DCHindley

When I do a search to find something I wrote previously, it makes it easier to locate it based on subject if what I say is what shows up in the sample line of text that follows each post. Comes in handy if a subject previously discussed comes up again, and I don't want to re-invent the wheel. I'm more likely to remember my own posts than the exact wording of someone else's.

That being said, I sometimes lead with the snippet, if it is good, thoughtful and short.

If the post I am responding is seriously interesting and complicated, I might open with a statement, then follow with a series of snippets from the post to which I add my own observations, then a conclusion.

It also forces folks to look down and read the snippet (which I usually try to keep short by editing it to the essential argument, like I did below).

DCH

Adam

Yes, that's the reason I top-post sometimes.

James The Least

It's continually stunning that this level of credulity passes for scholarship. Only in Bible studies. In the same paragraph, the author can note that Josephus displays a broad knowledge of classical Greek, drawn from an intimate knowledge of the great Greek authors, then note that he required assistants just to help him write in Greek, because, after all he's a Palestinian Jew -- a direct contradiction of the previous observation, but no worries.

And there's still more!

Er ... no, the nearly verbatim quotation of the Letter of Aristeas indicates that the Josephan author doesn't know shit about the Hebrew language and is using that ahistoric "letter" as an excuse to validate his use of the LXX, just like the Christian apologists did later.

It's a stretch to say Josephus is himself a myth. I think we are dealing with a combination of some authentic writings and some pseudepigraphy. The Josephan author's take on the Jewish War sounds like blatant Roman propaganda and is useless from a Jewish perspective, yet scholars like Feldman blithely assume it's authentic.

stephan huller

Perhaps I should have said - the first century person of Josephus was mythologized, re-invented etc. But what's the fun in that? Indeed the mythicists make the same sweeping assertions about Jesus (i.e. that because 'mythologizing' took place = Jesus never existed). Why not partake in the fun?

stephan huller

Perhaps even better - something's not right here - or - we shouldn't use this stuff uncritically.

Duke Leto

If you could confine yourself to that kind of thinking you'd be a much better scholar. You have a pronounced tendency to leap to conclusions that aren't compellingly warranted by the data, usually because they are novel hypotheses of your own, frequently without looking for evidence that might contradict them.

Please try to take that as a constructive criticism.

One of the things I've been consistently emphasizing to you regarding your use of histories is that when people write them and change things from the way they actually happened, they usually have two reasons, stupidity or an agenda.

You've pointed out cases where there seems to have been stupidity in Josephus, at least as you perceive it. In at least one case I've shown a model which can account for a deliberate distortion, the cross-dressing Zealots bit, with Josephus being an anti-Zealot Jew just as well as an anti-Zealot Christian. In the cases where you basically assert deliberate changes requiring the invention many superfluous details, for example the Drusilla episodes, it's really incumbent on you to explain why the chronicler would have fabricated those details. (You completely refuse to do this in that case.)

An obvious example from an equally dodgy classical historian: Herodotus. Herodotus relates a story of how a Scythian envoy presented the Persian king Darius the following gifts without any verbal explanation during his invasion of Scythia (basically the Ukraine): a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows. Darius assumed they intended to surrender, while a Persian noble explained their meaning this way: "Unless,
Persians, ye can turn into birds and fly up into the sky, or become
mice and burrow under the ground, or make yourselves frogs, and take
refuge in the fens, ye will never make escape from this land, but
die pierced by our arrows."

This is a pretty ridiculous story. Not as far out as the Phoenix or the Indian gold digging ants (which may actually have an immensely confused basis in fact), but quite silly. But Herodotus had a reason for including it. One of his central themes was that free peoples (the Greeks) were superior fighters to people who were under a tyranny (the Persians). Herodotus' version somewhat distorted the actual effectiveness of the Persian campaign, since he implies Darius was driven out instead of withdrawing after setting up a few bases.

But when you're building a new theory of authorship and provenance for a major historical text, you're kind of obligated to construct a theory of the motivations and worldview of the author that explains why they altered the historical record (which is what you have been saying your author did). It's really seemed like your intention has been to shatter convention and proclaim how smart you are without making the slightest effort to pick up the pieces and make a coherent new paradigm.

Are you beginning to see why people might find this behavior immensely irritating?

stephan huller

i don't hear anyone complaining except for one person. and the last i checked i have more of these color coded shapes (good, bad, ugly i dont know beside my name here than the guy complaining.

if you don't like the tv program turn the channel or put it on ignore

Duke Leto

I assume you mean forum "reputation" by color coded widgets. I can't see your reputation so I won't comment.

While few find you as obnoxious as I do, and some give credit to individual points in your argument, almost no poster in the threads I have participated in with you has endorsed your overall conclusions. Also, my final, unwithdrawn statements on your advertising methods are completely, demonstrably true.

And your television simile is incomplete. You're not "Honey Boo Boo", you're Glenn Beck, spreading false opinions. I actually do have a duty to correct them.

stephan huller

i think you need to find someone to love and make you feel special.

Duke Leto

Personal insults... always a good sign I've made an argument you don't want to have to counter.