Horatio Parker

The word "exclusion" suggests a choice and a judgement. If Helms if correct, that would not be the case.

spin

And it is still factually wrong, as I have shown. It doesn't matter who you drag up, it is certainly not where Josephus first introduces the guy. You can't get that fact through your head. Despite the sad little trick of talking about re-introductions, it ain't the first time. There are just so many ways to say it. It's dead, Jim.

You've droned on and on saying nothing. You flee from the simple notion of markedness which is used in linguistic discussions, in utter ignorance, because the notion gets used under different names. Yet you know that your example of Nicolaos was a blunder, already clear before you opened your trap: he was a famous writer who was one of Josephus's named sources and one would expect marked syntax in his confront. It fit known behavior, as did the other example you dredged up re: John & Jesus. That was markedness for obvious reasons. You are still left without any obvious justification for the marked syntax in AJ 20.200. It doesn't matter how much you know about linguistics when you fall flat on your face like this.

You can try to hide your shortcomings from the light of day under your mountain of subterfuge, but your ass is still very plain to see. Your state of denial here is rather discouraging. Instead of using your training constructively you produce ejecta and promise to keep doing so. What a waste.

:wave:

Will Wiley

That point was replied to when "legion" stated...

You are still not dealing with these questions.

spin

Rubbish. It is plainly false that Josephus first introduced the guy. Continuing this subterfuge by redefining "first introduce" as a re-introduction is gormless.

Perhaps you appreciate the subterfuge more than I do.

Will Wiley

If there is subterfuge you're not explaining it well. Can you maybe restate it?
Thanks

LegionOnomaMoi

Wait a minute. We've been at this for god knows how many posts, and all this time it's because I said "first" not "introduces"? So your problem is that you thought that I meant "first time"? I just checked what I wrote:
I wrote this post in Microsoft Word initially (that's why all the greek isn't in italics, because copying and pasting didn't preserve the italics). Originally, the line read something like "In 6.92, he first introduces this james by his father, and ends with the name of the person introduced." I expanded this when I did my once-over, which didn't catch all my mistakes. For example, shortly after this one I state "post vs. prepnominal genitives when I meant preposed, and although I did correct it after posting, I had initially stated that James is mentioned as Jesus' brother in Mark and Q (probably thinking of the divorce teaching). And, apparently, I left in the first part of what I had written, but changing what followed (adding a whole sentence where before I had a much shorter description), and but for one word it would have been exactly what I wanted to say. Oh well. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

I stand by everything I wrote but I acknowledge you are right, this is not the first time James is introduces, and I didn't mean to imply that but my post clearly gives that impression. It was just poor editing. I stand by the fact that this is an introduction, and it doesn't matter if he was introduced before. The point is the syntax used to identify people, and there is no regular distinction within Josephus in terms of word order when it comes to identification of individuals he introduces.

Now, having acknowledged that what I wrote was wrong (even though unintended), I return to the point I've been trying to make since then (thinking you were harping only over the fact that this was not the first time James was introduced). On what basis are you asserting that word order changes based on whether Josephus has introduced someone before? Or that there is a regularity to Josephus' use of word order in indentification constructions/introductions? Apart from Cohen's analysis (and the references to Greek linguistics on syntax as well as kinship terms and modifiers regarding word order/syntax), I've already given you several examples to indicate that Josephus is quite flexible. We can do even more.

Let's start with something similar to AJ 20.200. In AJ 20.200, the focus is on the action of Ananus, and his assembling the sanhedrin. While talking about Ananus, Josephus then mentions "the brother of Jesus called Christ whose name was James."

Something quite similar happens in, for example, AJ 2.4 when the focus is on a certain illegitimate son Amalek, and his mother is introduced with ἐκ παλλακῆς αὐτῷ γεγονὼς Θαμνάης ὄνομα, where her occupation/status is put first, followed by her name.

And again we have a similar method in AJ 7.121:προσεμισθώσαντο δὲ καὶ τὸν ἐκ τῆς Μιχᾶς καλουμένης χώρας βασιλέα καὶ τέταρτον Ἴστοβον ὄνομα/And they also employed the King of a land called Maacah, and a fourth [king] by name Ishtob.

In fact, in general throughout antiquities, when Josephus uses "by name X" or "whose name was X" to talk about someone, he uses a reference modifier first.

Nor, again, are Josephus' kinship idenfications which don't employ "by name X" regular in any way.

For example, Josephus first identifies Justus in 34 with Πιστὸς παραγόμενος ὑπὸ Ἰούστου τοῦ παιδός/Pistus being guided by his boy Justus.

Then, two lines later, we find him "introducing" this Justus with Ἰοῦστος ὁ Πιστοῦ παῖς/Justus the boy of Pistus. Again, it is as if we are meeting Justus for the first time, and we are given a fairly standard identifcation (despite the fact that we don't actually need one, as no new Justus or Pistus has been introduced such that the reader would be confused). So we get the "standard" intro after the first introduction.

Then Josephus' method of identifying Chares, Justus, and Jesus. He first talks about Chares in 177, while he is explaining how he described what happened to Chares to Justus. He introduces Χάρητα, συγγενὴς...ἦν οὗτος τοῦ Φιλίππου καὶ ...Ἰησοῦν τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ ἄνδρα τῆς ἀδελφῆς Ἰούστου/ Chares, that kinsman of Philip, and Jesus the brother of him the husband of the sister of Justus.

In better English, "Chares, the kinsman of Philip, and Jesus the brother of Justus' sister's husband.

This same incident is again described in 186:

κτείνουσι δὲ καὶ Χάρητα, καὶ μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ τινα τῶν συγγενῶνἸησοῦν καὶ Ἰούστου δὲ τοῦ Τιβεριέως ἀδελφὴν ἀνεῖλον/and the murdered Chares, and they killed with him a certain one of his kinsmen Jesus and of Justus of Tiberias brother (non literally, one of his kinsmen Jesus, who was also the brother of Justus of Tiberias).

Josephus has not just changed word order, but actual relations. Now Jesus is firstly the kinsman of Chares, and secondly the brother of Justus who (for some reason) Josephus finds it necessary to also identify with another genitive construction. Moreover, no longer is Jesus his brother in law, but simply his brother.

The fact that we have "brother of Jesus called christ" as a preposed reference modifier before "by name James" is no different than the majority of time we find Josephus refereing to someone "whose name is X" or "by name X".

Once more, there are no hard and fast rules governing syntax in general, and the vast variation in methods Josephus uses to indentify/introduce individuals makes any claim about the preposed reference modifier in AJ 20.200 ridiculous (especially given Bakker's study).

So, now that we have cleared up the fact that in my original post I said "first" when it wasn't the first time that James was introduced, can you now offer any analysis based on reference to some specialist of Josephus and/or Greek which indicates that the word order in AJ 20.200 is suspect? And, while you're at it, how about an analysis of your "marked" claim (again, with references to linguistic theory)?




Wrong. I've demonstrated again and again the flexibility of syntactic structes in Greek, in Josephus, and in Josephus' indentification and intoduction of characters. What you've done is insist without any analysis that AJ 20.200 is somehow suspect, and when pressed, all you offer is a vague reference to "marked" now "supported" by your ridiculous "google scholar" search:

How is asking you to apply the notion "fleeing"? You throw out a term which I know has been used in vastly different ways in linguistics for over 50 years. And I asked you to demonstrate this "markedness", not bait and switch by pointing out that a google scholar search will turn up hits. Congratulations, "markedness" has been used in linguistics for decades, in various linguistic models and disciplines. I know that. Which is why I asked you for an analysis. You remember when I brought up construction grammar (and rather than admit you hadn't a clue as to what that was, you started your third person rants)? I defined it for you, demonstrated how it works in languages in general and in the example I was talking about, and gave you specific references and links so that you could educate yourself. Now, you chose not to do this. Here, you simply throw out a term which can be used any number of ways and then claim I'm "fleeing" from it because I ask you to demonstrate how it applies. Seriously, get a grip.


And you continue to miss the point: the variation in syntax that has nothing to do with whether someone has been introduced before, or the person is known, or whatever. Josephus simply isn't consistent, as Cohen points out.

No, I'm left asking you to demonstrate how your specific conception of markedness (based on references to linguistic research) applies here. I imagine I'm going to have to keep waiting, while you dodge the issue again and again by throwing out the term and claiming it applies without anything to back you up apart from a google search where the term is used in multiple different ways (are you familiar with linguistic typology?).

aa5874

Please, get actual DATED sources if you want to argue history I no longer accept imaginary evidence.

The authors of the Jesus story stated that Jesus was born of a Virgin based on Isaiah 7.14 so I am Not going to guess and imagine otherwise.

When Jesus rode TWO donkeys in gMatthew it was because of the Word of the Lord as PREDICTED in Hebrew Scripture.

Please I have NO use for imagination. The past cannot be reconstructed from Imagination.

The NT is BOLTED to the OT and the authors of the Jesus stories claimed all the things that they wrote about Jesus was DERIVED from the Words of the Lord as spoken by the prophets.

LegionOnomaMoi

I decided, just for the fun of it, to change my focus on the topic from a linguistic/syntactic argument to dusting off my books on Josephan analyses from a literary/rhetorical/stylistic point of view. I started this with Cohen, but dropped it there to concentrate on the nature of Greek syntax both within and outside of Josephus. Unfortuantely, a lot of the analyses which deal directly with the passage in question are ones that I'm sure are "suspect" because they concern the historical Jesus. But that still left several volumes.

More than one either contains a paper or was written by one of the recent major contributers to Josephan studies, Steve Mason (currently a professor of history at York University).

In his book Josephus, Judae, and Christian Origins Mason includes a chapter on Josephus' historical method which is relavent here because of some interesting comments he makes about Josephus' writing style and previous analyses of his quality as a historian. In particular, he addresses the frequency of criticisms of Josphan "inconsistencies in the form of outright contradictions, editorial seems, dobulets, parallel versions, and differential vocabulary..." (p. 108). Mason doesn't disagree that, from a stylistic and historiographic perspective, Josephus' works are often problematic: "Josephus has the authorial habit of repeating and controdicting himself, and of varying his terminology." (p. 112). Most of Mason's discussion concerns factual contradictions between or within works (and is largely a refutation of Schwartz), but he also notes other, more purely stylistic issues, such as "verbatim" repitition and awkward juxtaposition of passages. However, particularly noteworthy is Mason's description of Josephus' methods used to refer to people and places. After noting one such example in Life, Mason writes: "Elsewhere too, and commonly in Antiquities 18-19, he alternates the names of people and places, evidently for the sake of variety."

Mason's description of Josephus' preference for variety when referring to people (and places) coheres with Cohen's analysis I cited previously, as well as my own.

However, in the edited volume Making History: Josephus and Historical Method, Schwartz responds to Mason's critique of his work in his (Schwartz') contributing paper. He argues that Mason downplays the incongruities, name-changing, and contradictions, in particular citing Mason's reference to alternating names in 18-19, and pointing out that these are minor compared to the ones Schwartzs dealt with in his work.


All of this also coheres with the study of word order irrespective of time or genre. Dik, for example, followed her comprehensive 1995 account of word order in Herodotus with her 1997 monograph Word Order in Greek Tragic Dialogue, where she notes from the beginning that "Greek word order has traditionally been defined as free, or flexible, meaning that, besides a number of rules that can be described in syntactic terms, established categories of (especially) syntax cannot adequately account for the variation found in texts." (p. 4).

Of course, this is nothing other than what I had previously said, quoting Helena Kurzová. Bakker's monograph on the noun phrase in ancient Greek is just as explicit: "In contrast to most modern European languages, in which the ordering of NP elements is rather fixed, the structure of the NP in Ancient Greek is extremely flexible in that various consituents may occur in almost every possible order and that each constituent may or may not be preceded by an article. As a result of this flexibility, the number of possible NP patterns is enormous."

So both from a stylistic and linguistic standpoint, there is no reason to view the syntax of AJ 20.200 as somehow suspect. Mason, in his Josephus and the New Testament, follows most scholars in suspecting that the mention of Jesus reflects the fact that Jesus had been mentioned earlier, in the now corrupt AJ 18.63ff. However, he also writes that the phrasing "means to indicate something of the accusations brought against James: just as his brother was condemned by some Jewish leaders, so also James ran afoul of Ananus." He also notes that "Josephus' phrasing seems to reflect James' usual nickname. Paul calls him "the Lord's Brother (Gal. 1:19), from a Christian perspective, and this title distinguished him from the many others with the same name." (p. 178).

All of these suggestions are, of course, speculative. The variety of methods Josephus employs when referring to people render hazardous any analysis of the preposes refence modifier in AJ 20.200. But whatever the case, there is certainly no syntactical support for an interpolation argument.

aa5874

You are just going around in vicious circles like a merry-go-round. We do NOT use "linguistics" to resolve matters concerning genealogies.

We simply find out the parents of the Lord Jesus and the parents of the Apostle James. That is all.

Such an exercise takes minutes NOT hundreds of years.

Sources of antiquity that used Galatians 1.19 claimed Jesus was the Son of a Ghost so you are just wasting time.

Origen used Galatians 1.19 and Josephus but still claimed Jesus was FATHERED by a Holy Ghost.

Against Celsus 1 Tertullian used Galatians and claimed Jesus was God's Son without a human father.

On the Flesh of Christ Irenaeus used Galatians but claimed Jesus was born of a Ghost.

Against Heresies 4.23.1 Galatians 1.19 is IRRELEVANT.

Sources of antiquity regarded Jesus as the Son of a Ghost WITHOUT a human father.

Origen PREDICTED correctly that people would INVENT fables to Historicise Jesus.

Against Celsus" 1.32

angelo

No. The whole tale was built on the foundation stone of the O/T. Had there not been the O/T in existence, I doubt very much we today would have christianity. Perhaps the gullible would be still worshipping Zoroaster, or the many gods of Mt Olympus.