Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

I want to address this for a moment:

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Wed Jun 22, 2022 12:02 pm This might be oversimplistic. But the general sense is right. You either continue the 'optimism' which has guided Western civilization that 'the Truth' has been on this 2000 winning streak thanks do the Providence of God or you explore the possibility that world history is based on the CORRUPTION OF THE ORIGINAL TRUTH which whether right or wrong has never been fully investigated, contemplated, considered, questioned by the same 2000 years of scholarship which is quite happy celebrating the continual triumph of 'the Truth.'

The notion that the "truth" has won is certainly prevalent in some parts of scholarship, but I think for many scholars, this leafing through always the same texts has much more banal reasons. It reminds me a bit of that joke of a car driver looking for his lost car keys under a street lantern at night, while the keys were lost in some dark bushes. That's Christian Bible scholarship in a nutshell.

I guess many scholars realize their issue while they are already on the job, and then you just have to do something for the paycheck.

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Wed Jun 22, 2022 12:02 pm ... the two oldest organized Christian communities accused one another of mass falsification of documents and traditions in the late second century ...

Orthodox is not one of the two oldest Christian communities : I've left out 'organized' b/c that adds a[nother] dubious dimension

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Wed Jun 22, 2022 12:02 pm Ben helped provide ORDER.

Ben provided commentary in relation to Tradition: a close relationship to tradition

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Wed Jun 22, 2022 12:02 pm He provided a way of understanding the evidence which got around the issue of whether Christianity as such was falsified

This is gobble-de-gook / wibble

The notion of falsifiability is, in general, a dubious one

You'd need to elaborate on

1. what you mean by "whether Christianity as such was falsified", and
2. what you mean by "the evidence" which may have got around "the issue of whether Christianity as such was falsified"

Additional relevant comments in The Lounge, What heppened to Ben?

We aren't supposed to talk about people's personal lives any more at the forum. Knowing 'what he's up to' would constitute a breach of privacy and a potential ban.

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Thu Jun 23, 2022 5:12 am We aren't supposed to talk about people's personal lives any more at the forum. Knowing 'what he's up to' would constitute a breach of privacy and a potential ban.

Oh go on then, talk some more about talking about people's personal lives

Prince Charming is back.

Oh sorry. Then again, I wasn't really talking about his personal life, as I know nothing about it, except what he told everyone regarding his religious past. I see there are other threads regarding this elsewhere on the forum though, so I guess I have an idea what happened here (thanks Stephen).

Unfortunately at the bottom of all discussions we need to biographize in order to understand why people believe what they believe. The idea that we are all these rational beings able to comprehend and accept any point of view if it is clearly explained to them and then make 'the right choice' is a fallacy. There is still an American evangelical underbelly to prominent American atheists and agnostic thinkers like Ehrman and Price. Jews have the same understanding when they refer to themselves as 'Jewish' even though they don't practice the religion. At a certain age you lose the idealism that 'intellectual breakthroughs' are even possible any more. It's just a matter of choosing sides based on inherited presuppositions. We can only hope to make limited ventures into 'the Truth' before most of us inevitably run back to positions of previous commitment and 'safety.'