mountainman

Dear S&H,

Thanks for the candid reply. An appreciation of humour, especially in the mantle of satire, parody and or burlesque will be required at the end of the day, in my opinion, in order to be able to place the entire set of new testament documents in their original ancient historical - and strict chronological - perspective.

My occasional humor is absolutely necessary for my own peace of mind, and I am glad it is occasionally mutual. An open mind on these, and other issues of mutual interest, is not your lack: and I am grateful for this concession (in you, and in others).

Best wishes,


Pete

spin

The current voting situation, excluding those who chose the third way (finding themselves not in a position to answer a yes/no question), is that 23 people have indicated they think that mountainman's theory has been falsified.

That leaves seven who voted against falsification. Of those, mountainman himself should not have voted, just as I haven't: it is meaningless for either of us to vote on the subject. Sheshbazzar, patcleaver and spamandham have indicated that they don't accept mountainman's theory though have opted not to vote against the theory but to take the opportunity to propose other ideas, which has no place in this poll. That leaves three "no" votes, as far as I can see.

This of course won't stop mountainman from flooding the forum with his misinterpretations of texts, his denials of evidence, or his efforts to avoid providing any tangible evidence for his theory. It just shows that a ratio of 23 to 3 of members of the forum see that his theory has been falsified.


spin

mountainman

Dear Spin,

It was late. I was tired. The lights were dim. The day long gone. Suddenly a strange poll appeared. I was at first tempted to vote option one against myself, and then, after hours of agonising over this option, discovered that after all was said and done, it was distinctly possible that I, myself, did not truly understand my own theory. Therefore, for more hours I pontificated about voting for option number three. At the last moment, just before I was about to push the button and vote option three, a miracle happened in broad daylight. The mouse attached to my computer became animated with the holy ghost, and just as the wind blows, listless as you will hither and thither, Jesus himself filled my mouse with love and compassion for the second option, and with a divine click, it appeared to the external world, as if I voted for myself. I am not about to become an apologist for Jesus, or his fourth century sponsor and publicist bullneck.


One of my claims is that the tangible evidence is before our eyes in the identification and recognition of satire, parody and burlesque which appears to run through most of the new testament apochryphal corpus (with a few notable exceptions such as he gThomas). I have taken great efforts in the attempt to engage discussion on this aspect of the NT apochryphal acts, and gospels, but to no avail. You refuse to respond to the issue for some obscure reason. But even so, I have put forward this material as tangible evidence from the fourth century. It's not as though I have put nothing forward. If you are talking dismissal, should you not dismiss that which I have tendered as evidence with perhaps a briefly phrased reason or two, and allow me to respond?

Best wishes,


Pete

Jeffrey Gibson

Actuallly, you've done no such thing. A real effort to engender discussion would have entailed you posting to sites where actual experts in ancient history and the genres of ancient literature reside.

Nor have you done any of the real work which would warrant anyone thinking that you had the expertise in greco Roman rhetoric you claim you do, so that your claims about what the actual genre of any NT apocryphal writing is woukd be worth the effort.

For instance, it's evident that you have never done the the grunt work that is necessary for anyone to think that your claims about the genre of the writings of the NT apocrypha have any merit whatsoever. That is to say, you have never taken the time to discover, let alone lay out, what forms and themes and topoi and structure ancient satire. parodies, and burlesques actually took and what were regarded by ancient authors of the elements that a writing had to have in order to be recognized or taken as satire, burlesque, and/or parody. You've not read widely either in our extant examples of such works, or in the scholarship on these literary forms, to know.

Why then should any one take you seriously when you claim that the NT apocryphal writings are satires, parodies, burlesques, etc, when you don't know what the elements that ancient burlesques, parodies, satires had to have actually were?

Jeffrey

Sheshbazzar

That I do not entirely accept mountainman's theory is irrelevent to the question that you posed in the OP.
My vote is specifically that I do not find the Dura Europos evidence either pertinent to, or sufficiently convincing to falsify mountainman's theory.
The OP question, as it was phrased, does not ask whether we find MM's theory to be false, but whether we find his theory falsified specifically on the basis of -your- interpretation of that Dura "evidence".
In my initial post in this thread I entered my objections to your totally uncritical and unsceptical treatment of the Dura material, with -your- "Two Mary's", "Jesus and Peter" etc. (Even the Dura arcaeoligists did not go so far as to attempt to hang specific "christian" names on these UNIDENTIFIED subjects.)
Really, you have managed to come off sounding more like a combo of "Biblical Archaeologist" Ron Wyatt, mixed with the unsavory and scornful debate tactics of a J.P. Holding. Are you contemplating declaring yourself to be a Fundamentalist Christian minister?
Anyway, that is what you are seriously beginning to sound like to me.
Finally, your attempts to discredit and discount any votes that are not in agreement with your own pre-formed opinions and position, makes a farce out of your so-called poll.

mountainman

Dear Jeffrey,

I have on a number of occassions referred to an article entitled The NON CANONIC as PAGAN POLEMIC. Have you looked at this? I thought not. In that article I have gathered material from a number of sites which provide articles by authors who discuss a number of these apochryphal acts. These authors include the following:

* Article (1): THE NEW TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA - Richard Bauckham
* Article (2a): The Thirteenth Apostle - the Gospel of Judas as a PARODY - by April DeConick
* Article (2b): Do non-canonical texts make you uneasy? - Tony Chartand-Burke, via April DeConick
* Article (3): NT Apocryphal Acts - notes of Dr. Cranford, Gardner-Webb University - Interpreting the New Testament documents
* Article (4): Apocryphal Acts Homepage - István Czachesz, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies
* Article (5): The Revolt of the Widows: The Social World of the Apocryphal Acts - by Stevan L. Davies
* Article (6): A selection of brief quotations on the NT Apocrypha
* Article (7): The Shadowy Leucius Charinus and his "Leucian Acts"

At this stage, the article begins to focus on these so-called five "Leucian Acts" and I have then presented a Comparitive review of scholarship on the "Leucian Acts" by going through each of the five texts one by one, and setting beside each other comments from a number of academic commentators on each of the acts. These authors include István Czachesz, Geoff Trowbridge, Glenn Davis, M.R. James, Robert F. Stoops, Philip Sellew, Jean-Marc Prieur, Robert Lamberton, Harold W. Attridge. Consequently Jeffrey, I think you either have not read the article to which I have referred on many occassions, or you will not.

One does not require a degree to be able to laugh at a joke. One does not have to have studied greco Roman rhetoric in order to appreciate the point of satire. I took the time the prepare for the web the text of Julian's "The Caesars" aka "Symposium" aka "Kronia" of c. 361 CE, which is a classic example of satire from the period seeing that Emperor Julian gets stuck right into both Constantine and Jesus. Particular mention should be made of the words, which have been italicised below, which the Emperor Julian puts into the mputh of Jesus:


I hope you are not about to deny this is a satire,
written specifically by the emperor Julian against
Constantine and the religion of the Galilaeans.



Because contrary to your mis-authoritative and excessively unfair claims in this post, I have actually done a reasonable amount of groundwork to the issues surrounding a large number, if not all of the new testament apochryphal acts. In addition to indexes and references to the source material (mentions of the apochrypha) in Eusebius and elsewhere, where else is a comparitive assessment available on various of these apochryphal acts between various academic commentators available for viewing on the net?

The new testament apochrypha have been described as a textual critics nightmare because noone to date (that I aware of), except perhaps April Deconnick in gJudas, has identified the presence of satire, parody and/or burlesque in the non canonical acts directed fairly and squarely against the characters of the Constantinian canon.

Best wishes,


Pete

spamandham

The poll was whether or not the Dura evidence falsifies MM's hypothesis. Though I don't accept his hypothesis, I don't think the Dura evidence falsifies it, so I voted no. You can add mine back into your tally.

patcleaver

You never defined what MM's theory was because:

1) You never defined what Christianity means under MM's theory.

2) You never defined what inventing (of Christianity) means under MM's theory.

You never explained how the evidence of Dura-Europos indicates that MM's theory was proved wrong by the evidence.

spin

All you were doing was trying to recontextualize the Dura diatessaron for your own theories and failing through not having any evidence whatsoever to make you think that the data fit elsewhere. You can avoid the data as much as you want. But hey, if you really want to be among the nay-sayers...


spin

spin

You need to read mountainman's theory.


spin