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Re: 1995 Mar Saba article
Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2024 2:16 am
by andrewcriddle
I have good memories of my dealings with the late Eric Osborn but I don't want to get into an argument about his detailed views on Secret Mark.
However I would like to clarify one point, Osborn did not regard the Mar Saba letter as authentically Clementine, but neither did he think it a modern work, instead he regarded it as the work of a relatively ancient "pious forger". See discussion in Smith and Landau Secret Gospel of Mark.
Andrew Criddle
Re: 1995 Mar Saba article
Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2024 6:51 am
by Secret Alias
Ok. There are 19 sentences. One or two of those sentences attack Smith and seem to "flow" into your 1995 article. Your memories are obviously preferable to my conjecture. But his comments about Smith's stylometric analysis are certainly "enhanced" by the time you publish your 1995 article and he and his "magisterial" paper are referenced in the first sentences of your article. Yes I guess you could have taken inspiration from his article and developed your accusation against Smith on your own and probably did. You would know better than me why and how you did things. I just find it difficult to read what Osborn wrote about Smith's stylometry and believe that he didn't think Smith was the forger.
The claim of Morton Smith to have discovered a lost writing of Clement has relevance to the need for logical method in patristic study. Linguistic and stylistic data seem to point to Clementine authorship but Smith makes some odd claims. Clement does not use seven words from the vocabulary of the document and Athanasius does not use twenty eight words. Words used by Clement and not by Athanasius include ierophantikos, caprocratianos, apathlyos, muew. In view of Clement's concern with Gnosticism and the Gnostic nature of the document, this is hardly remarkable.
This is like 1/5 of the total sentences employed in the scribble. Am I really to believe that Osborn criticized the same aspects of Smith's stylometry AND didn't believe that Smith had a hand in the forgery when you make very similar lines of argument in your 1995 paper to prove that Smith was the forgery. Again, you would know better than me what he said. My guess is that he thought Smith was the forger.
ADDED LATER. I mean I guess it's possible that Osborn was just criticizing Smith's methodology AND arguing for a post-Eusebian forgery. It is unfortunate that he didn't lay out an actual argument in a paper rather than scribbling a few disjointed notes in another article. I think that's because he realized perhaps how silly his arguments were (without your paper).
Re: 1995 Mar Saba article
Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2024 7:13 am
by StephenGoranson
Secret, Eric Osborn, 1985, page 224 wrote:
"A pious forger is indicated because...."
Osborn, safe bet, was not calling Morton Smith "a pious forger."
Re: A wonderful Mythicist book: I am talking about “Christ before Jesus” by M. Britt and J. Wingo
Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2024 10:34 pm
by AdamKvanta
andrewcriddle wrote: ↑Sat Aug 17, 2024 1:05 am
You are correct that this expectation would fail if the author is returning to a previously discussed topic and this is an important point. I was involved long ago in a discussion, (not on this forum and I'm afraid I can't link to it), where it was shown that the near repetition of Peter's vision in Acts 10 and 11 with its unusual vocabulary does create an example where more words previously used once only are reused than new words introduced. However, this doesn't seem to be what is happening with the Mar Saba letter, e.g. the words previously used once only are scattered throughout Clement's works rather than being concentrated in one passage.
I agree with you that this is not the case when one topic with unusual words is repeated in another work. However, the existence of such cases proves that a forgery is not the only explanation why the expected ratio is not seen. Has it been proven that it is very unlikely for scattered rare words to be also used together in a different work?
I can imagine a situation when somebody uses an unusual frequency of rare fancy words just to make an impression. And I'm sure there can be other explanations.
If I may ask, hypothetically, what would you say if the 4th page of the Mar Saba letter was found and it contained 12 new words that were not used before, and no words used only once? In other words, what would you say if the hypothetical 4th page changed the previous anomalous ratio to the expected ratio? Would you say that it is no longer a forgery from the statistical point of view?
Re: 1995 Mar Saba article
Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2024 7:20 am
by Secret Alias
Hi everyone,
I recently (6 hours ago) received an email discussing the results of a stylometric analysis on the Letter to Theodore from the author of the most recent (and most sophisticated) stylometric analysis of the Letter to Theodore. The analysis suggests that the letter could be attributed to Clement, but there's a peculiar pattern worth noting. At shorter profile lengths (e.g., L=200), the letter shows a high similarity to Clement’s known works. However, as the profile length increases (up to L=8000), this similarity decreases, which raises some doubts about its authenticity.
The author of the letter proposes two scenarios to explain this:
The Letter could be a modern forgery, with the forger being someone deeply familiar with Clement’s style, possibly Morton Smith.
The Letter could genuinely be by Clement, with the peculiarities arising from its epistolary style, which tends to use more basic vocabulary typical of private letters.
Interestingly, the email also mentions that Morton Smith himself pointed out another oddity: the higher percentage of accusatives compared to datives, which he suggested could also be due to the letter’s epistolary nature. The author questions whether Smith, if he were the forger, would have intentionally highlighted this peculiarity or if he did so to simulate critical thinking.
I found the analysis intriguing and look forward to digging into the accompanying paper more deeply in the coming weeks.
Re: 1995 Mar Saba article
Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2024 7:22 am
by Secret Alias
Osborn, safe bet, was not calling Morton Smith "a pious forger."
So that's it. Luke says that he was with the disciples after the crucifixion of Jesus. Most be a first century document.
Osborn says that he is limiting his discussion to the "pious forgery" option. So that's all he thought while Smith was still alive.
What a sleuth you are. What you see is what you get.
Re: A wonderful Mythicist book: I am talking about “Christ before Jesus” by M. Britt and J. Wingo
Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2024 8:17 pm
by andrewcriddle
AdamKvanta wrote: ↑Sat Aug 17, 2024 10:34 pm
If I may ask, hypothetically, what would you say if the 4th page of the Mar Saba letter was found and it contained 12 new words that were not used before, and no words used only once? In other words, what would you say if the hypothetical 4th page changed the previous anomalous ratio to the expected ratio? Would you say that it is no longer a forgery from the statistical point of view?
Obviously additional material might change the analysis.
There may be a general issue here and I'm not sure of the answer.
Can a relatively brief text with no provenance be established as probably authentic on stylistic grounds only ? Or will it be either not particularly close to the authentic works or so close as to suggest deliberate imitation ?
Andrew Criddle
Re: A wonderful Mythicist book: I am talking about “Christ before Jesus” by M. Britt and J. Wingo
Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2024 11:21 pm
by AdamKvanta
andrewcriddle wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2024 8:17 pm
There may be a general issue here and I'm not sure of the answer.
Can a relatively brief text with no provenance be established as probably authentic on stylistic grounds only ? Or will it be either not particularly close to the authentic works or so close as to suggest deliberate imitation ?
I think those are interesting questions and I believe a stylistic analysis can no doubt tell us something about the nature of studied texts. I'm just wondering how it works. For example, I still have two issues:
1) Let's assume that the ratio of 0-words and 1-words in the Letter to Theodore is indeed anomalous (too many 1-words). Now, my question would be, how frequent is this anomalous ratio in all of Clement's works? If this anomalous ratio equals forgery then we shouldn't find any such ratio in other Clement's work. And if I understand correctly I can choose any fraction of Clement's works of any size, and still, I shouldn't find any such case of anomalous ratio. That seems incredible to me.
2) It was already pointed out that these anomalous ratios can probably occur naturally (e.g. Acts 10 and 11) but that the anomalous ratio in the Letter to Theodore can't be explained naturally because the rare words used together in the letter are otherwise scattered around in different works of Clement. So it seems we need to have another independent statistical rule that says that this case is not natural and can be seen only in forgeries. However, the problem with this rule is that, as far as I know, it hasn't been proven yet and therefore it seems subjective. Thus I question the certainty of the interpretation that an anomalous ratio in the Letter to Theodore means a forgery.
So for me, I would have to see other studies done on these issues to be persuaded one way or the other. Perhaps the stylometric analysis mentioned by Secret Alias might shed some light on this.
Re: A wonderful Mythicist book: I am talking about “Christ before Jesus” by M. Britt and J. Wingo
Posted: Wed Aug 21, 2024 7:52 am
by andrewcriddle
AdamKvanta wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2024 11:21 pm
andrewcriddle wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2024 8:17 pm
There may be a general issue here and I'm not sure of the answer.
Can a relatively brief text with no provenance be established as probably authentic on stylistic grounds only ? Or will it be either not particularly close to the authentic works or so close as to suggest deliberate imitation ?
I think those are interesting questions and I believe a stylistic analysis can no doubt tell us something about the nature of studied texts. I'm just wondering how it works. For example, I still have two issues:
1) Let's assume that the ratio of 0-words and 1-words in the Letter to Theodore is indeed anomalous (too many 1-words). Now, my question would be, how frequent is this anomalous ratio in all of Clement's works? If this anomalous ratio equals forgery then we shouldn't find any such ratio in other Clement's work. And if I understand correctly I can choose any fraction of Clement's works of any size, and still, I shouldn't find any such case of anomalous ratio. That seems incredible to me.
2) It was already pointed out that these anomalous ratios can probably occur naturally (e.g. Acts 10 and 11) but that the anomalous ratio in the Letter to Theodore can't be explained naturally because the rare words used together in the letter are otherwise scattered around in different works of Clement. So it seems we need to have another independent statistical rule that says that this case is not natural and can be seen only in forgeries. However, the problem with this rule is that, as far as I know, it hasn't been proven yet and therefore it seems subjective. Thus I question the certainty of the interpretation that an anomalous ratio in the Letter to Theodore means a forgery.
So for me, I would have to see other studies done on these issues to be persuaded one way or the other. Perhaps the stylometric analysis mentioned by Secret Alias might shed some light on this.
I was not claiming that the ratios are impossible in an authentic work of Clement's, or even remotely near impossible, merely highly unlikely. How convincing one finds this sort of argument for inauthenticity will depends on factors such as ones prior estimate of the probability of authenticity.
Andrew Criddle
Re: 1995 Mar Saba article
Posted: Wed Aug 21, 2024 12:59 pm
by Secret Alias
Just as a point of reference. I talk to the author of the more recent (and more sophisticated) stylometric study of to Theodore. He doesn't think Morton Smith forged the text. I am not saying he's shouting from rooftops, "Morton Smith didn't forge the text." But that's his opinion or my impressions of it from corresponding with him. Just thought I would put it out there. I hope to meet with him in Italy in a couple of months. Will have more to talk about after that. I have to admit I don't get how a 72 line text with 13 lines of Mark and the rest Clement of Alexandria can "prove" anything. 60 lines of text? I don't get it.
The one thing I know is I am not very smart.