Posted: Jul 25, 2013 4:17 am
spin wrote:neilgodfrey wrote:spin wrote:neilgodfrey wrote:
Oh dear. You can't establish the provenance of a text from the self-testimony of a text. Your little farce is just a circularity.
Guess what. We don't know the provenance of the Gospel of Mark. So what do we do? Break the rules? Or do we accept our lack of knowledge and work within all the variables that that leaves us with when attempting to ascertain its nature?
Hell, we don't even know the provenance of Paul's letters! So what do we do? If we take them at face value and interpret them all literally then we are making assumptions about their provenance and character that are without evidential support.
Still misrepresenting what you are trying to analyse. If you can't read what you need to analyse, you won't get anywhere.neilgodfrey wrote:
Yes, I read your point setting out the false-dilemma. And your efforts to suggest my case is some sort of rejection of a close reading of the text itself.
Facile misrepresentation, such as you have put together here, ends discourse. I'm happy to discuss things, Neil, so why not cut the attitude and we can get on. It's ok to disagree.
No attitude on my part, "spin". If you can address the method and logic then do so. I'm only stating the standard methods for textual interpretation and analysis in any other historical discipline. Applying the same standards to the biblical texts. You're the one with the sarcastic response. I'm trying to point out the obvious first steps for understanding a text.
Talking about farces and false dilemmas and putting my name in inverted commas are indications of an attitude.neilgodfrey wrote:How do you know that the self-witness of a text should be taken as-is unless you first know details such as provenance and do some comparative textual analysis for starters? You can't.
You're right, but until you read it literally you can't do anything of any use. You first read it literally and then you start building up what the text is doing and how it fits its a context.
You compose a sarcastic, farcical dialogue and I call it a farcical dialogue and I'm the one with the "attitude"? Not the one writing the farcical dialogue, of course!
You make a point with a false-dilemma and I point out that you are making a false-dilemma and I suddenly have an attitude?
I put a pen-name in inverted commas to stress the anonymity of the good self who rebuffs my points with claims of "butterfly treatment" and generally falls into fundamental fallacies like false-dilemmas and retorts with farcical sarcasm and I am the one with the attitude?
It seems to me that in your eyes anyone who points out the logical flaws in your responses, and that your responses are unconvincing because they come in the form of sarcasm, flippant dismissal, etc is guilty of having a bad attitude.
The method you are arguing here strikes me as a rationale for your assumptions about your approach to the letters of Paul. You don't seem to be able to engage with an argument that it might be flawed in some way so you respond with sarcasm, assertion, and now ad hominem.