Thoughts on Antiquity

Bruce Malina and John Pilch’s Social-Science Commentary on the Letters of Paul contains one of the most interesting and radical proposals to the Ioudaios debate that I have seen. In their reading of Paul, the apostle consistently used “Israelite” as an implicit antecedent in every use of Ἕλληνές and Ἰουδαῖοι. Thus, they argue […]

Following my recent reading of Carlson’s The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith’s Invention of Secret Mark (2005) I got my hands on A. H. Criddle’s article, “On the Mar Saba Letter Attributed to Clement of Alexandria” JECS 3.2 (1995) 215-220. He argues that the ratio of new words introduced into the Clemetine corpus to old hapax […]

This is the only blog that I have ever contributed to. But some of my interests are outside the scope of Thoughts on Antiquity.  So I thought that I might try starting my own blog, and see if anyone is interested in what I have to say.  I shall continue to blog here from […]

From book 3, chapter 32, slightly modernised: 

“THERE were other things which caused secret vexation to [the emperor] Anastasius. For when Ariadne wanted to invest him with the purple, Euphemius, who held the archiepiscopal see, withheld his approval. He agreed only when Anastasius presented to him an agreement, written in his own hand, and secured with fearful oaths.  This promised that he would maintain the […]

It has taken me three years to get around to reading Stephen C. Carlson’s The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith’s Invention of Secret Mark (2005). But, perhaps it was worth waiting, since the last three years have accrued several arguments and evidences that shed critical light on Carlson’s case. I already had some idea of what […]

I found something disturbing but interesting. All these examples are of “fake Latin”, and most likely are from automatic machine translations doing a word-for-word translation of Latin into English. What is it with this language that people pretend to know it without knowing any of it?
Just thought I would add the “English translations”. Except for […]

I’ve been meaning to write on the latest Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, especially since a new one should be appearing soon. This volume is full of excellent discussions for those engaged in the Quest for the Historical Jesus.
First is noted that the journal is now published by Brill, rather than Sage. […]

I was searching through Google Books looking to see their oldest Latin grammars in English (which if anyone has some juicy information on this, I’d love to know!), and searching for books between 1300 and 1700, I came upon this curiosity:
Who was who in America: 1974-1976
by Inc Marquis Who’s Who - Biography & Autobiography - […]

Once I got interested in Arabic Christian Literature, I quickly found that the only book of use was Georg Graf’s 5 volume Geschichte der arabischen christlichen Literatur, published 50 years ago by the Vatican library.  I was able to buy volumes 2-5 online, but not volume 1.  The first two volumes deal with literature up […]