Notsri

Apparently, yes, it was. Neusner's Dictionary of Ancient Rabbis lists 26 Abbas, including an Abba bar Abba (though, in point of fact, the latter was a Babylonian amora).

Regards,
Notsri

TedM

Ok, I have to respond to this:

No, I've assumed for purposes of illustration a particular frequency among a representative sample of the population. I didn't call it a "random sample". I called it a "typical sample".

No one said the frequency is random. The frequency is what it is.

Sure, but I don't see how that is relevant to anything I"m talking about here. For example, if we know that 1 in 20 people choose cherry pie whenever they get pie at a restaurant then that is simply what we know. It doesn't mean anyone 'randomly' chooses it. Who said that it does? What I HAVE said is that if all we know is that it is unlikely that any given person would choose cherry pie so if someone DOES choose it the chances are that it was not a random choice out of a hat, whereas if we knew that 10 out of 20 people choose cherry pie we can't make that claim. Does that help?


In saying that something happens X% of the time, there is no claim of randomness vs non-randomness. It's simply a statement of the data.

In the case of a fiction writer choosing a name for a character, it is the concept of randomness that is being tested. If the odds are only 10% that a name is randomly chosen and it is still chosen, then we conclude that the name most likely wasn't randomly chosen by the author.

In the case of a historical person having a name, it again is the concept of randomness that is being tested. If the odds are only 10% that a given person would have a name and yet he does, then we again conclude that this isn't likely by random chance. As such, either we conclude that it isn't likley that the person was really historical (since there is an alternative of fabrication), or that there are other non-random factors contributing to that person having the name (such as self-fullfilment). The deliberateness of the parents is really irrelevant to this question. You are confusing the idea that a given parent doesn't randomly name his child with the randomness that is being tested: Again: We aren't testing how random the parent's choice was here. We are testing how likely it is that a person who behaved like a messiah had a particular name. That's all. You can object (perhaps reasonably) that the sample of typical Jews isn't good enough, and I need a sample of typical messiah claimants, but any objection on the grounds that parents don't randomly name their kids is misguided.

I haven't made such a claim. Non-random choices by parents resulted in a particular frequency. The odds of picking out of a hat a particular result is X. X tells us how likely something was to have happened. If it is claimed to have happened, and it is unlikely, then we have reason to reject or strongly doubt the claim. That's not meaningless Amaleq, and the fact idea that parents make deliberate choices doesn't change the reason to reject the claim.

If 10 of these debates were going on and we knew that on average 9 people in my shoes quit at this point, and I decided to continue, we can mathematically say that the probabilities don't support my deliberate choice. 9 times out of 10 they would predict that I would quit, and 90% of the time they would be right. THAT'S what this is about. To reject this use as meaningless because I personally make a deliberate choice to continue on in this madness for whatever reason simply misses the point that on average the statistics can accurately predict what behavior I would take--even though my shoes aren't EXACTLY like other people's shoes.

Having said all of this, I'm more than ready to quit.

ted

Amaleq13

How would that translate? Father son of Father?

Amaleq13

Rhetorical or not, the questions point out exactly what I've been saying about the inability to Ted's statistics to offer useful information about the choice of names by a given author.

If he were to do the necessary groundwork, he might be able to produce a statistical comparison between the frequency of messianic names among the general population as compared to the frequency among identified messianic claimants. Assuming without any justification that they two are identical, however, tells us absolutely nothing useful.

Amaleq13

I find it incredibly frustrating and disappointing that you are refusing to directly respond to the problems I've pointed out in your examples or to the requests I've made for clarification. This strongly suggests that your "challenge" was never genuine because you never intended to honestly consider the problems I was claiming to be in your calculations. Either you don't understand what I've been explaining to you and are refusing to ask for clarification or you aren't bothering to try to understand what I've been explaining to you and are not genuinely interested in understanding whether what you are arguing makes any sense. Either way, it is clear that I am wasting my time trying to disabuse you of your clearly mistaken notions about the proper use of statistics.

It seems obvious to you but you, so far, have been unable to produce a coherent explanation of the connections you are assuming. As far as I can tell, it is not obvious to anyone outside your brain.

There is no apparent connection between the frequency with which parents chose messianic names and the likelihood that an author would randomly choose a messianic name for his main character.

There is no apparent connection between an author randomly choosing names for his main character and the actual practices of authors choosing names for their main character.

This is a gross oversimplification of what I've spent several posts trying to communicate to you and, again, calls into question your comprehension or your genuine interest in understanding them. I have offered very specific substantiating observations to support my conclusion that your efforts are incapable of reaching the conclusions you are making.

It is painfully clear to me that you have no idea how to properly use or interpret statistics, Ted, but it is just as painfully clear that you have no interest in acknowledging that fact or in making any effort to change it.

Perhaps it will only become apparent to you if you attempt to apply actual data to support conclusions about whether the name "Jesus" was more likely a fictional creation or a historical name.

TedM

I think our posts may have crossed. I've addressed many of your comments in the last post.

ted

S.C.Carlson

I've lost track of what is being argued in this debate, so I'll just return to the OP. The answer is that almost all Hebrew names have theological significance, and most contain a reference to the Deity. In the first centuries BCE and CE, it became popular to name sons after the patriarchal heroes, so we see a lot of people named James (= Jacob), Jesus (= Joshua), Joseph, Simon, Judas, Levi, etc.

That a Messiah claimant has a popular name for the time says more about what that time is than about his historicity.

TedM

I've seen the argument that Jesus means "Savior" used as evidence for fabrication of his name. I question if that is the true meaning (what I see is something like "God is salvation" or "the Lord is my salvation"). I question how messianic a meaning it really has ("gift from God" or "son of the Father" sounds more messianic to me). And I wonder how unusually messianic it is (ie, how messianic a name we would expect if we randomly threw a dart at a dart board).

Certainly the discussion has gotten off course, but that is because it seemed to me that Amaleq was saying that any attempt to find meaning in the frequency of it's use as a way to compare fabrication vs historical is misguided. I don't see why.

ted

Amaleq13

A "representative sample" of the general population is typically a random sample.

From http://www.thefreedictionary.com/rep...ative%20sample:

1.representative sample - the population is divided into strata and a random sample is taken from each stratum

As I've already explained, that is the implied assumption, whether you are aware of it or not, when you assign the same number to a random choice by an author. If you recognize that the frequency distribution is not generated randomly, then you should also recognize that the number cannot be just transferred over to a random choice as though they were equivalent. That is what you did and that is why it is wrong and that is why it is relevant.

Changing the specifics of the example does not change the underlying flaws in the thinking involved. You are taking a statistic that describes the frequency of deliberate choice and trying to make it say something useful about random selection. That isn't how statistics work, Ted. It isn't how rational thought works, either.

You are also still ignoring the fact that there is little reason to think the choice is ever random so there is, in turn, little reason to try to develop a statistical analysis addressing such an inherently unlikely possibility. Folks don't tend to choose their pie at random and authors don't tend to name their main characters at random. You are saying nothing useful by suggesting they don't and, more importantly, you certainly cannot obtain that conclusion from a frequency distribution describing deliberate choices.

Still wrong. The frequency distribution of names (ie what your X% describes) is clearly a non-random factor whether you state it explicitly or not and this is entirely relevant to any attempt to use this data. What I've been trying to get through your head is that you have been ignoring this fact throughout your example and this has caused at least some of the problems with your efforts. You have ignored the difference between non-random and random factors. Instead, you have felt free to exchange them as though they were equivalent. That is a serious flaw in your use of statistics.

It is an idiotic concept, Ted, because authors do not randomly choose the name of their main character. To add to the idiocy, it is entirely irrelevant to any consideration of the use of "Jesus" because nobody imagines that the name was chosen at random!

You cannot test the random assignment of a name with numbers describing the deliberate assignment of names.

I'm not the one confusing the two, Ted. I'm the one who is well aware they are different and trying to get you to understand that numbers describing the former cannot be applied to the latter though that is exactly what you are doing.

The frequency distribution of deliberate name choices simply cannot tell you that, Ted.

That is precisely what you did do when you used the number describing the non-random frequency of name choice to describe the random selection of names.

YES!

Right and that number is based on different statistics than the abovementioned frequency but you have used the same number as though they are the somehow identical. They are not. The former describes how frequently a particular name is intentionally chosen while the latter describes how frequently a particular name is randomly chosen. They are not interchangeable results. Obtaining one does not constitute obtaining the other. You must perform separate calculations to derive each.

X tells us how likely a particular result is given a random selection. The frequency was not obtained from a random selection. Therefore, the frequency is not tell us X.

TedM

my head hurts..will have to think about it for a while.. If you are right about this, you have my sincere appreciation. Heck, even if you are wrong, I still admire your patience, though can't say I would appreciate it..

ted