Kata Markon

["Jeffrey B. Gibson" <jgibson000 AT attbi.com>]

Joe Alward  wrote:

> JOE ALWARD
> Thanks for the response, Jeffrey.  I am not sure I will be able to deal with
> your other points effectively unless a satisfactory resolution of a
> difficulty I find in your first point.

Really? Leaving aside the little matter that you don't give your criterion 
here for
"satisfactory", surely the points beyond the first one are sufficiently 
independent
of it -- as well as from one another -- both logically and thematically that 
your
"ability" (or would "willingness" be more accurate?)  to deal with any beyond 
the
first is not dependent upon me providing a "satisfactory resolution"  to a
difficulty you find in the first one.   My remarks were not part of a 
syllogism.  As
I stated previously when I said I offered them in no particular order, none 
of my
remarks  stand as premises for what follows them or follow logically or 
thematically
from what precedes them,  and the truth of any one of them is hardly 
dependent upon
the truth of the first.  So please forgive me for saying so, but it appears 
that you
are not only once again dictating terms, but that you are finding new ways to 
avoid
dealing with the points I raised.

>  So, let me address just that one
> point here.
>
> I hope you won't take this personally, but I believe you have presented
> above
> the fallacious argument known as ad hominem tu quoque, also known as the
> "you
> too" reasoning fallacy.  As it applies in your case, I believe you are
> arguing that it is all right for you to be seeing something that no other
> biblical scholar has seen in 2000 years because you believe I am doing the
> same thing.  If it is wrong for me to do it, then it is wrong for you to do
> it, too.

Not at all. **You**  set up the criterion by which a claim should be judged 
wanting
(in this case, the criterion is that "a reading of the text cannot be correct 
if no
one in the last two thousand years has ever seen it). I was simply applying 
the
criterion for truth you put forward as valid to what **you** claimed 
regarding the
way a text was to be read. Nothing fallacious in that. Are you saying that 
**your**
criterion is invalid?

> If we were to allow ad hominem tu quoque reasoning, then I fear that the
> next
> fallacy might be an even worse ad hominem, and then all we will have to show
> the forum is acrimony.  So, in the interest of avoiding this possibililty,
> will you please consider withdrawing the tu quoque, if you agree that is
> what
> it is?

First of all your assumption begs the question. While it **might** be true 
that one
ad hominem might lead to another, it is by no means certain that it will. So 
you
have engaged in petitio principii. Second, and more importantly, there is 
nothing to
withdraw, as I've shown above..


> If you do withdraw it, I believe you still will need to address what I am
> sure is a concern not only of mine, but of many others on this forum:  Does
> it not seem suspicious to you that no English translation of the Bible in
> the
> past several hundred years supports your view?  Who is more likely to be
> wrong:  all of them...or you?

Even if I were to accept that how English translations have rendered a 
particular
Greek text is an adequate criterion for determining what that text means (a 
question
begging assumption if there ever was one), the question remains whether what 
you
claim here is true. Have you looked at the NRSV? And aren't you stacking the 
deck by
(apparently) only looking at Bibles?

More importantly, I thought you said that **you** would go on to address my
responses once the difficulty (which is not there and which I do not agree is 
there)
that you saw in my first point was resolved. Why then are you now telling me 
what
**I** yet need  to do?

So, Joe, if you do not wish to address my objections to your position, don't 
do so.
But please stop asserting that I'm the one who is posing difficulties that 
prevent
you from doing so.

JG

--
Jeffrey B. Gibson, D.Phil. (Oxon.)
1500 W. Pratt Blvd.
          Floor 1
Chicago, Illinois 60626
e-mail jgibson000 AT attbi.com
          jgibson000 AT hotmail.com