TANSTAAFL

I am unsure where else than Christianity we hear this:

It's a free gift!

All you have to do is -

The rest may be safely ignored. The Christian has already revealed himself to be peddling snake-oil. Anything that comes after this wastes time.

If it's a free metaphysical gift, then - either it's not real, or - I've got the gift already and I don't have to thank you for it. I don't have to do or think anything. But this line of apologetics is never honest. Anyway, although we're done here, allow me to talk past the sale. Heaven knows the Christian who's already lost the argument will near-invariably switch tactics.

One such is to assert that our life was that gift - so simple honour demands we pay it back somehow, in gratitude ("faith") if nothing else. That assumes we're enjoying life.

More respect may be given to such as argue that the gift however costly should be accepted - and paid for - because of the alternative. This was Blaise Pascal's take. It has some vindication from Cantor (and, they tell me, Dedekind).

But paid to whom? Some Jew on a stick? Or maybe with Richard Carrier and 2 Enoch we assume the act of redemption happened on Mars' Lagrangian haloes (or so I count Fifth Heaven). There's the rub, isn't it?

Anyway, don't take the tack of fREe GiFt. It is not an honest tack so you'll sail to hell on it.

Stop the presses: Vox Day launders lies again

Beale links Neon Revolt, not imagining that Candace Owens has made herself odious all on her own.

Grok thinks the memo is realsies but Columbia University rates Grok poorly. The source is Matt Wallace, somewhere down the Charles Johnson level of credibility (pick a CJ; F. or C.). Some crypto saar confessed to the memo yesterday evening.

I'm not - or I hope I'm not - one to throw out "demonic"; that's how very bad things happen. I might allow it for Tucker Carlson who has admitted to a demonic violation himself (so: take it up with him). I am also unsure of words ending "-path" on account I am not a licenced pathologist. I instead use terms like "opportunist" or "liar". I don't know if I've used "conscienceless" yet.

I find Neon Revolt and Beale to lack conscience. Beale doesn't need the money; he just posts what he posts because he enjoys watching people scramble around to refute his lies. One suspects Tucker Carlson is in it for the money, which goes double for Milo "Nero".

Candace Owens has a husband, but any woman does hope for an independent revenue-stream in case something happens at home. I have, of course, taken no money to call shenanigans on her opportunism. Conscienceless, at that.

The good news is that Laura Loomer and others might be able to dip into the revenue-stream... of the liars. It is unfortunately difficult to come after Beale's clearinghouse; like Mark Tapscott, he doesn't lie, he links to lies and lets you come to your own conclusions (which better be the lies' conclusions).

Jews for the ish malhama

In Exodus, the Song at the Sea anthropomorphed G-d. On visiting /pol/ yesterday: I find that this Song is a proof text for Christians now. Or at least it serves "goys" as a text showing up legacy-Judaism for not being as monotheist as Jews claim it to be - which is why Rabbi Tobias Singer doesn't like it.

Here, I'll lay the case that the Rabbi should buck up... and be a man.

The Song is very old, linguistically. Later literature shows this, textually, as well. A while ago I summed up Emmanuel Tov's textual scuffing; what follows, pulls that content up here, in case anyone missed it.

In the MT, and presumably in the mouths of Miriam and Moses themselves, YHWH is a man of war (ish malhama). Elsewhere Psalm 24 prefers to hail YHWH a gabur malhama. That reading backwashed into the Samaritan Pentateuch, despite that sect not accepting the Psalter. GBR is also in the Aramaic Targum and the Syriac, here as emphatic: the gêvra, the ganbura (w-QRBTN' for the song and the psalm both which is, yes, Biblical Aramaic). I find the "גבור המלחמה" also-also in the apocalyptic War Scroll although the text is a bit corrupt here.

Tov flags Targum's "Samaritan" switch from "man" to "jabbâr" unusual inasmuch as Targum prefers MT; personally I disagree, and consider the Samaritan as inlining midrash into the text itself, as Targum did perhaps-independently. Psalm 24 exists to bind the Psalter's first book (Ps. 3-41), and may be read as an update or even critique to the Song of the Sea. The wordshift to gbr seems also to have afflicted Arab apocalyptic and the Palaestinian tradition.

Anyway. As Ash Maiz points out, ish only means a "man". David tells Solomon (in CBH) to be an ish. Not to be a master or a lord or (lol) a husband; just to be the least of what you are made of. Take care of your business.

It is exactly because ish can only mean "man" that so many pietists referring to it have attempted to change it. As Maiz also points out, none of this is even necessary. Christians don't even bother referring to it much; and - you know why? Because it is a poem. It's just some dudes and young girls singing a song.

Really at stake for Jews (if not for Samaritans) isn't G-d's transcendence, which cannot be harmed by this harmless song. The Jews' Psalter is chock-full of para-pagan imagery, yea even unto CBH. At stake is whether Miriam and Moses and Aaron, supposedly superior to that sinner David, could sing this song.

But - even then; all Israel is on their way to Sinai where they are about to - okay, spoiler-alert. Suffice that their innocent song here might foreshadow their fuller misunderstanding, at that Mount. Maiz could have mentioned this too. I find of interest that Maiz didn't.

Rather: Singer could have mentioned it (a lotta that goin' round). I called yesterday's match 2-0, for Maiz. This one gotta be a 0-0 draw; if Singer had kept it at that, I doubt Maiz even would have touched this one.

Shirk in Judaism

Ash Maiz and R. Tobias Singer, title-fight! The issue here is the extent to which Christianity violates tawhid. Singer proposes, to a Muslim, that Jews don't. It's important to Jews that Muslims don't see Jews as mushriks; on account that, for Muslims, G-d Himself has accused Jews for as much in sura 9.

Maiz points out that Jews do in fact venerate saints. (So have most Muslims, historically. Speaking as an ex-Algerian.) And not just at the Tomb of Rachel or the Tomb of Abraham (or the tomb of 'Alî Reza); but at the Tomb of Schneerson. Visitors leave written notes for this Rabbi. Maiz further points out, whether it's to exonerate these pilgrims or no, that Jews had been doing this since the "first century" which to Maiz means A.D. (Maiz is a converso, like me).

The Jewish attack on shirk by contrast might be more recent. Their term as vocalised is שִׁתּוּף so shitûph in Aramaised Hebrew. I do not find it to predate the commentaries on the Babylonian Talmud; so it looks to postdate [Madinan] Islam, likely 'Abd al-Malik. That Talmud extends into the Islamic era, and was not much adhered until then (probably because it wasn't fixed). Even so שִׁתּוּף does not exist in the text, or at least is not explained.

None of this is to condemn nor to condone sura 9, which I'll leave to others, others as might still think sura 9 is worth defending or opposing. This is to point out that (1) Judaism calls upon Saints for intercession and (2) Judaism's שִׁתּוּף against others is opportunistic and not core to that faith. 2-0 to Maiz.

How Michael Licona can save himself

Revisionist antitheologian Dr Richard Carrier almost restrains himself from ranting about Trump long enough to review some Christian apologists. At bat were Michael Licona and Jonathan Sheffield (reversing Carrier's title), against Bart Ehrman perhaps a para-apologist in Carrier's sight.

Carrier is getting too old to put up with debates much, but he's been at the podia long-enough he can effectively rate others'. Here, Carrier rates the trio Sheffield > Ehrman > Licona. Since Licona needs the help most, let's help him. I share the spirit of Sheffield, as a theist (Nestorian-Christian specifically) willing to hear out the skeptics. However amateurishly in my case.

First, an aside: on Mark's Aramaic. May I suggest - to Carrier, not to Licona - that Mark using targum hardly implies Mark's distance from Peter's ambit. This more implies the opposite, that Peter's people were steeped in the Aramaic culture from Hebron to Damascus (we needn't go further north; Edessa comes later). Hence why contemporaries called him Kepha (Aramaic), and not ho Petros (Greek) until 1 Clement and Mark. Not that it much matters to anyone anymore.

Licona went wrong in that Mark talked more about Peter than "the others". This opened Licona to Carrier's observation that nuh-uh, Matthew was. Licona could - instead - concede Marcan Priority. From this basis Mark would be talking about Peter more than Mark's contemporaries and sources. These would include Paul's letters, which is why Paul's doctrines even show up. One can also bring Evan Powell that some lore against Peter was floating around. This wasn't 1 Clement which is proPeter. I submit it wasn't Paul who was generally amiable to "Cephas"; e.g. Paul says nothing about Peter abandoning Christ at the Passion, as Paul might as he is hotly debating Peter's party and defending his own apostolate. So... who was it? I'd suggest, the Beloved Disciple had put something out - which Carrier is here and there hinting. If we don't like Powell's proposal of John 1-20, Carrier might have to accept *Lazarus its source. Or even some scurrilous Life Of Peter we do not anymore own (think, George of Resh'ayna's take[down] on Maximus).

If Licona had held that stance - that Mark is defending Peter to a Pauline community, against the Beloved Community (John? Lazarus?) - Mark does not have to be taking Peter's direct dictation. Mark can be writing after Peter's death, on the frame of the antiPetrine lore. The late Peter has enough surviving friends who can fill in details here and there; and, of course, Mark has Paul's letters. From the position of Mark as Peter's literary advocate, a Papias can spin that into "amanuensis" (scribe, for us Latins). But Licona doesn't have to.

All this assumes Licona is not tied to an episcopal anvil like, oh, Pitre and Hahn.

Jacob Edessene's dispensationalism

Jacob, or James, was Miaphysite (or, "Jacobite") bishop of Edessa-Callirrhoë AD 684-7 - although he'd call it AG 995-8. He then retired to monasteries, first Tel 'Adda. There he dared define Christianity. Michael Penn has translated what remains of the definition.

Reasonably Penn pins this project in reaction to 'Abd al-Malik's supremacism, perhaps preparing for a debate. Jacob would stay in that abbey until AD 698; Ibn al-Ash'ath hadn't yet proclaimed his "nasirate".

The most striking part of this definition is its dispensationalism. In Jacob's thought, Christianity was practiced by Adam and Eve to the extent they were following God's Command. Christ was known to the Prophets, if they didn't know exactly how He'd show up. Christ's age is the sixth age. Outsiders may observe here sura 3's claim, that Christ was rather the culmination of Prophecy - for the Jews; not otherwise to distract from Allâh.

If God was holding back His epiphany in Christ's form, one can ask Jacob to what degree free-will can exist. I take it that his epistle on the qadar, as summarised Michael Cook, would follow this up.

Faliscan Spain

In a former life I suggested an aspect of Spanish, and of Italian dialect, to be Old Latin. The conjecture was that duenos > *buenos > bueno > buono. Spain got the bueno stage, mid-second-century; Rome got as far as bonu, restoring the -s perhaps-artificially because they had Greeks about. Hey, a Dominican blogger liked it over on his blog . . .

Today, let's discuss the famous f > h.

Ferdinand becomes Fernando in several Iberian postLatin dialects. In Castilian, the man is Hernan or Hernando. Similarly what should be filho is hijo. I'd been under the impression this was late. It has to be annoying to the Portuguese which makes some explanation why they are not part of Spain to-day.

But maybe it's not late. Faliscan has hileo. Some northern Italians have reported this shift in their dialects as well. Sicilians might have the excuse of Spanish occupation but I don't think this ever happened in the north; those guys had to deal with the French instead, whose Romance dialects as far as I know have no such shift.

Also northwest[-of-the-peninsula] Italy endured a Gaulish incursion. The late Republic had to call this place Cisalpine Gaul (Caesar being busy on the transAlps). I don't find anything like hileo in any Gaulish.

Propose here that Romanised Faliscans were recruited to settle Spain. Additional waves of Romans, who weren't Faliscan, came later and got to Lusitania and our Galicia.