Re: Jesus Christ -- Clashing Biblical Images

Martin wrote:
"theswain" <larsprec@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:7ea564b7-610c-4aeb-ac37-605435b7e229@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Martin wrote:

"Larry Swain" <giles@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:L6idnZiPoLatMmrVnZ2dnUVZ_rDinZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx


temp6@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:


On Oct 14, 4:00 pm, "D. Spencer Hines" <pant...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:




Good Post!


On the contrary. It's quietly abusive and often wrong. See below.

Au contraire, it is neither. See below.



--
DSH




I beg to differ! The early censorship and selective editing of what
we know as the Bible, is a matter of record.

You may beg all you like, and you may differ. However, you've
grossly misunderstood the situation.

That appears like an effective rebuttal, but it's fluff. Martin is
correct.

No he isn't. For one thing, "early" and "Bible" don't go together in the
same sentence, the "Bible" is a much later construct, and even then it was
referred to as "the Scriptures" (i. e. the writings), or as the
bibliotecha, the library, a collection.


Okay, so I left out the words "versions" and "of" - I thought they were
unnecessay, obviously not.

Specificity is always necessary, otherwise you've made grandiose and
false statements. But then you have to specify specifically which
versions you are referring to.

So to claim that "the Bible" was early on censored and selectively edited
is simply wrong.


It was no claim, but a statement... and one that *cannot* be disproven.

Of course it can. One looks for evidence of tampering with the text,
such as different vocabulary than appears in the main text, different
syntax, different viewpoints, anachronisms, etc.


Is that supposed to be cast-iron evidence? I think not.

Doing history, we often don't have cast-iron evidence, but we do work
with evidence. You consistently admit you have none, not even evidence
of tampering with the text.



Do you have any proof
that suggests that texts of the Christian New Testament were early on
censored and selectively edited? No? None? They the statement is
false.


Yet that is exactly what you are doing when you claim they are literally the 'gospel truth'!

Since I've made no such claim, it is exactly what I am not doing.

You have no evidence either... the only difference is that I
apply common sense, look at the historical background,

No, you've misreported that background consistently. I've been trying
to offer you corrections of that background, but you do persist in your
errors.

and am unblinkered by
duperstitious 'faith' and dogged obedience to any creed.

Well, if it were "any" creed, we'd probably be having a different
conversation. In any case, my creed here is simple: get your history
and historical facts straight. Just because you're "anti-Christian" it
doesn't follow that you've got history on your side.


And I do so without > fear or favour.

Well, you like to think that of yourself, but a quick review of your
behavior and closely held and oft repeated beliefs in this discussion
reveals a very different character.



I defy anyone to look at the facts objectively and not at least admit the possibility that my suspicions are soundly based.

First, dear boy, you have have accurate facts to look at objectively.
So far, you and your friend Jose keep getting those pesky facts *WRONG*.
Your suspicions are baseless as stated.


Nor

can it be 'proven', but if you weigh up the known facts, consider the know
circumstances in which the bible was cobbled together, why such cobbling was
done, and by whom, the likelihood and probabilty that this occured becomes
obvious.

How was the "bible cobbled together" that leads you to believe in
early
censoring and selective editing in spite of having no evidence? What
makes you think there was any cobbling at all?


Well, all scholars who know anything about the subject will confirm that the Bible is composed of various works, books and documents that were NOT written at the same time, but over the course of thousands of years...

I've pointed this out to you previously.

These were then selectively cobbled together,

1) the process of selection is long
2) they weren't cobbled. To cobble, since we aren't talking about
creating and mending footwear, means to put together clumsily or
roughly, even to bungle. Many negative things could be said about the
long process of collecting the writings now known as the NT together,
but "cobbling" them together isn't an accurate one. You've been asked
for specifics why you think the collection was "cobbled", you side step
the question and merely repeat the charge. Safely set aside unless
something substantive is forthcoming.


and became the various Bibles
we know today. Surely you don't think otherwise?

There's a *HUGE* jump from the final collection of the NT and modern
translations. And yes, I do think otherwise: there's no evidence that
the collection was "cobbled". Plenty of evidence for organic growth,
plenty of evidence of theological debates, etc, no evidence of cobbling.


Add to that the persons and peoples it was designed to please,

Pray tell, whom do you think that was?


For one, the Roman Emperor Constantine, and the Romans and Roman society in general.

And that would be wrong. Before Constantine even thinks about becoming
emperor we have evidence of a Christian NT that largely looks the same
as that known currently. Some important debates, 3 John, the Apocalypse
were still going on, but the 4 gospels, Paul's letters (real and
pseudonymous), and the majority of the so-called Catholic Epistles are
already collected together and cited as Scripture. SO *IF* Constantine
had anything to do with it beyond having Eusebius create some pandects,
he was merely affirming a fate accompli. There continued to be some
debate and discussion long after Constantine as well, so again *IF* he
had anything to do with it beyond having Eusebius create some pandects,
it wasn't terribly effective. As for making it acceptable to Romans and
Roman society in general: what's acceptable about a Jewish criminal
being crucified that Romans would find acceptable and flock to?

<snip the snipe>

and

I at least reckon there can be little reason to doubt that statement is
correct.

I suspect not, if you knew how the thing evolved in the first place,
but
I suspect not.


Have no suspicion, I have already told you this.

Yes, you've *told* me this, but you have consistently erred in basic
facts about the process which tells me that in fact, in spite of what
you've *told* me, you don't know 1/2 of what you think you do about the
subject.

I have no suspicion that
you know any better, or any different - nobody knows. All those who claim they do are very foolish, and also dishonest.

Know? Not with certainty. But there is plenty of evidence to examine
that gives us high degrees of probability.


For another thing, one might claim that certain papyri or certain copies
were edited or censored, but since there was not such thing as a central
authority; so some authors or authorities may decry something, or a scribe
may make changes in what he is copying, but neither one affects the whole
system....its rather like the 'Net ten years ago or so....lots of
redundancy, lots of decentralization, etc.


Yet reliable (*provably* reliable) archives do exist. That is not the case
with ancient manuscripts on which the Bible as we know it is based - they
didn't even keep the gospels!

Or any other text.....but they did accurately copy them.


Here we go again... you cannot POSSIBLY claim that if the originals are unavailable - as they have, which you have just admitted!

Of course I can. The reason is that anyone not copying them accurately
or deliberately changing them would have left footprints in subsequent
copies, or others reading or hearing the original would mention changes
to the text (and we do have such examples of them doing just that).
Your view must assume that the changes took place between the author's
original copy and the first copy made from that, and then that the
author's copy spawned no other copies, and that the first copy was
rewritten and is the source for all subsequent copies. A huge assumption.


So again, the most Martin could claim (and he does not so claim) is that
certain isolated instances of editing and censorship occurred, that's it.


No, I don't need to 'claim' - the probabilty it happened outweighs any
doubts in my mind mind it did not.

Not if you take into account scribal practice and culture in the
ancient
world, look at the papyri we do have and how early and compare and
situate early Christian literature in with other contemporary
texts....once you do that the probability scale tips the other
direction.


Aha... so there are 'scales' now... which implies some sort of balance. That's a start...

I was simply reusing the image you'd introduced...look at the cited
section just before my words, the one starting with "No, I don't need to
claim..."


This is what the eminent Christian historian Paul Johnson has to say
about it in his 'History of the Jews'.

Well, first, Paul Johnson isn't an eminent Christian historian.


Are you questioning the honesty and veracity of any historian investigating
the Bible, who is not a card-carrying Christian?

Nope, just pointing out that Tiglath's source isn't what Tiglath
claims
he is. BTW, Paul Johnson is a Roman Catholic, a card-carrying
Christian.


He's a journalist who likes history and very ably has written popular
history books on a number of subjects. He's described his process as
reading everything he could in secondary literature about a subject and
distilling what he needed.


Admirable... though (if possible) we should always 'go back to basics'...

Indeed, back to the primary sources is always preferable.


If only they hadn't all gone missing - what a pity!

Apparently you need to brush up on what primary sources are.


He's a great read, but hardly a scholar of the subject in question, much
less an "eminent Christian historian."


Nor am I, but I just *know* that my opinion(s) are more objective and
accurate than most self-proclaimed 'experts' and 'historians' when it comes
to the subject of the Bible!

And you know this because? And who are the "self-proclaimed experts
and
historians"? And are you not then self-proclaiming a higher degree of
objectivity?


I am, compared to you at least.

Really? And just how are you measuring this, since you can't get your
facts right in the first place?

<snip>

The Web is full of ignorant, superstitious,

bigoted preachers and dishonest organisations (there are no other words),
with websites announcing and proclaiming a pack of lies, some quite
seductive and beautifully presented. These are not educational resources,
they are shamefully corrupt.

Immaterial to the discussion.


Not so... look and learn. The last, desperate defence of an outmoded, unproven and patently ridiculous 'creed', based on corrupt and questionable so-called 'evidence'. This sort of baclklash always happens when some ingrained, obsolete, yet once powerful institution or ideal is on its last legs.

Once again, immaterial to the discussion.


<snip>

He continues, "...all the documents have a long pre-history before
they
reached the written form....

Actually not true. Some do, depending on how one reads the background of
the gospels for instance (i. e. since Johnson first wrote in 1978, a
school of thought has arisen that argues that Mark for example was a
Christianized version of Homer or that Mark pretty much invented the whole
thing, and Matthew and Luke simply took Mark and expanded him. On such
view, there can be little pre-history); others however do not, such as
Paul's epistles for example which seem to go directly from Paul's
dictation to papyrus to copy, virtually no pre-history. The claim of
"all" cannot be sustained.


Hmmm... and to think I was accused of using 'red-herrings'...

It isn't a red herring, but goes to the heart of Johnson's comment:
There are Christian documents that *do not* have a long pre-history
before reaching written form and some that have been thought to have
had
such a long pre-history, some are reconsidering that idea and finding
it
wanting.


So what? Irrelevant to the discussion.

Yes, but Tiglath quoted it in a vain attempt to prove me wrong. You're
right, as I also pointed out, Johnson's comment is irrelevant to the
discussion AND factually incorrect as I pointed out.


The canonical documents thus overlap with


the
earliest writing of the Church Fathers.

Depends on dating, which is uncertain for some of those "earliest Church
Fathers", but true in the main.

They are the products of the


early
Church and they are tainted in the sense that they reflect
ecclesisatical
controversy as well as evangelical motivation, the difficulties of
reducing
oral descriptions of mysterious concepts to writing, and a variety of
linguistic traps. The possibilites for misunderstanding are infinite.
"

Indeed, but certainly doesn't address the question that Martin raised or
that I responded to.


Er.... which one was that?

Your comparison/contrast of the gospels at Nag Hammadi and the
canonical
gospels on the question of Jesus and slavery.


I was more intrigued about the ones concerning vegetarianism and the rights of women actually. He never said much about slavery AFAIK.

Indeed, so why'd you bring it up?


"Tainted in the sense that they reflect [...] evangelical motivation,"
would comprise original falsehoods and later additions.

Now you're engaging in the very thing that you are criticizing the early
Christian scribes of doing: editorializing and allowing your editorial
commentary on Johnson's text to become part of the text.


Tut tut... so even today, there is doubt... even when it's all plainly
written down, for the whole world to see (literally!) only hours before. Yet
still it is procliamed that the four canonical gospels are the truly
unaltered and accurate accounts of MML&J, the first hand witnesses to the
life and death of Jesus. Okay...

Same thing here: you're editorializing interpretation you use to alter
the text I wrote to have it say something it doesn't.


You should be more careful then....

Actually, you should lie less. I've never stated that the four gospels
are eye witness accounts. To say I have is to lie, that's dishonest,
and demonstrates that your claims of honesty and objectivity are false
claims.

do you see how this sort of thing can
happen now?

That has never been the issue.

Selective editing can be as good as censorship if applied
carefully - even unwittingly it seems, since I never intended to use such a despicable device to win an argument I have already won.

Yes, consistently getting facts wrong and refusing to acknowledge it is
a way of winning, but hardly counts as supporting claims to be objective
and interested only in the history.


Well, that just demonstrates that you're not being historically
based.


Pulling rank is not an argument.

I didn't pull rank. I noted the difference between acting or approaching
the subject as an historian, and acting or approaching the subject as
someone with a religious point of view that is need of justification.
Martin, and you, are doing the latter.

Just because Martin is not an


academic historian it doesn't nullify his argument.


Ahem! I thought I was better than that? An academic... dear me...



Indeed. Its nullified because his argument is religious in nature, I'm
not discussing religion except as an historical movement. I don't care
about it being right, left, up, down, inspired, or the root of the world's
ills. Martin quite evidently does.


You are entirely wrong here. My argument is not 'religious in nature', it is
merely a matter of reason, common sense and (most importanly) honest
objectivity.

Can't be. If it were, you'd have a better command of the facts and be
less passionate about all kinds of theological shenanigans; you've
even
confessed to being an anti-Christian evangelist.


I don't do 'confession' -

You just revealed yourself as a recovering Catholic, which explains the
energy you put into your anti-Christian posts. But confession means
"to acknowledge, to disclose"

that was a nickname someone came up with on
another group, about as relevant as Seppo calling me an "Anti-Nordic Nazi"!

"confessed" is a nick name? Odd.

I am in fact saddened to see the state of 'Christianity', as a doctrine it has much good and wisdom in it, if you overlook the nonsense added to it over the centuries.

Immaterial to the discussion and quite "disclosing."



So hardly
unreligious
in nature when you are in fact addressing on purpose what you take to
be
someone's religion, and given your evangelical bent, hardly "reason,
common sense, and honest objectivity."


These should be essential qualities for any honest person, whatever they are discussing - and (IMHO) ESPECIALLY when discussing religion! My 'religion' is strictly my own affair, I am nobody's 'vicar'!

Agreed, except you keep bringing your religion into this history discussion.

<snip>

Re: freedom from slavery--I think you've confused Paul's acceptance
of slavery, generally based on an understanding of the short letter
to Philemon, with Jesus' statements in the gospel. True, Jesus in
the canonicals seems to accept slavery as a part of his world, and
isn't recorded there as explicitly condemning it, but that just
becomes an argument from silence then.

It does not. It becomes a Sin of Omission.

"sin" is a religious value, not part of history except in describing the
history of ideas. It has no place in this discussion. It is also
anachronistic.


And we are all 'sinners', let us not forget that - it was written!

Religious statement, not interested.


A bit rich, from one who has cast so many stones!

About history, yes, about religion which I keep saying is not of
interest to me or to the discussion, I've not cast a stone at all.
Religion has no place here except as being described as a part of history.


The Argumentum ad Silentio doesn't apply here.

Certainly it does. You can't say Jesus is "for" slavery since he didn't
address the issue directly. Martin isn't just criticizing his silence,
nor his actual, stated views but that Jesus doesn't condemn slavery.
That's an argument from silence.


I don't recall criticising Jesus for anything? Only those who subsequently
used, abused and misrepresented him, for various purposes. Slavery was as
much a part of his world as, say, cars, petrol and traffic wardens are parts
of ours.

Indeed. Ok, let me rephrase then: you criticize the writers of the
canonical gospels for not having Jesus condemn slavery because you
think a different gospel preserves Jesus' words better.


I have no idea where you got that idea from...

From you when you brought up slavery as something the canonical gospels
didn't have Jesus address but other gospels you erroneously claimed were
earlier and had better claim to earlier papyrological evidence, again an
error in fact, did have Jesus address it.

it is, of course, entirely wrong. I am not even being critical of the canonical gospels -

Liar. You've claimed that they were written and rewritten for Roman
tastes (is that not being critical? It must be since you've followed it
up with a denigration of Roman society!). You've claimed that there is
no truth, nothing historical in them...is that not being critical?


which don't
even agree with each other, in completeness anyway.

Nope, and their disagreement is much deeper than mere completeness, but
present sometimes radically opposing views of Jesus and his importance
to them. And this is one of the evidences you overlook against your
position of rewriting: one motivation would be to smooth out those
differences, but that is exactly what we do not see.


All I have said is that
it seems very likely that the tale of Jesus, as related by aforesaid four gospels in the NT, is very likely to be incomplete,

It is, no surprise there. And if we look at any biography in the
ancient we'll find essentially the same format, and incompleteness.

and has probably been > the result of selective editing,

At composition, of course! Every author selects and edits his sources
in telling the story he wants to to tell! But your claims were rather
more than that.

if not outright alteration.

Of what? You claimed the original text was altered, but have no evidence.

Nor by mistake, deliberately - for political reasons.

Which you have still to explain...oh yes, you've *claimed* that it was
done to make it more palatable to the Romans but sort of miss that the
whole thing, the major message, is not exactly palatable to the Romans.....

<snip>

I have also explained why I think this was done, and given very good reasons for my suspicions (such as the missing 'originals').

And those have been dealt with. Your "Roman acceptability" excuse is
nonsense since the central message goes against Roman sensibilities, and
the missing originals are simply that, missing originals which is the
state of every text from the period. It would in fact be a surprise to
have such an original of any text from the period, even more so from the
nascent Christian movement (and just how would we know they were the
originals? What sort of certificate of authenticity would there be to
verify this? Tradition? Please, not that.)


I can't see why anyone
who is truly and honestly objective, has any problem seeing this?

Because its factually false, why should the truly and honestly objective
want to accept a factually false interpretation of things?

More
importantly, the dogged, ridiculous proclamation that this cannot possibly have happened,

Oh, its possible, just extremely unlikely, and flys in the face of the
evidence of the early Christian movement and what they were after, what
we know of the Romans and Roman society, how Christianity spread in the
Roman world, the interplay among the various Christian groups etc....if
a reconstruction of our picture of things such as you propose wishes to
challenge what we know, it needs more than whim to support it.

and refusal to even accept that it might and could have
happened - without ANY evidence whatsoever -

There's plenty of evidence....some of if has been mentioned, and
absolutely none to suggest we should accept your proposal.

makes me more suspicious than
ever that my case not only holds water, but is proven beyond reasonable doubt.

Wow.....mostly just full of yourself, but being full of yourself doesn't
count as evidence.

Especially since Jesus


Father, whose decrees Jesus is not to deny, makes it quite clear that
slavery if fine.

Religious statements, not historical ones.


Hmmm... Jesus's Dad is somewhat questionable as a character, very
inconsistent..


Yep.


Who do you think his father was? No need to answer...

Who knows? Joseph seems to have been the recognized, legal father
anyway, and according to rabbinic law at least in Judea that was all
that mattered.


The New Testament doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Never claimed it did. In fact, if you look above at what I wrote, you'll
find: True, Jesus in >>>the canonicals seems to accept slavery as a part
of his world, and>>>isn't recorded there as explicitly condemning it...."
Jesus and the NT writers were a part of their world; criticizing them for
being anything else is just plain idiotic.


I get the impression Jesus was attempting to distance himself from the OT,
but found it politically unwise, or dangerous. Later connections have no
doubt been amplified by 'hellfire and damnation' types, keen to crack down
on dissent and make their mark through fear. The messages about tolerance
and forgiveness were likewise watered down or qualified, with similar
purpose.


Talk about having your cake and eating it..........


Which I have done, with great pleasure.

Good for you, of course, entirely empty calories, so explains the lack
of thought that went into your comment above.



You either make the analysis of Jesus as a man, or as the divine,
moral-code-giving Messiah, make up your mind.

I have, and if you bother to read what I wrote, you'll find that I've
quite explicit about it on more than one occasion. Just for the record,
though, you've conflated a number of things: being "divine" isn't
necessarily a quality that means he wasn't a man in the eyes of the
ancient world(see Augustus or Nero), nor is a "moral-code giver"
necessarily divine or a Messiah, nor is a Messiah, or even THE Messiah,
necessarily divine or a moral-code giver. Also just for the record, I
approach this as Jesus being a man.


Which he was, and admitted himself - another thing later 'qualified' and
distorted by authoritarian clerics and churchmen.

Most likely, but your charge was that the text of the NT was
distorted,
a charge you have yet to substantiate in any meaningful way.


Most definitely - nothing to do with the NT either, where do you think I got it from?

Your imagination? And you have yet to substantiate your charge in any
meaningful way.


He certainly discovered

that he was all too human when executed so hideously... the accounts of his
shock and bewilderment have survived the machinations of time, even in
current versions of the NT.

Except they don't show shocked and bewildered......


Have you read the NT recently? I suggest you do... go figure it out, it is rather obvious.

Yes, indeed....so since you're so familiar with the text of the NT, why
don't you quote some passages that show Jesus shocked and bewildered at
his treatment at the hands of the authorities.



As a man his silence on slavery is natural;

Yep, so citing it as a problem in a discussion on history seems
anachronistic to me.


We are all agreed on that then.



it was part of the


societal fabric of the time. But as the latter, it's a disqualifying
omission for an eternal god, who is supposed to be the source of
morality.

Unless of course God doesn't think it immoral......


Since it has gone on since the start of history, and continues to this day,
God either considers it to be okay, doesn't know about it, or doesn't care -
which do you think?

Don't know. Not really an interesting question to me.


Worth thinking about at some stage even so... unless you have it all sorted out already/


Maybe. Maybe not. Matter of opinion and really not an historical
discussion.

Then erroneous ones.

The Bible has been passed down via



translators, copyists and scribes for many centuries,

As is every other text from the ancient and medieval worlds.

This is plain wrong as explained elsewhere and as Paul Johnson's
passage shows.

No, it is plain right as explained elsewhere and as Johnson's passage
certainly does not show.

Most ancient texts have had a very quiet life


compared to Christian scripture.

You're confused. There are few and isolated instances, none of which have
become part of the critical text or affected all of Christianity. From the
sheer proportions of Christian biblical texts in comparison to anything
else, the Christian biblical texts display a greater degree of
faithfulness overall.


The few precious originals (which I have no doubt existed) have generated
whole rain forests of paperwork, arguments leading to battle and death, and
confusion in abundance. Hardly God's intention one might think?

God's intention is beside the issue again.


Unfortunately, God seems to avoid Usenet as a ruke (hardly surprising?), and never appears on SHM (even in the guise of His spokesman Peter Nyikos) these days.
Mysterious ways... however, the disappearance of those precious, divinely inspired original copies is not really a mystery, if you look at the facts.

Except as an historical newsgroup, we're aren't talking about divinely
inspired anything...well you are, but then you're religiously motivated.
We're talking about texts written in the ancient world by a nascent
religious movement. Further, that movement viewed the individuals, the
people, as being inspired and precious, not texts. If Paul's words were
special, for example, it was because they came from Paul: Paul is the
important thing in the equation, his words secondary, and the paper he
wrote on not at all. So once again God's intention or representatives
in this group are beside the point.




Or God's

intention that the precious, original versions were binned by those who
supposedly revered them as God (and his son's) word and message to us all.
It just doesn't add up somehow...

That's because you're taking a modern theological position regarding
"the
Bible" and retrojecting into the distant past and expecting the
denizens
of that distant past to have the same attitude and theological
position
and when they don't you criticize them for error. They didn't
preserve
the originals for Christian texts just as they didn't preserve the
originals for Homer, Thucydides, Tacitus, Vergil, Ovid, Catullus
etc....they had a much different perspective on such things than we
do.
I. E. you're being anachronistic here.


Surely the best way for any historian to be?

Seriously? You think historians should read the past as if it were the
present? You do know what anachronistic means, don't you? Seriously,
you think that historians should read things out of historical sequence,
pretend that modern ideas were the same as ideas in the first century?


Understand the mindset, walk in
the shoes...

Which isn't what anachronistic means, and isn't behavior you're engaging in.

and it doesn't take much study to discover that in those days,
NOTHING was thrown away, especially holy writings...

Everything was thrown away because nothing was viewed as being
permanent, including holy writings; some sects even had special
provisions for how to dispose (throw away) holy writings.


which is why they turn
up in desert caves in pots, Coptic church attics etc etc. You are putting 21st century ideas into 1st 2nd and 3rd century heads, and 'holy heads' at that! No reams of A4 back then...


<snip>

Why refer to the Bible by its parts if one thinks that all of it
suffers from the same problem of unreliability, even when different
parts cause doubt in different ways?

Because "all of it" doesn't so suffer, and the historian doesn't treat
these texts as if they were all the same. Only the zealot does so,
whether zeal for the faith or zeal against it.


Most of it then. The facts are there, surely?

No, not most of it; I gave you the stats in another post, less than
1%.


One percent... hmmm. That could be rather dangerous when staking ones immortal soul on something...

But since this is a history discussion, what you think about your
immortal soul or anyone else's is immaterial and not of interest.


The objective historian deals in texts...i. e. Matthew, Mark, Luke,
John, Thomas, Philip, Judas, etc always of course recognizing that
the names are just names.....


The truly objective historian deals in original, carbon-dated texts...

Really? How many of the manuscripts of Thucydides or Tacitus have
been
carbon dated? Not one.


No need. How many Gutenburg Bibles, or copies of Foxes Book of Martyrs have been carbon dated... entirely irrelevant to this issue.

Um, Martin, you're the one who brought up the issue of carbon-dated
texts, claiming that the truly objective historian only deals in, and I
quote from above, "original, carbon-dated texts." You made a ridiculous
claim that simply isn't true since there are objective historians
working in all sorts of eras who have never touched a carbon dated text.

They are not controversial, or in question as being historically accurate.

Well, no one said they were, either.


Same goes for the majority of texts. We've
used other means to date manuscripts and papyri, carbon dating with
the
necessary precision has only been available the last 15 years or so,
and
then one must destroy part of what one is trying to preserve to get a
date. So no, that isn't the case at all.


Well, that's good to know. However, entirely pointless, as there's nothing TO carbon date! However uninvasive...

You're confusing yourself again. And the same is said for every text,
historical or otherwise, of the period.


This is more rank-pulling. Wholly unnecessary showing off.

Encouraging accuracy in the discussion is showing off?


I think something must have been 'snipped' here? (And I don't mean the Holy
Foreskin!)

As I recall, I commented that the historian deals with texts and
Tiglath took offense.


If any historian makes the sort of absurd claims you do, I'm hardly surprised.

What sorts of claims are those? That early Christian texts are dated to
the first century, including the four canonical gospels? That
papyrological evidence exists for those four less than a century after
composition? These facts are in contrast to the non-canonical gospels
written 100 CE and later, and papyrological evidence doesn't exist for
twice as long afterward? These are absurd claims to you? The only
"claims" I've made is that you need to get your historical facts
straight. I'm sorry that bothers you.

>Sabre-toothed he may be,

Sabre gummed I think you mean.

>but there is no question about his
honesty, objectivity and intelligence.

Actually, quite a lot of question there. His consistent use of fallacy,
ad hominem rhetoric, and intellectual tricks speak volumes, but it isn't
about honesty, objectivity, and intelligence.



An after dealing with Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Thomas, Philip,
Judas, etc., the historian may well realize, as many have, that the
New Testament is riddled with uncertainties, contradictions, and
reliability problems, which happen to be the same ills as the Old
Testament, which means the the whole Bible is just an exercise in
"anything goes," with a bit here and there that passes muster.

Much depends on the questions you ask and what information you want to
get. You have a tendency to see an "error" and then conclude that all the
texts are wrong, which says something to you about religious faith and
those who have it....just as those of the faith generally seize on
something that is "right" and conclude therefore that the whole is and
that that says something about religious faith. Both directions are wrong
if one is doing history or even literary interpretation.


I think you meant "...those of the faith generally seize on something THAT
THEY LIKE TO THINK is "right"...".

Ok, but the same goes the other way: You have a tendency to see
something THAT YOU THINK IS AN "ERROR" or a "PROBLEM" and then
conclude that all the texts are wrong....


Certainly not.

It has been your pattern in this discussion.


Those without such faith, who are honest and objective, have no sush
impediment to accurate analysis, or comprehension.

Yes, but my point is that neither you nor Tiglath are being as honest
and objective as you claim you are being.


You may think that, but you are wrong - you are the one who is not being truly objective, by refusing to admit even the possibility of a likely scenario..

It isn't a likely scenario....it has no evidence, not even general
cultural evidence, to recommend it.


Since the discussion wasn't about belief, but about a set of texts
and what objective historians do and do not do and conclusions they
may or may not draw, your diatribe on belief hardly invites
enthusiastic acceptance of your "observations."


Off the mark again. The historians' objective conclusions matter only
because they represent what's agreed by those who investigate and its
potential utility in guiding the decision of whether to believe the
texts or not.

Way off the mark. For one thing, Martin is talking about a completely
different kind of belief in the texts than what an historian talks about.
Second, each text is measured on its own merits, and even sections within
the text...whether were talking texts later collected in the Bible or
Tacitus or Polybius or what have you. No throwing babies out with
bathwater.


This is correct.



It's the END PRODUCT of what historians do and


conclude.

No, actually the end product of what historians do is reconstruct history
as best we are able. That's our end product, not whether or not you
believe a text or not.


That should be the aim, and the sole aim of anyone calling themself 'a
historian' - whether they like the results or not.

Glad you agree.


Surprised that you do?

Why? Its what I stated at the beginning of the discussion.




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