mountainman

Examination of the date of authorship
and the date of publication of texts
as a fuction of the century (age)


The rise of C14 dating analysis has introduced further resources into the field of ancient history with respect to the understanding of christian origins. However in the case of the C14 citations concerning new testament literature, the mainstream position is - rightly or wrongly - that although the C14 dates average early fourth century, the literature itself was first authored in the second century, two hundred years, perhaps, earlier.

The question to be discussed is this. If we took a random sample today of all literature, statistically would the bulk be copies of earlier authored material, or would the bulk of it be quite current (ie: last few weeks authorship). Now I understand that we cannot immediately apply the results of this test (whatever we find hese results to actually be) to the period of antiquity, however we can go backwards a century at atime and ask this same question of each century.

At the end, the question is to what statistical extent do the books (etc?) created at any specific age represent authorship from the past ages as distinct from authorship in the current age. I may not have expressed this question well enough. Someone who understands the question --- please feel free to paraphrase.

In the meantime, my original response to Toto on this issue ...


Dear Toto,

You appear to be misrepresenting my position. Say we have two C14 citations such as 290 and 348 CE (both plus or minus 60 years) which have been derived from samples on the spine binding of these two separately discovered codices (gJudas and the NHC gThomas respectively) . My position is that there is no reason to introduce a conjectural fudge factor and the claim that these writings had been authored XXX years earlier. My position is to stand by the C14 data without any additional hypotheses.

Certainly, where there is clear and integrous attribution, with dates and names and places and lineages of earlier authors, such that the literature work is clearly an older work being preserved, then there is in this instance a valid cause to introduce the claim that the authorship of the original texts occurred far earlier than the codex which records a later posterity of it.

The two specific citations were have are NT non canonical literature, and the earliest was recently identified by April Deconnick as a parody. Admittedly Deconnick pulls the mainstream fudgefactor out of the bag and believes that although the C14 says 290 +/- 60 years, the original thing was authored in the 2nd or 3rd century and all we are looking at is a preserved-for-posterity-clone written out of respect c.240-350 CE at a later date.

Why the fudge-factor on gJudas? We have no author or date or attribution that it is being faithfully preserved. The text does not say "Hello I was copied from something older! This is a conjecture. It may be right or it may be wrong, but it is an additional conjectural fudge to the C14.

Why the fudge more specifically on the Nag Hammadi codex contain the gospel of Thomas? This is a list of sayings, all of which have been prefaced by a reference such as this: I_S says.

You will note that the original coptic does not mention Jesus says, but states I_S says. This is a nomina sacra, and abbreviation. It is also the abbreviated form of 'The Healer, which fits perfectly alongside the archaeological dominance in the ROman empire for the period from 500 BCE to 500 CE of the widespread and well-favored Healing God Asclepius. who has temples and shrines everywhere.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing about the gThomas to tell us that it was specifically written to preserve an earlier extant list of sayings. We have a C14 date of 348 CE (+/- 60 years) and that is the date I use. Mainstream need to introduce a fudge-factor to make sense of the pseudo-history delivered to them by Constantine and Eusebius. The C14 is not saying to us, here is a date, but this text is actually hundreds of years older. It is simply saying "Here we have an unattributed text dated by C14 to the C14".

The fudge factor is additional conjecture.
Yes, It may be appropriate in certain instances (attribution, etc).
No, in this instance, the texts do not tells us "I am preserved X centuries".
Where is Occam when you need him?

Best wishes,


Pete

Toto

Pete: the only question is whether you claim that the surviving copy of the text must have been the original.

If the answer is yes, no one agrees with you. We know that in ancient times, writings were preserved by copying them over and over.

If the answer is no, carbon dating the surviving copy does not tell you when the original was written.

Agree?

So there is no "fudge factor." There is an attempt to use other factors to estimate the date of composition. Many of these attempts are probably wrong, and sometimes vary by a century or so, but you have yet to justify your idiosyncratic judgments.

mountainman

Dear Toto,

I have taken care in presenting this question. Let's backup the track. You and I and everyone else should be reasonable aware that in some cases the surviving copy of a text is the original while in other cases it is a copy of an original text from a specific century in the past.

What I wish to explore is what we can determine about the statistical distribution of the relationship between the century of original authorship and the century of publication (of a text in our possession) for a number of centuries, starting from this one.


Not at all.

For example, it is my opinion that if by some means we were able to C14 date any of the major three or four greek codices in our possession, by taking small samples from the spine as in the case of the only known two NT C14 citations being discussed, then the C14 date would be fourth century.

Now I imagine nobody is about to argue that this is a surprise, seeing that the bulk of the planet's contemporary academics on the subject matter deem the chronology of these major NT greek codices to the fourth century. Nobody is going to add either one or two centuries to any of these four hypothetical C14 dates on the basis that the authorship and the publication date of the first set of Constantine Bibles is reasonably well established (ie: many commentators conjecture that the four major surviving greek NT codices are copies of this Consantine bible).

I have attempted to frame a generalised question whereby we are able to gauge in some manner the difference in extant texts (in units of centuries) between the original authorship and the text publication dates.

Let's then look at the last 100 years. If we were able to identify all books published between the years 1908 and 2008, how many of them would have been authored ....

(a) in the century 1908 to 2008,
(b) in the century 1808 to 1907,
(c) in the century 1708 to 1807,
(d) etc

This is recursively repeated for each century, back to the fourth century when the endgame of christian origins is being played out in the field of ancient history. And when we get back to this century, the frame of the question becomes:

If we were able to identify all books published between the years 300 and 399,
how many of them would have been authored .... (Hello Ammianus?)

(a) in the century 300 to 399,
(b) in the century 200 to 299,
(c) in the century 100 to 199,
(d) etc

In the case of all centuries, Obviously all options (a) through (z)
will have percentages, however I would be interested in anyone's opinion
as to an estimated (or researched) answer to this.

Here is one of the subject cases in question, the bundle of books called the Nag Hammadi codices in which the gThomas was C14 dated to 348 CE (plus or minus 60 years). In this instance, for some strange reason that I have not been able to fathom from discussion or from evidence, the mainstream opinion has it that these books (as a set?) fit the above option (b) in the century 200 to 299, and/or option (c) in the century 100 to 199.

My position with respect to the tract NHC 6,1 (TAOPATTA) is of course (a) authored in the century 300 to 399. However seeing that we have here a set of books, not just one book, and seeing that the subject matter does vary immensely, and that there are perhaps a total of 52 stories or tractates, the situation complexifies. Perhaps the isolated gJudas is a simpler example.






FInally in regard only to the current last century (1908-2008) I am especially interested in the result or opinion of he result for option (a) which I might think could be as high as 50%. And please do not jump to the conclusion that I am making a nieve assumption that the physics and the social economics and the processes required for codex publication are the same in this last century as for antiquity. I am not. I am simply looking first at our current 100 year stats.

Best wishes


Pete

Toto

Whoa, there. Why should such a statistical distribution be at all meaningful? Is there any reason to think that such a distribution would be the same for the 21st century as the 3rd? For one thing, the books produced today are sturdier than codexes, and do not need to be copied to survive.

But even so, there are books published today that were written 2000 years ago - 1000 years ago - etc.

And even if you had such a statistical distribution, how would that shed light on any particular manuscript???

That was a rhetorical question. I will not be continuing this conversation, since it seems to have no chance of leading anywhere. At this point, I think that you are sucking too much oxygen out of this forum.

bacht

I have a general question about mountainman's thesis:

Just how much literature was created in Constantine's scriptoria? here's a rough list:

NT epistles, canonical and not
NT gospels & acts, canonical and not
NT apocalypses, canonical and not
apostolic instructions/guides
patristic writings
apologist writings
church histories
etc

How many words and pages of mss would this add up to?

mountainman

Dear bacht,

My thesis has it that Constantine fabricated ther canonical new NT between 312 and 324 CE, but that - at that time with Constantine's military supremacy in the east - the persecuted homeless heavily taxed and oppressed academic greeks of the eastern empire wrote the NT non canonical texts (ie: the NT apochrypha) between 324 and the end of the century. The non canonic I perceive as satire, parody and polemic against the canonical cast of characters. Think of it as the equivalent of fourth century political sedition against the supreme despotism of Constantine.

So your question seems to be heading towards an estimate of the colossal output that may have been required at that time. If this is so, then take everything now known to have been written by Eusebius, and add the new testament, and add the Historia Augusta and probably a whole host of forgeries in the name of Lucian of Samosata and Porphyry, and you are looking at an output that assumes some form of collegiate dimensions. But that is exactly what academics note of the Historia Augusta. It was some sort of collegiate history -- perhaps a large scriptorum.

I have no problems postulating that Constantine and Eusebius sponsored large scriptorum for this fabrication of literature. We have only for one small moment to stop and comprehend that Constantine's construction of the basilicas is known as the most expensive construction project ever undertaken by anyone at all known in antiquity. He did things on a big scale. We know this already. He is described as a brigand - a pirate on land.

Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

Dear Toto,

My explanation for the meaningfulness of this statistic is as follows. Assume we could get the stats for the publications of last century (1908 to 2008) and found that the results were something like this:

(a) authorship in this century = 50%
(b) authorship 1808-1907 = 12%
(c) etc (just for example)

I have just made these up, however if the appropriate data were available this above calculation would represent an actuality. But for the sake of the argument, there is an implication to this. Namely that is - if we were to select any book from the last century at random then (based on (a)) there would be a 50% chance that it was authored in the last century.

Of course not, but the same exercise in statistics I am arguing here, may be independently conducted with respect to all known books (ie: codices) which we know to have been poublished in the fourth century. Are you with me on the logic?

Of course, these things are different, but the principle still applies.

Yes, of course there are, and that is why we need the categories to (z) and perhaps stuff older than 2600 years ago. I am aware that many bibles were published for example between 1908 and 2008, but lets not let this skew the figures. Old books are often republished. No argument from me here. I am looking at trying to seek the underlying stats for all centuries. When added together they will add to 100%. That is, books published 1908-2008 will have been authored in some century.


It would provide a statistical basis to any claims concerning the carbon dating of a book as representative of a publication date, and any conjectures concerning whether the century of authorship is:

(a) the same century as its publication
(b) one century before
(c) two centuries before
(d) etc




We spoke earlier of a fudge factor a perhaps 2 centuries. We have 2 C14 citations in the early 4th century. This tantamouts to two publication dates on the fourth century. If we knew all books published in the fourth century, and knew whether on a statistical basis, what percentage were originally authored in the 4th, or in the 3rd, or 2nd centuries, then the shape and form of any basis for this fudge factor becomes known on a statistical basis.

My position on this objective statistical project is that it will yield the results that in most centuries the majority of books (ie: more than 50% of all books published) will have been authored in the same century. Thus do I follow the C14 dates as given for the NT literature, and thus do I argue that the NT literature is fourth century.

My position is that the christian dogma has been sucking too much oxygen out of the planet earth since the fourth century, and to be precise, the christian new testament dogma was authored in the fourth century - that there was no personality by the name of Jesus ever born, which I believe Arius was trying to say when he stated Before the historical Jesus was born he was not, and, the historical Jesus was made out of nothing existing.



Best wishes,


Pete

QUOTE for the DAY:

Toto

That's where I thought you were going - into a logical error.

What is the basis for your belief that Arius meant this? Clearly he didn't. Have you channeled his ghost or called him up in a seance?

Reply to your quote of the day from the last time you cited it:

mountainman

I am looking at the channeled evidence for the existence of Jesus and christian and christianity in the first three centuries, and it is extremely unsubstantial, very ambiguous at best. Perhaps things were worse in the days of Arius? Had Helena only just then found The One True Cross? What a remarkable bit of archaeology for Constantine's mother.


Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

How do we go about getting a listing of all codices known to have been or thought to have been published in the fourth century. Against each of these publications we make a note as to when the material was originally authored (as either a) in the 4th, b) in the 3rd, c) in the 2nd, d) in the 1st century CE or earlier).

Where is the logical error in this process?

Best wishes,


Pete