Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Loren Rosson III · 09-12-2006, 03:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ted Hoffman

Carlson...
I have always found you (and Anddrew C.) patient and focused even in the face of flapdoodle

Yes, those are Stephen's admirable virtues. But certainly not yours. Over the years Stephen has demonstrated more online integrity than most I know, and treated the subject of Secret Mark with considerably more patience than it deserves -- more patience than I've ever given it, that's for sure. The thing is a transparent joke, and those who can't see it probably shouldn't be trusted much on other related matters.

Ted Hoffman · 09-12-2006, 03:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by S.C.Carlson

Sorry, but this is the first time I have ever been accused of a felony on IIDB. If that's your idea of civilized discourse, then you too can join Solo on my ignore list.

Stephen

On second thoughts, I think you are lashing out, so I will just let whatever it is, blow over.

Solo · 09-12-2006, 07:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by S.C.Carlson

Sorry, but this is the first time I have ever been accused of a felony on IIDB. If that's your idea of civilized discourse, then you too can join Solo on my ignore list.

Stephen

Stephen is plainly misconstruing my intent. I leave it to the intelligence of the reader to decide that issue, as all the others.

Jiri

Solo · 09-12-2006, 08:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

It is non-Clementine in the sense that AFAIK no-one in the ancient Greek-Latin world thought of salt losing its savour in that way.

..as far as you know, no one other than the disputed Theodore used it in the same context. Correct ? That is a premise.

On that premise, you exclude the possibility that someone could have thought of it that way in the Greco-Latin antiquity. Correct ?

On that premise and the logical operation above you then declare the Theodore's saying on salt to be non-Clementine, and non-antiquity.

Is there anything either you or I have missed ?

Quote:

I'm not sure that the Japanese making nigari saw themselves as removing contaminants from salt and in any case I doubt if it is relevant to Western perceptions.
Andrew Criddle

I think we have two issues here.

One: I responded with the link to the 'nigari' site when you offered that the semantic context of 'mixing' could not have occured cognitively before 19th century, and the way you wrote it I made it out to mean, before the age of analytical chemistry. I showed you that separating of non-halite elements from brine is not dependent on such science - generally. So, I think our goal-posts have moved.

Two: the idea that something is mixed with salt that makes it lose its flavour does not assume any process of separation, or any other specific salt-making technology. All it does assume is the existence of something that is purported to be salt but does not taste (quite) like salt, and intuition that something then was mixed with salt, made by analogy. Again, whether this analogy is correct or not, is irrelevant. People could have imagined all sorts of things, to explain how the taste of salt changed from one supply to another. The only thing that needs to be established to refute the claim that the Theodore saying did not originate in antiquity, is the likelihood of differential salt quality and/or contamination detectable by taste, existing in that era. Is this an unsound proposition ?

Jiri

S.C.Carlson · 09-12-2006, 12:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ted Hoffman

On second thoughts, I think you are lashing out, so I will just let whatever it is, blow over.

I haven't read your first thoughts (which is probably a good thing), but if you are concerned about squandering an opportunity for rational debate, you should take it up with Solo.

Stephen

Yuri Kuchinsky · 09-12-2006, 12:16 PM

This whole discussion of the salt metaphors strikes me as somewhat overwrought. Clearly, the whole thing is just the matter of opinion. In Carlson's opinion, the metaphor is anachronistic. Prior to Carlson, AFAIK nobody found the metaphor anachronistic (and thousands of scholars did examine this whole text prior to Carlson).

This is what Mar Saba manuscript says:

Quote:

Now of the things they [the Carpocratians] keep saying about the divinely inspired Gospel according to Mark, some are altogether falsifications, and others, even if they do contain some true elements, nevertheless are not reported truly. For the true things, being mixed with inventions, are falsified, so that, as the saying goes, even the salt loses its savor.

Mt 5:13
Ye are the salt of the land, but if the salt may lose savour...

So it's all a matter of opinion. But, in my opinion, this is a very shaky basis for destroying a scholarly reputation.

Yuri.

Toto · 09-12-2006, 01:18 PM

On Salt: From tectonics's (FWIW) review of Steve Allen on the Bible:

Quote:

Of a particularly humorous bent, and proof that Allen's research priorities were off-kilter...He notes Matthew 5:13 -- "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?" Allen found this puzzling, so he wrote to various salt companies and asked them whether salt ever lost its flavor. They assured him that it didn't, so Allen put down Jesus here for a dumbbell error. Well, of course, it's Allen's time to waste if he wants to, but rather than writing to salt companies he should have picked up a commentary or a Greek concordance. The word here is moraino, meaning "to become insipid; fig. to make (pass. act) as a simpleton:--become fool, make foolish, lose savour". In the context of this verse, it refers to believers being the "salt" of the world. Now believers themselves won't lose their "saltiness" except in one way - by becoming like the world. Hence, if Allen wanted to know how salt "loses" its savor, the answer is by contamination. (I have also been advised, but have not been able to confirm, that Dead Sea salt, unlike our modern, refined table salt, does lose its flavor. A reader noted that the explanation may be that "ancient 'salt' wasn't pure sodium chloride, but NaCl mixed with other rock and mineral matter; if it was allowed to get moist, the NaCl would dissolve out and leave behind a pile of tasteless dirt. Thus, in order for the salt to preserve its savor, 'the world' had to be kept out of it." It is also noteworthy that in context, this isn't salt used for consumption in the first place! Malina and Rohrbaugh note [Social-Science Commentary, 50] that the "earth" here alludes to an earthen oven outside the house which was used to bake, and had a dung heap nearby; the dung was used as fuel and was salted to use as a catalyst to make the dung burn. The reference is to salt that is so exhausted that it no longer makes the dung burn -- not to how tasty the salt is! This goes to show just how little Allen tried to look into the context of these passages.)

But it seemed that Talmudic scholars also disputed the idea that salt could lose its savor:

Quote:

Oft repeated in the Talmud is the pun made on Matthew 5:13:

How do you salt the salt that lost its savour?
[answer] With the offal of a mule. But does a mule have an offal (since it is incapable of giving birth)?
[Answer] And does salt lose its savour?

In any case, the Biblical version of this says "if the salt shall lose its savour" - and there is evidence that this was not a normal occurance - but the disputed passages says "as the saying goes, even the salt loses its savor." Is there such a saying? Is the Biblical saying a bit of linguistic punning?

Yuri Kuchinsky · 09-12-2006, 02:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo

So, to assume some general ‘gay solidarity’ and lashing back by Smith at the establishment for being denied something on account of being a homosexuial or pandering to a counter-culture that was still at least a decade away, is anachronistic and naïve about the social milieu in the U.S. at the time of the Secret Mark appearance.

Sure it is anachronistic. But I think it's even worse, the whole thing is also quite irrelevant...

It's really quite irrelevant for Carlson to bring up the social conditions of homosexuals in the 1950s. "Smith felt oppressed, and therefore he wanted to make Jesus into a gay." This really sounds bizarre, and it sure is.

Thus, according to Carlson, besides everything else, Smith was also somehow an unheralded fighter for gay liberation -- way ahead of his time!

To me, this just sounds like pandering to trendy Politically Correct stereotypes. "If you support gay liberation, then you should see the manuscript as a fake!"

Carlson's book is full of strange logic such as this...

Cheers,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky · 09-12-2006, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by S.C.Carlson

My publisher, aware of the sensitive nature of the topic, doubled the number of outside, anonymous readers before deciding to publish it. All of them stated that the book was scholarly and recommended that it be published. One of them, in fact, was Smith's friend and former colleague at Columbia. This person recognized Smith's sense of humor in both the Madiotes and the Morton Salt references, which you found "nothing if not bizzare." Well, it was not bizarre to someone who actually knew Smith.

Strange that this individual still wishes to remain anonymous... Should we interpret this as a sign of uncertainty?

Or perhaps even as a sign of a guilty conscience?

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky · 09-12-2006, 02:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by S.C.Carlson

Sorry, but this is the first time I have ever been accused of a felony on IIDB.

Just think how Smith would have felt now, had he still been alive.

Yuri.

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