Magdlyn

Your problem in understanding my pov is you are taking what I said too literally. I was speaking generally. You're perhaps not seeing the forest for the trees.

I know the "levitical" scapegoat was let free. I used that term loosely, as an idiom. I do not think the Jesus Myth is entirely nor strictly "Jewish." Surely that is obvious. I see the myth as partly Jewish, partly pagan.

Scapegoat (Caiaphas's/Pilate's idea to kill one for all), sacrificial lamb, humiliated king, victorious son of god, take your pick. It's a syncretization. Each gospel has a slightly different spin.

Richard Carrier

I never said they were. In fact, I said pretty much the reverse, that there was plenty of it around, it just wasn't as severe among the elite as your example of the Flamen Dialis implies.



Thank you. That confirms my point. Or did you not notice that that is almost exactly what I said? That the ancient Romans were not so much more superstitious than anyone in the 19th century West? Indeed you seem to have missed my very words "among the elite" both in respect to "19th century silliness" and Lucian's rationalism (which I said was common among the Roman "elite," and in case English is your second language, "common" does not mean "universal"). So you are arguing against no one on this.


Sigh. I suppose you don't read Latin. Or you are way too trusting of antiquated translations. Tertullian actually wrote "acuunt doctrinae disciplinae artes et experientiae negotia studia," "doctrines, disciplines, arts and experience, business, studies, sharpen [our wits]." Sorry. No science in there. No "experimental knowledge" either.

Though experientia can mean "experiments," it generally means experience as in practice, of any kind (just as scientia in ancient Latin referred to all knowledge of any kind, not just what we call "science" today). It here clearly does not mean running experiments, but gaining practical experience in everyday life (as in "practice makes perfect"). The structure of his sentence clearly intends this to encompass negotia (trade, business, occupation) and studia (generally book learning of any kind) as varieties of experientia (experience, practice, efforts), just as (by preceding the et) doctrinae is meant to encompass disciplinae (anything that is taught) and artes (any and all systematic skills) as varieties of doctrinae (anything you learn through formal education).

In my talk I made a key distinction, backed with evidence, between supporting rote skill and book learning, and supporting active scientific research (requiring the elevation in value of curiosity, empiricism, and progressivism). Tertullian here only affirms the former. As to what he says of the latter, that's a much longer story my book will tell. But you need to keep clear the difference between valuing the use of reason and book learning and actual scientific values: that curiosity is a moral good and a virtue that should be fulfilled in practice, that empiricism must take precedence over all other ways of knowing, and that scientific knowledge (knowledge of how and why nature behaves as she does) can and should be continually expanded and improved with active research (by joining curiosity and empiricism with action).

My book will explain this in detail.

mountainman

Just as a sample, will your book outline the criteria
by which you claim Christians only burned one library
in the 4th century, or can you outline that here?

From an independent observer, your statement very
closely matches the zero libraries by Bede et al.

Are we to infer that you support a restricted view of
fourth century history? Or are we to infer that your
you are seriously playing with the definition of the term
"library" when applied to the fourth century?

My count of "temple-libraries" destroyed by the christian
regimes of the fourth century is at least 28.

Do you cover any material elsewhere which supports this
statement, of one library?


Best wishes,


Pete Brown

GakuseiDon

I think you missed the thrust of my post, which was a response to Toto's summary of your talk: "Tertullian referred to "stupid curiosity on natural objects. By Tertullian's day, scientists had proven that all mental functions resided in the brain and had even mapped the brain and the nerves - Galen had already done his work. But Tertullian dismisses this in his book on the Soul, saying it is better not to know what god has not revealed.".

My point wasn't so much that Tertullian was "pro-science" as he wasn't "anti-intellect". Tertullian promoted Christian philosophy over pagan philosophy on supernatural matters, but I'm not aware of any early Christian writing that could be considered "anti-science" or "anti-intellect". I suspect that by "anti-science" you mean the "anti-atheist" stance early Christians took against the Epicureans and their "anti-Providence" views.

I'll look forward to it!

Roger Pearse

Indeed, which would suggest, surely, that attempting to separate ancient writers into those who advocate something yet to be invented and those who do not is a bit strange.

In short, all the means of learning things available.

Um. The distinction between the scientific approach and rote-learning is important, even today, as anyone who has encountered an Indian call-centre knows.

But I think that we have some careful category-murdering going on here. The very idea of talking about 'progressivism' in antiquity sounds quite anachronistic, not least because I am reading Cyril of Alexandria Contra Julianum at the moment and the entire first book of this is dedicated to showing that Christianity is older than paganism, not that it is more progressive. This idea that new=false is endemic in antiquity.

I was unable to see the distinction discussed above in what he writes, however, particularly since it isn't the subject under discussion.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

mountainman

Quite obviously paganism (ie: Hellenism) is older than
the recently appeared "christianity" and Cyril is simply delivering
up a whole pile of bullshit, as was his role at the top of the heap.

Cyril expelled the Jews from Alexandria, was heavily implicated
in the murder of Hypatia, and has been suspected of torching
the library of Alexandria. He was a thug, and an employer of
"black-robed christian terrorists". His job was to lie through
his teeth, and refute "Julian's Lies" that the NT was simple fiction.

You dont believe Cyril to be an honest "historian" ,
knowing the excessively brutal persecutions that
Cyril's "christian regime" was enacting at that time,
do you?



Best wishes,


Pete Brown

Richard Carrier

Not in science. My dissertation has a whole chapter documenting a firm belief in the possibility, reality, and value of scientific progress among the ancient (pagan) elite of the early Roman empire. In contrast, this sentiment can be found nowhere in any Christian author of the first three centuries (and judging from your remark, it sounds like you've not seen it in any Christian author of subsequent centuries either).

BTW, other scholars have documented other varieties of progressivism in antiquity as well, hence opposition to (usually political, moral, or religious) novelty was not as strong as is sometimes maintained, but that's another matter.

Richard Carrier

My forthcoming book ends at 313 A.D. So no, I won't be discussing the library burning question there.


I thought Bede conceded the Serapeum?


By "library" I mean a physical institution built for the purpose of storing books for public use, and by "Christians burned" I mean deliberately (not accidentally) set on fire.


I won't comment on the 5th century since I only said the 4th. You claim 28 libraries were deliberately burned by Christians in the 4th century. Yet you list only one actual library, of Antioch in 365 A.D., but give no citation supporting this claim.

Please email me the citation for that, and every citation you have for any of the "temples" you list containing a library (in addition to the citation, not abbreviated but stated in full, for its deliberate destruction), and I'll examine your evidence. See my SW author profile for my email address.

Don't bother with any of the other items (the burning of specific books or kinds of books) as those are not libraries. I never doubted the selective burning of books throughout late antiquity, that's just not the same thing as destroying an entire library--though it is evidence of deliberate suppression of information, which the Christians accomplished in more ways than just burning things.

mountainman

Did the coverage include the medical profession:
the lineage Apollo, Asclepius, Pythagoras, Hippocrates,
and Galen; the temples of Asclepius and the Asclepia;
the term "therapeutae" as applied to this tradition,
and the extent to which modern society still draws
upon these ancients ...

Such as the staff of Asclepius:


and the Hippocratic Oath (inclusive of its clients
confidentiality clause expressed in an ancient way)

"I swear by Apollo ......"



Thanks for the response on the library question btw.
And best wishes



Pete Brown

Richard Carrier

None of that was pertinent to either talk, so no.