EarlDoherty

I had my piece on kata sarka and the sublunary realm more or less ready two days ago, but I thought I would leave a bit of time and room for JGibson to discuss Richard Carrier's post. I seem to have waited in vain. This reminds me of a similar incident on the early JesusMysteries list in 2001 when Jeffrey there had pronounced against my reading of the grammatical structure of Romans 1:1-4 in a rather pontificating way. I responded with a very detailed refutation of his contention, and we didn't hear from him again.

I was, of course, delighted with Carrier's post and position on kata sarka, and regard it as important support for my own reading. (And I liked his observation about how Paul could have said a simple thing in a simple way, but failed to do so. There's a lot of scope for cogitation and discussion there.) I found Carrier's 'credentials' even more impressive than I was aware of, and they throw my own 5 years of Greek in an 'ordinary' History-Classics degree into the shade. Perhaps they even took Jeffrey aback. But maybe he will be lured back to us when I post my piece, as he may think I'm an easier mark.

I should do so later today (or no later than tomorrow morning), but I will form a new thread, as this one has gone on too long, with too much detritus clogging it.

Best wishes,
Earl Doherty

Toto

Gibson seems to have placed his latest detailed post on this subject in this thread:

Did Jesus come down from heaven to take on flesh?

Chris Weimer

His own interpretation? :huh: Note I didn't make that claim. Specifically, my two claims were:

"From what I've seen, it appears as Carriers has a) used the LSJ and b) stretched it to fit this instance."

This is all I stand to claim. No evil intentions, no lies, nothing of the sort. Just wrong, in my humble opinion.

jgibson000

Well, Earl, if you want to be impressed by someone who, despite the Greek credentials and the grounding in classical studies that he vaunts, (a) doesn't seem to be aware that his claim about what the "root" of KATA is is by no means accepted by philologists and Greek Grammarians who are recognized as tops in their fields (i.e., Brugmann, Moulton and Milligan, Bauer, Raphael Kühner and, Bernhard Gerth, among others) or even by Liddell and Scott themselves, (b) has a penchant for employing the root fallacy when he sets out to outline the meaning of Greek words and expressions, and (c) makes a claim about what KATA EURIPIDHN or what a Greek expression in Josephus "literarly" means that no other Greek scholar, let alone any Hellenistic Greek speaker or writer, would recognize as a "literal ", let alone an accurate, rendering of that expression, then be my guest.

But I hope you'll pardon me if I fail to be.

And I'll hope you'll also pardon me for disappointing your hopes about when I'd get around to noting exactly how I think Richard has cooked the data in what he himself notes was indeed the source for his claims on KATA (i.e., LSJ [and, apparently, Smyth])

But to paraphrase the excuse you have used and expected me and others to accept when you yourself have not responded as quickly as I or anyone else here might have wished: sometimes my time is not my own and therefore I cannot always adjust my time table to suit yours, much as I might like to.

I'll trust, then, that in the light of this, that gentleman that you are, you'll not only excuse me for doing what some here seem to suggest is unforgivable, namely, to dare to think, let alone to act upon the judgement, that meeting my professional and domestic obligations -- which in this past week have been calling to me and continue to call to me to me now -- might actually take precedence over joining in the fun and games here.

You'll also never stoop to thinking -- as some here have apparently done -- that the reason for my silence must be otherwise.

Jeffrey

Richard Carrier

Gibson has failed to mention that he actually emailed my dissertation advisor, Dr. William Harris at Columbia University, asking him whether I was qualified in Greek. Harris found his question annoying and impertinent (and, BTW, that he asked this of my advisor certainly implies Gibson believes me to be a liar), but nevertheless Harris told Gibson that "Richard Carrier has a first-rate knowledge of classical and koine Greek." Go figure.

I think Gibson, Carlson and Chris Weimer need to re-read my post above. In fact, they seem to still be laboring under a complete misapprehension of what I even said in my review of Doherty. They also seem to be laboring under the strange expectation that I should have discussed every single connotation of kata instead of, as I said I was doing, the "common meanings," and particularly (which should have been obvious) the common meanings contextually relevant to the NT passages in question. This is not, after all, a paper about kata that we are talking about, but a paper about an entire book, in which interpreting kata in certain passages was just one of dozens of issues I chose to address. Surely I never had any intention of boring readers to death by quoting the entire Oxford English Dictionary entry for every key word I happened to use.

More on that below. But first some questions posed to me that I have time to address briefly:

It seems so. I personally have not run across such an idiom anywhere outside of Pauline theology, and I could not find any use of kata sarka to refer to blood descent like this prior to Paul, but I confess I didn't thoroughly investigate every instance. So I am open to hearing proposed examples of such a use outside the Christian tradition.


First, the most common belief at the time was that everything that exists is composed of one or more of five basic elements: Fire, Water, Earth, Air, and Ether, that last being the element of the heavens and thus often associated with divine and spiritual and "superior" things. Paul does appear to understand "flesh" and "spirit" as separate substances with distinct properties and differing natural habitats, in a way not out of tune with his time (1 Cor. 15:35-58). He even imagines different kinds of flesh, which I have seen in other authors (like Galen), and it was common then to imagine "flesh" as a mixture of elements (usually earth and water, but many thinkers included fire, as in heat, and air, as in breath). Most commonly back then, pneuma (spirit) was understood as a substance, but philosophers disagreed as to its nature, role, or properties. Paul appears to follow certain Stoics who would distinguish pneuma (spirit) from aer (air) as two different materials, the latter a base element, the former more like what we might today call a supernatural element, but there was no consensus even among Stoics on these points, and Paul is not exactly explicit as to where he stood on this question. There is room for different hypotheses to be tested out here.

Second, the ancients did not have so precise a knowledge of conception as we do, but they did believe we descended from male and female "sperm" that meet in the womb, and I am personally convinced Paul believed this, too, and, as a result, I am sure he believed we are literally "snipped off parts" of our parents and thus, by extension, Adam (since even Eve is a snipped off part of Adam, according to Genesis). That would be a problem for Doherty had it not been the case that Paul still seems comfortable interpreting even the explicit phrase "born of a woman" in a metaphorical (or perhaps "spiritual") sense, as in Gal. 4:21-31. Here he uses kata sarka to refer to biological descent, but not as such, since he contrasts it with dia epaggelias, even though both cases in question involved biological descent. So clearly Paul understands kata sarka to mean either some special kind of biological descent (what kind would that be?), or a special kind of "coming to be" irrespective of whether it is accomplished biologically or not (and again, what exactly is that distinction he is trying to draw?), and that is, I imagine, where the debate between Dohertists and Traditionalists begins, or ought to begin: Which sense does Paul mean? Is Paul even using kata sarka here in the same sense as he does of Jesus? Not easy questions to answer, IMO.


Neither, actually. I conducted a lot of reference work from the LSJ, Smyth, and the TLG (and several other minor references in biblical languages that turned out to be unhelpful), jotting down notes, then I drew from those notes, in order to structure what I wanted to say from my own personal experience.


First, you seem to be confusing what I said about "in accordance with" with what I said about "according to." This demonstrates that you must re-read my Review of Doherty, since you are apparently going on memory, and your memory of what I said appears to be wrong.

Second, as Amaleq13 already observed, when I do discuss the specific sense "according to," I then show only in a parenthetical note how the root meaning leads to the idiom. As Amaleq13 said, "in the sense of how one might refer in English to a tradition 'passed down' from one generation to the next," which is quite possible, although I suspect it may even be more literal: one physically looks down into a text to find the passage, via almost the same idiom we use today, e.g. "as I say below." But knowing what I do about ancient linguistics and etymology, it very likely was both (i.e. the fact that both connotations converge so well would have made the idiom especially attractive to ancient speakers--they liked congruous derivations, as one can see from their own writings on etymology). Now, I could be wrong about that. I didn't say it came from any source but my own expert opinion. But I don't see any other logical way the idiom would arise, and this is so obviously the most logical way it would have arisen for a speaker of Greek, that it seems rather silly to doubt it. But one can maintain agnosticism I guess. Unless you actually have evidence that some other derivation is responsible for the idiom, in which case I'd be delighted to see it.


I thought that was clear. "If you look down through (your copy of the text of) Euripedes, you will see that YYY" or "down in (the text of) Euripedes is YYY" or "down through the Euripidean tradition you will find that YYY" and so on. I see no reason to doubt that it was such connotations that led to this idiom's employment in Greek. I know of no other plausible explanation for the idiom's appearance.

Strangely, you say "According to Euripides" easily makes sense. I wonder at that. Are you just taking English for granted? Has it never occurred to you to ask why "according" even has that meaning in English? Or why the preposition "to" is employed in this idiom? Step back and you might notice it's actually a bit strange. The verb "accord" means "agree" or "agree with," so "according to" literally means in English "agreeing to," and hence "agreeing to Euripedes," which certainly sounds like an odd way to say "as Euripedes says." I'm not sure, but I think something like the early idiom "it is said YYY, and there are words in Euripedes according thereto" evolved into the abbreviated expression "according to Euripedes, YYY." Analogously, kata in the corresponding idiom probably started out something plainly derived from its original meaning and then this special use itself became commonplace. That's almost always the way of things, as I learned in my linguistics studies. I don't see any reason to doubt it, other than to be pointlessly contrary.

But you can be pointlessly contrary if you like, since a parenthetical note like this hardly has any bearing on what I said with respect to Doherty, so I really don't see any serious point in debating the matter--unless you are just fascinated by obscure questions in linguistics.


First, agnosticism of the connotation that produced the idiom only leads to uncertainty as to whether the idiom supports Doherty, not certainty that it contradicts him. To reach that conclusion, you need to show that this idiom derives from a connotation contrary to Doherty's application. I would indeed be interested in the evidence supporting such a conclusion and would gladly issue a correction if that evidence is reasonably convincing. Otherwise, you are welcome to remain agnostic about what seems to me to be linguistically obvious, since...

Second, I did not say this idiom agrees with Doherty. To the contrary, I dismissed it as irrelevant since it does not pertain to any context relevant to the passages in question. As I said, "I have only seen it mean 'according to' when followed by a cited author." In no case does any passage in the NT that we are talking about involve citing an author. Thus, clearly, I cannot be saying that this is a connotation relevant to the discussion. To the contrary, I am saying it is irrelevant. So when translators render the phrase "according to" they can only mean this in the other sense of "in accordance with" which as I said would have to mean "in reference to fitness or conformity" and that connotation does, in my opinion, "support Doherty's reading" more than the traditional one. Think about it. If Paul meant from the flesh of David, why would he instead choose to say in conformity with the flesh of David? The traditional interpretation leads us to expect the obvious "from" (employing any of numerous Greek idioms that convey such a notion), not the obscure and roundabout and just plain "what the hell does that mean?" approach of saying "in conformity with flesh."

But disagree with that if you please. I'm not here to argue theory. My point is that you are accusing me of incompetence based on a complete misreading of what in fact I have said. And I take umbrage at that.


What does any of this have to do with the passages Doherty discusses and that I am therefore discussing when I assess Doherty's interpretation of those passages? I simply don't understand what you are objecting to. That I didn't address meanings of the word that are wholly irrelevant to the case at hand? Well, okay. Guilty. Does anyone here actually think that's a crime? Why should I have discussed contextually irrelevant connotations of the word? Please explain this to me.


Go back and read what I wrote--and let's go back to High School Reading Comprehension skills here. The thesis sentence, the first sentence, of the single (single!) paragraph we are talking about, states, "The actual phrase used, kata sarka, is indeed odd if it is supposed to emphasize an earthly sojourn." The rest of the paragraph defends that thesis statement by explaining why I believe it is true--why I believe it is "odd" if such a phrase is supposed to "emphasize" such a fact. According to the most rudimentary rules of essay writing, what that paragraph should then include is the evidence for the thesis being true--of the oddness of such a connotation. It should not include discussions of how much I dislike ham sandwiches or the ontology of evil, or anything else irrelevant to the thesis...you know, like applications of kata that are contextually irrelevant to the passages where kata sarka is alleged to emphasize an earthly sojourn. Yes, I should not omit evidence contrary to my thesis. But omitting evidence irrelevant to my thesis is not only acceptable, it is required by the rules of good writing. You are in essence accusing me of incompetence by offering evidence that I am a good writer. This certainly perplexes me.


First, I can assure you, these constructions are not common. As I say in the paragraph in question, I am only discussing common uses.

Second, you might notice that none of the examples of such a use offered in the LSJ post-date the Classical period or come from any other dialect but formal Attic, with one exception: Lucian, who was famous for mimicking formal Attic! If this idiom survives in the Koine dialect at all, it is even rarer there than in Attic. I can certainly say I haven't run across it there.

Third, no such construction can possibly be contextually relevant to the passages my paragraph's thesis applies to. So on this point, see my previous exposition of perplexity above.

Finally, nowhere in my review of Doherty do I say all the meanings of kata involve downward motion or even motion at all. So what statement of mine are you arguing against here? I can't fathom. I state what the preposition "literally means," then what it "implies...usually" and hence what it "literally reads." Then I say "It very frequently, by extension, means 'at' or 'in the region of'." Do you see the words "down" or "motion" in that sentence? Can I possibly be saying that "at" is "downward motion"? No. So what are you talking about? Beats me. Then I say it "only takes on the sense 'in accordance with' in reference to fitness or conformity" from the logical connotation of moving "down to a purpose rather than a place," thus generating an idiom unrelated to literal motion. Then I say it "can also have a comparative meaning" as in "corresponding with, after the fashion of," in other words "like flesh." Any mention of downward motion here? No. So should you go back and actually read what I wrote? Yes.


You are not quite correct here. "Take on flesh" does not render what you call GENOMAI KATA SARKA. It renders GENOMAI KATA SARKA PIONA, and only with the availability of an applied ECHONTES in the main clause. Here:

Aristotle, Historia Animalium 520a, here from a common early 20th-century translation:

The last sentence somewhat liberally renders the Greek ginontai de kata sarka piona ta tas koilias echonta mikras, which literally reads "those having small stomachs come to (have) plump flesh," or precisely: ginontai ("they become") de ("on the other hand") kata sarka piona ("toward plump flesh") ta tas koilias echonta ("those having stomachs") mikras (that are "small"). What should be evident is that "disposed to take on flesh" is not a literal translation, though it carries through the sense. Also, this is clearly an abstract connotation of "motion down to" an abstract end, which doesn't work in the NT passages of our concern and is therefore contextually irrelevant.

This is kata in the sense of "moving toward" an aim (as in "searching for booty" in LSJ definition B.III), a rather rare use of gignomai kata (i.e. such a connotation usually comes with verbs of motion rather than generation). Aristotle may have chosen this uncommon phrase to call up the idea of falling down toward one's natural end, evoking the image of a falling object coming down to its natural place, while still retaining the image of growing rather than moving. But that's speculation in the arena of literary theory. Be that as it may, I actually do mention the use of motion toward a purpose in my review. But its employment in such a sense here requires that the subordinate clause borrow in sense the participle "have" from the main clause, an economy of language not uncommon in Greek (i.e. the verb/participle appears in one clause but is intended to be understood also in attached clauses).

This is clear from the only other example of gignomai kata sarka in the Aristotelian corpus: Problemata 891a.24, where he says, "whatever has thinner flesh and prominent skin, comes to plump flesh" (hosa de araioteran echei tên sarka to te derma proestos, kata sarka piona ginetai). Observe once again: this is another causal statement (if X, then Y), where the causal clause includes the verb "to have," allowing this verb to be implied in the effect clause as well, just as in the previous passage, so: "whatever has thinner flesh and prominent skin, comes to (have) plump flesh."

This kind of clause is a rare construction, and may even be unique to Attic. But either way, it only carries the sense it does due to words (piona, echones) and constructions (causal "if, then" style declarations) that are not in the NT passages of our concern. Nor is Aristotle using kata here in the sense of becoming incarnate or existing on earth, nor is he referring to birth, but an ongoing biological process of "growing fat," a connotation that actually requires the word "fat" (piona). In fact, becomes "fat" (and its English equivalent "takes on flesh") translates the phrase sarka piona, not sarka alone.

So for all these reasons, it is clear this passage is completely unhelpful for interpreting the relevant passages in the NT. Neither the vocabulary nor the context nor the dialect are analogous, nor is the usage at all common.


From Romans 8:3: en homoiwmati sarkos, "in the likeness of flesh." In general, though, I am simply restating Doherty's thesis.


Correct. One must arrive at a sublunar-sphere context first before one interprets kata sarka as a reference to an event taking place in that context. There is nothing about kata sarka alone that directly implies such a context, which is why I conclude my paragraph on this with the statement that this phrase (emphasis now added) "does not entail that he walked the earth" but "it could allow that, but many other strange details noted by Doherty are used to argue otherwise. At any rate, he makes a pretty good case for his reading, based on far more than this." Those words in italics are very important. You seem to continually miss them.

However, I do imply one attribute of kata sarka that inherently argues for Doherty's thesis (though only indirectly), which is the fact that the phrase is odd, unless Doherty is right, then its oddness is quite explicable. However, as I essentially explain later in that same review, this does not preclude other hypotheses explaining this (or any other) oddness about the evidence in and out of the NT, and I specifically ask historicists to come up with such hypotheses in general. And they need to. Otherwise, things like this simply remain odd unless Doherty is right (at least in outline, if not in every particular--I do, in fact, disagree with Doherty in many particulars), since no one has really offered anything that renders these odd details quite as explicable. Maybe some Docetist argument will succeed here. But I have yet to see this properly attempted, in the manner I request in my review.

Amaleq13

Thanks for the clarification. So LSJ was a source for your notes which supplemented your personal experience. It wasn't your only source which you selectively quoted so as to support a view you initially rejected? Wow. I would think someone who accused you of such a thing would feel kinda bad now that you have disabused them of their false assumption and he might even feel a moral obligation to apologize.

I guess speculation about your source turned out to be less accurate than obtaining a direct answer from you. Who would ever have imagined such a thing? Better still, who would ever object to such a suggestion?

Ted Hoffman

Thanks Richard. I am a little confused by the following and would appreciate a clarification.
From Carrier's Review of Doherty:

Chris Weimer

From personal messages with Richard Carrier, I've decided to bring the relevant portions here.

I assert that "according to" is a valid translation. A simpler and purer English translation could be merely "by".

To test this out, let's try out easily translatable passages (no one ever said Paul was easy). Remember, this is only kata + accusative.

These are the kata + acc. passages in Matthew.

Mt. 2.16 - κατα τον χÏ?ονον
Mt. 9.29 - κατα την πιστιν
Mt. 16.27 - κατα την Ï€Ï?αξιν αυτου
Mt. 19.23 - κατα πασαν αιτιαν
Mt. 23.3 - κατα...τα εÏ?γα των
Mt. 25.15 - κατα την ιδιαν δυναμιν
Mt. 27.15 - κατα...εοÏ?την

κατα, like the English "by", appears to have a flexible usage. This makes sense - often a preposition will acquire new meanings when its used in a particular idiomatic construction. Just look at the Latin "in" or "ab" - both of which depending on used can mean a number of things. "in" can mean "in, into, in front on, against" etc...

If each of those are translated as "by", the expression still makes plenty of sense without the "according to". None of the context changes above when substituted by "by" except the lone Mt. 27.15.

Randomly selecting other passages, Mark 7.5 fits the bill, Luke 1.38 fits the bill, John 18.31 fits the bill, Acts 3.13 appears to be an exception, Romans 2.5 fits the bill...should I go on? On randomly selecting other kata + acc. passages, the only one that didn't fit exactly was Acts 3.13, and it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to see how that came about. It parallels the usage shown in Mt. 27.15.

I don't see the problem, then, that kata sarka imposes? I don't even see motion here at all! It seems to me the easiest explanation appears to be that Jesus was defined by the flesh then, by extension that he was on earth.

Chris Weimer

Edited: I too found Jeffrey contacting Carrier's advisor to be appalling. I clarified with Carrier - and I hope that others see this also, it was never Carrier's integrity or skill that I called into question. It was that he used the LSJ (which I don't even know why was brought up in the first place?) and that his support for Doherty's use was wrong. It turns out that he doesn't even support Doherty as I thought he did. So ultimately my contention would lie with Doherty, and not Carrier. I'm glad we cleared things up.

jgibson000

Yes, I e-mailed Richard's advisor. But why I should have mentioned that I did, or why it is taken as something I should not have done, is beyond me. It is no more an accusation of Richard of being a liar than is someone asking for letters of recommendation from the teachers of a job applicant after one they has read a sample of the applicant's writing.

Moreover, what Richard has failed to tell us is that when his advisor wrote to me, he had apparently not read what Richard wrote on KATA. Having now seen it, he thinks -- so far as I can tell -- that it does not display a first rate knowlege of classical and koine Greek and that it is a misrepresentation of what KATA with the accusative means.

FWIW, I also sent the entirety of what Richard wrote on KATA to another professor in the Classics Department at Columbia who sent me this response:

So -- admonsihed twice to do so -- I am figuring.

In any event, since it is not Richard's credentials that are at issue, but the validity both of what he says about KATA and of the conclusions he draws from this about the meaning of KATA SARKA, perhaps Richard would tell us what his advisor thinks on that matter.

Jeffrey

Amaleq13

One would hope that a professor in the Classics Department at Columbia would offer more than ad hominem attacks.

If Carrier's errors are so obvious and simple, one would think that offering specific contrary evidence, in a professional manner, would have established the point much better than unsubstantiated and juvenile insults.



Would it make more sense to you if the word "all" was in bold in Carrier's first quote?