Re: Attention: David Carl PChristiansen

Yowie wrote:
"Marshall Price" <d021317c@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:13f1tp96sgbf3a1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Engineer wrote:
Yowie wrote:

Dr Thiering has published - to the best of my
knowledge - both in peer reveiwed journals and
in 'the popular press'.
But she has never published *how her pesher method
works* in any journal or in the popular press.




This I guess is the point. I am *not* an expert in the field. Therefore, I
trust other people who *are* experts in the field to evaluate the process
and method someone has used to reach their conclusions. That is what peer
review is about.

Anyone can publish anything in a book - it doesn't have to be true, the
conclusions don't have to follow the data, the methods don't have to be well
established. It could say *anything*.

If someone writes a book, they could well be using vigourous scientific
method. Their conclusons could well be inferred from the results they
published, and the method they used could be well set out so that anyone
with the same level of expertise as the author could replicate the result.
That could well be the case with Thiering's book. But since it has *not*
been formally reviewed by a group of her peers, the interested lay person
who lacks the expertise of the author's fellows cannot be assured that the
methodology, data and conclusions are trustworthy. The might well be, but
they don't *have* to be to be published in the popular press.

That is all there is to peer reviewed versus not peer reveiwed, its simply a
matter of meeting standards.

Can I use an analogy? You are out to buy a nice gold ring. You see two rings
that look identical, and they are the same price. One has a certificate from
a well known and reputable assaying laboratory attesting to the fact that
the ring it refers to has been analysed and found to be at least 18ct gold.
The other has no certificate. When asked what the difference is, the seller
shrugs and says they both look the same to her. Which one do you purchase?
Why?

Incidentally, I have a touchstone and a tiny bit of pure gold so I can
compare streaks of unknown metals with the genuine article, but I lost
interest before going the next step and buying aqua regia (a mixture of
nitric and sulfuric acids which is the only stuff which dissolves gold).

Being published in a peer reviewed journal is like the ring with the
certificate. Being in the popular press is like the ring without the
certificate. The quality could well be the same, but you can't know unless
you are also have the correct 'equipment' to carry out the analysis.

Your dissatisfaction with the medium in which she chooses to communicate
is getting in the way of discernment. She *has* published how her
pesher method works, but you're too busy complaining about the user
interface.

I find said web page extremely difficult to follow but not impossible. I
still however couldn't find her methodology, only her conclusions.

Perhaps you, Marshall, would be kind enough to answer the following
questions instead of David or at least be more specific as to where to find
the answers:

Referring to the web page
<http://www.pesherofchrist.infinitesoulutions.com/Finding_the_pesher/Special_meanings.html>

*Where* does it say that "father" meant "pope" or "priest"?

*Where* does it say that "Star" meant star of David rather that tne usual
understanding of a celestial body seen at night?

*how* does she know that the three hours of darkness of good friday wasn't
the common astronomical event that is a solar eclipse?

*Where* does it say that 'virgin' actually means 'nun' and that 'sinner'
actually means 'married man'?

What is her evidence that led her to the conclusion that Hades was actually
a sabbath toilet at the end of the Qumran esplanade?

*How* does she conclude that "god" in the New Testament referred to both
the demiurge and a Sadducee priest of the Annas family rather than the true
God?

All these things are of course speculations on Thiering's part, but
they're speculations which hold together. That might be coincidental if
they only occurred in isolation, but there's a huge corpus on which to
draw. Whether you find them convincing is basically dependent on how
much you've looked into them and considered what else they could mean.

I haven't checked the web page you gave, but I looked up "God" in /Jesus
of the Apocalypse/ (which I was just reading before going online), in
"The Lexicon" (p295). It says:

-----
*God* (/theos/) A Sadducee priest, who held a view of his priesthood
accepted in the Diaspora, that he was like a divine being, and
incarnation of the Demiurge God. The Sadducee when visiting villages
received prayers on behalf of God. The title 'God' (shown in John
10:33-36 to have been used by men) was accepted by Sadducee high priests
but not by Pharisees, and the opposition of Pharisees to them,
illustrated by Paul's hostility to Jonathan Annas or 'Stephen', was
because of the perceived arrogance of the usage. Up to AD 68, 'God' was
one of the Annas brothers. In Rev 16:7, it was the high priest Matthias
son of Theophilus, who was high priest at the outbreak of the war
(/Ant./ 20:223).
-----

(/Ant./ refers to /Jewish Antiquities/ by Flavius Josephus.)

So you'd have to look into and compare all the appearances of the word
"God" in pesher passages, having a general idea of what was going on at
the time (and having started from the point of view that the pesher
gives accurate history according to its few simple rules), and recognize
that the passages could only be referring to Sadducee priests, usually
the high priest of the day.

It's inescapably in the nature of this stuff that unless we find some
day an ancient key to all this information (glossary, etc.), we can only
piece it together from the texts on hand. It's a question of whether,
once one has studied the theory, not only in detail, but
comprehensively, you can still find a flaw somewhere, or an alternative
explanation. (And if so, I'm sure Thiering would be delighted to hear
about it!)


Incidentally, "Gold" is nearby (p296):

-----
*gold* (/chrysion/) 'Gold, silver and precious stones' were the emblems
of priests, levites and celibates respectively, classes A, B and C. (1
Cor 3:12). Gold is associated with the Holy of Holies in Matt 23:16.
-----


I've just found a nice resource giving Greek and KJV versions of the New
Testament online:
http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/new-testament/default.asp


Another great link:
http://www.verselink.org/bibletext3/books3.htm
There, you can click on a chapter number, and find links for each word
in the KJV to (an abbreviated form of) the kind of information found in
Strong's /Concordance/. (No Greek or Hebrew fonts, just Roman
transliterations.)


--
Marshall Price of Miami
Known to Yahoo as d021317c
.

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