Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

The more I look at Richard Carrier's article the more
astounded I am at his errors and claims and style of writing.

Now many of the problems are piling one assumption
after another upon an improper interpretation or
questionable (cherry-picked) translation.

However Richard manages a number of relatively independent unusual
claims that are used in a supportive sense but are simply skeptic presumption. Each one has to be examined since he throws them off so flippantly.

Here is an example..

"And we are told Jesus began his own ministry only after John was arrested: Mark 1:14; Matthew 4:12; Luke 3:20 (Luke 3:21-2 refers back in time, while John contradicts all the others by having Jesus start preaching before John is imprisoned)."

Mark 1:14
Now after that John was put in prison,
Jesus came into Galilee,
preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,

Matthew 4:12
Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison,
he departed into Galilee
Matthew 4:17
From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say,
Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Luke 3:19-20
But Herod the tetrarch,
being reproved by him for Herodias his brother Philip's wife,
and for all the evils which Herod had done,
Added yet this above all, that he shut up John in prison.

However there is nothing at all about Jesus waiting to
"begin his own ministry".

The "contradiction" is simply a Carrier fabrication,
perhaps needed for his larger attempt at claiming
historical error on the date of the birth of Jesus.

John shows us that Jesus had disciples, including Philip and Nathanael. Jesus had been to Jerusalem, the wedding at Cana and more.
The events before -

John 3:24
For John was not yet cast into prison.

However, after the imprisonment of Herod there is a new
phase and special public preaching that began :

"repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand".

Clearly the imprisonment of John was the fulcrum, the turning point,
for the preaching of the kingdom of God, this is made especially clear
in Luke 16:16.

Matthew 11:12
And from the days of John the Baptist until now
the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence,
and the violent take it by force.

Matthew 11:13
For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.

Luke 16:16
The law and the prophets were until John:
since that time the kingdom of God is preached,
and every man presseth into it.

Jesus had already been baptized by John, and miracles had occurred.

Apparently Richard is attempting to claim a -
"contradiction by silence".
That is, John gave details of the early ministry not given elsewhere. However that is not by a long shot a contradiction, especially since the New Testament speaks so clearly of the precise 'qualitative' preaching change that occurred with the imprisonment of John.

Or Richard might claim that Simon Peter and Andrew were called
at 'contradictory' times but that would be a facile reading of the Bible,
more skeptic presumption.

They first met and recognized Jesus when under John's ministry.
After John's imprisonment one reason they were so quickly
responsive to the Master in Galilee, throwing down their nets,
was that they already recognized Jesus as Messiah. The closer one
looks at the Bible, the more beautiful and clear the scriptures.

Whether this issue of Jesus and John's imprisonment is only a
gratuitous error of presumption by Richard Carrier or whether it
has real significance in the schema of the dating would take some
effort to unravel and determine. However I point this one out to
show yet again that virtually every claim of Richard Carrier has to
be checked carefully for accuracy. He apparently has difficulties
when reading the Bible in understanding what it actually says
rather than the 'contradiction' that he desires to see.

Again, this one may not be so important (e.g. compared to
the scroll of fasting problem or cherry-picking the translation
of Luke 2:2) but it is a good example of the problem of trying
to work with the Carrier article.

Skeptic presumption taints the article.

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

judge

What is disappointing is that Richard Carrier wastes ten or eleven paragraphs refuting the idea of microscopic wrting on coins, but avoids the really strong arguments put forward by christian apologists, such as those WRT to the eclipse.
What is the point of refuting the more ridiculous claims and not addressing the more difficult problems, or puting potentially misleading statements in and avoiding giving footnotes when doing so?

Steven Avery

Yes.
A very strange division of labor.

However I do not begrudge Richard Carrier the efforts on the Vardaman claims. He is sort of patting himself on the back on a minor 'triumph' of sorts. Apparently nobody had spent the time to nail that down and Richard made it his big project. Even after Jerry Vardaman passed away the claim might still pop up occasionally as in a post on a web forum or somewhere (rarely in any serious apologetics) and Richard Carrier had written a separate 2002 Skeptic Inquirer article. So he brought it over here.

True he could have more properly simply linked to or referenced the article since this idea is for the most part nonexistent in the apologetic material. At first I thought there might be an attempt for a little 'guilt by association' with Beyer since Vardaman was one of the editors of 'Chronos, Kairos, Christos II' which included David Beyer's 'Josephus Re-Examined: Unraveling the Twenty-Second Year of Tiberius'. However Carrier seems ok on this account.

Since Richard Carrier was himself the author of the Vardaman-debunking I can give him a pass on sandwiching that into the presentation (although it definitely should have a disclaimer pointing out that nobody has been actively proclaiming this theory for years, since he passed away).

Quote:

Originally Posted by judge but avoids the really strong arguments put forward by christian apologists, such as those WRT to the eclipse.

So far just on this little thread we see major problems with the scroll of fasting (that one is a doozy) and the eclipse, vis a vis the death of Herod. Also real concerns on the way the Josephus manuscript material was handled.

And I pointed out the first of the 'bravado' problems above (skeptic presumption). And I hope to follow up on this line of exposure of questionable and manipulative argumentation tactics.

And we have not yet gotten down to the other real fundamental problem, using the cherry-picked translation to assume what Richard Carrier wants to be assumed, hiding the most important issues from his readers. I'm not sure if this is deliberate or not on Richard's part since the better apologetic material was apparently rather early, before the plethora of modern version dubious translations masked the real issues.

Quote:

Originally Posted by judge What is the point of refuting the more ridiculous claims and not addressing the more difficult problems, or putting potentially misleading statements in and avoiding giving footnotes when doing so?

Well, Richard's article is already 'under a cloud' of sorts with his apologists scurrying back trying to plug the obvious major leaks like the reversal of the 'scroll of fasting' evidence. The cannon that has now been turned around against his position.

However,while that is going on we can continue checking for other leaks and faulty plugs here. Judge, the clarity and simplicity and intelligence of your posts has been a big help. And I think with a little effort we can give the background info that will necessitate Richard Carrier really addressing the primary issues instead of emphasizing the diversions like the micrographic mishegas.

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

Steven Avery

Richard's article has a whole slew of problems relating to this issue and is the prototype for the current skeptic position.

If focusing on his errors is really a concern in this thread the moderators can tell us whether we should start a new thread such as:

Problems in the Richard Carrier 'Year of Christ's Birth' Paper

Which would be better than moving to the existing:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=169615
Carrier's Luke vs. Matthew on the Year of Christ's Birth Now Up At ErrancyWiki

Many issues are closely interlinked and this thread has become quite substantive as far. It is of course partly up to the moderator.
Although I may just start a fresh thread and repeat in summary
form some of the major issues we have discussed here.
That way we can major on the majors.

Quirinius is know to have taken office in Syria in 6AD. Personally I
do not see any difficulty with that and feel that the missing elements
are in various simple spots and crannies usually overlooked in a technical and convoluted and confused dialog. Not helped at all by a lot of tricky writing by Richard Carrier.

The major initial issues are ..

1) what does Luke actually say ..
2) what is the history that matches what he says.

I believe that both belong in a Richard Carrier thread since he does not address either issue properly and his article is used as the standard.

The third issue is

3) Why is Richard Carrier's article such a poor guide to the real
issues, at times emphasizing pseudo-issues, and full of skeptic
presumption, and lacking in the basic factual elements.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

This next issue is rather appalling for an article that has been many years in the making. It is also fundamental to the discussion. There are two verses that are the focus of the discussion and Richard is very dubious on both.

This first post will be on verse one, but we will show one and two.

Luke 2:1-2 (KJB)
And it came to pass in those days,
that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus,
that all the world should be taxed. *
(And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)
* taxed: or, enrolled

Richard Carrier translation:

"It happened in those days
that a decree was issued by Caesar Augustus
that a census be taken of all that was inhabited.
This census first came to pass when Quirinius was governing Syria."

There are two significant differences in verse one.
One is "inhabited" vs. "all the world" upon which
we can pass at this time.

The second is "census" versus "taxed" or "enrolled" or which is
ultra-dubious by Richard Carrier. While we could discuss what
would be given for a census (perhaps 'kensos' the word also
used for the census-tribute) the simple fact is that apograph
is less restrictive than a Roman census. This has been discussed
in many places so we will not repeat all the details here. And this
is fundamental to the discussion of what is being discussed,
the meaning and timing of Luke.

Most translations realize this and have -

enrollment, registration or taxing.

The KJB has taxing with the footnote for enrollment,
and all of these versions similarly do not have census -

historical Bibles - KJB, Geneva, Coverdale, Bishops, Tyndale
modern versions - HCSB, ASV, ESV, NRSV, RSV, NKJV & more
Literal - Young, Rotherdam, Green
Latin based - Rheims
Aramaic based - Murdock & Etheridge

This is true even with the social/historical connection of Quirinius with a census of 6 AD. In other words most translators were more faithful to the text. Most notably the historical Bible, the gold-standard, the King James Bible.

Amazingly not only does Richard Carrier brazenly just give us
"census", but he slyly bypasses this primary issue entirely (!)
when he gives his translation.

Richard even titles sections -

Luke's Description of the Census
Was There a Census in Judaea Before 6 A.D.?
Was it a Census Conducted by Herod the Great?

This is an incredible rigging from the start by Richard Carrier,
a methodology of manipulation. If Luke does not say that
Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem for a census (which
is a strict word in Roman usage, involving all the elements
of registration, valuation & taxation) then Richard Carrier
has absolutely no journalistic right to put those words into
the translation and then use his own rigging to guide and
evaluate the scholarly research.

Amazing.

Next we will go into verse 2 where the translation and textual
problems of the Richard Carrier presentation are even more
severe and also fundamental.

After we get the actual errors and presumptions of Richard Carrier's
presentation and translation unraveled then it will be a lot easier
to study the historical backdrop and the linguistic usage for Luke's
introduction to the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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

PS.
To be more technically complete, at the time of the historical Bibles the English language had the word censor for the Roman magistrates who would administer a census. While Latin had the word census which was just coming into the English language. Therefore whether we would expect any early translations to use 'census' per se is problematic, no matter what the Greek word, even if kensos could be used in that fashion. The translation evidence is widespread, however. And if necessary we could reference the technical discussions of why census is a poor translation for apograph. The special KJB footnote remains very helpful.

Steven Avery

Actually we should not let it pass. Here is a discussion showing why "all that is inhabited" can be a misleading translation.

http://forums.techguy.org/civilized-...nnocent-9.html
The first "mistake" lies in claiming that the census was of "all that was inhabited," ... the phrase is pasan tên oikoumenên, "all of the inhabited," where the adjective "inhabited" implies some noun in the feminine, such as "land" or "region," but usually referring to "the whole world." However, this idiom was used not only to refer to the whole Roman Empire, but to regions like "the whole Greek world," and thus may have been meant here as simply the whole Jewish world ...

We should not mask the idiom.

Referring to Israel as the "world" is a common sense in scripture. And in the book of Luke, where there is evidence that Luke is writing to Theophilus the High Priest about events centered in Judea and Galilee, clearly the context could be the "Jewish world" as easily as "Roman empire".

Albert Barnes expresses this view well.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/barnes/ntnotes.iv.ii.i.html
...the whole land—that is, the whole land of Palestine. The whole land is mentioned to show that it was not Judea only, but that it included also Galilee, the place where Joseph and Mary dwelt. That the passage refers only to the land of Palestine, and not to the whole world, or to all the Roman empire, is clear from the following considerations:
1st. The fact that no such taxing is mentioned as pertaining to any other country.
2nd. The account of Luke demands only that it should be understood of Palestine, or the country where the Saviour was born.
3rd. The words world and whole world are not unfrequently used in this limited sense as confined to a single country. See Mt 4:8, where Satan is said to have shown to Christ all the kingdoms of the world, that is, of the land of Judea. See also Jos 2:3 Lu 4:25 (Lu 4:25 Greek) Lu 21:26; Ac 11:2

In this case I believe Richard was simply trying to be slavishly literal (which he missed with 'census'). However the problem is that literalism can mask the idiomatic understanding.

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

spin

Well, take that up with Richard. If you are talking in this thread -- and richard is not here to respond to you -- you should deal with the issues at hand, rather than continuing this irrelevance.

I'm sorry, I couldn't find any substance in the rest of your post. It just seems more Richard Carrier related issues. If you want to talk about the thread itself and dating either Herod's death or Quirinius's tax registration or about issues directly related to them, I may find something to say on the matter.


spin

Steven Avery

No, it is an issue for this forum. We are brainstorming Richard's article and information gets back to Richard as it is developed and tested and checked and found significant. If a better way is to take it to another thread, kewl. Especially if you will stay off the thread, or at least avoid the grumbles and try to understand a consistent methodology.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin If you are talking in this thread -- and richard is not here to respond to you -- you should deal with the issues at hand, rather than continuing this irrelevance.

Everything written is very relevant. If you want this to be a thread where your posts are the centerpiece the mod can simply move my posts so far to a new thread -

"Critique of Richard Carrier 'Date of the Nativity' "

would be a fair title. Then we can also go back over the issues about the "Scroll of Fasting" and the eclipse and more. Personally I think it is necessary to go slowly over Luke to understand what he is saying and slowly over the history and Josephus and Augustus and Herod to understand how everything fits.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin I'm sorry, I couldn't find any substance in the rest of your post. It just seems more Richard Carrier related issues.

That's fine that you don't understand.
No problemo.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin If you want to talk about the thread itself and dating either Herod's death or Quirinius's tax registration or about issues directly related to them, I may find something to say on the matter.

Everything written so far relates to those matters -

- precept upon precept, line upon line...

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

Casper

x2

Toto

Not to be repetitious, but Carrier's article has been on the web for a while. He has invited anyone with criticisms to email him, and he has made revisions. I believe that the article has been submitted for publication and undergone peer review, and will be published.

On specific points, The timing is implicit here - first John is discussed, ending with him in prison, then we learn that Jesus starts his ministry. And since the other two synopics state that Jesus began preaching after John's imprisonment, and John states that Jesus started preaching before John's imprisonment, you will have to do better than this to claim that Carrier is being deceptive.