Sauron

Notice how in his following quibble-post, he ducks the key issue: why is S-W an expert, when he bungled so badly on the minimum time necessary for legendary development? And why does Layman quote him when convenient, yet ignore him on the topic of the date of the nativity?

Layman

Nope. I disagree with your point. Believe it or not, it's not the same thing!

What exactly did SW say about that again?

I'm not even sure what he said yet, much less that he was mistaken.

You have not shown enormous inepetidude. SW is an expert, a leading one, regarding matters of Roman law and history.

I do not know that he screwed the pooch on this point. Nor does one error render everything written by someone erroneous. The two issues are actually quite unrelated.

You must not be following the discussion. I have specifically stated that SW's commentary on Luke's nativity is an expert opinion. As is Meier's. I have given their opinion on the Nativity "attention." I simply came to a different conclusion. There is nothing suspicious about that. It would be impossible any of us to completely agree with every conclusion of every (or any) expert we found persuasive on a particular position.

Sauron

Thus showing that you're not following the debate. The "point" is not something to agree, or disagree with. The "point" is that you quote S-W after he's been demonstrated to be inept.


That such legendary development was impossible.


Then perhaps you should go back and re-read the works of your fellow apologists, whom Toto quoted.


1. Anyone who says that legendary development is impossible in only 40 years is inept.

2. You have yet to demonstrate his expertise. Appeal to authority is not impressive. Got anything else?


1. You most certainly *do* know that he screwed the pooch; you're just being a lawyer and engaging in animated denial.

2. If you think that you can reject accept his conclusions about legendary development, yet reject his conclusons about teh date of the nativity, then you'll have to explain your basis for such a capricious and arbitrary decision. Use both sides of the paper if necessary.


Wrong. I'm following it just fine. You're picking and choosing your sources in a rather biased and unscientific manner, in order to support a crumbling position about the date of the nativity.

BWAHAHAAAA! No, nothing suspicious at all.
You reject expert authority when it gets in the way of your attempt to reconcile the impossibly twisted details of this story.

Yet you accept that same testimony, when it suits your needs.

What a rip-roaring hypocrite you are. I'm sure you'll do well as a lawyer.

Layman

You have made so such demonstration.

What does "such legendery development" mean?

I've followed the posts as they were made.

What do you mean by "legendary development"?

Inept in what regard?

You don't think SW is a respected Roman historian?

Nope. I've seen no one even attempt to articulate what SW meant by "legendary development." If those are indeed his words.

I have not accepted his conclusions about legendary development. I don't even know what they are. Perhaps you missed the memo, but I never relied on SW for any statement about legendery development.

How do you pick sources in a scientific manner? I read everything I could reasonably find on the nativity and came to my own conclusions.

Again, few people, if any, who rely on an expert or a particular proposition agree with said scholar about every conclusion they reach.

I've considered all the opinions and arrived at particular conclusions. This is not suspicious, it is what we all do.

Sauron

Sure I have. He is quoted as claiming that legendary development is impossible in 40 years. Obviously he's wrong. He is therefore inept.

Much of the rest of your post is ambling lawyerly discourse, designed only to obfuscate. Fortunately, you're transparent, so I've focused on the key area .



Nice dodge.

What others may think is irrelevant.
You still have not demonstrated that he is such a historian. If you have such evidence, present it.

Otherwise, to the dustbin with this claim of yours. It will have ample company there, with your other claims.

tw1tch

Greg2003,
Koys post was about how incredibly easy and simple it was to start a 'legend' (ie somebody in Eugene Oregon talking about a prophet). However, the truth is that nobody believes these made-up 'legends' Koy is referring to.


These are cults...not legends.


There is a big difference between a population claiming 'Bobby Kennedy died and then rose from the dead' and 'Our grand exhalted leader Qaunto told us he communicated via neural link to the Uber Grand Alien Leader Xoraxch'.

The first is verifiable...the second is not.




Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Layman

Where did you reproduce this quote? Seriously, I must have missed it.

Very convenient for you.

While I don't agree with this, you have certainly demonstrated that you believe it to be true.

How can I prove he is a respected historian if the only opinion that matters is yours?

But perhaps such an extrodinary level of skepcticism on your part should be welcome. Usually you grasp onto the first internet article you can find to support your position--even when it contradicts your position.

Sherwin-White was a fellow at Oxford University who taught the history of the Roman Empire for 40 years.

He's recomended reading at Harvard:

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~classics...r_degrees.html

http://www.gsas.harvard.edu/programs.../classics.html

And at the Univ. of N. Carolina:

http://www.classics.unc.edu/default.asp?p=18&c=147

And at the Univ. College Dublin:

http://www.ucd.ie/~classics/languages.htm

And at Cal. State for a degree in Ancient History:

http://www.csulb.edu/~dhood/Ancbib.html

And many other colleges that would be too tedious to go into.

Recommended reading in many other places regarding the Roman Empire:

http://www.earlychurch.org.uk/empire.html

http://www.omnibusol.com/library.html

http://www.pomoerium.com/libri/basics.htm

Beyond the US and Britian, he appears to have international appeal.

Here's a German univ recommended his work:

http://orakelix.uni-muenster.de/kvv_ws99.html

And an Italian one:

http://dex1.tsd.unifi.it/ricerche/schiavon/schiavon.htm

Perhaps you have read one of his well-recieved books?

1. Fifty Letters of Pliny, by Pliny, A. N. Sherwin-White (Editor)

2. The Letters of Pliny: A Historical and Social Commentary, by A.N. Sherwin-White

3. The Roman Citizenship, by A. N. Sherwin-White

4. Roman Law and Roman Society in the New Testament, by A. N. Sherwin-White

5. Roman Foreign Policy in the East, 168 B.C. to A.D. 1, by A. N. Sherwin-White

The majority were university publications, two from the Oxford Univ. Press.

Here is how a British Ambassadoe describes him in a 2002 address to the the National Summer Conference of the English Teachers' Association of Israel:

http://www.britemb.org.il/release/hmaenglish.html

Right. This is one of your favorite tactics. Attempting to get me to waste time on the obvious and accepted.

Maybe you are right though. Maybe there is no reason to think Sherwin-White knew much about the Roman Empire.

Llyricist

It's just a palendrome gregg, Or maybe SOMMS just wants Lucifer to shake up the tinny music he/she wrote?

Excuse me, but there IS a rather extensive legend/myth involved in Mormonism at least. And it's followers grew at least as fast as Christianity did in the early days.

The only thing varifiable about the first would be the fact that a population claimed it, nothing more.

Greg2003

I disagree about your distinction between cults and legends. The Muslim Brotherhood believes Elijah Mohammed went up in a space ship rather than dying. The Heaven's Gate people believed the same thing about themselves. The Branch Davidians believed, and some still do believe, that Koresh was Christ on earth. It's hard to distinguish these stories from the jesus story. We're talking about god men who appear to die but don't really die.

The only reason the majority of people don't believe these stories today is because the scientific world view has won out over the supernatural world view (but only partially, many people want to beleive in both world views despite inherent contradictions and obvious impossibilities). Usually only muddle headed, weak minded and/or emotionally fragile people beleive these stories about contemporary god-men today. But they do believe. And back in the day of Jesus there was no prevailing scepticism. No one had any way of distinguishing one messianic claim from another.

I think your argument that no one ever believes any other god man stories except the one about Jesus, therefore, Jesus must be true is clearly fallacious.

.

Vinnie

My Summary of this Soap Opera:

S-W is probably read with a wooden-literalism and out of context. If he studied a certain culture and says that 40 years are usually needed for legendary development to take place we can't apply every other instance from different cultures to that specific context.

I do not think it has been demonstrated that he said no legendary development will occur or that it is impossible for legendary development to occur within forty years. There are always exceptions to general rules.

Maybe he would say something like going from the figure in Stage 1 of Q (A la Mack) in 30 AD to Christ used 270 times by Paul in the fifties and Mark's portrait 40 years after Jesus' death is to leave the evidence. I would agree with that. I think there needs to be more continuity between the HJ and the RJ of the evangelists. Jesus thinking he was God's agent, performing miracles etc. in history actually would probably explain any legendary development much easier than the "he was a cynic teacher in the thirties but the Lord of all the earth by the fiffties".

Historians have to explain why a man crucified by Rome around 30 AD was exalted in the highest possible terms within a few years of his death. This is not to say that there are no developments in the Gospels, but large scale developments in such short a time period would go against the common practice of the day. Would that be more reasonable?

Vinnie