Talk:Christ myth theory/Archive 7

message: Scholarly books from academic publishers have as high a standing as scholarly journals. The relative importance depends on the field. In religion, and for that matter in anthropology, and in the humanities and "soft" (i.e. non-mathematical) social sciences generally,  truly major seminal works are usually published as books.  OUP may make a good deal of its money from bibles, but has no religious bias for its academic books (which usually make very little money in any case). Eerdmans is primarily a religious publisher, but that does not mean the works lack scholarship. In general academic books from such publishers are published only after 3 or 4 positive peer-reviews, of at least equal rigour to that of journals.   Prometheus is of course a POV publisher in the classic sense, but even that does not mean all its works are unreliable, just that reviews would need to be cited. Most denominational publishing houses similarly.  DGG (talk) 21:03, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You missed the point I was making about the COI problem OUP has.  It not just that they make a lot of money from printing bibles but they make a lot money printing a specific kind of bible (KJV) whose copyright is held by the Crown and the blasphemy Law the UK had until May 2008.  Wiki sums up the law as being "All blasphemies against God, including denying his/her/their being or providence, all contumelious reproaches of Jesus Christ, all profane scoffing at the Holy Scriptures, and exposing any part thereof to contempt or ridicule, were punishable by the temporal courts with fine, imprisonment, and corporal punishment."  Given the law had been used (abet in a private case) as recently as 1977 the COI problems of a publishing company who has a lucrative contract with the Crown and such a law on the books should be obvious.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:42, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Grubb, are these posts of yours all some kind of laborious online joke?  Are you seriously suggesting that OUP has a conflict of interest and therefore won't publish works critical or disparaging of Christianity?  Can you provide any information on exactly how much money the OUP actually makes from printing the KJV?  Given that a few years ago they discontinued one of the historically most popular editions of the KJV (the Oxford Wide Margin KJV), I doubt that they make any kind of significant money from printing the KJV at all.  As for your point about blasphemy law, what are you trying to say?  It's clear you have no idea of what constitutes peer reviewed literature, or what constitutes a genuine conflict of interest.  --Taiwan boi (talk) 06:17, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well in the Blasphemy Law has used to limit certain lines of questioning and portrayals of Jesus (from 1698 to as late as 1977 with an attempt as in 2005) so the idea of a printing company in such a country being being pro historical Jesus especially when they have a contract with the Crown to publish Authorized King James Version(latest printing April 17, 2008) is not that out in left field.  I do know what constitutes peer reviewed literature (Miner, Cole, Dunnel, Kirch, Wenke, Charlton, Meltzer, Davis, Naroll, Simmons, and Schroder are all peer reviewed authors) and do know that COI can exist at the institutional level.  Brigham Young University Press prints peer reviewed literature but wouldn't you wonder out them having COI issues regarding any of the pro-Morman books they have put out?  I know I would.--BruceGrubb (talk) 11:42, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Bruce, you do know, don't you, that the UK is one of the most unreligious countries in the world. See the statistics on religious belief in the UK. You cam buy any books you like on atheism, Jesus Myth etc. I don't see Richard Dawkins worrying about being prosecuted under the blasphemy law, which is almost never used, and only then for egregiously offensive publications. Paul B (talk) 10:30, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: "UK is one of the most unreligious countries in the world".  You have GOT to be kidding.  Why do you think part of the reason the mess in Northern Ireland has going on as long as it has?  Religion.  Another thing is not all religions are as 'my way or no way' as Christianity and Islam are (Taoism, Buddhism, and Shintoism are very 'open' religions).  In fact, Carl Sagan quotes from a one of the Buddhist test which questions if the god really made the world or universe.  Also the UK had been getting pressure to drop the blasphemy law as early as 1998 and considering the issues of how it was enforced when it was used there was obviously a pro-Christianity slant to the law.--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:44, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

text: Bruce, I don't really understand why you're belaboring this point. It's clear that you're not convincing anyone else that the Oxford U. Press has "problems", and this no longer seems to relate to a specific content dispute in the article. So could we please end this discussion, since talk pages are not chat forums? If you have further questions/doubts about sources, please take Paul's advice at post at the reliable sources noticeboard. --Akhilleus (talk) 12:09, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

text: Grubb, once again your post doesn't address the issue.  Reaching back to 1698 for examples of what the blasphemy law has been used for is completely irrelevant to the issue at hand.  The issue at hand is whether or not the OUP has a conflict of interest when it comes to publishing on the topic of Jesus, because it publishes the KJV and because of the blasphemy law.  That was your claim and to date you have provided absolutely no evidence for it.  You have certainly provided absolutely no evidence that the OUP takes any notice of the blasphemy law, or that its actions are in any way constrained by it.  You have also provided absolutely no evidence that the OUP's publication of the KJV has any effect whatever on its publishing decisions.  And which 'peer reviewed literature' does Brigham Young University Press publish?  If it published genuine peer reviewed literature, and some of it happened to be pro-Mormon, that would not be a conflict of interest, as long as it is genuinely peer reviewed.  But of course, if it published genuine peer reviewed literature on the subject, it would also be publishing literature which was anti-Mormon.  This shows again that you don't really understand what 'peer reviewed' means.  It means that the literature is open to public review and criticism by all relevant professionals in the field, regardless of whether or not they have the same beliefs or hold the same position on the issue as the author.  This is how the peer review process helps produce quality work and weeds out partisan literature.  --Taiwan boi (talk) 06:32, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You really don't get how a COI can taint the peer review process.  Ironically OUP put out a book called Conflict of Interest in the Professions edited by by Michael Davis and Andrew Stark which shows how a COI can arise even amoung the best professionals.  Again I must point back to the Miner article which was the first to demonstrate how the very model can influence the outcome of a study and the person using the model may not realize that the model itself creates the COI.  Or do you believe that the USA is composed of a bunch of magic happy bone through their nose primitives?--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:44, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: books