@DickHarfield I feel most our comments should stand as said, I will remove the first one that could be read as a dig at critical scholarship if you wish but in truth a record of this should stand in my opinion.

@DickHarfield one last point, you keep speaking of having a truce, despite the fact that I am not at war with you (as I have stated) and yet your 'terms' are appear very one sided - you seem to be of the opinion that all your comments are justified and all mine are out of order.

Unless you can show where I expressed the sense that Paul's trip to Arabia was 'casual' you are misrepresenting what I said and how should I understand your insistence that you are reading them correctly when I have corrected that understanding

With all due respect friend, if we are disusing terms then the terms that I am offering are that (1) you stop reading things into my words that are not there (2) you desist from presenting critical scholars as being the whole of scholarly opinion on every matter. As I have said I will stop commenting to you on your posts and you what you do with my requests is up to you. All I would say is that respect is a two way street.

@JonathanChell I am pleased you acknowledge that at least your first comment was a dig at critical scholarship, since that is how I saw it, and no doubt many others also. Having a dig at an answer would be one way of trying to undermine it, and that is not what comments are for.

Whether or not my comments are justified and whether or not I read things into your words will cease to be relevant if we both agree not to write any comments on the other's answers. I agree to this as a 'truce' if this is acceptable to you.

I agree that the purpose of comments attached to answers is to communicate to the author of the answer, generally to show problems with the answer and help the author improve what he is trying to say. So you are right to infer that if you comment on my posts any further, you would be writing to me and no one else.

@JonathanChell However, as soon as you qualify your proposed terms by saying " I will stop commenting to you on your posts" you are creating a loophole that you would write exactly the same comments but notionally address them to someone else. I want us to agree to no comments on each other's answers, since this is the only way it is going to work.

Of course we can both continue to comment on the posts written by others, and have others comment independently on our posts. I know the hermeneutics community is very tolerant of diverse views.

You ask me not to present critical scholars as being the whole of scholarly opinion on every matter, yet I do not say "all scholars." Here my answer began "Scholars and theologians such as John Shelby Spong", which is a very serious qualification that acknowledges the possibility that other scholars (and theologians) do not agree.

I can't see anywhere in your own answer an acknowledgement that any serious scholars believe the two itineraries can not be matched. I say that not because I think you need have done so (you need not), but because it means we have both focussed on our own explanations.

So if your last set of comments means that we are to agree no longer to post any comments at all on each other's posts, then this is my agreement to those terms. Any comments we would otherwise post on answers will be posted in this chat forum. Agree?