Oh, no! Not another thread about Richard Carrier!

[Ben C. Smith]

One thing I really like about On the Historicity of Jesus is Carrier's use of those preliminary background Elements that he enumerates and details in chapters 4-5 (pages 65-234). Basically, each Element is a proposition that his overall thesis will assume in order to arrive at a conclusion. He does mount positive arguments for the Elements in their respective descriptions, but throughout the rest of the book he is able to refer back by Element number to knowledge already presumed for the point currently being argued for.

I do not know whether Carrier is the first to use this exact procedure in the Humanities (it is reminiscent of laying out axioms before embarking on a mathematical proof), but I like it. I find myself engaging in this sort of thinking quite a bit when trying to imagine an overall scenario for the origins and development of early Christianity, except that my "elements" are usually conclusions reached by specific scholars or by myself at some point. I might formulate a thought in something like the following manner: "What if Crossan is right about the passion narrative he calls the 'cross gospel' and Bermejo-Rubio is right about the seditious undercurrent behind the gospels and I myself am right about the gospel of the Hebrews at least sometimes being more primitive than the canonical gospels, and then what if Barker is right about the two gods and Bauckham is right about the distribution of names implying a Palestinian provenance of the gospel stories?" (That is just a silly and incomplete example, not meant to be debated on its own merits.) Each of these "so-and-so is right" scenarios amounts to an "element", and the game becomes: what does the overall picture look like if those elements are the ones we follow and emphasize?

Just thinking out loud as I take down notes for yet another possible set of circumstances accounting for the origins of Christianity....

Ben.

[Peter Kirby]

Oh, noes!

[Peter Kirby]

One thing I really like about On the Historicity of Jesus is Carrier's use of those preliminary background Elements that he enumerates and details in chapters 4-5 (pages 65-234). Basically, each Element is a proposition that his overall thesis will assume in order to arrive at a conclusion. He does mount positive arguments for the Elements in their respective descriptions, but throughout the rest of the book he is able to refer back by Element number to knowledge already presumed for the point currently being argued for.

I do not know whether Carrier is the first to use this exact procedure in the Humanities (it is reminiscent of laying out axioms before embarking on a mathematical proof), but I like it.

Agreed. It was my favorite part of the book. I said as much to him when he was by for a talk at UC Irvine.

[Ben C. Smith]

One thing I really like about On the Historicity of Jesus is Carrier's use of those preliminary background Elements that he enumerates and details in chapters 4-5 (pages 65-234). Basically, each Element is a proposition that his overall thesis will assume in order to arrive at a conclusion. He does mount positive arguments for the Elements in their respective descriptions, but throughout the rest of the book he is able to refer back by Element number to knowledge already presumed for the point currently being argued for.

I do not know whether Carrier is the first to use this exact procedure in the Humanities (it is reminiscent of laying out axioms before embarking on a mathematical proof), but I like it.

Agreed. It was my favorite part of the book.

Good to know.

I said as much to him when he was by for a talk at UC Irvine.

Ah, UC Irvine. My alma mater. Been 20+ years since I have visited.

[Bernard Muller]

Just thinking out loud as I take down notes for yet another possible set of circumstances accounting for the origins of Christianity....

Ben, why don't you consider my set of circumstances accounting for the origins of Christianity?
http://historical-jesus.info/digest.html

Cordially, Bernard

[oleg]

One thing I really like about On the Historicity of Jesus is Carrier's use of those preliminary background Elements that he enumerates and details in chapters 4-5 (pages 65-234)

Have not read Carrier. Is this a manageable list, i.e. could the Elements be enumerated here, on this thread, easily?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_element

Mendeleev!!

Carrier's list need not be explained, a couple of words would suffice, then we could write "one" instead of "the virgin birth", for example:
1. The virgin birth ???
2. "son" of YHWH ??? ????

An historical person will have both parentage, date, and place of birth. Does Carrier have knowledge of those factors, er---Elements?

Title of this thread is misleading, Ben. Profound topics warrant titles of comparable stature. Thanks Ben. Well done, as usual.

Mendeleev's construction suggests creation of a different periodic table: list of documents cross referencing one another, in search of origins of Christianity.

Such a table could identify, as third dimension, perhaps using colors or unique symbols, for that aspect, the degree of confidence in the provenance of the particular document at that intersection.

The table would display rows and columns with names of sources of documents, so that for example, Irenaeus' Against Heresies (Latin)
http://textexcavation.com/irenaeusah.html
does, or does not, reference Tatian's Diatessaron (Syriac), among the several extant harmonies, for example.

Carrier may accept, as mathematically certain, the notion that the Oxyrhynchus fragments collected by Grenfell and Hunt, P405, represent scraps copied from a text written by Ireneaeus at the end of the second century CE. In such a circumstance, he would designate that intersection, P405 and Irenaeus' Against Heresies (Greek), with Gold, or whichever other color represents the same certainty, we have, that Hydrogen is the first element in Mendeleev's table. The intersection of P405 with Matthew would also be in Gold. Would the Florilegium also be in Gold, at its intersection with P405?

Whatever Carrier is using as source material, would seem to me, to be of greater significance, than his conclusions drawn from accepting as valid, some documents, regarding the nativity of Jesus, while excluding others, that may have contradicted that particular source.

The numeration scheme is very different in Harvey than it is in the Ante-Nicene Fathers translation

Is it merely the numeration scheme that is different?

[Ben C. Smith]

One thing I really like about On the Historicity of Jesus is Carrier's use of those preliminary background Elements that he enumerates and details in chapters 4-5 (pages 65-234)

Have not read Carrier. Is this a manageable list, i.e. could the Elements be enumerated here, on this thread, easily?

Well, there are only 48 of them, so if each were boiled down to a title or précis they could be enumerated here easily. But they take up 2 whole chapters of the book to actually write out, and Carrier provides no précis or title (though that may be a good idea for future endeavors using this method).

Ben.

[Ben C. Smith]

The numeration scheme is very different in Harvey than it is in the Ante-Nicene Fathers translation

Is it merely the numeration scheme that is different?

It has been years since I assembled those Irenaeus pages, but to the best of my memory, yes, the numeration scheme is the only real difference of substance. After all, Harvey was the most definitive edition of Irenaeus at the time the Ante-Nicene Fathers series came out. The introduction to Against Heresies in that series has the following:

In the year 1857 there was also brought out a Cambridge edition, by the Rev. Wigan Harvey, in two octavo volumes. The two principal features of this edition are: the additions which have been made to the Greek text from the recently discovered Philosophoumena of Hippolytus; and the further addition of thirty-two fragments of a Syriac version of the Greek text of Irenæus, culled from the Nitrian collection of Syriac mss. in the British Museum. These fragments are of considerable interest, and in some instances rectify the readings of the barbarous Latin version, where, without such aid, it would have been unintelligible. The edition of Harvey will be found constantly referred to in the notes appended to our translation.

Offhand, I am not even sure why the numeration schemes differ.

Ben.

[Ben C. Smith]

Just thinking out loud as I take down notes for yet another possible set of circumstances accounting for the origins of Christianity....

Ben, why don't you consider my set of circumstances accounting for the origins of Christianity?
http://historical-jesus.info/digest.html

I have considered it. I have read that page several times before. Thanks.

Ben.

[Bernard Muller]

to Ben,

I have considered it. I have read that page several times before. Thanks.

So, what do you think about it?
Did you get deeper, that is in other pages of my website?
If you have lot to say, better open a new thread.

Cordially, Bernard