Metacrock

I got trapped in that text version and had to turn off the computer. O well, what I saw of Melito of Saridis in that paper presented nothing to disprove his trip. It only says he didn't go out of a motive of pilgrimage but out of curiosity.

All that proves is that he didn't go to be a pilgrim. Big deal. That doesn't disprove the idea that he met people who told him of the veneration tradtion. It also sites Euebius as the source on his account. I tried to remember the number but I was so POed at having to get off that I can remember it. Wish I wrote it down.


It's in the footnote on Melito. here's a tip, old scholarly trick, read the footnotes! ;-)



As for the "Groundless Claims" site:





That's the mot substantive "evidence" in the whole article. The rest is all just his own personal doubt put over as argumentation.

He says two things here:

1) no evidence M. visisted.

to that he's just refusing to take E as evidence. Becasue the second sit, the one I got trapped in, contradicts this calim. Since apparently E does site Melito, he uses M. as evidence and thus does know of the tradition that's evidence! E is the documentation for M.!!!

2) E gave no reference for the location

that doesn't matter. That's so well documented, since the stream of pilgrims from Contatanine's time to now has not stopped, no one doubts that the CHS is the site that Constatine chose. And that's proven by Biddle and by Corbo. At least that much is proven, that CHS is the site Constantine chose. The Corbo excavation removed all doubt on that, if there was any.

Toto

Meta - there is no need to reproduce the entire New Advent web page. You claim you don't have time to track down messy little details like what Eusebius actually said, but you could at least read what you are cutting and pasting.

Notice all the weasel words that you have marked: scholars contend (which scholars? why? working for which ecclesiastical institution?). All this must have happened, could have happened. And as actual evidence that it happened, people are venerating that site today and have since Constantine's time! Actual proof produced = nada.

Melito says in the 2nd c. that Jesus was killed in the middle of the street, perhaps quoting Revelations, and suddenly this is evidence that he saw that street?

It's like the evidence for oral tradition behind the gospels is - it just must have been there! Otherwise there would be no way to claim that they have any historical basis, and that can't be <horrors>.

I have less reason to spend more time on this than you do, and I have a feeling that no one else is following this.

Metacrock

Meta => I did read it. Careful, I'm about to bite your head off. I've never had such an agnozing day. I have a dire family emergency, and every single lead that I've tracked down on this is unavaible to me. NOt because it isn't there, but because each and every time I can't get to it. The Biblical Archeology review article, which was cramed with good stuff, has been taken off the net, or burried in their back archives so I can't get to it, and so on.

Notice all the weasel words that you have marked:





Meta => it is a Weasely thing to say "wesal words." I've noticed often when atheists say that what they really mean is "that's a word too big for me to use."




scholars contend (which scholars? why? working for which ecclesiastical institution?).



Meta => I don't know, I didn't write the dman thing. But all you have is incredulity. I can't believe this so I'm going to knit pick at every little thing about it I can find. Why did they put it on page 15? Doesn't that tell you right there it's wrong. You show every time you do that that you have no critical abliities, because you are so afraid of there being an actual tomb, why cant' you just say "a tomb doens't prove he rose form the dead?" You are so crenging with fear that it might be real you can't objectively evaluate the evidence to any degree. It's got to be proven right down to the number of columns used on the page, because lack of god forbid that anything should be proven which would give even the faintest hint of a support for this belief that you obviously despize.



All this must have happened, could have happened. And as actual evidence that it happened, people are venerating that site today and have since Constantine's time! Actual proof produced = nada.


Meta => Yea yea yea, not the best, got it, your being redundant. more incredulity. But that's still too much to say "there never was a tomb."


Meta => you got that from that stupid groundless page. That's not an argument, that's a knitt pick. <horrors>.


Meta => I'm not the one who brought it up edited by moderator. I wasn't even trying to argue that. I wasn't trying to argue for the res, I wasn't usuing it as proof. I wanted to talk about why Paul didn't mention it, I didn't even bring it up. you are the one with the dread and fear in your gut over the prospect of their being a real tomb. You are the one with the fear and trembling and the sickness unto death.

go read Keirkegaard and make a leap of faith.

btw the source that you linked to and that you pushed as being so clever and scholarly because it showed that he went out of curiosity, remember?


Guess what else it showed?

it didn't question the fact that he went or that he talked to them. and it sited Eusebius. Now I'm having problems finding that on line, but you can find it. Or dont' I don't care. I'm not pushing this.

All I want is for you to say "well I'm not convenced by the evidence but perhaps some people venerated the tomb in the first century, but it isn't proven--rather than "no one ever did"

If you just made that change I would be happy. I'm willing to let it drop cause I didn't bring it up in the first place

Please, no name-calling. I am inclined also to remove the inflammatory and groundless claims that Toto is racked with "fear and trembling and the sickness unto death," but will leave it in because its extravagance is its own refutation. I would be taking it too seriously to remove it. -- Peter Kirby

Vorkosigan

I am! I still haven't seen any evidence from Metacrock to assume that the site was venerated in early times. The "ral tradition"simply falls under the category of "self-serving assumptions."

Vorkosigan

Peter Kirby

What are the quotes from Cornfeld and Biddle that you have in mind? I didn't get an answer to that.

The key here is that you assumed that Eusebius used a tradition from Melito on the tomb of Jesus. Indeed, before you assumed that, you assumed that there could have been earlier accounts independent of Eusebius: "Anyway, you will have to read the link, I'm not sure if it does come through Eusebius. These pilgrims did write their own accounts, and it names who they were. go read it again." Obviously this has turned out to be false; we don't have any second century accounts concerning the site of the holy sepulchre; as I pointed out, the Catholic Encyclopedia concedes that the literary evidence begins in the fourth century. So you said, "But ok fair enough. WE don't actually possess the documents the pilgrims wrote." Then, based on the sentence in which it is said that Melito visited the land of the Old Testament, you decided to believe something about Eusebius knowing an account of Melito on the site of the holy sepulchre: "He was a pilgrim. He lived in second century, so he must have written an account, or E. made one up for him. We don't have it, but E. Calimed to have had it." You insist that Eusebius recorded the pilgrim's account of the holy sepulchre tradition: "Why would you think that Eusebius recording that Pilgrim's report is not evidence?" You say again, "Eusebius got the record and wrote about it." You state further that the Catholic Encyclopedia says something about Eusebius recording a tradition by Melito on the tomb site: "it says those other writters confirm Euseibus' account of Milito's account." You say, "that goes directly to Eusebius from Milito, the original eye witness."

Yesterday you said: "I would have to have the copy of Ecclesiastical Histories and I don't have time to dig through it. I'm willing to trust Cornfeld, Biddle and New Advent when they say he says it." I reproduced all the passages from the Ecclesiastical History in which Eusebius mentions Melito, and Eusebius does not say anything about Melito recording traditions related to the tomb of Jesus. The words of Eusebius himself in the Ecclesiastical History settle the matter: you were mistaken to think that Eusebius quotes Melito regarding Jesus' tomb.

You seem to have a problem with giving priority to your assumptions about what secondary sources say about a writer's words over against what the writer himself says. This problem came up earlier with regard to Crossan on the empty tomb. I provided the references to the works of Crossan in which it is shown that Crossan regards the empty tomb to be a Markan creation. I have read Crossan's The Cross that Spoke and know that Crossan's Cross Gospel does not have an empty tomb in it; it ends with an appearance in Galilee, as R. Fuller also hypothesizes. You come back with the reply that Koester says that Crossan says and that I should read Ancient Christian Gospels. Well, I have read Koester's Ancient Christian Gospels as well as Koester's two-volume introduction to the New Testament. Since I already knew Crossan's position on the empty tomb tradition, I would have noticed any location in which Koester said that Crossan attributed the empty tomb story to a passion narrative written in the 50s. Problem is, Koester didn't say that Crossan thought of the empty tomb as going back to an account written in the 50s. I defy anyone to produce such a quote from Koester. Moreover, even if Koester did say that (which he didn't), it would only mean that Koester was mistaken, because the words of Crossan himself have precedence.

Now we have the same problem in this thread: you take the Catholic Encyclopedia, you now recognize that the Catholic Encyclopedia doesn't explicitly say that Eusebius quoted Melito, you assume that the Catholic Encyclopedia must be saying that Eusebius quoted Melito anyways (for reasons only God knows), and you suggest that I must be saying that the Catholic Encyclopedia is making stuff up because I don't agree that Eusebius quoted Melito. The invalidity of this chain of deduction should be obvious, and it is only compounded by the fact that the conclusion is false: Eusebius does not quote Melito in regards to the tomb of Jesus. You said that you would have to check the Ecclesiastical History, but I saved you some time and produced all the passages on Melito, and none of them are regarding a tomb. Surely the determining factor in finding out what Eusebius said about Melito is quoting Eusebius, not assuming that the Catholic Encyclopedia says something that it doesn't and then assuming that the Catholic Encyclopedia isn't wrong? In this case, moreover, the Catholic Encyclopedia itself refutes your claim that Eusebius quoted Melito in regards to the site of the holy sepulchre. If the authors of the Catholic Encyclopedia had known of a quote of Melito by Eusebius on the tomb of Jesus, they would have proudly cited that fact. Instead, all the CE does is to quote something about Melito going to visit the land of the Old Testament and not saying anything about the site of the holy sepulchre.

Note that New Advent doesn't produce the articles; they date back to the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, which I find much more useful for its facts (when present) than its interpretations. In this case, the interpretations of the CE run in the reverse of a logical direction: instead of starting with an account of Melito and deducing that Melito knew of a tradition about the site of the empty tomb of Jesus, the CE starts with the completely unjustified assumption that there was a practice of Jesus tomb veneration in the first century and makes the assumption that Melito could have heard about this tradition if he went to Jerusalem (not that Melito himself says anything about such a veneration tradition). In your own assumptions, the circle is made complete: the Catholic Encyclopedia must know of a location in which Eusebius quoted Melito about a first century tradition of the veneration of the tomb of Jesus, and pure speculation becomes alleged fact.

best,
Peter Kirby

Toto

Iasion has added an interesting post to the thread on When the Gospels were written that relates to this thread:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...453#post970453