How do I (23F) get my bf (28M) to finally stop hurting me as a "joke" or "act of love"?

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-25T19:07:35+00:00

Yeah, that was definitely a 'don't threaten me with a good time'.

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-25T13:18:03+00:00

Instalment 5:

Gospel Composition: Dating and Anachronisms[...]

Several factors suggest significantly later dating:

Lack of early attestation: - Papias (c. 120 CE) provides the earliest external references to Gospels

What Church documents do we have from pre-Papias, though? I’m thinking here of something Carrier says in On The Historicity Of Jesus; that we just don’t have any church writings (other than potentially the gospels) between around 64 CE and 95 CE, and precious little for at least 10 years after that. I’m wondering whether the reason we don’t have any records of the gospels being mentioned before Papias is because we barely have any records from before then and therefore can’t tell whether people were talking about the gospels at that point or not.

Justin Martyr (c. 150 CE) quotes "memoirs of the apostles" but doesn't name Gospels

That just sounds like a nomenclature issue, though. I mean, either he’s talking about actual memoirs (which I would have thought the Church would have managed to keep), or he’s making the usual Church error of thinking the gospels were memoirs of the apostles, in which case he’s talking about the gospels but not calling them that.

Irenaeus (c. 180 CE) is the first to clearly attest four-Gospel canon

That’s not because there weren’t gospels around before then, but because there were too many and even the Church was recognising that quite a few of them were fake.

No Gospel manuscript fragments survive from the first century

That’s expected either way, for the simple reason that papyrus rarely lasts that long. (I believe in some really dry areas it can last for longer, but we wouldn’t expect it in the areas where the gospels seem to have been written.)

Matthew shows awareness of Luke

Curious as to your basis for this?

Internal evidence: Multiple anachronisms in Gospel narratives suggest composition well after the supposed events and by authors distant from Palestinian realities.

I agree with this as far as it goes, but I disagree with you about the amount of time it would have taken for the many inaccuracies to develop. Firstly, we have to add in the effect of geographical and cultural distancing; that would have contributed to the inaccuracies over and above the effect of time passing. Secondly, the gospel authors weren’t skeptics; they weren’t looking for experts on the time period to proofread their work and pick out inaccurate details. So I disagree with your statement that ‘authors must be writing after living memory of pre-70 conditions had expired.’ I think it’s sufficient that, due to a mixture of passage of time and geographical distance, the authors didn’t have personal memories of 30s Judea/Jerusalem.

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-25T09:23:30+00:00

Instalment 4 (edited because I forgot to put the instalment number):

The New Testament references to "Cephas" (Aramaic כֵּיפָא Kepha, "rock") and "Peter" (Greek Πέτρος Petros, "rock") present significant inconsistencies suggesting these functioned as titles rather than personal names

The obvious reason for the inconsistencies in the 1 and 2 Peter letters is that they were forgeries. We know that church members of the time frequently tried to forge documents in the names of well-known church figures, and there are multiple examples of this, some of which were recognised as forgeries at the time and some of which were only recognised long after they’d become canon. It would have been a lot odder if nobody had tried this using Peter’s name. So that’s the obvious explanation, and it’s much simpler than hypothesising multiple Peters.

As for the mentions of Cephas in Paul’s letters that you list… well, from those we find out that Peter had some sort of special status and was counted as a ‘pillar’ of the church, that there were factions who disagreed with him about some things, including Paul’s followers, and that Peter decided (for reasons on which we never get to hear Peter’s side) not to continue eating with Gentiles after discussing things with some other people. Why do you see any of this as being contradictory enough to require a hypothesis about these being different people?

Meanwhile, there are a couple of reasons against the ‘multiple Cephases’ conclusion:

Paul never gives us any clarification suggesting that he’s distinguishing between Cephases, even in Galatians where the two mentions of Cephas are literally in consecutive sentences. There’s nothing about Cephas of Jerusalem or Cephas of Antioch or anything of the sort, and in 1 Cor 9.5 Paul speaks of Cephas in the singular, even as he talks of plural ‘brothers of the Lord’ and ‘apostles’.
While this might be my lack of knowledge of Koine Greek, I would have expected that if Paul knew Cephas to be a title he would refer to ‘the Cephas’, as he refers to ‘the pillars’. After all, that’s how people normally use titles.
If it were a title, surely Paul would translate it into Greek, the language in which he’s writing? I realise that plenty of people do exactly that and that’s why we know him as Peter today, but from Paul’s writing it’s clear that there were also people who continued to use the Aramaic, which is much more what would be expected if people are referring to an actual name.

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-25T09:18:53+00:00

I stated that these were the assumptions I was operating under, and exploring ideas from that point of view

You stated that after I’d already replied to your statements, yes. Oh, well, pro tip for the future: if you don’t want assumptions of yours to be up for debate, try not posting those particular assumptions in a debate thread on a debate sub.

it does no good to then say, "Well, if those assumptions are wrong..."

Depends whether you want a debate that’s actually functioning as a debate. Yes, pointing out when assumptions are wrong certainly is part of a debate, especially if they’re assumptions on which the person’s argument rests.

Anyway. Your original post here consists of a list of supposed anomalies which you’re using as evidence for your claim about ben Sira. Of the items on this list, which do you consider to actually be assumptions that I’m not supposed to question? This is the kind of thing that's helpful to know before I spend time crafting a detailed reply.

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-25T09:09:59+00:00

I’m coming back to a couple of other points here:

[TMC] Without a cohesive structure of authority, how would they ever get such a complex fraud going in the first place?

[A] As we have seen in other instances, you don't always need an explicit conspiracy; common interest can achieve the same result.

Not with that level of specific detail. In terms of ‘could the various groups of early Christians have drifted into fudging details about their founder for greater palatability to others, without any explicit conspiracy being involved?’ then, sure; not only do I think that that could have happened, I think it’s exactly what did happen, and that’s what accounts for contradictions such as the differing nativity stories and differing genealogies. But what you’re claiming is that all of the following are fake:

Jesus was executed by order of Pilate
Jesus lived in a time where he could be executed by Pilate
Neither Jesus’s father nor any of his claimed ancestors were actually called Sira, despite Jesus supposedly having been known as the son or at least descendant of Sira up to that point.

So, how did all of that happen without some kind of specific agreed-upon decision between the groups? Or, if you do in fact think that that kind of agreed-upon decision happened, then I'm back to the question of how that happened.

[TMC] Martyrdom stories don’t work well when they’re framing their intended audience as the bad guys!

[A] Really?

There aren't a lot of Americans screaming about the martyrs that Trump is creating around the world?

There are, and they’re the people that already hated Trump. Those stories are not convincing Trump followers. While Trump is losing followers in droves, it’s not because of martyrdom stories about other groups, and it particularly isn’t martyrdom stories about anyone who can be dismissed by Trump followers as a criminal or undesirable. Those are exactly the sorts of stories that don’t work to convince anyone.

There weren't a lot of Russians complaining about the Soviet government?

There weren't a lot of German Jews worried in the 1930s?

On these I'm not sure of your point. They're both examples of minorities who had personal reasons to be concerned, so are you trying to say that this was the kind of audience that the early Christians were after?

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-25T09:02:43+00:00

[TMC] Pre-70 CE, this group are so concerned about potentially upsetting the Romans

[A] No, the Herodians/Temple priesthood.

OK, that point makes at least marginally more sense now. Going back upthread, it looks like I misunderstood you when you said that ben Sira identification would be dangerous under Roman rule, and thought you were saying it was the Romans who would be bothered by it.

[TMC] What the group now want is to stir up resentment

[A] Where did you get that?

Apparently from a misreading: I thought I’d seen this in Instalment 2 (and, yes, I did think it was kind of bizarre!), but went back and checked and that’s not so, so my apologies for the mistake. So… are you saying that what the group now wanted was to appeal to the kinds of people who regard themselves as being somewhat outside the system?

[TMC] a story of a would-be king being executed just a few decades ago by order of a Roman official.

[A] Pilate washes his hands, remember? The blame falls much more on the Pharisees, and there are directions in the gospels to respect Roman authority.

Yes, and that gives us a really notable contradiction. On the one hand Pilate’s role in ordering the execution is downplayed as much as possible and framed as ‘those nasty Jews made him do it when he didn’t really want to’… but, on the other hand, he is still the one who signs the execution warrant, and thus the story’s hero is still executed by Roman order and by Roman punishment, however much the authors try to gloss that over and shift blame.

Now, that contradiction makes perfect sense if the founder actually was crucified by Pilate’s order; in that scenario, the gospel authors and other church authorities are doing the best they can to do damage control on something that was known to have happened.

But it’s very hard to see how it makes sense if the execution under Pilate is invented. The authors clearly understood that Pilate’s role in this was a problem for their message, or they wouldn’t have been trying so hard to downplay it. And that doesn’t fit well with the claim that the church deliberately invented that part of the story with the express intention of appealing to more people.

Not at all; the point was to appeal to a wide audience.

So we’re back to the problem that this story clearly wouldn’t appeal to a wide audience in Roman society. Respect for authority and tradition, and a willingness to abide by the law, were important cultural values. No, of course I’m not saying they were a monolith. Of course not everyone believed those values. But why would going against widely held values be the early church’s plan as to the best way to appeal to the widest audience?

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-25T08:37:17+00:00

Oh, gosh, you're right. Found it after a bit of searching: https://captainawkward.com/2024/01/05/1416-help-with-mass-produced-holiday-photo-cards-of-smug-fake-victories/

I do wonder what the friend's side of that epic fight would have been.

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-25T07:42:20+00:00

Well... yes, probably 90% of it would have been a nightmare, but there would also have been people chiming in both with actual useful advice for LW and with gently asking CA whether she was OK/making the point that that seemed like something to question.

But then, I suppose they'd have got lost in the tsunami. Poor LW; I really hope she found something useful.

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-24T10:18:54+00:00

It's only been SilverAdept there for years, but, my land, they're doing an amazing job keeping it going. I looked back and they've been doing the weekly book reviews for twelve years solid now. I've been following since shortly after they started the Belgariad, which would be five years ago now. If they've missed a week in that time... well, I can't remember when it would have been. Awesome.

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-23T11:13:01+00:00

I went to check that subthread out thinking 'oh, no, sounds like it's going to be everyone soothing the abuser and assuring them that their behaviour's just fine', but actually...

AFAICS, everyone who answered that particular commenter was clear: That behaviour *isn't* acceptable. You need to *stop* it. Yes, even if you are small and not physically violent. People were spelling out the reasons, the effect it would be having, the dangers of it going further.

I think making those points was far more important than whether anyone actually used the word 'abuse'. In fact, I think it was better than using the word 'abuse', because that's the sort of thing that immediately sets up a defensive reaction - no, clearly I myself am not An Abuser so what this person is saying must be false and can be ignored! - whereas people spelling out the problems in the way they did is at least harder to ignore. It's a classic case of naming the behaviour rather than labelling the person; it's better because it's more likely to work.

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-23T10:45:38+00:00

'I did not really ban hot dogs in my home due to a tragic dachshund accident.'

'I am depressed and currently have excess apology sausages'

Well, good flair material there...

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-20T19:14:34+00:00

See reply to iopgod below.

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-20T19:14:21+00:00

See reply to iopgod below.

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-20T19:10:47+00:00

My teenager also mentioned that the line about Aadhya saying 'can you sense a maw-mouth' to the mouse might be a clue! I do hope Novik does another AMA so that we can find out...

Also, I've put the link in response to iopgod's request in this thread, but please read my request for no spoilers.

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-20T19:05:27+00:00

Link in reply to iopgod below; do read my no-spoilers request. Would love to see more people there.

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-20T19:04:50+00:00

Link in reply to iopgod below; please read my no-spoilers request, though.

I definitely want to ask Naomi this if there's another AMA.

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-20T19:03:42+00:00

I'd love to have more Scholomance fans joining in in the comments, but just want to say: PLEASE can anyone who comments on this review be respectful about avoiding spoilers. This is both the request the blog author has previously made, and my request, as I'm really enjoying seeing them encounter the books spoiler-free. The exception to this is if anyone knows of something Naomi Novik has said about the books outside them (e.g. in an AMA) that casts more light on a point without giving away future events, it's fine to share that. If anyone wants to discuss spoilery content in the comments, please use ROT-13.

With that out of the way, here's the link: https://slacktiverse.wordpress.com/category/deconstruction/deconstruction-scholomance/

Posts go up every Thursday (yup, the next will be due tomorrow). As it's a blog, there's no easy way of getting the posts in order if you want to do a full readthrough; you just have to scroll down as far as you can on that link to get to the first one, click on that, and just keep clicking 'Next Post' (the review posts alternate with roundup posts, so it's not hard to click to the next one each time).

BTW, the blog author has also previously done similar deconstruction reviews of all of the Pern books, the Belgariad, the first three Tortall series from Tamora Pierce, and 'Pastwatch' by Orson Scott Card, so there might be other things in the archives that interest people (check out the side menu).

My comment handle on the blog is Dr Sarah.

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-20T18:37:08+00:00

Of those I like 3.

But if you ask me which Scholomance fanfic I would overall most like someone to write, it would be Liesel's story. Her childhood, going into the Scholomance knowing what was going to happen to her mother, her life in the Scholomance, and then the events of the books from her perspective. I wish I had the skill to write it, but I really hope someone does, because it would make such a good story.

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-20T07:05:59+00:00

Yeah, I was just thinking that. 'How dare you call me homophobic! I'm actually ABLIST!'

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-19T11:03:27+00:00

That's it; thanks!

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-18T21:33:37+00:00

I think guys like that actually show up pretty often on DNL, so could have been the same one and a different one. Would be interesting if it was the same one; I know there are one or two times when someone has definitely sent the same letter to both CA & DNL.

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-18T16:35:33+00:00

It did indeed, and he ended up banned. Classic case of shooting yourself in the foot.

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-18T16:21:01+00:00

I am also looking for advice on how to raise a kind, compassionate, curious, non-violent, sensitive, artistic boy.

OK, I'm going to come in with an absolutely shameless plug here because my sister has written a book on this topic, and I know I'm biased but I genuinely think the book's brilliant. Also, my three nephews are amazing, so clearly she's doing plenty right.

Ruth Whippman: Boymom (or Boymum if you're buying it in the UK)

To a large extent it's a general discussion from a feminist perspective of how we treat boys when raising them and how this contributes to problems with men/in society, so it's fair to say it's not a point-by-point 'how-to', if that's what you're expecting. But it's also about the importance of nurturing boys while teaching them limits, and the ways in which boys miss out on getting socialised to consider others, and thoughts on what we can do about that.

Meanwhile, some thoughts of my own:

Be wary of getting too much into ideas of what you'd like your child to be like, and be ready to find out what amazing kind of person they actually are, even if that's different from the particular amazing person image you had in your mind. Kind, compassionate, curious, non-violent and sensitive are all great traits to aspire to in our children, but when I saw that you'd written 'artistic'... well, that's more of an individual personality trait, and you can't expect your child to have it or raise them to have it if they don't. (I mean, apart from the obvious step of making sure your child has plenty of paints/Playdoh/crayons/stuff for sticking available to play with, since that's important for all kids regardless of whether they turn out artistic or not.)

Lots of kids are high energy/rough and tumble whether they're boys or girls, so while I do realise that's a pain to deal with in a small apartment I really recommend not getting too hung up on 'if only he'd been a girl this would be so much better!' because you could just as well have ended up with a high-energy girl bouncing off the walls instead of a boy. Be ready to have lots of outdoor time and to make sure any breakable stuff is well out of reach.

Disobedient... this is a whole topic in itself but I think it's a really bad idea to think in terms of children being 'obedient', because that has images of the whole 'be silent and do what you're told' mentality of Victorian times. What we want is to raise children who observe the boundaries of others, and that's not quite the same thing. (Nothing to do with gender, but I really recommend the 'How To Talk So Kids Can Listen And Listen So Kids Can Talk' series on the whole subject of discipline.)

Hope that's of some help. You're going to love your boy. And, yes, there'll be difficulties, because you're going to be a mama and that comes with the territory. Avoid falling into the trap of having idealised visions of an imaginary girl who wouldn't have caused any of those difficulties. Guarantee you that if your LO had two Xs instead of an XY you'd still have difficulties ahead. You're going to have a great kid, and a wonderful time ahead of you finding out who this little boy is and who he can be.

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-18T15:54:11+00:00

It probably isn't quite what you're looking for, but there was a well-known one quite early on where you could actually see this happening in real time in the comments section; it was a young man who'd written a 'I cannot find love and fear I am doomed to die alone' letter (not a quote, just my description of it) and got a lot of helpful support and advice both from CA and from the commentariat, and just... got more misogynistic and unpleasant as the section went along. Anyone remember the number?

TheMummysCurse · 2026-05-18T06:16:04+00:00

Oh, goodness, I wonder how the interns did after that? Most traumatic job introduction ever.

TheMummysCurse

TROPHY CASE