S.C.Carlson

Problem is, we're being given fragments, not the full text of a work. Analyzing fragments (e.g. Hermann Diels and doxography) is probably one of the hardest forms of analysis there is, much harder than the usual textual, source, and redaction criticisms. The problem Chris is posing is more akin to analyzing the fragments of Papias, which remain obscure today, than any book of the New Testament.

Stephen

S.C.Carlson

For all we know, Chris's fragments came from a Markov generator and need not reflect any attempt at human communication.

Stephen

RED DAVE

F1:
F2:
F3:
The three fragments obviously form a group. There is a shift in form from the chiasma of F1 to the prose of F2 and, perhaps the most surprising, the sonnet of F3.

It would seem that the speakers of F1 and F2 are different people. The speaker of F1 (S1) protests against his/her greatness, while the speaker of F2 (S2) affirms it. The speaker of F3 may be tentatively identified as S1; however, for the moment, we will use the designation S3, while reserving judgment on whether, in fact, S1=S3.

Now, as to whether or not S2 is, in fact, the person addressed by S3 (S1?) in F3, that, too, remains to be seen. It would, however, seem likely.

Please to recall that, as the discoverer of F3, I have a good idea as to the answer to all these questions.

Hopefully, more of the so-called Weimer Fragments will come to light.

RED DAVE

Johann_Kaspar

Why not? Everyone is free to start a topic, isn't it?

By the way, here is a text for Chris:

This is a known work. It's only a short paragraph, meaning that he ought to be able to work his magic instantly. No hints for a while, but if he works as a scholar and present something, I may just possibly adduce some more context. Have fun, Chris!

spin

spin

Amaleq13

Yes, there should be at least some sort of provenance provided even if fabricated.

RED DAVE

Please to note that the above, posted by someone who thinks he's on top of things is an obvious forgery and a fraud. Please not that "spin" spelled backwards is "nips," which should tell everyone all they need to know about this person.

It's a shame that in the middle of a serious enquiry, where progress and new discoveries are being made daily, trash such as this is permitted.

Where is a mod when you need one?

RED DAVE

Nazaroo

There really does seem to be some misunderstanding about what biblical scholars do.

quote: "the purpose of 'literary scholarship' is to deduce the works author,"

Of course its nothing of the kind. Literary scholars and critics don't wander around like the fictional Sherlock Holmes, guessing and deducing the authors and dates of anonymous fragments.

Such feats would be super-human and beyond the realm of historical science.

What scholars CAN do, is learn a bit about the vocabulary, style, education, background, purpose, and possibly political context of a piece, by comparing it to known historical works of a similar vein. And that's it.

The idea of 'nailing' an author of a known work from a fragment requires no analyitical talent whatsoever, as RED DAVE has demonstrated. One only needs the circumstantial 'luck' that the piece is in electronic form somewhere on the internet, and have the primitive skill of operating a 'search engine' service.

So if the goal is to identify the author of the fragments, this has nothing to do with what biblical scholars do, and it can't be done from an analysis of the content of fragments, except in extremely exceptional circumstances, like:

"I have a dream!.." (Martin Luther King's famous speech).

Otherwise the real 'skills' one would need would be a photographic memory and the 'skill' of having read almost every extant piece of literature ever penned in every known language.


You can argue this point, but my point still stands: Scholars are people, and they are motivated by their chosen interests, which includes the nature and quality of the subject to be analyzed.

Secondly, any scholar can break down and analyze material successfully, whether its crap or not, however, crap will always break down into crap. You can't get silk from a sow's ear.

And third, again, there seems to be a misunderstanding about exactly what can be accomplished by any literary analysis. "Successful" analysis only means the scholar has identified a dialect, an era, a "not earlier than" type of date based upon historical content or cues (if any), a cultural background for the author. Anything beyond this is not science at all.

A 'scholar' who claims to actually identify an author is not a scientist, but some kind of circus performer like Houdini or David Copperfield. These people are acknowledged 'cheaters', performing 'magic' by trickery or tomfoolery.

Scholars don't 'identify' texts, except in very general and vague terms.

RED DAVE

Are my credentials being challenged as the undisputed discoverer of F3?

RED DAVE

chapka

It's true that this isn't the whole of literary scholarship, or even a major part, but in fact there is good scholarship devoted to identifying the authorship of particular works. For example, recent advances in textual analysis have helped tease apart the authorship of co-authored Elizabethan plays, where it was common for different authors to write different scenes. The people doing this work seem to me to be serious scholars and not deserving of being labeled as circus freaks or cheaters.

No, a scholar can't always deduce that an author was a left-handed career military man with a love of oysters, but given multiple fragments, it is possible to deduce facts such as whether the fragments share a common author with a work of known provenance, or basic facts about the cultural, regional or linguistic background of the author. Sometimes this is enough to tentatively identify an author, or support a disputed authorship.