Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
karavan
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Re: Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

Post by karavan »

"Right but the reason the gospel was popular was because the life that was being described in its pages 'agreed' or was predicted by the Jewish prophets."

You're reducing the whole popularity of the Gospels to a single theme of the dozen or so they cover? You are working with some brilliant stuff right there man. And by "brilliant", I mean "starting with your theory on the supreme importance of Jewish prophecy, and then working back to create the illusion as if that's literally the only thing going on". It's rare you find someone who speaks so confidently about the reception history of the Gospels, while knowing literally nothing about it.

"Jesus didn't accomplish anything or very much during his brief ministry."

I wonder if the disciples would agree with that ROFL. The disciples believed:

-Jesus was a miracle worker
-the Son of God
-rose from the dead
-made great, wise teachings that come from God
-gained a solid following in his time, plus notoriety in the region more generally

You're really reaching here.

"The moral lessons were mostly borrowed from Plato and other Greek philosophers."

That's the dumbest thing I've heard this week. Congratulations. You know the drill: provide EVIDENCE when you claim something.

"So it's less of a biography and more of a DaVinci Code-type book"

Congratulations, you just topped yourself for the dumbest thing I've heard all week.

Given the fact that the Gospels are literally biographies, i.e. narrate the life of a specific individual and fulfill a dozen or so known characteristics of the genre of ancient biography of the time, I *tend* to lean to the fact that they are biographies.

Secret, please do us all a favour: list all the peer-reviewed papers and books you've read on the subject, and then actually try citing one that backs up your view which you seem to have pulled from back behind.

"Epiphany to Passover is even less than four months."

It's not. You're just blatantly lying now. There is literally zero evidence that the Gospels all begin at a point point called "the epiphany" which is specifically within four months of the Passover that Jesus was crucified on. Let me repeat myself: you are directly, unequivocally lying when you say this. I've already noted John literally covers several Passovers, and therefore explicitly claims to cover several years. It's not hard to imagine the Synoptics also probably go over several years in real-time.

In fact, Luke ALSO gives a pretty huge indication that the ministry covered several years:

Luke 3:23: "Jesus Himself was about thirty years old when He began His ministry"

Hmm ... normally, when someone says something like "Jack just reached twenty years of age when he began doing what he does as a career", that TENDS to imply they are speaking of something QUITE in the past, significantly before the present moment they're covering. To suggest "Jesus was about thirty when he began" kinda comes with the implication that he was at least part "about thirty" when he finished. Therefore, several years. Just as I thought. You got your facts wrong, because you were solely working with your imagination.

I find it somewhat enjoyable destroying you, Secret.
Secret Alias
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Re: Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

Post by Secret Alias »

You think you are 'destroying me' because you agree with yourself? That must mean you don't have a lot of friends or that you are used to pleasuring yourself like some semi-autistic child. None of your objections add up. The facts are that the agreement between the gospel description of Jesus and Jewish prophetic writings has long been noted by early exegetes of the Bible. It is the subject of much scholarly interest in the modern age. Do some reading. Ancient sources assumed that the agreement between these two collections argued for the gospel's divinity. The fact that you choose to read the gospel as a biography means nothing. This is a modern predisposition. It was not the original means of interpreting the text nor does it have any role in accounting for its popularity. The 'fact' that the prophets predicted Jesus's coming was the 'thing.'

On the other issue the earliest source material cited by Clement of Alexandria identified Jesus's baptism as taking place on Epiphany (early January). It is enough to cite Wikipedia:
The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, or Theophany, is the feast day commemorating the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. Originally the baptism of Christ was celebrated on Epiphany, which commemorates the coming of the Magi, the baptism of Christ, and the wedding at Cana. Over time in the West, however, the celebration of the baptism of the Lord came to be commemorated as a distinct feast from Epiphany. It is celebrated in the Catholic Church as well as the Anglican and Lutheran Churches on the first Sunday following The Epiphany of Our Lord (January 6).
That fixes the ministry of Jesus to a handful of months given that Passover can occur no later than April. This isn't even worth arguing over. January to March-April as the historical length of the ministry of Jesus within a single year is four months or less.

Bye enjoy your autism.
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MrMacSon
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Re: Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

Post by MrMacSon »

karavan wrote: Fri Dec 03, 2021 11:32 am
Secret Alias wrote:"Right but the reason the gospel was popular was because the life that was being described in its pages 'agreed' or was predicted by the Jewish prophets."
You're reducing the whole popularity of the Gospels to a single theme of the dozen or so they cover?
'the dozen or so' [what] 'they cover'?

Moreover, SA isn't proposing 'a theme', nor 'reception history of the Gospels' as you claim -
karavan wrote: Fri Dec 03, 2021 11:32 am It's rare you find someone who speaks so confidently about the reception history of the Gospels, while knowing literally nothing about it.

karavan wrote: Fri Dec 03, 2021 11:32 am
The disciples believed:

-Jesus was a miracle worker
-the Son of God
-rose from the dead
-made great, wise teachings that come from God
-gained a solid following in his time, plus notoriety in the region more generally
Correction: the disciples are 'said' to have believed
Secret Alias
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Re: Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

Post by Secret Alias »

It is a common American problem - being a vulgar piece of shit and pretending that history was nothing more than vulgar pieces of shit interpreting the world in self-serving manners. On a separate note Karavan's thinks that his interpretation of the gospel was shared by people in antiquity? Why? Because it's what he wants to believe. That's all. The reality is that whether it is Irenaeus, Tertullian or even Clement and Origen, the authors consistent interpret the gospel in terms of prophetic literature. The relationship between the prophetic writings and the gospel is treated as a mystical harmony especially by the Alexandrian writers. Origen and Clement use terminologies borrowed from music to describe the agreement. Perhaps this is why the gospel and gospels and the relationship between their narratives are described in terms of the 'diatessaron' - the interval between two notes in a scale.

So it is not being true to the original exegesis of the gospel of Mark to say that it was a biography. Why do I know better? Because for whatever reason I had to end up reading document after document from antiquity. I have no vested interest in wanting to believe that Christians interpreted the gospels in terms of Jewish prophesy. It's just the inescapable conclusion that any sane person arrives at from reading the writings of the Church Fathers. That's why the gospel of Mark introduces itself to the reader the way it does - viz. it alerts whoever was reading it that what follows is going to be above all else a fulfillment of Jewish prophesy. Why did it do this? Why was it written this way? Well I suppose that whomever wrote the gospel thought that it would be well received as a prophetic fulfillment text.

Now it can be argued that there was an older gospel that our canonical Mark was based on. That's possible. But was this gospel a straight up 'biography'? I don't know. An example perhaps is found in Cohen's treatment of the relationship between Josephus's Jewish War and Antiquities and the 'Life' of Josephus. Cohen assumes there was some Aramaic proto-text behind both Life and the other material. But I don't see how you can draw this conclusion from the canonical gospels. There is no evidence that the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Marcionite gospel or Tatian's Diatessaron was treated or was written as a straight out biography. If such evidence exists out there I'd love to be made aware of it.
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Jagd
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Re: Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

Post by Jagd »

Secret Alias wrote: Fri Dec 03, 2021 1:23 pm Now it can be argued that there was an older gospel that our canonical Mark was based on. That's possible. But was this gospel a straight up 'biography'? I don't know. An example perhaps is found in Cohen's treatment of the relationship between Josephus's Jewish War and Antiquities and the 'Life' of Josephus. Cohen assumes there was some Aramaic proto-text behind both Life and the other material. But I don't see how you can draw this conclusion from the canonical gospels. There is no evidence that the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Marcionite gospel or Tatian's Diatessaron was treated or was written as a straight out biography. If such evidence exists out there I'd love to be made aware of it.
I've spent a ton of time trying to understand what appear to be an older gospel buried under Mark (and Maricon). If anything, the older gospel appears to have been a series of wonder-working stories, perhaps without the crucifixion narrative. Nothing inherently biographical (or even historical) about it. It appears that later writers added and reframed the stories into cohesion with Hebrew scripture (along with recasting everything into a historical time and place), but that doesn't mean the original story was meant as a true biography. If anything, it appears that the older gospel was intended/received as a mythic fable without regard to theological or historical significance.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

Post by neilgodfrey »

In another thread I have been discussing aspects of the Ascension and Isaiah and could not recall if the list of points where I disagree with Carrier compiled here by ABuddhist included the Asc Isa -- because I certainly don't agree with Carrier's or Doherty's interpretation of it. So I returned to check and add it to my list of disagreements if necessary.

Well, I saw that it was included after all. But in the process of searching I noticed this little tidbit from karavan:
The Ascension of Isaiah also, obviously, has a historical Jesus. Here, Godfrey blatantly dismisses Litwa's citation on the date of the text because it fails to meet his presuppositions. Nah, "others said earlier" isn't enough. That's not a valid response. You need to interact with the data and recent study Litwa actually cites. And what about the fact that Carrier is misrepresenting AoI to make it have a space Jesus? Jesus is literally on Earth in this text, in both its current version and the original. Godfey actually says;

"Norelli’s revisionist argument "

God damn, the word "revisionist" there just spews so much hypocrisy it is amazing.
karavan tends to use the "lie" word a lot and does in other places accuse me of lying, which I suggest is ironic, at best, since if one actually turned to my post over which k accuses me of "blatantly dismissing" Litwa's "citation" with the words "others said earlier", one will find that karavan has fallen short of the truth at several points:

1. Litwa provides no citation at all for his assertion about the date of the Vision of Isaiah. There is no citation for me to address. In fact, it was his lack of citation and his reliance upon sweeping assertion to convey one point of view in the scholarly field that I was taking exception to.

2. When I supposedly responded with "others have said", what I actually wrote was:
3. If one bothers to see that post that I said supplied the scholarly responses on the date, one will find there listed about ten scholars and their various proposals for dates of the different parts of the AscIsa. There is another link to more detailed engagement with the scholarly literature. For some reason I overlooked one of the most significant authorities on the AscIsa in that list, Norelli. Norelli (along with others iirc) argues that the Vision existed before the Martyrdom chapters and is hence earlier.

In other words, my post pointed out that there is scholarly disagreement about the date of the Vision of Isaiah and it is misleading for any scholar to blatantly assert -- without citation or qualification -- that the Vision "is dated to the early second century". Oh, what deceits we can slip in beneath the passive voice! ;-)

No doubt if I bothered to read all of k's comments in which he accuses me of lying etc I will find more such misdirecting assertions.

Actually there was a lot in Litwa's book I liked and I think I have posted positively on it in other posts.

So why do I appear to "defend" Carrier? I am not interested in "defending" Carrier or arguing for mythicism. Because I do think that public intellectuals have a responsibility to be honest with their wider public. Honesty. It seems to be a challenging concept for some (or at least one) of us in this thread.

As for my supposed hypocrisy with my reference to Norelli, that would be true if I were somehow dedicated to arguing for mythicism, but I am simply not. For some reason the subject obsesses k, but I find it quite boring for reasons I have stated often by now.
karavan
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Re: Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

Post by karavan »

@Secret

"That must mean you don't have a lot of friends or that you are used to pleasuring yourself like some semi-autistic child."

ROFL. Oh my, how distressed you must be at my simply not giving a damn about what you say.

"The facts are that the agreement between the gospel description of Jesus and Jewish prophetic writings has long been noted by early exegetes of the Bible. It is the subject of much scholarly interest in the modern age."

Amazing how someone can, in the same sentence, cite scholars and then pretend at the same time that it's a real idea that the Gospels depicting Jesus as fulfilling miracles has something to say about them not being of the biography genre.

"The fact that you choose to read the gospel as a biography means nothing. This is a modern predisposition."

Modern? Wha? It's a MODERN thing to read the Gospels as narrating the main part of the life of a certain someone?

"On the other issue the earliest source material cited by Clement of Alexandria identified Jesus's baptism as taking place on Epiphany"

Thanks for admitting you have zero evidence that Jesus' ministry was four months in the Gospels, when your only source is from the turn of the third century.

"The reality is that whether it is Irenaeus, Tertullian or even Clement and Origen, the authors consistent interpret the gospel in terms of prophetic literature."

It's just a blatant, unequivocal fact that you're cherry picking a single component of the reading of the Gospels and generalizing it to the whole thing. Do you really want me to wipe you off the face of the Earth in five moments by picking up any of the works of the guys you just cited, and show interactions between them and the Gospels that have nothing to do with prophecy? You got it wrong dude, give it up.


@MrMacSon

"Correction: the disciples are 'said' to have believed"

Factually false, see Paul's letters who knew them and was their contemporary. The only disagreement Paul knew of between himself and any of the pillars was whether it was OK to sit with gentiles at a lunch table or something.



@NeilGodDamnGodfrey

"Litwa provides no citation at all for his assertion about the date of the Vision of Isaiah. There is no citation for me to address. In fact, it was his lack of citation and his reliance upon sweeping assertion to convey one point of view in the scholarly field that I was taking exception to"

LOL what? And you say I'm falling short of the truth? ROFL.

If Litwa provided no citation, where did I copy and paste the following from?

Enrico Norelli, ed., Ascensio Isaiae: Commentarius, Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum 8 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1995), 535 –38.

Did I pull this citation out of my arse? Or is it not right there on pg. 234 of the book in Litwa's endnotes? You tell me my guy.

"So why do I appear to "defend" Carrier?"

Where do you NOT defend Carrier?

"As for my supposed hypocrisy with my reference to Norelli, that would be true if I were somehow dedicated to arguing for mythicism, but I am simply not. For some reason the subject obsesses k, but I find it quite boring for reasons I have stated often by now.'

OH COME ON Neil you gotta be kidding me stop with the misdirection: YOU calling someone "revisionist" is rich.
ABuddhist
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Re: Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

Post by ABuddhist »

I wonder, reading about these excellent refutations of karavan's claims, ideas, and approaches, what the history of regarding the Gospels as biography is. I will ask this forum!
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

Post by neilgodfrey »

karavan wrote: Mon Dec 06, 2021 8:55 pm @NeilGodDamnGodfrey

"Litwa provides no citation at all for his assertion about the date of the Vision of Isaiah. There is no citation for me to address. In fact, it was his lack of citation and his reliance upon sweeping assertion to convey one point of view in the scholarly field that I was taking exception to"

LOL what? And you say I'm falling short of the truth? ROFL.

If Litwa provided no citation, where did I copy and paste the following from?

Enrico Norelli, ed., Ascensio Isaiae: Commentarius, Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum 8 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1995), 535 –38.

Did I pull this citation out of my arse? Or is it not right there on pg. 234 of the book in Litwa's endnotes? You tell me my guy.
That was not a citation for the date of the Vision of Isaiah but for the claim that the "pocket gospel" was part of the original Vision.

Litwa made the uncited assertion that the date of theVision of Isaiah was "early second century":
This text, or the relevant portion of it (called the “Vision of Isaiah”), was originally written in Greek, although the Greek version is now lost. This original version is dated to the early second century . . . (p. 38)
The citation you are telling us about was not related to the date of the Vision of Isaiah but to the integrity of the "pocket gospel" being part of the original:
The editor of the most recent critical edition of the Ascension of Isaiah, Enrico Norelli, convincingly argues that 11:2 22 was part of the original (Greek) text.42
Norelli, contrary to Litwa, explicitly dates the Vision of Isaiah (that includes the pocket gospel in his view) earlier than the second century:
Tiriamo le somme. Per AI 6-11 si può pensare a un gruppo cristiano nell’ambito della missione giudeocristiana ellenista ad Antiochia verso la fine del I secolo. --

= Let us summarize. For AI 6-11 we can think of a Christian group within the Judeo-Christian Hellenistic mission in Antioch toward the end of the first century.
That's from p. 65 of the Commentarius v8 by Norelli. (Sadly, it's from the same source as his citation for the integrity of the pocket gospel. That looks like cherry-picking for "useful citations" rather than seriously engaging with the work of Norelli.)

karavan wrote: Mon Dec 06, 2021 8:55 pm "So why do I appear to "defend" Carrier?"

Where do you NOT defend Carrier?
Just about every time I post my reviews of sections of his book OHJ. -- A pretty long list of areas of where I have posted those disagreements is given above in this discussion, if I recall rightly. But I do take exception to people who make false claims about Carrier's (or anybody's) argument and to anyone reviewing him with less than full scholarly rigour. You seem to think that that means I agree with Carrier on everything. It's not about fan clubs or following numbers of names; it's about serious engagement with the issues.
Last edited by neilgodfrey on Mon Feb 28, 2022 12:56 am, edited 4 times in total.
Chrissy Hansen
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Re: Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

Post by Chrissy Hansen »

Because I need to do this lest karavan declares me too a Carrier supporter (which I am not by any stretch of the imagination), I must say: I am not a Carrier supporter... or a mythicist. I agree with mythicists on basically most things except that there was a historical Jesus (which is arguably the least consequential or meaningful part of looking at Christian origins, imo). Now I'm just chiming on this one bit here.
neilgodfrey wrote: Sun Dec 05, 2021 3:34 pm 3. If one bothers to see that post that I said supplied the scholarly responses on the date, one will find there listed about ten scholars and their various proposals for dates of the different parts of the AscIsa. There is another link to more detailed engagement with the scholarly literature. For some reason I overlooked one of the most significant authorities on the AscIsa in that list, Norelli. Norelli (along with others iirc) argues that the Vision existed before the Martyrdom chapters and is hence earlier.

In other words, my post pointed out that there is scholarly disagreement about the date of the Vision of Isaiah and it is misleading for any scholar to blatantly assert -- without citation or qualification -- that the Vision "is dated to the early second century". Oh, what deceits we can slip in beneath the passive voice! ;-)
I have Norelli's commentary (literally in arm's reach) and Neil is entirely correct here. Norelli argues that the Vision predates the Martyrdom section. Litwa does cite Norelli on the authenticity of the long-ending, what Carrier calls the "pocket gospel" in AscIsa, and argues that the long version is a part of the coherent whole of the rest of the Vision. However, the martyrdom he still ascribes to a later author.

To my knowledge, the only person who argues for a complete unity of the entire AscIsa, including the Martyrdom, is Richard Bauckham. Regardless, Norelli's work has been largely taken as the majority position when it comes to issues of text criticism and unity. As far as dating, I have seen dates range anywhere from the late first to the third century CE, and there seems to be little agreement from what I can tell.

So yeah, Neil is completely correct K. You should probably drop it.
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