Vorkosigan

Riverwind, how is being naturalistic a "bias." It's the basis of scholarship. You can be non-naturalistic if you like, but then you cease to be a scholar.

Michael

Riverwind

:huh:

I did not characterize the range 65-80 as "late dating". You don't usually misread like that.

I was pointing out that, inspite of giving this range, you give your value judgement as "the period of five years between 70 and 75 CE is the most plausible dating".

And why do you render this conclusion at the end of your page on Mark? "Because of the historical allusions found in the Gospel of Mark to the events of the First Jewish Revolt..."

I didn't say that you made any assumption on insufficient data, and I have read your page on Mark. In fact, the quote I posted was your conclusion on that very page.

I'm saying that you have biases due to your beliefs (the very biases you seem to want everyone to forget about or at least pretend aren't there) that make 70 - 75 A.D. "the most plausible dating" because your beliefs likely do not allow for the possiblity that the prediction of the Son of God could come true, so it must be dated after the supposed prediction. In fact, my contention with secular scholarship is that they are so commited to this argument that they can't (or won't) even look for other naturalistic possibilities, such as Jesus having keen insight about his country's relationship with Rome.

Don't get me wrong, Peter. There is a lot worse bias out there in my opinion. You want to seem fair, and for an atheist, I view you as fair as an atheist can be. However, you still come to the table with an obvious set of biases, due to your own beliefs, that color your interpretations of data (as I obviously do as well).

So, again, I'm not saying that I think you're a horribly biased person. I think you're a pretty genuine person attempting to do history with as little bias as possible. I am just pointing out the bias that you do have, because these recent threads seem to me to indicate that you have forgotten that you do have biases due to your beliefs and that others will see those and need to see those(which is why you will receive the label of 'atheist' and I will receive the labels 'evangelical' and occasionally 'fundamentalist').

Peter Kirby

You ready to eat crow?

"Your bias here is atheistic, naturalistic, and 'late'. This, also, ... biases you toward what I would call a 'late' date."

Do you like your crow cold, or served hot?

More anon. You obviously don't understand my argument on the Mark page, and indeed to present it properly here will get me into a tussle with those who date Mark in the 100-150 range somewhere, but it looks as if I'm being called out on this point.

Riverwind

I don't much like crow. Cornish Hens are not too bad, though, if you know how to prepare them.

The 'late' accusation (in quotes) was with reference to the 70-75 A.D., not the 65-80 range. If you'll look back at that post again, I mentioned your dating of the other gospels that follow Mark to 80 A.D. The 80 A.D. date (and later) was a more important instance of what I consider to be a 'late' date'.

So, then, your concluding statements about "the most plausible date" being 70 - 75 A.D. are not really your conclusion? I read the entire article, Peter. You look at the evidence from 'good' scholars like Meier and 'bad' scholars like Eisenman. And then you leave off with your conclusion. What did I miss? Or is this one of those instances where someone has their hand caught in the cookie jar and are making excuses?

Peter Kirby

Waffles more to your taste then? You said I was biased towards dating things "late".

Eh, no.

You'd like that, but no.

You missed pretty much all the evidence, seized the conclusion, and then made up a strawman argument out of a misreading of that one clause in the conclusion.

If this were a real time argument, it would have resulted in fisticuffs already, but since it isn't I am being patient. Hopefully you will also be patient and listen attentively to the argument when I present it to IIDB.

Roger Pearse

I'm sorry that you were offended by my little skit on "dark bias". But really, it isn't good English, is it?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Peter Kirby

It's quite alright; I wasn't offended. And you're probably right. My rambling in the previous post didn't signify much of anything, and for that I am sorry for the confusion.

Riverwind

Yes, I believe you are due to the biases inherent in your beliefs. Don't care for waffles either.

Please, you're starting to sound like Sauron.

I read all your evidence. One normally summarizes in the conclusion and concludes with their take on the evidence they have presented, as you did. I don't know what you're denying. Perhaps we're talking past each other in some way. You admitted on another thread just now that you believe Mark to be dated between 70 and 73 A.D., so that statement meshes with your conclusion on your Mark page.

Hmmm...fisticuffs? I'm afraid you're taking this much too personal then. Remember these are merely words on a computer screen. I bear no ill-will toward you, and I'm sorry it seems as if you've chosen to shut off to me. I'm not mad at you. I don't think you're a mean or horrible person. Rather, I think the opposite. If my words are too strong (which I didn't think they were until now), it is merely meant to provoke thought into areas that are uncomfortable (our own biases).

You have, hopefully unintentionally, been calling out Christians here on their biases (true scholars, and yes, by implication me, Layman, and some other here whether you intended to or not). Expect a little kickback and be prepared to take what you dish out.

I wait with baited breath to see how you don't conclude that the gospel of Mark dates to 70 - 73 A.D. because of the references to the 1st Jewish revolt while concluding that very thing.

More seriously, I will be patient, "listen" as attentively as possible, and try to understand your position with respect to the issues of bias.

Roger Pearse

I admit that arguments over whether someone is biased or not seem to me best settled with knives, not endless words in a public forum. Everyone is biased in some manner on matters of controversy. Let's just accept this and move on.

Now I have always thought the dates of the NT on ECW were skewed late. But then I am also aware of the definite tendency to skew these late in scholarly literature (although this was far worse longer ago, of course). Whether Peter gives these values because he wants to, or whether he gives them because he believes some stuff he read because he wants to, or whatever, seems to me of less interest than whether the dates are correct.

Why was the skew to late dates so bad at that time? I don't know that this has been researched. But I do know that Niklas Holzberg wrote an interesting paper "Lucian and the Germans" which I stumbled over by accident some years ago. Between 1880-ish and 1945 German scholarship was dismissive of Lucian and his work as derivative. Holzberg was able to show that this all stemmed from a single, seminal paper by a respected academic. He also showed that this paper contained passages verbally identical with those in a non-academic article written shortly before by Houston S. Chamberlain in an anti-semitic rag. For Lucian, you see, may have been Jewish...

If we look at the same period in biblical studies, we see the promotion of Marcion as 'the real gospel'. Of course the point about Marcion is his rejection of, wait for it, the Jewish bits in the bible. All the OT he dropped, and pruning the NT.

We can show that this was a time of rising anti-semitism in Germany. We can show that this influenced scholars to adopt ostensibly scholarly positions for reasons of anti-semitism.

Is it terribly, terribly unreasonable to wonder whether these learned and pious men were influenced to some degree by the societal values of their time?

For wouldn't a theory dating the NT and its openly Jewish Jesus later than Marcion be terribly, terribly attractive? And as we all know, they really did date John's gospel to 170, with great erudition and persuasiveness, so much so that this became the consensus of scholars until 1936 when P52 was discovered and that position became completely untenable.

If so, we have people who have form and motive. Nor need we suppose that such skewing is not happening today, albeit for other reasons. Marxist economics is not so very far behind us. The humanities seem awfully prone to this sort of thing.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Amaleq13

No, you specified "Christians" but did not respond when I asked if this applied to scholars as well. It seems plausible for the general population but hardly appears to be accurate when applied to scholars. If you actually read them, they tend to explain the basis for their conclusion and it isn't what you suggest.

Your position requires the field to be dominated by "secular academia" when it is actually dominated by Christian scholars. That's why your position seems so off-base to me.

What evidence do you have for it?

Have you read any Christian scholars explaining their basis for accepting the common dating? Did they admit they did so out of fear of "branding" or did they present a blatantly weak case or what? What specific evidence led you to this conclusion?

The editors of The Catholic Study Bible were afraid of being branded? You can keep a straight face and claim that Christian scholars like Crossan are worried about "secular academia" branding them as "apologists" and that is the reason he accepts the common dating?