John T wrote:
1. I can't follow the trail on Peter's post.
2. Although, the Carrier article in Project Muse is something I would consider, I can't pull it up without paying for it first. So, based on his (free) lectures and blog, I can guess his comments about interpolation of Josephus, (Jewish Antiquities 20.200) is nothing more than reckless speculation rather than serious scholarly work.
So, if you don't mind, please try again.
Thanks in advance.
John T
Here's more
"Whealey has argued that the original Eusebian TF quotation read "he was believed to be the Christ," rather than "he was the Christ," and that somehow all subsequent manuscripts of the AJ, as well as all Eusebius manuscripts that contain the quotation, were emended to agree with the corruption. That all AJ manuscripts would so perfectly agree with a later corruption that somehow simultaneously occurred in all the texts of Eusebius (a corruption that, by Whealey's argument, must have occurred after the 4th century) is rather improbable. More likely some early copy of Eusebius's History alone was "improved" by a scribe intending to restore a more plausible quotation from a Jew (thus producing "he was believed to be the Christ"), and it is this that we see in Whealey's cited examples. It is inherently less likely that all manuscript traditions of all the texts of Eusebius and all manuscript traditions of Josephus were conspiratorially emended in the same way, than only one manuscript tradition of a single text of Eusebius being emended the other way, and thus (as one would then expect) only occasionally evidenced in quotation (which, as Whealey shows, is what we observe). Whealey's evidence, then, more likely corroborates the conclusion that even extant quotations of the AJ descend (ultimately) from the same manuscript used by Eusebius."
Carrier, R. (2012). Origen, Eusebius, and the Accidental Interpolation in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200.
Journal of Early Christian Studies, 20(4), 489-514.
ficino wrote:These references have been posted on this site in various places. Of the two articles I've read, one is in Vigiliae Christianae. Peter posted a link to it in the Tacitus thread he just started:
The other article, on Josephus AJ 20.200, is in Journal of Early Christian Studies 20.4 (2012) 489-514. I don't have a link to that paper. Here's a citation of it:
1. I can't follow the trail on Peter's post.
2. Although, the Carrier article in Project Muse is something I would consider, I can't pull it up without paying for it first. So, based on his (free) lectures and blog, I can guess his comments about interpolation of Josephus, (Jewish Antiquities 20.200) is nothing more than reckless speculation rather than serious scholarly work.
So, if you don't mind, please try again.
Thanks in advance.
John T
As others have said: go to a library and read these articles, if you're that interested in maligning Carrier's scholarship. Or request them via interlibrary loan. That's what researchers do. Your guessing about Carrier's work has no basis when you have not read the articles. So do the work of research.
Last edited by ficino on Sat Jan 24, 2015 4:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
Risking wrath from the board police, I hunkered down to watch a Carrier video yesterday. First thing he does is say not to take him too seriously, and then he quotes a line from Minnesota Senator Al Franken.
steve43 wrote:Risking wrath from the board police, I hunkered down to watch a Carrier video yesterday. First thing he does is say not to take him too seriously, and then he quotes a line from Minnesota Senator Al Franken.
I bailed out. Couldn't take it.
At the beginning of one lecture he denounces most mythicists as frauds but of course he is the real deal and can be trusted.
I'm still waiting for that one gem of new truth that Carrier discovered that proves the historical Jesus was all a myth. But I won't hold my breath.
As far as reading actual papers of Carrier, I tried but I can't find anything.
John T
Last edited by John T on Sat Jan 24, 2015 5:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."...Jonathan Swift
Carrier's opinion on when/how a possible interpolation of Jewish Antiquities 20.200 was about as unique as, "the butler did it".
Premise: As a mythicst I don't believe in a historical Jesus.
There are several written sources outside of the New Testament that attest to Jesus being a real person.
Conclusion: Therefore any written documents about a historical Jesus must be forged and/or an interpolation, otherwise my premise would be false and I'm too smart of a scholar from Columbia to believe in a false premise.
Yeah, works for me.
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."...Jonathan Swift
John T wrote:As far as reading actual papers of Carrier, I tried but I can't find anything.
You have been pointed at going to a scientific library and read the stuff there. That's how things like this work. Or buy the articles or the journals where the article is printed.
It's also irrelevant to the question whether Carrier is a "crank exegete" whether you consider Carrier's article good or not. They have been peer-reviewed. Which means that actual peers in the academic field think his argumentation is generally sound, follows logical rules and is worth to be published in an academic journal. This must not be confused with that they agree with him. They just think it's a valid conclusion from the established facts.
Furthermore, I don't know why the Inanna myth gets trotted out like this from you. Carrier says himself that he doesn't think that the Inanna myth has any relation to what he thinks is the Christ myth. The sole purpose of looking at the Inanna myth is to kill that pesky criterion from embarrassment in Jesus studies once and for good. The Inanna myth shows that you can be one of the most revered god(esse)s of the cultural area despite having been killed, hung up for public show for three days and three nights and the need for being rescued by some other god. Which means there is nothing new to the concepts of gods dying in an embarrassing way, being dead for three days, and then being resurrected again without them losing status. You could make a similar claim for the Osiris myth.
Which just means that the age-old claim that the Jesus story must be true because nobody would write an embarrassing tale like that about the object of their veneration if it weren't real is garbage.
Ulan wrote:Furthermore, I don't know why the Inanna myth gets trotted out like this from you. Carrier says himself that he doesn't think that the Inanna myth has any relation to what he thinks is the Christ myth. The sole purpose of looking at the Inanna myth is to kill that pesky criterion from embarrassment in Jesus studies once and for good.
I think Carrier uses the story of Attis rather than Inanna in his critique of the Criterion? On Innana: Carrier finds parallels between Ascension of Isaiah and Descent of Inanna in OHJ. He writes starting from page 45:
We have even more reason than that to be suspicious here. For the initial story told of Jesus in the Ascension of Isaiah sounds a lot like a story of another descending-and-ascending, dying-and-rising god, originating over a thousand years before the Christian era. In the Descent of Inanna, we are given a similarly repetitious account of a goddess (lnanna, variously otherwise known as Ishtar or Astarte), the very 'Queen of Heaven' (and daughter of God), who descends 'from the great above'.
Thus 'abandoning heaven' she descends from outer space all the way past earth into the realm of the dead below it, fully intending to be killed there and then resurrected three days later. Just like in the Ascension of Isaiah, the narrative relates her plans in advance to ensure this, and then relates how it happens exactly to plan. And like the 'Jesus' figure in the the Ascension of Isaiah, Inanna is crucified (nailed up), and notably not on earth, but in a non-earthly realm (the sub-world, in accordance with Sumerian lore of the time), and not by people, but by demons-and their godly overlords, who happen to be the gods of death, yet another coincidence with the Ascension (and like the narrative that ends up in the Gospels, Inanna is also humiliated and condemned to death in a kind of kangaroo court). Most importantly, just as Jesus must descend through seven levels of heaven, shedding layers of his glory at each stage and thereby humbling his appearance (which the Ascension of Isaiah repeatedly equates with garments), so Inanna descends through seven levels of the underworld, shedding layers of her regalia at each stage and thereby being humbled in her appearance-until at last she is naked (the most mortal and vulnerable state of all), and that's when she is killed.
This is an extremely unlikely coincidence, particularly given the highly repetitious nature of both texts. It cannot be believed that the author of the Ascension just 'by coincidence' ended up telling almost the very same story, right down to its characteristic repetitions, seven-stage descent and disrobing, crucifixion by demons, and resurrection. Inanna, like Jesus, was also God's child; and like the Ascension, in the Descent her plans are explained before being described. There are many differences in these two tales, certainly. For instance Inanna escapes the realm of the dead by trading places with her (apparently haughty) husband, Tammuz, who is dragged into hell by its demons. But the skeletal structure of the story in the Ascension clearly derives from this pre-Christian religion-whether by circuitous route or not.
It is really important, in life, to concentrate our minds on our enthusiasms, not on our dislikes. -- Roger Pearse
John T wrote:As far as reading actual papers of Carrier, I tried but I can't find anything.
You have been pointed at going to a scientific library and read the stuff there. That's how things like this work. Or buy the articles or the journals where the article is printed.
It's also irrelevant to the question whether Carrier is a "crank exegete" whether you consider Carrier's article good or not. They have been peer-reviewed. Which means that actual peers in the academic field think his argumentation is generally sound, follows logical rules and is worth to be published in an academic journal. This must not be confused with that they agree with him. They just think it's a valid conclusion from the established facts.
Furthermore, I don't know why the Inanna myth gets trotted out like this from you. Carrier says himself that he doesn't think that the Inanna myth has any relation to what he thinks is the Christ myth. The sole purpose of looking at the Inanna myth is to kill that pesky criterion from embarrassment in Jesus studies once and for good. The Inanna myth shows that you can be one of the most revered god(esse)s of the cultural area despite having been killed, hung up for public show for three days and three nights and the need for being rescued by some other god. Which means there is nothing new to the concepts of gods dying in an embarrassing way, being dead for three days, and then being resurrected again without them losing status. You could make a similar claim for the Osiris myth.
Which just means that the age-old claim that the Jesus story must be true because nobody would write an embarrassing tale like that about the object of their veneration if it weren't real is garbage.
So, Ulan falls into that group that supports Carrier without even bothering to find out what he actually said.
Go it!
John T
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."...Jonathan Swift
