Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

andrewcriddle wrote: ↑Wed Aug 21, 2024 7:52 am 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.

Alright, I can accept the very interesting statistical observation that the ratio, found in the letter, has a highly unlikely probability. But it is still a matter of interpretation what does it mean. A forgery is a legit option but is it the only one? Do we have that prior estimate of the probability of authenticity? I think this ratio could be affected by many factors like who was the addressee, what was the topic, whether it was written before or after other works, at what age was it written, and so on...

And what type of letter was it? Was it a letter like the 13 letters of Plato i.e. dogmatic, doctrinal letters. Sometimes in this field having no imagination is a virtue.