Aquinas and Apologetics

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@Jonathan_Burke

Given the visceral reaction people here have to unorthodox theology

Actually, I’m less bothered by unorthodox theology per se than by unorthodox theology that justifies its unorthodoxy by saying that it is closer to the true “Biblical” teaching – but then departs widely from what the Bible appears to plainly teach.

For example, an Arian might try to justify his position by pointing to a passage like, “The Father is greater than I”, and on the basis of such statements, there would be a certain reasonableness in opposing the “Biblical” view to the orthodox Trinitarian doctrine. But in the case of demons in the Synoptics, the “Biblical” argument consists, it seems, of admitting that the Gospel writers wrote as if they believed in demons, while assuring us that they really didn’t – not exactly a very strong grounds on which to base an overthrow of tradition, especially when the claim that they didn’t believe in demons is apparently sheer assertion and isn’t backed by even a single reference to any of the relevant Gospel passages.

It’s nothing new for Protestants, and especially Protestants from small sects, to pit “Biblical” against “orthodox” or “traditional” Church teaching – but for such stratagems to be taken seriously, the Biblical exegesis has to be credible. I haven’t seen this yet regarding belief in demons.

[Jonathan_Burke]

@Jordan

So I went back and read through your papers, and to be frank, I didn’t actually see where you put what you actually think or what the passages mean to you.

You read my work on the Synoptic wilderness temptation pericope. In that paper, you read this.

The combination of this socio-historical evidence provides strong support for a reading of of the wilderness temptation as an account of Jesus’ internal struggle with his own desires, rather than a battle of will against a supernatural evil being.

That’s an explicit declaration of my interpretation of the passages examined in this paper, and it’s on the first page of the paper. You say you wanted a “straightforward, in-your-own-words type paraphrase”, and that’s exactly what that is. Are you saying you read that and you didn’t understand what it means, or you didn’t understand that this is my interpretation of the passages, or something else? I’m not sure why you would say you didn’t see my interpretation of those passages, when it’s right there on the front page.

I don’t see any record of you reading the other paper. Did you read the other paper? If you did read the other paper, you will see that at the end of each section I have an explicit summary, in my own words, of what I think each author means. That’s my interpretation. If any of those summaries are unclear, please let me know why.

@Jordan

I’m not interested in a hermeneutical “pissing contest” (pardon the term), I simply what to understand how people read the same text differently and what it means to them.

I have told you explicitly what I think the text means to me, and an explanation of my methodology, and an example of how I apply that methodology to analogous texts. Please let me know if there’s anything missing.

@Jordan

Mark didn’t believe in demons/demon possession/demonic causes for illness, why?

Because he was one of those Second Temple Period Jews who didn’t believe in supernatural evil demons.

@Jordan

Why did Mark not believe it but the other people did?

I have no idea how he came to his conclusions, or how other people came to their conclusions. That’s like asking why the prophets of Baal believed in Baal. Maybe their parents taught them? Who knows?

@Jordan

Why did he report it if he did, was he just accommodating them or?

As I have already mentioned several times, I don’t believe he reported it as if he did. Yes he is accommodating his audience. If you compare the Synoptics to John, you will find that they treat the issue of demons in very different ways. In the Synoptics we find demons and demonic possession. In John we do not, even when John is referring to people with disorders which were typically regarded as the product of demonic possession or satanic attack. The reason for this is that the Synoptics and John were written for different audiences. The Synoptics are written for people who aren’t yet Christians, whereas John is writing to mature Christians. In the gospel written for mature Christians, demons have vanished. We find the same in Paul’s letters. In both cases the authors write the same way people write when they don’t believe in demons; they simply don’t mention them, and they don’t attribute to them the activity commonly associated with demons.

@Jordan

But I confess I didn’t came away thinking that you made an obvious case for Mark not believing in demons…

@Jordan

…but I don’t see you 1) making a positive case for that interpretation of Mark 5 or 2) making a strong case that the “orthodox” interpretation isn’t at least as plausible.

Remember that neither paper was making a case for Mark not believing in demons, or making a positive case for that interpretation of Mark, or making a strong case that the “orthodox” case isn’t at least as plausible. As I have said several times before (and I can keep repeating this as often as necessary), those papers were demonstrating the hermeneutic by which I arrive at the conclusion that Mark did not believe in demons. If you don’t find it convincing that’s fine, that’s not my problem.

If you want me to address why I think the “orthodox” interpretation isn’t at least as plausible, I can do that, but we might want to start a new thread. I’ll also need written confirmation from a moderator that such a thread is permitted on this forum, so I don’t have a moderator stepping in two posts later shutting down the thread and warning me not to write stuff like that.

@Jordan

It then seems to me that “I read it as Mark reporting what was believed, while not believing it himself” then falls a bit flat because you haven’t taken the time to explain it.

In my previous post I summarized my explanation, citing the material I quoted or cited in order to support my explanation. Please let me know if anything in those three points is unclear.

@Jordan

My English “plain reading” of Matthew 5:1-20 is that a guy was demon-possessed, Jesus got rid of them, and they entered pigs. It’s a creepy story but I take at face value.

This is the Ken Ham approach to the Bible. It is called “exegeting the English”. Do you understand why this isn’t considered an acceptable approach to an ancient text by professional interpreters?

When you write that, it tells me absolutely nothing about your understanding of the text. There is literally nothing there. It’s just saying “I think this”, without any process of logical reasoning, without any attempt at justification, and without any method of validation. It’s just pointing at a text saying “I think this”. I have no idea why you would think that, how you would reach such a conclusion, how you would test if your interpretation is accurate, or anything else.

This gets back to an issue raised previously on this forum, how do I know when my interpretation is correct? For most Christians here, it seems that such a process simply just isn’t considered necessary. I read the text in English, I make a conclusion, I’m done. I’ve exegeted the text, my exegesis is correct. I find this an unusual approach.

@Jordan

I’d be interested in knowing more about what you think about the passage (like the questions I posed above) but there’s no way I can go through paper upon paper of what scholars think.

I have not required you to go through any papers of what scholars think. In my previous post I summarized my explanation in three points, citing the material I quoted or cited previously in order to support my explanation. Please let me know if anything in those three points is unclear. We can use that as the basis of a new thread, if the moderators permit.

[Jonathan_Burke]

@Eddie

And I haven’t said that we should rely on the English text, and have in fact many times said we should be looking detail at the Greek.

But you have relied on the English. You’ve told me we need to just read it at face value. Additionally, when I raised the importance of lexicography and socio-historical context in order to explicate the passage using the Greek, you dismissed this approach.

@Eddie

The Greek term used throughout the story for the entity possessing the madman is pneuma akatharton (“unclean spirit”). The term is sometimes in the singular, sometimes in the plural. However, there are grounds for translating this as “demon” or “demons”: the term daimonion (generally rendered as “demon” in NT writings) in other Synoptic passages appears to refer to exactly the same unclean spirits; and in this episode (5.15-5.18) the verb daimonizomai is used several times. It means “to be possessed by daimonia ”. Thus, the man with the unclean spirits is the man possessed by daimonia (demons).

Ok, first of all this is not the way to interpret the Greek. Saying “I think the Greek word here means X because I think that in these other passages it also means X” is just circular reasoning. Treating the Greek properly requires diachronic and synchronic lexical analysis, for a start.

Secondly, you need to identify the author’s sitz im leben in order to identify how they are using this language and why. This requires identifying his socio-historical context, including his theological context, which not only requires comparing what he wrote to analogous Second Temple Period literature but also to synchronic New Testament texts. You’re already drawing conclusions about what the author believes about demons, without doing any of this work.

Thirdly, you need to consider the author’s audience and their intent. This requires identifying the genre and aim of Mark’s gospel, as well as its intended readership and reading context. And of course when I say “readership” that’s almost an anachronism since most of Mark’s audience won’t ever actually read the text (I am sure I don’t need to explain why).

Is that it? That’s what you consider demonstrating “mastery of the text”? If you want to see an example of me demonstrating what you refer to as “mastery of the text”, go and read (again), my paper on the Synoptic wilderness temptation pericope, which interprets the passages “in accord with the vocabulary, grammar, syntax, idiom, and literary structure”.

@Eddie

That said, my interpretation does not rest on the used of the word “demon” in either Greek or English. It rests on the narrative sequence.

The narrative sequence isn’t helpful unless you do the necessary background work to understand the context of the narrative. Reading the text and concluding “Something (demons, unclean spirits, whatever they are to be called) asks Jesus for permission to leave the man and enter the swine” doesn’t tell us anything about what this actually means, or why it was written. Not only that, but your treatment of the narrative glosses over the fact that the narrative alternates between identifying the demons as speaking, and identifying the man speaking as if he is the demons. This is an important feature of the narrative which scholars since at least the nineteenth century have viewed as an interpretive key to the passage, so I’m surprised you passed over it.

@Eddie

The overwhelming impression of the narrative is that the man was inhabited by a being/beings that were personal agents of some kind, and that these agents were transferred into the pigs.

Well of course it does, because that’s what the onlookers believed. Remember, Mark is not an eyewitness to these events. Mark wasn’t even there. He is not reporting his own experiences, in his own words. He is reporting what was told by other people about their experiences, in their words.

@Eddie

He claims great expertise in scholarship…

That is categorically false. I have repeatedly disavowed any expertise in scholarship. You are the one who continually makes claims about your academic credentials, experience, and prowess.

@Eddie

I await his detailed account of the primary text.

I have already explained why this is a waste of my time. You do not recognize as valid, the hermeneutical methods I use. Consequently you do not recognize conclusions drawn from them, as valid.

[Jordan (Jordan Mantha)]

@Jonathan_Burke

The combination of this socio-historical evidence provides strong support for a reading of of the wilderness temptation as an account of Jesus’ internal struggle with his own desires, rather than a battle of will against a supernatural evil being.

That’s an explicit declaration of my interpretation of the passages examined in this paper, and it’s on the first page of the paper. You say you wanted a “straightforward, in-your-own-words type paraphrase”, and that’s exactly what that is. Are you saying you read that and you didn’t understand what it means, or you didn’t understand that this is my interpretation of the passages, or something else?

Actually, I didn’t read it that way. I saw “provides strong support” as “this seems like a plausible interpretation” rather than “this is what I believe it means”. Thanks for the clarification.

@Jonathan_Burke

I don’t see any record of you reading the other paper. Did you read the other paper? If you did read the other paper, you will see that at the end of each section I have an explicit summary, in my own words, of what I think each author means. That’s my interpretation. If any of those summaries are unclear, please let me know why.

I did read it and I did see those nice summaries. Again, I took them to be summaries of particular views from particular ancient authors. There wasn’t really anything that I saw that said that’s what you actually believed (I could have missed it). In particular, you are arguing about what 2nd Temple Judaism and some early church fathers seemed to have thought, not what you personally thought, it seemed to me. For instance, you overview the texts that lack a reference to Satan as a being, but don’t seem to address the ones that do. I thought you were just giving a good analysis of the beliefs of the authors based on what they do and don’t say, not necessarily summarizing your belief on the matter. To me there is a pretty big leap from how 2nd Temple Judaism and some of the 1st/early 2nd century fathers understood Satan/the devil/demons and “this is what Mark thought”.

@Jonathan_Burke

Yes he is accommodating his audience. If you compare the Synoptics to John, you will find that they treat the issue of demons in very different ways. In the Synoptics we find demons and demonic possession. In John we do not, even when John is referring to people with disorders which were typically regarded as the product of demonic possession or satanic attack. The reason for this is that the Synoptics and John were written for different audiences. The Synoptics are written for people who aren’t yet Christians, whereas John is writing to mature Christians. In the gospel written for mature Christians, demons have vanished. We find the same in Paul’s letters. In both cases the authors write the same way people write when they don’t believe in demons; they simply don’t mention them, and they don’t attribute to them the activity commonly associated with demons.

This is an interesting thought, I’ll have to think about this. This kind of unpacking is helpful.

@Jonathan_Burke

My English “plain reading” of Matthew 5:1-20 is that a guy was demon-possessed, Jesus got rid of them, and they entered pigs. It’s a creepy story but I take at face value.

This is the Ken Ham approach to the Bible. It is called “exegeting the English”. Do you understand why this isn’t considered an acceptable approach to an ancient text by professional interpreters?

Yes, but I’m a scientist and not a professional interpreter. I realize my limitations here. That’s why it’s interesting to hear from people more knowledgable than myself. I simply don’t have the time and training to properly exegete the text myself. That’s also why I generally hold my interpretations “loosely” because I know I could be wrong.

@Jonathan_Burke

When you write that, it tells me absolutely nothing about your understanding of the text. There is literally nothing there. It’s just saying “I think this”, without any process of logical reasoning, without any attempt at justification, and without any method of validation. It’s just pointing at a text saying “I think this”. I have no idea why you would think that, how you would reach such a conclusion, how you would test if your interpretation is accurate, or anything else.

Pretty much. That’s why I appreciate people at PS who have done the work and so I can learn from them. That’s also why I can get a little frustrated by distractions and “noise” in the conversations. My interest here is truly trying to learn, not in debating or correcting people.

@Jonathan_Burke

This gets back to an issue raised previously on this forum, how do I know when my interpretation is correct? For most Christians here, it seems that such a process simply just isn’t considered necessary. I read the text in English, I make a conclusion, I’m done. I’ve exegeted the text, my exegesis is correct. I find this an unusual approach.

I don’t know that I’d be that harsh. I do think people need to have an appropriate amount of intellectual humility, but most people aren’t trained in Greek, Hebrew, hermeneutics, or church/ANE history. Personal reading of the English text and maybe a commentary or two is about it. You can be of service to those people, if you want, but I think it may take a bit more gentle and irenic approach.

@Jonathan_Burke

If you want me to address why I think the “orthodox” interpretation isn’t at least as plausible, I can do that, but we might want to start a new thread. I’ll also need written confirmation from a moderator that such a thread is permitted on this forum, so I don’t have a moderator stepping in two posts later shutting down the thread and warning me not to write stuff like that.

I’ve been a moderator for a while and I have never seen any limitation based on orthodoxy. Any censorship or moderation action I’ve seen has been based on violations of community standards and bad behavior, not on theological or scientific content. I agree though that we are far from Aquinas and the original topic. I will create a stub topic for you, and as a moderator of PS I’m saying that a discussion about the strengths and weakness of orthodox and alternative interpretations of Mark 5 is allowed, as long as the conversation itself follows the community guidelines.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@Jonathan_Burke

But you have relied on the English. You’ve told me we need to just read it at face value.

No, I haven’t. I said we need to take the text we are given seriously. I did not say that we should rely on English translations. I made clear that I wanted you to talk about the Greek.

@Jonathan_Burke

go and read (again), my paper on the Synoptic wilderness temptation pericope, which interprets the passages “in accord with the vocabulary, grammar, syntax, idiom, and literary structure”

We aren’t discussing that episode; we are discussing Mark 5. I want your interpretation of the Greek text of Mark 5 – the section on the Gadarene demoniac in particular. You talk all around the text – endlessly digressing to questions of method – but you don’t give an exposition of it.

It would help avoid unnecessary conversational friction if you would refrain from posing as my teacher. You write to me stuff like this:

@Jonathan_Burke

Treating the Greek properly requires diachronic and synchronic lexical analysis, for a start.

@Jonathan_Burke

Secondly, you need to identify the author’s sitz im leben in order to identify how they are using this language and why. This requires identifying his socio-historical context,

@Jonathan_Burke

Thirdly, you need to consider the author’s audience and their intent. This requires identifying the genre and aim of Mark’s gospel, as well as its intended readership and reading context.

Yawn. Not only have I heard all this sophomoric stuff from you many times before, I heard it until I could recite it in my sleep during grad school. Do you imagine that I could have obtained a Ph.D. from one of the top religion schools in North America, and be unaware of such considerations?

@Jonathan_Burke

Not only that, but your treatment of the narrative glosses over the fact that the narrative alternates between identifying the demons as speaking, and identifying the man speaking as if he is the demons. This is an important feature of the narrative

Which I have indeed noted, and take careful account of in the translation of the text which I have prepared for my own research and teaching. But I did not pretend to be offering a complete exegesis of this section in Mark; my exegetical notes come to dozens of pages, and a website discussion (aimed at an audience mostly of scientists, not New Testament scholars) is not the place to present a full-scale exegesis. And for the purpose of this discussion, that distinction is not necessary. Even if one could conclude (from the part before the pigs are mentioned) that the man is not really possessed by demons, but only deluded into thinking he is demons, that interpretation becomes impossible once the pigs are introduced and Mark tells us, in straightforward, direct, uncomplicated Greek, that the unclean spirits left the man and entered into the demons. You can’t get around what Mark says, unless you are willing to say that Mark made an outright error or that Mark is deliberately stating something he doesn’t believe to be true. But you aren’t willing to bite that bullet.

@Jonathan_Burke

Well of course it does, because that’s what the onlookers believed.

No, it has zero to do with what the onlookers believed. Mark’s statement that the spirits entered the pigs comes before we are told anything about what the onlookers believed. And in fact, if you read the Greek carefully, we are never told that the onlookers drew any connection between the behavior of the pigs and the unclean spirits. The herdsmen are alarmed by the behavior of the pigs, but they never offer any interpretation of it. You are supplying notions that are not found in the text.

The only statement about the relationship between the pigs’ behavior and the unclean spirits that we are given is the statement, not of any onlookers, but of the narrator (Mark). He does not indicate that he is relating the views of anyone else. He states as a fact that the spirits entered the pigs. You can dodge, weave, duck, etc., but you cannot get around this plain statement. All your attempts to pretend it isn’t there in the text, in the Greek, to deflect attention from the obvious meaning of the Greek words, by jabbering about methodology and sociology and so on, do not make you a better Bible scholar; they merely make you a poor philologist.

@Jonathan_Burke

I have repeatedly disavowed any expertise in scholarship.

Then why is your conversational tone regarding scholarly matters always that of a lecturer, or of a professor correcting the errors of a weak student? If you regard yourself as merely an autodidactic explorer rather than a trained master, one would you think you would write in a different manner.

@Jonathan_Burke

I have already explained why this is a waste of my time.

It’s only a waste of time if you don’t have an adequate understanding of the Greek text of Mark. If you know the text, you should be able to give an account which meets my objections. I know the Greek text well – I have been working on it for some years – and will be quite able to understand your interpretation, if you will offer it.

[Jonathan_Burke]

@Jordan

Actually, I didn’t read it that way. I saw “provides strong support” as “this seems like a plausible interpretation” rather than “this is what I believe it means”. Thanks for the clarification.

Ok I guess that’s just an issue of wording. When I say that something has “strong support”, I don’t mean it’s merely plausible. In the conclusion I said the same thing, even more directly.

The combined weight of this data supports a reading of psychological dualism in the Synoptic temptation pericope; Jesus was struggling against his personal desires.

That’s my interpretation.

@Jordan

Again, I took them to be summaries of particular views from particular ancient authors. There wasn’t really anything that I saw that said that’s what you actually believed (I could have missed it).

They are explicitly my interpretations of particular views from particular ancient authors, saying exactly what I actually believe. As the article also says explicitly, they are interpretations which differ from the way most scholars interpret those views of those authors.

@Jordan

In particular, you are arguing about what 2nd Temple Judaism and some early church fathers seemed to have thought, not what you personally thought, it seemed to me.

You think that the interpretations I wrote aren’t what I really think? What do you think they are then?

@Jordan

For instance, you overview the texts that lack a reference to Satan as a being, but don’t seem to address the ones that do.

No, I addressed specifically those which do; the letters of Ignatius, and the Epistle of Barnabas. I refer to the Epistle of Barnabas speaking “explicitly of a supernatural evil referent accompanied by his own angels and presented as God’s opponent”. I say “Ignatius treats the diabolos as a supernatural being”, and “Ignatius has frequent recourse to the devil or “ruler of this age” in his etiology of evil and sin”. I am not sure how you missed this.

@Jordan

I thought you were just giving a good analysis of the beliefs of the authors based on what they do and don’t say, not necessarily summarizing your belief on the matter.

Of course I am giving an analysis of the beliefs of the authors (not merely based on what they do and don’t say), but why would you think that this analysis is not actually what I believe? Why would I write an analysis which I don’t believe?

@Jordan

To me there is a pretty big leap from how 2nd Temple Judaism and some of the 1st/early 2nd century fathers understood Satan/the devil/demons and “this is what Mark thought”.

I was not presenting the paper as evidence for what Mark thought. As I have said several times before (and I can keep repeating this as often as necessary), those papers were demonstrating the hermeneutic by which I arrive at the conclusion that Mark did not believe in demons. I am helping you understand my hermeneutical method.

@Jordan

This is an interesting thought, I’ll have to think about this. This kind of unpacking is helpful.

Thank you, I am glad that helped. I can explicate this further if necessary.

@Jordan

Yes, but I’m a scientist and not a professional interpreter. I realize my limitations here. That’s why it’s interesting to hear from people more knowledgable than myself. I simply don’t have the time and training to properly exegete the text myself. That’s also why I generally hold my interpretations “loosely” because I know I could be wrong.

Ok fair enough. As a non-scientist I have the same issue with science, in the opposite direction. As Joshua reminds us repeatedly, science is non-intuitive, which is difficult for a non-scientist to grasp because we tend to think that since science is logical then it will be intuitive, but it isn’t. Consequently I am not a good interpreter of scientific evidence.

@Jordan

I agree though that we are far from Aquinas and the original topic. I will create a stub topic for you, and as a moderator of PS I’m saying that a discussion about the strengths and weakness of orthodox and alternative interpretations of Mark 5 is allowed, as long as the conversation itself follows the community guidelines.

Thank you.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

In reply to Jordan, Jonathan Burke wrote:

@Jonathan_Burke

Because he was one of those Second Temple Period Jews who didn’t believe in supernatural evil demons.

Unsubstantiated.

This statement either means that all Second Temple Period Jews didn’t believe in supernatural evil demons (unsubstantiated) and that Mark, being a Second Temple Period Jew, would not have believed in them; or it means that some Second Temple Period Jews didn’t believe in supernatural evil demons (likely correct, though no examples are given), and that Mark was one of those (unsubstantiated).

We could know what Mark believed about demons in only one of two ways: (1) from the writings of others cognizant with his views; (2) from his own writings. And since I am unaware of any writings by anyone who knew Mark which discuss his views on demons, that leaves only Mark’s own writings. To my knowledge, the only writing generally accepted as Mark’s is the Gospel of that name. So his views on demons must be derived from that text.

@Jonathan_Burke

I don’t believe he reported it as if he did

But the Greek of the passage is against you.

@Jonathan_Burke

The Synoptics are written for people who aren’t yet Christians, whereas John is writing to mature Christians.

Both of these characterizations are debatable, especially the first.

@Jonathan_Burke

It is called “exegeting the English”.

But it’s also the most natural conclusion for someone who has studied the Greek text for several years, as I have. And it’s still unclear to me how well you are able to interpret the Greek.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@Jonathan_Burke

Consequently I am not a good interpreter of scientific evidence.

I’ll remember this the next time we discuss the evidence for anthropogenic global warming.

OK, back on topic …

[dga471 (Daniel)]

Going to close this thread for now, so that we can unify the discussion here: Burke's analysis of Mark 5.