Amaleq13

You have been showing remarkable restraint lately by not doing so.

It was a somewhat convoluted sentence.

Layman asserted that it was "unlikely" Luke would create the impression that Jesus was not conceived around the same time as John but the connection to Quirinius does exactly that.

You offered what you considered to be an example of Luke creating the impression that Jesus was conceived around the same time as John.

Even if I accept your example as truly doing what you claim, the connection to Quirinius and subsequent impression continues to exist. It neither counters the observation about the Quirinius connection nor actually supports Layman's assertion. It just means that impressions of both views can be obtained from the text.

The point is that there is nothing in the text to suggest it did and I would suggest that no one unfamiliar with the relevant debate would assume such a thing if they were presented with the passage. The author appears to have related only those "highlights" of the Baptist's life and career that he considered relevant to his story about Jesus.

Suggesting it all took place within a single year seems like more of a stretch to me than suggesting it took nearly a decade but it seems a stretch to me as well.

It isn't like he just pulled that number range out of a hat, though:

In Ancient Literacy (1989, p. 269) William Harris observes that it was common in inscriptions to round someone's age off to the nearest multiple of 5, and even then this often indicated an illiterate lack of any real knowledge of one's age to begin with. So when Luke says Jesus was "about" thirty, he could mean any age between 27.5 and 32.5, although, from ignorance of the actual year the ministry started, Luke could be in error by an even wider margin.

spin

Why? MKTBNWT) is a generic word which contains the basic meaning of apografh, including "register, account" and has a legal component "deed, act, contract". It isn't going to mean "story, narration" in the context of Quirinius doing it.

You can't expect MKTBNWT) to contain all the information that it is intended to translate, but it does have the notion of writing in a book for purposes of recording. How else might one attempt to translate apografh in one or two words? Some precision is lost in translation, but it is indicative of the Greek.

And I don't really see why you are so worried about the taxation aspect.


spin

Steven Avery

Apparently you entered the thread simply for repetitious polemic. As requested, the thread is designed as a review and critique and discussion of the Richard Carrier 'Nativity' article and it would be appreciated if off-topic stuff was taken elsewhere.

Shalom shabbat,
Steven

spin

I happily stayed out of the thread because it wasn't saying very much to me, until you dropped the clanger in this post

Deliberately omitting this verse that shows Lukan precision on the Roman titles and rulerships is an incredible sleight-of-hand omission by Richard Carrier.

The whole thing was just too silly for words. You were outcrapping Carrier crapping on.

I just gave you another perspective on the accuracy and precision of the material in Luke which has outside reference.


spin

Sauron

<edit>

[1] Here is your claim again, in context:

[2] And then Doug Shaver challenged you on the bold red text.

[3]
Instead of backing up your claim, you tried to shift the burden onto the questioner, Doug Shaver:

I also called you to task, because when Doug challenged your claim, you tried to turn it around on him and make it his burden to prove the contrary. As if the mere act of Doug asking a question somehow obligated him to argue or prove a point. it does not.

Everything since then has been watching you backpedal and try to tell us that you didn't really say any of this -- but the nice thing about the internet is that there is a permanent record, so intellectual dishonesty doesn't have much leash to run with.

Except that this exchange very clearly shows that you did make this claim, and you did try to shift the burden of proof.

No, what you did was wiggle and squeal like a stuck pig. As I pointed out several times -- and provided links to your original post -- it was your own words that hoisted your own ass into the air. It was nothing that I -- or anyone else -- did to you, praxeus. Your injuries are all self-inflicted.

All I did was hold you accountable for your words -- and that's when you had a nervous breakdown.

Steven Avery

Sauron, you have a bit of a comprehension problem. Nuff said.

Sauron

Apparently not.

All it took was a step-by-step listing of the events and the comments, to finally make you give up the pretense that you didn't say what the evidence shows you clearly *did* say.

Johnny Skeptic

Very well done, Sauron. You did an excellent job of discrediting Praxeus' arguments. Typical of many Christians, when he gets in trouble, he gives up. He gave up with me when we debated the New Testament Canon. We can be reasonably certain that there is not any evidence at all that God had anything whatsoever to do with writings became the New Testament Canon, and the Old Testament for that matter. However, it does satisfy fundamentalist Christians' emotional needs quite nicely to believe that God was involved.

Of course, Praxeus has embarrassed himself before. He thought that fossils being at the tops of mountains was excellent evidence that there was a global flood, but he had no answer when Diogenes the Cynic told him that that is exactly what geologists expected to find since when mountains were formed at sea level and rose upward, it was quite naturally for fossils to be pushed up to the tops of mountains.

Steven Avery

Then you show where I ever claimed that "professional historians" was my issue. As Sauron falsely claimed was my approach three times. However Sauron could not so he hand-waved and blustered which is enough for this rah-rah contingent. Same old.

Anyway, this basic discussion is also covered better on the thread set up by Doug Shaver (where Sauron has not posted, and I have covered the same issues of "contradiction" and "burden of proof" .. logicians and historians) .. a more appropriate venue.

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=199445
Re: Burden of proof regarding contradictions

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic Praxeus ... thought that fossils being at the tops of mountains was excellent evidence that there was a global flood, but he had no answer when Diogenes the Cynic told him that that is exactly what geologists expected to find .

Yes, Johnny, the wonderful world of post-facto "predictions" .. amazing. You and James Tabor.

Anyway, please try to keep this thread on the Richard Carrier 'Nativity' article rather than your standard fare derailment attempts.

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

Sauron

Nobody said it was your issue. It was, however, connected to a *claim* you made. Apparently you think that your claims should be exempt from the need to be supported.

Oh, please.

I said nothing about your "approach"; for that matter, I couldn't care less what "approach" you take. I was responding to your claim. Attempts to introduce "approach" into this is are just last-minute distractions to make yourself look better.

What I said was that you made a claim about the burden of proof, and when Doug Shaver challenged to support your claim, you tried to reverse the burden back onto him.

Then I came along and pointed the whole mess out to you. But instead of supporting your claim about historical burden of proof - or retracting it - you buckled under the pressure.

Now you're trying to make your claim out to be something totally different than what it plainly was. Moreover, Doug Shaver confirmed that not only did I report his position correctly, but that he agreed with what I said.

You've run out of room to run, praxeus. Yet you continue pretending that you claimed something other than what the record clearly shows.

And people wonder why christian apologists get such a hard time around here. If you can't be intellectually honest with the people you debate, then it's unlikely that you've been intellectually honest with your own selves in matters of faith.