Gamera

Oh, much more than that. Known historical figures (whatever that means) involved in narratives that have no basis in any source besides the author's imagination.

If you required footnotes to historical fiction (which of course we don't, which of course tells us immediately it isn't history), you could tell the historical material from the fictional material in three seconds.

Gamera

And yet while you and other have expressed this view, and even written books about it, nobody in antiquity did.

That's the problem, that's the silence the mythicists face.

Amaleq13

You cannot imagine what "Known historical figures" means?

How about figures we know of from other sources? Say Pilate, for example. He is "known" to have existed in specific time in history from a variety of sources. Understand the mysterious phrase now?

Untrue, I've read several historical fiction novels that included footnotes connecting the text to actual history. When such notes are absent, one is required to do one's own research to determine what is and is not historical in the story. Not you, of course, since you apparently have some sort of magical power the rest of us lack that enables you to immediately differentiate between history and fiction.

Utter nonsense. You cannot possibly know enough about every historical era to immediately recognize what is and is not historical in any given example of historical fiction. Every character? Every incident? This is absurd. I thought you would approach rationality given Solo's additional explanation but you continue to make this ridiculous claim. :huh:

Solo

You will not able to defend that. There is historical fiction - and the Herlos' novel would be an example of 'hyper-realism' - where certain scenes are historically accurate, i.e. directly drawing in description on letters, documents and memoires of the actors and others are not. For example, the Wallenstein assassination events are extraordinarily well attested which you can tell even from a casual look at the Wiki article on him. Herlos reproduced them closely and used the known facts about the emperor's mistrust of Wallenstein to create an illusion of reality for his fictional plots . But the fiction cannot be read from the novelesque style. Herlos crafted some events with historical fidelity while creating others with the same style of detached realistic narration to fit his purpose.

Jiri

Gamera

Then what you have is not the genre of historical fiction, but historical imitation. If it purports to be history, and is in the genre of historiography, then it isn't historical fiction, but imitation.

Then you go to plan B and ask for the sources, like you would any historical work. Obviously there would not be sources for the fictive parts. Conundrum solved.

Gamera

No, not from your explanation. Prester John is known from a variety of sources, but most everybody agrees he lacks historicity.

Ironically, I don't know if you want to use Pilate for your example, since until the discovery of the inscription at Caesarea Maritima, there was little evidence of his existence outside the New Testament sources, at least none that weren't suspected of being Christian interpolations.

Historicity is a rather complex textual idea, which you might want to contemplate further before you glibly assume it is simple by assuming the conclusion that we know who is historical and who isn't.

The fact that footnotes are not provided for some facts should have been a hint to you that it was historical fiction. It is for me.

Not magic, just an understanding of the genres of historiography, historical fiction, and historical imitation.

Your confusion is total. If the genre is historical fictions (which you can figure out in 3 seconds), you shouldn't take ANY of it as historical. It isn't historiography. So you don't need to figure out what parts are "real" and what aren't. It is a fictional genre and nobody with any sense will look to get their knowledge of history from that genre.

The only ridiculous claim here is this admission -- that you actually look to find history in historical fiction!

(Pssst: if you want to find out what happened in the past under the standard of what we call historicity, don't read historical fictions, read histories!)

Toto

<groan> not this canard again. Pilate is well documented in Philo and Josephus. There is no record of any skepticism of his existence, or any suspicion of the sources being Christian interpolations.

This is just a story that Christian apologists made up to plant the idea that there is no need for skepticism about Biblical claims, and that archeology always backs up the Bible and overturns skeptics.

GakuseiDon

No, simply that demons were not thought to exist in an "incorruptible" layer. They shared the sublunar region with humankind. Only the true gods -- perfect and eternal -- lived in the incorruptible realm. Doherty and I are in agreement here. Send him an email if you think we are wrong.

I'm wary of anyone invoking the "riotous diversity of belief" card. Anything is possible, of course, but not everything has evidence. And some ideas have evidence against them. Demons in an "incorruptible" layer is one. Violent death in a "fleshly sublunar realm" is another. These are silences that need to be explained. Even more, those ideas go against the evidence that we do have.

Evolution.

Do they say that the incorruptible realm was populated by demons? Not that I'm aware of.

I agree, in this case it is a nitpick. But it's important to get the terminology correct, otherwise it leads to confusion. Someone on this board once stated that Doherty claimed that Paul believed Satan crucified Jesus in the 3rd heaven! When I pointed out that this wasn't so, this was also regarded as a nitpick. In this case, Jesus transforms into the forms of the angels on each level; he incarnates on earth.

Sure. If Satan did this, directly or indirectly, then it was done on earth if we go by what the literature available tells us. I'm not aware of any references to violent death in the sublunar realm above the earth.

"Grudgingly"? Satan killing people on earth goes against my point? I don't see it, personally.

Amaleq13

Only because you prefer to play obtuse.

You made a blatantly silly claim and now you are stuck with it. You know you can't always tell which characters are historical and which are fiction just from reading a story but, rather than admit you were mistaken, you play semantic games and try to create distractions. This isn't court, counselor. Those tricks won't work here.

Yes and that is why I consider your assertion to be utterly and completely foolish since you claim it is so easy to determine. :huh:

Try to stay focused on your claim. You didn't make a claim about recognizing whether an entire book or story is historical fiction or some other genre. You specifically claimed you were capable of identifying whether a character was historical or not without doing any research. That is simply bullshit no matter how you slice it.

Not magic. Bluster. That has become quite clear with your recent tactics.

Even though some of it is? Why emphasize the error of your thinking by making it explicit?

You do, if you want to support your assertion.

I would simply because I like to know what characters in the story I just read or movie I just watched are based in history. I lack your amazing ability to simply know without checking.

A little late with the smoke and mirrors, aren't you? This doesn't have anything to do with your claim to be able to identify whether any given character is historical or not without research.

What is ridiculous about looking for something that exists but is not apparent? Nothing. You don't even feel the egg on your face, do you?

I doubt anyone is fooled by these transparent attempts to distract from your ridiculous assertion but feel free to keep trying. :wave:

Ted Hoffman

Wrong. He is talking about wisdom of the spirit and from the spirit, not human wisdom. He says in 1 Corinthians 2:7
Cant you even check before you post? At any rate, where else does Paul use archontes/archotons to refer to humans? From what you can check, please tell us, wccording to the Jewish mindset, what is this age and who are the rulers of this age?.

His point is that God's wisdom is hidden from the demons and his hidden wisdom can be revealed to us if we accept the spirit. In other words, acceptance of the spirit opens our eyes to wisdom that is inaccessible to demons.
Asked and answered. I notice you have not responded to my posts. Or have you handed over to GDon?