Doug Shaver

OK. I'll start one as soon as I can. I have some homework to catch up on first, but it shouldn't take too long.

You were the one who made a claim about the where the burden of proof lay. I have yet to read anything by any historian that says what you say on that issue.

Well, since you were making a pronouncement about how history should be conducted, I just presumed that you were relying on something that historians have had to say on the matter.

Oh, I have no sympathy at all for academic territorial disputes. I'll be glad to present the big picture in my opening post for the new thread.

Steven Avery

Which is precisely why Carrier has an absolute imperative to give the view of those who see no contradiction. And Buddhists generally do not write a lot about when Jesus began his ministry in the Gospels, if they did write well on that he could gave their view.

Instead Richard Carrier gave us the religious view of the confirmed skeptic only, and falsely simply stated it as a fact. A total disaster in terms of honest scholarship.

In fact, ironically, untill the driveby accusations, that was the suppossed motif of the Carrier article .. let me show the Christian view of the Nativity and I will explain my view and why I think they were in error. Fair enough, except for all his blunders and omissions, but the idea was right. At least he mentioned various apologetic views. And some items he properly disassembled, although on other items Carrier made more blunders and his own blatant contradictions stand out far above what he is critiquing. Making it hard to get to the essence of the matter since Carrier spent five years writing an article where he did not even notice his own blatant contradictions.

When it comes to the three side-swipes Carrier fails to follow the same motif. It was a psychological trick to rally the forces. And as we see here the main thing that motivates the skeptics is the possibility that they can find an error in the Bible. As we saw with the strange posts attempting to change the playing field away from logic to some ill-defined "process of historical research and debate".

I find it a tremendous irony that the only item among Carrier's many contradictions and errors that the skeptics here defend is a side-swipe.

And on that, as I said, we should FIRST handle the burden-of-proof issue, (the weird initial posts of Doug and Sauron should be broken off to another thread) since without that the conversation will of course be deadlocked and go round and round.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Sauron

And this is how urban rumors start. That is not what Carrier said about Luke.

Uh, no. The role of Quirinius places the event.

judge

Ok , I must have misunderstood Praxeus, hence I used a question mark, but thanks.

Sauron

One gets the impression that you haven't read the Carrier article at all. From the article, representative text:

These are carefully weighed statements that point out obvious (and not so obvious) flaws in common skeptic objections. A rather strange thing for Carrier to do, if -- as you wildly claim -- Carrier only gave us the religious view of the confirmed skeptic only, and falsely simply stated it as a fact.

You're trying to hard to discredit Carrier that I can almost see you busting a neck vein from the effort. Maybe you should focus on the content of what he says, and not so much on trying to poison the well.

Change the playing field?

It was you, praxeus, who made claims about burden of proof in the historical debate process -- you, and no one else made such a claim. If you didn't want to venture into that particular area, why did you make a claim about it, in the first place?

You are merely embarrassed that I called you on the carpet for claims you made about that historical process. And as we all saw, you couldn't support your claims. And now you're trying to cover your embarrassment by pretending that your original claim was actually irrelevant? Well, boys, *that's* a new one I haven't seen before.

Steven Avery

Hi Judge,

Richard Carrier's article unfortunately, even after five years and skeptic-legend status, has its own internal blunders.

Richard was arguing that Luke believed that Jesus was born in 6AD, and that Luke was referring to the Quirinius governorship of 6AD as the time of the census.

However Richard hit a snag and had to find a reason for a proposed highly unlikely Archelaus identification. See my post above where I give his syllogism and his two alternative theories. So in order to support the necessary idea that Luke was imprecise Richard 'lost his bookmark', so to speak, and transported himself into another realm where folks argue that Quirinius was misidentified (apparently the two governorships theory or perhaps the name-mixup theory that Richard offered cogent arguments against).

Richard was arguing against his own theory and did not even realize it !

(In his own theory the identification of Quirinius is historically accurate by Luke.)

As indicated, the motivation was trying to find a way to support the strained and convoluted Archelaus theory (since his dad was known as Herod the King and Archelaus was known as Herod the Ethnarch the expectation would be Herod the Great being indicated by a precise historian like Luke). So Richard was fishing for another possible imprecision in Luke somewhere (similar to his proposed Archelaus imprecision) but he knows that Luke is an excellent historian.

So Carrier got totally confused and accused Luke re: Quirinius of exactly what his theory does not accuse him of !

I hope this explains it better. The error was simply a logical one within Richard Carrier's article, as Richard wasn't really believing what he was saying.

A bad error on a 1st draft but after five years and on the 6th edition with skeptic pseudo-peer-review this type of blunder is simply appalling.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Steven Avery

You are having problems in comprehension.
The context of the above is the three driveby contradiction accusations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sauron It was you, praxeus, who made claims about burden of proof in the historical debate process

As you continue to put Doug's words in my mouth (and Doug has properly acknowledged this.. "I just presumed ..") even after this was specifically pointed out to you. The rest of the post follows the pathways of your own confusions.

Your posts are clearly meant to divert rather than inform.
Yet again I would ask the moderator to take this diversion off this thread.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Sauron

No problems in comprehension here. You made a generalized comment about the quality of Carrier's scholarship in this article. I rebutted that claim with evidence to the contrary. QED.

Uh, no. I put your own words in your own mouth - the text I quoted was from your post, not Doug's. It's right here. Repeated denials will not erase the little bits in cyberspace.

No, what Doug "acknowledged" is that you made a claim, and he assumed - probably too generously -- that you had some basis for the claim, or else you wouldn't tossed out your claim. Here are Doug's words again:

Well, since you were making a pronouncement about how history should be conducted, I just presumed that you were relying on something that historians have had to say on the matter.

No, they're meant to hold people accountable for what they claim. Apparently that makes you acutely nervous.

Given your arguments, I can understand why.

Accountability for claims is not a diversion, except to the sloppy or careless.

Steven Avery

Again, no. The comment was particular to the three drivebys.
I have even contrasted those to the general article.

There are in fact some generalized comments, such as pointing out that the article is rife with blunders, contradictions, etc. However the omission of the contrasting interpretative view is the particular and unique error of the drivebys.

(Although there was a major omission in the 'scroll of fasting' as well - that one was more directly substantive to the Carrier thesis and really requires some explanation. It was much more a factual than an interpretative question.)

And I have explained my theory why Carrier handled those drivebys differently. A psy-op thing, to get the comrades behind him, as we have seen has been the effect on this thread. We see the supporters care zilch about the Carrier blunders, they don't defend his Nativity claims, but they rush to parse and accuse on the driveby contradiction accusations. This is the rallying cry.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sauron Uh, no. I put your own words in your own mouth

Sauron-
"It was you, praxeus, who made claims about burden of proof in the historical debate process --"

Obviously I never once talked about the
"burden of proof in the historical debate process --"

Other than to point out that the field of 'burden of proof' is logic,
not your ill-defined 'historical debate process' .

Doug's original words, btw, asked for the focus to be a -
"historian .. who is generally respected within the scholarly community?"

My reply is post #27 and in #29 where I had already corrected your #28 misrepresentation of the above, where you placed Doug's focus in my mouth, adding your own twist.
"You made a claim about a process of historical research and debate."
You then, after the #29 correction, simply repeated the same misrepresentation twice - in #38 and #45. Then came the #48 handwave, where you still try to say that your misrepresentation above is my claim, rather than acknowledge the threefold misrepresentation.

I would ask the moderators to note this as well, if that is in their purview. It is the cheapest type of dialog to repeat the same misrepresentation twice after careful correction. And that is why the goal appears to be Carrier-diversion, a type of shilling by distraction, rather than sincere and honest dialog. (No, I am not saying it is at Richard's behest, only that it serves that function.)

======================
And Moderator:
Please remove this diversion to another thread.

The threads needed are ..

1) Doug plans to open a real discussion of "burden of proof" and "contradiction" - very good

2) We have a number of posts here that related to that issue. Some are of the "he says" type above that really are meant to avoid discussing the Richard Carrier article critique. They clutter this thread, they would clutter the Doug thread, they simply should be put in their own world. "the historical debate process.. " or something (I am not a fan of putting names in the subject but if you said "burden of proof & the 'historical debate process' & Praxeus" I would not object).

3) We could open a corollary thread to (1) discussing the specific claimed contradiction in depth (start preaching). Although that could perhaps better wait till some discussion on (1) is complete. re: The other claimed driveby contradictions I plan on placing a post here (Herod hearing of Simeon and Anna, and the travel itinerary). Probably there would be some counterpoint and then if it goes on a similar merry-go-round a separate thread would be appropriate.

Also I would like to get to Luke 2:2. However I am taking what is hopefully a short break from the "new" material. ie. a day or two.

Shalom,
Steven

Steven Avery

Sounds like a plan.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver You were the one who made a claim about the where the burden of proof lay. I have yet to read anything by any historian that says what you say on that issue.

Generally historians aren't glibly claiming contradictions between Bible verses. (We have cases like the Finkelstein strange claim of camel anomaly, that might be the closest, and it isn't too close.) So the issue does not come up.

However, as I indicated, if you have any professional historian quotes whatsoever about the relationship of "burden of proof" and "contradiction" you are very welcome to share them. The new thread will be fine. If you have none, then obviously there is no point in any presumption that I was placing historians over logicians. You did that sincerely but then the thread had to deal with the Sauron belligerance where he morphed your thought and made it into my claim. If the same happens in the new thread we simply won't get far.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver Well, since you were making a pronouncement about how history should be conducted, I just presumed that you were relying on something that historians have had to say on the matter.

The precise point is that Richard Carrier is writing outside any accepted norms of historical procedure. He is simply glibly claiming supposed driveby verse contradictions without even honestly pointing out that his claim has substantive counterpoint and proponents who have answered his specific accusations. Thus he is involved in propaganda and not history.

If you can find a historian who says that the role of a historian is to claim Bible verse "contradictions" without concern for rebuttal or the "burden of proof" please share away.

On a logical and writing ethics sense Carrier's modus operandi there was wrong. He tries to slip in the agiprop 'under the radar' by putting en passant accusations in footnotes. It does work to rally the minions, as we see here. Those who care little about the scholarship of his Nativity article in general rush to defend the tawdry en passant accusations where scholarship is replaced with skeptic propaganda.

To be clear, I am glad in one sense that the issue was raised. Earlier I was more interested in showing the specific counterpoint to the Carrier claims. And that is still fun to do, since it is always a joy to actually study the Bible in response to such claims. However the far greater issue is Richard Carrier's transgression of proper scholarship & journalistic procedure in the footnote drivebys.

Shalom,
Steven Avery