"Galileo's head was on the block ... "
I recently asked an apologist blogger to complete the "refutation" of the Tübingen Scholars and of the Dutch Radicals which he had started a year before. My request was based on my frustration due to my observation that no apologist/polemicist ever adequately addresses the problems raised by the arguments stemming from these two all-but-forgotten historical-scholarly entities. These mainly (for my purpose) have to do with the 'inauthenticity' of the pauline corpus and the implications that follow this conclusion.
Before commenting on a few of the specifics of this gentlemen's 'refutation', I must comment on my immediate reaction to the style and form of this kind of apologetic enterprise, as I believe these to be part and parcel of the problem of research regarding these matters.
Let's go way back.
Long ago we started watching the skies at night. Years and decades and aeons of observations made it possible for us to theorize about the movement of celestial bodies in the firmament. Beside the obvious fact that the moon was our monthly dancing partner, we began noticing that the stars don't ever change positions relative to each other and that they go around and around the earth at a set regular rate of movement that corresponds to the yearly seasonal cycles. This observation made people realize that the firmament is in fact in constant revolution around our little planet (and, again, relatively speaking, this is true).
Next we noticed a different kind of celestial body in motion. Planets. Planets, however, seem to display a somewhat different pattern of movement through the sky, one with much variation. They are all over the place compared to the stars, further observation and cataloguing revealed that even these seemingly chaotic bodies are also in constant regular revolutions around the Earth. Always around the Earth. This was the only conclusion that the early philosophers could come to in a pre-scientific world, based on the observational criteria they had. All heavenly bodies revolve around the earth. It's obvious, no?
There's a little problem, though. It became almost immediately apparent that the orbits of all of these celestial bodies around the Earth were not always perfectly circular (the circle being the "perfect" form of motion according to our logical and metaphysical ruminations). In fact, a model which would explain the apparently asymmetrical orbits would require the use of epicycles and deferents to explain these orbital anomalies.
This is in fact what Hipparchus (c. 190 BC – c. 120 BC) brilliantly came up with to explain the retrograde motion of such strange orbits as those of Venus and Mars. (see above figure for an example of what an epicycle is)
This was a brilliant solution for an observable natural phenomenon. Hipparcus in fact built a room-size mechanism, a model using these epicycles, with all of the heavenly bodies revolving around the Earth in a rigorously synchronized cosmic ballet. This model was so good, in fact, that with it he could predict solar eclipses and other celestial events—decades in advance—with remarkable accuracy.
Right about this same time another man, Seleucus of Seleucia (c. 190–150s BC), hit upon the idea that the orbits of celestial bodies would be simplified—epicycles no more—if only we would place the sun in the middle of the scheme instead of the Earth.
Duh!
The point that I'm after here is that epicycles, brilliant constructs that they are, (They work! They explain so much!) are not reality. Though they solve a philosophical problem in the eye of the observer, they did not reflect the reality of the cosmos.
And this is the sort of thing that apologetics in general (but especially the "historical" variety) reminds me of. Pages and pages devoted to epicyclic spinnings-in-place. It all looks so very systematic and erudite. Secondary and tertiary sources are quoted copiously. Cross-referenced.
I actually read the forums that the apologist blogger directed me to regarding the Dutch Radicals.
He referred me for instance to a link that "rips Hermann Detering a new one for his ridiculous arguments based on his misunderstanding of the mechanics of letter production, the different kinds of letters, and travel in the ancient world."
Well, I read the article. Lupia rightly points out Detering's limitation as a paleographer or papyrologist or what-have-you, but to simply list some thirty-one varieties of letters and then say that Romans is sorta kinda like a Diogenes Laërtius work? That's it? That's weak! It's the rhetorical equivalent of: See? You didn't even know there were eight different conjugations of the verb "estar"!! . . . Such 'gotcha' type epicycles may serve to point out an individual's deficiencies in some specialty field, true, but to imagine that a lack of specialization in papyrology (or whatever) disqualifies a historian from commenting on the general form and function of an epistle. Well . . . that's just silly. As Bob Dylan once sang, "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."
Yet, this supposedly "rips Detering a new one". The apologist treats it like one more slam dunk.
Slam dunk? It's barely relevant!
Even if you could semantically call "Romans" (or Ignatius' "letters" or 1st Clement, or whatever) a "letter" because another long diatribe is called a letter in 300 CE or so, it's still not functionally a letter (no more than Diogeneses' letter to Herodotus is—THAT's the point!). Detering's point stands.
The modern historico-apologetic enterprise has been so busy at work conceiving epicycle solutions to the problems that beset the texts. They're brilliant at it.
Well . . . . I'd like to commission a few epicycles from some apologist. Not too many; in fact, I prefer to deal with them one at a time and at length (one of my complaints about the apologists MO is that they throw out a lot of information in a short time, declare some finality to it all and move on to the next desultory point. Ironically, it's like listening to an astrology buff wax on and on about some favorite astral exegesis. Yes, it's ancient. Yes, it's highly systematized. Yes, it is historically deep. Astrology is not an adequate view of reality nevertheless, and no amount of prolixity and erudition will change that.
Anyway . . . I'd like a few custom-made epicycles from one of my apologist readers:
- Why do you think that, even if they are authentic —which they almost certainly are not—The author of the Ignjatian corpus only knows for sure of one Pauline letter? I mean, this reportedly happened in 106–110, right.
- While I'm on the topic of Ignatius . . . Why do you suppose that there was a tradition all the way up to the fifth century, in ANTIOCH, no less (Ignatius' home turf) that Ignatius had been martyred there at Antioch (John Malalas). Mind you, I am not saying that his version is true. I don't care. What I'm saying is, Why is there this independent tradition in Antioch, if everyone knew that Ignatius died in Rome after writing a book (I mean, some letters ;)? Would the Antiochenes not know of it?
I'd love to see what epicycles may come.
kinda
o_Ó
Ó
.
