SBL 2022 presentation titles and abstracts

Discussion about the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, etc.
Secret Alias
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Re: SBL 2022 presentation titles and abstracts

Post by Secret Alias »

But this does bring up an interesting question (I hope). When Epiphanius was dictating the Panarion to his secretary he has at least some books ready at hand. He seems to pick up Hegesippus during his account of the Carpocratians. I accept that. But if you look carefully at the Marcionite account, it's been written and rewritten. There is a clear sense that he brings secondary and tertiary information layered on top of an original dictation. The Marcionite document that contains all the citations of the gospel and letters of Paul comes after the original dictation. The point is that he adds to the original dictation. It isn't simply a one and done dictation. So Williams "At some time he gathered a collection of extracts from Marcion’s canon which could be used to refute Marcion’s thesis; he publishes these, together with his comments on them, in the long Panarion 42."

I think Epiphanius was bored of dictating this work and went off on a crazy tangent. Already at 2.1 you can see his reluctance:
It is just my miserable luck to be telling you of all the blindness of their ignorance. For it would take me a great deal of time if I should wish go into detail here in the treatise I am writing about them and describe one by one the outrageous teachings of their falsely termed “knowledge”
I see this as a confession of sorts that - because there is no 'gnostic' sect per se - he's about to make up shit. He brings up the double meaning of qabba. He goes on to repeat information he already read in his account of Basilides earlier:
Others of them, who in their turn are differently affl cted, and blind their own eyes and (so) are blinded, introduce a Barkabbas as another
prophet—one worthy of just that name!
The point is he isn't working from any 'account' per se. He's just winging this information. Barkabbas is from the Basildes account as if the reference to "365 names" and so on. The whole gnostic section is just something he didn't want to do (because he didn't have a pre-existent 'account' in any of his sources) and so he's just winging it.
StephenGoranson
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Re: SBL 2022 presentation titles and abstracts

Post by StephenGoranson »

I have tried here, as in my dissertation and in another article*, to sort out some of the credible and not-credible portions of the Panarion of Epiphanius.
To claim that I validate lurid details is misrepresentation. (Nor do I credit pseudo-Clement.)
Another example. Epiphanius wrote that he met Joseph of Tiberias. I find that credible. But it does not follow that everything he wrote about that Joseph is credible.
*
https://people.duke.edu/~goranson/Joseph_Revisited.pdf
Secret Alias
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Re: SBL 2022 presentation titles and abstracts

Post by Secret Alias »

I think every generation in recent times has pulled off the veil of sexuality as such and realized its a big nothing. Young men today are less interested in sex than they were in my day. In my day men were still trying to get women drunk to sleep with them. In my generation still 'gay' was this shameful thing that could lead to fisticuffs if one accused the other of being a 'fag.' That's gone away. In previous generations the line between rape and sex were even more unclear. My point is that when we strip sexuality down to its core it's really a big nothing and the most recent generation has found out the truth. It was impossible in former generations to be indifferent to sexuality. In the 21st century we have achieved what was formerly impossible - we have become desexualized by following Oscar Wilde's advice to get rid of a temptation by yielding to it.

As such, when I hear an ancient writer living in a celibacy culture making claims about 'sexualized gnostics' I am rightly skeptical of these claims. But more importantly I don't think people of your generation and earlier who were brought up in a sexually repressive sexual ignorance had any idea how exaggerated all claims of 'the lure of sexuality' were. It's all a big nothing. Women were imagined to be 'whores' for merely living independent lives (renting an apartment without being married). Most of the 'sexuality' of former ages was just a repressed fantasy world developed from sexual frustration PROJECTED ON TO THE SAME BORING WORLD that young people are now discovering. Epiphanius's claims about the Phibionites only show that he and his audience were sexually repressed. That's all. And those who buy into this nonsense the same thing.
StephenGoranson
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Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2015 2:10 am

Re: SBL 2022 presentation titles and abstracts

Post by StephenGoranson »

aggressive & oblivious: poor mix?
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