tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post2133641363206127790..comments2024-03-21T14:59:20.729-04:00Comments on NT Blog: More on the Flaw in McIver and Carroll's article on detecting copying in the GospelsMark Goodacrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05115370166754797529noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-64119502746318716662010-05-30T18:16:18.811-04:002010-05-30T18:16:18.811-04:00In any future test resembling that of McIver &...In any future test resembling that of McIver & Carroll, the motivating theme ought to be to determine the degree of sequential verbal agreement along the lines indicated by Judy Redman stressing redaction criticism, and not that due to imperfect memory. Four basic categories of editing may be suggested for exploration:<br />(a) Replication of the existing text (faithfully);<br />(b) Same as (a) except for purposeful improvements in grammar and factuality, <br />(c) Same as (b) except for additional alterations expressing the author's different theology and mental outlook; and<br />(d) Same as (b) or (c) except in addition the purposeful replication of a significant number of lengthy word strings (identical words in unaltered sequence as per Poirer, JBL 123 (2004) 315).<br /><br />One does not need student experimentation for this, but needs to look at the frequency distribution of the length of unaltered word strings between parallel passages. This can be done not only for the Gospels, but for other cases such as comparing the Greek text of 2 Chr 35-36 and all of Ezra and Neh 7:73-8:12, with 1 Esdras. In such a case one finds an exponential frequency distribution as in (b) above. But for Matthew/Mark and Matthew/Luke, one finds an anomalous tail to the respective frequency distribution, as in category (d). <br /><br />With Mk/Luke category (c) seems to apply, as the two anomalies indicated by Poirer (p. 320) are too small in number for (d) to apply.Jim Deardorffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04517653430586348063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-62737071945725664862010-05-30T00:37:15.173-04:002010-05-30T00:37:15.173-04:00The way I see it, Judy, is that McIver and Carroll...The way I see it, Judy, is that McIver and Carroll are specifically trying to design experiments that will "develop criteria for determining the existence of written sources". The fact that they introduce this criterion of 16 (18) words in conjoined sequence simply does not take seriously the way ancient Greek works. What I am suggesting is that the differences between languages should have been factored in. I am worried about going beyond that to any further speculations about what their results could have shown if they had run the experiments differently.Mark Goodacrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05115370166754797529noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-46349141316383458662010-05-29T01:35:41.259-04:002010-05-29T01:35:41.259-04:00So what we need is someone teaching in a Greek uni...So what we need is someone teaching in a Greek university to replicate the experiments and see what happens? I know that modern Greek is not the same as Koine, but it comes much closer than English. <br /><br />I have a rampaging head cold and am not thinking as clearly as I might, but it would seem to me that the fact that word order is not as important in Greek is less relevant when working with a hypothesis that the original text was written than it is when working with an oral original text, though. ISTM that if you have a written text in front of you, you would copy it faithfully unless you felt that it needed altering, so alterations in word order etc would be deliberate. If you were working from an oral text, then the kind of differences between Matt 26 and Mark 14 could be considered a totally faithful representation of the oral text.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-62572276922853795282010-05-28T16:04:19.277-04:002010-05-28T16:04:19.277-04:00I wouldn't have thought so, at least in the co...I wouldn't have thought so, at least in the context of these experiments, but I could be wrong.Mark Goodacrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05115370166754797529noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-38062751958889277572010-05-28T16:00:57.308-04:002010-05-28T16:00:57.308-04:00Is it relevant that Jesus spoke Aramaic, so that h...Is it relevant that Jesus spoke Aramaic, so that his sayings were first remembered in this language and then translated--by the rememberer, by the hearer, by the transcriber?--into Greek?Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02594317489026507409noreply@blogger.com