Freethought & Rationalism Archive

sotto voce · 03-12-2012, 11:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian63

Indeed.

Having book X "relevant to X scholarship" seems rather obvious and even true perhaps as a tautology. The book "Lord of the Rings" is relevant to Lord of the Rings scholarship, the book "The Scarlet Letter" is relevant to scholarship about the book "The Scarlet Letter, the book "A Tale of Two Cities" is relevant to scholarship about the book "A Tale of Two Cities," etc., etc., etc.

Yes, indeed. That point is not questioned, though. It's close to being a banality.

Quote:

On the other hand, including a story about a talking snake in a story does tend to diminish the historical reliability of a story

That's circularity, pre-judging the issue.

It's also taking literally what scholarship takes as allegory.

sotto voce · 03-12-2012, 11:39 AM

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Originally Posted by JonA

Quote:

Originally Posted by sotto voce

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Originally Posted by JonA

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Originally Posted by sotto voce

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Originally Posted by JonA

In fact, historical scholarship is confined entirely to the realm of the natural.

That's circularity.

Nope. That's science.

It's not science. Science measures only repeatable phenomena. It cannot measure phenomena present when and where experimental science is inapplicable.

Yet more circularity.

Try again. Repeatability is not a requirement of science.

False.

Brian63 · 03-12-2012, 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sotto voce

Quote:

On the other hand, including a story about a talking snake in a story does tend to diminish the historical reliability of a story

That's circularity, pre-judging the issue.

It's also taking literally what scholarship takes as allegory.

Does scholarship also take the existence and resurrection of a human/deity hybrid as allegory?

Brian

sotto voce · 03-12-2012, 11:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian63

Quote:

Originally Posted by sotto voce

Quote:

On the other hand, including a story about a talking snake in a story does tend to diminish the historical reliability of a story

That's circularity, pre-judging the issue.

It's also taking literally what scholarship takes as allegory.

Does scholarship also take the existence and resurrection of a human/deity hybrid as allegory?

Scholarship does not recognise such a category. Scholarship recognises the theoretical concept of supernal deity temporarily existing as a human, and the possibility that Jesus of Nazareth was this physical manifestation.

Brian63 · 03-12-2012, 11:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sotto voce

Quote:

Originally Posted by JonA

Try again. Repeatability is not a requirement of science.

False.

No, he is right. Sometimes we cannot even repeat the phenomenon being observed (our control over nature is limited), but we can still manage to sometimes successfully repeat the observations of that phenomenon. Ask astronomers who are studying some specific supernova far away. They cannot duplicate that particular supernova, but it may be that multiple astronomers are able to witness it, make observations, test various hypotheses, and draw conclusions from it. Otherwise the most that could be done is to get observations of a different supernova, which is not exactly the same, but sometimes close enough.

Brian

sotto voce · 03-12-2012, 12:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian63

Quote:

Originally Posted by sotto voce

Quote:

Originally Posted by JonA

Try again. Repeatability is not a requirement of science.

False.

No, he is right.

I am not going to do the work for you.

Brian63 · 03-12-2012, 12:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sotto voce

...Scholarship recognises the theoretical concept of supernal deity temporarily existing as a human, and the possibility that Jesus of Nazareth was this physical manifestation.

Do they also recognize the possibility that this manifestation is an allegory?

To borrow your earlier phrasing---is there any reason to believe one over the other? Either that Jesus was a physical manifestation of a supernatural deity, or that that was an allegory also in addition to the talking snake being an allegory?

Brian

Brian63 · 03-12-2012, 12:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sotto voce

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian63

No, he is right.

I am not going to do the work for you.

:huh: What work is that?

Do you have any response to the rest of the post? Is that slight rhetorical jab all I should be expecting as a response?

Brian

sotto voce · 03-12-2012, 12:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian63

Quote:

Originally Posted by sotto voce

...Scholarship recognises the theoretical concept of supernal deity temporarily existing as a human, and the possibility that Jesus of Nazareth was this physical manifestation.

Do they also recognize the possibility that this manifestation is an allegory?

Yes, but very few, if any, take it as allegory.

Quote:

To borrow your earlier phrasing---is there any reason to believe one over the other? Either that Jesus was a physical manifestation of a supernatural deity, or that that was an allegory also in addition to the talking snake being an allegory?

That's not what was claimed. The possibility that Jesus was a physical manifestation of supernatural deity is accepted, because that is the claim made by the text. A talking snake is not even entertained, because that is not the claim made by the text.

As it happens, the snake is taken as representative of Satan, and engaged in similar activity as when talking to Jesus.

Minimalist · 03-12-2012, 12:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Huon

People having visions, or talking to Satan, or to the Holy Virgin, or ... this is not super-natural.

I agree. Psychotic might be a better word.

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