jgibson000

And you are certain, are you, not only that these "versions" of the Septuagint actually existed, but that they were in existence "by the first century AD"?

So Richard Carrrier is a "drive by"?

And is what I've been told by "the" (??) moderator reason not to post questions to him or to view him as less than, or not, responsible for what he posts here?

Would you allow this of me if I also normally didn't post here, but nevertheless dropped in to take swipes at you?

And is addressing me by "Gibson" any less of a sneer or any more appropriate than was your continued use, despite requests and directions not to, of "Jeff" when speaking to me?

So you regard it as acceptable for Steven to address and ask questions of Richard Carrier, but not me?

Isn't this a double standard?

Jeffrey Gibson

Toto

To clarify, Richard Carrier is one of the early founders of this site. He no longer participates in discussions because he is working on his PhD dissertation in ancient history, but he has said that he will respond to email. He has also said that he will correct errors in his on-line essays if notified by email. This is not the same as being a "drive-by."

But you cannot just post questions here to him and assume that he will see them - you have to notify him by email, and he may not respond for a week or more, depending on his schedule.

Steven Avery

Hi Gregor, you are very welcome to PM me with threads you want to restart, or to bump any particular threads up. Your remembrance may be spotty, too. As a simple example, I asked folks to really authenticate and sutstantiate their accusation against Ron Wyatt on an integrity wheel issue (a specific accusation of fraud, planting of evidence) and nothing substantive was forthcoming, much less yet the proper apology. On the Bible issue (which does belong in this section) my remembrance is that my posts were substantive and clear. The issue that I remember that I would like to read and consider is plate tectonics theories related to orogeny and marine fossils on high mountains, in the other section. On that one I let it drop and wouldn't mind getting back up to speed and see if there may be substantive and edifying discussion, with iron sharpening. So feel free to PM me, combined with any thread bumps, and maybe we can chat.

Please consider the issue closed on this thread, however, no hijacking.

Oh, if you find where I made a factual blunder akin to the Carrier stuff here,
please let me know.

Thanks.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Steven Avery

Apparently he is an advertiser or some sort of sponsor as well.

Anyway, he has left an ugly trail of misinformation in this thread,
leaving a troupe of dancing skeptics trying to cover for his
confused belligerence.

Hopefully Richard he will make the proper corrections and amends in a timely fashion.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

jgibson000

Telling me why someone doesn't participate regularly does nothing to mitigate the fact that someone is a drive by poster and that his or her posts are "drive bys", especially most of their substance is a sneer.

Did I say that I assumed this?

And does the fact that this should not be assumed mean that no one shouild ever post replies to, or ask questions about, what he posts here unless this is done off list?

If Richard can't be bothered, thinks it beneath him(?), is something that is unworthy of his precious time, to participate in on list discussions about things he curiously does has time for to post to the list (which are always at base put downs of those who have dared to call his pronouncements into question), then perhaps he should not post on list at all. There is a sense of entitlement here that he (and you) will not allow to others.

Some of us who post here have even tighter scheudules and more professional responsibilities than Richard does; and yet it is rare for us to use use -- or think we are entitled to use -- this as an excuse for not being responsible for what we say here -- especially if we have said it here.


JG

Toto

A drive by is someone who has no intention of coming back.

Praxeus seems to have assumed that he could just post a question to Carrier and he would respond.

No one should post a question to Carrier and expect a response unless they also email him.

This is not true. His last few posts have been rather curt, but if you search the archives you will find that he has given long explanations and engaged in discussions.

And he is subject to the same rules as others.

Richard takes responsibility for what he says. He just doesn't hang out here and engage in a lot of leisurely discussion.

And I think you are misreading something about his posts, but I'm not sure how.

Richard Carrier

First, I am not at all interested in any arguments being made here except regarding what I said, which must only be interpreted in its own context, not the context of this thread. So confused people need to go and read my article before claiming to think they know what I "mean." I did not start this thread and I am not defending any arguments anyone is making in it. Keep that in mind.

Second, the "Septuagint" as a term is rarely used here or anywhere in its literal sense, since literally it refers only to the Greek Torah composed at the behest of King Ptolemy Philadelphus by 72 miraculously-guided rabbis (and thus the LXX in this sense excludes all the prophets, psalms, etc., in other words almost everything relevant to the NT). This is not how people have come to use the word now, so I can see why confusion might arise. Most now use the word to mean any ancient Greek translation of the Bible (see discussion at The Septuagint Online). Regardless, the reality of the Septuagint "miracle" story is disputed and, as the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (ODCC) reports, "internal evidence indicates that the LXX was really the work of a number of translators...that not all of it was translated at Alexandria, and that the work of translation extended over a considerable period."

In other words, it is not in fact possible to identify "a" Septuagint. We have no way of knowing when or where our text of the "Septuagint" (which now includes the whole OT and more, contrary to the legend of its creation) was translated, and in fact we know it was translated "by different people, in different places, at different times." This means it is not possible to say that our Septuagint is "the" Septuagint, any more than any other editions going around in antiquity. All we can establish is that our text (again, a "text" is not a "manuscript") more or less appears to have existed as of the end of the 2nd century B.C. Although we can't confirm that archaeologically, and it is only by reconstruction that we imagine we know this, it's reasonable as far as it goes. That is why hypotheses proposing that the text of our extant editions' ancestors were different then than now, are still viable hypotheses (although you can't just assert such hypotheses are true).

Third, I was not referencing the other Greek translations completed by mid-2nd century A.D. (contained in large part in the Hexapla of Origen, more or less completed c. 245 A.D.) that have been mentioned in this thread (Aquila, completed c. 140 A.D.; Symmachus, unknown date, believed to be c. 100-200 A.D. but without good evidence; and Theodotion, dates disputed, but between 50 and 150 A.D.; all according to the ODCC), though these were popular with Christians, and could have influenced NT manuscripts (such as through retrodicting, since we don't have enough scraps of NT mss. from before 150 A.D. to exclude later meddling; though Theodotion, if he did complete his work mid-1st century, could even have been a direct source for NT writers, most scholars place him in the 2nd century and if pressed I would have to lean their way).

Just for completeness, I should also mention the (rather free and creative) "translation" into Greek of sections of the OT by Eupolemus of Jerusalem in the 2nd century B.C. (attested by Josephus and others), and Josephus' own (even more free and creative) "rewriting" of the historical sections of the OT from the Hebrew into Greek (in the earlier books of the Antiquities). But since these took such liberties with the text they don't count as translations in my view, although they are sometimes significant attestors.

In Origen's Hexapla, his version of what he calls the Septuagint (to distinguish it from Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, all of whom he knew did not compose under Ptolemy, although Origen's belief that his Septuagint was composed under Ptolemy was, as we now know, not true anyway), is a critical edition of Origen's own making, relying on the science of textual analysis developed under the Ptolemaic scholars at Alexandria and applied to many pagan texts of the period (most especially Homer), in order to derive a more authentic text from disparate manuscripts, i.e. just as we do now with the NT, in creating a text that is most likely closer to the original than any manuscript extant (Origen also "corrected" his LXX against the Hebrew, thus in effect creating yet another "version," which again could have had retrodictive effects on the NT, though this is less likely than in the case of the other translations). We do the same now, as there are over a hundred differing manuscripts of what we call the Septuagint still today, so there are many different "Septuagints" and the critical edition from them, and it's the latter that is usually what is referred to now as "the Septuagint" (and this is usually what I mean, too, except when the context dictates otherwise), even though that corresponds to no extant manuscript (as, too, is the case for the NT) and is not what anyone believes was completed under Ptolemy Philadelphus. All of this should not have to be explained. Anyone competent in the field should know it.

In his critical apparatus, Origen revealed the existence of multiple, disagreeing versions of what he was calling the LXX, and fragments from papyri confirm the existence of yet other variants in the Greek of various books from the OT (not only among the Dead Sea Scrolls but elsewhere). So we have Origen aware of at least two "versions" of the LXX (if there were variants, there had to be more than one) and papyri attesting to at least one other. That makes three (in fact, as I said, "at least" three). This is what I was referring to, hence my use of the word "Septuagint" was not intended in the popular, loose sense of "any completely different Greek translations completely unrelated to what was then called the Septuagint" (which is too loose a usage, IMO) nor in the hyper-literal sense of the Philadelphus Torah (obviously not, since I was discussing Isaiah, which was not in the Philadelphus Torah) but in the middle sense of "textual traditions stemming from what was then called the Septuagint."

In other words, I meant Septuagint when I said Septuagint, in the context of discussing the extant Greek of Isaiah now included in critical editions of "the Septuagint." Just as the manuscripts of the Septuagint today represent a number of different "versions" of that Septuagint (not merely variant manuscripts, but distinct textual traditions represented by various groups of manuscripts), yet we only rely on the critical edition derived from them, so there were many different "versions" in the first century, too, which ultimately may underly our critical edition now, as its archetypes or cousins of archetypes (archetypes being reconstructions of what the text probably then said).

Since we know that by the 1st century there were at least three variant textual traditions circulating for the Septuagint (from evidence in papyri and Origen, besides additional evidence from Philo and others) and there is no reason to believe we know of them all (there were certainly others completely lost to us), and there was then no critical edition to go to (Origen, as far as we know, created the first), we cannot draw decisive conclusions regarding which variant Matthew (or any NT author) was using, or where or when that variant originated, or why. We can't even assert that we know all the variants that would have been circulating at the time, nor can we be entirely certain that the "variants" extant now correspond to any of the variants circulating in Matthew's time, or to the original (regardless of how you define "original" in this context).

Since my remarks have evidently caused tremendous confusion (though largely by people ignoring the context of my original remark and instead attributing to me arguments being made by others here), I will have the editors alter my sentence to eliminate at least some of the avenues of misunderstanding. My current wording:

"Moreover, by the first century A.D. there were at least three different versions of the whole Septuagint. Only one survives to the present day--though we have fragments of the others, and in fact Matthew's..."

Will become:

"Moreover, by the first century A.D. there were at least three variants of the Greek for many books in the Old Testament. Thus, besides even more variant manuscripts that survive to the present day, we know others existed in Matthew's time, and there were no doubt others now lost. All we know is that Matthew's..."

By using "variants" rather than "versions" no one should mistake me for referring to Aquila, etc. By removing the word "Septuagint" I remove any ambiguities with regard to what the word "Septuagint" can mean in reference to Isaiah (the preceding sentences in the same paragraph should already make that clear). And by abandoning the practice of assuming the critical edition is the extant version, I now make the point clear by equating current variants with ancient variants (thus pretending that critical editions don't exist, which is fine for the point I was making).

I also got rid of "whole" (and replaced it with "many books") since upon careful reflection I can see now that I don't know for sure that's true. Though it is conjectured that there were entire editions of "the Septuagint" corresponding to the variants we know about, it is entirely possible there was no such thing as a complete edition of "the Septuagint" at that time. Although scholars believe there was at least one, and if there was one, and we have known variant readings from the period, it stands to reason these came from deviant editions of the whole, there is no need to press the issue. It isn't necessary to my point, which should not be mistaken for anyone else's point on this thread.

Steven Avery

Uhh.. Toto. Let's not rewrite history. I pointed out that Richard Carrier's claims
seemed very strange, in the post with a smidgen of sarcasm.
Carrier then jumped in, so of course from that point on you would
expect an intelligent response, especially considering that he
didn't even address the question of what versions he was
referencing as from "by the 1st century", and its implication that Matthew could be working with these various versions.
(This was not an aside, Carrier was emphasizing and discussing
aspects of the supposed multiplicity of versions.)

So we had to try to make some sense out of his posting and footnoted article errors and vague claims. Simply look at the
troupe of skeptics who then came forth trying to come up with
alternate explanations of what Carrier really meant.

A bit funny, actually.
"Carrier Apologetics"

In fact, from what we have seen, the situation is a lot worse in terms of both Carrier's knowledge and dialog quotient than was expected. His bravado putdown attempt only dealt with one small element and even in that he created more problems. How does a version that "survived" not be recognizable by either name or text or history ? And what the world is he even talking about with his three versions by the 1st century ?

However the situation is even worse, as -

Carrier should have read and absorbed the article which he referenced and to which he linked ! The irony is that he is talking about "bad methodology" and yet he can't even absord the
information in a page to which he links ! (by Gerald Larue) Talk
about "bad methodology".

There are other methodology problems with the article,
however they are less glaring.

One quick example... Richard uses David Stern for the Messianic
viewpoint, yet there is far better material from Dr. Michael Brown
and from Daniel Gruber completely unreferenced by Richard
Carrier. In terms of background with the materials David Stern is a
bit lightweight (he even made a blunder on this very issue which
he corrected) and only has a minor commentary note on this
question. By contrast Michael Brown has 20 pages in one part of
Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus" and Daniel Gruber wrote
"God, the Rabbis and the Virgin Birth". It is "bad methodology" to
simply cherry-pick the less skilled and informed adversary and ignore the more substantive writings.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Richard Carrier

This is a fair point. It wasn't my intention to give the impression that Stern was the best advocate, only a typical one (i.e. what one usually hears). But you are right that only citing Stern is unfair. To redress the injustice I am having the editors add an endnote with links to M. Brown and D. Gruber's materials on this. Gruber is a new name to me. Although I found nothing under Gruber with the title you suggest in any library in the world associated with WCAT, I found an online article at Gruber's website with a similar title that presents what I presume is Gruber's best case.

This doesn't mean either Brown or Gruber actually overcome the problems I describe in general, but you are right I should at least direct readers to them when raising the example of contemporary messianic Jews. I appreciate the suggestion and data.

Amaleq13

Of course it does. Stating that one does not intend to participate regularly but that one is willing to return to respond to specific question is quite unlike an actual "drive by" who does neither.

IMO, quid pro quo. Unfortunate but, present exchange notwithstanding, really nothing to waste bandwidth discussing.

Nonsense. You are free to become just as inconsistent in your participation and just as available to specific email requests.

How you could possibly know this absent magical powers is a mystery.

Carrier's post above denies this odd misinterpretation. If it can be said to be an "excuse" for anything, it is for any delay between email question/notification and his response.