Magdlyn

Well, I guess that is a high standard to set, coming from one who does not seem familiar with the content of John 1 in English. :blush:

Magdlyn

Pot, kettle, I'm afraid. And here we have our difficulty. You are seemingly as guilty of eisegesis as the next guy.



Ah, derogatory adjectives then, my mistake. I didn't get the feeling you used those terms simply to mean absolute and great. They have other meanings we are all aware of. Your tone has been quite obviously sarcastic and rude throughout, sadly proving the point of the OP.

Zeichman

It might be added that the difference between "addressed" and "debunked" are considerable. I'm not aware of a great deal that Chris Weimer has written that would fall into the latter category. Doherty has pointed out that I misinterpreted a passage that I didn't make much of when discussing his book, aside from introducing a point which I make using several (better) examples. The vast majority of my paper has been unaddressed, though.

You are right in that I have not debunked him. I think I have just been pointing out his gravely mistaken assumptions in this thread.
I'm assuming that you mean that there is not a single historical person in memory behind Q, since your statement would be accepted by any critical scholar as it stands. But I do await his response, since it is possible that I am mistaken about some things, though I am very confident about the bulk of my discussion about the cynic hypothesis, Q's "founder" and his use of Kloppenborg's hypothesis. If he is wrong, he needs to explain how Q fits into his hypothesis. I do recall him noting the possibility of a distant founder behind Q (a la Wells, iirc), though not taking the suggestion seriously. If my essay withstands scrutiny, he will have to reconsider almost everything about Q. Whether or not he accepts Kloppenborg is, you note correctly, largely irrelevant. If he rejects it, we need to know why and what better solution he proposes. He would still need to explain Q's location in his hypothesis, though.
Agreed. I would never suggest otherwise. But his occasional lack of rigor, academic methods and familiarity with recent scholarship seriously hinder his work, making it hard to take seriously. If he submitted works to JBL, CBQ, or any other number of critical journals, his work would be improved greatly in quality and receive attention from academics before the populace. Scholars might address him if he clearly separated himself from much of the self-published garbage also available on the interweb. Academia is not like music when it comes to this field, where the "Clap Your Hands Say Yeah"s and "Cold War Kids" who have internet-fueled popularity translates into quality. Doherty's attempt to overthrow mainstream scholarship would be more effective if done in the style and tone of Arnal's "Major episodes in the Biography of Jesus," which is far more limited in scope and thus easier to take seriously.

The diversity which you point out, though at times embarrassing, is far from a fatal flaw. Many disagreements come with basic ideas about methods, sources, and (unfortunately) supernatural assumptions. It is doubtful that the former two will ever be answered conclusively, and there will always be agenda-driven people whose beliefs inhibit their ability to work productively. Many would see the insulation of JM advocates among their own kind to indicate that they also fall into this last group. Certainly none have seriously attempted to integrate themselves into the mainstream aside from, perhaps, Price. However, his self-identification as a "radical" has probably caused a great deal of reservation about his work, despite the occasional book review and footnote.

jgibson000

Perhaps you'd like to tell that to Philo, who believes in the pre-existent Logos and makes it/him out to be a mediator between God and the world (Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres sit) and yet never believes it/him to be a god, or to those who asserted that Moses was a "pre-existent" being, as were, according to some Jewish traditions, the angels Wisdom, the Son of Man, Jacob, "the Chosen One", and according to Jeremiah, Jeremiah himself, but who never made the claim you say has to be, and was being, made when a being is/was cast as "pre-existent". On this, see, e.g., Larry Hurtado, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988) (41–69) as well as his entry "Pre-Existence" in The Dictionary of Paul and His Letters.


Yes. It's a botched and tendentious misquotation of Jn 1:1 which fails to take notice of the fact if John had wanted to say that the LOGOS was a god, he would have written ho logos ēn theos and that in Jn 1:18 John does not say, as you assume, that the LOGOS became a man. On this, as well as on the meaning of LOGOS in GJohn, see, eg., D. H. Johnson "LOGOS" in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels and J. Hammerton-Kelly, Pre-Existence, Wisdom, and the Son of Man: A Study of the Idea of Pre-Existence in the New Testament [SNTSMS 21; Cambridge: University Press, 1973]).

What Justin believed (he was also apparently a ditheist) is not determinative of what the author of GJohn meant in Jn 1:1-18 or what in 1st century Judaism pre-existence language entailed.

JG

No Robots

It is impressive to me that mythicists, although mistaken in a way that grieves me deeply, are uniformly kinder and more humane than the scholarly experts around here. Mythicists are only a burden when they try to imitate these experts, and start showering their opponents with derision and affected airs.

Contemporary mythicism seems to me to be a folk movement born of the common person's discontent with religion and all the scholarly mumbo-jumbo about Christ. Why not just cut the Gordian knot, and say he never existed? I would, of course, argue that the knot needs to be patiently unravelled. But that is an argument that civilized individuals can pursue on a calm basis. There is no hope of any such calm discussion amidst the sneers and hoots of our barbarous experts.

And believe you me, if the experts really felt the tide to be turning, they would join the mythicist chorus, indeed, they would claim to have been leading it all along. This very thing is happening. The Jesus Seminar and its offspring have paved the way for a mythicist consensus. Oh, they haven't gone all the way... yet. So far, they stick to the "unknowable" Jesus. These people are watching, waiting to see how this debate turns out, and writing their lecture notes in a way that will let them wiggle over to the other side without too much fuss and bother. At least Weimer, Zeichman and Gibson have committed themselves too much to participate in this balancing act. I'd like to know, though, why they don't take on people like William Arnal, instead of hassling people around here. Is it just that they like going after the small fry, and haven't the stomach to fight fellow experts?

Chris Weimer

Scholars attack other scholars the legitimate way - via peer review or scholarly lists. When you go through illegitimate pipes, and then demand to be taken seriously, what do you expect, a cookie?

krosero

This, Ted, is a different position on Tatian than Doherty’s, as I’m sure you know. Doherty’s position (at least his last stated one) is that Tatian doesn’t believe his own religion's stories to be factually true. But here you say that Tatian believed in God’s incarnation.

I’m glad to see it, particularly given Tatian’s disapproval of allegorical stories (ch. 21). Tatian, in your view, believed that an incarnation had really happened.

You also believe, per your reply to Jeffrey, that the god who incarnated was named Jesus, which does not leave us very far from the ordinary position (against Doherty) that Tatian worshipped Jesus Christ.

However, you do say that this incarnated figure was not crucified. I’m not sure why you think this (much less how you might demonstrate that negative successfully).

You argue that for Tatian, the incarnation was similar to the incarnations of the Greek gods; Tatian believes these demons to have incarnated as those Greek gods. So for you, Tatian believes that the demons incarnated, and were known to men, as the Greek gods. Now, where do you get the idea that Tatian, though he believed his God to have incarnated into flesh, did not believe his God to have been crucified?

Your post is not easy to follow, but is Tatian’s God not crucified because He’s been explicitly compared to Greek gods/demons and they did not get crucified? Is it that Tatian does not explicitly mention his God getting crucified?

By the way, as GDon pointed out in your debate about Tatian two years ago, Tatian is referring to humans, not demons, when he refers to those who “were driven from earth, yet not out of this earth, but from a more excellent order of things than exists here now”.

Here is your partial quote:

Here is the full quote:

You interpret this as humans, not demons, cast down from heaven to the earth, and demons, not humans, driven from the "more excellent order". Does your assertion that Tatian's God was not crucified rely in any significant way on your interpretation of the passage above?

Kevin

Mathetes

When creationists visit the Evolution and Creation forum, I see them treated with the utmost respect. The guys there don't seem to bother to instruct newcomers, repeat and correct their arguments as many times as necessary. They only seem to tire down when confronted with someone deliberately provoking or disingenuous.

This, however, does not seem to be the case here, although the average mythicist has studied his materials a hundred times better than the average creationist.

Funny, hu?

Ted Hoffman

I dont think that conceding that your criticism is correct in certain areas will necessarily mean that he explains how Q fits into his hypothesis anew. Perhaps, just iron out a few creases. You have argued that his explanation is faulty and is underpinned by a defective understanding of K's hypothesis. Of course, his response will include pointing out errors in your own understanding of his (D's) explanation, accompanied by a possible expansion of his thesis and clarification of nuances. He can make concessions where he deems fit but overall, I dont see your critique making any remarkable dent on D's hypothesis.
Whereas your approach is good (thorough, focused etc), it is like a gadfly on the leaping flanks of a rugged bull: a quick flick of the tail takes care of it. It will be interesting to read but nothing major will come from it.
I would encourage you to start working on something else, like, say, Doherty's treatment of Romans, or Hebrews, or Paul etc. Then, the confluence of these streams may result in the raging river that will drown this mythicist bull.
I think D has several alternatives around this Q matter and I am sure he has his sights on bigger and wider issues since the question of Q is not central to his hypothesis and even if you are correct that his understanding of K is faulty, that alone will not be a stumbling block. If he chooses, he can spend considerable effort persuading an amateur on the net that his take on Q is okay, or he can simply write one response and regard the matter as closed. I suspect that you are ready to debate him to the ground on this. My view is that that (engaging you, blow by blow) would be poor allocation of his time. The choice of course is his. We have seen so many amateurs who want to make a name for themselves by rebutting Doherty. They quickly run out of steam when they realize it is not as simple. The reason it is not simple is that Doherty's familiarity with the documentary record is quite good and he is always ready to engage the primary sources directly and extract different readings of certain passages using the same tools mainstram scholars use. It is also not simple because the interpretive framework he uses may be different from the one you are using and if you are not willing to read him on his own terms (one choice that is always available for critics is to read him on his own terms then show that his thesis is internally inconsistent. The problem for critics has always been, once you read him on his own terms, everything fits and makes sense), the dialogue may not yield much.

My suggestion is: dig up everything you can on Q, then cover more ground.
Your approach seems to be as follows:
Read D's thesis, find a weak point and take it apart, clearly and conclusively and expose his scholarship as bogus and unreliable.
My suggestion is this:
Read D's thesis. Find the central plank if any and take it out. If the pillars are many, take them out one by one. But dont spend a lifetime on one.
The choice, of course, is yours. Do you want to be just one of the faceless overeager upstarts with little stamina like GDon, Christopher Price, Benard Muller, Bede and Metacrock - or are you willing to engage JM hypothesis meaningfully and comprehensively?

Ted Hoffman

No Robots, no disrespect to you but I think you would be fine if you stopped defening Brunner. Brunner's ignorance in matter's concerning Jesus was only paralleled by his zeal and readiness to go charging off in the wrong direction and ignore experts in the field. As far as Jesus is concerned, what Brunner wrote was pure, unadulterated, Grade A prime crap. Even for his time. He had no excuse for doing such a slothful work in 'Our Christ'. I am often embarrased for you when you keep defensing that infernal monument of incompetence.