The Bible is Rediculous!

[_The Nehor]

What a dumb request. What, do you want a quote that says, "The Nehor is fallacious"? You posted that review the other day that said that caution is wise vis-a-vis intent. As far as I'm concerned, that explodes your original insistence that "intent" is so crucial in this case.

I want some clue that anyone outside this board agrees with you about how weak intent is in history.

Nope!

Yep!

???? That requires a pretty simplistic/reductive understanding of reality, The Nehor. The psychiatrists (arguably correct) interpretation doesn't render the experience any more or less "real" for the abductee. This is something that you seem to fail to realize: they is no "objective" history. Just ask DCP and LoaP. They'll call you naïve, too.

The abductee may think it is real....and it was. It was a real hallucination. I believe in an objective reality. There is no truly objective history. There are however objective historical facts. When a story recounts facts they either did or did not occur.

It's not as simple as that.

It demands you eject the supernatural elements on the basis alone that they are supernatural, a strong bias. Admittedly, it does not all have to be true but each part either is or isn't. I personally wouldn't trust a writer who tells a true story and fills it in with lies passed off as truth.

Have you heard of James Frey?

Yep. Didn't read his book. I would never trust a non-fiction book from him again.

I have not read that book but the Gospels do not suggest that they are historical fiction in any way.

Sure they do. (Or can, in any case.)

No, they really can't.

I distrust people giving psychiatric appraisals from 20 centuries away.

Your tone argument still hasn't been rescued.

I'm not familiar with my tone argument. Can you fill me in or did you make it up?

In the realm of history, I disagree.

Which, of course, is why you'd believe the alien abductee, and bigfoot witness, the citizen of Atlantis. There is a phrase for this: it's called being a sucker.

Again, you fail to grasp the simple two-step process I've laid out. I can't make it any simpler.

Nope, this is what I've always been saying. It claims to be historical. It was intended as historical. Now I need to figure out whether it is accurate or not.

Hence why the "intent" part isn't a good measure of historicity.

Agreed, though it is a good first step though towards figuring out if it's accurate.

Step 1: Find out if text is historical. Look at intent, reception, and the text itself.

If text is historical, proceed to Step 2.

Step 2: Determine whether text is accurate or not using any and all appropriate methods.

Same as always. I argue the Gospels pass Step 1.

Yes; and intent alone is not enough to establish historicity. Your argument is fallacious on those grounds. Reception is irrelevant, since a good chunk of readers dismiss the Bible as history. In terms of the "text itself," well, you haven't ponied up much evidence beyond your intent argument. Your own argument doesn't even pass its own standards.

[/quote]

WHERE DID I SUGGEST THAT INTENT ESTABLISHES HISTORICITY? Never. Nowhere. Ever. Anywhere....in all these pages. Not once. Ever. Feel free to share where this was said.

In the plainest terms I laid out what I'm saying. If you don't get it here then it must be beyond you.

[_Doctor Scratch]

I think it's worth pointing out, The Nehor, that at this point you are calling everything from an alien abductee story, to Irving Stone, to the Journals of Louis and Clark, to narratives of Atlantis, "histories." This is so absurd that I don't know where to begin, but, hey---this is pretty much where your argument has arrived.

I want some clue that anyone outside this board agrees with you about how weak intent is in history.

Re-read the link you gave to that Oxford journal. Here, again, is the quote from the author: "When links are made between author and work they are done so with caution." That pretty much sums up what these theorists of historical biography view as professional practice.

As I said, I don't have access to the historical texts I need.

Well, hey, I'm patient. Come back once you have them.

WHERE DID I SUGGEST THAT INTENT ESTABLISHES HISTORICITY?

Pg. 2 of the thread.

[_The Nehor]

WHERE DID I SUGGEST THAT INTENT ESTABLISHES HISTORICITY?

Pg. 2 of the thread.

Nope.

[_JohnStuartMill]

Scratch, I don't think you quite understand the point of Crusader's argument. You see, Crusader really, really loves Jesus (in what sense, I won't comment), but almost all of the evidence for the specific Jesus Crusader believes in is in the same set of books as all those ridiculous stories about the Earth being created 6,883 years ago, the Tower of Babel, Jonah and the "fish", etc. This poses a consistency problem for him, so Crusader has to come up with some reason to read the New Testament "Jesus pulled a rabbit out of a hat" stories as literal, but not the Old Testament stories that geology and physics have been proving wrong for the last few centuries. He thinks he's found a rationale with his whole "the New Testament was intended to be read literally, while the Old Testament was not" shtick. Whether other documents are intended to be read literally doesn't really matter for this analysis, because Crusader's argument here does not purport to prove that the Bible is reliable -- it's merely a counterargument to skeptics' claims that the Bible is necessarily unreliable because of the antediluvian horse**** in the Old Testament.

But Crusader's position is still problematic for a couple of reasons. First, his warrant for reading the New Testament as literal also applies to a hell of a lot of the Old Testament. He thinks we should read Luke literally because it references historical events and persons, for example. Well, the Book of Exodus references the Egyptian pharaohs; if Crusader wanted to maintain consistency, he'd say that turning a staff into a snake should be read literally as well. (Although maybe he does, I dunno -- the point is, we should laugh at him either way.)

Another problem for Crusader is that in all the millennia that the Bible's been around, it's only since the advent of modern geology that Bible believers have tried to interpret any significant part of it as non-literal. Crusader wants to say that the forebears of his religion, the ancient Hebrews (who divided up their society into classes based on who was descended from which of Noah's descendants) were naïvely reading their texts, because the story of Noah wasn't intended to be read literally. He'd also have us believe that Jesus didn't find this pervasive and fundamental misinterpretation of God's word worthy of comment when he teleported to Earth to tell everyone that they'd been f*****g up his religion. Crusader's view of OT-as-not-necessarily-literal doesn't fit in with the Jesus story at all.

If all this reminds you of LGT-theory Mopologetics, it should: both are unconvincing ad hoc patches of religious beliefs that were once universally held by their adherents until science demolished them and made the unconvincing patches necessary.

Dear pretentious moron,

How many times do I have to tell you that I don't think the entire Old Testament is ahistorical?

Where did I say you did? You can stop thrashing the straw man and address my actual points at any time.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Pg. 2 of the thread.

Nope.

From page 2:

It purports to be historical in a way that no legend or myth does. You can call the whole account a lie if you want but thinking that the writers intended it to be metaphorical is a colossal joke.

You are pretty clearly "suggesting" that the writers intended it to be "historical." It therefore follows that, by your logic, intent establishes historicity. (Which is nonsense, of course, as I've been saying.) You seem to be engaging in a kind of doublespeak here: "The authors intend the New Testament to be read as history, but that doesn't mean that you should read it as history." That's called a non sequitur, The Nehor.

[_The Nehor]

It purports to be historical in a way that no legend or myth does. You can call the whole account a lie if you want but thinking that the writers intended it to be metaphorical is a colossal joke.

You are pretty clearly "suggesting" that the writers intended it to be "historical." It therefore follows that, by your logic, intent establishes historicity. (Which is nonsense, of course, as I've been saying.) You seem to be engaging in a kind of doublespeak here: "The authors intend the New Testament to be read as history, but that doesn't mean that you should read it as history." That's called a non sequitur, The Nehor.

I am not suggesting that the writers intended it to be historical. I'm outright saying it. Also, the next sentence specifically allows it to be an inaccurate account. That a text purports to be historical does not establish that it is accurate history nor did I say that it did. Historicity includes accuracy. Therefore, I did not say that intent establishes historicity.

This is the best you can come up with? I think you owe me an apology for imputing to me arguments that I did not make.

[_Paracelsus]

this 8% beer here in Bavaria

lead us not into temptation

[_Doctor Scratch]

You are pretty clearly "suggesting" that the writers intended it to be "historical." It therefore follows that, by your logic, intent establishes historicity. (Which is nonsense, of course, as I've been saying.) You seem to be engaging in a kind of doublespeak here: "The authors intend the New Testament to be read as history, but that doesn't mean that you should read it as history." That's called a non sequitur, The Nehor.

I am not suggesting that the writers intended it to be historical. I'm outright saying it. Also, the next sentence specifically allows it to be an inaccurate account.

Well, then, you are "outright saying" that the authors were "intending" to "allow" for an inaccurate account. You claim makes zero sense, The Nehor. That has been the problem all along with your either/or logic.

That a text purports to be historical does not establish that it is accurate history nor did I say that it did. Historicity includes accuracy. Therefore, I did not say that intent establishes historicity.

For your argument to make any sense, it sort of has to.

And, anyways, I'm satisfied with the way things have turned out here. I now count something like 8 times that I requested scholarly support from you on your claim that the principles of the I.F. "never apply" to historical texts. You have continually dodged this request, even claiming (lol) that you can't name anything because you don't have access to a university library! What, you can't name a single text or author? You've had a while to think this over, didn't Google turn up anything for you? I'm just going to assume you've been bluffing the whole time, just like you were when you claimed you were "familiar" with the I.F. scholarship. (What, "familiar" as in you Googled it?)

[_Blixa]

I have to say, Dr. Scratch, that your reserve of pedagogical patience is truly amazing. I have nothing to add because, frankly, I can not bear to read the same mistaken assertions made over and over again. And I've long lost any sense of what Nehor finds at stake in all of this---it's probably laid out in an earlier post that I'm far too tired to try to find.

What could be an interesting nugget to wrest from all of this would be discussion of the historical novel (in it's modern sense: a contemporary piece of fiction which asserts a basis in "historical research" and intending amusement or edification via period reconstruction). I've long thought this was an unexamined area for Mormon studies since the religion itself was more or less born from this literary genre.

[_The Nehor]

I am not suggesting that the writers intended it to be historical. I'm outright saying it. Also, the next sentence specifically allows it to be an inaccurate account.

Well, then, you are "outright saying" that the authors were "intending" to "allow" for an inaccurate account. You claim makes zero sense, The Nehor. That has been the problem all along with your either/or logic.

No, I'm allowing for the possibility that they are lying.

That a text purports to be historical does not establish that it is accurate history nor did I say that it did. Historicity includes accuracy. Therefore, I did not say that intent establishes historicity.

For your argument to make any sense, it sort of has to.

No, no it doesn't/

And, anyways, I'm satisfied with the way things have turned out here. I now count something like 8 times that I requested scholarly support from you on your claim that the principles of the I.F. "never apply" to historical texts.

Likewise on you showing that they could be.

You have continually dodged this request, even claiming (lol) that you can't name anything because you don't have access to a university library!

I have an excuse for not having evidence I can share. What's your excuse?

What, you can't name a single text or author?

Nope. You haven't either.

You've had a while to think this over, didn't Google turn up anything for you?

If it had you'd just mock me. I notice you brought in some sources from a Google search and attributed them to me. Does that count?

I'm just going to assume you've been bluffing the whole time, just like you were when you claimed you were "familiar" with the I.F. scholarship. (What, "familiar" as in you Googled it?)

This argument is fallacious. It assumes intentions and uses them to interpret the meaning.