xaxxat

Well, I know neither Hebrew nor Greek. Does that qualify me?

spin

We can be pretty sure now, that praxeus has abandoned all hope of saying anything meaningful in this thread and has wasted everyone's time rabbiting on about whatever else he could to hide from the realization that Josephus does in fact claim to have translated the Jewish histories because, while other Hebrew texts had been translated thanks to Eleazar, they hadn't been translated.


The approach praxeus has taken was first to reread the preface to Josephus and misread the cohesive devices (here the pronouns) Josephus uses to communicate his ideas and then refuse to budge on it. I had hoped that he would get someone he trusted to read it for him, someone like his grandmother or his parole officer (the world is a prison), to give an independent but trusted input on the meaning of the passage. [I in fact just to follow my own advice actually did this and got the interesting but unprompted feedback that at first my reader found that if she assumed that Josephus was talking about AJ throughout the passage, then she was rather confused, but returning for a closer reading she came to a different understanding.]

Now praxeus seems to think that this is an English only matter, but I think you need to know what the Greek says if you want to argue closely on the passage. I think the Whiston is close enough to convey the cohesion of the paragraph with careful reading, but I don't find your reading careful, so without granny to give you a trusted reading here is the Greek of AJ 1.7 for you to deal with if you think you can make anything better out of it than you have with the Whiston:

Make of it what you will.


spin

spin

Try the taste test:

2. Now I have undertaken the present work, as thinking it will appear to all the Greeks worthy of their study; for it will contain all our antiquities, and the constitution of our government, as interpreted out of the Hebrew Scriptures. And indeed I did formerly intend, when I wrote of the war, to explain who the Jews originally were, - what fortunes they had been subject to, - and by what legislature they had been instructed in piety, and the exercise of other virtues, - what wars also they had made in remote ages, till they were unwillingly engaged in this last with the Romans: but because this work would take up a great compass, I separated it into a set treatise by itself, with a beginning of its own, and its own conclusion; but in process of time, as usually happens to such as undertake great things, I grew weary and went on slowly, it being a large subject, and a difficult thing to translate our history into a foreign, and to us unaccustomed language. However, some persons there were who desired to know our history, and so exhorted me to go on with it; and, above all the rest, Epaphroditus, a man who is a lover of all kind of learning, but is principally delighted with the knowledge of history, and this on account of his having been himself concerned in great affairs, and many turns of fortune, and having shown a wonderful rigor of an excellent nature, and an immovable virtuous resolution in them all. I yielded to this man's persuasions, who always excites such as have abilities in what is useful and acceptable, to join their endeavors with his. I was also ashamed myself to permit any laziness of disposition to have a greater influence upon me, than the delight of taking pains in such studies as were very useful: I thereupon stirred up myself, and went on with my work more cheerfully. Besides the foregoing motives, I had others which I greatly reflected on; and these were, that our forefathers were willing to communicate such things to others; and that some of the Greeks took considerable pains to know the affairs of our nation.

1. What exactly was "this work" (indicated above with purple)?

2. What exactly does "it" refer to (indicated above with red)?

3. What exactly is the reference of "our"/"us" (indicated above with green)?

Thanks.


spin

Steven Avery

#1 and #2 are the pronoun taste test.

#3 has an ambiguous element and can involve a mulitple understanding. I agreed that Antiquities 10 gives support for #3 to include translation of historical books of Tanach against the idea that such books would have been floating around already or that Josephus would not have wasted the time. However note that the significance of #3 would be that Josephus would have done that *instead* of what became most of Antiquities (mitigating the time wasting concern) so how much Josephus actually translated (before shifting gears and *not* doing a translation for public consumption) would appear to be unknown. Especially as in Antiquites 10 Josephus talks of what he "intended" to do.

Thanks for being helpful with the Greek, the big JG concern. If anyone with Greek skills thinks that it makes a substantive difference on the questions above, please share away, be helpful. As I pointed out that has never been spin's case. The grammatical difference we have is English comprehension, in the context of the Josephus (1) and (2) above.

Suggestion:
Anybody taking the pronoun taste test.
Read the Prologue through a few times.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Steven Avery

bump - the Pronoun Taste Test