Re: OT More pens (was Re: Phoneme winnowing continues)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2003 10:44 PM
Subject: Re: OT More pens (was Re: Phoneme winnowing continues)


> On Tue, Jun 10, 2003 at 04:44:09PM -0400, John Leland wrote:
> > Tracing documents is more scientific than guesswork, but much less
certain
> > than some of the physical sciences.
>
> Clearly; I didn't mean to imply otherwise.  It's much harder to come up
> with experiments to test hypotheses about history, for instance.
>
> > There are serious scholarly debates
> > about whether Mark or Matthew came first; for a while the Mark side
> > seemed to be established, but then John Robinson and others revived the
> > Matthew side.
>
> The very fact that it's debated and that the prevailing opinion can
> change, however, demonstrates the disprovability criterion of the
> scientific method.
>
> > On the number of sources, note that most (not all) scholars
> > believe that Matthew and Luke incorporate material from both Mark and a
> > source they call Q, which some believe was similar to the Gnostic Gospel
> > of Thomas.
>
> Okay, if we have Mark, Q, and John, that's three sources, which is
> closer to four than one.  Again, though, they're not necessarily
> primary, independent, or disinterested ones. :)
>
The main problem is the sheer unlikelyhood of finding any disinterested
sources.  I mean, who's going to record the execution of some crazy jewish
cult-leader-type-guy.

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