Vorkosigan

[QUOTE]Vork, two parts of this are inconsistent. Its unfair to accuse Meier or relegating "important issues to footnotes" while knowing "that A Marginal Jew is supposed to be a kind of survey work aimed at larger audiences". Meier purposefully put the more technical and important "scholarly material" in the footnotes so the version would be accessible to a larger audience.

Vinnie, I must disagree. I do not consider the matter of the seam on either side of the TF to be something that should be relegated to a footnote that dismisses the whole issue with a stunning piece of illogic (just because Josephus has disgressions elsewhere does not mean that there is not a seam). All the evidence needs to be explored, and in the open where the layman can find it and understand that this is an important issue. Outside the references to "brother of the lord" in Paul and Ant.20.200, this is the single most important potential historical datum we have on Jesus. it deserves a much more extensive treatment.

Vorkosigan

Peter Kirby

Is it possible to obtain volume 4 (1936) of Stählin's Clemens Alexandrinus?

best,
Peter Kirby

Bede

Peter,

There are four copies of all volumes at the School of Advanced Studies in London. While you may not want to jump of the first plane over here, it does show it is easily available.

To test SGM: if it was found Stahlin made a mistake that SGM then used then that would be very strong evidence of forgery. Likewise if Stahlin made a mistake and SGM didn't, that would be good evidence for authenticity. And if SGM and Stahlin agree on all points, that would be weaker evidence of forgery. You up for it, Peter?

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Peter Kirby

Bede, you read my mind.

Volume 4 isn't for sale on ABE. Do you know if I can buy it anywhere? (Whatever the price, I'd like to know if it's for sale, in itself or in a set.)

OK, I did a search of libraries, and UCLA has it. I could put in an interlibrary loan request.

best,
Peter Kirby

godfry n. glad

Bede:

Then I suppose you never found Ken Olson's Eusebian Fabrication of the Testimonium in the files at the JesusMysteries list during your brief stay there?

Not to fear, you needn't return to find it, for the same information can be found as Eusebius and the Testimonium Flavianum in your back issues of Catholic Biblical Quarterly. It's CBQ 61(2), Apr 1999: 305-22.

Enjoy.

We now return you to the regularly scheduled programming.

godfry

Bede

Er, godfry, that article was what Layman tore to pieces on these very boards. We await Olsen's reply.

B

Vinnie

It is unfeasible to explore every issue in detail in the TF debate in a book not specifically aimed at hitting that specific question. It is a component of the book but the validity of the partially reconstructed TF is not the sole purpose. With that being said, I already stated that I would have liked Meier to have been a little more thorough on this issue. I do not disagree with that. I just don't think its fair to accuse him of relegating important information to the footnotes because he was trying to reach larger audiences and present the general arguments. Personally, as one immersed heavily in ECW studies (as opposed to NT studies), I found many instances where what I considered to be very important material was found in the footnotes.

If all the issues were to be present for a layman to explore Meier's series would have needed to be four volumes, the first one being on Flavius Josephus. This is an unreasonable demand. But Meier uncritically dismissing something in a footnote with a stunning piece of illogic is a whole seperate matter entirely to me though. I would agree with you on that. What specific page and footnote are you referring to? I'll take a look at it and see when I get back from camping.

Actually, I'm seeing the Q / Thomas overlaps to be in the category of "most important historical datums on Jesus" that we have. A lengthy paper on this is forthcoming. Further, I agree that any potential historical details in Paul are very important as he simply was not concerned with the historical Jesus and certainly did not feel free to invent sayings and narrative details regarding the life and ministry of Jesus. This is bolstered by his "silence" and where he chooses to distinguish between his commands and those of the Lord. Not to mention these potential references are first stratum material and are independent from our later narrative Gospels. The Pauline corpus is important, indeed. But if Crossan is correct we cannot start with Paul and work our way to Jesus or vice versa. There is a grey and muddy area in between these two influential figures.

Vinnie

Yuri Kuchinsky

Couldn't have put it better myself, Peter!

Let's have a reality check here. So far, not a single reputable scholar has made any sort of a case that Smith forged Clement's letter himself, or that he was involved in a conspiracy to forge it. Quesnell certainly didn't produce any such case. He beats around the bush for a very long time, invokes all sorts of suspicions, that are often quite slender or even irrelevant, and then in the end disclaims that he even wanted to point his accusative finger at Smith, in the first place...

A lot of hot air, I'd say.

As for Neusner, well, he never even _began_ to make a case... AFAIK, he only spent about a paragraph on making a vague accusation against Smith in one of his many opuses, and left it at that.

Thus, no specific case for forgery by Smith has ever been made. Perhaps because this idea is just way too loony for anyone even to try to spell it out explicitly? So, all we have so far -- after 40 years -- is vague insinuations and behind-the-back rumours. Not much to go by...

On the other hand, among the Clementine scholars there appears to be a consensus, or a near consensus, that the letter is authentic.

I've been asked about some bibliographical details on this, but unfortunately I haven't been looking into that yet. This is what I went by so far.

[quote]

The Strange Case of the Secret Gospel according to Mark
http://www.globaltown.com/shawn/secmark.html

Although one wishes this document were available for the examination of Western scholars, it is no longer reasonable to doubt the existence of the manuscript itself. That it represents an authentic tradition from Clement of Alexandria is disputed only by a handful of scholars and, as Talley also points out, the letter has itself been included in the standard edition of the Alexandrian father's writings since 1980.[72]

ENDNOTE 72: Talley, Thomas. "Liturgical Time in the Ancient Church: The State of Research." Studia Liturgica 14 (1982): 45.

[unquote]

Talley is a respected scholar, and this is a ref to a peer-reviewed journal.

Now, just having a lot of suspicions in your head is never a proof of anything, of course. At best, it can only serve as evidence of an extensive paranoia attack in the one who's having all the suspicions, but now we begin to digress into pop psychology. Lots of "maybes", all by themselves, can never amount to even one bit of certainty.

And I repeat, I'll have no objections at all if someone studies the subject in detail, and _then_ makes informed and reasonable accusations -- whether the accused is alive or dead. It's the irresponsible accusations, especially against those who can no longer defend themselves, that I'm objecting against.

Also, indeed, the word "palaeography" is more appropriate than "epigraphy" in this case, although the distinction is mostly technical. And yes, palaeography is not an exact science.

But when, in the course of court proceedings, a handwriting expert says that A is the author of the document based on the handwriting as used in the document, this is usually taken on face value by the judge. Again, stone carving is completely irrelevant as a comparison in this case.

Also, it's still a mystery to me why Quesnell and others tried to blame Smith for what happened to the MS after Smith finished cataloguing the monastery library in 1958. AFAIK, Smith did notify monastery authorities about what he found, and drew their attention to the potential importance of the SecMk MS. The fact that monastery librarians subsequently sent the MS to Istanbul tends to confirm it, of course.

So what more could he have been expected to do? Such accusations are really very strange, and betray a manifest lack of impartiality in those who are making them.

If some scholar rang the bell about the importance of studying the ink and the paper of the MS, then s/he should have contacted the monastery authorities about it ASAP, even way back in the early 1960s. And yet, obviously nobody bothered to do so. I assume that Smith himself didn't bother to do it simply because it never occurred to him that some people could be so paranoid as to suspect that he forged the MS himself, and he was too busy with other stuff, that at the time seemed more important to him.

Regards,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Haran,

This is what I wrote in my old article, that you claim to have read.

[quote]
And, finally, the handwriting. As Smith details in his book, the near consensus of all the top palaeographic experts he consulted both in Greece and the US was that the manuscript dates to the 18th century (on pp. 22-23 of his SECRET GOSPEL, Smith gives the long list of the names of these experts).

Certainly the opinion of these competent scholars should not be taken lightly.
[unquote]

So this is the combined opinion of top paleographic experts, the scholars who specialise in studying the MSS of this particular historical period. And what is your basis for questioning it?

Also, please note that all of them were apparently quite satisfied to give their opinion without having the original MS. It seems like they felt that the photos of the MS were quite sufficient for them. But not for you, for some reason...

Yours,

Yuri.

Toto

Layman huffed and puffed but never touched Olsen.

The thread is here: Refuting Olson: Eusebius' "Apologetic Purposes"