youngalexander

All the more reason not to reply in kind. Point it out by all means - then rise above the pettiness. Unfortunately, what 'goes around comes around' as we are beginning to witness. Likely the Aristotle and Hume quip did originate as Gdon surmises, but it is also in the first par of the Thom Stark link. Stark probably understood perfectly well how it was originally intended, but felt disinclined to render a 'charitable' interpretation.

I suspect that Richard is due to encounter a good deal of the same ere long.

GakuseiDon

Well said, youngalexander. Let the evidence speak for itself.

dog-on

You really think so?

It seemed like, especially with reference to the Targum ben Uzziel, a giant strawman argument. That Thom is rebutting something not actually argued by Carrier.

youngalexander

Gdon, I have been thinking about your 'Creationist' analogy re MJ and contra the academic consensus. Similarly, as a (long retired) atmospheric scientist, I encounter GW deniers and their disputation with the scientific consensus.

It occurs to me that there is a considerable difference in attitude w/r to the scientific acadamies on the one hand and that of the NT on the other.

Regarding Creationism, scientists may be most reluctant to engage with such bizarre manifestations of anti-science, but have, especially over the last decade, come to understand the necessity of so doing. Thus we do engage, eg. via the splendid National Center for Science Education entering into the debate fully thru sheer necessity. Australian Skeptics do likewise, tho fortunately the necessity is not as dire.

Climate Change denial is of course of more recent origin and a current ongoing phenomenon. The scientific community readily perceives the challenge for the timelines are short and consequences extreme. Thus we engage in the debate - such as it is.

Yet what of the NT academic community?
Widespread ignoring, dismissal, denigration, misrepresentation, slander, vituperation, and cometh the sledgehammer?
Indeed, the skeptics creed. However, let 'the evidence' be presented first, then we may decide. Where may the likes of me see the HJ evidence? In DJE? Surely it is better than that?

GakuseiDon

Analogies go something like "this particular aspect of this broader subject is similar to that particular aspect of that broader subject". I try not to use them, since discussion always gets bogged down in details of the broader subjects rather than the particular aspect referred to in the analogy.

Anyway, I think "Creationist" analogies here are banned, probably rightly so, since they are necessarily controversial and don't add much to the debate.

This is the problem of using analogies. I think you captured how I have used the "Creationist" analogy in the past: that some mythicists, like Creationists, believe that the proponents of the prevailing consensus are so heavily invested in a particular theory that they either won't look at alternatives (because they are scared of losing their jobs) or they are incapable of looking at alternatives because they are stuck in the prevailing paradigm.

So the analogy reflects the attitutes of the fringe against the academic consensus.

But do you see the way you have ended your example above? You started with the analogy dealing with the fringe's view "contra the academic consensus". But you have ended as though the analogy deals with the strengths of the academic orthodox cases. And that isn't what the analogy is about. The analogy (at least the way I use it) relates to how some mythicists view the academic consensus.

You might argue that the evidence is so weak for the academic consensus that the mythicist has good reason to reject the academic consensus, and fair enough. But Creationists think the same about their particular case. And again, that isn't what the analogy is about. It is about the fringes' views of the proponents of academic consensus.

An analogy can no doubt be made about historicists and Creationists. And it would be just as valid.

Anyway, probably best not to use the analogy at all.

youngalexander

OK, stuff analogy.

I was on about engagement!
Scientist have, however reluctantly, engaged with these aberrant positions for the sake of the integrity and maintenance of the discipline. It is this lack of NT academia engagement to which I was referring.

Carrier, for good or ill, is proving to be a disruptive influence. It seems that non-engagement is at an end!

GakuseiDon

Ehrman was writing about conspiracy nuts and how impossible it is to answer them. As I posted on the other thread, Ehrman wrote (my bolding below):

Still, as is clear from the avalanche of sometimes outraged postings on all the relevant Internet sites, there is simply no way to convince conspiracy theorists that the evidence for their position is too thin to be convincing and that the evidence for a traditional view is thoroughly persuasive. Anyone who chooses to believe something contrary to evidence that an overwhelming majority of people find overwhelmingly convincing—whether it involves the fact of the Holocaust, the landing on the moon, the assassination of presidents, or even a presidential place of birth—will not be convinced. Simply will not be convinced.

Are you a conspiracy theorist? No. Are there mythicists that fit that description of "outraged postings"? Yes. As I wrote to youngalexander, probably best to avoid such analogies. But there do appear to be such mythicists out there.

Here is Richard Carrier on Acharya S (my bolding below):
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/580

One of the reasons Murdock’s methodology goes off the rails is that she assumes everyone is out to get her and that there is always some sort of evil conspiracy against her work... Which is the surest way to make yourself irrelevant as a scholar. But that’s her own lookout.

What concerns me more is her mean-spirited paranoia...

I have also had mythers’ unfriendly paranoia cited at me by professors in the field, forcing me to also prove I don’t act like that–I had dismissed that claim about Murdock in the past, but now seeing it flung at me, evidently the scholars who mentioned it to me were correct about it; this is not doing her or mythicism any good, it makes them both look like tinfoil hat...

Contrary to her paranoid fantasies, I address the validity of facts and methodology, praise where praise is due, censure where censure is due...

So, simply because I dared criticize her, now she will trash my work or ignore it, like a pouting child. Not behave, apparently, like a professional. (Notably, “personal attacks” is in the title of her post, yet between us, the only personal attacks I see are hers against me, impugning my motives and honesty; she fails to adduce any actual personal attacks from me against her.)

Her paranoid behavior continues to show when she assumes I was making an argument of “Guilt by Association” when I mentioned the bad scholarship of Kersey Graves as something to be aware of...

[I]t is precisely because of these threads of research and analysis, which tediously take up my time for no purpose, only to reveal how unreliable Murdock is, in reporting, sourcing, and discussing facts, and in drawing inferences from what she quotes, that I don’t want to engage in these debates. If I were to repeat this for every claim she makes, and every claim every myther made, I would be occupied with this for hundreds of years. All to no purpose...

I am not going to waste any more time with “other people’s” shoddy scholarship. If someone else out there wants to do this, all the power to you. But from here on out I am disengaging. I will not bother “checking” any more of Murdock’s facts. Nor will I “debate” any of this, unless you can confirm I have made an actual, provable error (as I did make one, noted above). I am always interested in getting things right. But I am not interested in being someone else’s fact check boy. And I’m certainly not interested in Murdock’s paranoid aspersions or the trolling of her fanatical followers.

The point is: there ARE mythicists out there who are conspiracy theorists, and the analogy to Creationists and Holocaust deniers is apt. But Ehrman is wrong to use the analogy, because those mythicists who are NOT conspiracy theorists will think that Ehrman believes all mythicists are like that, which is clearly not true.

GakuseiDon

But, but, but. Engagement of what, exactly? Are popular press books like Ehrman's "Did Jesus Exist?" arguing against popular press books of Harpur, Freke & Gandy, Acharya S and Doherty really doing anything except selling virtual popcorn?

If non-engagement is coming to an end, it is only because Carrier is doing what should be done: writing a scholarly work for scholars. THAT's the exciting thing here. No more excuses for historicists to avoid the mythicist case. And no more excuses for mythicists to have patience with the Acharya S's of the world.

I like how Carrier put it in his blog (link above):

Murdock also seems obsessed with radical counter-consensus claims, rather than showing any humility or caution in exploring them. For example, she says Ph.D.d scholars (whom she doesn’t name) agree with her that:

“Christian scribes at Alexandria copied Buddhist texts for much of their source material. Carrier endorses The Case Against Q, but these Buddhist scholars are quite certain they have found Q, so let us sit back and watch the fireworks.”

Indeed. When this gets in a peer reviewed journal in the field, I will read it. When will that be exactly? Because I would be most eager to use this as evidence in my own book. The thing is, I find the claim dubious. As will most experts in the field. The proper procedure in that case is to admit you have some convincing of experts to do, that until it gets properly vetted it might not hold up to scrutiny, and that you should go through proper channels and methods to seek that scrutiny, and see what comes out. Instead the arrogance and certainty she exhibits on this point is another example of her bad methodology. It’s a set up for verification bias and a failure to detect and correct errors of method and inference.

This is not the correct way to behave as a scholar. It is anathema to sound methodology. And it’s guaranteed to get you ignored by the very people you should be aiming to persuade: the expert community as a whole.

And that's why I like the guy.

Solo

Would you care to be more specific ? Stark links to Carrier citations, and I have read the argument in Not the Impossible Faith. I don't see a strawman. What do you think Carrier's arguing and Stark miscasts ?

Best,
Jiri

dog-on

Carrier is presenting the Targum as specific evidence to support his claim that some Jews were already reading Isaiah messianically prior to the emergence of Christianity.

Nothing more.

Thom castigates Carrier for "implying" that this Targum supports his overall hypothesis of a dying messiah, whereas Carrier only provides the evidence to support a specific point within the overall argument.

Thom is doing a Fox News impression, I suppose.