stephan huller

After one year of stubborn needling Agamemnon Tselikas, the leading expert on Greek monastic writings from the last millennium and the man commissioned recently by Biblical Archaeological Review to study the photographs of Mar Saba 65, has agreed to assign three of his graduate students to go through all the digital scans of seventeenth and eighteenth century manuscripts from all the Greek monasteries to search if there is a handwriting match with the document discovered by Morton Smith in 1958. All he needs is 3000 Euros which I think can break down into 25 100 Euro donations.

Surely resolving this deadlock is worth the price of nice night out on the town, an adult ticket to Disney world, a date with a streetwalker etc. The details are here - http://stephanhuller.blogspot.com/20...t-3000-to.html

I hope I can find five people at this forum who will donate five single donations of € 100 each. I think I can find the rest at my blog and by contacting the principles on either side of the debate. Tselikas believes the document is a modern forgery. Anyone who shares that sentiment can be rest assured the study will not be slanted in favor of the authenticity position.

avi

Thank you, Stephan, for organizing this endeavor.

I wish to offer a couple of ideas, both of which, I am sure you have already considered, long ago....

a. Are his "graduate students" capable experts, practiced in the skill of handwriting analysis?

b. given the long standing, hostile positions (forgery versus genuine), what is the safeguard to ensure that someone (student, official, gangster) would not INSERT a document, that had been forged, and thereby nullify the results of the inquiry?

I worry that a document WILL be found, but it may not represent an authentic document, whether or not that original was quilled by Clement of Alexandria.

I am also worried that an Ancient document will be discovered, attributed to Clement, but actually written one or more centuries after Clement had moved on...(or up, as the case may be....) Unfortunately, forgery was not that uncommon in the second, third, and fourth centuries CE.

avi

stephan huller

Why would Tselikas publish a fourteen part study for BAR which argues for forgery and then forge a text to prove authenticity? It is more discomforting for those of us who think the text is probably genuine to trust Tselikas to supervise the matching. But what else can we do? The various MSS have all been categorized and recorded beforehand. This is not Hollywood

avi

All 10k?

Hmm. What are the odds that all 10,000 manuscripts are authentic? Oh, I see. You imagine that since the digital images have already been catalogued, that therefore it would be impossible for anyone with an ordinary flash drive to simply waltz in and substitute one digital image for another?

Gosh, I don't know, Stephan. Maybe someone paid him? Do you misunderstand the incidence of fraud, deception, dishonesty, and forgery, on archaeological digs?

Didn't we just have a thread, maybe three months ago, about some new discovery of ancient lead tablets that prove this or that?

Almost every week, we can read about falsification of documents. Do you write here, that since all 10k docs have been catalogued, that therefore, there is no possibilty of further fraud?

This scenario suggests, to me, not Hollywood, but Dura Europos, where the Diatessaron, or comparable ancient document, was conveniently "discovered", just beneath the surface soil, despite rainfall so heavy that the dig had to be postponed. Many other ancient documents crumbled to dust upon unearthing, but that one was saved, alla akbar, what a miracle!!!

avi

DAZ

I'm willing to donate €100, if you really think this search will do any good (i.e. those students are up to the job).

stephan huller

DAZ

You are second person from this forum to offer up the money (the other sent a private message). I am just stuck in a ferry line in downtown waiting to go to one of the islands. Am I certain this will solve the mystery? No but it is certainly a better approach than the stupid manner the debate was “deadlocked” hitherto - Scott Brown vs Stephen Carlson.

The whole situation really demonstrates what's wrong with the humanities. The endless writing of papers and “criticisms” of previous schools of thought. The question of authenticity is really simple. It involves hard work not hot air

I see each donation as an extension of one's middle finger to the way all debates are carried out in the “study of early Christianity”

Anyway thanks for the bread

DAZ

I agree. So, do you think those students are up to it? Then I'll donate gladly.
Sure, but I'd like to have some certainty about those students being able to solve the mystery.

stephan huller

Well I can't guarantee that they'll find a match. I am not promising that Mar Saba 65 will be authenticated. However if the 10000 digital texts represents all known Greek monastic texts then our failure to match Mar Saba 65 when a known examplar will strongly suggest the text is an anomaly and as an anomaly it becomes more likely than not that the text is a forgery

Why don't I get you the CV's of the three students of Tselikas

judge

There are three kinds of people in the world. Those that can count and those that can't.

DAZ

There's no need. I'm just a bit troubled over the possibility of a false negative.
My offer still stands.