The Upper Room

12:02 AM

@LeeWoofenden No that is always appropriate. But the indefinite they is also perfectly normal in its appropriate uses, and that's not because of a political bias or even because of language change - the indefinite they was used by Chaucer, and you can't get much older than him before the language is almost totally unrecognisable!

Sometimes I argue for it a bit more strongly than is needed ;)

@Addem If you can find any secular academic historian who thinks Jesus didn't exist then the famous Aussie historian John Dickson has promised to eat some pages either from the Bible or from some of his books (I can't remember exactly what he promised...)

Addem

12:24 AM

@curiousdannii Interesting, I've found some people with some seemingly impressive credentials. I wonder what Dickson requires for a person to be called an "academic historian".

ThaddeusB

1:09 AM

Mods will be happy to know your "should be closed" flags are about to drop... I finally hit 3k thanks to @H3br3wHamm3r81's generous bounty :)

Lee Woofenden

1:22 AM

@curiousdannii Chaucer used "they" to refer to a single individual whose gender is known or specified? I'd like to see examples of that.

@ThaddeusB Congratulations! Truly a precipitous rise!

curiousdannii

3:00 AM

@Lee, I didn't say that, I said he used the indefinite they.

@Addem mobile.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-17/…

Who have you found so far?

Lee Woofenden

3:26 AM

@curiousdannii That wasn't the issue. But I'd be interested to see what examples you would provide from Chaucer.

curiousdannii

3:37 AM

Singular they

Singular they is the use in English of the pronoun they, or its inflected or derivative forms, such as them, their, or themselves, as a "pronoun that is neutral between masculine and feminine", to refer to a single person or an antecedent that is grammatically singular. It typically occurs with an antecedent of indeterminate gender, as in sentences such as: "Everyone returned to their seats." "Somebody left their umbrella in the office. Would they please collect it?" "The patient should be told at the outset how much they will be required to pay." "But a journalist should not be forced to reveal...

The following Shakespeare example is interesting, it looks like them is used for a generic class whose gender is known (mothers)

I will never say that someone's personal feeling as to whether something is natural or unnatural is wrong, but I can't stand it when people, for whatever reason, claim that the singular/indefinite they is in any way a modern thing :)

Bruce Alderman

4:16 AM

@Addem If you're interested in continuing the discussion about the historicity of Jesus, here are some of the criteria historians look at: First, they look for the earliest available writings that mention the person. In the case of Jesus, that's the letters of Paul (and possibly James) and the gospel of Mark. Then they look for incidental comments about the person's life, things that have no larger significance.

For example, in Galatians Paul mentions meeting with Cephas (Peter) and with "James, the Lord's brother." That is, though Paul never claims to have met Jesus except in a vision, he has met Jesus' brother, who is real flesh and blood. He does not think it odd that Jesus would have a brother, and he does not expect any of the letter's recipients to need a further explanation.

This same James is mentioned in the works of Josephus (Antiquities 20.9) "Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James." Again, the focus is on James, but the fact that Jesus was mentioned at all means James was known for being the brother of Jesus.

These are the sorts of things that incline historians to believe there was a real person named Jesus of Nazareth, who had some notoriety in Judea in the first century.

Then there is the criterion of embarrassment: The New Testament says certain things about Jesus that don't conform with Christian doctrine. For example, Christians believe Jesus was sinless. Yet Jesus went to the Jordan River to see John the Baptizer, who baptized people for the forgiveness of sins.

The Gospel of Mark (probably the earliest gospel) says John baptized Jesus, then Jesus saw a vision of the Spirit of God descending on him like a dove. God speaks to Jesus alone, saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:9-11‌)

In the later gospels, Jesus' baptism is de-emphasized: Matthew has John question why he should baptize Jesus, and Jesus assures him that the baptism "fulfills all righteousness"; furthermore, God's voice speaks to the group; "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." (Matthew 3:13-17)

Lee Woofenden

4:38 AM

@curiousdannii Most of the examples on the Wikipedia page are not gender-specific--though a few of them are. I do wonder how common it was to use "they." And number agreement seems not to have been considered so important during those time periods. At least one of the gender-specific examples seems to involve a switch from singular to plural.

Bruce Alderman

Luke has John put in prison by Herod before he mentions Jesus being baptized (Luke 3:19-22), and John the evangelist has John the Baptist recognize Jesus, but not ever actually baptize him. (John 1:19-34)

Had Jesus never lived, he would never have visited John the Baptist, and this embarrassing incident wouldn't have needed to be explained away.

Lee Woofenden

@curiousdannii In recent years "they" has become the preferred pronoun to use even in the singular, driven largely by the desire for gender neutrality. I grew up before that was the case, so it still sounds unnatural and ungrammatical to my ears. And in formal usage, it's still not considered optimal.

Bruce Alderman

@Addem There are actually several incidents like this in the gospels (e.g. Jesus is criticized by his brothers; at one point he refers to gentiles as dogs; he did not get along with other religious leaders; he was arrested and crucified; his closest disciples abandoned him at the end; the empty tomb was found not by his disciples but by a group of women, whose testimony was not considered reliable in that time and culture).

And again, a lot of the problems are seen most clearly in the gospel of Mark, and are downplayed in the later gospels. This is seen by modern historians as evidence that they are dealing with real incidents and not myth-making.

By contrast, if you look at the works of Xenophon, disciple of Socrates, and compare his writings with those in Plato, you'll find agreement on a small subset of the teachings of Socrates. Most of Plato's later works differ significantly from anything that can be confirmed in other sources. And even in the writings that do overlap, (e.g. the Apology), Socrates comes across as a very different person in Xenophon than in Plato.

(Socrates' Apology by Xenophon | Socrates' Apology by Plato) It's clear that Socrates' disciples projected a lot of themselves onto Socrates. But that these were taught by the same individual named Socrates, there is little doubt.

It would be more difficult to explain why two very different philosophers would have chosen to have been influenced by the same fictional character, than to explain how two very different philosophers could have been influenced by the same historical teacher.

Likewise with Jesus. There are more difficulties in explaining how Jesus' disciples could have done what they did and attributed it to a mythical character, than in explaining their actions and the subsequent spread of Christianity as the result of their devotion to a real, historical teacher.

That's not to say the gospels are history; they are theology, first and foremost. But there is enough history in them to say with a high degree of certainty that Jesus of Nazareth actually lived.

curiousdannii

10:02 AM

This question is technically on-topic, but I don't think it's very well written. It's a bit of a confusing ramble. The question states a lot of its authors opinions as facts, and doesn't seem to show much awareness of Catholic doctrine. our finiteness is original sin - this is a statement found towards the beginning, which the rest builds upon. If it is inaccurate, how should answers address the final questions? — curiousdannii 2 mins ago

@ThaddeusB I don't think your title edit was correct - this makes it look like they're asking about human-human abuse: whether our continuing to try to give in this way predisposes us to abuse by others in this life — curiousdannii 43 secs ago

ThaddeusB

3:01 PM

@curiousdannii Yes, it's a good question but really needs a bold re-write

Lee Woofenden

5:16 PM

@ThaddeusB I'm working on an edit

Lee Woofenden

5:33 PM

@ThaddeusB @curiousdannii I've now done a major edit to this question to focus it on what seems to be the OP's core questions, and eliminate a lot of the tangents along the way. The title is long, but I believe it encapsulates what the OP is asking. I also adjusted the tags, and added a new "abusive-relationships" tag.

My edit does make the one existing answer, by @FMS, to be clearly off-topic. But I don't think that answer actually answered the OP's question in the first place.

ThaddeusB

5:54 PM

Bounty tithing, I see! — Nathaniel 20 mins ago

@Nathaniel Haha, didn't even notice the 10% - nice catch

@LeeWoofenden Looks good.

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