2009-10-23

Response to creationist Jonathan Sarfati

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

by Neil Godfrey

I will not be accepting an invitation I recently received to attend a lecture by creationist Jonathan Sarfati. I looked at Creation Ministries website and found an online book of his there, and dashed off my responses to it chapter by chapter and pasted it in Google Docs: http://tinyurl.com/jsarfati. Will respond to my invitation by directing my inviter to this page.

I’m sure someone more knowledgeable could write a better response, and I’m willing to take suggestions for improvement on board. But I had to start somewhere.

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neilgodfrey says:

2009-10-24 22:38:32 GMT+0000 at 22:38

Have updated my response to Sarfati at http://tinyurl.com/jsarfati

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neilgodfrey says:

2009-10-26 07:06:14 GMT+0000 at 07:06

For related posts see my archive Evolution, Science

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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.

-- Enrico Tuccinardi, - October 2022
"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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"Thanks for your very elaborate review! I realized that I hadn’t added your blog to our blogroll. This oversight has been corrected. Looking forward to more segments."

— Anthony Le Donne, – September 2009
"These reviews of yours are so bloody weird!"

— James Crossley, – April 2010
"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."

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— Gregory Doudna, – January 2019
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"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
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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
"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.

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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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Andrew Dabrowski on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 3 – “received with pleasure”: “(I should have written “emend”.) I mean that many propose the entire TF is a later insertion. That’s arguably a…” Jul 3, 19:33
Neil Godfrey on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 3 – “received with pleasure”: “There’s a thread about my reviews on the Early Writings Forum — and after a little flurry of personal attacks…” Jul 3, 08:23
Neil Godfrey on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 3 – “received with pleasure”: “In what way is my reasoning “dubious” here? (Sorry — I’m missing your point. — I write these things publicly…” Jul 3, 08:15
Andrew Dabrowski on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 3 – “received with pleasure”: “I agree with you the TF is probably fraudulent. But if so it reveals your reasoning here to be dubious:…” Jul 3, 01:47
Neil Godfrey on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 3 – “received with pleasure”: “What Morton Smith wrote was: If we suppose the alterations to the text were minimal, the original was something like…” Jul 3, 01:28
Neil Godfrey on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 3 – “received with pleasure”: “I have addressed Morton Smith’s methods several times now. Unfortunately he falls into the traps of circular reasoning and confirmation…” Jul 3, 00:26
Neil Godfrey on Speaking of Josephus . . . .: “There is nothing historical about Acts. It is second century fiction. The scenes are borrowed from the gospels and created…” Jul 3, 00:20
Thomas Worthington on Pitfalls in Seeking Authenticity in Ancient Texts: “This all reminds me of dealing with chatGPT and other LLMs which simply can not bring themselves to say “I…” Jul 2, 07:58
Mike on Pitfalls in Seeking Authenticity in Ancient Texts: “Was proved centuries ago, God of Abraham was completely invented Cephas (Peter) and Paul invented Jesus from their “visions” Even…” Jul 2, 01:37

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