Adam

The usual magic failed, Toto
The second review (supposedly to Painter) just leads again to du Toit.

Someone should tell me sometime (I saw it explained once years ago) how to link and then substitute a here or there over it (for economy of text and better explanation). If it matters.

Adam

Thank you, Tanya.
Your remarks in your Post #287 are almost equally applicable against consensus scholarship on the gospels, so I'll leave it open for some HJ believer to answer you. (If no one does, I'll try to remember to do so. Remind me if necessary.)
Regarding your Point #2, however, part of that applies only against an early date. First, why would a gospel about events in about 30 CE mention anyone whose only relevant contact was years later. Second, there's no evidence in gMark that the writer knew any of Paul's epistles. If there is overlap, the influence could just as easily be the other direction. Maurice Casey and James Crossley are firm on this.

Toto

Sorry - I've fixed the link.

The link to Painter's review is http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/4577_4907.pdf

spin

No, you're the person who was tacky enough to fuck with someone's name.

Casey is a philologist who doesn't know linguistics. His dismissal of Latin is endemic of his approach. He doesn't dare to examine the weight of the Latin evidence (see p.83 of "Aramaic Sources..."). He fobs the issue off (see p.144) and makes assertions such as "We should infer that loanwords for Roman things were commoner than we can see from contemporary extant Aramaic sources alone." (p.187) His is another conclusion driven exercise in self delusion. He shows no interest in the fact that there are, besides quite a lot of Latin words, numerous Latin loan translations, Latin idioms, Latin syntax, and Latin constructions such as Syrophoenicians and Herodians.

It's no wonder that you find a kindred spirit. Casey is blind to the Latin connection because he is too busy trying to sell his pet hypothesis.

This refutation seems to have been refutation in desire only. We are no closer to a firm date for the writing of Mark than we were 100 years ago.

There are few limits to the writing of Mark, except for the torn curtain in the temple, an image of the loss of the temple, which is not possible before the fall of the temple to Vespasian's son, Titus.

The only joke is that I'd thought you would have known the relevant literature, but you didn't. But you keep thinking you don't have to worry about the Latinisms. Casey steers well clear from the subject, except for a few timorous occasions. And you can steer clear of the chiastic structures that cross your layer boundaries. You don't want anything to spoil your sandcastles.

Adam

I'm not qualified to refute you here. Have you published your debunking of Casey? Can you cite or link authorities who have? You're now the one making assertions, so the burden of proof is on you.
Yes, that's how Casey and Crossley can forward mid-thirties dates as possible. Do they mean this only of the Aramaic originals of Mark and Q? In light of the chiasms in the later Greek edition, and the Latinisms yet later, getting dogmatic about an earlier date than the traditional ("dogmatic") of mid-sixties seems unreasonable for the finished product.
Who is your authority for such a dogmatic claim about one short verse? Nor would this affect an earlier date for an earlier edition(s).
The chiasms only need to be there when the Layer 4 was available to Luke. With a date for gLuke at 62 CE, and a further Layer 5 to add the Latinisms, we're back at a traditional date for gMark at about 65 CE. So when Casey and Crossley say mid-thirties is possible, are they saying author of the Aramaic, translators/redactors into Greek, or later editor/redactor where Latinisms were introduced. Casey has individual books on underlying Aramaic for Mark and Q, so we have to be careful what we're talking about here. I have not read those books, but I have read you here, and you aren't making these distinctions. Indeed, you and Vorkosigan in denying my six layers seem to be asserting there is only one, with all the chiams and Latinisms suddenly springing to life. If in ridiculing Casey that is what you're saying, the burden of proof shifts to you. (I'm mindful of how you treated Joe Atwill.)

spin

Usually when one is unable to defend something, they ironically complain that their opponent must have published something.

Read his book and then tell me I'm making assertions.

You are asserting that the Latinisms are late. There is no evidence for this. There is a widespread Latin influence as I have pointed out several times. You are in denial.

Denial is the response, hmmm. The curtain renting is part of a discourse. Perhaps you want to put that in your seventh layer.

If one has your presuppositions.

Get back to us when you have and maybe we can compare notes.

I can't talk for Vork. I don't deny your six layers. I merely sees that they have trouble coping with evidence.

Neither chiasms nor Latinisms haven't suddenly sprung to life. They've been around for a loooong time. You need to be aware of them and treat them with respect, otherwise they'll come back and bite you.

I've cited the issues regarding Casey. Love them or leave them.

Vorkosigan

top scholars are now actively trashing current presuppositions?

ROFL. Casey's conclusions about Aramaic in Mark have hardly earned acceptance among his peers. As for the "now" Harnack died in 1930.

Adam, maybe you should take a step back and intensively explore the literature on Mark instead of relying only a Teeple plus out of context discoveries on the Internet.

Vorkosigan

Roger Pearse

I'm not following this thread, since it seems to be a medieval-style argument from what are supposed to be "authorities". I have long felt that in New Testament studies, a controversial subject, the "consensus of scholars" in any period and country, insofar as I am familiar with it, reflects rather strongly the views of those who control university appointments. Indeed I have a volume on my shelf in which a Victorian bishop solemnly avers that the Didache shows that the early Church was organised on Anglican lines -- a view which, if taken seriously, would mean that at the time of Jane Austen the Anglican church was run by apostles and presbyters!

It is unfortunate that, whenever I see people arguing that the NT documents were written much later than the ancient evidence says they were, I can also see a motive in fairly plain view. It is equally unfortunate that, when I hear extremely confident claims that "scholarship proves..." what no ancient source says, I can only remember the poor soul who published an academic "proof" that John's gospel was composed in 170 AD -- the consensus of scholars --, in the same year as the publication of P52. As H.I.Bell commented at the time, while 170 was perhaps only a little later than the window of manufacture of P52, it could hardly be supposed that P52 was the original, or anything but the result of some generations of copying.

Both observations pre-dispose myself to severe scepticism when people start making claims about eternal truth (or its falsity) based on this sort of stuff.

One other query, before the attempts resume to beat each other over the head with "my authority is bigger than yours". Quite a lot of the atheists in this forum subscribe to the "Jesus myth" theory -- including you, Vork, if I recall correctly; but none of the scholars referenced here believe in it, so it seems as if a bit of a double-standard is going on here, in making exaggerated claims about the authority of people whose authority is instantly rejected when inconvenient.

In short, it would be better, surely, to argue from evidence whatever it is that we wish to say.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

tanya

I agree wholeheartedly with your second point. I disagree most fervently, with your first point.

We don't know, or, perhaps, more honestly, I don't know, looking at P52, whether it is the original, or a copy of a copy of a copy...for n generations.

I think it is a mistake to assume anything about P52. It is evidence. We know nothing of its origin, looking at it.

Of importance to this post, in my view, is that P52 is our OLDEST extant reference to any of the gospels, and it dates, by palaeography, to the second half of the second century.

We have no evidence of any gospel, or comparable text, from the first century. We have several documents from the second and third centuries.

An old document survives floods, rainfall, terrorism, fire, dust, wind, insects, for one thousand eight hundred years......In short, it survives by LUCK.

Is it your opinion, Roger, and Adam, that we possess no documents aged one thousand nine hundred years, because that's just the luck of the draw?

I argue, that it is was not purely luck, but rather someone(s)' painstaking effort(s), to save those precious documents, so that they were not destroyed by fire, flood, insects, etc....

In other words, no documents were saved from 1900 years ago, because none had been created in the first century. It is difficult to save, from fire, water, insects, etc, a non-existent document.

aa5874

The evidence tend to show they were written later that is why there is a consensus that NT documents were written After the Fall of the Temple.