GakuseiDon

And that may well be true. At least the question has been asked, and answered. The same needs to be done for the meaning that Doherty assigns to the silence in the Second Century.

I'm not trying to impose anything. I'm saying that the question about whether Doherty is right about the meaning of Second Century silence has not been raised.

Only in the sense that Acharya's "advanced ancient Pygmies" idea is not generally considered; similarly few seem aware of Doherty's reading of Tatian.

Very true.

THAT is the question that needs to be raised, AFTER determining whether Doherty is correct about Tatian.

Keep in mind that I am not saying the Second Century silence explains the First Century silence (though I do strongly suspect this). I don't know why Paul wrote the way that he did. But if the method that Doherty uses to determine that the Second Century writers didn't have a HJ in their version of Christianity proves incorrect, then it raises questions should he use the same method for the First Century writers.

By examining the hints in Tatian's letter. For example:
* Tatian refers to Justin (presumably Justin Martyr) a couple of times. Irenaeus states that Tatian was a student of Justin's.
* Both Justin and Tatian talk about Justin being attacked by a pagan called "Crescens".
* Like Justin, Tatian talks about the Logos as "begotten of God".
* Tatian says that "We do not act as fools, O Greeks, nor utter idle tales, when we announce that God was born in the form of a man".

Now, Tatian appears to have known Justin Martyr. Justin believed that God was born in the form of a man. So when Tatian declares that "we" announce that God was born in the form of a man, what version of Christianity that we know about does this fit? What would Occam's razor suggest?

Jeffrey Gibson

No, the irony is that you have consistently failed to recognize that I am speaking here not of Earl's qualifications, let alone his academic qualifications. but of what those who seek to evaluate the strength or weakness of particular arguments that Earl makes, namely, those that are based on the syntax and grammar of particular NT texts. must be equipped with.

I do?? Where have I ever said that Earl is unqualified to write any book?

Yes, you do -- and in doing so show yourself to have totally misunderstood what the issue is. The issue is not who has the onus to demonstrate whether Earl's book is flawed (or not), but who has the competence to do so, and, more specifically, what competencies one must have to be qualified to review Earl's Greek based arguments.

Please remember that this diversion from the topic of the OP (which was not who had the onus to review Earl's work, but whether Earl's work had been reviewed in peer reviewed professional [and why it wasn't if it hadn't been]) when you suggested that Toto would be a good person to review Earl's work and when I stated that since Toto had no facility in Greek, she would not have the skills necessary to, and be capable of, evaluating the validity of the Greek arguments that Earl makes.


Jeffrey

Toto

But you continually raise it. :huh:

This makes no sense. Acharya's "advanced ancient Pygmies" turns out to be cribbed from some 19th century gullible anthropologist who believed the tall tales that Pygmies told him. I don't think you can call it "not generally considered" - it is generally rejected.

Doherty's reading of Tatian is not that different from any other, in the sense that everyone agrees that Tatian does not talk about Jesus.

But Doherty is correct that Tatian does not mention Jesus/Christ. So that is the question.

You keep repeating this argument but it still doesn't make sense to me. Doherty's "method" is simply to observe a silence where one would not be expected if the author know about the historical Jesus.

Are you assuming that Justin and Tatian must have agreed on everything? Perhaps they didn't. Perhaps the issue of whether the Savior was born as a man in historical reality was where they disagreed. (Tatian was evidently something of a heretic.)

I won't even speculate here about whether Justin's extensive writings that parallel the gospel stories were a later interpolation.

avi

then, of course, one would have to evaluate the credentials of those who would review Earl's text....How would "we" decide which criteria one must fulfill in order to achieve a passing grade on the test of competencies?

No, I think this is absolutely the wrong approach. Let us return to that day 2000 years ago, when the Chinese silk merchants were preparing to depart "istanbul" for the long journey back to FuJian province, where the silk route commenced. In view of the long journey with many days of sandstorms, of severity sufficient to halt the caravan, one of the traders asks for a copy of the recently published Gospel of Mark. He learned to read Greek, as a boy, traveling with the caravan....

He decides to translate what he has read into Chinese. His own language is Hakka, but he is fluent in Uzbek, Farsi, and Mongolian as well. He writes, of course, using the Chinese ideograms, i.e. HanZi....

Now, what is going to be Jeffrey's reaction? This youthful Chinese guy cannot differentiate "aeolian" tense, from future tense, from imperfect tense, etc, because Hakka, his main language, (and the language of all the famous Tang dynasty poets) does not rely upon tenses, particularly....There is one particle, "le", used to indicate past tense, and that's about it. So, Jeffrey, are you going to run after this lad, and inform him that he is just wasting his time, since he cannot express the proper verb tenses in Chinese dialects, and accordingly therefore, the Gospel of Mark needs to be off limits to the Chinese and Japanese?

Why does someone need to pass a litmus test of proficiency with Greek, to evaluate Earl's writing?

page 206 from Earl's 2009 book, Neither Man nor God:

Now, Jeffrey, what is there about Greek language design and rules, that I must know, to investigate Earl's allegation? Either Earl's statement is valid, or it is false, but there is no need to understand verb tenses to investigate Earl's claim regarding Paul's supposed use of "ginomai", which Earl juxtaposes to Paul's use of "gennaou" in Romans 9:11, Galatians 4:23, etc...

avi

Jeffrey Gibson

Well, is his statement -- which actually contains 2 claims -- true, especially in the light of the phrase eγενόμενον ὐπὸ νόμον that follows γενόμενον ἐχ γυναιχός? Do you know? And if you do, how did you come to know it?

More importantly, you are ignoring the fact that it is the conclusion about the meaning of the participle (not the verb) when used in the particular way it is used in Gal. 4:4 (i.e not only with ἐκ but in conjunction with the expression ἐκ γυναικός) that, according to Earl, it has to signify in these passages that Earl draws from this assertion that needs to be evaluated, not the assertion of where and of whom Paul uses -- to be precise -- either the aorist middle masculine singular genitive or the aorist middle masculine singular accusative form of γίνομαι. And one does have to know something about the rules of the use of forms of γίνομαι with ἐκ + a reference to a person in order to evaluate the validity of Earl's conclusion.

(you might wish to see is said about this on p. 207 in the Hermeneia Commentary on Galatians by H. D, Betz as well as by and Moulton-Milligan, s.v.γίνεσθαι ἐκ; Bauer, s.v. γίνομαι. I, 1, a; Schweizer, “υἱός κτλ.,” TDNT 8.383f, 386;and by F. Mussner, Der Galaterbrief, Freiburg-Basel-Wien 1974, pp. 269f.).

Perhaps not (though how you would know is beyond me). But where it is in his writings and with respect to whom Paul uses forms (not tenses) of γίνομαι is not the issue.

Paul's use of what in Romans 9:11??

Jeffrey

avi

(n.b. The font used by Earl places a mark above the "o" of gennao, what we would call, in English, a "long o". I represented it, by adding a "u", above, since I have no such capability on my machine.)

Romans 1:3 genomenou
Galatians 4:4 genomenon
Romans 9:11 gennhqentwn
Galatians 4:23 gegennhtai
Galatians 4:29 gennhqei

avi

Jeffrey Gibson

]In Greek, it's called an omega. Funny that you -- claiming as you do that you are capable of at least reading some Greek -- don't know this basic fact.

Indicating that you are totally unaware of the standard internet transliteration schemes that people who have even less Greek than you do employ.

Jeffrey

avi

Yes, mea culpa. I should have written omega with a "w". My fault. sorry. It will never happen again, until tomorrow, at the earliest, for sure, unless I forget tonight....

avi

avi

I haven't yet reached that part of the chapter, so, I cannot answer your question.
avi

avi

Well, Jeffrey if you take my knowledge of anything, and add a watermellon, the resultant combination should fit rather nicely into a thimble.

So, I have no "knowledge", only an amateur's guesswork: I understand this phrase, in italics above, to indicate that the mythical creature Jesus of Nazareth, was born of a female, in the conventional manner.

I cannot speak for what Earl intends, or imagines, or thinks, I can only write my own opinion, one based upon prejudice and ignorance, not "knowledge". I do not yet perceive or detect any significant difference between Matthew's account, and Paul's. The guy traveling on the silk route, is going to write the same HanZi, to represent both accounts, (sheng-1 yu-4).

avi