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

[andrewcriddle]

... which gives Pliny ample opportunity to share his knowledge on Christians. I think it would be fair to say he knows more than what was put in a letter, given he did interrogate Christians and such.

What are your objections to Tuccinardi's analysis?

My biggest issue with Tuccinardi's article (and I am more than happy to change my position on this if more research is published on the matter) is that while Tuccinardi may find non-Plinian elements in the text, we are not told where the elements occur. And without knowing that, it does not seem particularly helpful. The reason being, since Pliny in the text is reporting on a tradition he has not reported on elsewhere, and therefore using terms he hasn't elsewhere, of course there will be a larger degree of non-Plinian style and language in the text. He never talks of Christians elsewhere, and as he is reporting what he gathered from interrogating Christians, we would expect non-Plinian language. So, where the interpolations supposedly occur in the text based on stylometric analysis is important. If it occurs in the sections where he broadly reports on Christianity, then it may not be an indication of interpolation at all, but of borrowed language from those he interrogated.

Which leads to me to another problem which is that we have proven that author's can consciously alter their style (in fact a very interesting study was published on adversarial techniques to undermine stylometric analysis, see https://www1.icsi.berkeley.edu/~sadia/p ... ometry.pdf) and also their styles change over time and under various influences. So, I am actually unsure about the entire presupposition of Tuccinardi's paper that "each author owns distinctive writing habits, independent of his/her will, and [...] the author cannot intentionally alter these features."

I think that Tuccinardi's analysis is a really intriguing start for interpolation theories, but until more work is published on the matter, I remain unconvinced of interpolation so far.

I started a thread Interpolation in Pliny about an earlier suggestion that part of the letter (a part which is not witnessed by Tertullian nor replied to by Trajan) is not original.

Andrew Criddle

[Secret Alias]

I suffer from the same problem as many others - we start out looking for the truth and then we come to some conclusions and then we learn to take up positions which defend our (originally tentative) conclusions and then before we know it we're making arguments to defend our positions which were originally only temporary or theoretical to defend conclusions which were only tentative. It's a human thing.

My guess is that Pliny's witness of early Christianity IN ITS BROADEST UNDERSTANDING is an important piece of evidence for the existence of Christianity at the turn of the second century. I see no reason why anyone should doubt that Pliny witnessed or attested to the existence of Christians at that time.

[karavan]

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.

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.

LOL I wouldn't call you a Carrier supporter, I've seen you decimating his gibberish theories in your papers on his Romans 1:3 delusions and that Zalmoxis thing. Anyways, if you're going to drop by and comment on the early dating of the AoI per Norelli, then can you also comment on what you think about the AoI in relation to the mythicist use of it? Are mythicists right to propagate it as a space Jesus? Or what?

I also see that Godfrey, since my last drop-in, has continued his ravings about me being Tim LOL. Imagine thinking that everyone who considers you dumb is Tim O'Neill ROFL.

[Chrissy Hansen]

LOL I wouldn't call you a Carrier supporter, I've seen you decimating his gibberish theories in your papers on his Romans 1:3 delusions and that Zalmoxis thing.

While I don't agree with Carrier on Paul and a few other things, his theories are not gibberish nor are they "delusions." The polemics and insults aren't gonna help anything (I know from experience...) and I'm not to interesting in entering a rhetorical battle with you. As I've said elsewhere, I agree with mythicists on the majority of everything except: their interpretation of Paul and the historicity of a minimalistic Jesus. I think the Gospels are fictions and cannot be used critically to reconstruct his life, I don't think the alleged extrabiblical evidence is useful, I think Jesus' resurrection in the Gospels was very likely modeled using Greco-Roman models (probably Romulus, imo), and I would even contend that virtually every single supposed "fact" that E. P. Sanders and others have labeled "almost indisputable" are probably just myths (even the baptism and that he came from Nazareth; not to be confused with me thinking Nazareth is a myth, I just don't think Jesus came from there).

Anyways, if you're going to drop by and comment on the early dating of the AoI per Norelli, then can you also comment on what you think about the AoI in relation to the mythicist use of it? Are mythicists right to propagate it as a space Jesus? Or what?

I don't think the mythicist interpretation is correct, and I think Neil agrees on this as well (hope Neil will correct me if I'm wrong). That being said, even with the presence of the "pocket gospel" (which I think is authentic), I think it is still consistent with some mythicists theories, like those of Jean Magne and Thomas L. Brodie, so it ultimately doesn't really matter to me that much.

Imagine thinking that everyone who considers you dumb is Tim O'Neill ROFL.

Not hard when you act identically to Tim O'Neill in just about every conceivable way.

[Chrissy Hansen]

I started a thread Interpolation in Pliny about an earlier suggestion that part of the letter (a part which is not witnessed by Tertullian nor replied to by Trajan) is not original.

Andrew Criddle

Hmmm. Interesting. I'm open to partial interpolation, though I'll have to mull this over a bit more and read Herrmann's paper (time to brush up on my French again).

[MrMacSon]

... on the early dating of the AoI per Norelli ... can you also comment on what you think about the AoI in relation to the mythicist use of it? Are mythicists right to propagate it as a space Jesus? Or what?

I don't think the mythicist interpretation is correct

What do each of you mean by 'the mythicist' "use" of the AoI ?

[Chrissy Hansen]

What do each of you mean by 'the mythicist' "use" of the AoI ?

How Carrier (and previously Doherty) have reinterpreted the Ascension of Isaiah on a mythicist schema, reading it as a celestial myth.

Sorry, our terminology usage isn't that nuanced. I'd try bringing up a lot more diverse theories on mythicism, but not sure karavan would be able to handle Thomas Brodie, Jean Magne, Iosif Kryvelev, Paul-Louis Couchoud, or Eliza Sharples very well.

[MrMacSon]

What do each of you mean by 'the mythicist' "use" of the AoI ?

How Carrier (and previously Doherty) have reinterpreted the Ascension of Isaiah on a mythicist schema ...

Thank you

[neilgodfrey]

Anyways, if you're going to drop by and comment on the early dating of the AoI per Norelli, then can you also comment on what you think about the AoI in relation to the mythicist use of it? Are mythicists right to propagate it as a space Jesus? Or what?

As per Norelli?

The person who virtually founded the modern studies of the Ascension of Isaiah was Robert Henry Charles and it was he who dated the AscIsa in the first century (with final redactions being made in the second) and his analysis was long generally accepted in the field.

Another who advanced the study of the AI a little farther was Jean Daniélou and he also dated the vision to the first century.

Then David Flusser came along and linked the AI to the Qumran sect.

P.C. Bori acknowledged the possibility of the Vision being composed at the end of the first century.

R. G. Hall places the final redaction early in the second century but the original parts could have been first century.

A. Acerbi places it around the turn of the century (first to second).

M. Knibb dates part of the AI to the first century.

Norelli's date of the Vision to the first century is found in his conclusions after discussing the history of scholarship and the discussions at conferences on the AI held in the 1980s/90s. (Norelli also has some searing critiques of certain English language scholarship on the AI.)

If you are going to talk about the Asc of Isa it would be more productive if you actually did some homework instead of prooftexting from the first text you assume represents the opinion of the entire field.

[ABuddhist]

While I don't agree with Carrier on Paul and a few other things, his theories are not gibberish nor are they "delusions."

Do you still assert that it is impossible to talk about dying-and-rising gods - that is, gods who are killed, descend to the underworld, and are restored to life?