You're equivocating horribly, but you're still trying to take jabs as you back off your original claims. You're also arguing from silence, which is a fallacy. You can produce zero evidence to support your claim that it was not known as Nazareth. All you can produce is your own ignorance of what the archaeological data do and do not say.
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Languages of the NT literature
- Thread starter gnostic
- Start date
You're equivocating horribly, but you're still trying to take jabs as you back off your original claims. You're also arguing from silence, which is a fallacy. You can produce zero evidence to support your claim that it was not known as Nazareth. All you can produce is your own ignorance of what the archaeological data do and do not say.
dogsgod
Well-Known Member
The gospels are reliant on Mark so it's not realistic to state that Nazareth is attested to in all the gospels.
How does archeology confirm that it was known as Nazareth?
John is not reliant on Mark. Also, Matthew and Luke had other sources, and do not always agree with Mark.
There is a town where Nazareth is supposed to be. Although sources close to the time of Jesus do not mention this tiny town, this is hardly suprising. Later sources do mention it.
There would be no reason for Mark to make it up. In fact, Matthew and Luke go out of their way to make sure that Jesus is not BORN in Nazareth, because he wasn't supposed to be. Nazareth was not where the messiah was supposed to come from.
Scholarship has moved beyond Q recently, and the chronological priority of Mark is not a given.
Jewish texts place Nazareth as the name of the town at the Bar Kokhba revolt. There is little logic in arguing that Jewish scribes borrowed the name of this town from Christian scriptures.
What!??
Scholarship is still overwhelmingly in favor of the Q hypothesis. There are dissenters, and there are dissenters to Markan priority, but they are a vast minority.
dogsgod
Well-Known Member
I'm not backing off any original claims, and arguing from silence may not be the best argument, but what's worse is stating there is evidence of a first century town known as Nazareth when there isn't.
Galilee was well known, Josephus covered the area well and of the numerous towns in the area that he lists there is no mention of Nazareth. It's not mentioned in the Bible prior to Mark nor by any of the epistle writers, nor by anyone else at all.
Galilee may have been well known, but that doesn't mean that every tiny village would be mentioned by Josephus, or in the bible prior to Mark. Mark has no reason to put Jesus in Nazareth. It doesn't fit into any Christological agenda. The fact that Nazareth exists in the gospels, in later literature, and we have archaeological evidence of such a town is better evidence than you argument from silence.
dogsgod
Well-Known Member
True enough, but being overwhelmingly in favour of, or of a vast minority is a fallacious argument known as the bandwagon theory. No matter how many people accept a falsehood to be true, at no time does a falsehood become true as a result.
No it isn't. The bandwagon fallacy or argumentum ad populum is when an idea is believed simply because a lot of people believe it. That isn't the case here. This idea has been studied in detailed by hundreds and hundreds of experts. A mass of literature had been written on it. It isn't a "bandwagon theory" and the degrading of experts by someone who simply uses whatever google brings him is arrogant indeed.
dogsgod
Well-Known Member
I know the idea has been studied thoroughly by many and it's a good hypothesis, but it's not sound because it's accepted by a vast majority, it's sound due to the reasoning involved and the evidence at hand that supports it. MY criticism is of your presenting it in the manner of a bandwagon theory.
Then you obviously don't understand the bandwagon fallacy. Appeal to scholarly consensus is NOT the bandwagon fallacy, because scholarly consensus is not reached via everybody jumping on board. Scholarly consensus isn't always right, but for a non-expert going with the scholarly consensus is the BEST way to make sure you are not buying into some crackpot's theory (which is exactly what you do).
And while we are at it, the same applies to arguments from authority. The "fallacy" of this is supposed to refer more to "the church says so" or "the koran says so" or even one guy with a PhD says so, not scholarly consensus believes X is the best explanation of the facts.
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You've already been shown that the town was unquestionably there, and you've been shown that text totally unrelated to Christian ideologies have the town labeled Nazareth within 100 years of Christ. This is far more evidence than exists for many towns from the Bible that are accepted by scholarship as having been identified by archaeology.
And this is an argument from silence. Are you unaware of why this is not a legitimate argument?
dogsgod
Well-Known Member
Arguments don't stand on scholarly consensus, so get off the band wagon and explain how a given argument stands on its own merits.
I posted an entire thread going over the basis of historical Jesus research (which you could have responded to). It took several seperate posts because of the limit of characters for each post, and it only covered the basics.
In any debate, whether about evolution or historical Jesus or modern approaches to grammar or whether mental illness is a disease like any other, only a summary of the arguments can be addressed on a forum. Sooner or later, one has to appeal to the research done by others. You appeal to websites. I appeal to hundreds of scholarly articles, monographs, and books. Now you want me to summarize those arguments in a neat little package. But when I do, you object, because of course the summary is nearly as convincing as the detailed arguments.
Again, you are using the "bandwagon fallacy" incorrectly. Appeal to scholary consensus is not an argumentum ad populum because it is not an appeal to the arguments of the majority but of the majority of experts who have made the case in detail.
Arguments stand even less on the naked assertion that "there is no evidence." That logical fallacy doesn't seem to bother you, and yet you're adamant about rejecting a much less troublesome fallacy.
dogsgod
Well-Known Member
OK, name a contemporary of Jesus that wrote of him.
Why would we expect to find a literary contemporary writing about a homeless itinerant preacher who was executed as a common criminal with followers numbering in the single digits? That would be ridiculous. You're clearly not an historian.
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
Do you really think this?
You missed my correction. Gnostic wrote that Paul was the author of Hebrews and Romans. I meant to say he didn't write Hebrews. He definitely wrote Romans.
Paul. And again this comment shows your lack of knowledge of ancient history. We have more evidence for Jesus than for plenty of more socially "elite" figures of ancient history.
Jesus lived in a highly illiterate society. He preached to a community which was largely poor and illiterate. Yet we have four "lives" within a few decades of his mission (compared with the centuries seperating Diogenes Laertius and those he wrote about). We have a contemporary who records a few of his teachings, knew his followers, and his letters survive. We have a Jewish historian who mentions a contemporary (James) who was Jesus' brother, not to mention the altered but partly genuine passage by Josephus himself.
The fact that you accuse those who appeal to scholarly consensus of basing arguments from authority and then appeal to websites is simply incredible.