Joan of Bark

I'm looking at an argument that Jesus was simply created from one source / group / writer and then somehow spread throughout the near east and Europe. If it was this way, I wouldn't expect differing accounts of his life. I don't know much about Mithra, but I would suggest his story started as a bunch of vague tales told orally and not written down for centuries. Such stories do tend to diverge.

I must add that I don't really have a strong opinion on MJ vs HJ debate, except that experts I admire fall on the HJ side, so I lean toward that belief.

Mandelbrot

Yet you consider it evidence? No wonder you are a condescending HJer. There is a reason even apologists don't try to use that as evidence. Seems to me they don't mind looking foolish but they are deathly afraid of proving themselves stupid. Perhaps you should take the hint?

Joan of Bark

So you're ignoring all the other gospels?

J-D

I don't divide people into those who are 'historicists' and those who aren't, because that distinction is one of the things which is not clear enough to be meaningful.

I don't respond to everything posted here. I can't remember everything i have responded to (and I don't believe you do either). What's the point of any of this? Suppose for the sake of argument it's true that I have asked some people to clarify their meanings and have not asked other people to do so. So what? That doesn't affect the merits of anybody's claims or the clarity of anybody's meaning.I'm not sure what you mean in this context by 'constructive'. If I point out errors in people's reasoning, they don't cease to be errors just because what I'm doing is not 'constructive', whatever that standard is and whyever you think it's a relevant one.Possibly, but I don't see how that generality is supposed to be helpful to me in this specific context.Everything posted here, whether it's posted a direct response to somebody's previous post or not, is available to be read by everybody. But I'm not setting myself up to be anybody's mentor.I am guessing (and guessing is all I can do) that this is supposed to be your explanation of why I don't understand what you posted earlier about 'cultural hegemony'. I can only guess that's what it's supposed to be, because I don't understand it. If that is what it's supposed to be, I can't tell whether it's an accurate explanation of why I didn't understand your earlier point. It might be, or it might not. But even if it an accurate explanation of why I don't understand what you posted earlier, it doesn't change the fact that I still don't understand any of what you've been posting about 'cultural hegemony'.But which generalisation of mine are you talking about?

Even if I had said (which I didn't), 'I see here (as well as elsewhere) that people generally don't understand how to formulate an existence claim so that it has a clear meaning', the qualification 'generally' (which is not in fact one I used) would have implied a recognition that there were instances which were exceptions to that generalisation.

But what I fact said was only, 'I see here (as well as elsewhere) that people don't always understand how to formulate an existence claim so that it has a clear meaning'. Do you really think it's reasonable to interpret somebody who says that something is 'not always' the case as failing to recognise that it is ever the case?I have to guess that what you mean by 'sublimate' is something like 'deny'. But saying that something is 'not always' the case, as I say, does not entail denying that it is ever the case.You have not succeeded in giving an explanation that I can understand, and you have also not succeeded in giving an indication of a way ahead that is clear enough for me to follow.I said that was going on; I never said that was the only thing going on.I don't know which tools you're talking about, nor how or by whom you think they're being removed from individuals' hands.Then you could begin by abandoning the use of terms like 'historicist', which on this forum are part of the adversarial way of doing things.Nothing I have said is inconsistent with that.A lot of people here are interested in discussions in which they use the term 'historical Jesus', but in those discussions that term has no clear meaning, and to the extent that the discussion centres on that term, or closely related ones, it becomes incoherent as a result. People think they're disagreeing, agreeing, asserting, denying, but in fact they're doing none of those things because the statements in the discussions have never been defined with adequate clarity.If the sort of discussions which revolve here around the term 'historical Jesus' are also taking place elsewhere, then those discussions elsewhere are just as much incoherent as the ones here.I don't know what specifically you mean in this context by 'convivial', or why you think it's important to be 'convivial', whatever you mean by it. Possibly you mean that you find my approach irritating. I don't see how that alters the merits of what I have to say.

outhouse

Ive had no issue with you, and stayed out of your buisiness alltogether.

I should have discluded you from my statement above since youve stayed out of mine.

my apologies


hey but now we can catch up on good ole times lol





My evidence is pauls epistles, Gmark luke and matthew, but more then anything cultural anthropology of first century Galilee.


From what I gather you have your own unique view not followed by many. Cool beans, I just see the evidence differently

Mandelbrot

No, you see as evidence what others see as toilet paper. You do know wishful thinking, no matter how fervent, is not going to change lead into gold or do you believe in alchemy too?

aa5874

When were ALL the other Gospels written???

outhouse

ah yes


a work of literary beauty in such a epic porportion the world will likely not see something to ever achieve its current level.

no other such work has held such cultural importance and influence onpeople living today.

ah yes toliet paper, what a perfect analogy :constern02:


wheather or not it is used for HJ MJ BJ its the best evidence we have.

spin

Then it is just random that you just target mythers.

Pointing out errors is the least you can do if you want to be helpful. Disputants frequently point out errors and there is no constructive intent. And I find your reaction to my use of "constructive" to be hard to fathom. Pointing out errors per se is pulling the rug out from under something. Then what do you do?

Don't go all semantic. Helpful, suggestive, providing an angle to look at something. Noting that everything posted here is available is hardly helpful.

Have you thought about googling it? Try here towards the bottom, where you'll find a summary of Raymond Williams on the subject as a starter.

(Sorry my editing wasn't good, leaving in "show".)

Here is an unhelpful generalization: "As a result, I see people discussing, asserting, and denying, sometimes vehemently, statements which have not been formulated so as to have clear meanings. The discussion which results is therefore largely or even entirely meaningless, even though the participants don't realise it."

There are other discussions here that don't fit your generalization and it would be helpful to consider them when you are trying to crap on the maximum territory.

When you use steel cap boots to enter a conversation, you need to be careful.

No, it doesn't mean "deny", "sublimate" involves something not manifested, such as the liquid stage of heating dry ice. Freud talks about people sublimating things, holding them in and not putting them out to be noticed. You are not denying well-formulated positions, but ignoring them.

You are chopping up a small attempt to explain the issue.

(Leaving things unstated...)

In the first post I mentioned "tools of conviviality". A plea for comprehension might have been more relevant after that than here after further exchanges. The term was coined by Ivan Illich, an educational and institutional critic and philosopher. He said in the introduction to a book by the name, 'I have chosen "convivial" as a technical term to designate a modern society of responsibly limited tools.'

I include constructive thinking processes among tools. (Edward De Bono is responsible for giving clarity to a number of thinking tools.)

Hegemony tends to limit the use of such tools and that includes keeping them in the hands of institutionally trained adepts, who dictate knowledge and reflect the status quo.

It's not strange that various discussions here are unclear, incoherent, logically-flawed and all those adjectives you can hurl at them. And merely reciting the adjectives won't change anything. The opportunity to pick up the tools and work with them will.

The term itself is both functional and descriptive. Complaining about a useful term doesn't show you interested in improving the discourse here. Would you take "conservative" out of political discussions? "Historicist" reflects a delineation that exists and that we can talk out.

Throwing out the term won't change anything. Clarifying it might. I have put forward a consistent view on the term. Why not try to air the issue in order to get more people to consider its significance? That could work toward the development of some consensus on which to build further discussion and development. (And that is "constructive"....)

(...But that isn't.)

Illich looked at the term this way: 'Such a society, in which modern technologies serve politically interrelated individuals rather than managers, I will call "convivial."' His "managers" are those for whom hegemony works. His "interrelated individuals" could be those who participate in discussions such as happen here on this forum, ordinary people, who I think can work at discussing issues substantively, but often lack the tools and fostering environment. For me such an environment would be "convivial".

mountainman

All statements from antiquity may be treated as evidence.

Perhaps you should take the time to understand that I use the Agbar Letter as positive evidence that the author of "Early Christian Church History" forges the sources he needed for his pseudo-historical extravanagnza. If you think I am an HJer then you are barking up the wrong tree. My thesis has been posted on the doors of the internet for several years.