lee_merrill

Of course he can't, and so this is a judgment call. Do you distrust the copies of Plato, who wrote what scribe1 wrote what scribe2 wrote what scribe-n wrote? On that same basis?

But I do wonder why the skeptics don't postulate a real darkness (volcanic eruption?) and then claim the Christians made that part of their gospel accounts. I think that would be more plausible than saying they wrote about a non-event someone made up and called an eclipse that someone thought was mistakenly explained.

spin

I've seen no judgment on the call.

I don't care enough about what Plato may have written.

What darkness? Have you got a credible source for it? I'll be happy to consider it if you can find one.

First one has to have a hold on the events before having to explain what may not have happened.

Roger Pearse

I confess that I am not as patient as I was, having seen this same collection of obscurantism many, many, many times before, repeated regardless of logic or reason, and responded to it several times, each time more briefly. My apologies to anyone who sincerely felt it was too brief. But in the end it is merely a collection of excuses to ignore historical data in order to then claim there isn't any. I would have thought that anyone who goes down that route to defend their position has lost the argument right there, since it seems to me that any argument on any topic has to be based on data, and not on manufacturing an absence of it.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

spin

This seems to be pot looking for kettle, Roger.

lee_merrill

Well, I recommend to you to take your lack of concern in this thread elsewhere! Why post if you don't care about the issues involved in the discussion? But the point remains that all we have is copies of copies of Plato, and thus your argument applies as well to them.

Have you a refutations of the points advanced in support of these references to a time of unusual darkness? That is the way to advance the discussion, instead of saying "What darkness?" as if you hadn't heard of it before.

Such a point in support being, to wit:

Such an obvious event everyone would notice would not be good to invent! Let's say we read that there was darkness over the land for an hour when WWII ended. Would this be a good invention now? Well, no, for it would have been noticed if it happened, and would discredit my testimony if it didn't, and this could be easily verified.

The fact(!) that we have independent reference to such darkness is indeed strong evidence of the authenticity of the gospel account.

I think this would apply to your view, not mine, for you claim you know there was no darkness, now what evidence do you have for this claim, that you have a hold on the events at that time?

And what historical data is Roger ignoring?!

aa5874

It may also be stong evidence of ignorance and fiction, since we know for a fact(!) that the 'darkness' from an eclipse does not last for hours over a given location.

Perhaps the authors of the 'darkness' story were fooled by an 'independent' source.

lee_merrill

Just what our author meant! And practically what he said. How can such obvious points be missed?

P'raps they were! One what basis would you advance this view?

spin

I think you should forget such red herrings as Plato.

You are transforming a story into a historical fact. Your high credibility level isn't helpful to the conversation.

Stop the facile rationalizations. You are guessing for your own benefit and not doing anything useful. Presages are very common in ancient literature. I'm sure you are not going to simply accept any presage as historical fact.

Do your job.

Uh-huh.

What independent reference? Are you trying to rehabilitate the sad reference to Thallus as though you know what Thallus actually wrote after it was strained through both Julius Africanus and George Syncellus?

It's alright, lee_merrill, to be confused. Religions are that way.

Doesn't work, lee_merrill. All you are doing is abnegating your responsibility to substantiate your claim that something written by an unknown author of an unprovenanced text at an unknown date and trying to get me to disprove it for you! Do your job and don't pass the buck.

This is what I said to Roger:

As you know he cites Julius Africanus who cites Thallus, but can you say what Thallus actually wrote or what he was actually referring to? You've seen how Origen can get confused about what Josephus actually said and about whom. What Origen says about what Josephus says doesn't match the current text. Did Syncellus accurately report Africanus? If so did he accurately report Thallus? Assuming this last for argument's sake, did Africanus know exactly what Thallus was talking about?

spin

lee_merrill

So then you should not believe Plato wrote what we have in our copies, either. Who knows who may have edited what he wrote, for his own purposes?

So then my point stands that it would be implausible that someone should just make such a story up. This I think is however your view here.

Um, I am the one giving the reasons, and your reply is not counterpoints, but "do your work"? I think you are the one needed to present some work for your conclusions.

This is quite sad. If Origen gets confused, then this other report is wrong? I suppose I might reply that one Billy Balaberos got a point of fact wrong the other day, so all the reports you have read must be wrong because of that. :Cheeky:

And how is this historical data that is being ignored? You claim is apparently that there is historical evidence that refutes the view that the darkness was real. This we will now need to see, where would this said evidence be?

spin

If you feel you would like to make a case on this subject somewhere, please feel free to do so, but not here, for it has nothing to do with BC&H.

When stories are made up, they are rarely just made up for no reason.

You want to claim that there was darkness. Fine, demonstrate it. Don't pass the buck.

That's erroneous on your part. One cannot conclude the veracity of something without testing it. To show that there is need to test the veracity, we can see the difficulties of other writers based on lack of clear transmission. The problem that one has to overcome using Syncellus/Africanus/Thallus is a problem of transmission. Thirdhand reports are not encouraging.

I can understand you saying that. You have missed most of the point.