Eliphas Levi

Has there been any further posting on the origin of this "fragment"?

The interpretation of the dialog provided by Ted Hoffman seems very likely IMO. I am curious to know the origins of the fragment after reading through the thread.

I can see the effectiveness of this method to demonstrate the challenges of dealing with early christian writings. I am not sure if info on the geographical location and an estimated date were left out intentionally to keep the focus on interpreting the text alone, but I understand the criticisms on that front.

If the original poster is unwilling to return for whatever reason, I would appreciate if Red Dave (or someone else with this info) would post the origin of the text (with links if possible) and detail the process used to determine that information.

TIA...

Eliphas Levi

Is there any chance for an answer on this?

Ecrasez L'infame

Sorry, Eli - wasn't paying attention to the board. I think you've misunderstood - no one here knows. Except Chris, of course, and he's down with a bad dose of the petulance. That's it, game over, sorry.

Having said that, quite a few very clever and literate people have read the thread and pondered the excerpts and tried to solve the puzzle. Given the breadth of these people's reading, I wouldn't be surprised if sometime somebody didn't come across the original and remember this thread. In fact, maybe that's Chris's entire point - sometimes in serious research you don't get answers to hard questions when you want them, but yonks afterwards. So expect a PM from someone out of the blue in three or four years.

Robert

arabesque

The "fragment" posted by Red Dave was supposed to be a joke. It's not actually related to the materials that Chris provided.

Eliphas Levi

Thanks for the response. I didn't realize that the OP, Chris, was no longer posting. I checked out his postings and I see that his last response on this thread where he said "I understand. It will indeed be taken elsewhere" was his last on IIDB. I guess that means he took his ball and went home. I can't see how any of the prior posts led him to such an action. It appears to be a tad extreme. To each his own...

Thanks for the response.

Eliphas Levi

Really, that was a joke? I didn't realize it. He certainly had me convinced. I guess my eagerness for an answer led to a decrease in my normal skepticism. That is a lesson in itself.

I can see the purpose of searching for the origins of this "fragment" of text as an experiential lesson in the difficulties of textual criticism. It is difficult to see how such minimal context as "This is a known work, with a known author, and all its sources are known as well" could be enough to determine anything about this "fragment".

Without anything more, it is hard to imagine how a text so obscure that it has never been posted on the web before in English (since there is no trace in google) can be traced back to its origins or author. Of course, I am not a "literary scholar", I work for a software company.

Thanks for the insight in any case.

RED DAVE

From meepmork:
From Eliphas Levi:
Eliphas, I can't believe that meepmork just did that. F3, the third of the so-called Weimer Fragments, is absolutely authentic. (See above, post 202, for a brief description of its unearthing.)

meepmork is well known on these boards as a ... I don't want to get banned, so I'll shut up.

In any event, I'm glad to announce that a fourth fragment, F4, has turned up. Allegedly, it was found at the bottom of a catbox (or in a cat house) in Washington, DC. Needless to say, this is a tremendous revelation. It's connection to the earlier fragments, F1 - F3 is clear. It may also be linked to certain other notable screeds.

See for example, Karl Rove's (yes, that Karl Rove) invaluable work: "On White Walls – Graffiti Collected from the White House Johns," 2005, Arlington, Regents University Press.

Priceless.

[* This word is obscured in the original text.]

RED DAVE

Eliphas Levi

I went back to review the thread. I realize most of the posters on this thread appear over the initial interest in the mystery, but my curiosity persists.

I saw this post where the OP highlights the phrase "to die is to gain". Since the OP specifically asked for it, I looked for this phrase.



"To die is gain" is in several translations of Phillippians 1:21.

I searched further, and found the same phrase in Plato's Apology.

I am not sure what this source reveals about the text, other than the author of the text was either aware of the words of Paul in the Letter to the Philippians or the words of Plato stuck in his mind.

Eliphas Levi

Now that is funny...:notworthy: