2007-07-12

Defeat in Afghanistan and Iraq inevitable

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

….. according to Micahel Scheuer, former CIA head of their bin Laden unit. (Why? Our leaders don’t care to understand Islamic extremism, dismissing it ignorantly as hatred of Western culture). Check The Age article at:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18001.htm

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A Historian Noticing Historical Jesus and Mythicism Debates - 2024-12-28 07:40:15 GMT+0000
‘Tis that time of year when . . . - 2024-12-24 05:03:20 GMT+0000
Is Everything a Question of Probability? - 2024-12-15 03:04:03 GMT+0000

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"Neil Godfrey and Tim Widowfield, who both write at Vridar . . . happen to be some of the most astute and well-read amateurs you can read on the internet on the subject of biblical historicity. I call them amateurs only for the reason that they don’t have, so far as I know, advanced degrees in the subject. But I have often been impressed with their grasp of logic and analysis of scholarship. I don’t always agree with them, but I respect their work."

— Richard Carrier, – March 2014
This is superb work, Neil, and reminds me of Albert Schweitzer’s work from a century ago. . . . .

I commend you for being the first to even TRY to translate Bruno Bauer’s brilliant Kritik der Evangelien und Geschichte ihres Ursprungs, which is now more than 150 years old.

. . . . .Thank you for your historic effort.

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Editor, An English Edition of Bruno Bauer’s 1843 Christianity Exposed
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https://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=145080#p145080
Neil made a good synthesis of the work without being an “expert” of the field.

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It is worth saying another word of appreciation here for Neil Godfrey's effort to make Bruno Bauer accessible in English.

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"Neil, in my mature judgement (I am now an old man), this fine 4-part study is a brilliant reworking, an instructive restatement of Hayden White’s Metahistory (and his subsequent writings). Your critique of certain historiographic representations as imbedded in the case study of the “scientistic”, “empirical” Richard Carrier provides a solid starting point for the more honest “fictive” reading of the New Testament that you encourage. Your last paragraph is a very intelligent call to sensitive readers of these texts. I suspect a whole generation of biblical students has been educated without the insights provided by the incomparable White. Bravo!"

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— Earl Doherty, June 2011
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-- Klaas Spronk, - Bibliotheca Orientalis LXXI, 3/4 (2014)
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— James McGrath, – June 2009
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— April DeConick, – November 2007
"Neil, for what it is worth it is obvious to me that if you had earlier in life tracked into a graduate program at one of the world’s leading research universities you would be one of the world’s formidable ones. You are doing essentially the same quality now (apart from the philology and languages) except mostly sticking to commenting on others’ work as informed comment/discussion."

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Congratulations, Vridar, . . . I declare, Vridar, your own hard work translating Bruno Bauer will make a major difference in future studies of Bruno Bauer and the evolution of Hegel’s philosophy of religion.

-- Paul Trejo, - April 2023
"Very good. This post is going straight to the March 2016 Biblical Studies Carnival."

—N.T. Wrong, – March 2016
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-- Thomas L. Thompson, - April 2020
"For an excellent example of generally high-quality scholarship by someone who isn’t a biblical studies professor, see Neil Godfrey’s work posted on the website vridar.org."

— Tom Dykstra, – JOCABS 2015

Neil Godfrey on ‘Tis that time of year when . . .: “Ah yes — you clearly were exposed to clearer enunciation of the words than I was.” Dec 31, 00:02
John burnett on ‘Tis that time of year when . . .: “WHAT?? I always thought it was a “one horse _open_ sleigh” !! Who ever said, “sloaplin” or “slopeland” ??” Dec 30, 23:32
aussie_stockman on A Historian Noticing Historical Jesus and Mythicism Debates: “re: “If some thoughts expressed by certain mainstream biblical scholars be any guide, I suspect some of them will be…” Dec 30, 01:23
Gordon Rouse on ‘Tis that time of year when . . .: “Not as bad as my confusion that the expression ‘Peace and good-will to all men’ was an archaic expression of…” Dec 26, 23:30
Neil Godfrey on A Little Question of Past Tense Pillars in Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians: “Might not the argument in that article only further increase the problem Paul’s failure to reference Peter’s behaviour in Jerusalem…” Dec 26, 01:27
arch on A Little Question of Past Tense Pillars in Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians: “>But there is nothing in Paul’s rebuke of Peter that points to a breach of prior agreement with the three…” Dec 25, 17:06
Neil Godfrey on Review of R. G. Price’s book on the Christ Myth theory — and a review of Richard Carrier’s to come: “If you are persuaded by the kind of evidence cited then you might also be interested in a major city…” Dec 22, 23:57
Henry Cobb on Review of R. G. Price’s book on the Christ Myth theory — and a review of Richard Carrier’s to come: ““Mark’s Geography and the origin of Mark’s Gospel with Professor Richard Bauckham” shows that parts of Mark is based on…” Dec 22, 21:58
Neil Godfrey on The Folly of Bayesian Probability in “Doing History”: “A troll is someone who ignores what is being said and continues their own agenda without engaging with the logic…” Dec 21, 03:26

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