In another thread, Jon Curry writes:
"Where did I say Steve assumes that John is wrong on subject B because he is wrong on subject A? Where are you getting this?"
Here are some of the comments you made to Steve:
"You don't have to assume that John is wrong in everything he did and in everything he says....Every statement he makes is a statement you feel you must reflexively oppose. If you are going to read his book, why not just read it and try to allow it to improve your understanding of another fellow human. Maybe even empathize a little. Skeptics are humans, Steve. 'Made in the image of God' if you like....Talk about his arguments against Christianity if you want, but your critiques of his experiences and his thoughts about those experiences are really completely useless."
You accuse Steve of "assuming that John is wrong in everything", which is a ridiculous accusation by itself. You then go on to distinguish between different categories. You distinguish between being a skeptic and being a human. The implication is that Steve is assuming that John is wrong in the human category because of what he disagrees with in the skeptic category. You then distinguish between "his [John Loftus'] arguments against Christianity" and "his [John Loftus'] experiences and his thoughts about those experiences". Again, the implication is that Steve shouldn't assume that the latter are wrong because he thinks that the former are wrong. My characterization of your argument was accurate. You were telling Steve that he shouldn't reject what John Loftus says on subject B because he disagrees with John on subject A.
You acknowledge the fact that a person can be wrong on one subject while being right on another, yet you don't apply that acknowledgment reasonably or consistently. The example I cited was your dismissal of Irenaeus' testimony about the authorship of the fourth gospel on the basis of his erroneous view of how old Jesus was when He died. Here's what you write in your latest post in an attempt to justify your argument about Irenaeus:
"I say he is untrustworthy when he claims to relay apostolic traditions. This doesn't mean he is wrong. He could be right about the authorship of John. But he could just as easily be wrong. His claims are not positive evidence for the authorship of John because we see that he makes up apostolic traditions."
As I've explained to you before, your use of the term "apostolic tradition" is misleading. Let me explain why again.
You haven't just dismissed Irenaeus' testimony when he claims some sort of tradition related to the apostles. You've also rejected his testimony about his memories of hearing Polycarp speak, for example.
And when he does testify to something that could be called an apostolic tradition, why are we supposed to think that all of his claims "are not positive evidence" because of an error on one subject? If three different claims can all be called apostolic tradition in some sense, yet he had differing types and degrees of access to the truth for each of the three claims, then how can his incorrectness about one justify the assumption that his testimony "is not positive evidence" on the other two?
I don't know of any historian who would argue that Josephus and Tacitus, to cite two examples, never made a mistake in their historical claims. If Tacitus was wrong on subject A, but his claims on subjects B, C, and D are consistent with what we know, are pieces of information he would be likely to have close access to, and are partially or entirely corroborated by other sources, can we dismiss his claims on B, C, and D on the basis of A? The error on A would lessen his general credibility. But we would need more than that error on A in order to justify a dismissal of B, C, and D. It would be ridiculous to place all of his historical testimony under the category of "historical claims", then conclude that his error on subject A means that his testimony on every other issue related to history "is not positive evidence" (as you've said about Irenaeus). I don't know of any historian who approaches a source like Josephus or Tacitus in the manner in which you're approaching Irenaeus (and Papias and other Christian sources).
Why does one error (or two or three, for example) result in the conclusion that a source's testimony "is not positive evidence"? As I've mentioned to you before, Irenaeus makes far more true than false claims. In the same documents in which he refers to Jesus' old age, Irenaeus also refers to many other facts related to Jesus that are accepted by modern scholarship. He makes credible claims much more often than he makes claims like the one about Jesus' age.
Jon, when you commit an error on a subject, does it logically follow that all other claims you make on a related subject are untrustworthy? If you forget something on one subject, should we assume that all of your memories on all subjects "are not positive evidence"?
Irenaeus' false view of Jesus' age can be attributed to his misreading of John 8:57. If some elders of the church affirmed the historicity of John 8:57, or agreed with Irenaeus that Jesus lived the life of an ideal teacher (without intending the implication of old age that Irenaeus assumed), then Irenaeus could have wrongly concluded that the elders agreed with what he believed about Jesus' old age. Since other early sources disagree with Irenaeus on this point, it seems unlikely that the elders of the church were teaching what Irenaeus believed.In contrast, there is no comparably credible way to explain how Irenaeus would have erred about the authorship of John's gospel, and Irenaeus is widely corroborated on that issue rather than widely contradicted. A large number of other early sources from a wide variety of locations and backgrounds agree with Irenaeus about the authorship of the fourth gospel (Ptolemy, Theophilus of Antioch, The Muratorian Canon, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, early manuscripts of John, etc.). You reject all of their testimony, not just the testimony of Irenaeus.
An issue like gospel authorship would have been widely discussed and would have been a subject the early Christians would have been highly concerned about. Jesus' age, on the other hand, is less significant. There is no early document that explicitly tells us that Jesus was such-and-such an age when He died. We arrive at conclusions about His probable age by means of putting together various pieces of information. We today may think that it's obvious that Jesus died in His 30s, since we hear that conclusion so often from pastors, historians, etc., and we so often see artwork, movies, and such that portray Jesus as somebody in that age range. But whether Jesus was in His 30s or 40s isn't of much significance to Christianity, and Irenaeus lived at a time when that issue hadn't received nearly as much attention as it has since then. It would be much more difficult for Irenaeus and the other early Christians to have erred collectively on a subject like the authorship of John's gospel than for Irenaeus alone to have erred on an issue like Jesus' age. Even on an individual level, it would have been more difficult for Irenaeus to have erred on an issue of gospel authorship than on Jesus' age. You can't assume that all errors are equally plausible.
As I've documented in our previous discussions, Irenaeus had heard Polycarp, a disciple of the apostles, speak. His predecessor in the bishopric of Lyons was a man who had been a contemporary of the apostles. He possessed documents written by disciples of the apostles, including documents no longer extant. He was in contact with apostolic churches, and he had lived in cities that were in contact with the apostles (Rome), including the apostle John (Smyrna). To conclude that his testimony on the authorship of the fourth gospel "is not positive evidence", because he was wrong about the age of Jesus, is like dismissing all of Tacitus' access to information about the Roman empire after you conclude that he was wrong about one of the issues he discussed. According to your reasoning, if Tacitus is credible on the large majority of historical issues, yet we conclude that he was wrong on one historical issue, then his claims on all historical issues in general "are not positive evidence".
If you want us to think that Irenaeus' testimony on the authorship of the fourth gospel "is not positive evidence", then you need to give more of a justification than citing the fact that Irenaeus was wrong about Jesus' age. The fact that both issues can be called issues of "apostolic tradition" in some sense doesn't address the many differences that accompany that similarity. Your dismissal of Irenaeus' testimony has more to do with your desire to reject much of what Irenaeus reports than it has to do with any actual problem with Irenaeus' credibility.
The implication is that Steve is assuming that John is wrong in the human category because of what he disagrees with in the skeptic category.
ReplyDeleteNice try, but not good enough. I said that Steve reflexively opposes John in ALL categories. This is not the same as saying that he opposes in one category BECAUSE he opposes him in another. So what you’ve done is made up an argument I don’t hold to. You’ve asserted that I apply that argument in the case of Irenaeus, but I don’t. You’ve then argued that I apply the argument differently in Steve’s case, which again I don’t.
You then distinguish between "his [John Loftus'] arguments against Christianity" and "his [John Loftus'] experiences and his thoughts about those experiences". Again, the implication is that Steve shouldn't assume that the latter are wrong because he thinks that the former are wrong.
I distinguish two categories where Steve opposes John, but I never said he opposes in one BECAUSE he opposes in the other. And I don’t think Steve opposes John in all things because he opposes him with regards to Christianity. I’m sure there are other skeptics that Steve does not oppose reflexively in all cases. I think he has an obsession with John and this is why he reflexively opposes him in all cases.
You follow these comments with your argument for why we should trust Irenaeus regardless of his error on Jesus’ age. This is another one of those massive sidesteps of the issue that is so frequent in your posts. We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about your misrepresentations of my positions. You entered the comment section of a post and brought up my supposed inconsistency. You said I assume Irenaeus is wrong about the authorship of John because he’s wrong about Jesus’ age. You are wrong. I do not assume he is wrong. This is your argument, Jason. Do you want to talk about it or not? And if you continue to talk about other things, should I just assume that you concede your error?
Jon Curry writes:
ReplyDelete"I said that Steve reflexively opposes John in ALL categories."
Here's what you originally wrote in response to Steve:
"Steve, I have to wonder if you understand how you come across through your keyboard. Callous, uncaring, and always reflexively rude to the skeptic. You know, you don't have to display zero sympathy. You don't have to assume that John is wrong in everything he did and in everything he says." (http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/10/everyones-to-blame-but-me.html)
You referred to Steve as allegedly "always" being rude, showing "zero" sympathy, and assuming that John Loftus is wrong in "everything" he does and says. Those accusations are absurd. You then went on to use the ridiculous example of how Steve allegedly would reject a claim by John Loftus to have woken up at 7 A.M. in the morning. Then you made more accusations that Steve opposes "everything" John Loftus states:
"Every statement he makes is a statement you feel you must reflexively oppose....Your commentaries on John's personal experiences really provide nothing constructive at all. Why are you claiming that John is in the wrong in every situation and that his motivations and actions are always immoral? How do you know that this Linda is really less in the wrong than John is? You are completely clueless on this subject as am I, so you are in no position to make attempts to absolve Linda and entirely blame John."
Given the absurd nature of your original claims and your reaffirmation of those claims in this thread, you're not in a position to act as if you're concerned about inaccuracies in my response to you. How concerned were you with accuracy when you made your initial charges against Steve, then reaffirmed those charges when questioned? How concerned have you been with accuracy when you've made your many false claims about church history, the New Testament textual record, and so many other subjects over the past several months? Do I need to cite examples of issues Steve agrees with John about? I shouldn't have to. But if you need some examples, I don't recall Steve ever denying that John Loftus' name is John Loftus, that he's a male, that he used to be a professing Christian, that he was associated with a Church of Christ, etc. Your claim that Steve wanted to "absolve Linda", the woman who committed adultery with John, is ridiculous. As if Steve thinks that a woman who commits adultery is "absolved" and that the man is "entirely" to blame. How accurate were you trying to be when you issued that analysis of Steve's approach to the issue?
You write:
"This is not the same as saying that he opposes in one category BECAUSE he opposes him in another."
Then explain the logic behind your original assertion that Steve would oppose John if he claimed to wake up at 7 A.M. Since Steve doesn't oppose me or other people when we make such claims, why do you think he supposedly would do it with John Loftus? You go on to say that Steve is "obsessed" with John Loftus, but claiming an obsession doesn't explain why there supposedly is such an obsession. Your original post made comments about "skeptics" and Steve's "apologetic mode". Yet, now you claim:
"And I don’t think Steve opposes John in all things because he opposes him with regards to Christianity. I’m sure there are other skeptics that Steve does not oppose reflexively in all cases."
If you didn't think that John Loftus' status as an opponent of Christianity was the cause of Steve's treatment of him, then why did you repeatedly mention "skeptics" and how Steve shouldn't be in an "apologetic mode"? Why speak in such terms if opposition to skeptics wasn't the issue?
Here's what you originally said:
"Steve, I have to wonder if you understand how you come across through your keyboard. Callous, uncaring, and always reflexively rude to the skeptic."
If you didn't have skeptics in general in mind, but rather only John Loftus, then why did you refer to how Steve "always" responds to "the skeptic"?
You write:
"You follow these comments with your argument for why we should trust Irenaeus regardless of his error on Jesus’ age. This is another one of those massive sidesteps of the issue that is so frequent in your posts."
That issue was part of the discussion. You used a bad argument involving Irenaeus. I cited that bad argument to illustrate a point I was making. Instead of acknowledging that you were wrong about Irenaeus, you tried to justify your original error. It's therefore relevant, not a "massive sidestep", for me to further discuss the issue. And since you don't know how to defend your original error, you choose to act as if you have some good reason for not interacting with what I said.
You write:
"You said I assume Irenaeus is wrong about the authorship of John because he’s wrong about Jesus’ age. You are wrong. I do not assume he is wrong."
No, you're mistaken. Here's what I originally said:
"This is the same Jon Curry who calls himself 'consistent' when he rejects what a source like Irenaeus said on subject B because of an error Irenaeus made on subject A. Since Irenaeus erred on the age of Jesus, Jon cites that error as a justification for rejecting his testimony on the authorship of the fourth gospel."
You do reject Irenaeus' testimony about the authorship of the fourth gospel. What you're saying now is that while you reject his testimony, you don't reject John's authorship of the fourth gospel just because of your rejection of Irenaeus' testimony. I didn't say otherwise.
Now, since your claim to be concerned about inaccuracies in my response has been shown to be specious, why don't you offer us some documentation of the original accusations you made against Steve? For example, where has Steve denied that John Loftus is a human? Where has he denied that John Loftus is a male? Where has he denied that his name is John Loftus, for example? Where did Steve attempt to "absolve" the woman who committed adultery with John?
Jon Curry said:
ReplyDeleteSteve, I have to wonder if you understand how you come across through your keyboard. Callous, uncaring, and always reflexively rude to the skeptic. You know, you don't have to display zero sympathy. You don't have to assume that John is wrong in everything he did and in everything he says. If he said "I woke up at 7 am this morning" you'd say
i)You woke up three minutes after 7 am
ii)Waking up is a process with no definitive time. You've committed the ad baculum contra hominem fallacy
iii)Why don't you quit blaming everyone else for your many sins through the night and just admit that you hate God and goodness
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Jon,
Since the above statement is hyperbolic from start to finish, I take it that you don’t have a serious objection to offer.
When you resort to systematic exaggeration, then you are the one who’s guilty of reflexive hostility to your opponent. So why don’t you take your own advice?
But let’s play along with your illustration. You presumably use the hypothetical of when a man says he woke up because that’s the sort of thing a man wouldn’t have any incentive to lie about.
And all other things being equal, that’s true. But is that analogous to the Linda episode?
1.To begin with, there are occasions when an individual is motivated to lie about the timing of an event involving himself. A murder suspect may lie to the homicide detective about when he woke up in case a truthful answer would leave him without an alibi for his whereabouts at the time of the murder.
2.I’m merely judging Loftus by his own rules of evidence:
i) Loftus operates with a presumption of skepticism.
ii) Loftus also dismisses the Gospels because they were penned by biased writers.
Suppose, then, we apply his own rules of evidence to the Linda episode?
If so, then we should automatically greet his claims with a measure of scepticism, for that is where Loftus himself places the burden of proof. An onus of doubt.
But, what is even worse, Loftus is hardly an unbiased reporter. He has an agenda.
What is more, he is hardly a disinterested party to the events he is narrating when he is accused of rape.
He has a very personal stake in the outcome of that allegation.
So, if we were to apply his own evidentiary yardsticl to his own version of events, we would have to disbelieve his a version of events.
Where’s the corroborative evidence? Or multiple attestation?
All we have is his side of the story. Moreover, his side of the story from a man who has a vested interest in self-exculpation.
So you can only criticize my treatment of his claims if you are prepared to criticize his own rules of evidence.
Continuing with Curry:
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Every statement he makes is a statement you feel you must reflexively oppose. If you are going to read his book, why not just read it and try to allow it to improve your understanding of another fellow human. Maybe even empathize a little. Skeptics are humans, Steve. "Made in the image of God" if you like. Turn off your "apologetic mode" button and just try and read and understand and keep quiet for once.
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I don’t do that because that is not the stated aim of his book. His book is an anti-Christian apologetic. He’s quite explicit about his objective. That’s the only purpose of the book from beginning to end.
So I’m judging his book by his own express agenda.
Once again, you can only defend Loftus by disregarding what he actually says.
By contrast, I take him seriously enough to address him on his own level.
Continuing with Curry:
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Your commentaries on John's personal experiences really provide nothing constructive at all. Why are you claiming that John is in the wrong in every situation and that his motivations and actions are always immoral? How do you know that this Linda is really less in the wrong than John is? You are completely clueless on this subject as am I, so you are in no position to make attempts to absolve Linda and entirely blame John. Talk about his arguments against Christianity if you want, but your critiques of his experiences and his thoughts about those experiences are really completely useless.
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Several things wrong with this:
1.I said nothing to “absolve” Linda.
2.Loftus wants the reader to take sides. He wants the reader to take his side.
3.If my critique of his experience is “useless,” then his experience is useless.
Loftus is the one who chose to deploy an argument from personal experience to justify his apostasy. That’s how he chose to frame the issue:
“Why I changed my mind: my deconversion” (21); “Why I changed: the major events in my life” (21); “There are three major things that happened in my life that changed my thinking…Linda brought in a major crisis in my life” (22).
His experience is relevant to his overall argument because he made it a major consideration in his overall argument.
Once again, you can only defend Loftus by implicitly attacking his own methodology. I’m addressing the argument in the form he chose to mount his own argument.
3.I wrote a nearly 70pp. critique of his cumulative case.
So I’ve addressed both the subjective and objective aspects of his overall argument.
You, by contrast, indulge in special pleading. The only way you can defend Loftus is, on the one hand, to resort to hyperbole where I’m concerned while, on the other hand, you ignore the way in which Loftus chose to structure his own argument.
Steve said:
ReplyDelete"Since the above statement is hyperbolic from start to finish, I take it that you don’t have a serious objection to offer."
I thought that he might use the defense of speaking hyperbolically, but he didn't. He continued using the same sort of language after I criticized his post, and he didn't attempt to explain his first post as hyperbolic. That's why my reply to him above refers to how he "reaffirmed those charges [against Steve] when questioned". He could have appealed to hyperbole as a clarification of his intention when challenged, but he didn't. Maybe Jon will begin defending his post as hyperbolic, but that's not what he initially did.
He might have been hesitant to use that defense because of his earlier rejection of an appeal to hyperbole when discussing Jesus' comments in passages like Matthew 5. Even though it was common for ancient teachers to speak in such a manner, and even though such language is often used today, Jon Curry repeatedly refused to accept such an explanation of Jesus' comments. He insisted that we interpret Jesus in a wooden literal fashion, and he criticized Jesus' teachings as "foolish" and "nonsensical". Here's an example of what Jon wrote:
"Let's suppose Jesus was not myth. Let's suppose I'm crazy to think that he might be. This is not a justification for ignoring everything the Bible says that you don't like. This is not justification for saying that this foolish statement is hyperbole or that non-sensical statement is a 'figure of speech.' You need to continue to probe the text itself and explain if my request of you is reasonable in light of Mt 5:42" (http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/08/taking-jesus-out-of-context.html)
If hyperbole and figures of speech in general are to be rejected in interpreting a passage like Matthew 5:42, despite Jesus' use of such language elsewhere and the common use of such language in the contexts in which Jesus lived, then surely we should hold Jon Curry to the same sort of standard. We should interpret him in a wooden literal manner. Unlike Jon Curry, Jesus never distanced himself from the use of hyperbole and figures of speech and never argued that it would be unreasonable to interpret people's comments in such a manner. Since Jon Curry has said such things, then we have even more reason to interpret him in a wooden literal manner than we have for applying such an interpretation to Jesus. And if you interpret Jon's initial response to Steve in a wooden literal manner, then you conclude that he made a lot of false claims.
But maybe he will start arguing that we should interpret his comments as hyperbolic. If he does, he ought to explain how he reconciles that defense with his comments on Matthew 5, why it took him so long to start using that defense, why he repeated his initial comments when initially challenged, and what non-hyperbolic arguments he would use to justify his initial criticism of Steve. I don't doubt that he can find some comments Steve has made that he objects to, that he would consider unloving and such, just as comments of that nature could be found in my posts or probably in the posts of anybody else who writes a lot. But finding some objectionable comments here and there is far from the picture Jon initially painted. If he wants to begin arguing that he was using hyperbole, then it was quite a large amount of hyperbole.