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corpus-paul - Re: Hyam Maccoby's theory

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  • From: "Eric Zuesse" <cettel AT shoreham.net>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Hyam Maccoby's theory
  • Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2002 11:43:14 -0400


Dear Hyam,

I was responding not to your books, but to your assertions on corpus-paul,
and I quoted your assertions that I was responding to.

Consequently, any reader of that e-mail posted from me can judge for
him/herself whether or not I was reasonably interpreting what your posting
on c-p had said.

Since you are not specific (other than the James/Peter leadership-issue, and
the Noahide laws) on where you assert me to have been misrepresenting your
books, and since I was not, in any case, representing your books at all, but
only your statements on c-p, which I was doing my very best to try to
understand, and which I quoted before doing so, I am at a loss to understand
now your ad hominem comments that I "adopt a less impatient, hectoring
approach," which, unfortunately, is an accusation that avoids, instead of
dealing with, the objections I was raising to what your earlier posting had
explicitly said.

I have not read your book, although it is on my list of things yet to read.
However, I believe that it is never appropriate to cite as a source
secondary literature--yours, mine, or any other--when one interprets a
primary document such as Galatians or other accepted-as-authentic Paulines,
inasmuch as no court in any democracy would permit that; the mere presence
of the primary document itself would serve as the best evidence concerning
what that document itself says. An expert witness, be it a scholar or any
other, concerning the given document's authenticity, date, etc., is
forensically acceptable and even necessary on many occasions, but not
concerning what the document said, nor what it meant to say, inasmuch as the
best evidence to cite on such strictly interpretive issues is always that
given document itself, as so authenticated (including, for example, expert
testimony concerning the debate over the authenticity of 1 Thes. 2:14-16)
and is never itself "expert opinion," and especially not any such opinion if
it itself cites, for "evidence" the opinions of yet other such "experts,"
concerning what that document (or any particular passage in it, such as 1
Thes. 2:14-16) says. In a court of law, such testimony concerning what a
document says (given that the document/passage has already been admitted
itself into evidence as being authentic) is called simply "hearsay," and is
excluded as even constituting presentable evidence at all. Once a given
document has been authenticated, a jury will consider that document itself
as "evidence," but will not consider anyone's opinion about what it says, to
be "evidence"; any such mere opinion, expressed by anyone, would be
considered to be prejudicial, and, as such, stricken from the record, if it
is even permitted to be uttered in court at all.

I do not claim to understand your opinions that were expressed in your prior
e-mail to which I was responding, but I was doing my best to, and if I
failed to understand them, then might the reason possibly be that you did
not say there what you meant, or mean there what you said; or that you were
not clear in what you were saying? I try to be as clear as I can possibly
be, and I know how difficult it is to be clear, but does not the
responsibility to be clear rest with the writer, and not only with the
reader?

Consequently, even setting aside your present posting's casual dismissal of
the crucial legal/forensic evidentiary questions that both of my notes
addressing your theory have been attempting to raise with you, would you at
least be so kind as to explain here, on c-p, precisely what it was about my
statements concerning your earlier posting's references to the Noahide laws
that distorted what you had specifically said there regarding their
relevance to the James-versus-Paul dispute behind Galatians 2:11-21? I would
like to know, and if I have misunderstood this, then perhaps other c-p
participants did, too, and would find that very helpful in order to come to
a truer understanding of this, I believe, extremely important, question.
This would therefore be very much appreciated.

Best,
Eric Zuesse
cettel AT shoreham.net





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