Amaleq13

For those who are not similarly afflicted with sesquipedalian tendencies, "ultracrepidarianism" refers to giving opinions outside of one's knowledge.



ETA: Great minds, Toto! :rolling:

jgibson000

So when are you going to do what you label as praiseworthy and, instead of dodging or changing the subject, answer the questions I put to you?

In case you forgot them, they are:

1. Are you claiming that it is methodologically sound when seeking to see if there are parallels between Greek texts, to use English translations of these texts as the sole basis for doing so, let alone for making absolute claims that parallels exist?

2. Does Euripides' Dionysus actually say in Bacc 1-5 what you say he says?

3. Are the particular similarities that you says exist between what Euripides' Dionysus says about himself in Bac. 1-5 and what certain NT writers say about Jesus really there? And if they are

4. Can we really say, as you certainly seems to think we can (and should), that the claims about Jesus are indubitably based on, derived from, and have their primary conceptual background in what Euripides' Dionysus says about himself?

I'd also be grateful for straight answers to questions I asked you about your new claims vis a vis Bacc 443-50 and Acts 12, to wit:.

1. Whether in your view the Acts passage is both literarily dependent upon and thematically derived from lines 443-448 of Euripides Bacchae. And if you say it is,

2. Why the vocabulary and the syntax of the Acts passage is so different from that of its Vorlage in the Bacchae.

3. Whether there is really enough linguistic, let alone thematic and narrative, similarity between them to justify a claim of dependence/derivation of the Acts story on/from Bacc 443-450; and

4. Whether Bacc 443-450 is the only place in the whole of pre-Acts Greco Roman or Jewish literature where a miraculous deliverance from prison is narrated.

Jeffrey Gibson

jgibson000

Thanks. I have no spell checker available to me when I post to the list through the interface.

Now, about your way of spelling my name ...

See post #3632729

Jeffrey

jgibson000

Hmm. Doesn't it refer to "giving opinions outside of one's knowledge" (or more precisely, "to be in the habit of providing opinions or information that one is not suitably informed or sufficiently knowledgeable to give") even if one is not given to using long words?

There's no display of a "great mind" if you think you've scored a rhetorical point with the cheap shot above.

In any case, the issue isn't whether, in calling Jake's messages and claims good examples of ultracrepidarianism, I am indulging in an alleged (but wholly undemonstrated) tendency to use long words (evidence, please!). Rather it is whether, under the circumstances, the word I used is apt.

Do you disagree?


Jeffrey Gibson

gstafleu

Ah, I had missed that only the earliest Christian sources were under discussion, thanks for pointing that out. If so, as a good MJer I must of course agree, as we all know () that Paul doesn't mention any physical Jesus.

Nevertheless, if we extend our view a bit to the later doctrine, the fact that a son of (a) god comes down to earth in a human form remains an interesting parallel. Especially since Dionysos was one of the gods of the mystery cults, and similarities between those and Christianity have been pointed out before. Plus he was the wine god, and Christ and wine go together very well. But I'm sure that is all just coincidence .

Gerard Stafleu

Chris Weimer

Of course, because, as we know, that only spiritual beings are born of women and have lived according to the flesh, right?

Many ancient personages drank wine. Nothing special there. Wine dominated the culture. One petty miracle does not equate to a god of wine.

jgibson000

What later doctrine? And is later doctrine what Jake thought the proclamation of Euripides' Dionysus linked up with?

More importantly, where in Euripides -- or in any extant tradition about Dionysus for that matter --do we find anything about Dionysus "coming down to earth", let alone "coming down to earth in a human form"?

I'd be grateful if you could point me to primary source material in which this theme appears.

But how good, let alone actual, are these similarities? And are they good enough and actual enough and early enough to indicate, let alone support the claim, that any aspect of early Christian views of Jesus are dependent upon, or are derived from, the mythologies of the mystery cults?

To my knowledge there is not a single expert in the field of the "Mystery cults", from Vermasseren to Burkert to Klauck to Nock to Wedderburn to Betz to Clauss to Ferguesson to McMullen and beyond, who thinks so.

Yes, it is, even if we (1) overlook the fact that wine is a gift of Dionysus to humankind, not a symbol for him, let alone for his death or a seal of a covenant that he makes with his followers, and (2) accept as true the assumption hidden beneath your statement that because something X and wine go well together, X must ne modeled on Dionysus. On your logic we'd be constrained to say that the Passover is derived from the fertility god, since wine and the Passover are inextricably linked.


Jeffrey Gibson

Amaleq13

Certainly but, as I was (I thought) clearly suggesting, an individual without sesquipedalian tendencies is less likely to know the definition of such an obscure word.

Is that what you think you're doing when you correct the spelling mistakes of others? Interesting.

I was simply referring to the fact we had both noticed the mistaken spelling within a minute of each other. Seriously, I'll loan you the money to buy a sense of humor. Send me the bill. I think there is a store in Lincoln Park.

I would have thought it obvious that I was including myself in the sesquipedalian-tendencies group given my use of the word "sesquipedalian".


ETA: To answer your question, you may rest assured that I would have mentioned it had I considered the word inappropriate.

jgibson000

Really? I'd like to see some evidence that knowledge of what long words mean is linked to tendencies to use long words, especially in the light of the fact that many people who use long words often don't really know what they mean and that a choice to not use long words is often a matter of stylistic preference, not lack of knowledge.

You can roll your eyes all you want, and charge me all you want (but in the end irrelevantly and gratuitously) with being humour impaired, but it was by no means obvious. Just as one swallow does not a spring make, a one off use of a "big" word does not make you a card carrying member of a tendentious group. What seemed obvious was that you were engaged in mockery.


So what's the beef? Why, instead of raising a tangetial issue, and accusing me, however indirectly, of certain tendencies that are not mine, did you not say directly " you are right"?

In any case, I take it then that you do think that Jake is an ultracrepidarian. If so, why aren't you, as a moderator, pointing this out to him? And why do you bridle (as seems clear to me) when I do?

Jeffrey Gibson

JoeWallack

Born To Be Wild




JW:
"I, child of Zeus, have come to this land of the Thebans,
Dionysus, whom the Daughter of Cadmus born,
Semele, brought forth by lightning fire
Changed my shape from god to mortal
Am here at the fountain of Dirca, the water of Ismenus"

The similarities to Christian Mythology here are ReMarkable but apparently Jeff would like to talk about everything/anything else. I myself Descend into this land of the Threads because I fear that before Jeff follows up with anything substantial, Jesus may SOON return.

The First step in Evaluation would be to Inventory the Significant Assertions:

1) child of Zeus

2) brought forth by lightning fire

3) Changed my shape from god to mortal

We can find 2 out of 3 Assertions here with good Similarities to Christianity:

1) child of Zeus (child of the Father God)

3) Changed my shape from god to mortal (Shifted from Divine to Human in -0- to 40 days)

and you know what Meatloaf says about 2 out of 3.

One useful Comparison in evaluating the Significance of these Similarities as to Potential Sources is the Question:

Where do these Assertions find better Parallels, the Christian Bible or the Jewish Bible? This is a very Good question to ask since none of the Assertions can have a Historical Source. Assertions without potential Historical sources are Exponentially more likely to have a prior Literary source than assertions that could have a Historical source.

While Jeff ponders the Question I'll point out that Brown's (someone who forgot more Greek in his lifetime than Jeff will ever know) masterpiece, Birth was the culmination of 2,000 years of Failure of Christian Bible scholarship to honestly answer this question. Brown concluded that the Source of the Virgin Birth Narratives was the Jewish Bible because they paralleled the Form. What he neglected was that the Substance (pun intended) of the Virgin Birth is all Pagan. Perhaps even more mysterious than the Virgin Birth is why Jeff chooses to spend his time here correcting a few Skeptics who are overstating the parallels here to Christianity instead of the billions of Christians who have no Conception of any parallel to Pagan mythology.



Joseph


BIRTH, n.
The first and direst of all disasters. As to the nature of it there appears to be no uniformity. Castor and Pollux were born from the egg. Pallas came out of a skull. Galatea was once a block of stone. Peresilis, who wrote in the tenth century, avers that he grew up out of the ground where a priest had spilled holy water. It is known that Arimaxus was derived from a hole in the earth, made by a stroke of lightning. Leucomedon was the son of a cavern in Mount Aetna, and I have myself seen a man come out of a wine cellar.

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