Stevan Davies on Paradigm Shifts

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Peter Kirby
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Stevan Davies on Paradigm Shifts

Post by Peter Kirby »

As far as I know, nobody preserved Xtalk or JesusMysteries, so this extract is now known only from quotations (and history repeats itself!).

But we have been given a generous extract from Neil Godfrey.

https://vridar.org/2011/05/14/open-lett ... ter-kirby/
I haven’t read Kuhn in a coon’s age, but recall something to
the effect that a prevailing scientific paradigm gradually
accumulates problematic elements that are swept under the
rug until a new paradigm appears, accounting for those elements,
at which time it becomes clear (where it did not before) that
those problematic elements should have indicated fatal flaws
in the former paradigm.

Earl’s paradigm is a paradigm. It’s not simply a reworking of
the usual materials in the usual way to come up with a different
way of understanding them. It’s not an awful lot different than
the claim “there is no such thing as phlogiston, fire comes
about through an entirely different mechanism.”

New paradigms are very very rare. I thought that my J the H
gave a new paradigm rather than just another view on the
subject, but no. Earl’s is what a new paradigm looks like.
(And if he’s not the first to advance it, what the hell.)
A new paradigm asserts not that much of what you know
is wrong but that everything you know is wrong… more or
less. Your whole perspective is wrong. The simple thing to
do is to want nothing to do with such a notion, which
simple thing has been violently asserted on crosstalk by
various people. Indeed, at the outset of this discussion,
more than one person asserted that since this is an Historical
Jesus list, we presuppose the Historical Jesus, therefore
a contrary paradigm should not even be permitted on the list.
I think this is cognate to the establishment’s reaction to Galileo.

But it’s not that Earl advocates lunacy in a manner devoid
of learning. He advocates a position that is well argued
based on the evidence and even shows substantial knowledge
of Greek. But it cannot be true, you say. Why not? Because
it simply can’t be and we shouldn’t listen to what can’t be
true. No. Not so quick.

The more you think about early Christianity from the perspective
of the new paradigm, the more the old paradigm can be seen
to be flawed. … and the more the rather incoherent efforts to
make those flaws disappear seem themselves flawed.
Ptolemaic astronomy does work, sort of, if you keep patching
it up. So we can say that the host of Historical Jesus scholars
haven’t got it right, but we know that they are going about
it more or less the right way because it’s the only way we
know of. Or indeed we say that HJ scholars are going about
a task that is just impossible, but still their goal is in theory,
however impossible in practice, the right goal. Really?

This isn’t to guarantee that Earl’s arguments are always
correct… I’m not at all pleased with the redating of Mark etc.
Or that he’s thought of everything… the normative Jesus
who is a Galilean Jew whose followers immediately were
subject to persecution by the pharisee Paul are huge holes
the standard paradigm just ignores… but he’s thought of a lot.

You cannot advance very far in thinking if you simply refuse
to adopt a new paradigm and see where it takes you. Even
if, ultimately, you reject it, the adoption of it, or at least the
effort to argue against it, will take you to places you have not
been before. Hence Goranson (an intelligent knowledgeable
person, thus the foil for this letter) is wrong.

Stephen Carlson’s objections to Earl on the grounds that
Mark is evidence for an historical Jesus just takes the
standard paradigm and asserts it. That’s one way of going
about it, as pointing to the self-evident fact that the sun
goes around the earth will nicely refute Copernicus.
But it’s not that simple.

But in going along with Earl I’ve learned more than
by going along with anybody else whose ideas I’ve come
across anywhere. I went along with Mark Goodacre, and
learned some there. Refusing to go along, refusing even to
argue against, being happy that nothing new is being
discussed except widgets of modification to the standard
paradigm, that’s where you really learn almost nothing.

Crossan, or Johnson, Allison or Sanders, can give you slightly
different views of the standard view. Earl gives a completely
different view. His is a new paradigm, theirs are shifts in
focus within the old paradigm. From whom will you learn
more?
I find this to be a lovely way of understanding these kinds of differences of thought.

I will try to stay open-minded for the next time someone presents an interesting and plausible case for a paradigm shift.
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Re: Stevan Davies on Paradigm Shifts

Post by mlinssen »

Peter Kirby wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 11:23 pm
I find this to be a lovely way of understanding these kinds of differences of thought.

I will try to stay open-minded for the next time someone presents an interesting and plausible case for a paradigm shift.
https://www.academia.edu/40695711/Absol ... ory_manner

Go on then, bite:
I can only agree with that: there is no satisfactory and uncontested solution to the Synoptic Problem and each theory has its own issues and problems.
I have a better offer: a solution to the Synoptic Problem that does address all issues, settles all affairs, and solves all problems. There is only one problem with that solution: it implies that all of Christianity is an invention, a hoax, a Lie. A fabrication, fiction, all of it, down to the very person of their Jesus himself. Everything Christian is brought about as reaction and counteraction to the words of Thomas, who wrote his text and invented his main character, IC (a nomen sacrum ever since), perhaps just because he liked the sound of the name.
Thomas was first and foremost and he created IC / Jesus, Jesus likely never existed, but most certainly didn't consider himself to be Jewish at all, whatsoever.
In terms of the Synoptic Problem: Thomas is 'Q', Mark copied a third of it, and Luke and Matthew sat side-by-side writing their different gospels together: they doubled the copies from Thomas, and simply made up the rest in unison; while Luke addressed the Thomas supporters, and Matthew the (moderate) Jews, both changed and added to Mark what was needed at that time
.
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Re: Stevan Davies on Paradigm Shifts

Post by Peter Kirby »

mlinssen wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 11:32 pm
Peter Kirby wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 11:23 pm
I find this to be a lovely way of understanding these kinds of differences of thought.

I will try to stay open-minded for the next time someone presents an interesting and plausible case for a paradigm shift.
https://www.academia.edu/40695711/Absol ... ory_manner

Go on then, bite:
I can only agree with that: there is no satisfactory and uncontested solution to the Synoptic Problem and each theory has its own issues and problems.
I have a better offer: a solution to the Synoptic Problem that does address all issues, settles all affairs, and solves all problems. There is only one problem with that solution: it implies that all of Christianity is an invention, a hoax, a Lie. A fabrication, fiction, all of it, down to the very person of their Jesus himself. Everything Christian is brought about as reaction and counteraction to the words of Thomas, who wrote his text and invented his main character, IC (a nomen sacrum ever since), perhaps just because he liked the sound of the name.
Thomas was first and foremost and he created IC / Jesus, Jesus likely never existed, but most certainly didn't consider himself to be Jewish at all, whatsoever.
In terms of the Synoptic Problem: Thomas is 'Q', Mark copied a third of it, and Luke and Matthew sat side-by-side writing their different gospels together: they doubled the copies from Thomas, and simply made up the rest in unison; while Luke addressed the Thomas supporters, and Matthew the (moderate) Jews, both changed and added to Mark what was needed at that time
.
I've downloaded your PDFs, started reading them, and hope to make further progress reading them.
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Re: Stevan Davies on Paradigm Shifts

Post by mlinssen »

Peter Kirby wrote: Sat May 01, 2021 12:39 am
I've downloaded your PDFs, started reading them, and hope to make further progress reading them.
Oh my! There's a bit of a reading guide on my bio, I'll copy it here for convenience:

The so-called Gospel of Thomas (Thomas) has my undivided attention, and I have reached the point where I carefully weigh and evaluate every single word of the Coptic text.
The first part of the Complete Thomas Commentary has been published, 100+ pages on the content of the Prologue and the first 13 logia

My first series, 'Literal Thomas', consists of 7 parts, is predominantly about Thomas and contains my initial findings, among others his metamorphosis model.
My second series, 'Absolute Thomasine priority', consists of 3 parts, is entirely about the canonicals, and discusses every version of his 72 logia, in full, with a separate paper on all the parables.
My third series, 'Thomas in context', is entirely about Thomas and is intended to consist of 16 parts. The first 9 have been published and exhibit a most detailed and elaborate analysis of Thomas

My interactive Thomas translation is the focal point of my entire series of series. If you want to follow my journey through Thomas, just read my series in chronological order and remember that I started and finished my second series before publishing my translation, part VII of the first series: most everything published prior to July 2020 is based on the usual translations, which are very inaccurate, heavily biased and full of undocumented emendations - Paterson Brown and Detlev Koepke being exceptions there

It is my top priority to disclose the intricacies of Thomas and the beautiful insights in it. In essence, he teaches what today is known as radical non-duality, only 2 millennia earlier.
His World is how we view the world, his 'house' is how we view ourselves - the building we created for ourselves to live in, inhabited by the two that we made when we were One: the Ego and the Self. We are neither.
The World must burn, and the house overturned - then the slaveowner (Ego) and the Self (slave) will make way for our real selves: the Father who is living.
IS, who is also living, is a mere helping hand on our way to that salvation: a concept, and it all is created by the alleged Thomas, the author - who very likely was known as Judas at first

The now 1,200 pages have accumulated over the past 2.5 years, and some are rewritings of earlier material. As such, the story about Jacob the Righteous is now much better presented in my Commentary, instead of when it was published the first time, in Absolute Thomasine Priority

I would love a critical note!
No takers as of yet, alas. Nothing in my papers has been challenged, refuted, and so forth. Which partly comes as no surprise, as almost all of it consists of findings in texts
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