Actually, they are. You're blathering on about certain techniques, ones very closely related to techniques I have a fair bit of experience with, and I wanted to know what you know about them. I've thus far gotten you to admit you don't know what you're talking about in regards to these techniques you consider so important, and that you're incapable of drawing simple analogies between related diciplines
Nonsensical gibberish.
You have constructed a structure in your mind that is based on nothing more substantial than an irrational interpretation of my statements.
Irrational -- because they are systematically incoherent with my worldview and my detail beliefs, credences, and analyses.
A rational analyst is one who asks -- "what do you think ?" -- and then refrains from forcible re-interpretations of the opinions expressed in answer to that question.
---
Objectively though, your basic interpretative failure is your
irrational assumption of inherent methodological superiority. This is likely caused by an unresolved childhood inferiority complex.
I'm not a huge fan of meme theory
Unless and until anyone can demonstrate the material existence of memes, the entire theory must be viewed as being speculative.
but there are good applications of it, such as language and changes in books through time
The only "good" "applications" I've ever seen of meme theory involved
analogy.
I suppose I'd be interested to see further evidence, but I'm quite skeptical towards it.
Basically, I've demonstrated that you don't know what you're talking about--at least, not to any depth that's actually useful in this conversation.
Good GRIEF.
You can obviously "demonstrate" whatever you desire within the confines of your own mind.
Oh, and I note that you ignored the fact that books CAN be created, as you put it, ex nihilo. It's actually vastly worse when it comes to writing books from oral traditions
Right -- Marxist theory.
Guess I shouldn't be surprised, coming as it is from someone who appears to believe that memetics might be some kind of meaningful theory of human consciousness.
Texts, FYI, do NOT in fact appear
ex nihilo -- they are produced by
writers. This fact prevents later editions of texts existing without being rewritten from earlier ones.
If IanS does not understand this fact, I can only suggest that he consult the edit button located on his combox, as it may provide him with some insight into this question.
a book appearing out of thin air would be far better for your type of analysis
Engage brain before opening mouth.
Oral traditions are notoriously open to change
Most recent developments in philology suggest otherwise -- you're just spouting 19th century theory, that I will not accept unless and until you have satisfactorily demonstrated such a claim.
and any text written from a shared oral tradition will include, even in the original documents, regional variations. And the Bible is worse still, because it's not just one book, it's multiple books (until extremely recently, anyway).
Please can you demonstrate the factuality of your claim that the Bible is a product of oral traditions.
So the very concept of an original text is nonsense.
Please can you demonstrate the factuality of your claim that the concept of an original text is nonsense
What we actually can hope to have (at best) are multiple original copies of each individual book.
"multiple original copies of each individual book" ????
This concept is intrinsically irrational, given that printing was not invented until the 16th century, and photocopying not until the 20th
This is precisely analogous to the start of biotic evolution, and runs square into the same problem: our techniques for dealing with change through time simply can't handle horizontal information transfer very well.
This is just plain old RUBBISH -- contrary to biological variation, literary works are deliberately produced by authors.
Oh -- unless of course you can "demonstrate" the physical existence of these "memes" that you seem to have an irrational belief in ???
Since you don't understand these techniques, and they won't work for the Bible anyway, we can ignore them.
WOW -- talk about late to the party, but at least you eventually agreed with my point that these extraneous proposals of yours were irrelevant.
You'd frankly have been better off not introducing them in the first place, in your ludicrous pretense that multidimensional geometry and a theory of evolutionary biology were somehow of overbearing relevance to some authorial questions in ancient literature.
Yeah.....no. There are actual definitions to these things, and the way you're using them isn't it. Primary sources are those sources which actually address the data. Scientific reports, for example. Photographs. Archaeological specimens. That sort of thing. If you could find a Roman court record dealing with Jesus that'd count as a primary source.
Direct category error -- the primary source material of literary studies is literature.
Furthermore, your claim that the primary source materials of one discipline can impose their primacy upon another violates the most basic requirement of the disciplinary sovereignty of each particular field of research.
One would not expect the methodology of quantum physics to govern that of gerontology.
I could very easily make a case for the Bible being a tertiary source
Ludicrous -- as stated, the methodologies of your particular field of research are not universally applicable.
Such a statement simply demonstrates your GROSS ignorance of Philology and Bibliology.
no matter what, though, from a research perspective the Bible is not and cannot be considered a primary source.
This is a ridiculous claim --- it's like stating that Mars is not a primary source of Marsology.
FYI -- the study of any corpus has as its primary source material the corpus itself.
If you believe otherwise, you're an idiot.
...
I've got an English professor sister
woooooh !!!!
IMPRESSED !!!!
(not)
I used to help out with this sort of thing, so I'm familiar with what literary analysis entials
In other words
you are completely incompetent regarding such questions, given your total lack of formal literary education.
I'd rant on about the irony of this little piece of news, but I lack your
unenviable talent for
ad hominem rhetoric (though in your case, I do my best).
One tiny little flaw you left out bears mentioning: Literary analysis is completely and categorically incapable of determining, by itself, whether a character in the book in question actually existed.
If you weren't so self-avowedly incompetent in the methodology of literary analysis, you'd realise that this statement is just about as informative as telling somebody that the sky is blue, and that water is wet.
Bloody time-waster ...
So your analysis of the text is completely irrelevant to this discussion
You are not competent to decide the relevance or not of a discipline that you have no training in.
Another tricky aspect in applying literary analysis to the Bible is that we don't actually know when it was written
Case in point.
ONLY philology and its daughter discipline literary analysis are capable of resolving such questions.
Your BIZARRE notion that these disciplines are ignorant of the work of Historians and Archaeologists is straightforwardly irrational -- whereas in fact, these secondary sources of scientific data are of direct relevance and importance to ANY well-formed literary analysis.
and there are strong indications (such as confusion about Roman tax law and the process of crucifixion
I hope that you are not pretending that you have any kind of omniscience regarding these questions.
that the Bible stories were created after the events
Claim.
Demonstrate it.
Since we can't prove that the book was written during the society when the events took place, and since literary analysis is completely incapable of determining whether an individual character actually existed or not (the part you conveniently left out), we can safely dismiss this entire class of arguments
Special pleading -- your personal assumptions do not constitute evidence.
in so far as they apply to the question of the existence of a historical Jesus.
Contrary to your prejudice, the question of the "historical Jesus" is not the sole property of certain particular disciplines of your own choosing.
