mountainman

Dear S&H,

I have yet to see any of my detractors (other than Toto) make a comment about, or express any opinion whatsoever about the genre, authorship and chronology of the non canonical gospels, and how this entire class of documents is to be regarded in the bigger picture of "christian origins". I maintain that this exercise will drag alot of blanks out of the too hard basket, and that the exercise will prove exceeding humorous, since I maintain we are dealing with the genre of satire, parody and/or burlesque (against the new testament canon).

Best wishes,


Pete

jeffevnz

Is he filling in blanks? Let's see. Salome's there, and so are women following him. 'Galilee' is almost totally reconstructed, so you'd have a point there, but only if you take it in isolation

The word for crucifixion is only half-reconstructed. In the fragment we have "στα..." The Greek word used in the Gospels is 'stauros,' which literally means 'stake,' but in reference to executions is understood to mean 'crucifixion.' What other Greek words could likely fill the gap?

Here is a return of search hits by Tufts' University's Perseus project, on known ancient greek words beginning with "στα..." There are 289. However, many can be eliminated for being too long (image of fragment; "στα..." appears in the 3rd line). I think it's fair to say that the blank space after the alpha would accomodate 4-8 characters, including a space before the next word, and, btw, the presence of such a long blank space makes it unlikely that "στα..." is just an abbreviation. More importantly, look at the frequencies with which the known words occur. Of all these 289 words, I see only about 20 in the list that occur either more frequently than either 'stauros' or the verb form 'stauroo,' or with frequency down to almost an order of magnitude lower. (And if a word is not known because it isn't attested in documents we have, then that suggests it has a low frequency, and therefore a low probability of being used here.) Of these, three can be safely eliminated due to length (stathmaomai, stathmoomai, and stasiastes).

That leaves us with these 19 candidates, including stauros/stauroo:

stadion - unit of length, race course, a dancing/playing area, walk in a garden
stadios - firm/fixed
staphule - grapes, bunch of grapes
stalao - to drop
stathmao - measure by rule, certify
stathme - plumb line
stathmon - weight, unit of weight
stathmos - animal stable, house, inn, part of town, port; pillar; balance, equal
stathmoo - estimate, judge
stasiazo - "I rebel"
stasimos - stopping, brought to a stand/stationary, weighed, weighable
stasis - standing, stature, faction, civil war
stasiodes - rebellious, member of a faction
stasiotes - partisans, members of a faction
stater - a weight, standard coin, debtor
stauros/stauroo - stake, crucifixion/crucify
stauroma - palisade, stockade
stachus - ear of corn, crop, progeny, name of a star, lower abdomen,bandage
stazo - drop, let fall, shed, drip, leak, trickle

Now I get a little subjective, but I think we can fairly eliminate most of these by context. We have multiple women coming from somewhere else, to see something. Presumably what they're coming to see is something important or unusual, and something visible, but not visible from just anywhere. Also it would have to be a noun. Now of all the possible meanings I see here, these conditions rule out unit of length, walk in a garden, firm/fixed, grapes, bunch of grapes, to drop, measure by rule, certify, plumb line, weight, unit of weight, pillar, balance, equal, estimate, judge, "I rebel," stopping, brought to a stand/stationary, weighed, weighable, standing, stature, faction, civil war, rebellious, a weight, standard coin, ear of corn, crop, a star, bandage, drop, let fall, shed, drip, leak, and trickle. That leaves us with:

stadion - race course, a dancing/playing area
stathmos - animal stable, house, inn, part of town, port
stasiodes - member of a faction
stasiotes - partisans, members of a faction
stater - debtor
stauros - stake, crucifixion
stauroma - palisade, stockade
stachus - progeny

Considering that these were women, in a culture with rigidly defined gender roles; and that it was the day before the sabbath, when work is prohibited, even discussion of business is considered rude, and they would be expected to be spending time with their families and preparing for the Sabbath; it seems unlikely that they would be going to see an animal stable, a palisade, a stockade, or a debtor. They're both 'manly' and un-sabbathly things.

stadion - race course, a dancing/playing area
stathmos - house, inn, part of town, port
stasiodes - member of a faction
stasiotes - partisans, members of a faction
stauros - stake, crucifixion
stachus - progeny

That's as far as I think I can narrow it just on frequency, length, and context conciderations. Now, considering again the combination of other un-reconstructed textual coincidences with the Gospels (preparation, sabbath, Arimathia, council), it seems a very fair bet that 'stauros' is what was written here. This is even true if we back off on some of the subjective judgments and just go by frequency and length. In that case we have a pool of only about 20 words that fit and are not exceedingly rare. How often would you expect one of a set of 20 words to have ever appeared in a 100 word passage along with "preparation," "sabbath," "Arimathia," and "council," in almost the right order?

Note, btw, that I don't actually know Greek So there are probably grammatical issues jumping out at those of you who do.

spamandham

I'm not making anything go away. It already isn't there. Is it reasonable to conclude the text from which the fragment came probably included Jesus' crucifixion? Sure. Can we conclusively claim that? No. Do we have noncanonical versions of the gospel story that exclude aspects we find in the canonical versions? Yes. Do we know that all versions of the story include Jesus' crucifixion? No.

If you want to pretend you know more than you do, you're welcome to, but I'm not going to agree with you.

spamandham

I don't have a problem with the idea that this story is related to the Gospel story, nor do I have a problem with the reconstruction of the word crucify.

Can you point out to me here where it states that Jesus was one of the crucified?

This subdiscussion regards what the fragment actually states, not what inferences are reasonable to draw from it.

mountainman

Dear jeffevnz,

Have you ever heard of the infinite new testament canon scribe theorem? It is a variant of the Infinite monkey theorem in which the object is not for monkeys to type the works of Shakespeare, but for scribes to create the new testament canonical text, word for word ....

If you would like me to elaborate the infinite new testament canon scribe theorem, and its relevance to the claims you are attempting to make in the above post, please ask.

Best wishes,


Pete

Toto

It doesn't say that Jesus was crucified, but someone was crucified, and then Joseph of Arimathea is mentioned as a disciple of Jesus, and in fear of the Jews.

It seems that the inference that this repeats the familiar gospel story of Jesus' crucifixion is inescapable.

mountainman

Dear S&H,

My detractors' debates, argument and evidence falls far short of naming Jesus in the first instance, before your timely take (thanks btw) on the subsequent instance (Who was X'd?) if we allow momentarily release them from their obligation to answer their primary folly. The evidence is quite clear - everyone can look at it and see for themselves -- The fragment does not name Jesus !!!!, it displays a common abbreviation formed by taking two letters of the greek and placing a bar over them both. People who had been preserving greek texts for a long time, you know, centuries and centuries and centuries, adopted a sort of short-hand. Besides, for new greek speaking academic students-in-training, it saved alot of scribe time and papyrus.

To highlight the how much of an inference it is to assume that this abbreviated name was intended to represent Jesus of the new testament canon, and not Joshua of the Hebrew Bible, can anyone answer this question. How many times does this same abbreviated name appear in the Greek Hebrew Bible (ie: the LXX), and for how many centuries was the LXX preserved by such practice?

We must be consistent in this exercise. Consider, in support of the above, the translator's note on the following article Joshua and Jesus - the Marcellus of Ancyra Fragment 4 :

I must admit that my studies of the Hebrew Bible falls far short of my studies of ancient history, and I would like to ask someone who knows far more than I whether the stories in the LXX concerning Joshua, are distinctive enough that we may be reasonably sure that these two literature figures, Joshua of the LXX and Jesus of the NT canon, are different people. And thus, because of this use, we might reasonably expect there to be found fragments of narratives in which the ancient hero Joshua makes a bold mention. Did the LXX Joshua have disciples (I dont know)?

Best wishes,


Pete

Toto

Joshua was not crucified and not associated with any crucifixions; he did not have a follower named Joseph of Arimathea who was afraid of the Jews; women did not visit his grave.

spin

No?

Your use of "conclusively" is utterly religious. That glimmer of unsureness is the stuff that inerrantists cling to.

Start with the knowledge of the sacred words indicated by contractions: "crucifixion", "Jesus", "god".

And let's throw in a little non sequitur.

Your use of "know" requires the religionist's perfection.

Knowledge is a much more practical device for we who work the earth.


spin

jeffevnz

When I made my post, I didn't notice that you were specifically disputing whether it says Jesus was the one who was crucified. I can concede that it doesn't explicitly say so. I would say however, that the evident connection with the Gospels makes that more than reasonable.