Is Name Popularity a Good Test of Historicity?
A Statistical Evaluation of Richard Bauckham’s Onomastic Argument
In: Journal for the Study of the Historical JesusSearch for other papers by Kamil Gregor in
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Search for other papers by Brian Blais in
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Abstract
In Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Richard Bauckham argues that the popularity of personal names in Gospels-Acts corresponds remarkably well to name popularity among late ancient Palestinian Jews and that this can only be the case if Gospels-Acts characters are in most cases historical as opposed to invented in the process of ‘anonymous community transmission’. We re-examine Bauckham’s conclusions, asserted with a remarkably high level of confidence but almost entirely without an actual statistical evaluation of his onomastic data, and perform the appropriate statistical analysis on the most recent onomastic dataset. We show that Bauckham’s thesis offers no advantage in explaining the observed correspondence between name popularity in Gospels-Acts and in the contemporary Palestinian Jewish population over an alternative model of ‘anonymous community transmission’. Moreover, our statistical analysis identifies some, albeit weak, evidence against Bauckham’s thesis.
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| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 3191 | 962 | 118 |
| Full Text Views | 118 | 31 | 4 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 295 | 76 | 7 |
Is Name Popularity a Good Test of Historicity?
A Statistical Evaluation of Richard Bauckham’s Onomastic Argument
In: Journal for the Study of the Historical JesusSearch for other papers by Kamil Gregor in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Search for other papers by Brian Blais in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
In Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Richard Bauckham argues that the popularity of personal names in Gospels-Acts corresponds remarkably well to name popularity among late ancient Palestinian Jews and that this can only be the case if Gospels-Acts characters are in most cases historical as opposed to invented in the process of ‘anonymous community transmission’. We re-examine Bauckham’s conclusions, asserted with a remarkably high level of confidence but almost entirely without an actual statistical evaluation of his onomastic data, and perform the appropriate statistical analysis on the most recent onomastic dataset. We show that Bauckham’s thesis offers no advantage in explaining the observed correspondence between name popularity in Gospels-Acts and in the contemporary Palestinian Jewish population over an alternative model of ‘anonymous community transmission’. Moreover, our statistical analysis identifies some, albeit weak, evidence against Bauckham’s thesis.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 3191 | 962 | 118 |
| Full Text Views | 118 | 31 | 4 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 295 | 76 | 7 |
