Adam

I received no reply to my post below, so I will list now the books where a court case regarding against Jesus is studied. Do any of them suggest a gospel source was hostile to Jesus?
Andrew Lincoln, Truth on Trial, 2010.
J. Blank, Krisis: Untersuchungen, 1964.
J. M. Boice: Witness and Revelation in the Gospel of John, 1970.
J. Beutler: Martyria, 1972.
S. Pancoro: The Law in the Fourth Gospel, 1975.
A. E. Harvey: Jesus on Trial, 1976.
A. A. Trites: the New Testament Concept of Witness, 1977.
R. G. Maccini: Her Testimony i True: Women..., 1976.

spin

Usually, when you cite texts, you supply the publisher as well.

avi

Seems like four issues, to me:

1. definition of mythicism, such that it can be "falsified", i.e. refuted. Falsification implies fraud--ALWAYS. You wish to assert an ability to repudiate mythicism, perhaps in general, or at least, with regard to its invocation in regard to Christianity. Do you feel the same way about other characters from other religions, or only Jesus?

2. "prove absence of evidence for HJ". Do I need to prove absence of evidence for other Greek mythological characters, born of virgins, ascending to heaven, with a deity for a father, and a human mother?

3. "evidence for HJ".... ? WHAT? Where is this evidence? Is it kept in the same file cabinet with Bart Ehrman's "original Aramaic texts from the first century"? I know of zero evidence, so please provide a link to a web site with actual data, instead of opinion.

4. "eye witness records". Which eye witness would that be? A name will suffice, if you do not know the publisher.

hjalti

That's a strange assertion.

Adam

Avi,
We could play around your sarcasm indefinitely here, but your lack of recent posts (since September 2011, when I joined) indicates that I should refer you to my recent post #39 on this thread, where I gave several links to my posts that remain uncontested here.
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread....80#post7233580
You are welcome to try where all others have failed (whether they have tried or have ignored me).
Now that Form Criticism is recognized as having failed, you cannot rely on consensus scholarship as a sufficient case against me.

avi

Thanks for your comment Hjalti, may I consider Iceland part of Europe? Yes, in European terms, falsified, from the German, is considered BOTH fraud, and refutation.

However, in the new world, "falsification" always refers to FRAUDULENT manipulation. We have so much "falsification" here, it is amazing.

The key point is this: REFUTATION has a neutral meaning, always implies evidence which contrasts with an assertion.

By contrast, "falsification", in USA, and maybe in Canada, I cannot say for sure, always implies "FRAUD".

Therefore, to be safe, and to have one's communication readily comprehended by someone living in Jakarta, or New South Wales, or BeiJing, or anywhere else on planet earth, it is advantageous to write, instead of "falsified", REFUTED.

That way, no one imagines that we are referring, e.g. Paul's letters to Seneca, to documents which have been deliberately sabotaged, or "interpolated", or created de novo, and then backdated. Yes, I know, spin disagrees with me.... big deal...

avi

spin

Avi infrequently drives by with this utter gormlessness believing that the real world shouldn't use "falsifiable" because the term confuses him. Instead of trying to catch up he'd like the world to step backward for his sake. Here's a little taste of what he'd like to shut the gate on:

Wikipedia: falsifiability

RationalWiki: falsifiability

Experimental resources

Conservapedia: falsifiable

Britannica: criterion of falsifiability

A Field Guide to Critical Thinking

Abstract of an article on Falsifiability

Criterion of Falsifiability

Karl Popper and the Question of Falsifiability

Falsifiability: How to Foil Little Green Men in the Head

Page 1 of "Quantification of Theoretical Terms and the Falsifiability of Theories"

Google Scholar hits for Falsifiability

I think the horse has well and truly bolted, try as he may to stop it.

avi

Without wasting any time looking through this list of links, I bet a wooden nickel, that 90% of them relate back, in some fashion, to Karl Popper.

Ok, smart folks, here you go:

Careful scrutiny of the documents attributed to Paul exchanged with the first century Roman author Seneca, reveals their falsification? What does that mean?

To me, it would mean their forgery. However, to spin, the eternal agnostic, it would mean their refutation. But, what is important in language, any language? Communication, no?

So, to the native Swahili speaker, what is the distinction? It is not so difficult for a native English speaker to discern the distinction between fraudulence and mere refutation, associated with using the German (i.e. Popper was a native German speaker) meaning of falsification. In that central European parent of English, there are two meanings of the word, and it is up to the reader, using context, to establish the correct meaning.

I dislike that notion. I prefer to employ words which convey a single meaning, to prevent ambiguity. I also consider Popper's "contribution" to be useless. He is much beloved by sociologists, but not by me.

gormy

hjalti

I find this rather strange because the sentence avi quoted was: The term "falsifiable" here does not imply anything realated to fraud, and it is in no way ambiguous. :huh:

avi

Thanks hjalti.

Let's examine this briefly. Did Bart Ehrman convince you (he did not convince me), that mythicism is repudiated by the existence of 1st century Aramaic documents? To me, maybe the only one on the forum, Ehrman has falsified (meaning misrepresented, not disproven) the nature of the documentary evidence of the gospels. So, yes, mythicism is definitely "falsifiable", Ehrman has done it. He has falsified (misrepresented, NOT DISPROVEN) mythicism.

Hope this example illustrates to your satisfaction, the problem with the German/English word "falsified". "Repudiate" is your friend. Rely on him. "Falsified" must be reserved for connotations associated with fraudulent endeavors. Equating "falsified" with "repudiate", simply places the burden on the recipient, to deduce the proper meaning, instead of upon the initiator of the communication process.

avi