Originally Posted by MrMacSon

The best scholars critique work done by others; and they reflect on their own work, their own ideas. They form new, modern hypotheses based on new information & new ideas about that information.

Originally Posted by MrMacSon

cite the arguments, and flesh them out

Originally Posted by mountainman

This is typical of spin - next step will be the "Ignorance List".

Don't take it personally.

Originally Posted by outhouse

Originally Posted by spin

The fellow who asked the questions of steve_bnk, questions that you thought you'd give trite responses to, responses that had no evidence to back them up, when clearly I was question steve_bnk about supporting his claims. You just demonstrated how not to respond meaningfully to issues. And I'm the fellow who has been clarifying that.

Originally Posted by outhouse

Your in no position to talk down to me.

Originally Posted by outhouse

My position can be refuted if one has the knowledge to do so and I often state "it is my opinion".

Originally Posted by outhouse

Your going on and on attacking me personally BECAUSE you cannot refute my statements. That is weak as hell on your part.

Originally Posted by outhouse

By the way, I do understand my shortcomings providing sources, as not all my information comes from books.

That doesn't negate the material in articles I have read and the Yale online courses or what I have heard directly from scholars.

If my information is not accurate I want to be told my methodology is faulty, not when its correct, or simply because someone holds a personal different opinion.

Originally Posted by spin

This is illustrative of the faulty methodology. When a scholar says something they are obliged to provide sources otherwise they are saying nothing. I know footnotes make a book less fun to read, but without them what you read is just a story.

Originally Posted by spin

You simply don't understand what is going on. That is par for the course. You think the issue is about making mistakes. As you don't put anything of significance out there, you don't get the opportunity to make mistakes. All you do is snipe and snivel when people don't rehearse the nonsense you support. Who gives a fuck about your blather when you never say anything of value? All you do is spout empty opinions you've collected.


Would you care to reword that so it makes sense?


Irony.


More subterfuge. It's not a matter of whether you know the languages, but whether you know the evidence and can cite it meaningfully. Who gets anything useful out of you? I mean seriously, people try to deal with the topics here and you shit on them. If you said things that were helpful, meaningful, well-documented, and well-cited, that would be something, but you can barely string a sentence together in good English and never cite anything properly. That's shameful.

Would it hurt you to read a book or two and cite from it properly with author, title, year, page number? You never do that. Would it hurt you to cite primary sources clearly. That seems to be a no-no for you as well. You're a fucking liability in this forum.


Facts are the basis of evidence. They come from sources. Everyone relies on sources. The problem with you is that you can't cite them or can't cite them clearly so others can look them up.


There's a difference here. You don't seem capable.

The fellow who asked the questions of steve_bnk, questions that you thought you'd give trite responses to, responses that had no evidence to back them up, when clearly I was question steve_bnk about supporting his claims. You just demonstrated how not to respond meaningfully to issues. And I'm the fellow who has been clarifying that.

Originally Posted by Richard Carrier

This is a point of disagreement among scholars.

The most common view is that he would be illiterate, but there are those who disagree, and the main problem with that is not John (a Gospel that is almost certainly entirely bogus and thus reflects no true historical information at all…a conclusion many scholars share with me), but the fact that even from as early as Mark he is routinely hailed as “Rabbi,” a title generally only given to men actually schooled in a rabbinical college or tutorship (all Rabbis were both literate and worked a manual trade, like carpentry or stonework or sandalmaking). There is also the general sociological-anthropological fact that religious innovators, leaders, and founders are almost always educated (despite legends that quickly grow that they were not), so it would actually be unusual for Jesus to have garnered any significant following or developed any significant new or profound teachings without some schooling (not impossible, but unusual, hence improbable).

For example, there is no way the superbly educated Paul would defer to illiterate fishermen (e.g. Peter and James and John) when his knowledge of the scriptures and his social status would be so vastly greater than theirs (facts he would lord over them constantly), and there are other reasons to suspect the claim that they were illiterate fishermen is fabricated (just as Muslims made up the claim that Mohammed was illiterate, therefore his composing the Koran is miraculous, when in fact he came from one of the wealthiest mercantile families in Arabia and could not possibly have avoided an education and was in fact a member of the elite…. . .
. . .