Gamera

The issue is, has statistical analysis determined a baseline for comparing the relative significance of difference, hapex legomena and other stylistic elements.

My understanding is, it has not. And I doubt if they can. It would require at the very least a comparison of texts of various length by the same authors to fix a baseline of acceptable differences, and it would have to do so over time (authors in the classic and mediaeval period had less of a sense of authorship than modern authors for a variety of reason, money being the most obvious). Further, one would have to calibrate the factors that drive the differences -- subject matter, intellectual development, age, etc.

Again I doubt such a baseline can be determined, but the question I pose to the proponents of this analysis is, has anybody even tried to determine one? And if not, isn't the whole analysis totally and completely adrift?

Ben C Smith

Holding does it for the by Paul point of view; what I (like you, I think) would like to see here is the analysis from the not by Paul point of view, for purposes of comparison and contrast.

J. A. T. Robinson, I gather, is not a very respected name on this particular forum, but he defended Pauline authorship of the pastorals in Redating the New Testament.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Are you against the statistical approach on principle, or only because the NT sample is too small, or only because not enough work has been done yet? Or for other reasons?

Ben.

TedM

That's the issue for the hapax legomena. I gave an example of comparisons within Shakespeare which showed marked differences between works. Of course, plays have their own 'reality' which could account for such differences. Have others been done? If not, I agree that the analysis is "totally and completely adrift" and that any use of the hapax legomena to help make a decision on authorship is PREMATURE and not prudent.

As for the use of the participles/nouns etc, it appeared to me that the numbers (112) were of NO VALUE given the way they were used.

My preliminary impression is that the reaction to the use of statistics for linguistic analysis has been premature because the proper basis for comparisons simply has not been established. As such, we need to THROW OUT the linguistic argument against the authenticity of the pastorals until some future time in which the mathematics/linguistic connections have obtained a more reliable predictability.

ted

noble savage

Quotation of J. P. Moreland by Richbee in his OP in the Jesus Christ--Early Creeds thread:

TedM,

Should we throw out this sort of argument as well, since we cannot arrive at a baseline for Pauline language? Would not hapax legomena necessarily be "not characteristically Pauline" as used here? Why should we assume that translation from Aramaic or Hebrew poetry and thought forms be non-Pauline? Did Paul not know Aramaic, and was he not by his own claim a Hebrew born of Hebrews (Phil. 3.5)? How far does your mistrust of the stylistic analyses of modern scholars extend?

--Noble Savage

TedM

Hi NS. Good questions. Until we can establish that the frequency of hapax legomena is beyond what is a normal range for Paul in those alleged creeds, then yes I would throw out their use for support for the creeds as being un-Paul. Other arguments might persuade me, but not those depending on a questionable hapax legomena. The linguistic and statistic experts need to get their act together before foisting questionable analysis on the public and pretending they understand what their numbers are really telling us. Perhaps that has been done, but I haven't see the evidence for it yet. Thanks for asking.



ted

andrewcriddle

Anthony Kenny's A Stylometric Study of the New Testament
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...ternetinfidels is an interesting analysis of statistical evidence for NT authorship.

Kenny himself interprets his results as not providing strong or convincing evidence that the Pastorals are non-Pauline.

IMHO the results are better interpreted as showing that the stylistic evidence for non-Pauline authorship of the Pastorals varies from book to book being strong to very strong for Titus and weak for 2 Timothy.

Andrew Criddle

TedM

Thanks Andrew! That looks like an interesting book. Your interpretation that the stylistic evidence for non-Pauline authorship for 2 Timothy is weak agrees with my 'gut' feeling that 2 Timothy looks quite authentic and moreso than 1 Timothy, even though the hapax legomena per page is actually higher for 2 Timothy (13) than 1 Timothy (11).

May I ask how what accounts for the differences between your interpretation of Kenny's results and his own interpretation?

Also, I'm curious at to whether his statistics revealed widely varying evidence by chapter within the Pastorals, as we find that is the case with the hapax legomena:

thanks again,

ted

Gamera

This and more.

First, any two original texts are different. That's why they are two texts and not one. Even if they are by the same author they are different. Aristotle's Metaphysics and Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics have a lot in common, but they are essentially different. Now, some of those differences are broadly speaking stylistic: the use of hapax legomena, phraseology, sentence length, periodicisms, etc. So, to amass stylistic statistics on any two works tell use nothing in itself unless we have a baseline to determine what kinds and level of diffirences are significant to authorship. To give an example, James Joyce wrote Ulysses and Portrait of an Artist. No doubt about common authorship. But do a stylistic analysis and you'll explode. The stylistic differences are enormous. There are reasons for those differences: subject matter, intellectual and artistic development, influences, purposes, etc. So unless you have a baseline that takes into consideration factors that can tell you what kinds and level of differences are outside the range of common authorship, amassing statistics about differences is meaningless. It literally tells you nothing about authorship, just difference.

Second, such a baseline would have to not be "general" but specific to the time period. Authors have different roles in different cultures, with different incentives to claim or indicate authorship (money being the most obvious one). Presumably, the baseline for 1st century Judea (which didn't have a strong sense of authorship given no strong economic incentive to do so) would be different than 20th century America. And presumably this would in turn differ from the baseline for 1st century Greeks and 2nd century Romans. Pagan vs Christian literature may also have different thresholds. Yet, I'm not aware of any proponent of this methodology making any analysis in this area. (If they have been done, let me know and I'll be content)

Third, yes, it may be impossible to do a meaningful stylistic analysis of difference for early Christian texts due to the small sample. I don't know if a baseline could be determined with the relatively small amount of mss we have, mostly of latter origin. At the very least, a proponent needs to address the issue. Have they?

Ben C Smith

Hi, Gamera.

I find it funny that when I debate a liberal (even more so a mythicist) I feel very conservative, and when I debate a conservative (for want of a better term here) I feel very liberal.

I do not put very much stock in hapax arguments in and of themselves, nor points of style in and of themselves. What I look for are converging lines of evidence, of which style is only one.

For me the relative lateness of the attestation for the pastorals is suspicious, their absence from Marcion likewise (I do not buy the argument that Marcion could not have cut out the unacceptable parts of the pastorals just like he did with Romans and 1 Corinthians; and why these three in particular?). Then there is the list of little sayings that are common only to those three Paulines and no others. And the fact that they are difficult to fit into a Pauline chronology from Acts (since I do not as yet regard Acts as unabashed fiction). And the high number of hapax legomena. And the more catholic feel to them than to the other Paulines. And the fact that even within his own lifetime (I tend to accept 2 Thessalonians as Pauline) Paul acknowledged that epistles could be forged in his name.

As I mentioned before, I am not ready as of yet to launch my own arguments against their Pauline authorship, but I just wanted you to know that style is only one of many things that I would look to. There is in biblical studies a tendency to take the only kind of evidence we usually have, cumulative and circumstantial, and strain it out into a list of smaller arguments in order to knock them down one by one. Yet it is the cumulative effect that often does it for me, not the force of any one argument. Ancient history is not modern history; we are not drowning in ancient sources. The evidence is fragile.

Ben.