Jeffrey Gibson

You have not yet identified characteristics of greco roman parody or shown yourself familiar with what they are, let alone demonstrated that whatever these characteristics are, they are present in the Acts of Philip.

So not knowing what these characteristics are, how can you say you identified them?

Jeffrey

mountainman

Dear Pat,

The claim here is that the canon was fabricated between 312 and 324 CE.

The claim here is that the non canonical literature was authored after 324 CE as a direct reaction against the Constantinian canon.

How can a 16% chance "disprove" anything in isolation? You are here simply looking at likelihoods, not "proofs and/or disproofs".

More seriously however, what IMO you are not taking into account is the second C14 citation on gThomas at 348 CE plus or minus 60 years. When you take both these (only) two NT related citations together, then the common ground is the year 329 CE, which would match very closely the year when the output of Arius of Alexandria was maximal (assuming he wrote from 324 to 336 CE before being poisoned).


In a parallel fashion, according to this prescription, we have to subtract some reasonable margin (say 10 or 20 years) to the C14 date of 348 CE, to estimate the original authoring date of gThomas.

Additionally, I dont know whether you are aware of this fact or not, but there are a fair few of the NT apochryphal literature already established to have been written in the fourth century, such as "The Gospel of Philip".

Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

Dear Jeffrey,

Let me get this right. You are attempting to arguing that the Emperor Julian was not being satirical in his above work. Is this correct?


Robert Lamberton (Washington University) reviewing the book by D. R. Macdonald, Christianizing Homer, the Odyssey, Plato, and The Acts of Andrew (or via: amazon.co.uk). New York: Oxford, University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-19-508722-4. Extracted from Bryn Mawr Classical Review 94.10.19:
Best wishes,


Pete

Jeffrey Gibson

No, it's not. And how you could possibly take me as doing this is beyond me.

What I'm doing is asking you to show me that what Julian wrote would have been recognized as "satire" by those who, like Quintilliam, Lucillius, Horace, Juvenal, etc., wrote satire or discussed it or engaged in literary criticism of it in and before Julian's time.

And I note that you've shifted the ground from the question of whether what Julian wrote was from a greco-roman literary critical perspective a "satire" (a question you've prescinded from answering since. as is obvious, you don't know, and don't want to reveal that you have no knowledge of the formal characteristics of Greco Roman satire) to the question of whether Julian was being "satirical". Nice dodge.


In any case, if I've been arguing anything it's that no one has any reason to accept your claims about what the NT apocryphal writings are, since --as you are even now demonstrating by dodging the questions I've asked you -- you have no grounding whatsoever in ancient literary critical theory and you are woefully unacquainted with the primary examples of, and the standard and representative ancient (not to mention recent) discussions of, the types of works which you claim the NT aprocryphal writings are.

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

Am I missing something? Where does Lamberton say that the NT apocrypha, let alone the Acts of Andrew, is a text critic's nightmare because of a refusal to recognize what genre the writings in the apocrypha are and or that they contain parody, burlesque, etc.?

Jeffrey

mountainman

Dear Jeffrey,

In the first instance it is Lamberton who says that "The New Testament apocrypha as a whole are a textual critic's nightmare". In the second instance it is my position that within much of the NT Apochryphal corpus the appearance of anti-Apostolic sedition, anti-christian satire and parody, may be identified. Dark jokes and dark humor directed at Constantinianism by the greek ascetic academics whom he was oppressing maleovolently and despotically. I am suggesting that one of the reasons why the apochryphal NT literature is regarded as a textual critics nightmare, is that there exists a strong and vital presence of satire and parody in the apochryphal texts which has not yet been identified by the textual critics (the exception being Deconnick in gJudas).

Best wishes,


Pete

Jeffrey Gibson

[QUOTE=mountainman;5626678]regarded by whom? text critics?

Then you are showing that once again, only this time with respect to textual criticism, and what it is that text critics themselves say causes them nightmares, you have no idea of what you are taking about.

And DeConick does not regard herself as a text critic nor would she agree that your suggestion about why text critics regard the NT apocrypha as their nightmare has any merit.

Don't believe me? Write to her to find out. She may be reached at

adeconick at rice dot edu

I wonder what excuse you'll come up with this time not to do so.

Jeffrey

mountainman

Dear Jeffrey,

Thankyou very much for your comprehension abilities. I think they are exceedingly high and highly under-rated. When are you going on holidays again?

I shall prepare a list for you, so dont worry unduly about this. Make sure you have a great day.

Best wishes,



Pete