GakuseiDon

What does "village atheism" mean? I've never heard it before.

Ted Hoffman

Village atheism is a primitive, paranoid brand of atheism. It is characterized by a persistent and all-out attack on religious belief of any kind and a conviction that religion is inherently evil and should be eliminated by all means. Its atheism as a 'metaphysical restraint' like a pathological phobia for the supernatural. It is characterized by lack of critical thought and unbalanced, sociopathic attitudes especially where religious issues are involved.

Some consider Madalyn Murray O'Hair to have been the classic village atheist. Her character is said to have been nasty and some claim that her loathing of humanity was dispensed without partiality. Her born-again christian son wrote an autobiography My Life Without God and I understand he did not paint her in an unflattering light.

Now, this is the kind of atheist that some quarters are eager to show as an example of what atheists are. But they are compelled to attach 'village' to it because atheists also are among the nicest, most brilliant, most tolerant and most humane of people. I don't know what the latter are called.

But a word like 'bright' instead of 'atheist' (all too commonly misunderstood) takes the sting out of 'village'. Try 'village bright'. Not very effective. Is it?

Vorkosigan

You know, there are quite a number of place names in Mark -- gethsemane, golgotha, nazareth, dalmanutha, arimathea, etc, whose location is unknown. What if Gerasenes was originally something like the TR has it -- Gergasenes, which coincidentally sounded like gerasenes and was thus corrected in later manuscripts.

GakuseiDon

Thanks for that, JA.

Ted Hoffman

Now that I have calmed down.

Vork, the idea that Mark made up locations, I think, merits a serious research. I will see if I can find time after I am done with the methodologies.

Vinnie argues that the fact that only Mark knew a place existed, a place that nobody else knew to have existed, does not mean that place did not exist. One wonders why we need other sources at all. This goes contra historical method which requires confirmation from external sources. And whats amazing is that Vinnie actually knows this. I mean, how do you know when an author is fabricating a story? What is the definition of fictitious?

Vinnie treats 5:1 and 5:13 as the same error. 5:13 is not an error: its a fabrication. An error repeated twice are two separate errors. They don't have to be different to be counted as two errors.

The inexistence of some of the places Mark mentions only serves to cast further doubt on the veracity of what Mark talks of. IMO, one clear geographical error is bad enough. But more than two errors is terrible.

Randel Helms, Funk and others have noted these errors. Vinnie has noted them too. All I want now is: How many geographical errors is Vinnie willing to admit, are existing in Mark?

Notice the impossibility of whats described Mark 11:1-11 besides what Randel Helms points out. A displaced peasant, a landless labourer (according to Crossan's protrait of Jesus) who couldn't read, couldn't write, couldn't speak Greek could not have made his way to the capital city of Judaism with it's sophisticated ruling elite, its temple and center of religious and imperial authority, and have the poor from the ghettoes in the city "spread their cloaks on the road" for his entrance.

This is a plain impossibility. What's further impossible is that this Jerusalem group (as opposed to the Galilean one) would have elevated this homeless peasant to a cosmic saviour, forgot about his miracles, his alleged antics (equally impossible like chasing the moneychangers outside the temple), his sayings and focused only his death and resurrection as a cosmic event that brings salvation to humanity and instead used the old testament as scripture.

I don't mean to derail the thread but the wider setting of the stories in Mark: just make them plain impossible.

Vinnie

""""""""Vinnie argues that the fact that only Mark knew a place existed, a place that nobody else knew to have existed, does not mean that place did not exist. """""""

No. Mark is not known to be the only person to know of its locale. In the surviving, incomplete and non-thorough literature from the time period, Mark alone refers to this place. Maybe it wa a localized way of referring to a place, maybe ther place was a tiny hamlet, maybe it was unimportant, maybe it didn't exist, maybe Mark confused it with something else, maybe he created it.

Exaggeration. Sarcasm. WHat does this mean? Are you even reading what I wrote? If the literature from the time period is so dense as to mention every name, alternative name and so forth of every square inch of the first century of this area please document it.

Knows what? You misunderstand historical method. Think of it as the same thing as strong and weak atheism. When we have a single-attested detail it has poor evidence in its favor. That does not mean it did not happen. It means we have insufficient evidence that it did happen. Ergo, "we lack belief in said incident" (weak atheism). We do not positively deny its existence (strong atheism).

Of course there are many places where positively denying it are appropriate based upon the evidence, in other places a judgment of "I don't know" is also in order.

It has been suggested (e.g. Nineham) that the pig part was a secondary addition to the text. At any rate, I'm with you overall on the stoiry being an "fabrication" but my point is analysing geography errors here and there was no bank for the pigs to run off to where Mark's gospel as it now stands has them.

There is at least one. Many two to three more. If Mark didn't create a gentile tour to maximize contace then 7:31 is an error. If Mark wasn't working out from Jerusalem and if he didn't narrate a trip to Perea then 10:1 and 11:1 are erros.

Without confimaration that 11:1 exists in other sources from the time period I would call it a conclusive second error in the text.

I just noticed, 10: has them going to Jerusalem via Jericho. Text explicily mentions it.

The triumphal entry is irrelevant to this topic so I will not respond to it here. I can say that one serious negative criteria stands against it. It is strongly with the evangelist's theological grain. The attestation is not great either since questions of Mark//John tradition are unresolve IMO.

Vinnie

Ted Hoffman

Therefore, Mark is known to be the only person to know of its locale. You nailed yourself on your way out.
And nobody else seems to know where Arimathea or golgotha was. Methodological atheism, which undergirds NT criticism (because the Gospels have been judged to be containing myth), dictates that such a place was therefore the creation of the author - unless proved otherwise.

Slippery slope fallacy. You are saying we should only expect external attestation for the locations Mark uses only if "the literature from the time period is so dense that every name, alternative name and so forth of every square inch of the first century of this area"

You are creating an excuse for the lack of external attestation by arguing that it would require an extreme, or increasingly unacceptable or unrealistic situation.This is fallacious.

How about maps? You seem pretty good at getting them.

And oh, "every square inch" is a strawman in your slippery slope. Unless you want to argue that arimathea or golgotha was a square inch?

Wrong.

When a source has been shown to be fabricating incidents and scenes (as you have admitted with respect to Mark 5:13 to mention just one example), any other unattested scene or location is regarded as fabricated by that source unless proved otherwise because such a source is being assesed from a point where it has no credibility because it has lost it.

Jacob:Vinnie: When will you be able to give us a conclusive number? I can see you conceding to a minimum three errors and twiddling your fingers and looking at your toes over the others but I would like to see your final number after all this.

Vinnie

I sent a thread through to X-Talk asking about Gundry's "Jerusalem centered" explantion of Mark's reversed geographical order in 11:1 from a band traveling from Jericho (10:46).

If anything develops I'll share it here and a link as soon as the message is approved for the list.

Vinnie

Vinnie

Here is the URL. If anyone responds, follow along if interested. I'll reprint anything usefulor informative here.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/message/16174

Vinnie

Vorkosigan

I think Zindler's comments on sacred geography in Mark are apropo here:

http://www.atheists.org/christianity/ozjesus.html

Bethany, allegedly less than two miles from Jerusalem, nevertheless is unknown in the Old Testament; nor is it known to Josephus or any other ancient geographer or historian. According to John 1:28, however, Bethany is located "beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing" -- i.e., Bethany is east of the Jordan River, in contradiction to the statement in John 11:18 that it is west of the Jordan. While this is confusing enough, some ancient witnesses (including Origen) indicate that the name of the Transjordan town of John 1:28 should read Bethabara instead of Bethany. Not surprisingly, 'Bethabara' also is unknown in the Old Testament, Josephus, and other ancient authors.

But keep up the XTALK threads. Looks promising.

Vorkosigan