The Historical Jesus

[Mister Agenda]

The word 'unauthored' is a synonym for 'unwritten', doesn't seem the most appropriate term for 'author unknown'.

[Sheldon]

The word 'unauthored' is a synonym for 'unwritten', doesn't seem the most appropriate term for 'author unknown'.

it also can mean...
Adjective
2. Of no known author; anonymous.

CITATION

Obviously in this context that secondary definition was intended.

[Mister Agenda]

If it was obvious, no one would find it jarring. Anonymous, though, is another good term.

Points for using the secondary meaning of a little-used term, if that's what you were going for. Not that I have room to throw stones at someone for being pedantic. Carry on.

[Belacqua]

If it was obvious, no one would find it jarring. Anonymous, though, is another good term.

Points for using the secondary meaning of a little-used term, if that's what you were going for. Not that I have room to throw stones at someone for being pedantic. Carry on.

I had also never heard the word "unauthored" before. 

It's not in Merriam Webster or the OED. But of course the Internet has everything, so if you search it comes up as the second definition on Wiktionary plus some sites I'd never heard of. The first definition is always more like "not authored, without an author, unwritten." And that makes more sense to me, because "to author" means "to write," so "unauthored" would mean "unwritten." 

I'd find it more understandable in a sentence like, "Although George R.R. Martin planned a final volume in the series, it remained unauthored." Meaning that he never got around to writing it. Though even there, "unwritten" would be more normal.

Also my computer's spell check doesn't recognize the word -- it keeps trying to change it to "unauthorized."

But if someone likes the second, less obvious meaning I'm happy to play along. 

There is a danger that those terrible horrible Christian folks will misinterpret the word. They actually believed (before we smarter folks came along) that some texts had no author because they were given directly by God. More than written texts, painted icons were sometimes considered to have descended from heaven untouched by human hands. The Acheiropoieta icons played an important role in the debates between iconoclasts and iconodules. Depending on context, a possible English translation of Acheiropoieta could be "unauthored." So people who believe in this sort of thing would read "unauthored" to mean "arrived direct from God."

[The Grand Nudger]

There's no danger whatsoever in how christers will use the word because christers say any-fucking-thing. As will you. Paul, Mark, Matthew Luke and John are as real as Dancer Prancer Vixen and Comet. They're characters in what some group of proto christians found to be their favorite stories and that's it.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

@Belacqua

They actually believed (before we smarter folks came along) that some texts had no author because they were given directly by God. More than written texts, painted icons were sometimes considered to have descended from heaven untouched by human hands.

What a stupid thing to believe. I'm glad we smarter folks came along.

Boru

[Sheldon]

If it was obvious, no one would find it jarring. Anonymous, though, is another good term.

Points for using the secondary meaning of a little-used term, if that's what you were going for. Not that I have room to throw stones at someone for being pedantic. Carry on.

Tbh I didn't see how the primary definition could be applied to a written text? So I set aside my usual rule, but duly noted, I often take exception when people use secondary definitions and don't clarify.

[Mister Agenda]

No worries, like I said, I've no room to throw stones, and I learned something.

[h311inac311]

A secondary source is still a source of information, and not all secondary sources are completely invalid.

Just labeling everything that Papias, Iraeneus and Clement of Alexandria did as, "subjective speculation" doesn't make it so.

And when all of the secondary sources point in one direction, and you cannot provide me with any evidence to the contrary, then you are free to draw whatever conclusions you want to draw from that.


Assuming that all Christians merely converted to, and fundamentally accepted; all Gospels as being written by whomever they were told wrote them, with no ounce of critical thought, does not make it so. Some early Christians may have had this point of view, but Papias provably did not, and there were other early scholars which did not accept these writings "as is" without any amount of critical thought.

Do you guys really believe that skepticism is a recent invention?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

A secondary source is still a source of information, and not all secondary sources are completely invalid.

Just labeling everything that Papias, Iraeneus and Clement of Alexandria did as, "subjective speculation" doesn't make it so.

And when all of the secondary sources point in one direction, and you cannot provide me with any evidence to the contrary, then you are free to draw whatever conclusions you want to draw from that.


Assuming that all Christians merely converted to, and fundamentally accepted; all Gospels as being written by whomever they were told wrote them, with no ounce of critical thought, does not make it so. Some early Christians may have had this point of view, but Papias provably did not, and there were other early scholars which did not accept these writings "as is" without any amount of critical thought.

Do you guys really believe that skepticism is a recent invention?

The scholarship of Papias, Iraeneus, and Clement does nothing to prove the historicity of Jesus.

But ‘all of the secondary sources’ manifestly do NOT point in one direction. You simply think so because you’re invested in choosing only those sources that do.

I don’t think anyone here as claimed that all Christians, especially all early Christians, accepted the traditional authorship of the Gospels at face value. But the evidence is overwhelming that the vast majority of them have done exactly that.

And I’m absolutely sure than no one here claims that skepticism is a recent invention.

Boru