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.
ABuddhist
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Re: Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

Post by ABuddhist »

Whatever else karavan may have done during the time when e maked eir latest posting within this thread (and being upon my "ignore list", I cannot tell), I note that e has not provided to me through PM a single pre-gospel Christian text explicitly claiming that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet upon the Earth before his death. If karavan now admits that there is not even one pre-gospel Christian text explicitly claiming that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet upon the Earth before his death (with the extremely dubious exception of Q), then e is welcomed to inform me about this concession through a PM. If such a PM be politely worded, then I would consider reading through karavan's posts in order to read what e says about other matters.

However, I think that the following points deserve further consideration: why Q is not, as far as I am concerned, a legitimate pre-gospel Christian text explicitly claiming that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet upon the Earth before his death (in order to address potential allegations that I am moving the goal-posts); and (2) sources (both primary and secondary) about Menandros the Greek King of Bactria (in order to refute karavan's suspicions that I am untrustworthy in my claims about Mahayana Buddhism).

1. Why Q is not, as far as I am concerned, a legitimate pre-gospel Christian text explicitly claiming that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet upon the Earth

The root of the problem with relying upon Q to prove anything about Jesus is that it does not survive, nor is it attested from patristic or similar sources. Rather, it is a hypothetical document, dating from the 19th century, created in order to explain material found within both of GLuke and GMatthew that is not found within GMark. Therefore, the possibility remains (most recently advanced by the scholar Mark Goodacre, who has debated against mythicism with Dr. Richard Carrier) that this hypothetical document did not exist, and that the material found within both of GLuke and GMatthew that is not found within GMark got theere through other means (such as one author copying from another or a later editor inserting material attributed to Q into both GMatthew and GLuke; because despite karavan's claims, there is considerable evidence that our collections of Christians' scriptures was centrally edited into its more-or-less standard form in at least some way - wherefore the gospels are always in the same order from all of our manuscripts).

Even if it be conceded, however, that Q existed, its very lack of surviving copies (or even references to to it before scholars devised the hypothesis), means that we have no way of ascertaining its original length, contents, purpose, reliability, or origins - all of which are essential before we can ascertain whether we should trust its portrayal of Jesus. I am very wary of claims that Paul was a fictional figure (as is Dr. Carrier, who is the leading advocate for the fringe theory that Jesus was fictional) because we have letters (giving them definite content and length) that present themselves as having been created by Paul (giving them them an origin and approximate date) for the benefit of Christian congregations (giving them a purpose). Of course, even accepting these, one can easily question Paul's letters' reliability (hence dispute about interpolations into the letters, pseudo-Pauline letters, and Paul's honesty). But without surviving documents claimed to be "Q", we are really left in the dark, as it were, about many things that would allow us to better assess its reliability. Did it claim to have an author? was the claimed author regarded as a trustworthy person (rather than, for example, a person famous for creating fictions about people)? Was the full text of Q copied into both gospels, or was there more that was not copied?

If the full text of Q was not copied into both gospels, then many other questions relating to its reliability arise. Did the non-copied portions of Q indicate that its author was writing the work as some type of rhetorical exercise rather than a reflection of truth? conversely, did the non-copied portions of Q indicate that its author was sincerely trying to recall what Jesus had said and provide evidence why we should trust eir efforts? Did the non-copied portions of Q indicate that its author was such an uncritical attributer of traditions to Jesus that we should regard with skepticism eir attribution of any tradition to Jesus (as with Papias and his claim that Jesus preached about talking grapes arguing about which of them should be eaten by YHWH's chosen)?

In order to put into better perspective the idea that the author of Q may have been writing Q as some type of rhetorical exercise rather than a reflection of truth, I cite the existence within Islam of mawdu' (fabricated) ahadith, which, although regarded by Muslim scholars as fabricated, are and were nonetheless used by Islamic preachers and missionaries in order to make Muhammad seem to be a very kind man and for similar apologetic purposes. I am not saying, obviously, that the alleged surviving content of Q is united by making Jesus seem to be a very kind man, but the principle remains that the material within Q could have been fabricated by the author(s) of Q for similar reasons as guided the users and creators of mawdu' ahadith - evangelizing and preaching to Christians. And in the absence of surviving copies of Q in its entirety, we have no idea about whether a full manuscript would reveal these or even more scandalous things about its reliability.

2. Sources (both Primary and Secondary) about Menandros the Greek King of Bactria

The Milinda Pañha ('Questions of Milinda') is a Buddhist text, written in Pali, describing a discussion between a Buddhist monk and a person whom historians have agreed is meant to be the Greek king Menandros of Bactria, during which he converts to Buddhism and in the end becomes a Buddhist monk noted for his spiritual achievements. A freely available English version, translated by the famous scholar of Pali T. W. Rhys Davids, can be readed here: https://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/milinda.htm. Within the text, the king is described as ruling over the Yonakas in a city that is called Sâgala.

King of the city of Sâgala in India, Milinda [the Pali form of the name Menander] by name, learned, eloquent, wise, and able; and a faithful observer, and that at the right time, of all the various acts of devotion and ceremony enjoined by his own sacred hymns concerning things past, present, and to come. — The Questions of King Milinda, Translation from the Pali by T. W. Rhys Davids, 1890.

After meeting with the Buddhist monk Nagasena, Menander converted to Buddhism.

May the venerable Nâgasena accept me as a supporter of the faith, as a true convert from to-day onwards as long as life shall last! — The Questions of King Milinda, Translation by T. W. Rhys Davids, 1890

Menander also became a Buddhist monk renowned for his spiritual achievements.

And afterwards, taking delight in the wisdom of the Elder, he handed over his kingdom to his son, and abandoning the household life for the houseless state, grew great in insight, and himself attained to Arahatship! — The Questions of King Milinda, Translation by T. W. Rhys Davids, 1890

Lest Pali Indian sources be deemed untrustworthy, they receive some confirmation in Plutarch's Moralia 28.6: "But when one Menander, who had reigned graciously over the Bactrians, died afterwards in the camp, the cities indeed by common consent celebrated his funerals; but coming to a contest about his relics, they were difficultly at last brought to this agreement, that his ashes being distributed, everyone should carry away an equal share, and they should all erect monuments to him."

This division of the ashes of a person and erecting monuments over said ashes is standard for Buddhist monastics who are deemed to have achieved extraordinary things (including arhatship), and Georgios T. Halkias, writing in "When the Greeks Converted the Buddha: Asymmetrical Transfers of Knowledge in Indo-Greek Cultures" in "Religions and Trade" Religious Formation, Transformation and Cross-Cultural Exchange between East and West", edited by Peter Wick and Volker Rabens, accepted Plutarch's words as confirming the account in the Indian "The Questions of King Milinda".
Last edited by ABuddhist on Tue Nov 30, 2021 5:24 am, edited 2 times in total.
ABuddhist
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Re: Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

Post by ABuddhist »

Secret Alias wrote: Mon Nov 29, 2021 11:42 am
the Gospels are the earliest biographies of Jesus
Was the gospel really a biography or an account or a proof of the fulfillment of Jewish prophesy regarding the coming of the messiah according to certain statements contained therein? This is a critical distinction. A biography is principally interested in telling the story of an individual - presumably a great individual. Great individuals accomplish something. Not sure what Jesus 'accomplished' during his lifetime other than to secure his own death, a death traditionally understood to have occurred because of the insistence of 'the Jews.' Our earliest patristic commentary on the gospel (Tertullian, Against Marcion Book 4) treats the narrative almost exclusively as a prophetic fulfillment exercise. Of course Tertullian or his source emphasizes certain prophecies fulfilled by this Christ of the Jews. I have always been partial to the empty tomb being a literally translation of the Hebrew of Daniel 9:25. In this way 'the messiah' disappeared = ואין לו He disappears, he has disappeared. I suspect that Mark, the original gospel, emphasizes Daniel's 70 weeks so much in chapter 13 because Jesus himself will be the fulfillment of the Christ who disappears expectation of Daniel. Not sure that 'jibes' with a historical biography as this could never have actually happened.
To build upon these excellent points, I add the following.

1. The gospels are not given titles that other texts from that same temporal and geographical area use to describe what we now call biographies - that is, they are not entitled "the Life of Jesus". To say that they are accurate biographies rather than, for example, historical fiction, propaganda, or allegories is to add to the text.

2. At this point, you may raise the issue of GLuke, which is, superficially, the most conventionally biographical - describing its subject from birth until death (and even afterwards), providing dating (always useful!), and providing a statement of purpose in 1:1-4. However, the fact that GLuke is anonymous means that we have no way of determining whether its author(s) were known to be honest and careful researchers or prone to creating fictions. You may say that thinking that GLuke's author was lying is being overly paranoid, but I say that such is only basic precaution when assessing any text. Further reducing the reasonableness of trusting GLuke's author's honesty and/or competence as a biographer, GLuke's author names no sources within eir text, not even GMark, which we know (barring religiously biased scholars) that e used above all other texts. This in turn means that we have no way to determine that GLuke's author, when deriving details not found in GMark from other sources, was using credible sources or sources that we would consider to be unworthy of trusting. As evidence that people from Greco-Roman antiquity were capable of creating what we might call "implausible historical fiction masquerading as fact", I cite the Historia Augusta as an example that not only existed but for centuries was regarded as an accurate history until in 1889, Hermann Dessau rejected both the date and the authorship as stated within the manuscript, leading to a process in which it has been consistently decreased in value by historians. Admittedly, the Historia Augusta, unlike GLuke, names sources (who seem overall to be fictional), but I am not saying that the Historia Augusta is anything other than proof that people could create "historical fiction masquerading as fact" that tricked centuries of later scholars.

3. Why claim that the gospels are our earliest biographies of Jesus (even if they be accepted as biographies)? What proof is there that there were never earlier, more reliable, now lost, biographies of Jesus? As evidence that gospels (that you claim are biographies of Jesus) could have existed while attracting no mentioning in our surviving literature (perhaps, in the case of hypothetical earlier, more reliable, now lost, biographies of Jesus, due to theological divergences), I cite the Egerton Gospel, which was only found in fragments during the 20th century and includes a story found in no other gospel.
Last edited by ABuddhist on Mon Nov 29, 2021 2:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Secret Alias
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Re: Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

Post by Secret Alias »

Biographies aren't sacred literature. The gospel is a sacred text. Scholars want the gospel to be something 'useful' for their purposes rather than what it is - a historical curiosity. This rebaptism of the gospel as 'biographies' is a great example of the universities making Biblical exegesis WORSE.
ABuddhist
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Re: Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

Post by ABuddhist »

Secret Alias wrote: Mon Nov 29, 2021 2:28 pm Biographies aren't sacred literature. The gospel is a sacred text. Scholars want the gospel to be something 'useful' for their purposes rather than what it is - a historical curiosity.
You may find interesting, therefore, the namtar (Tibetan: རྣམ་ཐར་, Wylie: rNam-thar), sometimes spelled namthar: a spiritual biography or hagiography in Tibetan Buddhism.

As a point that karavan should heed, Western academic tradition often portrays this type of text in an unfavourable light. It mainly criticizes the namthar for its inclusion of miraculous events and repetition of the protagonist's sanctity. Some scholars have therefore proposed that the namthar have no historical value whatsoever. [Snellgrove, "Buddhist Himalaya" (Oxford, 1957) 85f; Tucci, "Tibetan Painted Scrolls" (Rome, 1949) I: 151.]. Why are Biblical scholars so much more trusting about the gospels?
Last edited by ABuddhist on Mon Nov 29, 2021 3:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Secret Alias
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Re: Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

Post by Secret Alias »

I don't find it interesting. But thanks for asking.
karavan
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Re: Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

Post by karavan »

"Was the gospel really a biography or an account or a proof of the fulfillment of Jewish prophesy regarding the coming of the messiah according to certain statements contained therein? This is a critical distinction."

No it's not, LOL. It's one you invented out of your arse to special plead the Gospels away from counting as biographies, which they obviously are if you ever bothered reading them.
karavan
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Re: Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

Post by karavan »

ABuddhist: "karavan is on my ignore list"

ABuddhist: "let me also respond to karavan at length i hope no one will notice lolol"

Anyways, it's now obvious I have wiped ABuddhist off the face of the Earth on the apocalypticism discussion, such that he is now only droolingly repeating himself over and over like a machine while ignoring all refutations that have been made of all his points, repeatedly, without any response. ABuddhist can feel free to PM me a concession when he feels like it.

The whole Q discussion is an obvious red herring. ABuddhist says absolutely nothing that makes me think he's interested in figuring out if it actually exists. But the reality is whether or not there was one specific document called "Q", it is buttloadingly obvious that several traditions in the Gospels come from earlier, written texts. That Mark is the earliest one we have is simply an accident of history, others definitely existed and were lost and were known to the Gospel authors.

Thanks for the Buddhist source ABuddhist, now you've proven that the traditions you were thinking of have no clear relation or analogy to the origins of Christianity. Because Christianity originated when some monk met a king and converted him to asceticism. Right. LOL. No wonder you didn't wanna produce the source.
ABuddhist
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Re: Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

Post by ABuddhist »

It sure is a pity that no person has PMed to me any evidence that karavan has provided any citation of any pre-gospel text explicitly claiming that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher upon the earth before his death - nor has anyone here even provided to me any evidence that karavan has fulfilled my more generous condition by admitting that there is not even one pre-gospel Christian text explicitly claiming that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet upon the Earth before his death (with the extremely dubious exception of Q, which I reject for reasons that I listed above).

But I would like to expand upon two points that I recently writed about in response to Secret Alias's point about the distinction between sacred literature and biography.

I actually disagree with secret alias's claim that bIographies are not sacred literature. Many religious traditions (including Christian) include biographies within their canons. But biographies that are part of sacred literature are, I think that we can all agree, more worthy of skeptical consideration than secular biographies - because biases for or against various figures are more often (and more strongly!) associated with religious communities whose members produce biographies as sacred literature than than with secular communities whose members produce biographies about secular subjects.

Yet the fact that "Western" scholars, utilizing the allegedly superiour western scholarly critical apparatus, are able to condemn namtars as having no historical value whatsoever because of the namtars' inclusion of miraculous events and repetition of the protagonist's sanctity is striking.

After all, the gospels are similarly filled with miraculous events and repetitions about Jesus's sanctity, yet the people who condemn the gospels as having no historical value whatsoever are condemned as lunatics by mainstream biblical scholarship. Maybe, if an appropriately thorough and dispassionate investigation into both textual traditions were to be undertaken, it would be discovered that neither namtar nor gospel should be so harshly condemned (or maybe both should be condemned) - but the divergence between how gospels and namtars have been discussed by reputable Western scholars cries out for an explanation.

Fundamentally, that explanation is, I think, that Western scholars grow up with the gospels and accordingly at some level accept their inclusion of miraculous events and repetition of the protagonist's sanctity as normal parts of a narrative. But when confronting an unfamiliar narrative, the western scholars dealing with namtars who reject their authority as historical sources find themselves overwhelmed by the features that Western people on average accept as normal within the gospels (even when they may not be Christian).

Cultural biases play a role, i suppose, in deciding which texts are worthy of taking seriously as biographies for understanding history and which texts can be dismissed as hagiographies with no historical value whatsoever.
ABuddhist
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Re: Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

Post by ABuddhist »

As a further point, I would like to defend my citation of wikipedia in researching my responses to karavan's words. I am fully aware that wikipedia has its flaws. But given karavan's unwillingness to provide support for key claims that he has maked to me beyond "O'Neill" and "Dale Allison wrote a lengthy refutation in his book on Jesus' apocalypticism", I figure that citing wikipedia (and/or the sources that wikipedia cites, as with my discussion of namtars), is sufficient - especially given karavan's failure to appreciate my citing a specific book and 2 named authors as evidence for the points that I was making about Mahayana Buddhism.

That having been said, if karavan wants proof that what I have said about the historia Augusta is true, he need only read the wikipedia article about that book (and consult the sources if he be eager to fully investigate) - which is, I dare say, a better guidance that his repeatedly citing "O'Neill" with no further disambiguation and refusing to quote people's words even when they asked to have them quoted, as with Neil.
ABuddhist
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Re: Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

Post by ABuddhist »

If karavan accuse me of "moving the goal posts" for claiming that citations from Q are not a pre-gospel text explicitly claiming that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher upon the earth before his death, I have the following response.

Citing a text that is neither known to exist nor claimed by people from the times when it would have been in circulation to exist is a very feeble response, because such a text might not really exist, no matter how plausible the reconstructions of it may be.

When I sought from karavan a quotation from a pre-gospel text explicitly claiming that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher upon the earth before his death, I was referring to a surviving pre-gospel text explicitly claiming that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher upon the earth before his death - not a modern scholarly reconstruction of an unattested text based upon hypotheses.

If that seem like a drastic change in what I was seeking from karavan, I must remind karavan that e was also prone to retroactively inserting words into earlier statements in order to strengthen eir claims in response to eir opponent's arguments (viz., the term "peer-reviewed" before publication when I pointed out that, contrary to eir claims, Dr. Carrier had had at least one book published within the past seven years).
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