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Re: orion Stephen Goranson & Josephus
> At 07:40 23/07/97 -7000, dwashbur@nyx.net wrote:
> >That's not what he said. He said "reasoned speculation." And any
> >reasoning can still be merely opinion or speculation. One could
> >reason that since the sun is yellow it must therefore be made of
> >butter.
>
> One can conjecture or speculate, but one cannot *reason,* 'that since the
> sun is yellow it must therefore be made of butter.' That's non sequitur.
This is only true if we redefine "reason" to fit certain preconceived
notions. In reality, and in common practice, "reason" is a very
broad term that describes the process of getting from one set of
propositions to another. You're welcome to redefine the term to suit
your own purposes if you want to, but in that case you can expect not
to be understood most of the time.
[snip]
> >Perceived as such by Christians, of course.
>
> No one's protesting what Christians perceive. But this is a scholarly
> forum where logic and evidence, not Christian beliefs, are supposed to
> reign. It's not church. DSS scholarship is not based on Christian perceptions.
PLEASE go back and re-read what Jack wrote. I see you taking
isolated phrases from his posts (and mine, for that matter) and
jerking them around. That's not scholarly, friend. Nobody said this
was church. And while we're at it, one of the big problems with DSS
scholarship is that, at first, it WAS based on Christian perceptions.
That was Jack's whole point, a point that apparently got past you.
> >This is not so. The sine qua non of Christianity, and
> >proto-Christianity if there was such a thing, is the resurrection of
> >J~sus from the dead. The entire movement, from its very inception,
> >was based on that event. Questions of Torah observance came later,
> >and they had no real effect on whether or not the movement was
> >legitimate because they were not its ultimate basis.
>
> This bald assertion is not sufficient despite you're unwarranted presumption
> that you apparently hold it to be axiomatic. That's not universally held.
I'm speaking historically, Yirmiyahu. Without this event, the
movement never would have started in the first place. If you had
actually read what I wrote, you would have seen that.
> In this forum it must be demonstrated by logic from the evidence.
No, by your definition of this forum it must be this way, but not
everyone here accepts your definition of this forum, nor should they
have to. Let me reiterate that I was speaking historically.
> Moreover, I've demonstrated in my books and elsewhere, *by logic from the
> evidence,* that your argument is not valid. Just a couple of highlights, as
> those seriously interested can read the book, MMT demonstrates that the
> central question was observance, and was clearly the earlier. Not to
But you yourself denied that such questions as those related to MMT,
and the rise of Christianity, had anything to do with each other.
You can't have it both ways. You said that questions of Torah
observance are the sine qua non of Christianity vs. Judaism, and I
pointed out that this statement is incorrect. MMT has nothing to do
with that question. I'm sure it has plenty to do with the
development of various sects within Judaism, but it has nothing at
all to do with the rise of Christianity, as you yourself admitted.
> mention that the record clearly shows that Yehoshua and the Netzarim
> remained in the Torah- observant Jewish community, defended by Gamliel in
> the Beyt Din Ha- Gadol, while, by contrast, there is *no* evidence of any
> selective-observant Christianity *ever* being accepted by the Beyt Din
> Ha-Gadol, *plus* a clear record that the selective-observant Christians were
> vehemently opposed to the Netzarim -- so much so that in 333 CE Christians
> killed all remaining remnants of the Netzarim. We've been through this
> before and it comes out the exact same way every time. Given the same
> input, logic always does. Repetition isn't going to make it different. It
> only makes it tedious.
And all of this still has nothing at all to do with the question of
the origins of Christianity, which is what you brought up. Once
again, no resurrection, no Christianity of any flavor. I don't
understand why you keep denying any connection between
Essenes/Qumranites/Whoever and Christianity, but you keep dragging
Christianity into it.
> Even beyond all of that, you ignore all of the
> evidence to claim that Essene- Christians were distinguished based on 'the
> resurrection of J~sus from the dead' a century or so before the fact. In
> the same breath, you acknowledge that you're not fully convinced there *is*
> a difference.
Show me where I said ANYTHING about Essenes, much less Essene-
Christians, Yirmiyahu. I never mentioned any such thing, and I don't
appreciate you reading such foreign notions into my statements.
> While your welcome to your religious beliefs, this is not the forum for
> preaching your religion. Nor are your religious doctrines axiomatic in this
> forum, or the basis for founding assertions. Please restrict the discussion
> to logic and evidence. Since Christianity is anachronistic to the Essenes,
> I'm not sure I see the appropriateness of the discussion in the first place.
> It's certainly not me who has insisted on connecting Christianity to the
> Essenes.
Baloney. You were the one who brought it up when Jack mentioned the
fact, confirmed by "logic and the evidence," that early DSS study was
built on certain Christian-based assumptions. That's all he said,
and somehow you got off on this kick and started jumping all over the
origins of Christianity. I'm not preaching my religion any more than
you are, so quit misrepresenting me, please. I corrected an
erroneous statement of yours regarding the origins and basis of the
rise and development of Christianity, nothing more.
> To even suggest that 'there was no such thing' (a dilineating difference) is
> not only ill-conceived, it invites endless, hopeless, and futile argument.
I have no idea what this statement means, because I did not use such
words. To facilitate further discussion of the real DSS questions
and avoid any continuance of this nonsense, I will not respond to you
on this topic again.
Dave Washburn
dwashbur@nyx.net
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur/home.html