That surely is a defeatist attitude - and surely one you can't actually be upholding. Continually attempting to bring down Carrier requires a commitment to finding some relevance to that 2000 year old story. Your arguments against Carrier - suggesting different interpretations of the relevant material - do indicate that the material has some value for you.GakuseiDon wrote: ↑Fri Mar 24, 2023 7:46 pmThere are no answers to that 2000 year old story maryhelena.maryhelena wrote: ↑Fri Mar 24, 2023 2:58 pmKnocking Carrier is easy work. I, personally, don't see any benefit in doing so. Yep, judge his work, find his interpretations to be unsatisfactory - and move on. It's your time - and it gives you satisfaction - so what can one say - take care that you don't get waylaid from the real task before us. Striving for answers to that 2000 year old story.
Striving for answers to that 2000 year old story is not about offering up yet more interpretations of that story. Interpretations can only become useful once historical evidence, historical facts, are put on the table. ie one needs evidence before one can begin offering interpretations of that evidence.
Goodness, didn't expect that from you GDon. I suggested you move on from your continual attempts at knocking down Carrier's mythicist theory. I didn't suggest you move on from your own historicist theory about a nobody gospel Jesus. Your time is your own - but wasting it on Carrier is just that - wasting your time.Perhaps it's time for you to move on from your own theory?
As for my own theory - interpretation follows evidence. In this case historical evidence. That's my bottom line. The material we do have - the stories from the time of Alexander Jannaeus to the death of Tiberius - suggest that Hasmonean/Jewish history of this time period is relevant to the stories we have. Striving for answers to the Yeshu/Jesus stories requires that we acknowledge that this historical time frame is relevant to the stories. ie without a historical reference, without a historical linkage, without a historical core - the story writers would be peddling fairy tales. Nothing wrong with writing fairy tales - after all they had their place in our childhood. However, before we close the fairy story book - we should be turning our adult minds to the why of the story. Why was it written - just for enjoyment, to demonstrate the authors intellectual imagination. Or does the story reflect more than pure fantasy? Yep, that age old question - why ? As someone once wrote - will the last word ever spoken be why..
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As for my theory - Antigonus is just one element, albeit an important element. An important element that moves my theory away from fairy tales to the reality of the history which provided the stories with their raison d'être. And while Antigonus might seem to be my focus - that is not really so. My focus is, as it has been for very many years, Josephus. My focus has been to put Josephus, as it were, in the dock - and find him to be wanting.....And that GDon is a far more rewarding task than attempting to kick Carrier in the butt.....