“Boyarin’s argument for the pre-Christian existence of these ideas is drawn from circumstantial evidence and extrapolation, based largely on reading Mark as documentation of events that actually occurred: It is predicated on Mark accurately recording Jesus himself seeking out his own execution in order to fulfil preexisting prophetic beliefs.” 😂😂😂
Unbelievable. This is such a consistent theme of his scholarship, but this one is especially hilarious. “As we can see from Boyarin, there is excellent reason to think the concept of a suffering & dying Messiah pre-existed Christianity, because Jesus himself advocated it. Thus, we can lower the probability of his existence by 24.84%.”
Could I ask you to respond to something could you respond to this it's carrier's attack on Chris Hansen when he tries to defend his ridiculous cosmic sperm bank I'll quote it here But their argument is also moot, and therefore illogical. It does not matter where this angel takes the semen of men. The relevant fact is that taking semen somewhere else (and then taking it back) was readily believed without blush. Therefore, we cannot say there is anything “weird” about Christians thinking, for example, that this same angel took the semen of David somewhere else for God to examine it; in fact, this passage entails that is exactly what many Jews believed happened. Whether this meant taking it to God Himself in the heavens, or to a representative of His on Earth (like the Metatron; although the Talmud does not say that), the same conclusion follows. That’s the only point I aim to prove with this anecdote. So either Hansen didn’t understand the point (and thus is incompetent) or Hansen doesn’t want you to understand the point (and thus is a liar).
Similarly, Hansen complains that this story does not mention storing the semen—as if I didn’t already make that point in JFOS myself. Hansen is therefore misrepresenting again what my argument even is. My argument is explicitly that if semen can be transported this way, taken to and fro among divine beings, then there is nothing that would prevent a Jewish thinker from imagining that God could hold on to it for a secret divine purpose. Because with God, all things are possible. In other words, my argument is not that there are many examples of that happening; my argument is that this is the kind of unique idea that would be entirely expected within Judaism because it entirely fits the way they understood the world, and God, to work. Hansen is again confusing an argument against a presumption (that no one would think of this) with an argument for something definitely having happened. To the contrary, I am making a modal argument: I am not here arguing that this in fact happened; I am only arguing its plausibility, and I am doing that only to argue against claims that it isn’t plausible. And Hansen is either too incompetent to understand this, or is deliberately trying to hide it from their readers.
To my mind this does look a lot like lying, though. Hansen leads their readers to think I gave no evidence for my conclusions, that I just “misread” Niddah 16. But that isn’t how I used Niddah 16; it is one piece of several premises building a whole argument. Hansen acts like there is no other evidence, no other argument, that I simply said “Niddah 16 demonstrates divine sperm-banking.” To think that’s what I said, after reading the actual pages in which I cite this example, is catastrophically incompetent. So either Hansen is catastrophically incompetent—or they well know this is not what or how I argued, and are therefore choosing to lie about it.
I'm not sure I entirely follow this (and don't know what JFOS is) but having spoken to Chrissy about this exact thing, the question is simply one of precedents. There are no pre-Christian precedents for this idea. None of the sources he cites describe anything like this idea, and the only time anything resembling it occurs is in late-antique Persia, not Judaea. I know of no source describing "taking semen somewhere else" anywhere in pre-Christian Judaism.
I have a question doesn't carrier misrepresent the burial traditions of Jesus is the things he references in the town that I believe date to the 4th century there's a good block post on a do you agree that the arguments for the rebellious date to the floor century https://www.christian-thinktank.com/shellgame.html
I'm not sure of the whole thing (I'm deep in writing some stuff about the Exilic Prophets right now) but just regarding the Rabbinic literature I would broadly agree with that article, though correct it, now, to not only that "we now live in a post-Neusner world" but that we also now live in a post-Halivni world, which is substantially more critically rigorous than even the post-Neusner one - at least for those of us who are conversant with the literature. I'm surprised that Carrier hasn't caught himself up as the date on that post is over 20 years ago - he hasn't taken the time to ascertain even a critical position on the Rabbinic literature that was current back then in the two decades since.
I have a question I know carrier misrepresentative sources of sperm bank it's about the Babylonian talmud and his representation of it I'm going to quote a section from Chris Hansen's paper was she points out the talmud passage side dates to the 5th century I'm just asking you could you confirm that date misrepresents it as semen being "grabbed by demons who could inseminate themselves with it,"39 again misrepresenting what is actual sexual activity, not the stealing of semen.
Carrier's supplements in Jesus from Outer Space likewise do not aid his case. In this work, he cites b. Nid. 16b (from the Babylonian Talmud) and argues that because Jewish lore could conceive of semen being brought before God to judge what its fate shall be, that they easily could have come up with the idea that God could personally take and "store" semen in heaven.40 This is a stretch because not only has he failed to provide any evidence that semen is stored in the heavens in any text (in fact, b. Nid. 16b never states the semen is taken into heaven but is brought before God), 41 he has failed to show that the temporary presence of an angel guarding a drop of semen and presenting it before God is somehow analogous. Furthermore, the tradition is said to stem from Rabbi Hanina ben Pappa, who lived in the third-fourth centuries CE. As such, he also fails to provide any- thing that dates to the time of Paul. However, even if one granted that Carrier's misrepresentation were accurate, there would still be an issue that angels/demons handling semen is not the same as God handling semen. Furthermore, that someone might have conceived of this happening or that it is possible they could have, is not evidence that anyone actually did think of this. There is no evidence in Jewish literature for a "cosmic sperm bank."
Similar problems are found when one looks at Carrier's use of Irenaeus to justify his celestial semen reading. Carrier cites Irenaeus's work, Haer. 1.1.1, 1.5.6, 1.8.4, and 1.30 as supporting his idea that Jesus could be conceived of having been born in the heavens of cosmic semen. However, the reality is that these pas- sages attest to no such thing. To begin with, the seed concept in
Yeah, you're right here, as is Chrissy (give or take) - that Talmudic evidence is from at the very earliest the 4th century, probably later, near-certainly product of the Persian context, in which the Talmud was written (this is also the origin of the elaborated Lilith legend, and there's similar material in Mandean myth, I think) and not attested anywhere prior to this. This type of mythology is absent in the Palestinian/Judaean context either in the Pre-Chrisitian textual record, nor the earliest Rabbinic literature. I'd have to do some digging to project anything certain in terms of dating but Chrissy is certainly in the right ballpark.
He's really reaching here, as when he "corrects" me saying that reading the greek term "sperma" as "sperm" is anachronistic, but his lexical definition supports me, as it has as one meaning "semen" (sperm is in semen, they're not the same thing) while also conceding exactly what I said, that is has a broader meaning including seeds of plants, and other similar things - when I said that it was being used to translate the Hebrew term for all of that stuff, זרע. There is nothing in any of the evidence that he cites that points to his hypothetical scenario in any way whatsoever - the evidence is so sparse that he has to go to texts from centuries later, influenced by an entirely different cultural context to even hint that it might be possible.
Probably not honestly - I wrote all of this quite a while back as a relatively limited project, and most of my writing is on other topics - this was a kind of one-off project, I'm working on other things now.
“Boyarin’s argument for the pre-Christian existence of these ideas is drawn from circumstantial evidence and extrapolation, based largely on reading Mark as documentation of events that actually occurred: It is predicated on Mark accurately recording Jesus himself seeking out his own execution in order to fulfil preexisting prophetic beliefs.” 😂😂😂
Unbelievable. This is such a consistent theme of his scholarship, but this one is especially hilarious. “As we can see from Boyarin, there is excellent reason to think the concept of a suffering & dying Messiah pre-existed Christianity, because Jesus himself advocated it. Thus, we can lower the probability of his existence by 24.84%.”
Could I ask you to respond to something could you respond to this it's carrier's attack on Chris Hansen when he tries to defend his ridiculous cosmic sperm bank I'll quote it here But their argument is also moot, and therefore illogical. It does not matter where this angel takes the semen of men. The relevant fact is that taking semen somewhere else (and then taking it back) was readily believed without blush. Therefore, we cannot say there is anything “weird” about Christians thinking, for example, that this same angel took the semen of David somewhere else for God to examine it; in fact, this passage entails that is exactly what many Jews believed happened. Whether this meant taking it to God Himself in the heavens, or to a representative of His on Earth (like the Metatron; although the Talmud does not say that), the same conclusion follows. That’s the only point I aim to prove with this anecdote. So either Hansen didn’t understand the point (and thus is incompetent) or Hansen doesn’t want you to understand the point (and thus is a liar).
Similarly, Hansen complains that this story does not mention storing the semen—as if I didn’t already make that point in JFOS myself. Hansen is therefore misrepresenting again what my argument even is. My argument is explicitly that if semen can be transported this way, taken to and fro among divine beings, then there is nothing that would prevent a Jewish thinker from imagining that God could hold on to it for a secret divine purpose. Because with God, all things are possible. In other words, my argument is not that there are many examples of that happening; my argument is that this is the kind of unique idea that would be entirely expected within Judaism because it entirely fits the way they understood the world, and God, to work. Hansen is again confusing an argument against a presumption (that no one would think of this) with an argument for something definitely having happened. To the contrary, I am making a modal argument: I am not here arguing that this in fact happened; I am only arguing its plausibility, and I am doing that only to argue against claims that it isn’t plausible. And Hansen is either too incompetent to understand this, or is deliberately trying to hide it from their readers.
To my mind this does look a lot like lying, though. Hansen leads their readers to think I gave no evidence for my conclusions, that I just “misread” Niddah 16. But that isn’t how I used Niddah 16; it is one piece of several premises building a whole argument. Hansen acts like there is no other evidence, no other argument, that I simply said “Niddah 16 demonstrates divine sperm-banking.” To think that’s what I said, after reading the actual pages in which I cite this example, is catastrophically incompetent. So either Hansen is catastrophically incompetent—or they well know this is not what or how I argued, and are therefore choosing to lie about it.
I'm not sure I entirely follow this (and don't know what JFOS is) but having spoken to Chrissy about this exact thing, the question is simply one of precedents. There are no pre-Christian precedents for this idea. None of the sources he cites describe anything like this idea, and the only time anything resembling it occurs is in late-antique Persia, not Judaea. I know of no source describing "taking semen somewhere else" anywhere in pre-Christian Judaism.
I have a question doesn't carrier misrepresent the burial traditions of Jesus is the things he references in the town that I believe date to the 4th century there's a good block post on a do you agree that the arguments for the rebellious date to the floor century https://www.christian-thinktank.com/shellgame.html
I'm not sure of the whole thing (I'm deep in writing some stuff about the Exilic Prophets right now) but just regarding the Rabbinic literature I would broadly agree with that article, though correct it, now, to not only that "we now live in a post-Neusner world" but that we also now live in a post-Halivni world, which is substantially more critically rigorous than even the post-Neusner one - at least for those of us who are conversant with the literature. I'm surprised that Carrier hasn't caught himself up as the date on that post is over 20 years ago - he hasn't taken the time to ascertain even a critical position on the Rabbinic literature that was current back then in the two decades since.
Would you be interested in doing a short article on that passage and his misrepresentation of it in the talmud. Nid. 16b
I have a question I know carrier misrepresentative sources of sperm bank it's about the Babylonian talmud and his representation of it I'm going to quote a section from Chris Hansen's paper was she points out the talmud passage side dates to the 5th century I'm just asking you could you confirm that date misrepresents it as semen being "grabbed by demons who could inseminate themselves with it,"39 again misrepresenting what is actual sexual activity, not the stealing of semen.
Carrier's supplements in Jesus from Outer Space likewise do not aid his case. In this work, he cites b. Nid. 16b (from the Babylonian Talmud) and argues that because Jewish lore could conceive of semen being brought before God to judge what its fate shall be, that they easily could have come up with the idea that God could personally take and "store" semen in heaven.40 This is a stretch because not only has he failed to provide any evidence that semen is stored in the heavens in any text (in fact, b. Nid. 16b never states the semen is taken into heaven but is brought before God), 41 he has failed to show that the temporary presence of an angel guarding a drop of semen and presenting it before God is somehow analogous. Furthermore, the tradition is said to stem from Rabbi Hanina ben Pappa, who lived in the third-fourth centuries CE. As such, he also fails to provide any- thing that dates to the time of Paul. However, even if one granted that Carrier's misrepresentation were accurate, there would still be an issue that angels/demons handling semen is not the same as God handling semen. Furthermore, that someone might have conceived of this happening or that it is possible they could have, is not evidence that anyone actually did think of this. There is no evidence in Jewish literature for a "cosmic sperm bank."
Similar problems are found when one looks at Carrier's use of Irenaeus to justify his celestial semen reading. Carrier cites Irenaeus's work, Haer. 1.1.1, 1.5.6, 1.8.4, and 1.30 as supporting his idea that Jesus could be conceived of having been born in the heavens of cosmic semen. However, the reality is that these pas- sages attest to no such thing. To begin with, the seed concept in
Yeah, you're right here, as is Chrissy (give or take) - that Talmudic evidence is from at the very earliest the 4th century, probably later, near-certainly product of the Persian context, in which the Talmud was written (this is also the origin of the elaborated Lilith legend, and there's similar material in Mandean myth, I think) and not attested anywhere prior to this. This type of mythology is absent in the Palestinian/Judaean context either in the Pre-Chrisitian textual record, nor the earliest Rabbinic literature. I'd have to do some digging to project anything certain in terms of dating but Chrissy is certainly in the right ballpark.
He's really reaching here, as when he "corrects" me saying that reading the greek term "sperma" as "sperm" is anachronistic, but his lexical definition supports me, as it has as one meaning "semen" (sperm is in semen, they're not the same thing) while also conceding exactly what I said, that is has a broader meaning including seeds of plants, and other similar things - when I said that it was being used to translate the Hebrew term for all of that stuff, זרע. There is nothing in any of the evidence that he cites that points to his hypothetical scenario in any way whatsoever - the evidence is so sparse that he has to go to texts from centuries later, influenced by an entirely different cultural context to even hint that it might be possible.
Would you ever do an article on that in your series
I know it's not on directly the topic but it is on the topic of the talmud
Probably not honestly - I wrote all of this quite a while back as a relatively limited project, and most of my writing is on other topics - this was a kind of one-off project, I'm working on other things now.