Jeffrey Gibson

No, it's not. But who has done this? Not me. If you go back and read closely what I have written here, you'll see that all I have done is to post some means by which the question about the quality of Price's scholarshipthat someone else raised might be answered.

I'd be grateful if you'd cease attributing to me things I have not done.

Jeffrey

No Robots

Mack's book is searchable on Amazon (or via: amazon.co.uk). He states that the existence of first-century Galilean synagogues is not substantiated by archeologists and historians, and that these synagogues are present in the Gospels because "Mark's fiction demanded it" (p. 159).

This is just more of the same old clandestine mythicism.

Sheshonq

As far as I can see, Ted Hoffman addressed your list of reasons. Twice.

Some of them he knocked down as being inaccurate, and the rest were knocked down for your misconception about what Price's claim was (i.e., Price wasn't discussing literary references to synagogues, so attempts at rebuttal using literary sources are doomed to fail at the outset).

Were you planning to respond to Hoffman?

Sheshonq

But you've yet to demonstrate that Price misrepresented Mack.

You haven't given any particular reason to even speculate that Price has misrepresented Mack, either. True, you've raised the question several times. But without any reason to suspect misrepresentation, then why in the world would you even ask?

It appears - as I said earlier - to be a drive-by attempt at mentioning "Price" and "misrepresent" together, in order to poison the well.

Sheshonq

A point that has already been established, remember?

The fact that you disagree with it doesn't prove that Price has misread the available evidence. He has not done so.

You may disagree with his conclusion, but his premise (GMark contains fictionalized claims about Christ) is consistent with the utter archaeological absence of any evidence for synagogues.

No, it appears that you are working really hard to dislike Price, and it is affecting your ability to separate your passion from evaluating his argument.

Sheshonq

On the contrary. This is precisely what you have done. Let's review your words:

That's not the most that can be said, especially if Price has not accurately represented the claims made by Mack vis a vis synagogues, if he has misrepresented Mack implying that that when Mack speaks of synagogues, he, like Price, thinks that "synagogue" means "house of prayer", if he presents Mack as thinking that the absence of archaeological evidence entails an absolute conclusion that there were no synagogues in Galilee before the end of the 1st century CE, and. most importantly, if Price has ignored other things that Mack has said about synagogues that would vitiate the conclusion that Price is asking us to accept on the basis of Mack's authority.

Raising a list of specific derogatory issues in this manner is the same as saying, "I have no evidence that my opponent beats his wife, is a raging alcoholic, or a member of the Communist party." It's drive-by slander.

It's worse than that, however. You wrote the above paragraph AFTER Ted Hoffman had already answered several of these faux objections. Ted responded to you on page 2 of this thread; yet you repeated this paragraph (blue, above) on page 3.

That means you continued to repeat these speculations, knowing they were baseless. Your attempt at plausible deniability is contemptible and unworthy of someone who styles themself a scholar.

The evidence says otherwise.

Toto

..

Should this thread be split or banished to E?

Jeffrey Gibson

Nice of you to ignore the conditional nature of these statements, to take then out of context, to present me as saying anything like the "I have no evidence" bit above when I did not, and to characterize my conditionals (which if true would show nothing more than poor scholarship on Price's part) as something other than what they are, let alone to present them as if they were charges of moral turpitude.

Now who was it who chided me for trying to pass off reputedly non equivalent statements as equivalent ones?

Jeffrey

Sheshonq

I did not ignore anything. Let's review:

1. you listed suprisingly detailed suspicions about Price's use of Mack;
2. but there is no reason to suspect Price of any of this;
3. your list of suspicions was already shot down by Ted Hoffman;
4. you repeated the list anyhow - conditionality after being shown that the suspicions were baseless is not camouflage

Juxtaposed against these facts, your "conditionality" is just part of the framework of a bad attempt at plausible deniability.

Julian

[MOD]
The topic for this thread is 'Synagogues in Galilee' and it is hereby strongly suggested that the conversation returns to that arena. Any further discussion of Robert Price is not only pointless but will also cause me to lock this thread.

Julian
Moderator, BC&H
[/MOD]