Bart Ehrman -- another instance of not reading what he cites

[Secret Alias]

No. The universities are for the most part funded or subsidized by the tax paying public. Why should the public be taxed by an elite cabal to reshape truth in favor of a small minority by what is in effect a new godless priesthood. At least spend the effort to invent a god and a myth and a written narrative to win over the masses like Christianity. Not so easy right? That's why we should respect the early Church. They pulled off the same social engineering and truth reshaping you're advocating with limited government assistance. Really impressive feat

[dbz]

Hellenistic Judaism in Palestine

Alexander took Palestine in 332 BCE and Jews were quickly exposed en masse to Greek culture. In some cases, Palestinian Jews began accepting the influence of this culture. For example, Greek names began appearing within Jewish families as early as the late third century BCE.

• Jews outside of Palestine, namely in Egypt, exhibited greater signs of Hellenization.

FACT: Hellenistic Judaism combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Greek culture. And that at times during the Second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE) a Male Jew, would be OK with changing his normative sexuality and his body image as Jew.

N.B.: No Jew would do "X"...

[When] a Jewish man appeared in the gymnasium nude, circumcised or otherwise, given the status of nudity within Judaism, he would be changing his image as a Jew. A reverse circumcision on top of this would not only be breaking the covenant, but would also be saying as clearly as possible that his image as a Jew has changed forever.

In addition to issues of nudity, ideas of normative Jewish sexuality became increasingly defined during the Second Temple period […] While not as prevalent in the East as it had been in Greece, pederasty remained a part of the education of gymnasia. [Percy, Pederasty and Pedagogy, 34.]

A HISTORY OF JEWS IN GREEK GYMNASIA FROM THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD THROUGH THE LATE ROMAN PERIOD [PDF], Diss. by JORDAN, H. A.​

Off Topic:
I see a Religious syncretism of Middle Platonism, Mystery religions, and Hellenistic Judaism in Paul.

Middle Platonism is a stumbling block for many people, due to it not actually being Platonism per se!

IMO, a sophisticated first_CE Platonist (i.e. middle platonic) would understand evil in the same way that something being “cold”—can be understood as merely the absence of heat. All (Loddy, Doddy, and Everybody) have the potential to be good in the same way that every atom (understood as a ball on the classical (pre QT) Newtonian billiard table universe) has the potential to have heat. Thus a person is evil if they are not living their full human potential. As the bible says; since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, “men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men … They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice.” because they are ‘COLD’ (i.e. not fulfilling their potential to be good), thus have “a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.” Cf. Romans 1:28

[Chrissy Hansen]

No. The universities are for the most part funded or subsidized by the tax paying public. Why should the public be taxed by an elite cabal to reshape truth in favor of a small minority by what is in effect a new godless priesthood. At least spend the effort to invent a god and a myth and a written narrative to win over the masses like Christianity. Not so easy right? That's why we should respect the early Church. They pulled off the same social engineering and truth reshaping you're advocating with limited government assistance. Really impressive feat

Funny how the "truth" just happens to be what you want. Convenient isn't it? Also, really convenient how you again just don't address any of my points and go down another tirade about things I've never argued for or said. Are you so lacking in the ability to "objectively" argue that you cannot actually remain on topic or address arguments against you?

You seem to just be using this entire discussion as an excuse to rail on those you politically dislike. The "politically correct", the "gender neutral", the advocation of "manliness", etc. It is all just eerily similar to listening to far right fundamentalist Christians and their current culture war against "postmodern neo-Marxism" and other nonsense.

You lack objectivity and the ability to have a discussion so much that your only tactic is to just red herring, strawman, and insult your way out of it. If this is what the "virtue of manliness" looks like, then I think you've given the most concrete feminist argument for why this idea of manliness is outdated and no longer useful. It clearly hasn't helped you have an objective mind.

By SA. Come back when you actually uphold the principles you falsely claim to.

[Secret Alias]

And just to reiterate:

1. I am sympathetic to the idea that Christianity was a religion designed for 'social improvement' via narrative (I think myth is an unfortunate terminology)
2. I don't know whether it was based on a historical Jesus and I don't really care. The narrative functions as agent of social change. All that mattered is that people BELIEVED it was true
3. Bart Ehrman answered to the best of his abilities a different question - did Jesus exist? It was a popular book in which he apparently marshalled some sloppy research. I am not sure whether an imperfectly researched book aimed at a popular audience allows us to overturn his authority as a respected scholar and 'talking head' about early Christianity

I don't agree with Bart Ehrman's conclusions about whether or not Jesus existed but I respect him as a knowledgeable person about early Christianity.

[Secret Alias]

Funny how the "truth" just happens to be what you want. Convenient isn't it? Also, really convenient how you again just don't address any of my points and go down another tirade about things I've never argued for or said.

No I would argue the opposite. I am stuck for whatever reason having a debate with someone who has admitted (honestly I guess) that they don't believe in truth or objectivity. What am I supposed to do with that? I can't 'win' the debate (look at the thread about whether Dura Europos makes a certain theory about the origins of Christianity in the 4th century untenable for a parallel example). I am unlikely to get a lot 'out of' debating someone who doesn't believe knowing truth is even possible. So again what do I do?

I think Bart Ehrman was in a similar position when he wrote his book. Is it his life mission to engage with people who don't even have the minimum standards of truthfulness, who don't believe in the truth, who don't accept defeat when their ideas are disproved. I am not saying that you are a mythicist or your ideas have been disproved by me but the minimum threshold for having meaningful debates is doing it inter pares. One has to know that the person on the other side is a 'man' (for lack of a better terminology and using an archaic one at that). Manliness here means admitting you are wrong when you are wrong and who looks up at the heavens as a truthful individual and at a minimum believes that truthfulness and knowing the truth is possible.

In short you are too unmanly for me to engage with you in a serious debate. Not a statement about your physical sexual whatever you want to call it. As the Trammps said in Disco Inferno, "I am talking about the soul." (5:49 at link below)

I chose a disco reference owing to it being a positive cultural product of gay America (it's amazing how those musicians kept up the beat for like 10 minutes, one of the positive effects of cocaine use).

A day will arise where mythicism is taken seriously by serious scholars maybe in Ehrman himself. At the time his book was written he didn't find evidence of any seriousness or truthfulness on the other side so he didn't take the debate seriously.

[Chrissy Hansen]

Objectivity is a myth, is unachievable, and what even counts as "objective" is dependent on the observer.

I disagree. While objectivity is difficult to achieve, it is achievable.

Formal argumentation is part of objectivity:

• sound deductive argumentation; or
• cogent inductive argumentation

Sound deductive arguments are based on true premises which collectively can give a sound, true conclusion (eg. a syllogism)

Cogent inductive arguments are based on a series of reasonable propositions to produce a reasonable final proposition or even a [cogent] conclusion.

• eg. cogent inductive arguments are used to formulate hypotheses
  
  and, as a corollary, alternative hypotheses related (& sometimes opposite) to the first, null hypothesis are often formulated and primarily tested (often b/c the first, null hypothesis is too impractical to study or test or will be prohibitively expensive to study for the budget at hand)

I would contend this is just one of many opinions on how to define objectivity. I notice your criteria of objectivity here does not include this innate sense of manliness that SA's does.

I must say I am also partial to inductive and deductive forms, but I'd also add abductive investigation as well. And again, I think people could reasonable disagree with both of us on this as well. Hence, I think objectivity is not a real thing. These are just specific theoretical frameworks for how we choose to conduct research and argumentation. There are other frameworks and modes of conduct we can choose. And I would add I could critique these modes as not actually being objective means of analysis. Deductive and inductive argumentation are still very easily subject to human bias and constriction, especially inductive reasoning which is hinged on the limitations of human experience, observation, and experimentation. One could also contend it is a pretty... European way of thinking about objectivity as well.

I would also argue that the rules which govern our deductive and inductive approaches are all a tad bit... subjective and dependent on what framework we choose to employ them under. For instance, with deductive logic, some paraconsistent logics actually deny the law of noncontradiction. So, what rules we choose to use, what logic we choose as our framework, and how we employ all of these rules and the framework is all subjective. I would contend if something starts objective, once it is placed in human hands the subjectivities involved displace anything objective it once had. It is objective in theory only. In application, all theories, frameworks, and logics are subjectively employed and manipulated for human ends. This is, again, not to deny objective reality, but just to say all ways we use of measuring it are by necessity influenced by the subjectivity of the human involvement.

[Chrissy Hansen]

I am stuck for whatever reason having a debate with someone who has admitted (honestly I guess) that they don't believe in truth or objectivity.

I have admitted neither. I have said denied that humans can be objective. I have not denied truth or objective reality. You are just simply incapable of understanding or unwilling to genuinely engage with anything said to you. I have never denied the possibility of objective truth. I have only denied that human methods and analyses are objective. And you have proved this supremely with your complete inability to even engage with what is said. You just have to invent fake arguments and say we are having them because having abstract discussions is apparently beyond you.

In short you are too unmanly for me to engage with you in a serious debate.

I'll take that as a compliment. Do love how you keep making snide comments about me being transgender. "Chris whatever you are" or "physical sexual whatever" etc. Your consistent desire to mention this irrelevantly and the fact you are now pushing "manliness" so much is... really interesting. Almost like being around a trans person makes you uncomfortable or at least curious. Enough to continuously comment on it.

[Secret Alias]

I notice your criteria of objectivity here does not include this innate sense of manliness that SA's does.

It is interesting (at least to me). Philo and early Christianity had this interesting idea of a Man Logos who 'spermatically' implanted his 'ideas' in men and had the effect of impregnating women (hence many of the Patriarchs were understood by Philo as having god literally as their father after their wives were 'impregnated' by his cosmic seed). So Isaac was understood to have the Man as his father rather than Abraham. To that end, 'being the Man' or 'being (M)anly' was understood in similar terms. Great men 'impregnated' other men by their mere presence. In short ancient tradition understood a kind of 'spiritual homosexuality' (non-physical) which at least seems to have the potential for positive reception (pardon the pun) by modern homosexuals. This 'Manliness' is based on a transmission of 'seed' from man to man. It's always been interesting to me at least in light of the Letter to Theodore although I am not sure how much it influenced or made its way to Secret Mark.

FWIW African culture has a similar idea about sexual roles. A 'man' is the one who 'gives' a woman or the womanly one 'receives.' Interestingly in Kenyan ki-Swahili the word for gay = shoga means 'friend' in Tanzanian ki-Swahili https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shoga. It's a fascinating topic I think. But at the very least I think it shows that in many cultures or perhaps in an underlying cultural understanding that spread from the Mediterranean (ki-Swahili developed with many Arabic loan words and cultural ideas) is that 'male' and 'female' doesn't correspond to physical masculine and femininity. I think the same was true to some degree in Mediterranean antiquity.

[Secret Alias]

So with the terminology basha in ki-Swahili https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/basha#Swahili

It comes from the verb which essentially means 'powerful' and the terminology means 'king.' https://books.google.com/books?id=Wpn1D ... ng&f=false I am not sure my ideas are inherently hostile to homosexuality. I see masculine and feminine as traditional roles which don't correspond necessarily to physical genitalia. So did the ancient Greeks and apparently Hellenistic Jews and early Christians.

[Chrissy Hansen]

Yeah... SA maybe on your read of that. I could also argue that this is all intrinsically built on physical conceptions of masculinity and femininity.

The "giver" is the one who penetrates. The "receiver" is the penetrated, and the one who is penetrated is often thought of as the lesser force... including in Greco-Roman civilization, where it was also associated with a lack of masculinity and instead with femininity... because in their more binary gender roles, women were those penetrated and restricted and thought of as lesser beings...

Like, anyone who critically looks at this with a psychoanalytic read or a queer read could point to how this just reinforces the idea of "objectivity" and "knowledge" as masculine traits associated with physical masculine attributes... like penetration and a penis.

You may not consciously see masculinity and femininity in terms of physical relations, but you constantly are referring to it or justifying it or pointing to ancient texts... which do do this. Freudian slip much?

And again... all of that... is irrelevant and off topic. I'm beginning to think you just can't help but red herring your way through every conversation you have.

Also there is no "African culture"... there are many African cultures.