I don’t follow you.

Daniel was written as war propaganda to drum up support for a rebellion against Antiochus.

After it failed to come true (although the rebellion succeeded, the prophecy did not), the court of Hyrcanus maintained support for the prophecy (as their legitimacy rested on it) and by the usual tactic: saying it referred to a future enemy or oppressor. Thus in the Dead Sea Scrolls we see Daniel reinterpreted to be referring to some future war between the Forces of Light and the Forces of Dark. The latter were always left ambiguous, to just mean anyone hostile to Judea and who might attack some day.

Then once Rome seized the bulk of Judea in 6 A.D. and caused all manner of oppression in the ensuing decades, Rome got “plugged in” as the Force of Darkness (it was thus seen as fulfilling prophecy), and Daniel re-read in that light. This all happened before the 30s. Christianity arose from that context. Hence Element 3 begins “When Christianity began…”

WRONG

Daniel was written about 164 B.C.
The key event that brought Rome into Judea was Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II (67-63 BCE).
Rome gradually made Judea/Israel a client kingdom 62 BCE-6 CE.
Question: 68-BCE-164BCE Judea needed a messiah to deliver them from Rome SPQR?
Answer: No.
Steve Campbell, author of Historical Accuracy [of the Bible, First Edition]

One common tactic that I see from a apologists (e.g. Pastors) is to make reference to “Oral Law”, or sometimes “Church Tradition”.

Firstly this seems a bit hypocritical to me as Chistians will commonly ask out loud “Is it Biblical?” (meaning actually in the Bible) when someone proposes something about ultimate truths. That appears to be their litmus test. But they seem to have no problem giving authority to some things outside the Bible (e.g. “Oral Law” or “Church Tradition”) when it seems to suit their purpose or narrative.

And as we know “Church Tradition” doesn’t really amount to anything. Al that it means is that at some point some church/religion proposed or attached themselves to some supposed historical fact or idea and it has managed to stick over the years.

But they like to use it to fill in any dogmatic gaps or try to give some authority to their particular religous narrative or ideology.

It is. He has been slandering me pretty regularly. It’s enough that discerning people like you check and find this out. Now you know which of us you can trust—and which you can’t.

I don’t waste time on shittalking comments myself. He’s proven himself consistently unreliable in that venue (the article you are commenting on here even closes with an example of exactly that, as proof of concept). If he says something in videos I’ll address it (if I haven’t already). But I’m wasting no more time on him than that.

I do have a major research trip this month. I’ll be spending a week at the UC Berkeley libraries (as an almunus) and their neighboring Graduate Theological Union (my old stomping grounds; a lot of OHJ was researched there). I have a lot of targets to acquire (I’m researching several new articles for peer review); but on my list is to collect quotations across the peer reviewed literature disagreeing with Davis, to publish on my blog, just for special kicks.

He can’t claim I’m misrepresenting these scholars when their actual words will be there for all to read.

I haven’t looked into it. I wouldn’t trust Christian apologists to tell the truth or get anything right. And he cites no sources. And that’s not a good sign. But that doesn’t mean he’s wrong. It just means you can’t trust him. You’d need to see if this is covered in any proper peer reviewed study anywhere.

Since John is hopelessly late, rewritten by three different authors over decades, and they didn’t even write that (it is an interpolation after all that, so by a fourth author, latest of all), I’ve never seen any value in researching its construction or meaning. So I’m least informed about what the scholarship says about that as far as the contents of John goes.

It is unclear to many the significance of Jesus (or the Jesus character) in that story. Of course that hasn’t stopped apologists from coming up with all kinds of reasons that fit their narrative.

I found this link to such an apologist explanation which points to some “Oral Law” which supposedly requires that both the man AND the woman would be brought to the Nicanor temple gates and accused.

And secondly that the priest was required to then stoop down and write the law that had been broken, along with the names of the accused, in the dust of the floor of the Temple (which Jesus did).

https://preachitteachit.org/articles/detail/what-did-jesus-really-write-in-the-sand/

I’m curious what you can make of this scribbling in the sand and if this or some other explanation possibly explains it.

I always thought that maybe the author had just added that to the story for dramattic effect in some way.

Finally someone suggested that the fact that this is even in the story is evidence that the story must be true. That there must’ve been some reason that has long since been forgotten makes sense, whereas someone writing a fable would have no reason to add that element to a story which didn’t add to the story in any meaningful way.

What would your response be from that aspect as well?

“I have discovered that the problem with depending on Carrier’s citations in his footnotes is that he pathologically misrepresents what the scholars in his references are actually saying. For example, I was surprised to see an article by one of my good friends, Marty Abegg, appearing in support of Carrier’s reading of 11QMelchizedek in a footnote. And yet, Abegg’s reading is exactly opposite to what Carrier wants to argue. He is consistently “padding” his citations and bibliography in this manner.” – @DrKippDavis

In reply to @vetamur

Scroll down to the post marked with “Highlighted Reply”.

Having checked the cites in OHJ, assuming he’s refering to that and not some other work of yours, this seems at best a wildly careless accusation on Davis’ part.

Granted. I did not mean literally the entire field. I meant that his field approved my conclusion twelve times, and thus he isn’t arguing just with me, but with an entire field that considers this conclusion credible. This does not require the entire field to share the same conclusion. It only requires the entire field to agree it’s a plausible position and not “a failure to read Hebrew” or whatever ridiculous accusations of incompetence he is leveling at dozens of experts.

And all that, with zero evidence for the converse thesis (there is no passage anywhere where any Jewish author says “no one believes the messiah will suffer and die,” that is entirely an inference of modern scholars).

Followed by…

Davis isn’t arguing with me. He is arguing with his entire field.

I’m a bit confused here. In the first statement you seem to be acknowledging that there is a belief among modern scholars (albeit a false one in our opinion) that concurs with Davis’ position on this point. But you then conclude that he is “arguing with his ENTIRE field”.

That seems to be a contradiction.

Wouldn’t have been more accurate to say something like “Davis is in agreement with other modern scholars in his field on this topic, but they are all mistaken”?

That’s as plausible an interpretation of Davis as any.

But it’s still non-responsive for three reasons (pretty much the same ones):

(1) The verse reads (emphasis added): “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.” There is no way for any Rabbi to think the name of the messiah can derive from this without also thinking the messiah is the one being talked about here, and thus believe that the messiah is the “he” who will “suffer” for God’s purpose, a.k.a. God’s suffering servant. The verses before and after simply continue the paragraph with the same pronouns, extending the problem.

There is no evidence any Jews “atomized” texts to the point that you could extract data from a passage that ignores the rest of the passage (even authors of pesherim; and the Talmudic rabbis aren’t necessarily following specifically that procedure rather than just standard exegesis anyway, as the Midrashim and Haggadot demonstrate).

There is no logical way to do that either. You can’t look at this passage and say, “Okay this word describing this man refers to the messiah, but this man isn’t the messiah.” That would be illogical; and inexplicable—how would they then ever arrive at the conclusion that this refers to the messiah, if they conclude it isn’t talking about the messiah? Indeed, the only reason to think 53:4 refers to the messiah, is that the figure it refers to in those other verses of that same description describe that person doing messianic things.

(2) There is also no evidence any Jews atomized texts even to single verses, much less single words. It is common for scholars to assume they are atomizing to verses (I’ve never seen any scholar claim it’s even to words), but like many assumptions in this field, it rarely stands on evidence. Just because, for example, the authors of the Melchizedek scroll linked single passages in Daniel 9 and Isaiah 52-53 does not mean they did not understand that the context also tracks in. Indeed, the context is the best explanation for why they think these verses connect in the first place. Single verses are being cited only as abbreviated notation—reference marks.

For example, in one translation of the Melchizedek Scroll, we see pesher logic arrive at this conclusion:

To his aid (shall come) all « the gods of … is the one w[ho …] all the sons of God, and … […]
This […] is the day of … he said [… through Isa]iah the prophet, who said: [Isa 52:7 « How] beautiful
upon the mountains are the feet [of] the messen[ger who] announces peace, the mess[enger of good who announces salvati]on, [sa]ying to Zion: your God [reigns. »]
Its interpretation: The mountains [are] the prophet[s …] … […] for all … […]
And the messenger i[s] the anointed of the spir[it] as Dan[iel] said [it’s disputed which verse is here referenced, Dan 9:25, 26, or 27]
… good who announ[ces salvation] is the one about whom it is written that […]
« To comfo[rt] the [afflicted », its interpretation:] to instruct them in all the ages of the wo[rld …]

You can see each line uses a single verse as notation, to indicate to the reader that these sections of text refer to the same person (so they are concluding). They are not saying these verses are to be taken out of their context. When they say one thing or another “is the one about whom it is written” they more likely mean the whole person written about, and then give a single verse just as an index marker.

Apart from the fact that there is no evidence they are doing otherwise, this is the only thing that explains all the resulting coincidences. That “the messenger” of Is. 52:7 is the “anointed of spirit” of Daniel 9:25 (or whichever) tracks in a lot of coincidences with the rest of the commentary (the “messenger” in Is. 52 does a lot of the things they are talking about the messiah doing elsewhere; the “anointed” of Dan. 9:25 was being calculated to be the future messiah using the timetable in the rest of Daniel 9; and so on). It is hard to imagine they took all this other material, but then suddenly forgot they were doing that, and took these isolated verses as not talking about the agents in their respective contexts but, inexplicably, entirely different people (before switching back to their respective narratives).

There is no evidence they ever read these texts that way; and it is improbable they would, given all the inexplicable coincidences that would then entail.

(3) This is all corroborated by converging evidence. Davis himself is “atomizing” evidence, isolating a piece and trying to remove it while ignoring all the other evidence, and then switching to the next piece, and so on. When as a whole, the convergence of all this evidence argues against his entire project.

He admits the dying messiah ben Joseph is in Sukkah, for example, and can’t deny there is a dying messiah in Daniel 9, and he can’t claim the pesher author thinks Daniel 9 is talking about Onias III because they clearly think Daniel is talking about a future, not a past, event (this is evident across many scrolls; also Josephus). And there are also the links between Wisdom of Solomon 2 and 5 and Isaiah 52-53 (again a common argument in the scholarship Davis will have to not ignore but answer). And the other passage in the Talmud affirming the messiah would suffer (exactly as the rest of Is. 52:4 says—gosh, where do you think they got that idea?). And there is the evidence in the targum of Isaiah. And there is all the other evidence (this dying messiah motif pops up across medieval Judaica, clearly in connection with the same ideas in the Talmud, and so on). And now twelve scholars have come to this same conclusion: the convergence of evidence is on this being a thing.

To get all this to go away, Davis has to refute all the arguments and evidence of all twelve scholars, including all the evidence in my section (not just what he cherry picks), and he has to produce evidence (not assertions; “argument to authority” is a fallacy: if an authority he cites has no evidence to present for their assertions, then Davis has no evidence for the assertion—so he has to present the evidence) that Jewish interpreters (even in the Talmud!) atomized even just passages, much less single words in single passages (where somehow a word is about someone in that passage but they read it as magically, inexplicably, about someone else, switching between subjects mid-sentence and back again, as if they thought scripture was riddled with equivocation fallacies).

He also has to overcome the improbability of coincidences. For example, the author of the Melchizedek scroll believed Isaiah 52:2 and Dan. 9:25 referred to the same person. The authors of that and other scrolls routinely thought Daniel 9 was about a future messiah and used other verses in 9 to that end. So Davis needs it to be the case that the author of the Melchizedek scroll magically forgot all this, and inexplicably thought only verse 25 related to the future figure he is talking about, even though that would chafe against logic as it would then contradict the fact that they thought the rest of it did, too. Likewise the fact that the rest of Isaiah 52-53 connects with things they are saying (see my Element 6 and Element 18, which Davis glossed over, though he might tackle them, and Melchizedek in his next video, or so he has hinted).

And all that, with zero evidence for the converse thesis (there is no passage anywhere where any Jewish author says “no one believes the messiah will suffer and die,” that is entirely an inference of modern scholars).

This all looks like apologetics—an effort to make something go away—rather than looking at the convergence of evidence and triangulating all of its trajectory to detect what all this evidence is pointing at. “Don’t look up” as the movie has it.

But keep one thing in focus: Davis is slanderously implying this is just me, that I am making all this up. But I am following expert scholarship and just relating it to my readers. There are even more I could cite than I did in OHJ. Hence my list in the present article. Davis isn’t arguing with me. He is arguing with his entire field.