badger3k

Here's one list of Genre's that I found:
http://www.editorialdepartment.com/content/view/412/412

Another:
http://www.genreflecting.com/Genres.html
and more detail: http://www.genreflecting.com/Adpage10.html

Another:
http://www.dmoz.org/Arts/Online_Writing/Fiction/Genres/

All I find on "Historical Imitation":
http://www.google.com/search?client=...UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Here's a sample: http://www.jstor.org/pss/2960094 (I might have access and can try to get this if anyone really wants it)

And, just for sitz-&-grinz, here is an article on "historical imitation (pdf):
http://www.ccsr.ca/csbs/2000prez.pdf

I can't find anything on a genre commonly accepted called "Historical Imitation". Maybe we need to create a new area, to match this attempt to save an argument?

As an aside, an Amazon search of "historical imitation" includes a vampire erotica novel. Who'd a thunk it? (Tried a link, but for some reason couldn't get it to work, but you can do yer own searches!)

Ted Hoffman

Ah, great, so you no longer ask for the exact location of the sublunar region? Great. After so many years and debates, some progress at last.
So, your issue is that the sublunar region was corruptible? That is okay with my position. Carrier explained this a while back with respect to the fixed position of the stars and the shifting position of the moon and how the ancients interpreted these. It is clear to me that there were varying degrees of corruptibility per layer. The important and general point is that mankind occupied the most corruptible and god(s) the incorruptible layers with other beings - demons, intermediaries, fallen angels etc - occupying the middle realm.
So your argument is, we can have war in heaven, but no deaths? Where did you get this from? From whence did you get the idea that we can have a corruptible layer without death?
Demonstrate please. How did the incorruptible come to (have sex and) impregnate the corruptible right smack in the middle of middle platonism?
It depends on what you mean by incorruptible realm. You have something rigid. I dont think the documentary record can support the weight of your steely rigidity.
So long as we agree that he took a different form.
Yes, you would have us believe that nobody was that creative those days, right?

GakuseiDon

Er, yes. I don't know if you know this, but I actually won that debate against Doherty. Remember how he used to argue in terms of "overlapping dimensions", etc, while I always argued that it was in the sky between earth and the moon? Now he agrees with my view, and talks of "locations" rather than "overlapping dimensions".

Holy Ravioli! "Varying degrees of corruptibility per layer"??? No, no, no. How on earth that can be clear to you even after reading Doherty's book I have no idea.

I tell you what. Write an email to Doherty, tell him that demons existed in the incorruptible layers according to Platonic beliefs. When he says to you "What on earth are you smoking?", accuse him of "steely rigidity".

No violent deaths in the sublunar realm. Only on earth or underneath. That's all I'm aware of.

Good question (though no sex was actually involved), and something that occupied heretical minds for generations.

Great! References, then, please. And when you find out that Doherty agrees with me, could you ask him why he is steely rigid on this point too, please? He will give the same reason as me, but you are more likely to believe it coming from him.

It isn't a matter of being creative or not, it is what the literature tells us. References show that people in Paul's time believed that demons inhabited the sublunar realm and earth, which made up the realm of corruptibility. References suggest that they DIDN'T believe that demons existed in the realm of incorruptibility. Now, is it possible that some people thought differently? Sure! But what it comes down to is the references. There are no references that people thought in terms of violent death in the sublunar realm (except other than as metaphors for natural forces, like in Plutarch's Isis and Osiris).

Ben C Smith

Hope this helps.

Ben.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Gamera,

Thanks, this is helpful.

I think the gospels fit squarely in the Graeco-Roman biographical tradition the way "Iron Man" or "Spider-man" fits squarely in the American biographical documentary tradition. In other words, for each passing similarity, there are ten times more important and significant differences. No doubt there are biographical documentaries about industrialists, but the similaries of "Iron Man" to them are only trivial, and there are biographical documentaries about teen-agers with unusual abilities, but again, the similarities of Spider-man to this genre pale in comparison with the differences.

The four canonical gospels are all mixed genre concoctions. The first part of them resemble Hebrew prophetic literature, the second part -- the passion narrative -- resembles Roman romantic adventure novels and mime theater.

In this sense, the gospels resemble the recent movies "Serenity" which mixes the Science Fiction genre with the Western genre or "Pan's Labyrinth" which mixes a realistic historical adventure-drama with a fairytale.

We also need to include the so-called non-canonical gnostic literature when discussing the various genres that the Jesus characters (Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus the Christ) appear in.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Ted Hoffman

Nitpicks.
Doherty is not the only person who has commented on the subject.
I agree that demons occupy corruptible realm. How do you reconcile that with Tatian's statement in Address 20 where he says that says that demons are at "a more excellent order of things than exists here now."
Please explain this.
There is something called inference.
It proves that some believed the corruptible and incorruptible could not only interact: they could even have babies. You are confusing dualism with "mutually exclusive".
I have given you Tacitus.

TedM

Perhaps I wasn't clear by calling it "human wisdom". I meant "wisdom" possessed by humans. You are referring to the SOURCE of wisdom. You got half of it: Human wisdom revealed by God, God's spirit. You missed the other half: Human wisdom derived by men.

I was contrasting WHO Paul was talking about possessing God's wisdom (humans) and lacking God's wisdom (other humans). It's really obvious from the context, and the idea that Paul was really saying that demons crucified Jesus because they lacked wisdom from God is laughable. Ok, I'll prove it to you. Here's the entire section, from 1:18 through then end of chapter 2. I'll highlight WHO Paul was saying possessed God's wisdom in blue, and those who didn't in red, and maybe that will help you understand WHO Paul was saying crucified Jesus:


I hope this helps you see the obvious. Over and over the comparison is made between humans with the wisdom of God, and humans who don't have God's wisdom, but just had human wisdom. Show me ANY reference to demonic wisdom in the above passage other than the one you WISH were.


It should now be obvious that God is talking about humans lacking wisdom in "THIS AGE". Note especially verse 1:20 which makes this obvious. 2:8 is making the same comparison--humans lacking wisdom of God. And, he refers in Romans 13:3 to "archons", meaning HUMAN rulers.

Now that I've so THOROUGHLY shown you the proper way to interpret the context, I'll repeat my prior questions:



Can you honestly hold this view despite ALL of the references in red above which CLEARLY are talking about HUMANS lacking God's wisdom, and not demons?


GDon's doing just fine without me.


ted

Doug Shaver

Nobody in antiquity ever alleged that someone many people believed to be historical was not really historical?

Solitary Man

But that's not what you were talking about originally.

Originally from you: And that is precisely why I find it highly credible that a fictional account of a charismatic Jewish teacher who got himself executed came to be widely thought of as factual history.

Response from Gamera: And yet while you and other have expressed this view, and even written books about it, nobody in antiquity did.

Nobody in antiquity questioned the historicity of Jesus, that charismatic Jewish teacher who got himself executed.

Gamera

If these were the case you should write an article on it, as it is a very important claim.

Burridge, of course, attempts to show that the gospels fit squarely within the conventions of the genre of Graeco-Roman biography, using computer analysis and comparing the gospels with known G-R biographies. I think his scholarship on the matter is pretty good. In addition, numerous authors refering to these texts a century or two later treat them as a biography of Jesus in that genre. Needless to say Luke's introduction explicitly announces that his gospel is an attempt at historiography.

If you have evidence that some other genre of the time applies, not only should you cite it here, but you should submit it to peer review.

(I would note that nobody takes Spiderman to be a documentary; and yet everybody who writes about the gospels in antiquity takes them as biographical. This suggests your analogy is not only inaccurate, but grossly inaccurate).