TedM

Let me get this straight. You would be willing to predict that it is likely that a particular anonymous person would smile at a stranger today if we knew that 99 out of 100 people will smile at a stranger today. Yet, you would be unwilling to predict that it is unlikely that a particular anonymous person would be named by his parents a certain name if we knew that 99 out of 100 people weren't given such a name by their parents.

Correct? If so, I don't see why you seem to feel more confident in your ability to predict one behavior--smiling--over the other--naming--when you really don't know squat about the people involved in either case.

How is that pointless if the question posed is whether person X did something you can't prove or know? It seems to me that it is reasonable to apply average statistics in such a case in order to conclude what is most likely. To say that is has no value seems to miss the whole point of statistics: to predict in the absence of certainty.

ted

Amaleq13

Yes, because we have sufficient information (presumably based on repeated observations of actual behavior) to make that fairly general, albeit murderously uninteresting, prediction.

Given that there is clearly nowhere near (and by that I'm talking distances comparable to the diameter of the universe ) the amount of necessary information for this prediction as the other, I am baffled as to why you would consider them even remotely comparable.

Given your starting general fact applicable to all humans, I don't have to know anything specific about any individual potential-smiler except that he/she is human. There is absolutely nothing like that sort of information for the other situation so one's confidence in any prediction for it must necessarily diminish to the point of nonexistence.

I'm saying that predicting the likelihood of a given individual smiling at a stranger serves no practical purpose.

I'm also saying that you cannot predict the likelihood of someone choosing a particular name for their child or a nickname for a companion based solely on the actual distribution of the names in the general population.

TedM

But, we know NOTHING about the person in question. We have no idea if he should be considered average or not. Yet you are willing to do so based on statistics. You are willing to forgo any specific knowledge about the person in question for this, yet you are not willing to do so for my other example. It's simply inconsistent.


I've given you the same odds basically. In both cases 99% of the people choose behavior X. I'm willing to assume that it is likely that a person I know nothing about chooses behavior X in both cases, but you aren't. The reason you give --not having the necessary info-- is irrelevant to statistics. It's just an idea you have in your head since the behavior of 99% people has already been defined for you.


Of course you do! You need to know if the person physically is capable of smiling, how happy or depressed they are, how they feel about strangers, if they are healthy, etc.... There is no way to know this about the person chosen. That's why statistics about the avg person are applied.

And I'm saying the exact same thing can be said about someone smiling at a stranger. The whole idea of using statistics based on averages is an acceptance of the fact that you DON'T know what a specific person will do.

ted

JoeWallack

http://www.amazon.com/gp/music/wma-p...571666-9029533

Ministers--------------------------Peter
Brave Sir Peter ran away.-------------No!
Bravely ran away away....-------------I didn't!
When Danger reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled------No!!
Yes brave Sir Peter turned about-------I didn't!
And gallantly chickened-crowed out..

Bravely taking to his feet
For a very brave retreat




JW:
You have some point younger brother that after Jesus takes away the honorary title "Peter" the Narrative continues to use it. Compare to the beginning where the reference is always "Simon" until the title is given. However, I think the Narrative continues to use "Peter" because it's an established character reference that late in the story. Certainly everything about the Messenger at the End that no one listens to (compared to the Messenger at the Beginning that everyone listened to) is Ironic. He is simply part of the Expected Plan showing up at the Designated time with the designated information expecting the followers to tell Peter what he Expects Peter will Believe. Just following Religious Orders (Don't blame The Messenger).

For every Instruction the Messenger gives, the Author makes perfectly clear, the receipients Explicitly didn't follow:

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Mark_16

"And he saith unto them, Be not amazed: ye seek Jesus, the Nazarene, who hath been crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold, the place where they laid him!

But go, tell his disciples and Peter, He goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you.

And they went out, and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them: and they said nothing to any one; for they were afraid."


JW:
The Receivers of The Message are told:

1) Do not be Amazed.

2) Tell Peter and the Disciples.

The Receivers:

1) Are Amazed.

2) Don't tell Peter and the Disciples.

In other words, the Messenger just assumed that Peter was still in Jesus' good graces and that's why "Peter" was used.

What exactly did Peter do that Restored him? In your Imagination, when "Mark's" Peter caught up to Jesus at Virgin Records in the Galilee Mall what do you suppose Jesus said? Was he like Booger in Risky Business, "When I was saying sometimes you just have to say WTF, pick up your cross and follow me, that was just Baalshit, I was just kidding."

Another Sign by "Mark" that "Simon" was Replaced (as opposed to "Peter") is:

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Mark_15

21 "And they compel one passing by, Simon of Cyrene, coming from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to go [with them], that he might bear his cross."

Hmmm, Jesus' big lecture is carrying the cross and following Jesus and after I say Peter has lost it the Narrative just happens to have a "Simon" carrying the cross and following Jesus. Quite a coincidence, wouldn't you say.

And, as always, note that "Matthew"/"Luke" have Edited out some of these clues just to make it harder for you to see my point.

And Ben, what do you make of the climactic Failure of Simon being associated with the Chicken crowing three times? Another coincidence?



Joseph

COWARD, n.
One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.

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

Amaleq13

I shouldn't have been including parental choices as problematic since, given statistics about the actual distribution, you would have some relevant information upon which to base your estimate but I still contend that information isn't sufficiently relevant to the selection of nicknames to allow a similar estimate for that choice.

We know the only thing relevant to the given statistic. He/she is human and, according to the statistic, extremely unlikely to neglect giving a smile to a stranger. If there are other relevant factors, you have not mentioned them.

Right, probability estimates are just a fancy way of saying "educated guess". Despite the 99% probability statistic, our prediction could be wrong because our subject just happened to represent the 1% minority.

Yes, because it is an entirely reasonable prediction given the information available. You seem to be missing the point that you have nothing even remotely close to that sort of information for the proposed predictions about giving nicknames.

Specific knowledge does not appear to be necessary to make the prediction given the information provided by your fake statistic.

No, it is entirely consistent with the amount of relevant information available to make the prediction. Knowing that a name was rare does not tell you how likely a given person was to choose it as a nickname for another because you don't know what information is relevant to those who did choose it. According to your statistic, the only necessary relevant information for stranger-smiles is being human. If we know that information, we can make a reliable prediction.

ETA: For all we know, the fact that a particular name was rare might actually increase the chances of it being chosen as a nickname. And that is the bottom line. You just don't know enough to generate an even remotely reliable statistic. The actual distribution of the name among children tells us absolutely nothing about the likelihood of the name being chosen as a nickname. Why you think it does is beyond me.

Where did you pretend that we had that sort of information for giving nicknames? Regardless, if you actually had that sort information, you would be justified in offering a probability estimate but you don't so you can't.

The ignorance of statistics this statement reveals is disturbing to me, Ted.

Statistics are only as good as the relevant information used to derive them.

Only for the silly smiling-at-strangers scenario. If you want to pretend that sort of knowledge for nicknaming, then your pretend world would allow you to make equally reliable predictions.

gstafleu

Fascinating thread. "His name was Simon and he called himself Peter but everyone knew him as Cephas."

So apart from the one, probably (Bayesian or otherwise) interpolated place in Gal, Peter is never mentioned by Paul and Cephas not by the gospels. Right? So if these two characters were called Bob and John we wouldn't have any issue. It is just because both translate to "rock" that we are even talking about this. OK, a bit thin, but then this is the bible we're talking about, and it is often printed on onion skin paper.

However, there is general agreement that a lot of the gospels is fiction, including possibly its lead character Mary. Oops, sorry Jay, I meant Jesus. So whether the gospel Peter is a real or a fictional character is not clear. Further, the status of the Pauline epistles is also not undisputed. It could be that Marcion, the guy who so conveniently "found" them, made them up himself (I'll spare you the reference to Detering).

We then have four possibilities:
1) Peter (real) = Cephas (real)
2) Peter (real) <> Cephas (real)
3) Peter (real) = Cephas (unreal)
4) Peter (real) <> Cephas (unreal)
5) Peter (unreal) = Cephas (real)
6) Peter (unreal) <> Cephas (real)
7) Peter (unreal) = Cephas (unreal)
8) Peter (unreal) <> Cephas (unreal)

Plus Peter's real (or unreally real) name may be Simon, but I'll forego the temptation of doubling the list.

In another thread someone quite wittily pointed out that he thought there was an Historical Jesus even though that historical Jesus was not necessarily called Jesus. So we could be discussing here the proposition that there was a historical fictional character Peter underlying the fictional character Cephas, although he wasn't called Peter but Simon.

Oh, and then we have the fact that Paul (at least the non-Marconian version) wrote before the gospels, while story-wise the gospels are set before the epistles. So maybe everything is the other way around.

I think I'll go back to discussing navels.

Gerard

TedM

This is not the position you stated earlier when you said:

A distribution of names in the general population is relevant information upon which to base an estimate of a random parent naming his child.


Now, you have dropped the argument regarding parental naming, to focus on the nickname scenario:
And, I agree with regard to nicknames. The rest of your response was based on the assumption that I thought think a choice of a nickname is random or can be compared to parents choosing a name. I don't. A nickname depends on other factors relevant to the person choosing the nickname and his purpose. IF you go back you'll see that I do not treat them the same and I do not equate the likelihood of a nickname with that of the general pop. In fact I granted that such a nickname may have been fairly likely even.

My focus was on the likelihood that had Jesus named Simon Cephas, that some parent out there would have randomly previously named their son Cephas and that this other person also would have been a similar significant figure in early Christianity. THAT'S the very unlikely scenario that I see. Put another way, GIVEN the existence of a Cephas by virtue of a nickname who we are told was prominent in the early Church, what is the likelihood that one of the OTHER most prominent members would also have been named Cephas? I think THAT probability IS based on the general distribution of names, and since I recalled that Cephas is a very uncommon name I concluded that the probability of TWO Cephas'--one having been nicknamed and another being named at birth is ALSO uncommon.

Therefore, the Cephas Paul talks about is most probably the same one the gospels are referencing. There likely were not two such people.

I hope this clarifies both what my reasoning is and why I think it IS valid to use statistics based on the general distribution of names in this case.

ted

Ben C Smith

This is where the original point (made by Kelber) of Jesus using the name Simon in Mark 14.37 begins to get fuzzy. If the author consciously was demoting Peter in that verse, then I would expect him to consciously keep that demotion in play. To say that Mark really meant it when he reversed the names in 14.37 but then did not really mean it when he maintained the name in the rest of the narrative seems inconsistent.

The question at stake, on the narrative level, is not what the messenger was thinking, but rather what the author of the text was thinking. If Mark 14.37 was the official Petrine demotion, then why did the author put words on the lips of an official messenger to the effect that the demotion either had not taken hold or had been rescinded?

It makes no difference that nobody followed the commands of this official messenger; unless you demote the messenger himself, you are kind of stuck, I think, having to take the name Peter seriously in his statement to the women.

This is tantamount to demoting the messenger. Now he is not uttering official words, but rather giving his own opinion on things. Now the reader cannot really even take his announcement of the resurrection at face value; this young man no longer speaks for the author.

That kind of reading, I think, is just plain wrong.

Absolutely nothing, I suspect. I think that Mark would have had Jesus take the initiative to restore Peter, just as Jesus had taken the initiative to call him in the first place.

Put down that Madonna album and confess your sins to the nearest rabbi!

The short answer is that we may never know, since Mark cuts off (accidentally, IMHO) at 16.8. The long answer is that John 21 may preserve a highly redacted version of the original ending.

This would work better if it were a Peter carrying the cross. Surely it would have been as Peter, not as Simon, that our man would have been carrying the cross had he not denied Jesus, right?

And Simon was a rather common name.

I am actually pretty good at keeping Matthew and Luke out of my peripheral vision. But sometimes I admit they peek through in my reading.

By name, BTW, it is Peter who is associated with the three denials.

In John 21 Jesus asks Peter three questions in the process of restoring him to service.

Again, that hypothesis linking John 21 and Mark 16 is very tentative; I do not have it all worked out yet (and it is not my own invention at any rate). But I think it answers questions more satisfactorily than to say that Mark utterly rejected Peter, even at the end in Mark 16.7.

Ben.

Amaleq13

Hence the correction, Ted.

Good. Now you know why it is relevant as opposed to your earlier post.

It wasn't an assumption. It was something you explicitly stated in the post just before the one I linked to above where you treated both as the same.

Absent the relevant information for nicknaming, no such probability estimate can be derived.

Then you are doing what you say you aren't by treating the child-naming information as though it was relevant to nicknaming.

It is only relevant to child naming and tells us nothing useful about nicknaming.

TedM

Great. You switched course so quickly I wasn't sure that even YOU had realized it.

I said no such thing. You misunderstood me. Saying there were two with the same name says nothing about how both were named, and in the 2nd post I basically said that the probabilities are not the same. I don't see anything in my posts that led you to conclude what you did.


Wrong. The likelihood that another prominent Cephas existed (named by parents) actually was most probably the same as the occurance in the general population unless you want to argue that the nickname was inspired by an existing Cephas or that the existing Cephas was inspired to become prominent because of the nicknamed Cephas--both arguments seem weak to me.


No, I am treating the child-naming information as relevant to the existance of a second Cephas! IOW as I said in an earlier post the real question is "what is the likelihood that someone named Cephas from birth would be prominent?" The answer is 'unlikely'. However, we don't conclude that he wasn't prominent and the name was a mistake. Instead we conclude 'something unlikely happened'. However, with the entry of a nicknamed Cephas we don't have to conclude that. We can conclude that there was no birth-named Cephas. That is much more likely.


I never said it does. I said it tells us something useful about the idea that there were two Cephas'--one nicknamed and another given the name from birth and what it tells us is that problably that was not likely--therefore Paul's Cephas was the same guy or the inspiration for the gospel Peter.

ted