Tasks still making their way here, — and one important discussion

Sitting at my desk in the dim cold morning light, looking out the glass wall before me and seeing children walking to school, I am feeling impatient to resume my own online formal studies that are about to get underway. I had hoped to post much more here in the recent break. Alas, those posts will have to wait longer. They included:

• • a response to Richard Carrier’s [misguided] review of Enrico Tuccinardi’s stylometric argument for interpolations in Pliny’s letter to Trajan about the trials of Christians. Instead, at least for now I will leave this link to Enrico’s own response to Richard’s criticism: Stylometry, Method and Mispresentation: a Response to Richard Carrier on Pliny’s Ep. 10.96

• • detailed analysis of Fernando Bermejo-Rubio’s “subversive Jesus hypothesis”. (In my view, the argument digs deeper the pit of fallacies that have been at the heart of historical Jesus studies. It does this by means of reframing with new language those same logically flawed methods and even adding others that require and demonstrate outstanding courage.)

• • a more complete response to Tom Schmidt’s Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ. Instead, I will have to content myself with one more post addressing this argument. It (Review 5) will follow this post.

I hope I can remember (or that someone will remind me) to return to that list and complete them at the end of the year/early next year — except for Review 5, as mentioned.

Meanwhile, I see a picture in my mind of a lone figure at a desk somewhere in early 1940s Europe, walled off from the collapsed yet still collapsing world around him. The least can do now is post this discussion that I found helpful in processing the contradictions we have had to confront: