Paul was not a Roman Citizen.

[angellous_evangellous]

By the way, the factual accuracy of Gibbon seems to be supported by your own wiki source: "J.B. Bury's main difference from Gibbon lay in his interpretation of facts, rather than disputing any facts."

That is a significant difference!

(my god this is depressing)

 

[Pragmatist]

(my god this is depressing)

It is depressing, sir. You seem to have a high level of education on this matter, and it is quite depressing to see Orwell's theory in action, that the formally educated are the most susceptible to propaganda.

Gibbon is a respected authority, and you still are unable to give me one factual error committed by this supposedly antiquated quack.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Gibbon is a respected authority

And so I ask again, by whom? Who amongst historians still cites Gibbon (and I don't mean when they going through a survey of early modern scholarship of classical studes or roman history)? I would think that, if Gibbon is a "respected authority" then we could look at papers published journals (Classical Quarterly, Journal of Roman Studies, Classical Antiquity, Classical World, Arethusa, etc.) or at other works of scholarship (monographs, conference proceedings, edited series, etc.) and see his name repeatedly. That is, after all, how one can tell who is and isn't a "respected authority" in any given field. For example, it's hard to find a textbook, journal article, or any other scholarly work on linguistics (at least when it comes to syntactic theory, formal linguistics, or a cognitive science approach to language) which doesn't cite Noam Chomsky. Why? Because he is the most influential linguist around and a "respected authority." Similarily, one can hardly find an academic work on the mystery cults which doesn't cite Burkert's seminal (if now somewhat dated) Ancient Mystery Cults. Any account of witchcraft and magic in Europe during it's "decline" will have to deal with Thomas' Religion and the Decline of Magic. Thomas' work is also dated, but not so much so that it is no longer relevant. The same is not true, however, for Margaret Murray's The Witch Cult of Western Europe (1921) which was, like Gibbon, highly influential in stimulating more research into the period of the witch trials, but is so wrong in its findings that it is no longer used by scholars as authoritative, and hasn't for years.

So when you say "Gibbon is a respected authority" it sounds as if you think historians still cite his text as authoritative. Where?

 

[angellous_evangellous]

It is depressing, sir. You seem to have a high level of education on this matter, and it is quite depressing to see Orwell's theory in action, that the formally educated are the most susceptible to propaganda.

Gibbon is a respected authority, and you still are unable to give me one factual error committed by this supposedly antiquated quack.

No, I did not say that he was a quack, but merely that he is outdated. I don't need anything at all to demonstrate that he is outdated because it is the epitome of intellectual responsibility to argue that he is an authority when more than two centuries of every discipline of research separates us from Gibbon.

Your undue infatuation with Gibbon is nothing more than hero worship. It is infantile and it needs to stop.

I don't waste my time disproving Gibbon's facts. Those facts are almost irrelevant at this point - it is the way that he interprets the "facts" that matter, even if the majority of his "facts" were immutable.

You seem to ignore the nature of history. The art of history is not a science and it is not a math, and it lacks the precision of both fields. No historical fact exists independently from interpretation. Every inscription, writing, battle, biography, famine, and piece of historical evidence must be interpreted and placed within a historical reconstruction. Gibbon has by no means withstood the test of time. He is read because of his impact on modern thought, not because he is a leader in post-modern and contemporary thought.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

So when you say "Gibbon is a respected authority" it sounds as if you think historians still cite his text as authoritative. Where?

(most scholars don't root around a 200 year old text looking for factual errors)

 

[angellous_evangellous]

if Gibbon is a "respected authority" then we could look at papers published journals (Classical Quarterly, Journal of Roman Studies, Classical Antiquity, Classical World, Arethusa, etc.) or at other works of scholarship (monographs, conference proceedings, edited series, etc.) and see his name repeatedly. That is, after all, how one can tell who is and isn't a "respected authority" in any given field.

haha that's a good point. I've never had an essay or book proposal sent back to me because I didn't address Gibbon.

I've never had to criticize a book for not addressing Gibbon.

Heck, I hardly ever see him at all because people know that if they do cite Gibbon, they will have to situate him in the 200+ years of scholarship that have arrived since then.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I've never had to criticize a book for not addressing Gibbon.

Oh, I don't know ...

Gibbon's apparent antagonism to Christian doctrine spilled over into the Jewish faith, leading to charges of anti-Semitism.[citation needed] For example, he wrote:

From the reign of Nero to that of Antoninus Pius, the Jews discovered a fierce impatience of the dominion of Rome, which repeatedly broke out in the most furious massacres and insurrections. Humanity is shocked at the recital of the horrid cruelties which they committed in the cities of Egypt, of Cyprus, and of Cyrene, where they dwelt in treacherous friendship with the unsuspecting natives; and we are tempted to applaud the severe retaliation which was exercised by the arms of legions against a race of fanatics, whose dire and credulous superstition seemed to render them the implacable enemies not only of the Roman government, but also of humankind.​

Ya gotta love it. One is only left to wonder how our verbose pragmatist, who never tires of crying crocodile tears over Paul's presumed flagrant antisemitism, nevertheless manages to evoke such sincere gibbonphilia.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Oh, I don't know ...

​

Ya gotta love it. One is only left to wonder how our verbose pragmatist, who never tires of crying crocodile tears over Paul's presumed flagrant antisemitism, nevertheless manages to evoke such sincere gibbonphilia.

:clap

 

[Pragmatist]

Your undue infatuation with Gibbon is nothing more than hero worship. It is infantile and it needs to stop.

I am only reacting to your reflexive aversion to Gibbon. The second I mentioned this authoritative historian, a cacophony of dismissive abuse kicked in. When I asked what justifies this abuse, silence. At most, I get wikipedia articles, which I then pour over in vain, looking for good, solid criticism. The attitude seems to be nothing more than, "That? Oh, that. We don't concern ourselves with that. After all, it's over two hundred years old."

I'm more than willing to listen to criticism. I will frankly admit that Gibbon is one of my literary "heroes," as you put it, and I will further admit that I like him for purely subjective reasons: he seems to be authoritative, a sweeping and accurate synthesis of all the facts.

When I first read your attacks on Gibbon, I thought, "Well, these guys sound pretty smart. Perhaps they know something I don't, something concrete, objective. The devil's in the details, and I am only an amateur without access to the source material." I asked for these details: Why is Gibbon so confidently dismissed? Where are his errors? What extra material is now available, and how does the absence of this new evidence invalidate his conclusions?

What conclusions are you talking about?... to demonstrate how modern historians or modern historical evidence do not support Gibbon's conclusions, I'll need you to be more specific about what you mean by conclusions.... to reduce so many volumes to a sentence is too problematic.

Why are you guys so confident that his conclusions are wrong, when you seem to be so unsure of what they are? Why are you asking me to elucidate them for you? Do you have anything to make your case besides the fact that his book is really old?

I have found support for my own idea, that Gibbon's mastery of the facts is superlative, from your own wiki source: even later historians like J. B. Bury do attack Gibbon on this level. I am expected to dismiss The Decline And Fall because it comes from 1776, and because Gibbon has no knowledge of modern developments of historiography. And yet, if he assembled a work like this, without a single significant error of a factual nature, way back in the benighted age of the 18th century, without the benefit of modern historiography, archaeology, and so on, then surely he has a very great thinker.

Instead of solid criticism, I get lectures on the academic discipline of history:

It's not our responsibility to catch you up on more than two centuries of historical methodology, archaeology, textual criticism, and the many other disciplines that have been discovered since Gibbon. A lot happens in just ten years in any given discipline of Roman scholarship, or even a season of archaeological work.

In other words, I get yet another variation of "it comes from 1776, therefore can safely be ignored." In this variation, the study of history is portrayed as as an arcane and esoteric discipline that is well beyond the capabilities of an ordinary citizen, especially if they have not kept up with the breathtaking developments of the last ten years, let alone the last two hundred years.

I am somewhat disturbed by your attempt to mystify the subject, as well as the reflexive dismissal of a sound authority like Gibbon. It shows me there is some ideological motive at work, and this ideology is opposed to the plain facts. There is nothing mystical about the study of history. The great Adam Smith (who I suppose must also be flatly rejected, because his works are so old) defined the historian's job in very simple terms: all you've got to do is put the events in the right order. Did this happen first, or did that? Easier said than done, especially for more archaic periods of history, in which the events are so confused. But, nothing mystical.

This is what I'm looking for: at some point in the first volume, Gibbon asserts that the climate in Europe was colder than today. His evidence is an account of a military campaign in which it is asserted that Roman legions crossed a certain river on foot (I forget which river) which has never been observed to be frozen like that in the modern day (meaning, 1776).

Did Gibbon misread this source? Did he rate the account as factual, even though it wasn't? If the source is wrong, what evidence disproves it? Is there another source which asserts that the river was not frozen at this time; even another source that has come to light since Gibbon's day? Is there some kind of archaeological evidence that contradicts his assertion? Ice core samples, tree rings, anything?

It might be instructive to reconsider the conditions under which this argument originated: I was arguing that if Paul wasn't a citizen, he was at least an agent of the emperor. I was countered by the fact that all acknowledged agents of Rome, like Pliny the Younger, were opponents of Christianity. I argued then that the opposition to Christianity by the Roman power-establishment was half-hearted at best, and that the persecution of early Christianity by Rome was greatly exaggerated, and I cited Gibbon as my authority. Here was my response:

1) I agree that the persecutions of Christians in the past was myth, but Christian on Christian violence didn't start until...

Blah, blah, blah. Here is my interpretation of your statement:

"I agree with your fact. You got this fact from Gibbon, which I admit is a very important source of accurate facts."

And yet you go on to fog my mind with a lot of unnecessary nonsense about how Gibbon is too literary and outdated.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

:foryou:

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

:foryou:

Or, perhaps ... :tuna:

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Blah, blah, blah. Here is my interpretation of your statement:

"I agree with your fact. You got this fact from Gibbon, which I admit is a very important source of accurate facts."

And yet you go on to fog my mind with a lot of unnecessary nonsense about how Gibbon is too literary and outdated.

Your skill in interpretation is just as bad as your identification of the "facts."

You and all your imginary friends can happily ignore two centuries of research and pretend that Gibbon is an authority. He has a cool title, that's about it.

In your fantasy world, we have produced no "facts" that disprove Gibbon (while "facts" are maybe 25% of Gibbon's work in the first place). And you can blissfully ignore the fact that you have not demonstrated that Gibbon is treated as any kind of authority.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Or, perhaps ... :tuna:

The flowers were for you, Jay. haha

 

[Pragmatist]

And you can blissfully ignore the fact that you have not demonstrated that Gibbon is treated as any kind of authority.

The one fact that I cited from Gibbon, about the myth of persecution, was accepted by you.

So, I cite as my first source on Gibbon's authority: angellous.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

:foryou:

Or, perhaps ... :tuna:

The flowers were for you, Jay. haha

Oh. In that case ...

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Are you effete intellectuals going to argue, or hit each other with flowers and fish?

I've nothing much to say in response: just wanted to save this so that others might properly appreciate it.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

The one fact that I cited from Gibbon, about the myth of persecution, was accepted by you.

So, I cite as my first source on Gibbon's authority: angellous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbWmPAswyxA

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Gibbon rules! All scholarship since him drools!

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Well that's an appropriate final word.

 

[Pragmatist]

Please try to understand my skepticism, when I am told that it is impossible to conceive of Paul as a citizen.

...IF you do find someone who says that Paul has good style, check to see if they must say that for theological reasons. That is, if they are a professor at a Southern Baptist or even Roman Catholic seminary, they may be controlled by the religious conviction of their institution = they will be obligated to present Paul in the most favorable way possible...

At first, I took this at face value: "This guy has looked into these things a lot more deeply than I have," I thought. "For years, I have been hearing that Paul was a master of Greek; most recently in Eisenman. But, perhaps it is yet another one of those popular myths that people like me are susceptible to (people without detailed and expert knowledge). Eisenman is a crank. Maybe Paul's Greek wasn't so good. It's not like I can read Greek, after all. I better take this man at his word..."

But then you start attacking Gibbon.

Gibbon has quite a reputation. I had heard of his canonical masterpiece years before I actually read it, and then when I actually did get around to it, it turned out to be one of those books you kick yourself for not reading sooner. Another poster accurately encapsulated Gibbon's attraction: besides his excellent prose, there is the "magisterial sweep" of his ideas. One can't help but be impressed by the profound scope of his thought; he so casually explains centuries of complex history.

If you say Eisenman is a nut, fine. But also this paradigm setting historian (who needs not a single, significant factual correction, despite the limitations he faced in 1776)? Gibbon must be shoved in the trash with the rest of conspiracy theorists and cranks?

I hope that no one argues that Paul had a full Greek education. There is simply no evidence of this. Highly educated Romans cited Greek and Latin authors like crazy. The authentic Pauline corpus only has one insignificant reference to a Greek poet. His writings reflect a person somewhat acquainted with Greek rhetoric but he is no master of it by any stretch of the imagination.

And Paul's Greek is clumsy. This is evident in the wide possibility of translations / interpretations of Paul's writings. This is partly the nature of Koine, but mostly Paul's lack of clarity is his fault.

But education means nothing when it comes to citizenship, because most Roman citizens did not receive a full education, and they were lucky to even be literate.

Earlier in the debate, I took these points on faith. I'm not so sure anymore. When someone who claims a knowledge of historical subjects then goes on to discard an authoritative historian like Gibbon, it does not compute.

Why not argue that Paul has "a full Greek education"? At first, I assumed you knew better than I what constitutes "a full Greek education," now I'm not so sure. Define it for me, please, since I am such an ignorant layman. You listed some authors who criticize the "clumsiness" of Paul's prose; would you be so kind as to summarize their arguments? Can you give me any specific examples of this "clumsiness"?

I hate to ask for these details, especially on a point that I have already implicitly accepted, but the whole Gibbon thing throws everything out of whack. I asked for these details concerning Gibbon, and all I've learned so far is that his books were published in the 18th century. As a result, I am compelled to ask for more details on the earlier subjects in the debate. Everything is in play now.

You have cited one fact: Paul is not crazy for quotation like other classically trained writers. That one fact was enough in the past; now I want more. Perhaps this "quotation gap" is a part of his unique genius, whether you call it his "theological" or literary gift. Personally, I lean towards thinking of it as a literary gift, but this is a subjective opinion. To a novice like me, it seems possible that a gifted writer like Paul has received a "a full Greek education." Why not?

There is simply no evidence of this.

What the about the stophe/antistrophe/epode structure found in his writing? This shows at least some influence of Greek thought, if not the "full" education. Where did it come from, and if his knowledge of Greek was limited, how limited? On a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being a perfect and "full" education, 1 being complete illiteracy, where was he? The higher up the scale, by the way, the more likely citizenship becomes.

And now that I think about it, what kind of specious reasoning is this:

But education means nothing when it comes to citizenship, because most Roman citizens did not receive a full education, and they were lucky to even be literate.

Okay. Many, maybe most, citizens were illiterate. Just because you are a citizen, doesn't mean you are automatically literate. I get that. But still, if you are literate at all, what are you most likely to be, a citizen or not? There were literate non-citizens, and there were literate citizens, but if you are literate, what category are you more likely to be in? So, even if Paul's Greek is "clumsy" (which I am no longer willing to automatically accept), the fact that he knows Greek at all adds to the probability that he was a citizen.

I know I am wrong, in some way that I cannot see. I seek correction. But, I will only accept correction from those who can convince me of their intellectual superiority and/or expert knowledge. When people casually discard Gibbon, I become skeptical that they possess these qualities.