That they are seemingly
not direct observations, (while claiming to be), leaves a bit of a problem. Even second hand stories undergo a great deal of Chinese whispers - it is human nature. You can even see it in the gospels:
First: could I have an ultimate source for this graph? I need to address some of the underlying assumptions about it, but unfortunately I don't know where it's from. I will proceed on my expectation that the numbers at the base may be used directly for the purposes of argumentation.
Your argument makes the assumption that there was any Chinese whispering at all, or that it was necessarily progressive. I will cast my doubt on the way in which the data are advantageously employed:
First, is
recollection after the fact not permitted in so refined and ordered a setting as a court of law? It is, as I recall; so the omission of Mark and Luke in Paul is not proof of anything, frankly. New evidence occurs all the time. This, I might add, is the basis of science itself.
Further: Paul's document is a
letter, rather than a history. If the point of his letter is the encouragement (castigation, really) of a particular Christian community, why is it that we expect to see mention of Christ's miraculous deeds therein? Why would that necessarily come up? Frankly, it implies nothing about whether or not such miracles occurred, but deals exclusively with the issue of how great God is, and why the Romans ought not to be so bastardly. And that's about it. Put more directly: are we to make the assumption that the Gospels "after" Paul existed in no form at all prior? What then, precisely, were these Christian communities believing and listening to at the time? I would think that surely there would exist collary evidence of their faith and their faith in the miraculous from correspondance of the period. If I have anything further to contribute directly on this score, I will, although my time is no longer quite so free.
But it is unfair to allude without reference to the graph itself. One thing I note, unquivocally, is this: Paul's time point is identified only as "0". I can't say what this means exactly, since I don't have access to the meaning in the plot. The texts that would fall in the "thereafter" don't indicate successive additions to the doctrine of Paul so much as a
completely different vein of reporting. They are actually quite distinct, which strongly supports my point above about the distinctly different objects and subjects of their work. I think Paul might be taken off this graph to begin with.
Next, I have to question the order of the points themselves: if the entire process is a series of nearly-Mullerian "Chinese whispers", then why does Luke, which actually would appear to fall in the period 200-300 AD, well after the rightmost part of the graph, not mention points
A,
B,
C,
G,
H or - I presume -
I? A "Chinese whisper" (an offensive term, in fact; I have Chinese cousins) refers to the degradation of a message over time. But it is a bit extreme to consider that whole events should be purged or deleted from the record. Should not events A, B, C, G, H and I co-occur in Luke, although in degraded form? Instead of an earthquake or a rolling stone, should Luke not mention, perhaps, a rolling, shuddering fart that shook or cleared a room? Or how about a building falling over? A stone falling? Or anything aside from complete deletion? Why are the ideas only included and subtracted
in toto, instead of being mangled and distorted? This would be quite an odd round of "telephone", if I were to whisper in your ear "The elephant has two dollars" and for you to pass on "The penguin skates by night."
It is quite apparent that Chinese whispers has played a major role here and yet it is considered absolute undeniable reality by, I would assume, the majority of christians.
On the contrary: there is no evidence for whispers of any kind or language whatsoever.
And yet, it needs to be added, these very same people would not offer the same credibility to any other claimed event, (of a similar nature), that suffered from the same.
Possibly, and possibly not. Neither I nor you can say what degree of credulity they might apply to othersuch instances.
If they are observers, sure. There's the problem. However, again it must be stipulated that there are thousands of "observers" of alien abduction that have recounted incredibly similar events. At what stage does one accept these claims? (Note that it would be even worse if these people were merely second hand observers [heard it from their father etc])
I don't know: at stage
does one accept these claims? In actual point of fact, is it the business of logic to exclude something even as (to me) ludicrous as alien abduction simply because we don't like the position? There's any number of beliefs even in my profession held on little stronger than an abberrant correlation and a lot of faith.
Then you'd most likely think wrong. Maybe not the little faith christian, but among the more faithful the Noah saga is considered to be a factual, historical event. I believe Adstar is one of those people.
True, many do believe in a literal reading. I disbelieve in it. Perhaps that makes me exceptional.
We know this is a 'copy' of earlier works for a few reasons. Given the dating, we know that the Noah saga is not an original global flood telling. Unless there were several global floods, we know that the Noah story cannot be the source story - in the same manner that we know Anne Rice's 'Interview with the Vampire' is not a source work of vampire mythology. We know 'clearly' that her work was copied from earlier sources. Yes, she certainly adapated, modified, changed and added but it is quite clear to state that the source work is not hers. The same is true of the flood story - unless there was more than one global flood.
This might well impugn the issue of Noah - in which I don't believe per se - but why is it applied to the rest of the topic? If Goldschmidt's "Hopeful Monster" is wrong (which it may well be, or not), do we now reject the entire field of epigenetics?
My apologies, I tend to use "you" in a very loose manner, (i.e not you specifically).
No trouble; no insult taken. I may get back on my review of Dawkins now; the man is truly infuriating. Which he prefers over fair reason, seemingly.
Best,
Geoff
