S.C.Carlson

:huh: I have no idea what you're talking about. It doesn't make any sense to me.

Stephen

JoeWallack

JW:
This is symptomatic of your Problem Stephen, writing this "response" minutes after I wrote the post you are supposedly responding to. You don't understand or you won't understand?

You are genetivily absolutely fascinated with any evidence you think supports you here but any evidence against can be Ignored because it doesn't interest you apparently. Now you posture that I'm being unclear by Ignoring all the Issues I've Identified for you and only addressing the one where I'm asking you to make the effort first/before/foremost.

Hell, just throw in a periodic "so what" response and yule sound just like Yuri! You've already got the :huh: thing going.

Eventually I Am going to add Richard Carrier's comments here, the prote
Dating error authority the World has ever known. Are you going to last that long Stephen? Maybe you should get your article Peer Reviewed first/before/foremost? I know, you can have Jeff Review it.



Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

jgibson000

Leaving aside how methodoligically unsound and fallacious it is to appeal to an alleged "root" meaning of a word when making claims about what that word meant when used by a particular author who wrote centuries after the word was first used (see D.A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies, it is important to note that it is simply not the case , as you claim it is, that any Lexicon. let alone BDAG, indicates, suggests, shows, or claims that PRWTOS has a "primary" meaning of "first" in the sense of sequence or number.

Your claim that Lexicons do is based upon not only an extremely faulty uderstanding of what BDAG says and what its layout of the lexical data on PRWTOS signifies, but a total ignorance of both what Liddell & Scott and the TDNT and Moulton and Milligan show, as well as what other lexicographers have demonstrated about, the meaning of PRWTOS in general and PRWTH in particular from the earliet attestation of the words up through its usage in NT times.

Therefore, inasmuch as one of your major premises is not true, the particular conclusions that you draw from it, and claims you make in the light of it, have absolutely no merit whatsoever.

Sorry, Joseph, but once again you show that when you make claims about matters Greek or what lexical evidence indicates, you not only have no idea what you are talking about, but you haven't the competency or the knowledge of Greek to mount a legitimate, let alone a valid, critique of anyone else's claims about these matters.

Jeffrey Gibson

jgibson000

But you are being unclear. And your lack of clairity has nothing to do wiith, and is certainly not caused by, anything that Stephen is allegedly doing or not doing.

You simply don't write comprehensible sentences.

Jeffrey Gibson

S.C.Carlson

That's actually the plan.

JoeWallack

JW:
Jesus, what a surprise, another noncenuscal post from you. Yea, I know BDAG says the order of presentation is not necessarily in order of usage but Generally they show Primary first. Specifically, looking at the entry, "first" looks like a Primary meaning. It has the most examples. The related Lexicon words generally have a "first" connotation too. In the secondary meanings of of the word they still have a "first" meaning, it's just in a Figurative sense. Common sense also tells us that the use of "first" is going to be much more common than a secondary meaning and this is what a word analysis of "Luke" indicates (surprise). The secondary meanings of "first" all have other Greek words that can be used which would be more commonly used. And what other Greek word would commonly be used to mean "first"?

Jeff, that you would write such a <edit> post "Therefore, inasmuch as one of your major premises is not true, the particular conclusions that you draw from it, and claims you make in the light of it, have absolutely no merit whatsoever." goes beyond your being Biased. It makes me think you are <edit>




Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

jgibson000

I'd be very grateful if you'd point out what was nonsensical about it.

Umm, where ever did you get that idea?

Can you document that from anything that Danker says in his notes in the Introduction to BDAG on the presentation of the data? Isn't this just an unsupported assumption on your part?

And what do you make of the way that the data on PRWTOS is set out in LSJ stands in contradiction to your claim about how the order of presentation of meanings of a word in a Lexicon shows that "first in sequnce or number" is the "primary" sense of the word? Or how the first sentence in the entry on PRWTOS in TDNT makes nonsense of your claim?

Besides that, the issue is really, whatever the order of a Lexicon's presentation is, whether or not BDAG or any other authoritative lexicographical study of PRWTOS -- say, that in TDNT or in LSJ or that by Mouton & Milligan etc. -- not only (1) states that PRWTOS has a/one "primary" meaning of "first in sequence or number", but indicates in any fashion that "foremost" was not from the beginning of the word's usage and up through and during NT times just as "primary" a meaning of PRWTOS as is "first in sequence or number".

I'd like to see your evidence -- and appeals to common sense, especially yours, is not evidence -- that this is the case. Would you be kind enough to provide this for us?

Think what you wish. But what you write above is good evidence that in the apparently unlikely event that you ever took a course in logic, you flunked it.

Jeffrey Gibson

JoeWallack

JW:
Okay, on the Inventory of reasons why "foremost" is Unlikely for 2:2:

1) Lexicon = The offending word has a Root and Primary meaning of "First".

2) Usage = "Luke" normally uses the word to mean "first".

3) Communication Logic =

"This was the Foremost registration while Quirinius was governor of Syria."

The argument for Translating "foremost" here is "Luke" wanted to distinguish between the Census of Quirinius and the Census Joseph responded to. If this was "Luke's" motivation than using a word with a Primary meaning of "first", with a normal grammatical construction of "first", that the author normally uses to mean "first" would be a very poor choice to describe the Census that you want to Communicate Was Not First!. There are other Greek words to Communicate "most important". And of course what reason could "Luke" possibly have to try and avoid using an Equivocal word here who's primary meaning is the opposite of what "Luke" wished to communicate since it only helps establish the Date of Jesus' birth. I mean it's not like it was an important date or anything.

4) Early Witness Testimony = Understanding of "First".

And the best reason I've seen so far for 2:2 not being "foremost":

5) Resident Professional Greek expert Jeff Gibson has not given one word of support for it.

Now, on to the next problem:

"2:2 This was the first/foremost? registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria."

"First" as Superlative goes very well with a Time Qualification (Chronological). Like Bacon and Eggs, Politics and Greek, Jeff Gibson and Ad Hominens. 2:2 has just such a Time Qualification ("while Quirinius was governor of Syria."). This is what Conrad was trying to tell you (gentler than me). "First" as Absolute Superlative with a Time Qualification? As "John" Stewart would say, "Eh...not so good.". The "most important" meaning you are looking for usually has a Conceptual Qualifier, not a Chronological one. Can you find a single example? Now of course you will whine here that I Am being too demanding but it's just indicative of the difficulty in trying to find what you really need here.

This is probably the worst beating I've ever inflicted on anyone here but you seem like a good guy so here's a gift. Instead of Ignoring the Lexicon evidence why not do a search for "important" in "Luke". Remember what I said about counter-missionaries having the best Apologies.



Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

JoeWallack

JW:
Sure Jeff, PRWTOS has two Primary meanings.

Mods, can we get a split-off here for the following Thread:

Stupid Things Jeff Gibson Has Said In The Carrier's Luke vs. Matthew on the Year of Christ's Birth Now Up At ErrancyWiki Thread.



Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

S.C.Carlson

Thanks for pointing something new out to me, though it is not what you think. There is no explicit time qualification in Luke 2:2. Though the English rendering "while Quirinius was governor of Syria" looks like a temporal clause, the Greek phrase ἡγεμονεύοντος τῆς Συρίας Κυρηνίου is merely a genitive absolute. Whether such a participal phrase is temporal or something else has to be determined by context.

It had been bothering me for a long time that, if ἡγεμονεύοντος τῆς Συρίας Κυρηνίου was temporal, why doesn't it preceed the main verb as such genitive absolutes usually do? Instead, it follows the main verb. Looking at the examples in BDF, most of such cases are not temporal at all, but causal or concessive. If the genitive absolute ἡγεμονεύοντος τῆς Συρίας Κυρηνίου is rendered as a causal phrase, then the whole verse means something like: "this became a very important registration on account of Quirinius' governing of Syria." In other words, the Augustan policy of registration did not become a big deal until Quirinius executed one in the way that he did it.

So, there is certainly no explicit time qualification in Luke 2:2, and a closer look at the grammar, inspired by your (ultimately incorrect) claim, indicates that the genitive absolute should not be read to imply one either.

Thanks,

Stephen