Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Chris Hansen wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 9:41 am 1. My response to Tuccinardi got axed in the final draft, but basically I doubt the ability of stylometric analysis to really tell us much about these letters. While Tuccinardi's analysis is interesting, I think further studies need to be done before accepting its findings, particularly I would like to see what happens if Books I-IX are also factored in, as Tuccinardi only used Book X.

• Cheers. It's interesting your response to - & I presume discussion of - Tuccinardi's paper got axed considering what your paper is about
  
  • eg. it would rely on the veracity of Pliny's Epistle 10.96.

Chris Hansen wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 9:41 am 2. ... My initial draft did cite Jones, but I needed to conserve space, and whether or not Shaw's particular thesis is correct is rather inconsequential for my paper to begin with (I only occasionally cite Shaw and Moss in the paper).

• Cheers. I only wondered b/c Jones is listed as a reference: #16 here, so I wondered if you had teased the some of the Shaw-Jones[-Shaw] thing out (without needing to refer to the 2nd Shaw paper). As you say, "whether or not Shaw's particular thesis is correct is rather inconsequential for my paper."
  
  And I note the start of that response:

  Chris Hansen wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 9:41 am I did not cite Jones' response mostly just because I found it particularly weak. It relies heavily on the historicity of Acts, and I think that Shaw's counter response in NTS was more than able to handle Jones' issues.

Chris Hansen wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 9:41 am
3. I didn't find Bremmer and Van Der Lans' objections particularly engaging ... their attempt to note that there may have been a distinctive community of "Christ followers" to persecute is strange and poorly evidenced. They cite Paul's letter which contains references to some 25 people, and this is enough for them to declare a distinctive Christ community, but that number is incredibly small that they would most assuredly go unnoticed in a city whose population ca. 60 CE was possibly as high as 1,000,000 people or more. The idea that a handful even the size of a few hundred would have been noticeable is rather unbelievable to me. This gets more complicated looking at the Pliny letters where it appears that Christians are just being discussed by Roman authorities for the first time, requiring an investigation and direct thoughts from the Emperor on what to do.

Thus, I don't find any of the counter arguments persuasive at all, and it seems more that a lot of it is attempting to explain away the problematic silences and contradictions, rather than the meat of how Shaw's argumentation functioned.
.

• Cheers, again. I had only partly read Van Der Lans and Bremmer previously, and found it hard to follow. So, my posting of excerpts from it ended up being as much an exercise in me trying to make sense of it, as anything.

Justin Martyr is the first FF to use "x-tians", and he attests to Xrhstians - and counts himself among them

First Apology Chapter 4

https://archive.org/details/apologiesof ... 5/mode/1up

Notice the skipping of verses in the following:


Let's look at the bold words:

1. χρηστότατοι - superlative of χρηστόι, which is plural nominative of χρηστός. Comparative would be χρηστότεροι

useful, good of its kind, serviceable

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... xrhsto%2Fs

2. Χριστιανοὶ - we'll come to that in a minute

3. χρηστὸν - singular accusative of χρηστός, object of μισεῖσθαι, together with τὸ: "the good". μισέω is the verb 'to hate', μισεῖσθαι is the present infinitive

So we have the superlative of χρηστός on the left, the regular adjective χρηστός on the right, and caught in between is Χριστιανοὶ - and even if one doesn't know any Greek at all, it is evident that Χρηστιανοὶ would fit an awful lot better.
The extant MS is Parisinus Graece 450 – 14th CE

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b ... 5b/f4.item

No use looking it up but I'll do that later today anyway just for fun. But let's transliterate this:


And that is it, and even if we assume this to be original, and when we uncritically accept the circular evidence for Justin Martyr's life, works and dates, then we find ourselves in 156 CE with Justin unambiguously attesting to Chrestians who are called Chrestians without a shred of a doubt.
Justin counts himself among these Chrestians, and even comes up with a fun explanation for the name itself

And we would have outside witnesses BEFORE that period who speak of Christians?

Sure

What Tacitus does attest to, is the moment in time during which his text got interpolated: right after the hostile takeover of Chrestianity by Christianity, when the icon was still called Xrhstos and its original followers Xrhstians: to accommodate the dating game of Churchianity, the Christians are here placed in time before any others.
Or perhaps this was original and said Chrestians, yet got changed to Christians on purpose: but that would be less likely

One thing is for sure: it is an anomalous anachronism to have Tacitus say what it says

For Justin Martyr, First Apology Chapter 4, https://archive.org/details/apologiesof ... 5/mode/1up is a helpful source:

The earliest MS is Parisinus Graece 450, 14th CE, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b ... 5b/f4.item
Chapter 4 starts at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b ... .item.zoom#
... and continues on the next page:
Transcription, starting from the first complete line at the top of the screenshot, text numbering kept intact and nomina sacra f(ixe)d, including scri{bal err}ors indicated where those deviate from the text used as transcription. καὶ is sometimes represented via what looks like an @ and I have put that in between square brackets behind the word where such is the case.
HUGE FAT DISCLAIMER: I most certainly am not qualified in any way to do this, so use at your own risk. This script is horrible to my eyes and I usually read 1st-5th CE Coptic / Greek / Latin only

τυφλώττοντες αὐτῶν, αὐτοῖς ὀφλήσωμεν· ὑμέτερον δὲ,
ὡς αἱρεῖ λόγος, ἀκούοντας ----- ἀγαθοὺς εὑρί
σκεσθαι κριτάς. 5. ἀναπολόγητον γὰρ λοιπὸν μαθοῦσιν, ἢν
μὴ τὰ δίκαια ποιήσητε, ὑπάρξει πρὸς θ(εό)ν. IV 1. Ὀνόματος
μὲν οὖν προσωνυμίᾳ οὔτε ἀγαθὸν οὔτε κακὸν κρί
νεται ἄνευ τῶν ὑποπιπτουσῶν τῷ ὀνόματι πράξεων·
ἐπεί, ὅσον τε ἐκ τοῦ κατηγορουμένου ἡμῶν ὀνόματος χρη
σ{τ}ότατοι ὑπάρχομεν. 2. ἀλλ’ ἐπεὶ οὐ τοῦτο δίκαιον ἡγού
μεθα, διὰ τὸ ὄνομα ἐὰν κακοὶ ἐλεγχώμεθα, αἰτεῖν
ἀφίεσθαι, πάλιν, εἰ μηδὲν διά τε τὴν προσηγορίαν
τοῦ ὀνόματος καὶ(@) διὰ τὴν πολιτείαν εὑρισκόμεθα ἀ
δικοῦντες, ὑμέτερον ἀγωνιᾶσαί ἐστι, μὴ ἀδίκως κο
λάζοντες τοὺς μὴ ἐλεγχομένους τῇ δίκῃ κόλασιν
ὀφλήσητε. 3. ἐξ ὀνόματος μὲν γὰρ ἢ ἔπαινος ἢ κόλασις
οὐκ ἂν εὐλόγως γένοιτο, ἢν μή τι ἐνάρετον ἢ φαῦλον
δι’ ἔργων ἀποδείκνυσθαι δύνηται. 4. καὶ(@) γὰρ τοὺς κατη
-----
γορουμένους ἐφ’ ὑμῶν πάντας πρὶν ἐλεγχθῆναι
οὐ τιμωρεῖτε· ἐφ’ ἡμῶν δὲ τὸ ὄνομα ὡς ἔλεγχον λαμ
βάνετε, καίπερ, ὅσον γε ἐκ τοῦ ὀνόματος, τοὺς κατη
γοροῦντας μᾶλλον κολάζειν ὀφείλετε. 5. Χριστιανοὶ γὰρ
εἶναι κατηγορούμεθα· τὸ δὲ χρησ{τ}ὸν μισεῖσθαι οὐ δί
καιον. 6. καὶ πάλιν, ἐὰν μέν τις τῶν κατηγορουμένων
ἔξαρνος γένηται τῇ φωνῇ μὴ εἶναι φήσας, ἀφίετε
αὐτὸν ὡς μηδὲν ἐλέγχειν ἔχοντες ἁμαρτάνοντα, ἐὰν
δέ τι ὁμολογήσῃ εἶναι, διὰ τὴν ὁμολογίαν κολάζετε·
δέον καὶ τὸν τοῦ ὁμολογοῦντος βίον εὐθύνειν καὶ(@) τὸν τ{οῦ}

Chris Hansen wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 9:54 am

Giuseppe wrote: ↑Tue Feb 28, 2023 1:47 am A contradiction I see in a Tacitus's dependance on Pliny, is that Tacitus would have learned from Pliny that the Christians were pacifists, contra factum that Tacitus describes clearly the Christians(=Chrestiani) as rioters (more along the Suetonian impulsore Chresto than otherwise).

How does Chris explain this fact?

Main issue here:

Tacitus does not describe them as rioters and in fact does not describe their criminal activities at all. This is part of the problem with Tacitus' passage and its general disjointed attitude toward Christians, is the fact that the crimes they are accused of and punished for are unclear. This does not, therefore, parallel the "impulsore Chresto" of Suetonius, which is likely referring to a Jewish revolt, and has no connection to Christianity whatsoever. I agree with M. H. Williams and other recent commentators on this part.

The vague crime they are punished for is "odium humani generis" or "hatred of humankind" which is just a stock polemic that was hurled at tons of marginal communities by Roman authors. It has no real historical merit, in my opinion.

On the question of what the Christians were really accused of by Nero, see this very old thread. https://bcharchive.org/2/thearchives/sh ... l?t=109462

Andrew Criddle

Chris Hansen wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 9:41 am
1. My response to Tuccinardi got axed in the final draft, but basically I doubt the ability of stylometric analysis to really tell us much about these letters. While Tuccinardi's analysis is interesting, I think further studies need to be done before accepting its findings, particularly I would like to see what happens if Books I-IX are also factored in, as Tuccinardi only used Book X. Likewise, my response to Detering was also cut. Unfortunately there is only so much space one has in a paper and journals tend to cut things.

I don't think using books 1-9 is all that important since 10 was published separately and at a later time so it would have it's own stylometric 'consistency' within itself versus 1-9. Furthermore 10.96-10.97 do not appear to have been initially published with the rest of 10 adding weight to the argument. From what I understand, this type of stylometry has proven useful before since it takes away the subjective interpretation of style and just uses n-grams as a math object.

perseusomega9 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 11:27 am

Chris Hansen wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 9:41 am
1. My response to Tuccinardi got axed in the final draft, but basically I doubt the ability of stylometric analysis to really tell us much about these letters. While Tuccinardi's analysis is interesting, I think further studies need to be done before accepting its findings, particularly I would like to see what happens if Books I-IX are also factored in, as Tuccinardi only used Book X. Likewise, my response to Detering was also cut. Unfortunately there is only so much space one has in a paper and journals tend to cut things.

I don't think using books 1-9 is all that important since 10 was published separately and at a later time so it would have it's own stylometric 'consistency' within itself versus 1-9. Furthermore 10.96-10.97 do not appear to have been initially published with the rest of 10 adding weight to the argument.

Could you please provide evidence that 10.96-10.97 have a separate publication history ?

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 2:40 am

perseusomega9 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 11:27 am

Chris Hansen wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 9:41 am
1. My response to Tuccinardi got axed in the final draft, but basically I doubt the ability of stylometric analysis to really tell us much about these letters. While Tuccinardi's analysis is interesting, I think further studies need to be done before accepting its findings, particularly I would like to see what happens if Books I-IX are also factored in, as Tuccinardi only used Book X. Likewise, my response to Detering was also cut. Unfortunately there is only so much space one has in a paper and journals tend to cut things.

I don't think using books 1-9 is all that important since 10 was published separately and at a later time so it would have it's own stylometric 'consistency' within itself versus 1-9. Furthermore 10.96-10.97 do not appear to have been initially published with the rest of 10 adding weight to the argument.

Could you please provide evidence that 10.96-10.97 have a separate publication history ?

Andrew Criddle

Time stamp 42:53 Reception Walkabout here:
https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/bo ... Up/?t=2573