At "ground zero", in the absence of "hard evidence", it's not a coin toss. There is a baseline.MG 2.0 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 6:06 pmSo we’re either back to ground zero or don’t really have a solid incontrovertible baseline to even start from. Right?malkie wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 5:46 pm
I have not read anything of Nibley since the early 1970, and could not, from memory, even tell you what I did or did not read then. So my knowledge on this subject is effectively zero.
But what you quoted does not, to my mind, supply evidence. Someone draws parallels - great, if you believe it.
Here is the best help I can give you on this:
Nobody - including me - needs to present hard evidence which would demonstrate that the Abraham of the Old Testament could not have spent time in Egypt unless they are making such an assertion.
My position is that anyone asserting that there was an Abraham who satisfied the 3 bullet points I provided is on the hook to provide the "hard evidence" you seek to support that assertion.
Flip sides of the coin always seem to come into play.
Dang. Everything always comes back to faith…and cumulative experiences (including spiritual) and little ‘ah hah!’ evidences along the way.
It’s the cumulative experience(s) in my life that permit me to put Abraham on the map of real possibilities along with other Old Testament prophets. That then comes into play with covenantal relationships that can be made with God, etc.
But to each his own, I guess.
1970’s huh? I graduated from high school in 1975.
Side note: I guess I should read more Nibley…but I probably will not get around to it. I never did catch the ‘Nibley bug’. Probably should have. Spent too much time reading Sunstone/Dialogue. I wonder how many folks around here were at one time Nibleyites. I doubt the younger generation has in many cases even heard his name unless it was in connection with the big brouhaha that his daughter put out there years ago.
Regards,
MG
I really don't know how often or in how many ways this point needs to be made. The starting point in the absence of evidence is to reject the assertion: that which is asserted without evidence may be rejected without evidence". Furthermore, if there is evidence of some sort, it make sense (at least to me) to accept possibilities or probabilities according to the strength of the available evidence. Suppositions, and "parallels", and "what ifs" cannot take the place of evidence.
You are asking me for hard evidence to support a position that I'm not taking, all the while providing no hard evidence for the position that you are taking. I'm sure that you must see the difference in terms of strength of argument, right?
Here is my subjective view, based on what you are saying:
What I'm seeing, in effect, is that your religious life is built on a foundation of possibilities, with each successive layer being another set of possibilities. I don't know what makes them "real" in your eyes, but I think it's worthwhile noting that you don't claim strong probabilities, instead of possibilities. I can only assume that that is because the preponderance of "hard evidence" does not support doing so.
I would call that a weak and unstable structure.
You may, of course, tell me if I'm wrong, and why.