PlainJain doesn’t understand this, but glad to see you’re dropping it.
It seems to me that somebody or other (JThunder maybe?) tried to raise “Quirinius was Governor twice” wheeze, but that was about the best that anybody did.
Dio is a joy to read and wonderfully informative when he’s posting on biblical matters.
If only he would stick to biblical matters…
I just rechecked the thread - yes ITR did indicate this:
“There an article by Stephen Farris entitled “On Discerning Semitic Sources in Luke” that argues persuasively that certain linguistic details in chapter 1-2 of Luke (up to Mary and Joseph finding Jesus in the Temple) are best explained if that material were written in Aramaic and then translated into Greek. This is not true for any other material in Luke. Since Luke says at the start that there are many documents circulating concerning the life of Jesus and that his goal in authoring the Gospel is to combine and put forth a single source, it seems quite likely that he had an Aramaic source for those two chapters distinct from his other sources. Hence I agree with what you say. Even if I accepted, for the sake of argument, that everything in Luke 1-2 was fabricated it wouldn’t have a bearing on the main thrust of the reliability of that Gospel or any other.”
I’m not sure why he believes this is likely, btw.
…
I do have to point out that it does still appear that the problem with they infancy accounts in those gospels hasn’t been addressed… 
…
I’d have to recheck the thread, but I could have sworn that someone was arguing in favor of some sort of harmonization.
I have to come to Dio’s defense too. You know how there are some people who, even though you might not like a lot of the things they do, you like them anyway? Well, to me that’s Dio. I think he’s a compassionate guy deep down inside and he doesn’t hold grudges. He’ll call you the worst type of asshole in one thread and then offer you helpful information in another five minutes later. This is one of the first things that impressed me about him. Also he’s smart as hell, has a great memory and knows tons of stuff about tons of stuff. He’s a guy with a tremendous amount of mental vigor.
But he’s not right about things nearly as much as he thinks he is. He can be a pain in the ass. And he can (and often does) take over and ruin threads. But on the whole, I’d much rather see him posting here, even the way he does, than not posting here at all. And let’s face it, he sparks lots of interesting and information discussions that likely would never have happened otherwise.
Frankly, I think a lot of what drives Dio’s behavior here on the board is driven by frustration. If memory serves he’s a stay-at-home dad, and it’s probably difficult for a guy like him to be out of the loop and not out participating in the worlds of academe and music and whatever else used to be large parts of his life. This is not by any means to say that he would want to trade life with his wife and kids for that former life, but it has to be frustrating and somewhat boring for a person of his intellectual vigor and capacity not to be out there kicking butt in the world outside his house. So he kills time and gets a little mental stimulation by coming here pontificating to and arguing with people on the internet.
Of course I could be way off base with all of this, but that’s how he strikes me.
(All of which is not say that he wouldn’t be well served by dialing it back quite a lot in terms of impatience and bullheadedly derailing threads that everyone else is having a good time participating in.)
P.S. - I also think Dio can be interesting, knowledgeable and informative in areas outside the Bible too. But he’s not as authoritative in these other subjects as he thinks he is, and therein lies the rub.
I like to imagine the little ricochet noises facts make as they bounce off his skull.
Oh no, not again. Does this never get old?
Diogenes kicked ass in that thread. He was also reasonable and relatively patient.
Septimus, I’m a bit unclear on why you’re pissed with Dio. He’s just trying to disabuse you of your mistaken impression that the infancy narratives are completely accurate historical documents.
I agree that Diogenes was relatively patient and not at all insufferable in that thread, but to be fair to Septimus, he never claimed that the infancy narratives are completely accurate historical documents. Indeed, that is his point – that the fictitiousness of the infancy narratives is not in question.
It’s gotten to the point that whenever Dio posts anything, folks open up their lawnchairs and kick back for the show.
I tried one time to get through to him, and gave up. It’s too bad.
A lot of folks who knew you back in the day miss you now, don’t you get that?
For the record, my posts about the nativity narratives were addressed to ITR, not to the OP. When both he and Septimus basically stipulated to the nativities being fictions, I moved on to other errors and contradictions.
forget it
This is how I feel. He is an ass, but on the religious stuff, he’s gold.
I think a better question would be:
Is Diogenes a blond bombshell?
I’ve got no problem at all with Dio either, and to the OP I simply have to say:
So what if he- or anyone else- is pretentious?
Dio is like a choo-choo train where you set him down on a track – it doesn’t matter which direction – and he just keeps going. It doesn’t matter if he is shown to be right or wrong. It doesn’t matter if he has a cite (or even any argument at all) to back his claims. It doesn’t matter if he is an expert or if he knows nothing on a subject. It is as though he could just as well have taken the other side of the argument – his choo-choo oriented the other way. He just keeps on going. It doesn’t matter if his post is easily shown to be factually incorrect. If doesn’t matter if it is clear to all but him that some elaboration or explanation of a crisp imperious claim might be less trollish. It doesn’t matter if his post is a complete non sequitur… he just keeps on going. Like a fair coin, he is on the right side sometimes, and it is true he is well-studied in one domain: sometimes the choo-choo makes it to the station.
Yes, Diogenes is a pretentious bombast. He is also most of the time correct, and has also developed a cadre of haters and stalkers who respond with drooling stupidity like Pavlov’s dogs to a bell. To their credit, however, it seems like we’ve gone for a little while longer in between these asinine threads. In fact, I predict that none of them will this time feel compelled to suggest that I fail to join in their attack on him because I fantasize about hot sweaty gay man sex with him.
To the OP - never get involved in a land war in Asia, where “land war” equals “debate on religion” and “in Asia” equals “with Diogenes” and the implied you = “person with passing understanding of religion that has come about mostly by being a credulous believer”.
Yes, but the inaccuracies in the bible are key to that thread. The OP said (and I paraphrase): how much of the bible has to be wrong before we agree that there wasn’t a Jesus that anyone would really recognize.
OK, so we’ve established that the nativity stories are fictional (fictional? In a book purported to be the word of God by some? Odd.). Now, what else is fictional?
Maybe you had agreed with him, but JThunder hadn’t (I think). And, it’s really key to that thread, whether the stories are true.
Anyway, not that he cares what I think, but I find DtC very informative on bible questions and frustrating on many other subjects.
And, if anyone ever accuses one of being pretentious, the correct response is, ‘Pretentious? Moi?’"
Whoosh!