User talk:Anthonyhcole/Archive/2010May

Constantin Brunner
Hi, it's not like I actually understood what he was on about; the language is extremely difficult. But I think he is trying to argue that Arthur Drew and myth theorists were at least used to remove any Jewishness from Jesus. Ideally, someone who really understands the source should cover it in the article, but see this: "Ultimately, past all shame, its loud-mouthed bellowings of victory resounding far and wide, criticism marches across the last frontier and enters the land of brazen fraud, solemnly swearing that Christ has Aryan blood as well, that he has only Aryan blood, and that to say Christ is a Jew is a lie on the part of the Jews—for only Aryans can produce geniuses, only the Germanic peoples, only the anti-Semites: Christ is of Germanic race, Christ is a Westphalian, Christ is a Saxon anti-Semite!"

Hope this helps, Vesal (talk) 15:46, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

ARG! Now, for honesty and consistency's sake I have to argue against something supporting my "side"! From the quote above it looks like Brunner is addressing an idea that isn't exactly the CMT. This sort of Ayrianization of Jesus was popular with some writters in Germany at around the same time Drews was active and it stemmed from the same nationalistic/anti-semetic motives--but it was a different idea: that Jesus really existed, he just didn't happen to be Jewish. If this is the focus of Brunner's article, I don't think it can be legitimately used in the CMT article. Eugene (talk) 17:13, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Eugene, this quotation was from one small part of a very lengthy treatise. Yes, it does cover the Aryanization of Jesus, but the main topic is mythicism. Brunner does link Aryanization of Jesus with mythicism: to him these are both strands of the same kind of pseudo-scholarship. Right after the passage on Aryanization, he writes:


 * We will not go into detail here about where this criticism eventually ends up. Even where criticism does not share the motives to which we have referred and does not make Christ into an Aryan, or an Aryan folksong, it still gets no nearer to the truth. In denying the historical reality of Christ, while it does not directly result in men's ultimate baseness against individuals and is not so directly a danger to human life for those who come within its range, such criticism, though it lacks deliberate malice, is all the more repulsive and all the more dangerous to souls.

Barrett Pashak (talk) 19:46, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Here is the quotation from Brunner's treatise where he predicts that the kind of pseudo-scholarship that produces the Christ Myth Theory will lead to the Holocaust:


 * Scholarly criticism has come to this: it can now be enjoyed by the masses in the form of ultimate buffoonery, malice and spicy sleight-of -hand. Not only can it be enjoyed, not only has it reached its acme, where at last it can be pursued really energetically, now that the masses are rushing to get involved, it can be carried on with appropriate energy not only theoretically but, according to the ultimate goal of all science, the fruits of the theory can be harvested immediately. Immediate practical action can be taken: now, straight away, as a result of scientific knowledge, human beings can be subjected to violence and massacred…. But wickedness needs to combine with the right kind of nonsense, otherwise it will not achieve the right result: the God, the God who was different—there was a thing! And today it is the race, the race that is different; there's a thing that will prove fateful again for the Jews—and this is one case when we really can hear the grass of history growing.

Note that Brunner assigns the blame for anti-semitism and the yet-to-occur Holocaust to pseudo-scholarship, and it is this pseudo-scholarship as it relates specifically to the Christ Myth Theory that he is attacking in this treatise. His attack is on pseudo-scholarship in general, and in particular how it distorts the historicity of Christ, and how this kind of pseudo-scholarship serves to incite hatred, particularly against Jews.

Barrett Pashak (talk) 20:06, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you all. That was very informative. Anthony (talk) 20:40, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

ANI etc
Please, if you don't have anything helpful to say ("this is hilarious" is not helpful) don't say anything at all. Thank you, HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   19:43, 2 May 2010 (UTC)


 * That's a bit butch, HJ. He's taking the piss and I'm laughing. It's very funny. And I'll say what I damn well like on someone else's talk page. Mind your manners. Anthony (talk) 19:57, 2 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with you Anthony. It IS hilarious!  :)  Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 21:05, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Your essay
Thanks for your brilliant and important, to me at least, essay on the role of distress in physical pain, social pain, and mental illness. I have been wondering what you mean by 'distress' however, because the word is used in various ways. A few days ago, I've seen a definition that pleases me much, in Medpedia: "Distress : Extreme mental or physical pain or suffering." This definition might fit, from my point of view, with what your essay is about... --Robert Daoust (talk) 23:51, 5 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Wow. Thank you. ☺ It is pretty audacious and far fetched, but I think it hangs together. I may have interested a social neusoscientist cited in the essay (though he hasn't seen it yet - and may run screaming when he does!) to do the fMRI work on reactivity in chronic physical pain to acute social pain (rejection and empathy for pain). If he does proceed with it - and he sounds enthusiastic - he is mates with the perfect guy to test self-regulation in chronic pain. So, maybe he'll sell that project to his mate for me. That would be PERFECT. The theory predicts, and relies on, there being aberrant response in chronic pain patients in those two domains.


 * I like that Medpedia definition a lot. Very concise and elegant. I'm using distress to mean ACC and anterior insular cortex activity associated with negative homeostatic emotions: pain, itch, fatigue, etc. But I think I'll get it out of there, because it's vague; or maybe define it more clearly. Thanks again for your very kind response, Robert. Anthony (talk) 00:22, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Doherty and Dating
I said that I didn't want to debate and I stand by that. But since you seem to be honestly interacting with the Fredriksen material I'll address you question about the dating here. (I don't want to do it on the article's talk page for fear of encouraging Bruce to use the page as a forum.) Mainstream scholarship dates Mark to just prior to AD 70, with Matthew and Luke appearing sometime after that up to maybe 80ish, and John coming last, probably around 90. Doherty late dates Mark to 90ish and puts the rest in the second century. Fredriksen is confused by Doherty's statement about stepping "outside those Gospels into the much more rarefied atmosphere of the first century epistles" because she doesn't seem to realize that Doherty late dates at least most of the gospels until after Ignatius. So what reason does Doherty give for departing from the mainstream here? Well, because nothing "forces" him not to. That's it. "Nothing in Mark should force us to date him before the 90s" Eugene (talk) 18:58, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Doherty's assertion that there is no attestation by other writers until at least 125 makes his later dating plausible, by no means illogical. Is he lying (or mistaken) about there being no quote from any gospel until after 125? Anthony (talk) 19:30, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I can't speak to that particular issue. I can say, though, that actual manuscript fragments from the Gospel of John have been found that date to c. 125. Given that the fragment is very likely a copy that means that John was written earlier. And given that John is almost universally believed to have been the last gospel written that means that Matthew and Luke were written even earlier. And given that Matthew and Luke are believed to depend on Mark as a source that puts Mark even earlier. Eugene (talk) 19:45, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I see that Rylands_Library_Papyrus_P52 says the c in "c. 125" means plus 75 years or minus 35 years. Anthony (talk) 20:24, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Given that most circa dates in my field of archeology are supposed to be normalized with the circa date in the middle of the curve the c125 date strikes me are more wishful thinking especially given the size of the fragment and that the provenience of this document is shot to blazes.--BruceGrubb (talk) 17:26, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Comparative denial
N. T. Wright compares the denial of Jesus to the denial of Tiberias Caesar. Michael Grant compares the denial of Jesus to the denial of Alexander the Great (quoted here). Eugene (talk) 07:40, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Brilliant. Thanks Anthony (talk) 07:43, 21 May 2010 (UTC)


 * As I pointed out these comparisons are strawmen. Both Tiberias Caesar and Alexander the Great had known contemporary accounts written about them not to mention all the physical evidence that can surround a leader of a nation--coins with their picture minted during their reign as well as statues and mosaics commissioned to commemorate achievements.  I would present King Arthur, Robin Hood, and John Frum as counter examples as to why the CMT is not in tin foil hat land.--BruceGrubb (talk) 03:52, 22 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry BG, there are NO surviving contemporary accounts of Alexander the Great.  The only sources we have of ATG are 3-4 centuries after his death.  And coins mean nothing.  After all, our coins have "In God We Trust" written on them.  Does that mean that that is evidence for God?  Hardly.  And there are plenty of statues of various gods from the ancient world.  Does that mean they existed?  Once again, no.  Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 07:10, 22 May 2010 (UTC)


 * As I had to explain in 1999 to a overly zealous prehistorical fanatic called Sheff in sci.archaeology you need to understand provenance to understand the issue at hand.
 * Provenance: the records documenting the existence of an object or other records either in an archaeological (provenience) or historical context. (Sharer, Robert (1987) Archaeology: Discovering Our Past)


 * Clearly Bill the Cat 7 never bother to actually read the article he linked to as it states "The primary sources written by people who actually knew Alexander or who gathered information from men who served with Alexander, are all lost, apart from a few inscriptions and fragments. Also if you go and read the The Hellenistic age: a history on Google books you get a different interpretation than Bill the Cat 7's--the lost works were used in what does survive.  Furthermore you have to remember the Gospels were anonymous works not given title or authors until c180--in terms of provenance there is nothing to connect the Gospels to the people who supposedly wrote them.
 * Never mind that works like Against Heresies by Irenaeus show that critical thinking just wasn't (and to some degree still isn't) functioning here. It is impossible to reconcile the claim that Jesus had to be a minimum of 46 years old when he was crucified as "even as the Gospel and all the elders testify" (2:22:6) with our current c4 BCE to c36 CE timeline but Irenaeus is happily used by some to show just how "reliable" the Gospels are.
 * The biggest problem I have with the Christ Myth theory as presented is it is not always clear by people using the term how they are using it. Some use it to say there never was a Jesus while others use it to say the Gospel Jesus didn't exist and as I have pointed out before those are two very different issues.--BruceGrubb (talk) 16:46, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * BruceGrubb does not so much need an understanding of "provenance" as of WP:ENC. There is a difference between Wikipedia and usenet. BruceGrubb is abusing Wikipedia for endless usenet-style exchanges of opinion. This is not acceptable. We have long established that the relevant scholars in the field reject BruceGrubb's pet theory as without merit. This is good enough for Wikipedia, as an encyclopedia based on secondary sources, to treat the theory as without merit. Everyone accepts that there are people out there who still choose to believe in it, but for our purposes this is irrelevant. BruceGrubb has been pulling this off literally for years. In my opinion it is high time someone threw the book at him. --dab (𒁳) 19:22, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It not my pet theory but rather what can be shown by the material. I have repeatedly shown that the Christ Myth theory (even using that exact phrase) is not always that Jesus didn't exist.


 * Doherty said it was the Gospel Jesus not existing using the "Jesus myth" label,
 * Price has called Wells after Jesus Myth part as of the Christ Myth group on at least three separate occasions from 1999 to at least as late as 2002,
 * Welsh's excluded middle definition includes part of Wells current position but excludes Mead's, * Bromiley's story of combined with constantly shifing gears (Lucian, Wells, Bertrand Russel, and then P. Graham) makes is unclear as to how he is defining it.
 * Boyd putting Wells with Bauer and Drews and later calling Wells "the leading contemporary Christ myth theorist" which Wells says is not accurate but then you hit one of Boyd's definitions ("thereby refuting the Christ myth theory that Paul thought of Jesus as mythological figure who lived in the distant past." ) and you wonder if if Wells and Boyd are using the same definition for the term and if that is where the problem is,
 * and to top the whole mess off you have "Christ Myth" and "Jesus Myth" used in totally different ways by reliable sources as well as non experts like Holding calling people like Dawkins and Remsburg "Christ Myth theorists" came though they better fit Boyd's "the reports we have of him are so unreliable and saturated with legend...that we can confidently ascertain very little historical information about him." category.
 * The floating/changing definition for "Christ Myth theory" is IMHO the main reason the article has had WP:NPOV from the get go--it is uncertain if the various different authors are using the exact same definitions and the fact that some aren't (Welsh vs Boyd) is glossed over.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:21, 23 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm done arguing with him. I'm sure he's a nice person in "real life" but I have neither the time nor the inclination to engage in a debate on pet theories.  Thanks for the heads up dab.  Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 19:40, 22 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Bruce is welcome to discuss anything he chooses here, as are you (pl). Anthony (talk) 19:44, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Sociological and cultural aspects of Tourette syndrome‎
Thanks for fixing that dead link in the article. It is much appreciated it. Nightscream (talk) 04:24, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I did not "wait" two and a half months to address the revert, I simply wasn't aware of it until a few days ago. As for SandyGeorgia, the problem does not seem to be one of time (since she is clearly able to edit the article and participate on the talk page), but of the hostility she is bringing to the discussion. Nightscream (talk) 05:50, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm thinking the less distracted people are in a conversation, the better the conversation goes, and depending on the nature of the journey, travel can be pretty distracting. Anthony (talk) 07:33, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * My, this is just popping up everywhere :) Nightscream, it has now been clearly explained to you multiple times that I am traveling, I do not have access to a book that is at home, and do you really not understand that it is tiresome when you remove accurate info from articles and add false info to them, instead of waiting for others to be able to access sources for what is common knowledge anyway?  I can sporadically edit in between long days of medical appointments; I most certainly cannot access a book that is at home, dedicate full attention to the article while on the road, nor can I understand why you don't answer direct questions or why you are adding incorrect info to an article.  Nor do I understand why you made an issue of a dead link to a hard print source-- it doesn't appear that you understand wiki guidelines, nor that you recognize the difference between a BLP and easily citable material in a non-BLP, nor why you can't just simply add a cn tag for info needed.   Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 10:54, 28 May 2010 (UTC)