Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

@ mlinssen (and of course anyone interested)

I've put this comment in a new thread to avoid getting further off-topic in the thread on "The Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis".

Not directly related to our previous discussion in the other thread, I have a comment on logion 9 about the odd, two yield numbers. This is from an agronomic POV, not a spiritual one, and admittedly somewhat pedantic.

In your translation and discussion on pages 110-124 of your commentary, a hand-full is sown, and the desired result are heads-of-grain. In the region under consideration, that would most likely be wheat, spelt or barley, or perhaps rye, oats or millet.

Your wrote in relation to the apparently odd, two measures of yield on the good ground, according to your (immediately preceding on pp. 121-122) interpretation of what the yield numbers mean ---

“60 thus signifies one hand(ful), and 120 signifies two – and “60 and 20” thus equate to three handfuls. Now that’s quite some return on investment, when one starts out with one or two empty hand(s), fills them, casts, and when the good earth is hit one gets three handfuls of good Fruit in return.” (p. 122)

It would be entirely reasonable to assume the cast handful would hold about the same number of grain kernels as would handfuls in the yield --- so one cast grain kernel would yield 3 grain kernels in return on the good ground.

Even in ancient times, that would be a very poor yield on good ground --- perhaps even a crop failure. Look at a picture of a head of grain of wheat or barley or rye. Each head contains many kernels. And in addition, one planted kernel can produce more than one seed head per plant on good ground.

This would seem to raise questions on your interpretation of how to understand the odd, two yield numbers in logion 9 of (using your translation), “sixty to arrow and hundred twenty to arrow”.

The link to your commentary --- https://www.academia.edu/46974146/Compl ... n_content_

robert j wrote: ↑Wed Apr 20, 2022 3:07 pm @ mlinssen (and of course anyone interested)

I've put this comment in a new thread to avoid getting further off-topic in the thread on "The Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis".

Not directly related to our previous discussion in the other thread, I have a comment on logion 9 about the odd, two yield numbers. This is from an agronomic POV, not a spiritual one, and admittedly somewhat pedantic.

In your translation and discussion on pages 110-124 of your commentary, a hand-full is sown, and the desired result are heads-of-grain.

A slight correction: ⲕⲁⲣⲡⲟⲥ is the desired result for the logion, and the actual result in the case of the successful Action, namely the last one.
The heads of grain are the desired results indeed of those who fall on the Rock, very well noticed!
If you click the word - and that is so easy to do really, all it takes is just a click, because 7,500 hyperlinks in the Commentary alone will lead to the easiest and bestest means of verification ever; well besides telepathy really - then you'll see that the word ϩⲙⲥ gets translated by Crum with "ear of corn" - but there was no corn in Egypt so I have picked grain instead. The word is in the Tanakh, in Genesis 41:7

https://biblehub.com/genesis/41-7.htm

And the thin heads of grain swallowed up the seven plump, ripe ones. Then Pharaoh awoke and realized it was a dream.

In the region under consideration, that would most likely be wheat, spelt or barley, or perhaps rye, oats or millet.

So you see, you had everything right in front of you

Your wrote in relation to the apparently odd, two measures of yield on the good ground, according to your (immediately preceding on pp. 121-122) interpretation of what the yield numbers mean ---

The word is not measure, the word is arrow. It's a homonym but a you can read in the Commentary, Crum has about a million words that seemingly mean measure - the man had a rather straightforward mind, so to say

“60 thus signifies one hand(ful), and 120 signifies two – and “60 and 20” thus equate to three handfuls. Now that’s quite some return on investment, when one starts out with one or two empty hand(s), fills them, casts, and when the good earth is hit one gets three handfuls of good Fruit in return.” (p. 122)

It would be entirely reasonable to assume the cast handful would hold about the same number of grain kernels as would handfuls in the yield --- so one cast grain kernel would yield 3 grain kernels in return on the good ground.

Even in ancient times, that would be a very poor yield on good ground --- perhaps even a crop failure. Look at a picture of a head of grain of wheat or barley or rye. Each head contains many kernels. And in addition, one planted kernel can produce more than one seed head per plant on good ground.

Well spotted!

This would seem to raise questions on your interpretation of how to understand the odd, two yield numbers in logion 9 of (using your translation), “sixty to arrow and hundred twenty to arrow”.

Do you notice that you have picked only one of the possible 4 metamorphosis Actions, that of the religious?
And so you also notice that the final outcome, the 3 handfuls, only applies to the last action, which happens to be the only successful Action as well, namely that of falling on good ground and giving Fruit - not grain, corn, or whatnot?

The link to your commentary --- https://www.academia.edu/46974146/Compl ... n_content_

You need to unthink the canonicals if you want to read Thomas, as it apparently is blocking your mind and ability to interpret. Apart from that, taking things literally is a typical religious approach as you can see in the NT - every and any harvest yields an awful lot more than a 3 to 1 ratio, fortunately; but we only have 2 hands so 3 would really be much more than we can handle

Just a question: how many hands would have been the correct number, according to you?

mlinssen wrote: ↑Wed Apr 20, 2022 9:12 pm
You need to unthink the canonicals if you want to read Thomas, as it apparently is blocking your mind and ability to interpret.

This is not about “my mind” or my "ability to interpret”, it’s about the interpretation offered, whether mine or yours. Why do you often find it necessary to personalize?

mlinssen wrote: ↑Wed Apr 20, 2022 9:12 pm
... the final outcome, the 3 handfuls, only applies to the last action, which happens to be the only successful Action as well, namely that of falling on good ground and giving Fruit - not grain, corn, or whatnot?

... how many hands would have been the correct number, according to you?

First a quick note --- the link to the Coptic dictionary that you provide above the Coptic word you translate as "Fruit" in Logion 9 here, gives fruit, harvest, crops (in general), seed, offspring, agricultural produce, etc. It seems quite a general term that would clearly include "grain".

On pages 121-122 of your commentary, based on your interpretation of a sexagesimal system and counting on a hand, your interpretation of the yield of grain on the good ground leads to your conclusion of a 1 to 3 ratio. A handful sown yields 3 handfuls in return. That is, one grain seed sown yields 3 grain seeds in return. You characterized the result as “quite some return on investment”.

I maintain that a 1 to 3 ratio --- of seed sown to seed yield --- represents a very poor yield on good ground. Thus, I question your interpretation of how much grain yield is represented by (using your translation), “sixty to arrow and hundred twenty to arrow”.

I’ll use wheat as a reasonable example, barley or rye could also be used with generally similar results. One planted wheat seed will, at best, produce one plant. Today, with improved varieties and modern agronomic practices on suitable soil, each plant will typically produce 4-5 seed heads (or more), and each seed head will typically contain 20 to 50 seeds. So that’s a yield of 80 to 250 seeds per plant, or a ratio of planted seed to yield of seed kernels of 1 to 80 or as much as 1 to 250.

In ancient times, if one sown seed produced a plant with only one seed head with a scant 8 seed kernels in that head, a ratio of 1 to 8 --- that would barely be an average yield on good ground. Higher yields would have been the norm in the wheat producing areas of Egypt, and even most more marginal areas of the Middle East would have produced at a ratio of at least 1 to 4.

A ratio of planted seed to yield of seed kernels of 1 to 3 on the good ground --- as you suggest based on your interpretation of the odd, two yield numbers in logion 9 --- would represent a very poor yield except perhaps on the most hard-scrabble ground in marginal production areas.

I don’t really want to dwell on the agronomic aspects, so for my part I’m inclined to leave it at that.

Are there any other suggestions from anyone on how to interpret the odd, two yield numbers at the end of logion 9?

A question for Martijn: The link in the OP goes to your commentary on logia 1-55, do you have another article with your commentary on the remaining logia 56-114? (I did find your article with your translation of all the logia).

robert j wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 10:25 am

mlinssen wrote: ↑Wed Apr 20, 2022 9:12 pm
You need to unthink the canonicals if you want to read Thomas, as it apparently is blocking your mind and ability to interpret.

This is not about “my mind” or my "ability to interpret”, it’s about the interpretation offered, whether mine or yours. Why do you often find it necessary to personalize?

Can I make a comment to what you say without you taking it personally?

mlinssen wrote: ↑Wed Apr 20, 2022 9:12 pm
... the final outcome, the 3 handfuls, only applies to the last action, which happens to be the only successful Action as well, namely that of falling on good ground and giving Fruit - not grain, corn, or whatnot?

... how many hands would have been the correct number, according to you?

First a quick note --- the link to the Coptic dictionary that you provide above the Coptic word you translate as "Fruit" in Logion 9 here, gives fruit, harvest, crops (in general), seed, offspring, agricultural produce, etc. It seems quite a general term that would clearly include "grain".

The CDO gives an overview of possible translations in the right order: καρπός means Fruit first and foremost, and the rest are extensions of it. Click the Greek in the CDO and you can see that for yourself

On pages 121-122 of your commentary, based on your interpretation of a sexagesimal system and counting on a hand, your interpretation of the yield of grain on the good ground leads to your conclusion of a 1 to 3 ratio. A handful sown yields 3 handfuls in return. That is, one grain seed sown yields 3 grain seeds in return. You characterized the result as “quite some return on investment”.

Do you even notice how you use the word grain as something that is sown? Can you point me to the place in logion 9 where that word appears?

I maintain that a 1 to 3 ratio --- of seed sown to seed yield --- represents a very poor yield on good ground. Thus, I question your interpretation of how much grain yield is represented by (using your translation), “sixty to arrow and hundred twenty to arrow”.

There is no seed sown - a handful is filled and that is cast. You may think that seed is sown, but the subject only is "some" and nothing else. At some point ϭⲣⲟϭ is choked, namely by the acacias - but the word is singular, not plural

I’ll use wheat as a reasonable example, barley or rye could also be used with generally similar results. One planted wheat seed will, at best, produce one plant. Today, with improved varieties and modern agronomic practices on suitable soil, each plant will typically produce 4-5 seed heads (or more), and each seed head will typically contain 20 to 50 seeds. So that’s a yield of 80 to 250 seeds per plant, or a ratio of planted seed to yield of seed kernels of 1 to 80 or as much as 1 to 250.

And how much is 60 plus 120?

Even in ancient times, if one sown seed produced a plant with only one seed head with a scant 8 seed kernels in that head, a ratio of 1 to 8--- that would barely be an average yield on good ground.

A ratio of planted seed to yield of seed kernels of 1 to 3 on the good ground --- as you suggest based on your interpretation of the odd, two yield numbers in logion 9 --- would eventually lead to famine.

I don’t really want to dwell on the agronomic aspects, so for my part I’m inclined to leave it at that.

Are there any other suggestions from anyone on how to interpret the odd, two yield numbers at the end of logion 9?

A question for Martijn: The link in the OP goes to your commentary on logia 1-55, do you have another article with your commentary on the remaining logia 56-114? (I did find your article with your translation of all the logia).

No, that remains to be done.
Do you really consider 262 or 584 pages an "article"?

robert j wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 10:25 am
Even in ancient times, if one sown seed produced a plant with only one seed head with a scant 8 seed kernels in that head, a ratio of 1 to 8--- that would barely be an average yield on good ground.

A ratio of planted seed to yield of seed kernels of 1 to 3 on the good ground --- as you suggest based on your interpretation of the odd, two yield numbers in logion 9 --- would eventually lead to famine.

After giving it more thought, I edited the above to read as below. Doesn't change my conclusions at all, but I think it more accurately reflects the ancient yields, just in case anyone might be interested ---

robert j wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 10:25 am
In ancient times, if one sown seed produced a plant with only one seed head with a scant 8 seed kernels in that head, a ratio of 1 to 8 --- that would barely be an average yield on good ground. Higher yields would have been the norm in the wheat producing areas of Egypt, and even most more marginal areas of the Middle East would have produced at a ratio of at least 1 to 4.

A ratio of planted seed to yield of seed kernels of 1 to 3 on the good ground --- as you suggest based on your interpretation of the odd, two yield numbers in logion 9 --- would represent a very poor yield except perhaps on the most hard-scrabble ground in marginal production areas.

Other than that, I think I'm done here.

Life's too short.

robert j wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 12:42 pm

robert j wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 10:25 am
Even in ancient times, if one sown seed produced a plant with only one seed head with a scant 8 seed kernels in that head, a ratio of 1 to 8--- that would barely be an average yield on good ground.

A ratio of planted seed to yield of seed kernels of 1 to 3 on the good ground --- as you suggest based on your interpretation of the odd, two yield numbers in logion 9 --- would eventually lead to famine.

After giving it more thought, I edited the above to read as below. Doesn't change my conclusions at all, but I think it more accurately reflects the ancient yields, just in case anyone might be interested ---

robert j wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 10:25 am
In ancient times, if one sown seed produced a plant with only one seed head with a scant 8 seed kernels in that head, a ratio of 1 to 8 --- that would barely be an average yield on good ground. Higher yields would have been the norm in the wheat producing areas of Egypt, and even most more marginal areas of the Middle East would have produced at a ratio of at least 1 to 4.

A ratio of planted seed to yield of seed kernels of 1 to 3 on the good ground --- as you suggest based on your interpretation of the odd, two yield numbers in logion 9 --- would represent a very poor yield except perhaps on the most hard-scrabble ground in marginal production areas.

Other than that, I think I'm done here.

Life's too short.

I won't hold you back, such is for sure. It was blatantly evident from the start that you had drawn your conclusions already and just had difficulties working them out, and I already hinted at the latter being about.
And now you have (insignificantly) changed your silly reasoning where you go from hand to grain to seed whenever it befits your own petty mathematics, but the conclusions still stand?

And you have no comment to the 180, which fits right in with your 80-250?

mlinssen wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 1:06 pm
And you have no comment to the 180, which fits right in with your 80-250?

This is certainly representative of many of your responses the last few days.

OK, the 60 and 120 vague numbers for the result at the end of logion 9 from a handful, add up to 180. But that doesn't "fit right in" with the yield of 80-250 seeds per (wheat) plant, from one seed, that I very clearly and explicitly stated was for modern varieties and agronomic practices, and something I provided as just a modern example.

Trying to sort out with you a few of the interpretations you offer for GThomas, in a reasonable manner, has reminded me once again what a waste of time this forum can be. I suppose I should thank you for that.

I have tried hard to avoid personal comments on this forum, and mostly succeeded, but it's been very tempting to make an exception for you.

ETA: Edited to better clarify the difference in the paragraph beginning with "OK". Later Note: And done to clarify my point, and submitted before seeing the rant below.

robert j wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 2:12 pm

mlinssen wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 1:06 pm
And you have no comment to the 180, which fits right in with your 80-250?

This is certainly representative of many of your responses the last few days.

OK, the 60 and 120 numbers for the result at the end of logion 9 add up to 180. But there is no reason for that to "fit right in" with the yield of 80-250 seeds per (wheat) plant that I very clearly and explicitly stated was for modern varieties and agronomic practices, and something I provided as just a modern example.

Trying to sort out with you a few of the interpretations you offer for GThomas, in a reasonable manner, has reminded me once again what a waste of time this forum can be. I suppose I should thank you for that.

I have tried hard to avoid personal comments on this forum, and mostly succeeded, but it's been very tempting to make an exception for you.

Lovely how you motivate your opinions, robert.

Trying to sort out with you a few of the interpretations you offer for GThomas, in a reasonable manner

You're being a bit of a Ben:

1. You're not trying to do anything with me, you're drawing conclusions of your own, short-sighted ones, and then throw them at me - and then I point out your bias and why that is where. And then you grudgingly correct half of half of what I point out, under protest

2. You're not doing anything in a reasonable manner. Everything you do is in a childish manner, reluctantly, pouting, hopelessly clinging on to your initial follies and misunderstandings, refusing to understand what gets repeatedly explained to you

Goodbye robert, it certainly is very far from a loss to this forum to not having to read your twisted misconceptions

LOL. I must have really hit a nerve.

mlinssen wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 9:03 pm
You're being a bit of a Ben:

That I would certainly take as a compliment.

robert j wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 10:04 pm LOL. I must have really hit a nerve.

mlinssen wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 9:03 pm
You're being a bit of a Ben:

That I would certainly take as a compliment.

You share the passive aggressive stubbornness but certainly not anything remotely close to the incredibly laborious work that he put into this forum. So don't get excited

I generally don't have nerves, they have been worn down and out by the multitudes of those who lack the ability to think, reason, hear and listen. Let me run it down once more, in baby language:


Would there be anything further?