John the Baptist passage authentic

[DCHindley]

btw Is there any discussion about interpolations in Josephus based on "stichoi" (15 or 16 syllables each stichos) ?

J. AJ 20.12.2
... with which accounts I shall put an end to these Antiquities, which are contained in twenty books, and sixty thousand verses (ἓξ δὲ μυριάσι στίχων).

My understanding is that "stichoi" can mean different things in different contexts. One Wiki article says

The length of each line in the Iliad and Odyssey, which may have been among the first long, Greek texts written down, became the standard unit for ancient stichometry. This standard line (Normalzeile, in German) was thus as long as an epic hexameter and contained about 15 syllables or 35 Greek letters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stichometry

Booksellers and privately hired copyists often charged by the number of stichoi copied over from an exemplar. Whether this standard is the same as the literary stichos is not clear. It would be a much more complicated task if the cost was based on a set number of syllables, but easier if a stichos was a standard number of letters in a line of text in any particular column.

Josephus is letting folks know that the cost to get your own copy will be whatever the local rate is for about 3,000 stichoi per book. The Stichometry of Nicephorus gives values for OT, NT and several apocryphal books of his day. Most folks translate stichoi as "lines."

DCH

"O Grill Master, the smoke of your sacrifice has risen to the nostrils of the God Most High. In the kingdom of God, the chickens will cry out: Grill me! Grill me! Honor God through me!' If the fire becomes too great from the fat that gushes forth, then douse the flames by squeezing the cluster of grapes that will produce 100 Measures of wine each." Yeah sure, I reply ...

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

btw Is there any discussion about interpolations in Josephus based on "stichoi" (15 or 16 syllables each stichos) ?

J. AJ 20.12.2
... with which accounts I shall put an end to these Antiquities, which are contained in twenty books, and sixty thousand verses (ἓξ δὲ μυριάσι στίχων).

Knowing the length in "stichoi" to the nearest ten thousand? This doesn't really help us, unfortunately. And the individual books can vary slightly in size.

My understanding is that "stichoi" can mean different things in different contexts. One Wiki article says

The length of each line in the Iliad and Odyssey, which may have been among the first long, Greek texts written down, became the standard unit for ancient stichometry. This standard line (Normalzeile, in German) was thus as long as an epic hexameter and contained about 15 syllables or 35 Greek letters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stichometry

Booksellers and privately hired copyists often charged by the number of stichoi copied over from an exemplar. Whether this standard is the same as the literary stichos is not clear. It would be a much more complicated task if the cost was based on a set number of syllables, but easier if a stichos was a standard number of letters in a line of text in any particular column.

Josephus is letting folks know that the cost to get your own copy will be whatever the local rate is for about 3,000 stichoi per book. The Stichometry of Nicephorus gives values for OT, NT and several apocryphal books of his day. Most folks translate stichoi as "lines."

Right. A study based on "stichoi" would not make sense.

a question

Josephus wrote
ἀλλ’ ἐφ’ ἁγνείᾳ τοῦ σὼματος
but as a consecration of the body

Maybe "sanctification".

I have examined a bit the meaning of the word "ἁγνείᾳ" in Josephus and related words (started here) and can say that the range of meanings includes "ritual purification" and sometimes also "consecration", but not "sanctification".

[Peter Kirby]

Origen incidentally makes an addition comment regarding the Jews, John, and Jesus:

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04161.htm

And as it is a Jew who, in the work of Celsus, uses the language to Jesus regarding the appearance of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, 'This is your own testimony, unsupported save by one of those who were sharers of your punishment, whom you adduce,' it is necessary for us to show him that such a statement is not appropriately placed in the mouth of a Jew. For the Jews do not connect John with Jesus, nor the punishment of John with that of Christ.

It's not completely clear whether Origen is getting his information from his assumptions, from contemporary Jews, or from Josephus... but, given the account of John the Baptist in Josephus (referenced by Origen earlier), Josephus is certainly an option.

[MrMacSon]

John or the Gospel of John is an added-on story?

[Peter Kirby]

John or the Gospel of John is an added-on story?

??

The John in that passage = John the Baptist.

[MrMacSon]

John or the Gospel of John is an added-on story?

??

The John in that passage = John the Baptist.

Sorry, I meant "is the Gospel of John added on to the NT"? as in it has a different origin and is an arms-length story to the Synoptics.

[Peter Kirby]

John or the Gospel of John is an added-on story?

??

The John in that passage = John the Baptist.

Sorry, I meant "is the Gospel of John added on to the NT"? as in it has a different origin and is an arms-length story to the Synoptics.

I don't completely understand.

(Also, I don't understand what that question has to do with this thread.)

[Peter Kirby]

I have an interest in stylometric analysis, in my case to test my hypotheses about redaction of Pauline letters, but based on the books I have consulted (more than a few, from A. Q. Morton to Anthony Kenny to Kenneth J. Neuman and a few stray articles on analysis of the Federalist Papers, etc.), it seems that we have some serious issues with regard to estimating universe size from the existing letters, sample sizes being too small, and choosing the right combination of variables to search for.

Depending on your assumptions, and by selectively choosing which variables to search, it seems to me that you can prove anything you want! In other words, the selection of variables often times depends on what you are expecting in the results, or by subjectively selecting what you want to believe is authentic (and not a source being cited without attribution), making the procedure a self-fulfilling prophesy. A combination of variables that seems to work for one author does not work with another.

An astute observation.

My 'basic stylometry' program was constructed in order to recreate the kind of analysis performed by people such as Morton, Kenny, Neuman, and the now-ancient study by Mosteller & Wallace on the Federalist Papers.

Which is to say, it focuses on frequently-occurring words ('function' words) and assumptions regarding a normal distribution of those words (taking a mean and standard deviation for several individual words and their frequencies of occurrence, in an author, then comparing them to the test sample).

The flaws of this approach have been explored in the literature on stylometry (and briefly above in your comments), but it seemed like a good place to start, and it doesn't seem to be without any useful application, as both the original studies and some of my own usage has shown.

Stylometry has moved on from these methods, by and large (or so I think, based on my own reading). So you might see another not-so-'basic' program in the future, when I get bored with trying to make something out of the older methods.

[Ben C. Smith]

I myself am quite interested to see your stylometer used on the Pauline epistles. IIRC, my first exposure to stylometry was Colossians as Pseudepigraphy, by Mark Kiley. I do not think he himself used such methods, but he drew on someone who did (I forget who), and IIRC those little function words, as you call them, were pretty important.

Ben.

[DCHindley]

I myself am quite interested to see your stylometer used on the Pauline epistles. IIRC, my first exposure to stylometry was Colossians as Pseudepigraphy, by Mark Kiley. I do not think he himself used such methods, but he drew on someone who did (I forget who), and IIRC those little function words, as you call them, were pretty important.

Ben.

His original Harvard Doctoral thesis, Colossians as Pseudepigraphy is briefly summarized in Harvard Th. Rev, 77-3 (Jul-Oct, 1984, 429-30)

[429] Mark Kiley (Ph.D.) Colossians as Pseudepigraphy.

The thesis first points out that Colossians shares several characteristics with other specimens of Greco-Roman pseudepigraphy. Like the Pythagorean pseudepigrapha, it may have been written out of the “goodwill of disciples" (humility may have been at work as well). Like other pseudepigraphical letters of the Greco-Roman period, Colossians is based on authentic written material of the purported author. Like other Pauline pseudepigraphical letters, it praises the truth, and paints Paul and his coworkers in a similar light. Like the letter to the Laodiceans, Colossians uses Philippians as the primary model of construction. There are several parallels for the way in which Colossians forms part of a corpus containing both genuine letters and forged productions. Although the reasons given since 1838 for seeing Colossians as inauthentic have varying weight, there are three quite solid reasons for making that judgment:
*It lacks mention of Paul’s “financial transactions on behalf of the [430] mission” present in the seven-letter corpus (collection for the poor in Jerusalem, work, receipt of money gifts, offer to pay the debts of a coworker).
*Its style is radically different from Paul’s.
*Its stance on basic issues also differs from Paul’s: the portrayal of the apostle, the portrayal of and reaction to heresy (it warns against possible future distractions from Christ), and the portrayal of such issues as the Body of Christ, women, slavery, the future, and grace.

Both genuine prison letters, Philippians and Philemon, are used by Colossians as models of construction. (The interplay with Philippians is responsible for such formulations as the one in Col 1:24, based primarily on Phil 2:30.) Colossians also knows Pauline language independently of these two letters, however. Colossians may have been written by Epaphras, representative of a group/school largely ignorant of Judaism. The letter’s overall purpose includes articulation of Paul’s thought in a more universal and timeless fashion, beginning a trend furthered by Ephesians.

Other Greco-Roman letters evidence financial transactions on behalf of a mission. [the three asterisked points above are my change to make the points stand out]

I am not seeing anything about stylometry directly, unless it is in that second asterisked point about the "style [being] radically different from Paul’s".

DCH