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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.
Abstract
This contribution highlights the importance of the Arabic version of the Poetics in establishing the text of this work. This is a well-known fact, expressly considered in the most recent editio maior of the Poetics. Nonetheless, the latter edition does not discuss all the evidence relating to the Arabic translation. This article examines two much-discussed passages of the Poetics (1454b30-32, 1448a25-28). In the first case, the Arabic testimony, despite not transmitting the text that should be edited, helps to elucidate which variant is preferred. In the second case, the text of the Arabic translation raises the question of whether its variant reading should replace the text accepted in all the editions published over the last two centuries.
Abstract
This study examines three patterns of religious content in Arrian’s Anabasis of Alexander: (a) ritual reports, (b) religious material culture, and (c) omens. Although ritual reports and omens mainly mark turning points of the expedition and certain qualities of Alexander’s character, the passages pertaining to religious material culture also transfer our focal point of interest to the author’s religious beliefs and his literary and cultural tastes. Most importantly, Arrian uses ritual reports and omens in compliance with (a) the dynamic portrait he wished to delineate for Alexander and (b) his opinion about Alexander’s relationship with religion on three different levels (alleged divine origins, stories about the divine favor Alexander enjoyed, and his rivalry with Dionysus and Heracles). A comparative reading of these three religious patterns reveals how Arrian, as a narrator, achieved a creative compromise between his own assessment of Alexander and the historical material he drew from his sources.
Forthcoming Volumes:
Brill's Companion to the Reception of Vitruvius, edited by Ingrid Rowland
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