Top blogging, fourth quarter 2022

 A quarterly roundup of the most read blog posts of the past three months. Not all were new to the past three months.

No. 1, "Libertarian pseudoskeptical pseudoscience," about Brian Dunning above all, but also the Novella brothers, Steve Pinker and others, from 2010, most certainly isn't new, but remains very true.

No. 2, "Do you have free will? Is that even a discussable issue?" also from 2010, is an extensive look at a critical area of philosophy.

No. 3, "Texas science ed director resigns over ID-creationist pressure" is even older, from 2007. I suspect it's gained new life due to the recent book bans plaguing public school and community libraries here in Tex-ass.

No. 4, "Antichrist vs the man of lawlessness vs the beast ..." was given new life by me when I posted this New Testament criticism piece to the Academic Biblical subreddit.

No. 5, "Genesis 6 retold," is a very old poetic look by me at the flood story possibly reflecting an Ouranos-like castration myth.

No. 6, "Paul, Passover, Gnosticism," like No. 4, got a "goose" from posting at Academic Biblical, mainly for the idea that Paul invented the Eucharist, along with his inspiration there, and more.

No. 7, "The great ahistoricity of Acts and radical thoughts about Paul's demise," is the first on the list from 2022 and is exactly what its title says.

No. 8, "Who wrote the book of Revelation?" offers my thought for a multi-stage process with a non-Christian core. Another piece from many years ago, it too was signal-boosted by me on Reddit.

No. 9, "Split the log and I am there: Reflections on the Gospel of Thomas and beyond," was inspired by high-country hiking in the Rockies last summer. It includes photography of something that was part of a "secular spiritual experience," multilingual punning and more.

No. 10: "Jeff Kloha could have a new boss soon," was about my old Sem classmate, now cleaning up the Augean stables of Hobby Lobby's Museum of the Bible, in light of the announcement that the Hobby Lobby's Green family planned to sell the company to a nonprofit (with various loopholes, like Patagonia who inspired it).

Martin Luther did not invent the Christmas tree

 Not as it's known in German lore that spread from there to elsewhere in Europe, then the US.

Try 275 years or so later.

It's also not just that part of German-based Christmas myth that's wrong.

The piece also notes that, contra anything you might think have come from Hudson Valley Dutch and Washington Irving, that Santa Claus didn't take off until the Civil War, courtesy Thomas Nast.

This piece says that an "Adam tree," decorated with ornaments we would not tie to Christmas and without candles, came into being for a winter celebration in Germany of them about the time of Luther. More here on that, which notes that they were celebrated as SAINT Adam and Eve in the Catholicism of Luther's time. I know they're not considered Lutheran saints today and am unaware of them being Catholic ones. And, per History, the use of evergreen boughs as decorations goes back to Saturnalia. (Ancient Egypt used fresh palm rushes at a festival for Ra, so Sukkoth needs to move aside as well.)

And, American-German worshipers of British monarch? It was NOT Prince Albert who popularized the tree in the UK. Think earlier.

The case against Delbert Burkett's Proto-Mark claims, part 2

  I recently read Delbert Burkett’s “The Case for Proto-Mark.” That was after someone on the AcademicBiblcal subreddit recommended his previous book, “Rethinking the Gospel Sources: From Proto-Mark to Mark,” where he first broaches his idea of TWO Proto-Marks.

 

I wound up two-starring the book, as described two weeks ago here on site.

 

This is the second of a couple of more extensive posts on issues I found with the book. It's partially in notes form, not full sentences. It's rough version. The first review part is here.

 

I reject his version, and other anti-two sourcers’ version of minor agreements. Things like Mk 6:34 vs added Mt/Lk material on page 47, for example? This is a minor similarity, not a minor agreement. And, to turn Burkett’s own claims, and cites of modern two-sourcers backpedaling from Streeter, against him? The most that can be claimed from minor similarities is that both Luke and Matthew had access to something besides Current Mark.

 

Agreements of omission is the term I will continue to use rather than lumping them under minor agreements as “agreements of absense.” The most they can prove is that, if Mt/Lk were working off a version of Mk first, that they were both were using a copy that happened to be missing that verse. Can’t say whether that’s proto-Mk, deutero, or final. And in some cases, like Mk 2;27 missing, this is almost certainly scribal transmission.

 

The use of verbs with/without specific prepositions and details of how these are counted or not counted? I reject. I know the issue of prefixed verbs is big in authentic Paul vs Pastorals, which is part of why I reject his methodology.

 

I do agree with Burkett that oral tradition’s influence on minor agreements has probably been overstated by many two-sourcers. I disagree that it’s been as overstated as he claims, and I disagree with what I think is part of WHY he claims that, and this is his lumping of “minor similarities” with “minor agreements.”

 

Finally, the fact that Burkett, after presenting arguments against Final Mark or Standard Mark versions of Markan priority, doesn’t address deutero-Mark, but just goes on to say “then proto-Mark must be it,” doesn’t sell me.

 

That’s especially after reading Kloppenborg’s “Q,” reviewed here, where he notes that Deutero-Mark is one of four ways of explaining minor agreements, along with oral tradition, scribal harmonizing and the human nature of a common editorial solution. It's almost as if Burkett knows that no one single explanatory factor is needed for all the minor agreements (and we'll tackle a related issue in the next post) but that he tries to look at each one individually (or look by silence with deutero-Mark) and insist it must address all of them, then shoot it down.

Robert Jeffress and the Dallas Observer: STRANGE bedfellows

The Dallas Observer is Dallas-Fort Worth's alt-weekly, part of the (Village) Voice Media group. Its Dec. 1-7 issue (just 24 pages at about a 50 percent adhole, not counting house) had a quarter-page ad from Robert Jeffress. Yes, THAT Robert Jeffress, wingnut Trump-schlonging pastor at Dallas First Baptist. Rexella Van Impe, wife of the late Jack Van Impe, and herself 90 years old, is also tied in.

At the same, Bob Jeffress, Rexella, and Jack Van Impe Ministries have to be just as desperate to advertise in an alt-weekly that also carries ads from all the major DFW titty bars.

Looking at the event being advertised, are the pair going to try to do a resurrection of Jack, or what? 

On the flip slide of that?

The Observer certainly isn't resurrecting itself from any financial problems with that.

Meanwhile, let's go all biblical on Bob, from Paul himself in 2 Corinthians 6:

15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial[a]? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols?

Well, Bob?

Did Job originally end at the end of chapter 41? What's existentialism got to do with it?

I doubt it; I hugely doubt it.

That's as, per the Blake painting, to riff on a biblical phrase, I wonder: "Who watches the comforters?"

I digress. Back to the main point.

Someone at one of the biblical subreddits made such a claim about the ending of the book of Job a while back. He based that claim by the comment just before the speeches of Yahweh starting, at the end of Job's last response to his "comforters" in Job 31:40, which ends:

The words of Job are ended.

This meant that chapter 42 had to be an addition. 

I first said, in essence, that no, that could mean, "Job is done speaking for now," not "done, period."

Then, the better answer hit me in the face, namely the start of Job 40:

40 The Lord said to Job:

2  “Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!”

3 Then Job answered the Lord:

4  “I am unworthy—how can I reply to you?  I put my hand over my mouth. 5  I spoke once, but I have no answer — twice, but I will say no more.”

6 Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm:

7  “Brace yourself like a man;  I will question you, and you shall answer me.

There you go. If you really believe Job 42 is a later addition because of 31:40, then you also have to believe Job 40:3-5 is, and for linguistic smoothness, you must also believe that either 40:1-2 or 40:6 is also an interpolation.

There's also the text-historical issue. We have a copy of Job at Qumran, and it ends pretty much the way today's does, and is dated to circa 100 BCE. Given the estimated compositional history of Job, it is just possible for a later redactional addition to have been made, but not likely. See discussion here; I agree with it that IF there were an earlier version, the "whirlwind speech" of 40-41 in general was likely not part of it. 

Mainly, though, I agree that, given the prose section is clearly older, there would have had to have been SOME prose conclusion. And, there's no way of knowing whether the current and original one was the same. We DO know that, by the time of scrolls being saved at Qumran, the current prose ending was where it ended.

The correspondent, who appears to be like me, a secularist with a graduate religious degree, seemed to be looking for an "existentialist" Job. Albert Camus is in the top rank of my philosophy pantheon. I've read a fair amount of Kierkegaard, some Sartre, and in even more modern times, lots of Walter Kaufmann. It's one thing to wish for that being true; it's another thing make unsustainable redaction-critical claims to that end.

As for one other claim there, I also don't believe David Clines' insinuation (page 7 of the PDF) that there was no wager between Yahweh and (the) Satan. (Here's the homepage to download the PDF if needed.)

Rather, as I said elsewhere on the thread, gods wagering with one another is a common enough thread in antiquity, and not just in the Ancient Near East, but in Greek myth, and also in the blinding of Baldur in Norse myth that it probably has its own subsection entry in Stith Thompson's encyclopedia of folklore motifs.

I think there was a bet, and as I said in my review of "God: An Anatomy," by Francesca Stravrakopoulou (saying she gets Job wrong, too), that, the wager may have been, if Satan won, he got to sit on Yahweh's throne a week or something. And, no, that's not being facetious. Then, when this thread started, I figured Yahweh's side of the wager would be that, if he won, Satan had to ONLY "wander the earth to and fro" for a while and couldn't sit in on the divine council. (Doorknob forgive me for sounding like David Heiser.)

The problem is, as I see it, is not only that the wager idea isn't spelled out completely, in the presumably older prose stratum, but that the shift to a monotheistic framework makes the whole divine wager more problematic when it's fused with the patient sufferer poetic narratives. (Clines is right, IMO, that Yahweh is the ultimate beneficiary of Job's suffering, but IMO, that doesn't make much sense if you're denying a wager was laid.)

And so, I stand by my comment to the correspondent that, even without Paul citing a mix of Isaiah and Job in his doxology at the end of Romans 15, Job is problematic at best. Reading the book either with or without Chapter 42, he looks like a capricious cad and you're in the middle of the problem of evil. Eliminating Chapter 42 is no answer otherwise. Rather, the correspondent's claim that Yahweh's monologue is "no answer" is wrong. Rhetorical questions at staccato tempo and high volume are indeed an answer.

With chapter 42, to put it in today's terms, Job as a whole reads to me like capriciousness being covered up with a success gospel conclusion.

The prose beginning, with the implied wager, is that Job is faithful precisely because, at least in modern dual-omni god terms, he doesn't have to fear god's capriciousness. In other words, the "natural evils" portion of "the problem of evil" is something that he doesn't have to worry about. That said, given the Chaldean raiders, Job faces both natural and human evils in chapter 1, but the ancient author probably wasn't thinking of the problem of evil.

The real problem, per the "see discussion here" is that Job is internally jumbled. By Chapter 10, Job himself is saying that he can't call Yahweh to account, but yet he hints at trying anyway, and later calls out for a "defense attorney" (NOT "redeemer"). And, of course, there's the problem of Elihu jumping in out of nowhere, without either being introduced earlier, OR without being listed in need of expiation in Job 42.

There's the option of going beyond C.L. Seow, Clines elsewhere and others, and postulating that Job originally ended at 31:40 with perhaps some brief speech by Yahweh, not Elihu's five chapters followed by Yahweh's four-chapter blast. That might satisfy my existentialist friend's ideas, but, if true, would have to be early indeed in the redactional history. And, it's not the theory he presented.

Otherwise, the archaicizing language? Assuming that it is an affectation, that makes sense as far as this being a post-exilic book. The (primary/original) author is trying to provide the idea of a sage of antiquity bringing wisdom to emerging Judaism. That "emerging Judaism" as well as looking for more orthodoxy could explain the addition of Elihu. Interestingly, C.L. Seow, cited by my correspondent as believing Job 42 is an addition, thinks the Elihu speeches are original. So does the author linked there, Ragnar Andersen, who doesn't explain why Elihu is missing at both beginning and end prose segments.

There's other problems. While Elihu's speeches do foreshadow Yahweh's in talking about divine power, they don't really offer anything different than the original three friends on the problem of evil and Job allegedly having a secret sin. It is possible that the foreshadowing is why Elihu's not seen in need of expiation, and just possible that this is why he's not mentioned with Job's other friends at the start. It's still awkward literarily.

That's more than enough.

The real puzzler is why, if under my idea, the "divine gamble" idea is at least halfway botched when moving it to a monotheistic deity, Job became "canonical" for Jews. For dual-omni Christians following in Paul's misinterpretation and misthinking tracks, it's a different story.

Also, as I said to a first-time questioner there asking about Ecclesiastes being "existential" or "nihilist" (after telling him the two are not the same) that I'm hesitant about using modern philosophy terms to describe the background or authorial mindset of biblical books, starting with the much different metaphysics. If you mean "existential" in a pop psychology sense, I get where you're coming from, but I'm then going to say that you need to treat the biblical book in question like pop psychology. (That's done plenty enough anyway.)

And, that's more than enough on Job.

KERA is taking over WRR? Good after Jan. 3, I think

 I was driving home Wednesday night and wondered why I was hearing Christmas music in the 7-8 p.m. slot instead of the normal Bill McLaughlin. Then, after grocery shopping, realized I wasn't hearing the Chicago Symphony as the normal Wednesday night symphony broadcast.

So, I hit WRR's website when I got home. And found out KERA is taking over management. (Just a month after forming an agreement to take over the Denton Record Chronicle. KERA's got some big britches!)

First, the bad. WRR already played too much Christmas music from the day after Thanksgiving on. Now, we're going to get it wall to wall?

Second, the VERY good. All non-classical is being ditched. The Saturday financial shows weren't a big deal, but the Sunday church programming was an EXPLICIT First Amendment violation, given WRR being a public, as in government-owned, station. Good BYE! That explained why the Catholic priest said a week ago that he was departing. Sadly, but not surprisingly, plenty of idjits commenting on the WRR announcement on Hucksterman are clueless.

Third, the good on at least a few specific commercials. No more pseudoscience, anecdotal hawking of CBD.

Fourth, the good in another way. Ever since Laura Miller wanted to sell the frequency slot and the Cedar Hill tower, the city of Dallas has largely treated WRR like a red-haired stepchild, if not worse than that. The takeover agreement is good.

Fifth, the interesting 2.0. Going non-commercial means Friends of WRR won't need to shill. Instead, KERA says it will be converted into an advisory board.

Sixth, the hopeful? A stronger arts calendar.

Seventh, the interesting. The wall-to-wall Christmas schmaltz is so KERA can review programming options within the all-classical format. I suspect Through the Night with Peter van de Graff stays. You hear that on about ANY classical station. 

Requests?

I hope they keep the 8-10 pm symphony hall slot. 

I hope they add a block of explicitly 20th-21st century programming, preferably two hours a day.

I hope they add a slot of "world classical" music.

I hope they add a slot of American classical music.

All of this to improve the somnolent dreck they play to satisfy the blue-haired ladies that's been their angle for more than a decade at minimum.

==

I Tweeted a screengrab of the last part to Dallas Morning News classical music and arts critic Scott Cantrell, but haven't heard back.

That said, he did write several months ago about the possibility, including noting how much debt the station was racking up, and the struggles against online classical music. That would probably explain why most of the symphony broadcasts have been cut, and other syndicated broadcasting either cut or replaced. It's interesting Friends of WRR had some initial contractual concerns; let's hope, per the end of Cantrell's piece, that they were indeed addressed. Per another Cantrell piece, because of that debt, above all, this was in the works 18 months ago. Obviously, COVID added to that, and hid this from hitting my eyeballs.

Pro Publica panders to 4G, and 5G, tin-foil hatters

On my main news blog, I wrote recently about Pro Publica's reporting on a Senate committee minority report on the COVID lab-leak hypothesis, co-reported with Vanity Fair. Some people, in part due to tribalism, pushed back, claiming it got wrong either translations of Chinese documents or Chinese Communist Party tea-leaf reading, and some were saying PP had ruined its reputation.

As of the time I wrote this, PP and Vanity Fair haven't retracted or extensively modified the original piece.

On the other hand, THIS piece, claiming that there's "smoke," and posssibly "fire" behind it, on 5G 4G cellphone communication, HAS damaged its reputation. Maybe not ruined, but yes, damaged. (I thought it WAS 5G originally, but it's worse yet, if Peter Elkind is giving a platform to older, behind the curve 4G nutters, but Elkind does so to bankshot off saying, in essence, "worry about 4G and worry even more about 5G." And, that's even worse than only citing 5G.

(Spoiler alert: From everything we know on good science, it's safe.)

There are SEVERAL major "fails."

First, it's one-sided on reporting on alleged (sic) effects of 4G. Just scientist who has studied it and say there are no general fears is referenced, and he's not interviewed. He is made to look like a caricature, in my opinion.

Second, it's anecdote-based.

Third, all the claims by the tin-foil hatters about 5G have also been made in the past, when they rolled out, about 3G, and to update the original typing, are being made now about 5G. That includes semi-tin foiler DOOCCTOR (Rush Limbaugh voice) Jill Stein, 2012 and 2016 Green Party presidential candidate.

Fourth and related to that, no "professional skeptics," problematic as they can be at times, were interviewed. They and scientists alike, as in the case with Stein, would cite the "nocebo effect."

There's other problems. Strawmanning or Overton Windowing by saying the FCC hasn't updated its cell tower or cellphone standards since flip phones is one. Reality is that those things may have leaked more radiation. And, same complaints were  made at least a decade ago about phones as well as towers and specific wireless systems.

Back to the anecdotal. An increase in behavioral disorders among kids of moms who were heavy cellphone users while pregnant may be true, AND may be causational BUT not linked to cellphone radiation. Obvious counterpoint is that it could be causally correlated to psychological issues of pregnant moms who were heavy cellphone users while pregnant.

The "it irradiates sperm" was on ejaculated sperm outside of testes. Study size is TINY: 23.

Update, Jan. 4 2023: ProPublica has had Elkind write a follow-up, which is even more full of pseudoscience than the original. For example, contra PP and Elkind, electromagnetic hypersensitivity is fringe science at best, pseudoscience at worst.