Vorkosigan

I must admit that the recent exchange about Paul's use of "born of a woman" really set me thinking, and for that I must thank Layman. Doherty argued, as I understand it, that Paul's phrase is unique for him, and that usage occurs nowhere else in Paul. Therefore he must mean something special by it. Layman, as I understand, countered by pointing out that there are similar usages in other greek writers of the time. I felt this approach was quite reasonable and understandable and convincing. Later I pulled the rug out from under my initial response.

The methodological issues raised here are quite interesting, as I see it. On what grounds was Layman entitled to argue that similar passages in other writers where they referred to real births paralleled Paul's usage? One could argue that Layman, not finding what he needed in the NT, simply widened the net until he had what he needed. If he hadn't found it in Josephus, he simply would have cast his net out further.

But what's wrong with that? Couldn't one argue, conversely, that keeping the discussion confined to Paul was simply a rhetorical device of Doherty's? Isn't confining the discussion as methodologically unsupported as widening it? Doesn't Doherty dig among greek philosophical concepts to find support for his ideas about the NT? How then can he object if Layman rummages around in Josephus for examples to rebut his interpretations of ginomai(help! sp?)

Further, if Layman finds that non-Pauline greek contains this phrase with his meaning, isn't that strong evidence that the passage is non-Pauline in origin? (elsewhere that is taken for evidence of a creedal formula). So why didn't Layman feel that he had discovered the passage was interpolated? Intead, he felt that the usage by others confirmed his own interpretation.

It seems that there is no position here in which axioms of belief do not determine the limits of the methodology we are using, and hence, what we are discovering. Does anyone know of a way to resolve this? Or should we depend on the "reasonableness" of the inquirer? Are NT methodologies doomed to be ad hoc like this?

Vorkosigan

Steven Carr

Perhaps Paul should have explained things more clearly :-)

Or perhaps hearing one half of a conversation, written to people whose knowledge, culture and beliefs we are not familiar with , is inherently an error-prone process.

We have little knowledge of why these Galatians became Christians, or what such a phrase would have meant exactly to them.



There is always an element of ad hoc, especially in the case of unique letters, written for particular circumstances. Circumstances which never arose before (as Christianity has only occurred once)

Mind you, Paul's usage in this particular case, does seem pretty clear to me.

Amaleq13

Clear in the sense that he is asserting the humanity of Jesus or clear in the sense of why he felt the need to make such an assertion?

joedad

Are you familiar with this methodology?Bookish Math

How accurate this relatively new methodology would be, however, considering translation, transcription, interpolation, interpretation, accretion, and probably a host of other considerations, would be a serious concern. Nevertheless, these methods have already been used to study "ancient greek and latin texts," as the link states, primarily for means of determining authorship.

What's potentially promising about this approach, as I see it anyay, is that writings of Eusebius, for example, are common enough to enable comparisons to other early christian writings and get some insight as to who may have actually penned Josephus, or parts thereof. On the other hand, there is enough Josephus on hand to compare his style to other writings, and perhaps shed light on contested Josephus authorship. It would seem to me that regardless of who presently is credited with writing what, similarities in style ought to associate seemingly disparate texts or sections thereof.If we were more certain of who had penned what writings, or even certain that writings attributed to a particular person were scientifically dissimilar enough in style, such a situation might undercut even the beginnings of any arguments along the lines you mention. Anyway, I thought it was a good read.

Ideally, it would be super to have stylometric base data on persons x,y,z,etc., so to be better able at associating contested pieces of literature, or even large enough sections, with specific sources. It would be interesting, for example, to know the degree to which the word "ginomai" appears in the ancient texts, and be then able to associate its appearance with specific sources, be that source labeled Paul, Josephus or Eusebius.

Vorkosigan

Those tools are important, but stylistic analysis has pretty much settled the issue. However, dividing the Pauline corpus into three rough groups (Pauline, Pastorals, Deutero-Paulines) doesn't tell us who wrote them, joedad. It just tells us that there are several different authors.

Vorkosigan

spin

Incidentally, long ago I read about people using statistics in an analysis of various nt works. I can't remember the main author of these analysis, but one of them was done with a McGregor who if I remember correctly wrote a commentary on John's gospel. Any idea either who the main author was or what was McGregor's first name, so I can do an internet search on the material?


spin

joedad

The stylometry mentioned in the article IS a style analysis, is just uses statistics and is a scientific approach. In the case of the Federalist Papers, the analysis did indeed agree with the prevailing historians' view.
Yes, I know it doesn't tell us who wrote them. I only think it would be worth knowing which early christian documents have the same style, regardless of how we have them labeled presently. Such information points to a common source. Perhaps such analyses would only confirm prevailing opinion. Perhaps not.

NOGO

Some time back I was debating the meaning of Heb9:26 with Layman.

I pointed to him all the verses in the NT that supported my view.

Layman wanted to limit the discussion to Hebrews.

The following summarizes the discussion

Here is the link in case you wish to read it.

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...5&pagenumber=3

Ted Hoffman

In a word: double standard.
The problem has always been to raise the bar when its convenient and to lower it when its convenient.

OTOH, does showing that other people used a similar phrase disprove the argument that Paul used it uniquely?