The Silence of Paul (Holding versus Alward) Commentary

[dizzle]

This section is opened up to comment on the debate taking place here:

http://theologyweb.com/forum/showarchiv.php?s=&action=showarchiv&archivid=17

Have fun!!!

Please note that debate participants are not permitted to post in the comments thread for their particular debates until such debate is over. At that time, they are free to post and address any spectator commentary that they choose.

[John Powell]

POWELL:
I'm happy to see James and Joe debate, but I'm a little concerned about the wording of their debate questions. I hope and expect they both will consider "evidence" to be something like "good evidence."

What is considered to be good evidence to a theist, might not be considered good evidence to an atheist. That could make this debate more interesting.

www.dictionary.com:
Evidence
A thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment:

POWELL:
This seems to me to permit just about anything that one might elect to use to help them form a conclusion or judgment from the say-so of non-experts and superstitious practices to the best scientific experiments and logical arguments.

I like this definition.

John Powell.

[wienerdog]

I liked JP's opening statement. The modern bias against oral tradition seems to be based on differences between our culture and oral tradition based ones. For us, oral tradition is the means by which urban legends come about. For the ancients, oral tradition was sacred, and tampering with it was taboo. Alex Haley wrote in Roots that in his research he encountered African "griots" who were people that memorized the centuries-long history of their tribe. Some of them could recite African history without repeating themselves for days on end. I've also read that the average person became less intelligent upon the invention of the printing press, and again upon the invention of the television. The basis for this is that they no longer had to remember things themselves, but could rely on external records. Our mental capacities are atrophied in comparison to the ancients, if this is true.

William Lane Craig wrote:
The letters of Barnabus and Clement refer to Jesus’ miracles and resurrection. Polycarp mentions the resurrection of Christ, and Irenaeus relates that he had heard Polycarp tell of Jesus’ miracles. Ignatius speaks of the resurrection. Quadratus reports that persons were still living who had been healed by Jesus. Justin Martyr mentions the miracles of Christ. No relic of a nonmiraculous story exists. That the original story should be lost and re-placed by another goes beyond any known example of corruption of even oral tradition, not to speak of the experience of written transmissions. These facts show that the story in the Gospels was in substance the same story that Christians had at the beginning. (Reasonable Faith, italics mine)

[Joseph Alward]

Dee Dee,

I am unable to post my Round One response in the Boxing Ring. Please help.

Joe

[John Powell]

Wienerdog:
I liked JP's opening statement. The modern bias against oral tradition seems to be based on differences between our culture and oral tradition based ones.


POWELL:
Yes. We're smarter than they were. We use writing. If their oral system were better than our writing system then we'd switch back to theirs, don't you think?

Wienerdog:
For us, oral tradition is the means by which urban legends come about.


POWELL:
For the ancients too. Then they were called "old wive's tales," "campfire stories," "tall tales," "1001 nights," and such things.

Weinerdog:
For the ancients, oral tradition was sacred, and tampering with it was taboo.


POWELL:
In some cases, surely. But this depended upon the importance of the subject matter trying to be preserved, right? If they could have preserved it in writing, don't you think they would have? Maybe they wanted to keep certain things secrets guarded by an elite "memory" class.

Weinerdog:
Alex Haley wrote in Roots that in his research he encountered African "griots" who were people that memorized the centuries-long history of their tribe. Some of them could recite African history without repeating themselves for days on end.


POWELL:
Even if this is true, which I doubt, just because someone doesn't repeat themself for days doesn't mean they repeated the correct version of the history. Maybe the guy made stuff up in parts.

Has this amazing accomplishment been verified? Are we using these African-memorization techniques in our classrooms and our businesses? Why not? Maybe because they don't work as well as they are advertised.

Wienerdog:
I've also read that the average person became less intelligent upon the invention of the printing press, and again upon the invention of the television. The basis for this is that they no longer had to remember things themselves, but could rely on external records. Our mental capacities are atrophied in comparison to the ancients, if this is true.


POWELL:
That's why we're typing on computers and reaching for the stars while they were trying to memorize a long list of important things and reaching for some leaves.

Wienerdog:
William Lane Craig wrote:
The letters of Barnabus and Clement refer to Jesus’ miracles and resurrection. Polycarp mentions the resurrection of Christ, and Irenaeus relates that he had heard Polycarp tell of Jesus’ miracles. Ignatius speaks of the resurrection. Quadratus reports that persons were still living who had been healed by Jesus. Justin Martyr mentions the miracles of Christ. No relic of a nonmiraculous story exists. That the original story should be lost and re-placed by another goes beyond any known example of corruption of even oral tradition, not to speak of the experience of written transmissions. These facts show that the story in the Gospels was in substance the same story that Christians had at the beginning. (Reasonable Faith, italics mine)

POWELL:
I'm weak in this historical area. I wish someone would quote those sources.

John Powell

[carrie]

Also,

The churches that Paul is writing to have already been established as churches-which means they must have an idea of who Christ is and what He's done. Paul is writing as a pastor of a church, not to establish a church. If he was writing to establish a church, I could understand the problem with not including any information on the background of the miracles.

[Jaltus]

I am surprised that JPH does not bring up Rhetorical Style in his posts. Some of what Joe Alward alleges could not happen just do to reasons of style. You do not add superfluous material to a letter, you stick to what is necessary.

Also, JPH needs to restress the occasional nature of the letters. Alward pretty much ignored that in his response.

[wienerdog]

03-11-2003 @ 05:10 AM
John Powell:



POWELL:
Yes. We're smarter than they were. We use writing. If their oral system were better than our writing system then we'd switch back to theirs, don't you think?

Well, all of the various "memory techniques" that are advertized do use their systems of memory. I don't mean to deride the huge benefits of the printing press or computers, I just meant to say that in the absence of such a capacity to "store" thoughts in an external mind, one is forced to exercise their mind to a much greater degree. But being literate does not by necessity confer greater intelligence, either in the individual or in the society. Of course, it's wonderful in that it allows you to externalize your thought processes and analyze them, but it also allows one to not have to use the mind. The ancients didn't have this opportunity.



POWELL:
For the ancients too. Then they were called "old wive's tales," "campfire stories," "tall tales," "1001 nights," and such things.

Sure. Granted.



POWELL:
In some cases, surely. But this depended upon the importance of the subject matter trying to be preserved, right? If they could have preserved it in writing, don't you think they would have? Maybe they wanted to keep certain things secrets guarded by an elite "memory" class.

No. The Jews preferred oral tradition to writing. They thought that sacred oral tradition was a much more reliable medium, and less open to tampering than the written word. They finally wrote the Mishnah about 200 AD, the Jerusalem or Palestinian Talmud between 350 and 425 AD, and the Babylonian Talmud about 500 AD. These documents recorded volumes of oral tradition, much of which dated back centuries before Christ.



POWELL:
Even if this is true, which I doubt, just because someone doesn't repeat themself for days doesn't mean they repeated the correct version of the history. Maybe the guy made stuff up in parts.

Has this amazing accomplishment been verified? Are we using these African-memorization techniques in our classrooms and our businesses? Why not? Maybe because they don't work as well as they are advertised.

Well, I would suggest that the reason this sounds so implausible to you is because we don't have the same mental capacities as people who depend on their minds do. As pointed out earlier, we do use these memorization techniques to try to improve our memories, but it would probably take us a few generations to get up to their level.

As for its verification, if I recall correctly, Haley said that his family tradition maintained that his ancestor's African name was Kunta Kinte, and that he was captured when he went out into the jungle to find a tree to build a drum out of. When he went to Africa, the griot, on the second day, said something to the effect that "at that time, so-and-so's oldest son, Kunta Kinte, went into the jungle to find a tree to make a drum out of, and was never seen again.

POWELL:
That's why we're typing on computers and reaching for the stars while they were trying to memorize a long list of important things and reaching for some leaves.

I'm not sure what you mean by "reaching for some leaves." But I would just reiterate that being advanced is not the same thing as being intelligent. I'm typing on a computer, but I don't have the slightest idea how it works. Again, I don't mean to deride the great benefits of our society, I'm just saying that intelligence is not the same thing as being advanced. The fact that the ancients had to depend on their minds to a greater degree than we do means that they exercised them to a greater degree than we do. Thus, our minds are atrophied by comparison to theirs.

[Lazy Agnostic]

One aspect being overlooked by the peanut gallery is the Creator's stake in all this.

Consider the quote "If you torture your data long enough, you can get it to confess to anything."

If Mark Twain knows this, then God knows this. If God was aware of the alterations in cultural dissemination of divine data, is it not incumbent upon Him to supply information making things more perfectly clear as time progressed; as the numbers of his precious creations facing perdition increased exponentially?

Here we have two intelligent minds, Joe and JP, making assertions which are no more elucidating than He said/She said.

My God, why have you forsaken us?

[John Powell]

POWELL:
Wienerdog, your replies were very nice, much less argumentative than my own.

POWELL:
Yes. We're smarter than they were. We use writing. If their oral system were better than our writing system then we'd switch back to theirs, don't you think?

WIENERDOG:
Well, all of the various "memory techniques" that are advertized do use their systems of memory. I don't mean to deride the huge benefits of the printing press or computers, I just meant to say that in the absence of such a capacity to "store" thoughts in an external mind, one is forced to exercise their mind to a much greater degree. But being literate does not by necessity confer greater intelligence, either in the individual or in the society. Of course, it's wonderful in that it allows you to externalize your thought processes and analyze them, but it also allows one to not have to use the mind. The ancients didn't have this opportunity.


POWELL:
That makes sense. If we were expected to memorize more, we would do so.

As I recall, when someone asked Einstein why he wrote things down like phone numbers rather than just memorizing, he replied with something to the effect that he wrote less important things down so he could focus more brain power on more important things.

POWELL:
For the ancients too. Then they were called "old wive's tales," "campfire stories," "tall tales," "1001 nights," and such things.

WIENERDOG:
Sure. Granted.

POWELL:
In some cases, surely. But this depended upon the importance of the subject matter trying to be preserved, right? If they could have preserved it in writing, don't you think they would have? Maybe they wanted to keep certain things secrets guarded by an elite "memory" class.

WEINERDOG:
No. The Jews preferred oral tradition to writing. They thought that sacred oral tradition was a much more reliable medium, and less open to tampering than the written word.


POWELL:
Is there evidence of this in the Bible? This seems surprising since didn't God show by example the importance of writing by giving the commandments to the people on tablets of stone?

WIENERDOG:
They finally wrote the Mishnah about 200 AD, the Jerusalem or Palestinian Talmud between 350 and 425 AD, and the Babylonian Talmud about 500 AD. These documents recorded volumes of oral tradition, much of which dated back centuries before Christ.


POWELL:
Why did they change their mind about the importance of oral vs. written tradition?

POWELL:
Even if this is true, which I doubt, just because someone doesn't repeat themself for days doesn't mean they repeated the correct version of the history. Maybe the guy made stuff up in parts.

Has this amazing accomplishment been verified? Are we using these African-memorization techniques in our classrooms and our businesses? Why not? Maybe because they don't work as well as they are advertised.

WIENERDOG:
Well, I would suggest that the reason this sounds so implausible to you is because we don't have the same mental capacities as people who depend on their minds do. As pointed out earlier, we do use these memorization techniques to try to improve our memories, but it would probably take us a few generations to get up to their level.


POWELL:
I seriously doubt that the benefits would be worth the effort.

WIENERDOG:
As for its verification, if I recall correctly, Haley said that his family tradition maintained that his ancestor's African name was Kunta Kinte, and that he was captured when he went out into the jungle to find a tree to build a drum out of. When he went to Africa, the griot, on the second day, said something to the effect that "at that time, so-and-so's oldest son, Kunta Kinte, went into the jungle to find a tree to make a drum out of, and was never seen again.


POWELL:
This all makes more sense now. Haley probably assumed that because his family's tradition seemed to match what the griot said that probably EVERY THING ELSE HE SAID was true too. Can you see the fallacy of this conclusion? This is, of course, anecdotal evidence. Maybe Haley made it up or heard it wrong or the Kunta Kinte in the story was a different guy. If the griot was as shameless as modern psychics, I would also suggest that he might have found out on the sly about Haley's ancestor and stuck that in for good measure.

My mother told me for years that she knew the gender of every one of her 11 children before they were born. I believed her. After I became an atheist and challenged her claim in the presence of my father, he said, "I don't remember that." What are the chances that a mother would know the gender of every one of her 11 children before they were born, yet not tell her husband about this or that that husband would forget such a feat of foreknowledge if she had told him? Not very high, I suspect.

POWELL:
That's why we're typing on computers and reaching for the stars while they were trying to memorize a long list of important things and reaching for some leaves.

WIENERDOG:
I'm not sure what you mean by "reaching for some leaves." . . .


POWELL:
Indoor plumbing and toilet paper.

WIENERDOG:
. . . But I would just reiterate that being advanced is not the same thing as being intelligent. I'm typing on a computer, but I don't have the slightest idea how it works.


POWELL:
Sure you do. You plug it into the electrical socket and electricity flows through it according to preset programs. You may not know how it works as well as a computer engineer. If you were to put Kunta Kinte in front of your computer, do you think he'd get excited to learn how to access the internet and its other powers or do you think he'd try to kill it and run away?

WIENERDOG:
Again, I don't mean to deride the great benefits of our society, I'm just saying that intelligence is not the same thing as being advanced.


POWELL:
Ok. If Kunta Kinte were raised as a modern child, he would probably be just as smart as modern children and feel right at home playing nintendo on your computer.

WIENERDOG:
The fact that the ancients had to depend on their minds to a greater degree than we do means that they exercised them to a greater degree than we do. Thus, our minds are atrophied by comparison to theirs.

POWELL:
Ok. Certain mental skills that are less necessary to our success today than were necessary in the past are less developed in our minds. I would be surprised, however, to learn that our over all mental activity is less than theirs. We use our minds for different things today, not necessarily use our minds less.

Years ago, check out workers rarely did not know how to add and subtract efficiently. Because that's no longer necessary since the register will do the calculation for you, I've noticed check out workers often unable to do this. There's no compelling need. Why develop a skill that you don't need? Why practice Elephant riding skills, for example, if you're not likely to meet one? You should learn how to drive a car instead.

John Powell

[stevencarrwork]

03-11-2003 @ 09:43 PM
wienerdog:
As for its verification, if I recall correctly, Haley said that his family tradition maintained that his ancestor's African name was Kunta Kinte, and that he was captured when he went out into the jungle to find a tree to build a drum out of.


Gosh, I never realised that.

I just thought it had all been concocted.

http://www.ucd.ie/~pages/99/articles/beiner.html

'The oral tradition at the core of Roots may well have been concocted for Haley and as a result of the publicity surrounding the book, further inventions were made as many more specialists were found who were able to recite traditions of Kunte Kinte.'

It appears oral tradition is not worth the paper it is written on.

[John Powell]

stevencarrwork:
It appears oral tradition is not worth the paper it is written on.

POWELL:
Don't you mean something more like ". . . the paper it isn't written on" or ". . . the paper it should have been written on"?

No, I guess you meant it is worth some imaginary paper that doesn't exist.

beiner.html
9
An illustration of the traps entailed in historicizing oral tradition is the story of Roots. In 1976, author Alex Haley published his best-seller Roots, which was a product of researching his African-American familys oral tradition. In 1966, family lore lead Haley to Gambia, where a Griot local oral tradition reciter provided him with evidence about his alleged slave driver ancestor Kunte Kinte. On the basis of this revelation, Haley went on to reconstruct a model micro-history of slavery. Roots brought popular acclaim to the ground-breaking potential of oral tradition as a window into the neglected history of those who left no written record. However, Haleys project was later revised to show the sensitivity of oral tradition to the demands of its audience and the external influence of the written word. The oral tradition at the core of Roots may well have been concocted for Haley and as a result of the publicity surrounding the book, further inventions were made as many more specialists were found who were able to recite traditions of Kunte Kinte. For an inspiring and enthusiastic account by Haley of his project, as it was presented before a Colloquium of the Oral History Association in 1976, see Haley, 1996, pp. 252-79. For a critical revision of Haley see Tosh, 1984, pp. 185-6; and Wright, D. R., Uprooting Kunte Kinte: on the perils of relying on encyclopaedic informants, in History in Africa, VIII, 1981.


John Powell.

[stevencarrwork]

I was adapting Sam Goldwyn's well known phrase 'An oral contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.'

[psychopath]

Is it not possible that Paul DID compose a written record of some of the stories of Jesus, and that they just weren't preserved? Surely there were many writings from his time period which were destroyed or that we simply haven't found yet. Archaeology can by no means provide a complete view of past societies, especially those of 2000 years ago.

[stevencarrwork]

Of course, it is possible, but if you are going to base history on works which nobody has ever seen and which nobody has ever heard of, you are abandoning history as an historical science. (I'm not saying abandoning science would help the cause of Christianity, but that is a different subject)

But why do you think the early Christians would not have kept the earliest records of the life of Jesus and instead preserved letters where Paul talks about his (NB not Jesus's Gospel)

[psychopath]

Of course, it is possible, but if you are going to base history on works which nobody has ever seen and which nobody has ever heard of, you are abandoning history as an historical science.

But in this instance, Joe is in the position of stating the affirmative: that Paul did not have knowledge of Jesus' miracles, etc. Thus, he has the burden of proof. The fact that many written works from that time period have probably not been recovered, for various reasons, makes it reasonable to speculate that Paul's writings on Jesus' historical life may have been destroyed, or not yet found, or something like that. Joe has to somehow show why such speculation is unreasonable in order for his conclusion to follow.

But why do you think the early Christians would not have kept the earliest records of the life of Jesus and instead preserved letters where Paul talks about his (NB not Jesus's Gospel)

I assume the "letters where Paul talks about his" refers to the writings of Paul found in the Bible. (If I've misinterpreted your post, just let me know.) The obvious reason early Christians would preserve these first and foremost is because these were the books supposedly inspired by God. That's why they are part of the canon. What I'm suggesting is that Paul may have written other uninspired works dealing with the historicity of Jesus. Obviously uninspired works would not be preserved to the same extent as inspired works.

[John Powell]

POWELL:
I think the debate between Alward and Holding was good, but I wish there were a debate which dealt with the most important specific cases of Paul's writings that would lead one to expect Paul to have used events from the life of Jesus. I guess I should read where Holding has discussed / debated this with others.

I would like to know why they chose the length restrictions they chose. Alward?

Now that the debate is over, are we supposed to vote on who we thought "won," or what? If there is voting, I would really prefer a multi-valued choice rather than just win/lose. Perhaps

A roasts H :rofl:
A soundly defeats H :bonk:

A marginally defeats H :whip:

Split :huh:

H marginally defeats A :whip:
H soundly defeats A :bonk:

H roasts A :rofl:

John Powell

[jpholding]

03-12-2003 @ 09:40 PM
stevencarrwork:

It appears oral tradition is not worth the paper it is written on.


Brilliant deducation, Stevie. One of your top notchers.

It is shown that ONE instance of claimed oral tradition in ONE culture at ONE time is fraudelent.

Therefore, by Stevielogic, ALL instances of oral tradition in ALL cultures at ALL times are "not worth the paper it is (not) written on."

I don't know why we don't just elect you head of the UN. :doh:

[jpholding]

I think the debate between Alward and Holding was good, but I wish there were a debate which dealt with the most important specific cases of Paul's writings that would lead one to expect Paul to have used events from the life of Jesus. I guess I should read where Holding has discussed / debated this with others.

I did have that out majorly with Earl Doherty.

On that note I suppose you and I can now start debate negotiations if you are still interested. If you are, you can start a thread in Coach's Quarters (or I'll do it Monday).

[stevencarrwork]

Yesterday @ 11:37 PM
jpholding:




Brilliant deducation, Stevie. One of your top notchers.

It is shown that ONE instance of claimed oral tradition in ONE culture at ONE time is fraudelent.

Therefore, by Stevielogic, ALL instances of oral tradition in ALL cultures at ALL times are "not worth the paper it is (not) written on."

I don't know why we don't just elect you head of the UN. :doh:

A Christian poster gives an example of the reliability of oral tradition, and says 'look, all oral tradition is great'. Holding says nothing.

I point out that this Christian's very own flagship example illustrates the often fraudulent nature of oral tradition, and Holding goes ballistic.

Double-standards?

[jpholding]

A Christian poster gives an example of the reliability of oral tradition, and says 'look, all oral tradition is great'. Holding says nothing.

I'm so sorry, but the exact quote "all oral tradition is great" appears nowhere in this thread. Perhaps you have a sun dog in your eye? Or perhaps you did your usual job of reading much, much more into what someone said than they actually said? (I.e., I went "ballistic"? Did you see a nuclear cloud? Oh dear, apologies; I am being a Farrell Till.)

Double-standards?

You asking for some? You have plenty as is. :rofl:

[jpholding]

I decided to scan the Errancy list recently, as I often do, and found a few back-alley comments from some of FTill's wunderkinds who either lack the technological knowhow or the nerve to get on here. Doc is looking like the smartest one who was over there (no offense to Mr. Powell, who I know not as well but is/was surely in the top three). Let's see what sort of rumpelstiltskin they have to offer.

From one J. Kesler:

I find it interesting that some Christians claim that oral tradition is reliable because ancient people had better memories than modern people. The reasoning goes that because these folks *had* to rely on oral tradition, they developed memory techniques which ensured an accurate transmission of the data.

That's not actually how it is argued, nor is it how oral tradition experts like Lord and Vansina make their arguments, but what can you expect from a non-cite apparently made from fallible modern memory? :smile: It's more like the two factors came together and supplemented each other. Not, "one is because of the other." In any event we will wait for Mr. K to provide some evidence that oral tradition was NOT reliable in this time/place and/or that ancient memories were not better.

when it comes to the story of the Great Flood, said Christians are loathe to any suggestion of borrowing from surrounding ANE cultures and point to the number of flood stories around the world as proof that they are based on an actual event.

True, but a MacIntosh Apple to the Valenicia Orange. Mr. K asks, "if all these oral cultures could view the same event and come up with so many variations of details, corrupting the 'original' flood story from Genesis, how reliable can oral tradition be?" Aside from the vast difference in purpose (didactic in the case of Christian traditions and stories; folkloric in the case of the Flood) there is also a vast difference in setting (within a compact, didactic-oriented and essentially unitary movement vs. movement of stories from one culture to another, with corresponding adjustments in values), there is also the matter of which version has the most original elements (is Noah's barge more likely to be original, or Utnapishtim's Borglike cube? is Utnapishtim's bringing aboard of treasure, etc. more likely original, or something reflecting Babylonian priorities?), and whether other versions preserved the oral matrix or just went out on their own (Genesis evidences chiastic structures; does the Babylonian version?). We also know little about teaching methods in the ANE as far back as the Flood narratives would have been composed, even by late-date standards; and we know a great deal about such methods in the Greco-Roman era.

Rusty suggests we'd answer, "because God was influencing 'their' oral tradition, of course :P " I do hope that the tongue bit was more serious than the rest of that suggestion! :smile:

Lovable Stevie Weevie, who thinks that "he did it first" is an acceptable reason for making a mistake of his own, and who is apparently too busy congratulating himself on Errancy to answer my question, says: "I wonder how reliable the oral tradition of the Pharisees was, the one which had been handed down ever since Moses received it at Mount Sinai when God explained the Torah to him." Would be nice if Stevie could be more specific here, but since much of the Pharasaic oral law was grounded in social conditions of their own time or just before, we'd sure like to know what he's talking about.

Finally one hass gunda, who is perhaps in the top ten at Errancy in terms of critical density, threw up this large bucketful:

Yes indeed, oral tradition was so reliable that people like Papias who relied on it (by their own admission) were accurate enough to 'record'Judas' swollen head.

Yes, and what? hass seems to forget that he hasn't explained the problem here. Little wonder that he hasn't come over here to get his beating yet.

'Oral tradition' was so strong that Josiah didn't know for many years that they didn't even have a 'book of Moses' (which apparently contained many laws that oral tradition also failed to preserve) and apparently didn't even know that they were guilty of violating the ten commandments. (2 Kings 22-23)

Don't you just love these beautiful non-explanations hass passes out? The answer here -- :doh:! -- is that they did NOT preserve the traditions at all! Hello? Oral transmission has to be preserved by choice just like written transmission. I'd also like to know how they "didn't know" they were violating the 10 Cs. Throwing 2 chapters in the air doesn't tell us diddly. I do think that the people failed to preserve the law as a whole in any form, so let's keep that in mind before someone comes over here for a hass-kicking.

Though Oral tradition was so solid, the Rabbi's were still uncertain about whether or not certain books were to be included in the canon. Ditto for the comments of some fathers regarding books of the NT.

Geez, more vague carpola from the master of muddleheadedness. FTill would have a fit about that apostrophe in "rabbis". What's hass on about here, anyway? There's no connection between canonical recognition and oral tradition. Folks, you need not wonder why I can't take these Tilliwithers seriously. Their scholarship and argumentation comes from the trailer park.

J.D.Crossan has an interesting discussion on the reliability and integrity of oral tradition in his "The Birth of Christianity" ISBN 0-06-061659-8 between pages 49-94. He certainly shows us that textual entropy is almost sure to occur. For example, "the wo rds of the eucharistic institution from the Last Supper are not recited word-for-word the same within the New Testament itself." (page 55)

JD Crossan unfortunately fails to note (or hass fails to note) that such variations as do occur are perfectly within the pale of oral-traditional allowances. Minor variations in verbiage are not to be equated with wholesale historical invention.

hass then dribbles into the arena of modern urban legens -- anachronizing freely as he goes. There is no didactic setting with such things as the Vanishing Hitchhiker, and the issue there at any rate is that a false story was passed on orally -- whether the content was transmitted accurately is a different issue than whether the content was historically accurate to begin with. We did not discuss the latter here at all.

If hass wants to get his "hass" over here and peddle his idiocy a bit more, he's welcome to do so. :rofl:

[John Powell]

JPHOLDING:
I did have that out majorly with Earl Doherty.


POWELL:
I can imagine. I'll check into that. Thanks.

JPHOLDING:
On that note I suppose you and I can now start debate negotiations if you are still interested. If you are, you can start a thread in Coach's Quarters (or I'll do it Monday).


POWELL:
Since reading your comments about the Mormon concept of God, I would prefer debating Trinitarianism with you before science-related issues, but I'm already in the midst of negotiations with AVMETRO on that topic.

So, I need to read more carefully what you've said to explain things like Genesis 1 and such things so we can agree to a proposition.

John Powell.

[jpholding]

OK Mr Powell,

Well, a fellow named GodisonePerson wants to debate me on the Trinity, so it looks like we're both otherwise engaged on the same topic. :smile: Just get back to me when you are ready. I'm waiting on both of you but hope you won't object if I put others ahead who are rarin' to go.

[John Powell]

jpholding:

OK Mr Powell,

Well, a fellow named GodisonePerson wants to debate me on the Trinity, so it looks like we're both otherwise engaged on the same topic. :smile: Just get back to me when you are ready. I'm waiting on both of you but hope you won't object if I put others ahead who are rarin' to go.


POWELL:
Given the present debate situation, I can't complain about that. I wish that GodisonePerson would join tweb. I'll look at your articles, especially the science related ones, and see what I find most attractive to debate that you would be willing to defend.:read:

You must be a good fighter,James, if so many people want a chance to beat you up.:argue:

John Powell

[dizzle]

John, I want to thank you for being a pleasure to deal with.

[John Powell]

DDWARREN:
John, I want to thank you for being a pleasure to deal with.


POWELL:
Hopefully I won't do anything to significantly alter that opinion. :cheers:

John Powell