Vorkosigan

As far as I can see, your claims for this piece have turned out to be wildly overblown upon clser examination. Now, can you add something constructive to the ongoing discussions, or say something concrete about specific books, individuals or ideas?

Vorkosigan

Steven Carr

King Arthur quotes the folowing '....doing so, it misleads its intended audience which will include Biblicists unfamiliar with details of the archaeological debate.'

Why are Biblicists unfamiliar with details of the archaological debate?

l-bow

KA,

Since you beat up on the minimalists, why don't you go all the way and beat up on the Jesus mythicists (I strongly disagree with them)?

Peter Kirby

I would be delighted to have King Arthur bring his knowledge to bear on the John 2 thread. I think that the Bible study is something that we can discuss with pleasure and with little acrimony. (Of course, that invitation is open to everyone, whatever their knowledge of John.)

Or, if King Arthur would prefer a subject that tends to be a bit more adversarial, I would be interested in what KA has to say about Vorkosigan's suggestion that "called Christ" only was added to Ant. 20.200. This is the first time I have heard the suggestion, and I am still considering it. If it is foolish, perhaps KA can point that out to me.

Although I do not claim that Ellegard is wrong in dating 1 Clement before the destruction of the Temple (the dating range listed on the homepage is lifted from Welborn; I have avoided listing idiosyncratic ranges on the main page), I would be interested in hearing what King Arthur has to say on that point.

I would be happy to see King Arthur have a go at these topics; we might even learn something.

best,
Peter Kirby

Vorkosigan

Or, if King Arthur would prefer a subject that tends to be a bit more adversarial, I would be interested in what KA has to say about Vorkosigan's suggestion that "called Christ" only was added to Ant. 20.200. This is the first time I have heard the suggestion, and I am still considering it. If it is foolish, perhaps KA can point that out to me.

Actually, I realized while I was fighting the 5:00 traffic here in Taichung today that I hadn't followed my line of thought far enough. I was thinking the reference was awkward because the reference to Jesus occurs before the reference to Jesus son of Dameus. But of course, I speculated while eating fumes, the interpolator evicted the patronymic, and substituted "called messiah" and the rest was fiction...er...history. The original passage read:

...brother of Jesus son of Dameus, James by name....

which then neatly connects it to the reference further down in the same passage.

Vorkosigan.

Peter Kirby

Vorkosigan writes:

Actually, I realized while I was fighting the 5:00 traffic here in Taichung today that I hadn't followed my line of thought far enough. I was thinking the reference was awkward because the reference to Jesus occurs before the reference to Jesus son of Dameus. But of course, I speculated while eating fumes, the interpolator evicted the patronymic, and substituted "called messiah" and the rest was fiction...er...history. The original passage read:

...brother of Jesus son of Dameus, James by name....

which then neatly connects it to the reference further down in the same passage.

I liked your original hypothesis better.

The thing that I liked about your original hypothesis is that it could explain the strange way in which James is identified, unparalleled in ancient Christian literature. Not knowing that Josephus was referring to a Jesus later on, actually thinking that it was the Jesus of Christian fame, a scribe would have scribbled in the margin 'tou legomenou Christou'. Then, a later scribe would come along, thinking that the marginal note indicated a part that belonged in the text, and would insert the phrase into the body of the passage. No deliberate falsification required.

The thing that I don't like about the new hypothesis is that it requires a deliberate modification of the passage that is not fully explained. One thing that is not explained is why the scribe would think that this could be his Jesus - it explicitly said otherwise - while this is no problem for the original hypothesis. Another thing that is not explained is why the scribe would go for this odd way of referring to James when he was already altering the passage and could have used a more traditional idiom. Another thing that is not explained is that it is unclear what the interpolator gained from the modification, while on the original hypothesis it was just a mistake.

As to whether Josephus could have identified someone through a brother that was not identified earlier on, I have argued that this is plausible with reference to Pallas in Wars of the Jews 2.247.

So, King Arthur, do you know of any evidence that would discredit Vorkosigan's original hypothesis?

best,
Peter Kirby

Vorkosigan

I've started a new thread for the Ant. 20.200 passage.

Jayhawker Soule

Oh, the power of the footnote fetish!
These quotes are from the book jacket. Given phrases such as "provocative polemic", "advanced position", and "the authors challenge", anyone misled into believing that the book presented the consensus of the field can blame only themselves. Be that as it may, what specific argument in the book do you reject?

Answerer

Guys, I believe this site to be a better one in disproving OT.

<a href="http://www.truthbeknown.com/biblemyth.htm" target="_blank">http://www.truthbeknown.com/biblemyth.htm</a>

[ July 27, 2002: Message edited by: Answerer ]</p>

Radcliffe Emerson

quote:

I. FINKELSTEIN – N.A. SILBERMAN, The Bible Unearthed. Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origins of its Sacred Texts (New York 2001) 45, 65, 68, 92-96, 284, 301-305. The book presents Finkelstein’s positions — the ‘New Vision’ of the title — on a number of key and minor issues in Israelite history, not only the tenth century debate, but it does so without comment as to their status in the field (ibid., 114-118, 141,142). In doing so, it misleads its intended audience which will include Biblicists unfamiliar with details of the archaeological debate. The book presents hypotheses as facts, not informing readers what is disputed and why, and it does not indicate that there are difficulties or uncertainties about the new vision, not of ‘archaeology’, but of a single archaeologist.

The book has a complete listing in the back of other publications from other authors that were used as references, and can be checked by anyone reading the book.
I'm reading the book right now, and this book combined with the discoveries they keep making about the connections to ancient Egypt are clear as day and make perfect sense to me. I have absolutely no doubt that the statements made in Finkelstein's book are indeed fact, because I've read too many other articles and even talked to a few people who studied this stuff at religious seminaries to have doubts as to it's truthfulness.

Some Jewish rabbis will now freely admit that the history and events in their Torah and Old Testament are legends, not to be taken as literally true.

[ July 29, 2002: Message edited by: Radcliffe Emerson ]

[ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: Radcliffe Emerson ]</p>