islander Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "Letters are honest and forthright."---pb
>
> Letters are not always honest and forthright,
> sometimes they are, and sometimes they're
> definitely not.
isle,
Granted, a letter can be written with guile in mind. You may send one to your mistress promising her that any day now you're going to dump your wife and marry her. I understand that there are those rare exceptions in which the purpose of a letter may be to mislead.
Do you have any reason to believe in the passage at hand, as Paul reminds these people of events they shared together that he has such a purpose in mind?
> Even when they are sincere, what
> is said in them in not always factual, nor should
> we always assume that what is being said is
> factually true even though the writers themselves
> might assume it is or think it's true.
All I'm suggesting is true in this passage is that it was the honest recollection of Paul that he had performed signs, wonders and miracles in the presence of these people and that those acts validated his belief that he was an apostle.
> "If you want to deny that miracles we common in
> the early Christian movement you have to explain
> how, in conversation, they had come to develop
> different categories for miracles."
>
> Explaining how language evolved in ancient tribes
> enabeling them to describe events that they could
> not, at that time, explain, does not, in any way,
> compel one to believe that certain events must
> have occurred that had no (natural) explanation.
Agreed.
But, it does require one to acknowledge the existence of the events that were labeled as, in this case, signs, wonders and miracles. What I've read on this board over and over and over again is the ignorant claim (and I'm not saying that you have made it) that every reference to a miracle, even in the Epistles, was metaphorical. Hank did that as a matter of course. Pond does that as one of her dodges of truth that doesn't fit her prejudices.
My point here is merely that there were actual events that early followers of Jesus experienced which they understood to be signs, wonders and miracles. These were real historical events and, one of the ways that a person like Paul established authority in the community was to be the person responsible for making them happen.
>
> "2. There is the fact that early in the Christian
> movement the ‘marks’ that separated a genuine
> apostle from a false apostle was the ability of
> the person claiming to be an apostle to perform
> signs, wonders and miracles."
>
> We have the same thing today. If you've ever
> studied any anthropology you know that primitive
> tribes have their shamans and witch doctors who
> perform, what those people believe, are signs,
> wonders and miracles. And of course, we have
> versions right here that can even be seen on TV
> such as when the televangelist puts his hand on a
> person's head and the person swoons, faints, and
> is miraculously cured of his or her ailment.You
> can go to the Marian shrine at Lourdes in
> southwest France, where countless 'miraculous
> healings' are alleged to have occurred...there is
> a large pile of crutches, pallets, etc, left by
> those who were cured...curiously, as with all
> miraculous healings, there are no wooden legs or
> glass eyes.
> Just out of curiosity...do you assume
> all these miracles seen by many must be miracles?
> How about the miracles at Fatima, Portugal? Do you
> think they must be true? They certainly meet and
> exceed the criteria you use to assert that the
> miracles described in the Old and/or New
> Testaments should be accepted at face value.
Good questions.
No, I don't ASSUME they must be miracle.
Now, do you ASSUME that they cannot be?
No, I don't think they MUST be true.
Do you possess a worldview that prohibits you from considering the possibility that they MAY be true?
>
> The evidence you present is scant and when you say
> you "ave contended here many times that the best
> explanation of the facts known to us, is that the
> claims of the early believers are true." I'd have
> to disagree and say that when interpreting
> evidence, the best explanation is not the one that
> is impossible, rather, it would be one that is
> possible.
And, your cynical modern worldview defines,
merely as a matter of your own modernist faith, what is and what is not possible. I'm not a modernist.
> To attempt to use the historical method
> with the presupposition that things that we know
> are impossible could have happened 'back then'
> does not make for a good historian.
Wow! You're entering into the real issue here. I'm actually trying to set aside my worldview. What is clear, however, is that you are proudly and boldly, though honestly probably unintentionally, foisting your own presuppositions on this text.
Don't think for a moment, isle, that you are not bringing presumption into your interpretation of this passage. You are guilty my friend, of doing precisely what you accuse me of.
This is precisely what I told you you'd have trouble with. I know very well what my presumptions are. I've been dealing with historical texts for years. I've had brilliant scholars analyze the manner in which I impose my presumptions on a text if ways that are more brutal and where the stakes were much higher than what we do playing around on this board.
Just understand that you are using the terms possible and impossible in a way that you are not justified in doing. You are imposing your worldview--your own belief system--on people in another time and place in a way that grossly disrepects them.
This Paul whose text we are examining possessed a brilliance so profound that his letters are still the topics of Ph. D. dissertations at places like Harvard. His courage was so great that he was able to withstand the 39 lashes given to Jesus multiple times because he refused to recant his claim to have been an apostle who could demonstrate his calling by performing signs, wonders and miracles. That brilliant and courageous man put his life on the line daily for his belief in, among other things, the fact he saw and performed miracles.
And, your response to reading a text describing that is to simply foist your worldview on him and disrespect him and his understand of his reality.
Well, that's not good history and it's not very careful nor respectful thinking.
> As I said earlier, "It's why, once we've ascertained that a
> person has died on a particular date, that George
> Washington died in 1799, for instance, we'd
> discount reports that he was one of the
> negotiators of the Treaty of Ghent, signed on
> December 24, 1814. Either one or the other could
> be an historical event...but not both. It's how
> 'good' history is done!"
Indeed. But, then, there's no evidence at all that he was one of the negotitor of that Treaty.
What there is EVIDENCE of is what your worldview determines is impossible and because your worldveiw determines it is impossible, you dismiss it because you don't believe in it. You are bringing prejudice to the text and, to this point, are unwilling to do anything else.
And, that's fine. I can't require you to be openminded.
All I can do is demonstrate that you have imposed your, as Hank'd say, unjustifiable, belief on an ancient text and on a person whose brilliance is historic and whose courage about his beliefs you can't imagine.
And, if you're satisfied with living in your prejudice then, I guess this conversation is over.
You failed on the point I warned you would be most difficult for you. I'm not surprise and I'm not disappointed. But, I have to honestly say that I had some hope.