Subject: Re: tc-list t-c C. P. Thiede

From: Matthew Johnson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 17:05:21 -0800 (PST)

On Fri, 30 Jan 1998, Nichael Lynn Cramer wrote:

[snip]
> >>Also, are their any places on the Web where the pros and cons of this
> >>contention are discussed/debated?

[snip]
> 
> I second all of Jim's message above.  In addition, an good on-line source
> is Sigrid Petersen's message which was posted to the Ioudaios list:
> 
>   http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~petersig/theide2.txt
> 
> This, too, thoroughly rebutts Thiede's conjectures.
> 

To which I reply:

This is getting further and further off the topic of Textual Criticism.  
What is worse, I see that you did not even answer the question.  Instead 
you expose your own ideological bias by your subtle replacement of the 
question with a different question.

For the question was "do you know of an on-line source discussing the
_pros and cons_?  But you answered with a site that is not only already 
four years out-of-date, but is conspicuously purely against Thiede's 
claim.  So this site has no claim to be an on-line source discussing the 
pros and cons.

Thiede's claim certainly has its problems, but a site that so reeks of 
its own ideological and religious bias cannot have a serious claim to 
have "thoroughly debunked" it.

If you want a thorough analysis of the ideological and religious bias of 
that site, contact me off the list, since this is straying too far from 
the purpose of this list.

Matthew Johnson
Waiting for the blessed hope and the appearance of the glory of our 
great God and Saviour Jesus Christ (Ti 2:13).

---

From: "James R. Adair" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 20:57:52 -0500 (EST)

> claim.  So this site has no claim to be an on-line source discussing the 

Let's remember that civility is a virtue on this list.  The fact of the
matter is that the vast majority of NT scholars who have examined the
papyri have concluded that Thiede's date in the first century is too
early.  

In passing, I should note that saying that the argument is four-and-a-half
years old proves nothing, since it appeared shortly after Theide's article
in ZPE--it's the argument itself, not its date, that must be considered. 
Also, unless you can demonstrate that bias plays a role in the development
of the argument, your disagreement with other pages on the site is
irrelevant.  

Are there any online arguments that support Thiede?  The only one I know
of, and one that's worth reading, is by Jose O'Callaghan, "Un papiro
revolucionario: 7Q5," which contains an interview with Father O'Callaghan
on this and related subjects
(http://ekeko.rcp.net.pe/IAL/vm/texts/ocal7q5.htm).  Both this link and a
link to Sigrid Peterson's article (at a different URL than given in an
earlier post) are accessible from the TC-Links page: 
http://purl.org/TC/TC-links.html (which I hope qualifies as unbiased!).

Jimmy Adair, Listowner, TC-List
Manager of Information Technology Services, Scholars Press
    and
Managing Editor of TELA, the Scholars Press World Wide Web Site
-------------> http://shemesh.scholar.emory.edu <--------------