Layman

No, but I suspect that if someone as educated as Pliny was superstitois in this regard, it was not that uncommon of a belief.

And I think you are missing the point by asking if they had seen someone bitten and lived. No doubt they did. And they had seen others bitten and die. Many chalked this up to divine vengence/exhoneration.

That's possible, but by no means certain.

I'll try it. Thanks.

Is that all he said? Or just as to that point?

It still does not tell me how he learned that there was such a "convention" in the first place. Those are his examples meant to prove his point. They are not my counterexamples.

Layman

Josephus had his own agenda which was not just historical. And if he had no theological interests why does he claim Vaspasion was the Messiah?

The author of Luke-Acts was clearly identified to his readers (hence the "I" and formal address in both works).

And Josephus had his own ideological and theological bias.

Overly credulous historians like A.N. Sherwin-White? One of the top Roman historians?

"For Acts the confirmation of historicity is overwhelming... Any attempt to reject its basic historicity even in matters of detail must now appear absurd. Roman historians have long taken it for granted."

A.N. Sherwin-White, RSRL, 189.

Sauron

And you have no evidence to show that any such snakes lived there 2000 years ago. Other than Acts, which is (of course) the piece of text under examination.

The available evidence says that they do not live there today, and you have produced exactly zero third-party evidence to show that they *ever* lived there.

Not irrelevant. Just inconvenient for your argument. As usual.

Sauron

Sources for this claim, as well as whether or not it applied to the inhabitants of Malta?

Generally speaking a group of rustic people living on a small island are going to know very well the fauna of their little "realm". The argument that they would have had a generic fear of such creatures, which was at variance to their day-to-day first hand experience, is simply not convincing.

1. Apologies for confusing you with Nomad. I was reading something he wrote on XTalk right before responding to you.

2. Your explanation denies any miracle event - just wanted to be sure that you were aware of that.

Toto

I would call that political. Josephus was only trying to justify himself and his ethnic group, not start a new church.

He was?? So solve this mystery for us. Who wrote Luke-Acts? If you think that Theophilus knew, who was Theophilus? How do you know Theophilus was a person and not a literary convention (since the name means "friend of God")?

The case for Theophilus being a literary convention, based on Josephus' dedicating his works to "Epaphroditus" is pretty reasonable, especially considering the many other parallels between Luke and Josephus:

From the note to Luke and Josephus

Toto

We haven't established that there were any poisonous snakes on Malta for them to observe someone being bitten and dying. But you can hypothesize anything.



That was in fact all he said. He is saying is that it is irrelevant if his sources might have been actual first person accounts or pretending to be first person accounts, because he is only looking at this from a literary point of view, not as a theological or historical point.

You could press him as to how he knows how a Hellenistic reader would react. Of course, you could also try to read his original article and understand what he is trying to say before attacking him.

Sauron

However, the distinction between poisonous and non-poisonous snakes appears to have been known in the classical world (i.e, the possibility that snakes could be either venomous, or harmless). Herodotus mentions it.

[2.74] In the neighbourhood of Thebes there are some sacred serpents which are perfectly harmless. They are of small size, and have two horns growing out of the top of the head. These snakes, when they die, are buried in the temple of Jupiter, the god to whom they are sacred.


[3.109] Now with respect to the vipers and the winged snakes of Arabia, if they increased as fast as their nature would allow, impossible were it for man to maintain himself upon the earth. Accordingly it is found that when the male and female come together, at the very moment of impregnation, the female seizes the male by the neck, and having once fastened, cannot be brought to leave go till she has bit the neck entirely through. And so the male perishes; but after a while he is revenged upon the female by means of the young, which, while still unborn, gnaw a passage through the womb, and then through the belly of their mother, and so make their entrance into the world. Contrariwise, other snakes, which are harmless, lay eggs, and hatch a vast number of young. Vipers are found in all parts of the world, but the winged serpents are nowhere seen except in Arabia, where they are all congregated together. This makes them appear so numerous.



Assuming that this ever took place as a historical event. It's also possible (and somewhat more believable) that the author was acquainted with venomous snakes from living in the Levant or other places in the ANE. He added this tale for the benefit of readers back home - not realizing that in Malta, the tale wouldn't work because the local fauna wouldn't support one key detail.

Layman

As you have proven time and again.

Pretty weak response. I'm not as concerned about my response being delayed by my technical issues.

I think that's a very valid point. Don't you?

I have the man in person and he can't defend his use of these writings as examples of his conclusion.

Sauron

Indeed. I was struck by how much Layman's response resembles arguing with a creationist. When confronted with a nasty little fact like the speed of light being a constant:

"But maybe it was different in the past. You don't know that it has ALWAYS been constant. "

"Do you have evidence to the contrary? Evidence that things were different in the past, than they are now?"

"No - if you think it has been constant for all time, you prove it."

"But you're the one asserting that the past situation differs from the present one. Since you're assertion is contrary to all the facts as we know them, the burden of proof is on you."

"Is not! Is not! Is not!"

Layman

Right, expect that we have no evidence that the speed of light changes. We do know that species go extint, locally and generally, on a rather common basis. Malta is a small Island that has lost its original forest canopy since New Testament times. It it not unreasonable to entertain the possiblity that some snake species have gone extint there over a 2000 year period.

And its not remotely like claiming that the speed of light has changed to support YECism.

Besides, I am not the one who asserted that there have never been any snakes on Malta. I do not know that Acts was right about the kind of snake that bit Paul, but I also do not know that he was wrong. And neither do you guys.