spin

Some of this thread is pretty silly.

First a list for Philosopher Jay (a name that can't reflect a real human being):

Edward Longshanks
John Lackland
Vlad Tepes
Moll Cutpurse
Johnny Appleseed
Mata Hari
Vladimir Lenin
Lev Trotsky
Kemel Ataturk
Joseph Stalin
Mahatma Gandhi
Malcolm X
Twiggy
Mohammed Ali
Yitzhak Shamir
The Iron Lady
Ariel Sharon
Lemony Snicket
Ringo Starr
Freddy Mercury
Captain Beefheart
Iggy Pop
Whoopi Goldberg
Madonna
Slowhand
The Rock

Probably none of these people were/are real because their names are so outlandish. Slowhand for example wasn't a real guitarist. There obviously was no tragic actor named Whoopi Goldberg. Captain Beefheart was character from a musical breakfast show, wasn't he? Iggy Pop? I mean no real human being would wear that. Freddy Mercury sounds like a cheap forties mobster. Moll Cutpurse was a character from an Elizabethan play. Lemony Snicket sounds like a southern sweet. And Twiggy was a clothes horse. Etc. Shame, Jay, shame.

And bitching about names like "Onesiphorus" indicates that one is not aware of the sorts of names slaves were routinely given in the Roman world. Consider "Eutychus" another biblical slave name and it means the same thing as another slave name, "Faustus". There are some wild ones to be noted.

Justin's name was Justin. According to tradition he earned the cognomen "Martyr". Who is first to call him Justin Martyr?

avi

Thank you Jay, for this observation on the meaning of names....I had not realized that Justin Martyr was more than a simple name....

In another thread, aa5874 quoted from Justin Martyr, something about heretics. In that thread, I offered the opinion, that perhaps Christianity began before the second century, simply because of the time needed to assemble men and materiel to construct an heretical alternative to the orthodox movement....If you are correct, and I suppose you are, then, there would have been an ample quantity of "heretics", by the third century, to criticise, via modification of Justin's original text. Would that have been accomplished, without, however, also revising the bit about "Memoirs of the Apostles", replacing those phrases, with Mark, or one of the other gospels?

From memory, (i.e. maybe completely wrong), I think our oldest extant manuscript of his, dates from the fifth century, so, there surely was ample opportunity to manufacture, or modify, his "testimony"..... Since his only reference to "gospel" stories is the one often mentioned by aa5874, Memoirs of the Apostles, upon which Tatian is supposed to have based his Diatessaron, then the question arises, are there inconsistencies observed between Justin Martyr, and Tatian, with regard to theological issues of the third and fourth centuries?

avi

mountainman

Toto: I am not so sure that this is necessarily the case. The author seems to spend a great deal of time on a description of this magicianship. He prefaces the magicianship with the strange appearance of Jesus:

Jesus actually gets in on the action here.
The very next line says

Why is Jesus juxtaposed with the local hustler?
This is not THE canonical story.
It is something quite peculiar.




Peter and the bunch of Apostles are aimless. They are drifting around on "bight clouds". They are asking farmers for food and shelter. They are abusing prostitutes. They have no mission in this story - unless it is to convert thousands of people by magicianship. The narrative is chaotic. I see it as suggestive of parody or satire. Like Eusebius said - the sacred matters of inspired teachings were ridiculed in the theatres of the unbelievers.. I see all the above as examples of that ridicule.

Eusebius is our earliest witness I think. That means it is reasonable to assume it appeared in his lifetime. And thus chronologically, a likely reaction to Constantine's Bible. Someone lampooned it, raised a few laughs, and was very quickly branded a heretic by the Boss and the new state religion. Such renditions of Jesus were "frowned upon". And what's new?

Toto

That is the mission, in fact - converting people to Christianity. :huh:

Why would a chaotic narrative suggest parody? Most parody is quite pointed.

Only because you think that about everything, and you think that Eusebius forged and backdated Tertullian.

Toto

This cryptic comment is explained here

mountainman

The mission of conversion may be the same but the means of conversion as narrated by the author is questionable extremely different that what we find in the canonical texts. People did not convert because they heard the sermon on the mount, or because they were fed fairybread, or because they were healed of illnesses and all sorts of physical ailments, or even because they were resurrected from death. In this instance thousands of people are converted to the Christian church and receive baptism in return for the magical power to make a camel go through the eye of a needle.




I think that there is evidence here to argue that the author is writing - very pointedly - against the orthodox canonical "Christian Church".



That's incorrect. Eusebius himself is our earliest witness for these texts, possibly others:

Acts of John
Acts of Andrew
Acts of Andrew and John
Acts of Andrew and Matthew
Acts of Peter and Andrew
Acts of Pilate


Correspondence of Jesus and Agbar
Correspondence of Paul and Seneca
The Testimonium Flavianum
etc

Tertullian tells us that Pontius Pilate became a christian.
I'm not sure I can accept either that as an historical truth
or the fact that Tertullian was a real person.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Spin,

Yes, people do have odd names and people some times adopt names or are given names related to their profession (Philosopher Jay - for example).

In Philosophy, I know of no philosopher whose name indicates his/her profession. There is no John Smartthinker or Laura Brainuser in philosophy. There is however the fictional philosopher Pangloss (all tongue) from Voltaire's Candide and Diogenes Teufelsdröckh ("devil's excrement") in Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus. The fictional Philosopher Jean-Baptiste Botul (from Latin "Botulus" meaning sausage), invented by the jouralist Frédéric Pagès, managed to make the real philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy look like a fool when Levy quoted Botul to attack Immanuel Kant.

As you correctly point out, it is some times true that what sounds like a fictional character's name does turn out to be a nickname or real name of a living person.

Stalin means "Man of Steel"
Stalin's real name was Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili
In this case, Stalin or "Man of Steel" was a nickname of a real person that became a real name.
"Man of Steel" is also a nickname for "Superman," a fictional character created by Jerry Siegel. It will be the name of the next "Superman" movie coming out next year.

If we look at the names of the 100 greatest mathematicians we see that the only ones who have names associated with mathematics are the ones who had mathematical principles, theorems or concepts named after them. These include:

1. Isaac Newton
2. Carl F. Gauss
3. Leonhard Euler
4. Archimedes
5. Bernhard Riemann
6. Euclid
7. Henri Poincaré
8. Joseph-Louis Lagrange
9. David Hilbert
10. Gottfried W. Leibniz
11. Alexander Grothendieck
12. Pierre de Fermat
13. Niels Abel
14. Évariste Galois
15. John von Neumann
16. Karl W. T. Weierstrass
17. René Déscartes
18. Augustin Cauchy
19. Carl G. J. Jacobi
20. Brahmagupta
21. Peter G. L. Dirichlet
22. Hermann K. H. Weyl
23. Srinivasa Ramanujan
24. Georg Cantor
25. Arthur Cayley
26. Eudoxus of Cnidus
27. Emma Noether
28. Leonardo `Fibonacci'
29. Muhammed al-Khowârizmi
30. Pythagoras of Samos
31. Apollonius of Perga
32. Blaise Pascal
33. Bháscara Áchárya
34. Pierre-Simon Laplace
35. William R. Hamilton
36. Kurt Gödel
37. Charles Hermite
38. Richard Dedekind
39. Diophantus of Alexandria
40. Felix Christian Klein
41. Stefan Banach
42. George Boole
43. François Viète
44. Ferdinand Eisenstein
45. Jean le Rond d'Alembert
46. Gaspard Monge
47. Aryabhatta
48. Jacques Hadamard
49. Jean-Victor Poncelet
50. Christiaan Huygens
51. Johannes Kepler
52. Hipparchus of Nicaea
53. Jacob Bernoulli
54. André Weil
55. Joseph Fourier
56. Andrey N. Kolmogorov
57. Liu Hui
58. Élie Cartan
59. F.E.J. Émile Borel
60. Siméon-Denis Poisson
61. John Wallis
62. Julius Plücker
63. Alhazen ibn al-Haytham
64. Godfrey H. Hardy
65. Archytas of Tarentum
66. L.E.J. Brouwer
67. Michael F. Atiyah
68. Girolamo Cardano
69. Joseph Liouville
70. Pappus of Alexandria
71. Henri Léon Lebesgue
72. John E. Littlewood
73. M. E. Camille Jordan
74. Hermann G. Grassmann
75. Jakob Steiner
76. Jean-Pierre Serre
77. Adrien M. Legendre
78. James J. Sylvester
79. Johann Bernoulli
80. Giuseppe Peano
81. Carl Ludwig Siegel
82. Pafnuti Chebyshev
83. Atle Selberg
84. Omar al-Khayyám
85. Hermann Minkowski
86. Johann H. Lambert
87. Aristotle
88. Shiing-Shen Chern
89. Thales of Miletus
90. Albert Einstein
91. Francesco B. Cavalieri
92. Marius Sophus Lie
93. Hippocrates of Chios
94. Alan M. Turing
95. Galileo Galilei
96. Paul Erdös
97. Panini (of Shalatula)
98. Ernst E. Kummer
99. James C. Maxwell
100. Nicolai Lobachevsky

If we look at the 100 top home run hitters in baseball, again we do not find many that have references to anything to do with baseball:

1 Barry Bonds 762
2 Hank Aaron 755
3 Babe Ruth 714
4 Willie Mays 660
5 Ken Griffey, Jr. 630
6 Alex Rodriguez (5) 618
7 Sammy Sosa 609
8 Jim Thome (2) 591
9 Frank Robinson 586
10 Mark McGwire 583
11 Harmon Killebrew 573
12 Rafael Palmeiro 569
13 Reggie Jackson 563
14 Manny Ramírez 555
15 Mike Schmidt 548
16 Mickey Mantle 536
17 Jimmie Foxx 534
18 Willie McCovey 521
Frank Thomas 521
Ted Williams 521
21 Ernie Banks 512
Eddie Mathews 512
23 Mel Ott 511
24 Gary Sheffield 509
25 Eddie Murray 504
26 Lou Gehrig 493
Fred McGriff 493
28 Stan Musial 475
Willie Stargell 475
30 Carlos Delgado 473
31 Dave Winfield 465
32 José Canseco 462
33 Carl Yastrzemski 452
34 Jeff Bagwell 449
35 Dave Kingman 442
36 Vladimir Guerrero (3) 439
37 Andre Dawson 438
Chipper Jones (2) 438
39 Juan González 434
40 Cal Ripken, Jr. 431
41 Mike Piazza 427
42 Billy Williams 426
43 Jason Giambi (1) 416
44 Albert Pujols (7) 415
45 Darrell Evans 414
46 Andruw Jones (1) 408
47 Duke Snider 407
48 Andres Galarraga 399
Al Kaline 399
50 Dale Murphy 398
51 Joe Carter 396
52 Jim Edmonds 393
53 Graig Nettles 390
54 Johnny Bench 389
55 Dwight Evans 385
56 Harold Baines 384
57 Larry Walker 383
58 Frank Howard 382
Jim Rice 382
60 Albert Belle 381
61 Orlando Cepeda 379
Tony Pérez 379
63 Matt Williams 378
64 Norm Cash 377
Jeff Kent 377
66 Carlton Fisk 376
67 Rocky Colavito 374
68 Gil Hodges 370
Paul Konerko (5) 370
70 Ralph Kiner 369
71 Joe DiMaggio 361
72 Gary Gaetti 360
73 Johnny Mize 359
74 Yogi Berra 358
75 Adam Dunn (2) 356
76 Greg Vaughn 355
77 Luis Gonzalez 354
Lee May 354
79 Ellis Burks 352
80 Dick Allen 351
David Ortiz (2) 351
82 Chili Davis 350
83 George Foster 348
84 Ron Santo 342
85 Jack Clark 340
86 Tino Martinez 339
Dave Parker 339
Boog Powell 339
89 Don Baylor 338
90 Joe Adcock 336
91 Darryl Strawberry 335
92 Todd Helton (1) 334
93 Lance Berkman (6) 333
Carlos Lee (2) 333
95 Moisés Alou 332
Bobby Bonds 332
97 Hank Greenberg 331
98 Shawn Green 328
Mo Vaughn 328
100 Jermaine Dye 325

The three exceptions where names are related to the profession are Johnny Bench, Dave Winfield, and Jeff Bagwell. Still, it would be doubtful that anyone would attach these names to baseball based only on their names.

Thus in Presidents, matthematicians, and baseball, names do not generally match their professions or have anything to do with their professions except in very obique ways. Usually a part of the profession is changed to match the name (for example, Washington D.C. being named after George Washington) rather than the person changing his/her name to match the profession.

There are professions where we would expect the person to change their name to match their profession. For example pornographic actresses almost always choose new names to hide their actual names. Here is the list of 100 top porno stars of 2010

1. Lisa Ann
2. Shyla Stylez
3. Audrey Bitoni
4. Nikki Benz
5. Priya Rai
6. Jenna Jameson
7. Aletta Ocean
8. Tori Black
9. Phoenix Marie
10. Jayden Jaymes
11. Alexis Texas
12. Eva Angelina
13. Kagney Linn Karter
14. Carmella Bing
15. Jesse Jane
16. Rachel Roxxx
17. Sienna West
18. Rachel Starr
19. Mason Moore
20. Sara Jay
21. Sophie Dee
22. Dylan Ryder
23. Jenna Presley
24. Kayden Kross
25. Asa Akira
26. Holly Halston
27. Tera Patrick
28. Diamond Foxxx
29. Sasha Grey
30. Amy Reid
31. Ashlynn Brooke
32. Julia Ann
33. Madelyn Marie
34. Sunny Leone
35. Bridgette B
36. Gina Lynn
37. Alanah Rae
38. Gianna Michaels
39. Puma Swede
40. Memphis Monroe
41. Lela Star
42. Jessica Jaymes
43. Tory Lane
44. Angelina Valentine
45. Abbey Brooks
46. Madison Ivy
47. Shawna Lenee
48. Jessica Lynn
49. Briana Banks
50. Jenna Haze
51. Jenaveve Jolie
52. Nina Mercedez
53. Devon
54. Silvia Saint
55. Angel Dark
56. Isis Love
57. Delta White
58. Hanna Hilton
59. Esperanza Gomez
60. Lexi Belle
61. Ava Devine
62. Blake Rose
63. Asia Carrera
64. Heather Summers
65. Kerry Louise
66. Bree Olson
67. Jada Fire
68. Lichelle Marie
69. Savannah Stern
70. Capri Cavalli
71. Briana Blair
72. Tanya James
73. Madison Scott
74. Kelly Divine
75. Nika Noire
76. Cherokee
77. Rebeca Linares
78. Lanni Barbie
79. Deauxma
80. Juelz Ventura
81. Mariah Milano
82. Nikki Sexx
83. Mackenzee Pierce
84. Stormy Daniels
85. Janet Mason
86. Katja Kassin
87. Lupe Fuentes
88. Austin Kincaid
89. Brooke Banner
90. Claire Dames
91. Eve Lawrence
92. Catalina Cruz
93. Nicole Graves
94. Aria Giovanni
95. Kortney Kane
96. Britney Amber
97. Janine Lindemulder
98. Daisy Marie
99. Cody Love
100. Capri Anderson

What is surprising is that very few have to do with sex. Only Nikki Sexx seems to directly indicate her connection to the profession. Three have added xx's at the end of their name: Rachel Roxxx, Diamond Foxxx, Nikki Sexx. Two have chosen the name "Love." Isis Love, Cody Love.

On the other hand, it is quite common for fictional characters in pornographic movies to have names related to sex, such as "Flesh Gordon" or "Forrest Hump"


When we look at a list of 25 most influential preachers of the past 25 years, we again see no connection between names and occupations.

#1 Billy Graham
#2 Charles Swindoll
#3 Rick Warren
#4 Gardner C. Taylor
#5 John MacArthur
#6 Adrian Rogers
#7 Haddon Robinson
#8 Andy Stanley
#9 John R.W. Stott
#10 W.A. Criswell
#11 John Piper
#12 Charles Stanley
#13 Stephen F. Olford
#14 William A. Jones
#15 Bill Hybels
#16 Fred Craddock
#17 Mark Driscoll
#18 Jack Hayford
#19 William Willimon
#20 E.K. Bailey
#21 D. James Kennedy
#22 Barbara Brown Taylor
#23 Warren Wiersbe
#24 Lloyd John Ogilvie
#25 Tim Keller

From this we can suggest that when a name has to do with an occupation, it is highly likely that it is a nickname or more likely it is an indication of a fictional work. However, we have to be careful and realize that this is not automatically the case.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Toto

Yikes! Please no more lists!

I was thinking of a simple analogy. In canonical Acts, Paul stays with a certain Lydia, a wealthy widow who weaves purple (royal) cloth whose name and occupation recall the legendary wealthy Lydian king. Church history treats her as a real historical person and a saint, but Randel Helms in Gospel Fiction (or via: amazon.co.uk) IIRC points at this as an obviously fictional name and allegorical incident.

Onesiphorus is a character in even more fantastical Christian fiction, but appears as a rich man in the apocryphal Acts and a helper in the Pastorals.

stephan huller

Re: the list

It is possible still that the individual could be historical and the name a nickname. Nicknames do follow occupations. In the list you give stage names of exotic dancers are familiar so too magicians etc. Baseball players too insofar as they typically draw attention to physical prowess or skill. So too certain low grade film stars

stephan huller

With respect to early Christianity

Kepha
Thoma
Nurono (Ignatius)
Adamantius