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02-01-2009, 08:18 AM | #61 | ||
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Any ideas ? Jiri |
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02-01-2009, 08:45 AM | #62 | ||||||||||
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Andrew Criddle |
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02-01-2009, 01:07 PM | #63 | ||
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What you said originally was that "some Clementine scholars have had no problems with the letter". But the truth is that _most_ Clementine scholars have had no problems with the letter. Best, Yuri. |
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02-01-2009, 01:24 PM | #64 | |
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Could you give a few names of Clementine scholars who have happily used the letter in their work ? Thanks Andrew Criddle |
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02-01-2009, 01:30 PM | #65 | ||
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What you addressed above was whether or not the method you used in your statistical analysis was valid. But even supposing that your method was valid, there still seem to be some other problems, as Brown is pointing out. For example, there's also the question of how the hypothesis you've stated, namely, “the author of the letter, in imitating the style of Clement, sought to use words found in Clement but not in other Patristic writers and to avoid words not found in Clement but present in other Patristic writers. In doing so the writer brought together more rare words and phrases scattered throughout the authentic works of Clement than are compatible with genuine Clementine authorship.” relates to the actual statistical analysis that you've performed. This is what Brown says, "This is a hypothesis, not a fact, and as a hypothesis it has a very tenuous relationship to the actual statistical analysis, which did not examine the relationship between the letter’s vocabulary and the vocabularies of other patristic writers. And notice the reference to “phrases” in his explanation. Criddle studied individual words, so this conjecture about phrases has no basis in the data produced by his statistical analysis. He simply imagined what a forger might have done." So is it really true that your hypothesis has "a very tenuous relationship to the actual statistical analysis"? Best, Yuri. |
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02-01-2009, 01:45 PM | #66 | |||
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All the best, Yuri. |
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02-01-2009, 02:54 PM | #67 | |
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I'll get one point out of the way. It's many years since I did the detailed analysis but IMS the letter does show distinctive Clementine like phrases as well as words. However Scott Brown is quite right that my analysis was based on words not phrases and hence in discussing my results I should have limited myself to the words I had attempted to statistically analyze rather than the phrases which I had not analyzed in that way. (I do mention on page 218 the distinctive phrase sarkikwn kai enswmatwn but this sort of anecdotal evidence falls short of statistical analysis.) On the point of distinctively Clementine vocabulary: Of the 9 words I listed as occurring once and once only in Clement andrapodwdhs exantlew hierophantikos and prosepagw are distinctive in the sense that (according to Morton Smith) they are found in Clement but not in either Athanasius or Philo. Hence the presence of these words in the Mar Saba letter makes the text substantially more Clementine. In order to make a work appear, in its vocabulary, distinctively by an author one needs to add rare words used by that author. Such words will frequently be used only once or twice by the author. (Of the words in the letter found in Clement's acknowledged works more than once but not in either Philo or Athanasius Morton Smith lists only anamignumi Carpocratians planhths and proparaskeuazw) So the words I listed play an important role in making the Mar Saba letter appear distinctively Clementine in vocabulary. I briefly discuss these issues on page 218 of my paper although Scott Brown does not appear to mention this. Scott Brown comments quite properly that my results could have more than one explanation. I did consider and rule out one obvious explanation, that Clement is largely repeating a passage in his acknowledged works. (He isn't). I could have added that, if genuine, the letter represents Clement writing in a new genre, the letter, which makes the strong linguistic resemblances with his other works in other genres even more surprising. Andrew Criddle |
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02-01-2009, 06:42 PM | #68 | ||
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02-02-2009, 04:31 AM | #69 | |||
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FWIW so far as I checked, Not present in either Philo or Athanasius tended to mostly mean rare in Patristic writers in general but my checks were only cursory. Quote:
1/ We have only late unreliable evidence for surviving letters by Clement. See Letters of Clement 2/ My point was not about the unlikelihood of Clement writing letters. It was about the improbability of such letters resembling so cllosely in style and vocabulary, his work in other genres. Andrew Criddle |
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02-02-2009, 09:56 AM | #70 | ||
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2/ The argument that Athanasius and Philo are not suitable controls for testing Clementine authorship undermines Morton Smith's arguments for Clementine authorship at least as much as it does my critique thereof. Andrew Criddle |
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