Why haven't Goodacre, Gathercole, and I accepted Martijn's claims?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
User avatar
Ken Olson
Posts: 1277
Joined: Fri May 09, 2014 9:26 am

Re: Why has Martijn not been thanked for his research by Goodacre, Gathercole, and me?

Post by Ken Olson »

robert j wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 2:15 pm
Ken Olson wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 4:22 pm But while it may not be a certainty that Matthew's ZIZANION is derived from the same Semitic root as ZIZONE and ZONIN, it remains a strong inference.
A possibility for the origin of the Greek ‘zizanion’ (Matt 13:24-30, Thomas 57), going back even further in time ---

Emmer was one of the earliest wheat-like plants to be domesticated. The ancient Sumerian word for emmer was ‘ziz’, and the word was often found in a compound form such as ‘ziz-babbar’ (white emmer) ---

Resources ---

ziz [EMMER] N (4385x) Early Dynastic I-II, Early Dynastic IIIa, Early Dynastic IIIb, Ebla, Old Akkadian, Lagash II, Ur III, Old Babylonian, Middle Assyrian, Neo-Assyrian, Hellenistic … (more)
http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/epsd2/o0042863

ziz [EMMER] (2856x: ED IIIa, ED IIIb, Old Akkadian, Lagash II, Ur III, Early Old Babylonian, Old Babylonian, unknown) wr. ziz2 "emmer wheat" Akk. kiššātu; kunšu … (more)
http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/epsd/e6553.html

This 86 year old article discusses a text from a Sumerian cuneiform tablet from about 4,000 years ago, with ‘ziz’ and ‘ziz-an’ as emmer. This short article reviews the etymology of certain Semitic terms, including ‘zonin’, in relation to a possible Sumerian origin. This author seems quite confident in the conclusion (I'm still digesting this) ---

“It is obvious that ziz-an must be the origin of all these Aramaic and Arabic words, and of the Greek zizanion …” (p. 88)


Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland
By Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland for 1936
(Under “Miscellaneous Communications”, A Business Record from the Dungi Period, pp. 87-92)

https://books.google.com/books?id=SwAFA ... iz&f=false


The article is also available on JSTOR ---
https://www.jstor.org/stable/25182041

Thanks for posting this - particularly the link to S. Langdon''s article in JSTOR. I was aware that NT scholars had connected Matthew's ZIZANION with the Hebrew זונין ZUNIN or ZONIN for a long time (e.g., A.H. McNeil, The Gospel According to St. Matthew, 1915, 196 n. 25), but I was not aware of the discussion of the common Semitic root of ZIZANION, ZONIN, and ZIZONE in ANE studies. The brief history of research from Langdon's article may be worth reproducing here:
Langdon on Zizania.png
Langdon on Zizania.png (192.99 KiB) Viewed 1244 times
How could darnel ryegrass, a problematic weed in wheat in some regions throughout the long millennia, come to have a name derived from an ancient word for a cultivated wheat-like grain from the very cradle of agriculture? Well, actually makes a lot of sense.
Yes, it makes a lot of sense. They were, of course, not able to do genetic analysis of plants in the ancient world. The statement in Mishnah Kilayim 1.1, 'Wheat and zunin do not constitute kilayim one with the other,' would only show that they thought ZUNIN was a form of wheat because it looked like wheat. It's also possible the word ZUNIN was applied to different (i.e, what we today would recognize as different species) of wheat-resembling plants over the course of centuries.

Best,

Ken
Bernard Muller
Posts: 3964
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2013 6:02 pm
Contact:

Re: Why has Martijn not been thanked for his research by Goodacre, Gathercole, and me?

Post by Bernard Muller »

The fact that Zizanion only appears in a very Matthean parable (see Mat 13:30) points to "Matthew" got Zizanion (for weeds) from some ancient writing.

Cordially, Bernard
User avatar
Ken Olson
Posts: 1277
Joined: Fri May 09, 2014 9:26 am

Re: Why haven't Goodacre, Gathercole, and I accepted Martijn's claims?

Post by Ken Olson »

mlinssen wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 6:50 pm So please Ken, when I provide my elaborate, kind, academic, well argued and certainly non polemic exposition of why and how Thomas invented Zizanion - will you give me your best?
It's now been three days since I posted my argument (which is not really *my* argument, but the understanding of most NT scholars) that Matthew's ζιζάνιον ZIZANION is derived from a Semitic word from which the Rabbinic Hebrew זונין ZUNIN or ZONIN and the Syriac ܙܝܙܢܐ ZIZ-NA/ZIZANA/ZIZONE are also derived.

viewtopic.php?p=141499#p141499

And it's been one day since I posted (with thanks to robert j for the reference) a section from S. Langdon's paper on the issue, which added the cognate Arabic ZIWAN and possible derivation from words known in the ANE, including the Sumerian Ziz-an 'a kind of Emmer wheat'.

viewtopic.php?p=141542#p141542

Most of this information can also be found in the entry on Tares from Hastings Bible Dictionary (1906-1918), online here:

https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries ... tares.html

In case this was not already clear, I think the case for Matthew (or, conceivably, Thomas) using a Semitic word already in use for a plant resembling (but not) wheat is a *much* stronger inference from the available evidence than mlinnsen's conjecture that Thomas invented a new word based on a possible play on words between the ζίζῠφον tree and myth of Sisyphus, with the intent to bring the latter to mind.

viewtopic.php?p=141438#p141438

Best,

Ken
schillingklaus
Posts: 645
Joined: Sat Dec 11, 2021 11:17 pm

Re: Why haven't Goodacre, Gathercole, and I accepted Martijn's claims?

Post by schillingklaus »

I do not follow Mlinssen's claims as he tries to force mankind into the belief in a strong dependence of Mt and Lk on Mk.
User avatar
mlinssen
Posts: 3431
Joined: Tue Aug 06, 2019 11:01 am
Location: The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Why has Martijn not been thanked for his research by Goodacre, Gathercole, and me?

Post by mlinssen »

Ken Olson wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 11:56 pm
mlinssen wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 8:43 pm
Ken Olson wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 11:00 pm
mlinssen wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 2:37 pm When will Christians demand honesty, sincerity and truth from their scholars and academics?
What will it take for the likes of you, Gathercole and Goodacre to stand up and shout?

"Thank you for sharing your research Martijn"

Sorry Ken, I have nothing but praise and respect for you, and you deserve nothing but from my point of view. But what does it take to turn all this around - what does it take to simply do the right thing?
You appear to have misunderstood me Ken, given the fact that you took this quote from another thread and used it to start this one - and I would very much like you to set things straight because you give a completely wrong impression of the facts: not only of what I have stated but most importantly of what Mark and Simon have stated

"Thank you for sharing your research Martijn" is the actual sole response from both Mark Goodacre as well as Simon Gathercole to me when I sent them my paper on the abundantly overwhelming presence of ⲭⲣⲏⲥⲧⲟⲥ and related forms with an ETA (ⲏ) in the Nag Hammadi Library

So please, do follow up on this, as you wholly misrepresent what Mark Goodacre did, what Simon Gathercole did, and what I said they did - thank you
I do appear to have misunderstood what you intended to convey with the highlighted line. If I am understanding you correctly now, the highlighted line you placed in quotation marks following your question 'What will it take for the likes of you, Gathercole and Goodacre to stand up and shout?' was not, in fact, what you wanted Gathercole, Goodacre, and me, to stand up and shout, but rather the sole response you had actually received from both Mark Goodacre and Simon Gathercole. I admit I did not understand that to be what you were saying. I do not think you communicated your meaning very well.

Could you restate what you were actually asking a bit more clearly? I see three or four questions there:

(1) When will Christians demand honesty, sincerity and truth from their scholars and academics?

(2) What will it take for the likes of you, Gathercole and Goodacre to stand up and shout?

(3 or 3 & 4) what does it take to turn all this around - what does it take to simply do the right thing?

I think I more or less understand the first question.

On the second, what is it that Gathercole, Goodacre, and I, should be standing up and shouting?

On the third, I don't quite understand what 'all of this' is. Is it everything you have ever argued on this forum and your Academia.edu site in general, or one or more of the particular issue you have addressed such as the dating of Chrestian/Christian terms like 'catholic', the origin of nomina sacra, or the direction of dependence between the synoptics and Thomas?

On the fourth, I may or may not have understood you on what the right thing is and who should be doing it who is not. I think you were asking why Gathercole and I have not come forward and publicly admitted that you are right about 'all of this' (whatever that happens to be). (If that is what you are saying, then I would guess that was also what you think G., G., I, and our likes should stand up and shout).

Best,

Ken
Thank you Ken, granted.
Let me ignore your direct questions please and instead go back to my original post and address the brief statements in there by elaborating on what laid in front of me prior to that:

1. The issue that I ran into well over 3 years ago concerned the "emending" of Thomas, like logion 65 "he didn't know them" -> "they didn't recognise him". An emendation that is very hard to justify of course from a scribal point of view, and attests to the desire of the "scholar" trying hard (and apparently failing) to make sense of the text.
And his resolution is to change the text so he can uphold his peerception
2. It didn't take long before matters went from bad to worse, and logion 74 has 2 completely different words "emended" into one - and again, against all rules of treating a text, without any motivation or explanation whatsoever.

You get the gist I think. The more "scholarly works" I read, the greater the quantity and 'quality' of the emendations - and the complete absence of any and all explanation for so grossly redacting the original text

3. Fast forward to my discovery of the XS ligatures in all their forms in the NHL: 35 counts of XRHSTOS-xyz, 2 of XRISTOS-xyz.
That is a really very skewed distribution, isn't it?
Yet all of these get translated with Christ-xyz, and there are only two notes to all of it in the 5,000 pages that the Brill series on the NHL comprise and at no point is there any visible mark to the English translation that a word like XRHSTOS gets emended to XRISTOS.
Nor is there a comment from anyone who remarks on the fact that the word XRISTOS is not even present in the NHL; all there is, is XRHSTOS and XRHSTOS alone.
Christ doesn't exist in the NHL, Ken - and at that point I didn't yet know that the identical fact holds true for any and all Christian writings.
It had been 2 years since my initial discovery and I had set up a Discussion as I usually do for burning topics, which was frequented by quite a few professors and scholars - who all remained utterly silent

And that is when I, in despair after so many papers published by me on this topic, that went without any and all response, reached out to Mark and Simon with what I saw as splendid demonstration of blind bias that really and urgently had to be addressed "from within".
And I was well aware of the predicament there so I appealed to academic ethics, morals and values in general, and I called for a reaction from their side, if at least just a preliminary one to me

"Thank you for sharing your research Martijn" was all I got

Does this help, Ken?

In related news, I see you radically changed the thread title, which is quite intrusive for a running thread - but you started it so you're free to do that.
Yet it will be confusing to most
Last edited by mlinssen on Sun Aug 21, 2022 4:02 am, edited 2 times in total.
User avatar
mlinssen
Posts: 3431
Joined: Tue Aug 06, 2019 11:01 am
Location: The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Why haven't Goodacre, Gathercole, and I accepted Martijn's claims?

Post by mlinssen »

Ken Olson wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 4:35 pm
mlinssen wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 6:50 pm So please Ken, when I provide my elaborate, kind, academic, well argued and certainly non polemic exposition of why and how Thomas invented Zizanion - will you give me your best?
It's now been three days since I posted my argument (which is not really *my* argument, but the understanding of most NT scholars) that Matthew's ζιζάνιον ZIZANION is derived from a Semitic word from which the Rabbinic Hebrew זונין ZUNIN or ZONIN and the Syriac ܙܝܙܢܐ ZIZ-NA/ZIZANA/ZIZONE are also derived.

viewtopic.php?p=141499#p141499

And it's been one day since I posted (with thanks to robert j for the reference) a section from S. Langdon's paper on the issue, which added the cognate Arabic ZIWAN and possible derivation from words known in the ANE, including the Sumerian Ziz-an 'a kind of Emmer wheat'.

viewtopic.php?p=141542#p141542

Most of this information can also be found in the entry on Tares from Hastings Bible Dictionary (1906-1918), online here:

https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries ... tares.html

In case this was not already clear, I think the case for Matthew (or, conceivably, Thomas) using a Semitic word already in use for a plant resembling (but not) wheat is a *much* stronger inference from the available evidence than mlinnsen's conjecture that Thomas invented a new word based on a possible play on words between the ζίζῠφον tree and myth of Sisyphus, with the intent to bring the latter to mind.

viewtopic.php?p=141438#p141438

Best,

Ken
Precisely. I'm still waiting

Or should I set you up by providing the highly likely response that you can't come up yourself with any explanation, but the impossibly implausible ones that you mentioned already?

Semitic, Arabic and Hebrew - have these people noticed that the NT is infested with Latin loanwords, and that Aramaic and Hebrew actually get explained to its audience?

And do you expect me to react to your borrowed exposition without you first addressing mine? Or your own tentative and almost reluctant one?
Or did you do the latter and have I missed it, in which case I owe you my apologies
User avatar
MrMacSon
Posts: 8798
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 3:45 pm

Re: Why has Martijn not been thanked for his research by Goodacre, Gathercole, and me?

Post by MrMacSon »

mlinssen wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 11:17 pm
It had been 2 years since my initial discovery and I had set up a Discussion as I usually do for burning topics, which was frequented by quite a few professors and scholars - who all remained utterly silent

And that is when I, in despair after so many papers published by me on this topic, that went without any and all response, reached out to Mark and Simon with what I saw as splendid demonstration of blind bias that really and urgently had to be addressed "from within".
And I was well aware of the predicament there so I appealed to academic ethics, morals and values in general, and I called for a reaction from their side, if at least just a preliminary one to me

"Thank you for sharing your research Martijn" was all I got

Scholars are less likely to engage 'academically' with your work if it's not published in academic [peer-reviewed] journals (and even then they mightn't: you have no right to expect anyone to respond)
User avatar
maryhelena
Posts: 2881
Joined: Tue Oct 08, 2013 11:22 pm
Location: England

Re: Why has Martijn not been thanked for his research by Goodacre, Gathercole, and me?

Post by maryhelena »

MrMacSon wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 12:03 am
mlinssen wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 11:17 pm
It had been 2 years since my initial discovery and I had set up a Discussion as I usually do for burning topics, which was frequented by quite a few professors and scholars - who all remained utterly silent

And that is when I, in despair after so many papers published by me on this topic, that went without any and all response, reached out to Mark and Simon with what I saw as splendid demonstration of blind bias that really and urgently had to be addressed "from within".
And I was well aware of the predicament there so I appealed to academic ethics, morals and values in general, and I called for a reaction from their side, if at least just a preliminary one to me

"Thank you for sharing your research Martijn" was all I got

Scholars are less likely to engage 'academically' with your work if it's not published in academic [peer-reviewed] journals (and even then they mightn't: you have no right to expect anyone to respond)
Which raises the question - has any research by non-academics, non professionals in a particular field, ever been accepted - not just by an individual academic, but by their guild. ? Has any non-academic research moved the dial, so to speak, of an academic consensus position ?

Of course, individual academics can raise issues of their own, suggesting non-consensus positions, and get negative critique from their collogues. Thinking about Rachael Elior on the Essenes. Also of course, Ken Olson's Eusebius theory has not received overall academic acclaim. Probably a lot more academics research does not achieve total acceptance.

In a field like New Testament studies, a field in which theology and church history are able to cloud the waters, a consensus as to what lies at the root of christian origins remains a very subjective enterprise. For those of us prepared to undertake the task of unravelling the past - unravelling the past for our own satisfaction, our answers are our reward. Seeking academic interest might be welcome but our satisfaction rests in our own answers not any academic clapping of hands.

Over the years I sent some ideas to academics - and got much the same response as Martijn has got. I may do so again as I think I have something interesting to say. (and no, it's not anything I've posted on this forum). But my aim won't be to get an academic accolade - one offers something up and that is all one can do. If rejection hurts one then maybe one needs to question what it is one is trying to do. Trying to change the system is a difficult exercise if the system is not ready for change. What's that old saying - an idea whose time has come (don't know who said it or where it's from..) Research is an individual pursuit - and an individual is in it for it's own end - not for any academic say so.
User avatar
mlinssen
Posts: 3431
Joined: Tue Aug 06, 2019 11:01 am
Location: The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Why has Martijn not been thanked for his research by Goodacre, Gathercole, and me?

Post by mlinssen »

MrMacSon wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 12:03 am
mlinssen wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 11:17 pm
It had been 2 years since my initial discovery and I had set up a Discussion as I usually do for burning topics, which was frequented by quite a few professors and scholars - who all remained utterly silent

And that is when I, in despair after so many papers published by me on this topic, that went without any and all response, reached out to Mark and Simon with what I saw as splendid demonstration of blind bias that really and urgently had to be addressed "from within".
And I was well aware of the predicament there so I appealed to academic ethics, morals and values in general, and I called for a reaction from their side, if at least just a preliminary one to me

"Thank you for sharing your research Martijn" was all I got

Scholars are less likely to engage 'academically' with your work if it's not published in academic [peer-reviewed] journals (and even then they mightn't: you have no right to expect anyone to respond)
Where did I say at any point something even remotely close to that?
Or even suggest that I did not get a response?
I quoted the exact response that I got - and then people assumed all kinds of different things, jumped to conclusions based on that without verifying any of it, and then started to accuse me of things that took place only inside their head.
Worse, Ken has even explicitly stated that Mark Goodacre and Simon Gathercole have not thanked me for my research, which somehow mysteriously was based on the very fact that I literally quoted their response to me, which was exactly this: "Thank you for your research Martijn"

Perhaps - apparently - it has eluded you that it was Ken who started this thread with the title that you quote here:

Why has Martijn not been thanked for his research by Goodacre, Gathercole, and me?

and now has changed it to

Why haven't Goodacre, Gathercole, and I accepted Martijn's claims?

Meanwhile Ken has admitted that he misunderstood my single comment.
It would certainly seem that you have also done the latter (and then piled some others assumptions and misunderstandings on top of that)
Last edited by mlinssen on Sun Aug 21, 2022 4:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
mlinssen
Posts: 3431
Joined: Tue Aug 06, 2019 11:01 am
Location: The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Why has Martijn not been thanked for his research by Goodacre, Gathercole, and me?

Post by mlinssen »

maryhelena wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 12:46 am
MrMacSon wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 12:03 am Scholars are less likely to engage 'academically' with your work if it's not published in academic [peer-reviewed] journals (and even then they mightn't: you have no right to expect anyone to respond)
Which raises the question - has any research by non-academics, non professionals in a particular field, ever been accepted - not just by an individual academic, but by their guild. ? Has any non-academic research moved the dial, so to speak, of an academic consensus position ?

Of course, individual academics can raise issues of their own, suggesting non-consensus positions, and get negative critique from their collogues. Thinking about Rachael Elior on the Essenes. Also of course, Ken Olson's Eusebius theory has not received overall academic acclaim. Probably a lot more academics research does not achieve total acceptance.

In a field like New Testament studies, a field in which theology and church history are able to cloud the waters, a consensus as to what lies at the root of christian origins remains a very subjective enterprise. For those of us prepared to undertake the task of unravelling the past - unravelling the past for our own satisfaction, our answers are our reward. Seeking academic interest might be welcome but our satisfaction rests in our own answers not any academic clapping of hands.

Over the years I sent some ideas to academics - and got much the same response as Martijn has got. I may do so again as I think I have something interesting to say. (and no, it's not anything I've posted on this forum). But my aim won't be to get an academic accolade - one offers something up and that is all one can do. If rejection hurts one then maybe one needs to question what it is one is trying to do. Trying to change the system is a difficult exercise if the system is not ready for change. What's that old saying - an idea whose time has come (don't know who said it or where it's from..) Research is an individual pursuit - and an individual is in it for it's own end - not for any academic say so.
Hear hear Maryhelena, and I fully agree. I don't consider myself a scholar or academic even though I formally am qualified to call myself an academic; I hold a Masters degree even, but expecting anything from the biblical academic cesspool but meek bleating from within its echo chamber is possibly even more naive than the vast majority of its occupants themselves

Mind you, I will change the system, and all of it and entirely - and turn it into a blaze of fire of Apocalyptic proportions

Now, before anyone jumps to conclusions yet again...
Last edited by mlinssen on Sun Aug 21, 2022 4:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
Post Reply