Vorkosigan

While impressive, I can't see how this helps us. If the term used in the brother of Jesus reference follow's Joe's regular use, it tells us that the forger knew what he was doing. If it doesn't, it could just mean that Joe didn't follow his regular practice. The greek and linguistic usage data is the least important data in this dataset about the forged Jesus references in Josephus.

It's more interesting to watch this as an exercise in prestige and legitimation. In New Testament studies Greek plays the same role that statistics does in business or math does in physics: it legitimates the scholarly effort. Interesting how no one ever apologizes for not knowing who referred to Josephus's forged Jesus passages and when, but everyone feels they must defer to knowledge of Greek. Yet mastering the former is far more important in determining the history of the forgery than the latter.

Vorkosigan

LegionOnomaMoi

Which would be highly improbable.

So what is the most?

Umm... you can't have physics without the math. And statistics is essential to just about every academic field there is, no matter how often it is misused because those in the field aren't adequately trained. How do you suggest we model any phenomena in physics or science in general without mathematics?

If you want to say something about a text, it's usually a good idea to be able to read it.

How does one "master" knowing who referred to Josephus? More importantly, how does one use this mastery as some kind of epistemic justification for one's beliefs? After all, most of any classical work, including Josephus, isn't referred to at all in for centuries. If Origen asserts something about Josephus, and we don't find it in Josephus, but we find this line, what are we to conclude?

thief of fire

thanks again for your references.
Do you have access to anything the average punter might not, that questions the existence of an historical jesus?
Or, as someone who has pursued this as a hobby for quite a few years, and had access to quite lot of material, what do you consider is the best work questioning an historical jesus?
And if you wanted to question an historical jesus and argue against us having enough evidence for one, or to argue we have evidence he didn't, what arguments would you use?

Vorkosigan

Yes, it's hard to imagine a smart forger. That just never happens :banghead:

That's exactly it, when I was pointing out the social legitimating function of math, stats, and Greek, I meant we could totally do without them. :banghead:

This comment isn't as farcical as your previous ones, so I'll answer it. To trace the forgery, one must know the references to it in subsequent texts. Knowing the Greek here can't help us figure out the arc of the forgery -- when it was introduced, when it starts cropping up, how many variants of it existed in antiquity, in what texts does it occur, who refers to it and how, etc. Since that is the knowledge that really counts in determining the nature of the text, I can see why you are putting so much emphasis on the Greek.

Vorkosigan

LegionOnomaMoi

And how many examples of smart forgeries from that period of time are there? How many people knew how to imitate language well enough? There were not many authors capable of writing something like Batrachomyomachia. Additionally, we aren't dealing with a forgery, but a possible interpolation. Do you have any examples of interpolations from the ancient world designed to imitate the original author's speech/writing?


So, assume it is a "forgery", then trace references to it? How do you determine it is a "forgery" in the first place?

You can't determine this unless you know that an author was specifically quoting the line in question. As you don't, you can't. Paraphrasing doesn't allow you to determine "variants" and assuming the line is a "forgery" and proceeding accordingly doesn't do much at all.

thief of fire

So if the words in question were "forged", when must it have happened?

Sajara

I can't be the only one that saw legomenos and thought oooh, a new lego kit!

LegionOnomaMoi

I keep hoping...