To those conversant with current Jesus Seminar studies --
Something that's tantalized me for a while has been the number of casual references, in past retrospectives, at varied specialty levels, to detailed studies of the changing styles and idioms in written Greek during the first century C.E. Tied to those studies were -- at one time apparently -- careful conclusions being made concerning the application of these changing Greek characteristics -- throughout a rapidly changing first century C.E. -- to the varied strata of written material detectable in the three Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of Thomas (more accurately, Greek fragments only of the latter, since the latter is only available complete in Coptic). These studies seem to have been precursors to much of the current Jesus Seminar -- JS -- scholarship. To go by these tantalizing -- and sometimes maddeningly casual -- references in the past, it was partly from these linguistic studies of a Greek language then in flux (in flux in the first century, that is) that one was able to detect the relative degree of early and late first-century strata in these Gospel sources. The linguistic studies then devolved into conclusions concerning the relatively early dating of certain Jesus sayings common to Matthew and Luke versus the relatively late dating of some surrounding material, and so on and so forth.
However, more recently, general references, in general reference sources, to conclusions based on these linguistic studies seem to have faded in favor of more subjective(?) studies involving the study of concepts/ideas/preoccupations at various levels in these earliest Gospel sources instead. Theories occasionally surrounding such assessments of such concepts/ideas/preoccupations have now become the main focus of JS scholarship -- or so it would seem from Russell Shorto's fairly recent book "Gospel Truth", in general respects a methodical retrospective of where Jesus scholarship stands today. The thing is, not one word is said in the whole book concerning the apparent linguistic studies -- referred to by some in the past as the philological perspective -- of the original Greek texts where 99.9% of the earliest Historical Jesus -- HJ -- material presumably is.
So my question is, Is anyone here conversant enough with the most recent linguistic/philological consensus in the most recent HJ research to give us an authoritative snapshot of where we are today? As strictly a layman myself, I freely concede I do not know a word of Greek, ancient or modern, and I'm hardly proud of that. I would still like to know if there is some reason how come we see the recent "downsizing" of references to detailed linguistic/philological study of the Synoptics within the ranks of JS scholarship and HJ scholarship generally -- Please? Has much of this linguistic research been -- somehow? -- discredited? Is the expertise no longer there (hardly likely)? Is there a feeling among scholars that it's time to move on (for whatever strange reason)? Have more recent surveys on the linguistic landscape of first-century Greek somehow shown that the presumed strata of early/late material in the Synoptics need to be rethought, and no one wants to pursue the newer conclusions now necessary? Or is it a false impression of my own that these more concrete studies in word patterns have now been abandoned? If they have not been, where are they concentrated today?
Whichever it is, I'd be grateful if anyone here who is very conversant with the latest in HJ scholarship might address this question, and tell us where the linguistic/philological consensus stands as of now, with respect to the identity of the various textual strata in the Synoptics and the Greek fragments of Thomas. Please?
Many thanks,
Operacast
Something that's tantalized me for a while has been the number of casual references, in past retrospectives, at varied specialty levels, to detailed studies of the changing styles and idioms in written Greek during the first century C.E. Tied to those studies were -- at one time apparently -- careful conclusions being made concerning the application of these changing Greek characteristics -- throughout a rapidly changing first century C.E. -- to the varied strata of written material detectable in the three Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of Thomas (more accurately, Greek fragments only of the latter, since the latter is only available complete in Coptic). These studies seem to have been precursors to much of the current Jesus Seminar -- JS -- scholarship. To go by these tantalizing -- and sometimes maddeningly casual -- references in the past, it was partly from these linguistic studies of a Greek language then in flux (in flux in the first century, that is) that one was able to detect the relative degree of early and late first-century strata in these Gospel sources. The linguistic studies then devolved into conclusions concerning the relatively early dating of certain Jesus sayings common to Matthew and Luke versus the relatively late dating of some surrounding material, and so on and so forth.
However, more recently, general references, in general reference sources, to conclusions based on these linguistic studies seem to have faded in favor of more subjective(?) studies involving the study of concepts/ideas/preoccupations at various levels in these earliest Gospel sources instead. Theories occasionally surrounding such assessments of such concepts/ideas/preoccupations have now become the main focus of JS scholarship -- or so it would seem from Russell Shorto's fairly recent book "Gospel Truth", in general respects a methodical retrospective of where Jesus scholarship stands today. The thing is, not one word is said in the whole book concerning the apparent linguistic studies -- referred to by some in the past as the philological perspective -- of the original Greek texts where 99.9% of the earliest Historical Jesus -- HJ -- material presumably is.
So my question is, Is anyone here conversant enough with the most recent linguistic/philological consensus in the most recent HJ research to give us an authoritative snapshot of where we are today? As strictly a layman myself, I freely concede I do not know a word of Greek, ancient or modern, and I'm hardly proud of that. I would still like to know if there is some reason how come we see the recent "downsizing" of references to detailed linguistic/philological study of the Synoptics within the ranks of JS scholarship and HJ scholarship generally -- Please? Has much of this linguistic research been -- somehow? -- discredited? Is the expertise no longer there (hardly likely)? Is there a feeling among scholars that it's time to move on (for whatever strange reason)? Have more recent surveys on the linguistic landscape of first-century Greek somehow shown that the presumed strata of early/late material in the Synoptics need to be rethought, and no one wants to pursue the newer conclusions now necessary? Or is it a false impression of my own that these more concrete studies in word patterns have now been abandoned? If they have not been, where are they concentrated today?
Whichever it is, I'd be grateful if anyone here who is very conversant with the latest in HJ scholarship might address this question, and tell us where the linguistic/philological consensus stands as of now, with respect to the identity of the various textual strata in the Synoptics and the Greek fragments of Thomas. Please?
Many thanks,
Operacast
