Yes, I make light of your unnecessary multiplication of jargonic entities. (And will likely continue to do so.) If I recall correctly, the jargon you listed is related to textual analysis, which would have been a better usage because it does not require a dictionary to infer the intended meaning. I am not good at remembering your favorite multisyllabic terms from academic humanities as I need to meaningfully use concepts to remember them. All I get is a vague impression of a word I've seen before imprinted in my synaptic connections.
I'm not clear on what specifically counts as "jargon," especially if and when my "jargon" is likely found easily enough within the bastions of most university campuses across the nation, whether sitting in books on library shelves or offered as curricular content in various classes, and by that, I don't mean "christian" universities.
So, no. I don't accept your recoil at my "jargon" any more than you would accept mine if presented with the essential "jargon" within the field of Physics (or engineering, or whichever field is your specific field of study and work).
I referred to what was "invalid" rather than uninteresting. (Though to be fair, theology is also uninteresting as it ever was.)
NONE of what I study is 'invalid.' I take your comment as an attempt to sideline was is pertinent in any discussion regarding Christianity or World History or World Literature. So. no. That's fallacious.
My only attempted humor was on your jargon.
Not funny.
My comment on the usefulness of a "concordence" stands. I'm not going to play the part of the amateur interpretation expert like so many who don't read Greek and pull out a "Strong's Concordence" (hey! I remembered the name of that thing) and talk about the intended usage of some Greek word in the original (oldest) manuscript for many reasons, but the best one is that I don't speak Greek and that seems a very questionable game to play in a langauge you don't know.
Stop acting like a concordance is a ball and chain. It's simply a basic literary tool. It does very little other than to make looking up certain words in the Bible easier. I think you already know this, let's not talk to each other like either of us is a witless fool.
Perhaps more importantly, none of this seems to be the issue (translation of a specific word or few) unless you are holding back on me.
And where have I refused to learn about the textual development? (As I have said before, learning about it at the base level was a huge part of my deconversion.) How else do you think I knew Matthew was based on Mark and not vice versa?
I take it for granted that most ex-Christian atheists today, or at least a majority of them, have deconverted because they've "been studying a few things" that don't line up with what they were told by their earlier church leaders.
I never assume ex-Christians are ignorant and uneducated. Of course you know something about textual studies. However, that doesn't mean you also know the various comparative historical issues involved in those things that you're now barely interested in. It's no different than me admitting that I don't know how all of the math in Physics works.................................. I don't claim to "know Physics." I am familiar with the ideas, however.
Of this I am aware, but
speaking of multiplying entities: You don't expect us to think that this metaphor "moving mountains" was in two different stories in the "source", Mark left it out of one, and Matthew restored it, do you? It is simpler to think Matthew *added* it to the second (first in the text) story because he liked it.
No, that's not how historical research works, Hans, whether in the past or today. If you study Historiography, you'll realize that.
And now that you've pulled the lid off of the fact that you've apparently read some critical studies of the biblical texts, which sources or authors have you read exactly?
I'm going to blunt your insinuated allusion to the use of Occam's Razor here. I know that our old dearly departed guru, Carl Sagan, whom we both love and admire, liked to refer to it, but the truth is, the Razor gets overused and it assumes too much. In history, unlike in science, the presence of "simplicity" doesn't necessarily indicate more coherence exists in a given description of the past. Moreover, all human writing expresses a varying degree of representation regarding the referents described in that respective literature.
Demons, I forgot about the demon in the cure of the epileptic, and dead fig trees, sure, that seems to be the point that strong faith with prayer can make the biggest impossible things happen.
Right. But I don't think even Jesus, or Peter or Paul, literally thought entire geological structures would move via "faith." They might have thought geological structures could move via God's "outstretched arm," but we don't need to dally on how God might make a deep impact, volcanic eruption, or Split Sea, here or there.
Is it Jewish, or Greek, or whatever? I don't know. Does anyone?
Are you asking me to supply you with a reference source that you're not interested in reading? Your question is sort of ambiguous, and with the way you use your rhetoric, I'm guessing your question is reflective of you not really caring to know? Yet, you care enough to keep showing up here and putting in your two cents.
The thing is, you don't fool me. I know you're a brilliant chap. You just don't like to be pushed.
