient languages be able to prove that those who claim to be really are??

If you yourself claim to be proficient in any ancient language how would those who are NOT know that you are??

Please, this is PRECISELY why there are Professional translators.

It is wholly absurd and illogical that ordinary people cannot give, examine or undertstand written statements from antiquity when translated by an INDEPENDENT Professional translator.

It is completely acceptable throughout the world to employ Translations of ancient writings to be examined by those who are NOT proficient in that ancient language.