Layman

Are you going to add anything new, or just restate the case and distort my arguments in the process?

Maybe later. Right now all I've argued is that the "we-passages" as a mere literary device for sea-voyages proposition is unpersausive.

I have not yet tried to make that case here.


[quote]The idea originates in an article by Vernon Robbins, "By Land and By Sea: The We-Passages and Ancient Sea Voyages" in Perspectives on Luke-Acts. C. H. Talbert, ed., which combines two articles written in 1975. It appears at the early part of a distinguished CV that marks Robbins as the originator of the school of “socio-rhetorical analysis”. Robbins’ work is also used by Christian pastors.[/quote[

No one is accusing Robbins of being anti-Christian.

Since most scholars postulate something similar to this, I think we can move on.

I thought I was clear that the only issue I was addressing was the "literary convention" one.

And I've responded to every one of your objections.

Do you have any modern analysis of Hanno that speaks to this issue? Because modern scholarship seems clear that the third-person is in the introduction/preface, and that the actual narration takes place in the first person. Your wishful thinking to the contrary helps you not at all.

But what really sinks the case here is that Hanno was written from the eyewitness perspective of actual participants of the voyage. Far from being used for any "emphasis" or "convention," the people imparting the story were actually part of the voyage.

Oh, I think it's possible that an ancient writer may use the first person plural for emphasis, but all along that is not what we have been arguing about. You have been attempting to defend the theory that using "we" for sea-voyages was a literary convention. Now you seem retreating into some broader theory we have not argued about. From your description, it does not appear that Anabasis uses the "we" for sea-voyages, and therefore does nothing to establish the existence of such a convention.

I was very clear in what I meant. I have yet to find any source defending Robbins' theory. There are some articles promoting it in the 70s. Then some articles and books who criticized it in depth and very publically in the 80s and 90s. And I have yet to see any response to the criticisms that have been levelled at it.

If you are aware of any please let me know.

Except that there is really only one 'sea adventure" in Acts. And the "we" is used in very short sea voyages in which nothing happened, and not used in short sea voyages in which nothing happened. Nor is the "we" used for some of the longest sea voyages in Acts. Robbins theory fails to explain anything about Acts use of "we."

Everytime I specifically break down how the "we" passages were used you ignore it. If you want to defend his theory you should explain the usage in Acts, not just keep repeating what we've already done over (while distorting and mischaracterizing my arguments and sources).

The case is very underwhelming. It fails to establish the existence of the convetion and even if such a convention existed it is not compatible with the use of the first person in Acts.

If you want to make this case, please make it. So far, the only 'alternative' you've bothered to explore at all is the 'we-passages' as literary conventions of sea voyages.

Whatever my motives, you've completely failed to defend Robbins' case. At least as it relates to the sea-voyages aspect.

I'm always interested in hearing Kirby's perspsective on isues related to Biblical Criticism.

Toto

I do not wish to defend the assertion that "we" is always and only a literary convention in Hellenistic sea voyages. I think that is a much stronger statement than Robbins actually makes in his article. You are overstating the case to make it easier to dispute, and by taking that narrow issue out of the entire thesis you are missing the point.

If the question of literary conventions were a key part of a logical argument about some point or another, I could see the point in isolating it for analysis. But it is not. It doesn't prove anything one way or another.

At this time, I only will comment on this:

What "modern scholarship" do you have except for the statement by one person that that the third person is in the introduction/preface? Did you look at the link I gave? Let me spell it out:

No modern, post-modern, or ancient analysis can change the words in front of your face. The first sentence may be a title. The second block, which the editors here helpfully label (1) begins the narrative in the third person. The third block, labeled (2) is suddenly in the first person plural.

The comment to this notes:
The irregularity in the text referred to is at lines 15/16, not the transition from third to first person.

So it is not clear that the actual author of this was Hanno or a sailor(s). It could very well have been a scribe writing in the second person plural because that's how you wrote sea voyages.

This is why I don't trust your "modern" scholarship. Anyone who thinks that the third person in Hanno is part of a preface must be driven by ideology, unless there is some other evidence not printed here.

Have you read the article? Do you plan on doing so? In the second part, Robbins gives a complicated scheme based on chiasmus that shows some explaination for the use of "we". I would rather not have to reproduce it here, since it is complicated and involves diagrams. He does provide an answer as to why 'we' is not used in all of the sea voyages. If you really care about the issue, find a copy and read it.

Toto

This is more than I planned to do, but I have tried to track down some more modern comments.

Burton Mack, Who Wrote the New Testament 1995, endorses Robbins' 1978 article. (reprinted here.)

Robbins himself has a 1999 article on the web in which he dismisses his critics as having been "so intent on historical intertexture in the sea voyages in Acts that they have missed the broad social and cultural intertexture of the accounts" but this is marked as "Pre-publication: do not quote" (and I am not sure what it means. I hope he clears it up before publishing.)

Robbins defended his thesis in 1997, as shown in this post to ACTSL here:

I have found this reference which I do not have ready access to, which might shed some light (or might not):

"Response" and "Dialogue between Vernon Robbins and Reviews," Journal for the Study of the New Testament 70 (1998) 101-115. A response to reviews in "Vernon Robbins's Socio-Rhetorical Criticism: A Review," JSNT 70 (1998) 69-100.

Vorkosigan

Wonderful work, Toto. Really quite good. Remind me never, ever again to trust the writing of a conservative "scholar." I should have known better.

Vorkosigan

Toto

Oh don't speak too fast. I haven't done what I should have - I haven't gotten all those conservative scholars and read what they actually said. I'm just relying on Layman's quotes, and I'm bugging him about not having read Robbins' article.

But so many of his objections were so obviously wrong, I felt I had to say something.

Layman

And you are overstating my comments. Obviously that was not always the case because plenty of sea voyages in Hellenistic literature was written in the third-person.

But that does not relieve you of your burden of demonstrating that a practice did exist. And you have failed to do so. Instead you are desperately clinging to the "Voyage of Hanno" even though it is a first person account and even though its use of "we" is completely different than the usage of "we" in Acts.


When you've failed to establish that any such convetion existed, it certainly does not mean anything.

Yes, I repeated it with additional comments and sources.

Perhaps if you would respond to my posts instead of conventiently "summarizing" the thread with your own slant on it you would have noticed?

No one is disputing what the words are. Or that there is a shift from the third to the first person.

And some corrections.

It was not one "one person" who noticed that the "third person" section is a preface. I quoted two scholars:

As Colin Hemer noted, "the two opening sentences are in the third person, and the remainder of the document in the first plural. But the opening is a formal heading which gives the explorer's commissioning, and it should be printed as a prefatory paragraph, as it is by its editor, and not as part of a continuous undifferentiated narrative, as it is in Robbins' rendering." Hemer, The Book of Acts, as 318. As Witherington notes, "the shift occurs not because of the beginning of the sea voyage report but because the introduction is over." Witherington, at 483.


And I pointed out that another, nonNew Testament scholar commented on Hanno and reinforced Hemer and Witherington's observations. You completely ignored the link and the comments. He distinguishes between the two sentences introducting the "purpose" of Hanno's voyage and the actual narration:


The purpose of Hanno’s voyage is described thus: The Carthaginians decided that Hanno should sail outside of the Pillars of Herakles and found cities of the Libyphoenicians. And he sailed off with a fleet of sixty fifty-oared ships, and a large number of men and women to the number of thirty thousand, and with wheat and other provisions.

The same commentator notes when the actual narrative begings:

Hanno begins his narrative at the point where the fleet leaves the Mediterranean: “When we passed through the Pillars we went on and, sailing beyond them for two days, we founded a first city which we called Thymiaterion.”
http://www.metrum.org/mapping/hanno.htm

The parts in the "third person" describe the purpose of the voyage. It is, as Hemer and Witherington note, a preface. The actual narration takes place completely in the first person. There is no transition between the first and third after the story actually begings. This is completely unlike Acts, which shifts from the third to the first person frequently, whether on land or sea.

Again it is obvious that you completley ignored my previous posts so you could "summarize" the thread by ignoring my arguments.

I actually provideded the link discussing the reasons some commentators believe that Hanno is not the actual author. But the other theory is that two of Hanno's sailors were the source of the story, which a scribe wrote down for them. So the modern theories seem to be either 1) Hanno wrote it, or 2) a scribe wrote down the accounts of two of Hanno's sailors. Either way, these are eyewitness accounts. And, the accounts are considered to be good history, not fiction.

Here is how I put it before:

The entire voyage is written from the perspective from the leader of the voyage. Many believe that it was written by Hanno himself. ("On his return, Hanno wrote an eighteen line account of his journey and two abridged translations of this document known as “Periplus of Hanno” survive today." http://www.port.nmm.ac.uk/ROADS/cgi...1002585507-1263 ), while others suggest that it was written based on an interview with two of Hanno's sailors (we may consider the possibility of a mistake by the Greek translator. A better theory is that the scribe who composed the text at the stele in the shrine of Kronos interviewed two sailors. http://www.livius.org/ha-hd/hanno/hanno02.html#Two sources ).

You do realize that the numbering and layout of the Voyage of Hanno you recited are the result of 20th century editing and were not original to the story do you not? There is nothing ideological about this. It is considered to be a preface, an explanation as to the purpose of the account. Unlike Acts the entire narration is in the first person. This is a real sea voyage based on the accounts of real participants.

Heck, if it was not written by Hanno that actually reinforces the idea that there is a preface and a narrative that are separated by the "he" and "we."

If you cannot reproduce his arguments or respond to the details I've provided about the use of the "we-passages" then I take it you are simply appealing to a 25 year old theory with no known modern proponents?

Layman

Endorsed is not the same thing as "defended." I did not see any substantial defense of Robbins' theory of the "we" passages. In fact, he offers only a sentence or two explaining, rather than defending Robbin's thesis.

So far you've established that Robbins "dimisses" his critics. Not why or how.

Not much of a defense. A quick email exchange is all this is.

But yes, you've established that he is still a believer in his own theory.

Congratulations.

If it is on point let me know. Unfortunately that journal is not carried at the libraries I have access to.

Layman

The false modesty is getting old. You made up your mind after you read the title of this thread.

Which objections were wrong?

Toto

This is just extremely tortured reasoning.

"And he sailed off with a fleet of sixty fifty-oared ships, and a large number of men and women to the number of thirty thousand, and with wheat and other provisions"

is obviously the start of the journey, not the purpose. The purpose was given in the preceding sentence. Your commentator is assuming that the voyage starts when the first person plural starts, without considering the issue of literary conventions.

As I noted in the post following, Robbins is a modern proponent of his thesis, and has seen no reason to change it in the face of Hemer's and Witherington's criticism. Burton Mack agrees with him.

I am not sure that I agree with him, since I have not yet read everything on the subject. I only know that the criticisms of his theory miss the mark.

I do not understand your strange reluctance to actually read the article. Robbins' later work tends to be dense with LitCrit jargon, but this article is actually fairly readable.

Toto

Do you actually read what I write? When Sauron deconstructs your arguments word by word you cry foul. When I try to write arguments that give the big picture, you act as if you can't understand them.

You and the critics raise a lot of points about not all sea voyages using "we" and not all of the "we" passages happening on the sea. I pointed out that Robbins uses "sea voyage" to refer to a passage of time on the sea followed by adventures on land. Do you understand that basic objection?

Do you remember where I went through most of your criticisms and pointed out that they picked on passages that Robbins included as background and were not part of his proof?

I need to lay off this topic for a while, fascinating though it may be. I hope that Peter can shed some light on it when he gets all of the material he is waiting for.