Nice little video from Rome Reports:
Day: January 5, 2013
Gospel of Jesus’ Wife Latest
This one’s just starting to make the rounds and likely won’t get too much attention. CNN’s Belief Blog has an update of sorts on the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife thing, especially as regards the testing, which, of course, we all await with bated breath. Inter alia:
[…] A dealer took the fragment to King for analysis and translation in 2011. The dealer wishes to remain anonymous, she said.
“We’re moving ahead with the testing, but it is not yet complete, and so the article will await until we have the results,” King said in an email to CNN.
“The owner of the fragment has been making arrangements for further testing and analysis of the fragment, including testing by independent laboratories with the resources and specific expertise necessary to produce and interpret reliable results. This testing is still underway,” Kathyrn Dodgson, director of communications for the Harvard Divinity School, said in a email to CNN.
“Harvard Theological Review is planning to publish Professor King’s paper after conclusion of all the testing so that the results may be incorporated,” Dodgson said. “Until testing is complete, there is nothing more to say at this point.” […]
As presented, this is a little misleading. The owner of the fragment didn’t just bring the fragment “for analysis and translation”. He (or she) is trying to sell a collection of papyri to Harvard, something which seems often to be missed in all these discussion. At the close of an article in Harvard Magazine, e.g., we see:
The collector (who told King he wishes to remain anonymous to avoid being hounded by people who want to buy the fragment) has recently offered to give it to Harvard as part of a purchase of a substantial portion of his collection. He has told King that the discovery made him realize that these types of things needed to be in the hands of libraries and universities where they could be properly studied and not disappear into private collections. Harvard is now formally deciding if it wishes to acquire the collection.
- via: A New Gospel Revealed (Harvard Magazine)
In his notice of this ‘update’ (GJW update), Jim Davila expresses concern that it is the collector who is having the testing done and wonders whether we will get an answer to the authenticity question. This is a valid concern and we similarly would like more details about who is doing the testing and whether they are legit etc.. But now we do see why this testing has been taking so long — if we put this in the context of Harvard buying the fragment, it is clearly up to the seller to produce the proof of its authenticity and clearly Harvard has listened to the blogosphere in regards to questions thereof. Then again, it seems likely that this sort of thing might be standard procedure whenever there is doubt cast. The longer the owner-initiated testing takes, of course, the more doubt can be cast on the authenticity. For my part, I am beginning to doubt whether we’ll ever hear of test results.
In case you’ve missed the saga (in chronological order):
Epithet of the Day: Nietzsche’s Charioteers
Wading through another strange item from Greek Reporter (Australia Urged To Promote Greek
Language) I was about to hit the ‘delete’ button when my caerulean gaze landed upon this sentence:
Australians need to once more think of themselves as Nietzsche’s charioteers, because Greek really matters.
… a little poking around located the origin of this phrase in Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy … here it is in translation (translation by Ian Johnston … section 15):
Before we could recognize this fact, before we convincingly established the innermost dependence of every art on the Greeks, from Homer right up to Socrates, we had to treat these Greeks as the Athenians treated Socrates. Almost every era and cultural stage has at some point sought in an profoundly ill-tempered frame of mind to free itself of the Greeks, because in comparison with the Greeks, all their own achievements, apparently fully original and admired in all sincerity, suddenly appeared to lose their colour and life and shrivelled to unsuccessful copies, in fact, to caricatures. And so a heartfelt inner anger always keeps breaking out again against that arrogant little nation which dared to designate for all time everything that was not produced in its own country as “barbaric.” Who were those Greeks, people asked themselves, who, although they had achieved only an ephemeral historical glitter, only ridiculously restricted institutions, only an ambiguous competence in morality, who could even be identified with hateful vices, yet who had nevertheless laid a claim to a dignity and a pre-eminent place among peoples, appropriate to a genius among the masses? Unfortunately people were not lucky enough to find the cup of hemlock which could easily do away with such a being, for all the poisons which envy, slander, and inner rage created were insufficient to destroy that self-satisfied magnificence. Hence, confronted by the Greeks, people have been ashamed and afraid, unless an individual values the truth above everything else and dares to propose this truth: the notion that the Greeks, as the charioteers of our culture and every other one, hold the reins, but that almost always the wagon and horses are inferior material and do not match the glory of their drivers, who then consider it amusing to whip such a team into the abyss, over which they themselves jump with the leap of Achilles.
… perhaps this is an image we should promote … Classicists as charioteers of our culture … maybe even as Nietzsche’s Charioteers, although that would likely be just as lost on most folks as ‘Classics major’ … [speaking of which, was the Delphi Charioteer ever attached to horses?]
Distractions ~ What Should We Call Me Classics
Tip o’ the pileus to Dr Tronchin for giving us our morning smile by alerting us to this tumblr thing:
… which anyone who has sat in a Latin or Greek (or even Classics) course can probably identify with! Enjoy!
This Day in Ancient History: nonae januariae
nonae januariae
- ludi compitales — day three of a moveable festival which might occur anytime between Saturnalia and January 5. It was largely a rural occasion involving woollen dolls being made to represent each free member of the household (simple woollen balls would be used to represent slaves) being hung up on the eve of the festival, presumably as offerings to the Lares. There would also follow more formal sacrifices at the compita (places where two farm paths crossed).
- 1906 — birth of Kathleen Kenyon (excavatrix of Jericho)
rogueclassicism 