Duvduv

I wonder if any of the prophetic writings in Greek would use the word SOTER specifically in reference to a particular person to be compared with the Hebrew usage, i.e. Cyrus or anyone else.
I suppose the reference to David as "Mashiach" would get translated as "the anointed" i.e. Xristos.
I suppose the merging of the Jewish messiah who straightens everyone and the world out could be easily merged into a Greek notion of Soter conceptually.

ApostateAbe

Mr. Doherty, the portion of Ehrman's book written as a refutation of your literature seem to concern exactly those paragraphs that you quoted from your book. He calls out your contradiction and your unjustified assumption of equating the world view of a high philosopher like Plutarch to the world view of mystery cults. Have you read that chapter in Ehrman's book, or have you read only bits and pieces from the web?

neilgodfrey

Abe, I don't quite understand. Where does Doherty equate the two world views? I have read Ehrman's assertion that he does; I have read the passages in Doherty where he is supposed to have done so; but I cannot see that Ehrman's claim is supported. Can you explain, with specific reference to what Doherty has written, that Ehrman is accurately portraying Doherty's view?

EarlDoherty

Well, Abe, if one of those bits and pieces is your statement that Ehrman has called out my "unjustified assumption of equating the world view of a high philosopher like Plutarch to the world view of mystery cults", and this is an accurate statement by you as to what Ehrman is doing, that's all I need, isn't it? For I have demonstrated by the quotations from my book that such a claim by Ehrman that I have declared the mystery cults to have interpreted their myths just as Plutarch did is outright false.

But actually, the direct quotes from Ehrman by Neil Godfrey were much clearer than your paraphrase above that this is indeed what Ehrman is doing. I do *not* say that the mystery cults allegorized their myths as Plutarch did. As for placing them in a higher realm, as Plutarch did, I made it clear that we have some basis for deducing this, but not with certainty, which is what Ehrman was portraying me as saying.

But when I read that chapter in Ehrman's book, I will certainly let you know if I have to amend my remarks.

Earl Doherty

ApostateAbe

OK. Ehrman claimed:

When, in his second edition, Doherty admits that we do not know what the followers of the mystery cults thought, he is absolutely correct. We do not know. But he then asserts that they thought like the later Platonist Plutarch. How can he have it both ways? Either we know how they thought or we do not. And it is highly unlikely that adherents of the mystery cults (even if we could lump them all together) thought like one of the greatest intellectuals of their day (Plutarch). Very rarely do common people think about the world the way upper-class, highly educated, elite philosophers do. Would you say that your understanding of how language works matches the views of Wittgenstein? Or that your understanding of political power is that of Foucault?

This would correspond to Doherty's claim (quoted by Doherty above):

In such an atmosphere, it is probably safe to assume that the mystery cult myths were carried along by the spirit of the times and were envisioned as taking place in a similarly ‘mythical’ dimension.

The "similarly ‘mythical’ dimension" would be claimed to be similar to Doherty's claimed views of Plutarch, as Doherty explains in the quotes from his book. Doherty is claiming that probably the thinking of Plutarch and the thinking of the mystery cults were, at least at heart, one in the same.

Interestingly, Ehrman goes on to cite Plutarch to disprove (if Ehrman's claim is true) Doherty's claim of plausibility that "common people" (such as members of mystery cults) would have shared the views of Plutarch.

In the case of someone like Plutarch there is, in fact, convincing counterevidence. Philosophers like Plutarch commonly took on the task of explaining away popular beliefs by allegorizing them, to show that despite what average people naively believed, for example, about the gods and the myths told about them, these tales held deeper philosophical truths. The entire enterprise of philosophical reflection on ancient mythology was rooted precisely in the widely accepted fact that common people did not look at the world, or its myths, in the same way the philosophers did. Elite philosophers tried to show that the myths accepted by others were emblematic of deeper spiritual truths.

neilgodfrey

Well, a Christian by simple definition is hardly likely to be a mythicist, no?

ApostateAbe

That's correct, but that is better attributed to a lack of an ideological interest in favor of mythicism, not merely an ideological interest against it. If this seems like an unlikely claim, then consider the point that "Christian" scholars believe a wide array of things about the character of the historical Jesus, both positive and negative, including the model of the historical Jesus as a failed apocalyptic prophet (e.g. Dale Allison). None of even those kinds of Christians accept that Jesus was merely a myth, because the position seems to be in stark conflict with the evidence. Instead, mythicism is almost purely the domain of activists against the Christian religion.

EarlDoherty

I went over this before. The basic point is that I agree with Ehrman agreeing with me, that we do not KNOW. But what I have claimed, and supplied evidence for, is that it is possible we can deduce that the cults interpreted their myths along Platonic lines, but that unlike philosophers like Plutarch, they did not render them allegorical; they saw them as literally taking place, probably (again deducible from evidence if without certainty) in a non-earthly dimension.

None of this nuance on my part did Ehrman reproduce, from quotes from him, including yours above. "Either we know how they thought or we do not" is hardly perceptive of any of that nuance, or of the legitimacy of suggesting that the evidence, and reasonable deduction from it, could lead us in a certain direction. Also, both you and he are failing to make a distinction between a similarity to Plutarch in the placement of the myths in a non-earthly dimension, and a similarity to Plutarch in rendering them allegorical. The two are distinct. The latter Ehrman claims of me erroneously, and the former he claims with much more declared certainty on my part than I in fact give it and state it.

Earl Doherty

ApostateAbe

"But what I have claimed, and supplied evidence for, is that it is possible we can deduce that the cults interpreted their myths along Platonic lines, but that unlike philosophers like Plutarch, they did not render them allegorical; they saw them as literally taking place, probably (again deducible from evidence if without certainty) in a non-earthly dimension."

You seemingly did not supply evidence for that, beyond mere assertion and unlikely assumption. Ehrman tends to have his own problem in his book of failing to back his assertions with specific citations, but at least his assertions are buttressed by scholarly reputation and scholarly agreement, for whatever that's worth. What is your argument and your evidence for your claim that the myths of the mystery cults were probably (or even significantly possibly) either Platonic or much like Plutarch's philosophy?

aa5874

Appealing to authority may be used in a Fallacious manner.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumen...s_to_authority