Solo

I believe Franz Cumont is still highly esteemed in academia, his work considered ground-breaking, and in his own time unsurpassed. So, while some of his work has outlived its usefulness, he still counts as the expert consulted by all students of Mithraism and Roman oriental paganism.

He believed - on the evidence he had - that the western Mithraism was simply imported from Persia. This no longer stands, as there is no material evidence for the western Mithraic iconography in Iran. The Tauroctony symbology and the Taurobolium rites appear to have distinct function and belong to different religious cults in the West. Does that mean that they do not point to common origin ? I would not want to bet on that.

Jiri

Rick Sumner

I don't know why you think it's relevant. Either his argument here is good or it isn't. So far all I've seen to suggest that it isn't is that Ramsey may have loved the baby Jesus.

Clivedurdle

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/vi...er=R&artid=248

Toto

Ramsey's argument seems contrived to force an allegorical document to fit a Protestant Rationalist view of the Bible. He has John of Patmos addressing only seven churches but he knows that there were more than seven churches in Asia; so he finds a way to claim that it was actually meant to be distributed to more than seven.

I don't know if he loved Baby Jesus or not. His worldview is clear.

spamandham

I haven't rephrased your words. You stated it was "prima facie" evidence. I consider such an argument to be a nonargument. Prima facie arguments are useless in regard to textual analysis, where the intent of the author is everything.

No, but it does mean that we should not assume literal intent of any aspect.

Revelation isn't an epistle, and the evidence that epistles were passed out like this is extremely week at best - it's the same 'prima facie' nonargument again.

Rick Sumner

To expand on this a little, since I've had occasion to engage in a little more inquiry.

The name doesn't actually refer to any specific tablets. It refers to a specific collection. The way we could use "Pentateuch" to refer to the first five books, without reference to any particular manuscript evidence. It's the title of the compendium, not of the tablets in question.

The collection is generally held to date, in its earliest recension, to the period of old babylonian scribal scholarship, c.1800 CE. Interestingly, the work of this period seems to be interested primarily in lunar, rather than solar or stellar phenomena. It was retained up until at least the Seleucid period.

There also seems to be some discrepancy as to whether there were 70 or 77 tablets.

For some decent information on the subject (which is disturbingly difficult to find), see The AYBD's entry on Astrology in the ANE, as well as brief discussion in the entry on Second Isaiah. It garners several passing mentions through which something more substantial can be gleaned in the IVP Bible Background Commentary (OT). Very brief discussion in the Encyclopedia of Judaism, entry "Post Biblical Period," as well as some discussion in the ISBE entry on "Babylonia."

It's such a specialized area, and so prone to crackpots, that it's tough to find much worthwhile. If anyone knows of anything more I'd be delighted.

Rick Sumner

What an absurd position to take. The best evidence we have of authorial intention is authorial statement.

As a general rule of thumb, if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, the onus is on the person suggesting we are looking at something duck like, or something imitating a duck, rather than on the person claiming that we're looking at a duck.

We're never going to accomplish anything if we begin by not assuming that things duck-like are ducks.

See? Here you go. We see the author is stating his intentions. You suggest a reason we shouldn't take it at face value.

You address the prima facie argument. Just not, IMO, convincingly.

What evidence would you suggest we should have? What, other than expression of such behavior in an epistle, and records of such behavior in epistles, and indeed the preservation of material such as the Paulines because of that behavior?

This is boggling to me. The evidence that epistles were passed out like that is both abundant and the only evidence there is. There is no evidence that they were not passed out like that.

What would you suggest as evidence that Revelations was not disseminated as an epistle? It claims to contain letters. It claims to be disseminated accordingly. It contains greetings and a doxology. Its author makes no claim of any kind of authority, beyond the type of revelatory claim anyone could make. It looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck. It's probably a duck.

Jeffrey Gibson

Would you be kind enough please to name the 12 languages that AS can read?


With thanks in advance to your on point answer to this question,

Jeffrey

Solo

In fairness, only Slavonic versions of 2 Enoch survive (a Coptic fragment was discovered in april of 2009) and the original language behind them is thought to be Greek, not Hebrew.

The book is usually dated toward the end of 1st century CE.

Jiri

spamandham

This may seem to you common sense, but I reject it in regard to political, religious, or other obviously self serving texts.

In regard to the first centuries, this was a period of widespread religious literary creativity, as purported by both Ireneaus and Lucian, and evidenced by numerous noncanonical texts that demonstrate it.

There are no default positions. If you don't want to provide a solid argument for your position, that's up to you.

I disagree. I think we can discern intent from a text and external knowledge of the period. We are not stuck just accepting at face value what the author tells us.

You're asking me to provide falsification criteria for your premise?

The evidence that they were passed out like that in the latter 2nd century is certainly abundant. But what about in the mid-first century - the traditional dating?