What This Scholar Got WRONG About Bible Names (feat Kamil Gregor & Brian Blais)
Вставка
- Опубліковано 16 жов 2023
- A recent peer-reviewed paper critically examines an argument made by biblical scholar Richard Bauckham that the distribution of names in the Gospels matches what we'd expect if they were based on eyewitness testimony. It points out flaws in Bauckham's data and analysis, and presents new statistical tests showing his conclusions don't follow from the data. Authors Kamil Gregor @kamilgregor and Brian Blais join me to discuss.
PAPER - Is Name Popularity a Good Test of Historicity?
brill.com/view/journals/jshj/...
Mythvision Deep-dive Discussion - • Gospel Names DON'T Pro...
original video - • Names in the Gospels: ...
Support Paulogia at
/ paulogia
www.paypal.me/paulogia
Paulogia Channel Wish-List
www.amazon.ca/hz/wishlist/ls/...
Paulogia Merch
teespring.com/stores/paulogia
Join this channel to get access to perks:
/ @paulogia
Paulogia Audio-Only-Version Podcast
paulogia.buzzsprout.com
Follow Paulogia at
/ paulogia0
/ paulogia0
/ discord
Send me cool mail!
Paulogia
PO Box 1350
Lantz Stn Main, NS
B2S 1A0
Canada - Наука та технологія
This took me like 4 hours to record. Try saying "Acts 6 list seven deacons" :D
it was worth it. Looking forward to more of the same.
Hey, I had to say "Apollogenes"! 🙂
I like the dichotomous cases and the point about different stories being statistically indistinguishable. That’s strong. I think for popular consumption it would be fascinating if you took a look at modern works known to be fiction and checked to see if they match real name frequencies. It would be interesting if Spider-Man or Harry Potter really did have the same or better match to local naming conventions as the Bible. Have you considered examining this counter-apologetic using the same methods?
Hey Kamil! Hope you can release that list of books used as referrals, 3:40. From your graph, the top book looks to have been used a lot more as a reference. I'm curious which book that is?
Great content!
Wouldn’t making a correlation study with real% vs. Bible% make any sense? Is there no significance test for that?
"He's no Frank Turek."
Talk about damning with faint praise…
Thank you so much for this content, having these experts on to stand up to the apologists has helped so much to undo the church's abuse.
Excellent work. Poor apologists - it looks really bad when they've not fact-checked their own acclaimed sources. It'd be great if believers demanded higher standards from their apologists but "far from raising the bar... [they] lower it" 😀
Well... _william lane craig_
He lowered the bar all by his lonesome.
The apologist business won't suffer from facts
@@pureflix8086 WLC, better known as low bar Bill
I understood that reference. 😄
Another part of this might be the fact that, when creating names for fictional characters, you don't pick them at random. A couple considerations are:
1. Perception of popularity: I might name a character 'John' only for the trope that 'John Smith is the most neutral name ever' regardless of whether or not that's actually true just because that trope exists.
2. Cultural Allusion: Sometimes I want my character to represent a mythological or otherwise cultural allusion. For example, as I understand it, the protagonist of the Percy Jackson series is named Percy because it's a reference to Perseus. That has absolutely nothing to do with how common of a name Percy is in modern culture. If I wanted a character to represent a connection to the idea of dreams, I might name him Morpheus purely as a reference to the classical deity of dreams. And so on. And so on.
3. The First Letter: A common piece of advice for creative writing is to have to 2 characters whose names started with the same character, especially if their names have roughly the same number of characters. It's common practice for authors to, after finishing a rough draft, list out every character in the story and make sure there's no overlap in first character. The idea is that people, as a heuristic while reading quickly, will use the first letter combined with word length to quickly read a character's name. Therefore, by making sure there's no overlap here, you minimize the risk of confusion on this front. I've run into this problem myself in my own writing. Now, that's not to say that writers of antiquity followed this exact same rule. Certainly, if they did, it would be with respect to the first written character or spoken sound in the native language. My point here is that there are criteria of unambiguity for plucking characters names out with. I mean, I would hesitate, as a first century storyteller adding to this corpus, to have another character named Yeshua. I'd know that it would confuse the audience. Especially for the part where they mention that most character names had one representative, I can't help but wonder if there was a similar tendency at play.
4. Name Associations: If I'm making a character that's intended to match a certain vibe, I'll pick a name that matches that vibe. For a strong character, I'll pick a name that sounds strong. For a smart character, I might pick a name that sounds a little pretentious, like Maxwell or Alexander.
This is hardly an exhaustive list of other considerations for choosing the name of a fictional character. My main point here is (aside from point #3 which I find particularly interesting in this context) is to point out that we would hardly expect fictional character name distributions to match real world distributions, and unless you hold to the (in my opinion) highly suspect position that every single detail in the bible is 100% accurate, one should expect some expansion of details after the core of the story is in place. Like, the name of guy whose house the important thing is happening in may not be important. If two different authors are telling the story, they may use different criteria from above to choose different names depending on the thematic elements they find most important or most compelling. Even if the core of the story is accurate, we should still expect some fictional characters.
I've just realized how much text this is. I'm so sorry.
This just confirms that apologists can't be trusted with their data, period. 💯
It's obvious they're far too biased.
Good content Paulogia. 💯👏🏻👏🏻
You mean data like - Jesus wants to be our best friend.. But never brings pizza?
This was amazing. And a PERFECT example of what happens in "science" when you decide your conclusion first and then have blinders on to what the data represents.
I love data analysis and statistics. Regardless of the results, this is the type of scholarship I love seeing.
This was such a weak argument to begin with, but it's nice to see it addressed
I knew it! Playing Dungeons and Dragons when I was younger would help later in life!
I have recently noticed that a trend has been forming on Atheist videos. The trend in question is pointing out that apologists are not upper echelon scholars but unqualified pretenders.
I am 100% on board with the trend.
the ones that pretend to be good scholars really annoy me. they need to be properly addressed by real scholars.
"That's called evidence"
😆 🤣 😂
I love the shade throwing
Nobody would find this argument compelling unless they were desperate for any evidence that the Bible is real. Apologists always come off like they’re trying too hard.
Dude what an absolute banger episode! Fascinating content. Really well done. This is the kind of thing that makes me buy books and then only read about half of them lol
Get the audiobook for the other half. :)
These guys did a great service to those who seek the truth! Thank you all!
Not.
Jesus wants a personal relationship.. Where is he?
Superb logic doesn't replace date-night..
@@Dr.JustIsWrong Umm...I'm pretty sure OP was referring to the two people on Paul's side fact-checking the book. As in the ones that were arguing _against_ a "date night with Jesus". So, uh....friendly-fire?
@@riluna3695
doesn't it seem just a wee bit "off topic" or ultimately trivial, to be arguing about the - _statistical likelihood_ of his _friends' names_ -
..of "My *_Totally Real!!_* loving, and devoted husband"..
..who has never managed to make it to a single "dinner date" in 60 years, despite being unstoppable, and omnipresently already there.. and he totally really truly exists, promise, cross my heart.. ?
@@Dr.JustIsWrong It's a pretty minor point to be fighting over, yeah. Especially in the face of far more glaring flaws in the idea that the Bible is supposed to be historically reliable. Proving that the names are about what they should be is....kinda neat, I suppose, but doesn't do anything to address outright factual inaccuracies, so ultimately cannot prove the bible reliable. And all that's assuming Bauckham even successfully proved that the names were what they should be, which this entire video shows is an unjustified assumption. So he couldn't even win his relatively-off-topic point.
So yes, you and I are in agreement. And so is the person you first responded to, ariellalima. My question is, since we're all three in agreement, why do your two comments come off as if you're attacking the two of us? Is that accidental on your part? Or did you think we disagreed and were siding with Bauckham? I'm very curious to know which of the two it is. Or if it's some third option I didn't consider. Do please let me know.
@@riluna3695 _"why do your two comments come off as if you're attacking the two of us?"_
Because I was having a cranky afternoon, and believers' entire point of a god is to have a bestest friend ever that will perform endless intercessory miracles to eliminate all of life's little hiccups and stop the universe from from 'hurting me'..
..and that's proven, not by any intercessions whatsoever, or even by shaking hands with a god, but instead by theists getting ancient naming statistics absolutely correct.. therefore "Jesus Saves your soul for ever and ever, amen."
I'm merely (occasionally) annoyed that theists (and in turn, non-theists) think this is a reasonable discussion pro or con a god..
So, to theists.. Just show me God or reliable Super Miracles and stop using statistics of ancient micro-locale's popular names.. I reckon.
I had a ex that used to say, "The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing."
On the female names, history valley just had a guest who’s research into the Mary’s with Lazarus shows that only one woman probably existed and later the sister was added to lessen the impact of one woman doing so many important things.
Good point, Kari!
@@utubepunk 🥰punk
I love it, it’s a case of “irrelevant even if right”.
That was my very first thought mere seconds into the video. EVEN IF someone proved the bible is based on eyewitness testimony, who cares? It's still the worst kind of evidence and should never be convincing on its own of even less incredible claims than literal magic.
The statistical teardown was interesting for sure. But really, do we need to go any further than the Spider-Man Defense? "Peter" is the most popular male name in New York City, therefore Stan Lee was an eyewitness to the actions of a web-slinging superhero.
I fail to see how showing the accuracy of a document in any way supports the supernatural and I won't be surprised when I'm called blind for not believing it does.
The first few verses of Luke basically say he is not an eyewitness. It says he is writing down stories passed down from eyewitnesses.
Just the fact the gospels are written in Greek should be enough evidence.
That's irrelevant
The claim is "Luke USED eyewitnesses"
Just want to say that I love the collab with Kamil and Brian. Would love to see them both on again.
Us too!
Paul and Kamil, I have waited so long for this episode and it was so worth the wait! Just brilliant. Well done on debunking this apologetics nonsense. Delighted that Kamil after contributing so much on line is now being published in academic, peer reviewed, journals
In my old job, I worked with four men. Their names were Chris, Chris, Chris and Chris. And they all insisted on Chris rather than Christopher or any other variation. I wonder what statisticians would make of that.
I once sat at a gaming table in college and 4 of us, sitting in a row, were all named "Dave".
Speaking as a Dave, neither of your experiences surprise me. Ditto John, Andy and Steve.
Runs of repeated numbers (or names) is one thing statisticians can and do look for when detecting fraud. People who make things up almost always do a poor job of including a run of the same data because it feels like 4 Chris or Dave’s at the same table must be fake. Turns out it happens sometimes, you just need enough data to justify whether it’s likely to be true. This is why Brian and Kamil made such a point about Bauckham’s small sample size.
I used to work in a university department in Australia. I shared an office with 5 guys names Bruce 😁
@@diverguy3556 "Is your name not Bruce? That's going to cause some confusion. 'Mind if we call you Bruce to keep it clear?"
This wasn't a philosophy department in the outback perchance?
Irrelevant to the discussion but Kamil Greggor has one of the most pleasant voices I've heard. Brilliant reaseach and good humor too. He should have his own podcast or YT channel!
ASMR artist is my exit strategy
@@kamilgregori can confirm it's over 9000! Legend!
I recall being confused by the John Entwhistle song "Boris the spider." I had thought, up till that time,that spiders were named Charlotte.
I heard this argument a while ago and the thing that stuck out to me... is that they never assessed the books individually? (At least from what I've heard about it.) It seems weird to assess them as a set when one of the books could easily be fake while the other 3 were legit, something like that.
How common was the name Brian in ancient Palestine?
How in the hell does a peer-review process not catch those errors
Culture-wide tendency to instantly latch onto any evidence that seems to support their beliefs, and a similar cultural shunning of people who go looking too closely into the details of anything checked. A necessary feature of any large-scale pseudoscientific belief system, because those who DO look closely inevitably find more and more problems and eventually leave.
Some people push this bad habit very knowingly for personal gain (AiG for instance has that "we won't accept your paper unless we like your conclusion" clause), some do it because they bought into the manipulation and believe it's how you're supposed to employ your logical reasoning, and I'm sure there are probably some who hit the middle ground of knowingly lying (in small ways or large), but doing it because they earnestly believe it's the right thing to do. Which isn't too surprising when your belief system is "everyone who doesn't share my belief system will BURN". All three are wrong, two of the three are culpable, and a different two of the three are victims in this. Which does, yes, mean that there is such a thing as a "culpable victim". Same as someone mistreated as a kid who then mistreats their own kids the same way.
either there was none...
or it's a group with a lot of weakly scientifically minded people in it. Like theology.
@@Ugly_German_TruthsIgnorance
No surprise that the statistician has been into D&D.
I was in a Museum in Denmark, and I noticed many gravestones with the name Jesus on them. I was a bit shocked, and a museum curator noticed, and explained that Jesus was a common name of the time. I wonder why no one talks about that, and the fact that "Jesus" could also have been different people with the same name?
It was an extremely common name! Jesus wasn't even the only apocalyptic preacher named Jesus operating in Judea at the time - Josephus alone mentions a whole bunch of them.
@@vaiyt I might not be the greatest Josephus scholar out there, but were there really so many even among apocalyptic preachers? The ones I remember him mentioning the Nazarene and the son of Ananias
@@jaojao1768 How many does there have to be to open the possibility that there was more than one jewish rabbi of the time named Jesus?
@@littlebitofhope1489 that does not strike me as impossible (even though the son of Ananias lived rather later), but if you are referring to the idea that Jesus of Nazareth was an amalgam, that is quite unlikely
@@jaojao1768 Many scholars think the stories are about more than one Rabbi, there is no reason for your claim that it is unlikely. It is no more unlikely than he was one person.
Thankyou for all the work you put in to making this video. I'm really pleased to see that you are gettting interest from different scholars to help present arguments. Keep up the good work!
We all appreciate you!
👏
Land of chocolate? Paul's from the land of poutine 😉
I'm from The Land of Tex-Mex.
…
Make of that what you will.
mmmmmmmm.....poutine
@@dwightdhansen lol
@@lonestar_iconoclast Steak and tacos? lol.
Paul is more in the land of Halifax Gyros
Kamil's voice feels like a cat laying on my lap.
Man, preachers and apologists grasp at straws, then set the few they find down and just move on building atop them like they're unshakeable bedrock
this reminds me of a discussion I had with a theist about Asherah poles. they were trying to say the prevalence of the poles in the Bible agreed with their prevalence in history. I asked for sources, and happily, he gave me several. I looked at THEIR sources, and unsurprisingly... each of the six had cited the Bible
i'm fascinated by iron age judean archaeology, particularly cultic objects showing evidence of other deities being worshiped.
i have no idea what an asherah pole is. i've never seen one.
JPFs are stupidily common, but asherah poles sound like larger objects at cultic centers, not household idols.
@@arachnophilia427 To me it sounds like the various norse sanctuaries where trees or totem pole like tree trunks were worshipped as representation of the specific nordic god. LIke the famous Irminsul or "big pillar" that Charlemagne had destroyed in his saxonian wars or the Donar Oak.
If these places of worship survived the attempts of Jews to extinguish the memory of "Yahweh's wife" (or maybe El's... it's not 100% clear how the dynamics were?) christians woul dhave gladly smashed or burned such a sanctuary to pieces and depnding on the decorations or what kind of service/sacrifice was used at the holy place the Muslims would too... We wouldn't expect any of the more obvious places to have survived undestroyed... and finding a random 6 m bit of wood that got hidden before non believers could destroy it is a question of luck, not predictable or expected.
@@Ugly_German_Truths i doubt there's any connection to germanic practices.
It's great to hear from my favorite inactive You Tuber. I really miss his content.
12:50 If you increase the area of one side, the dice will be more likely to fall on that side, therefore the name "on the opposite side" will appear more often. I know, it's a technicality, his analogy still works :)
this entire argument hinges on having a made up critic to argue against. i don’t think anyone argues that someone wrote Mark completely out of thin air. no, they took stories that were passed around, stories that had names in them, and wrote them down. his data could be perfect and it wouldn’t mean anything.
Uh, no. "Anonymous community transmission" is exactly the thing Bauckham is trying to refute.
Thank's Paul. Please have them back after the second paper is published
So the Testify channel should be renamed to "Grasping At Straws"
Theists might counter by saying, “why do you care so much to take the time to criticize us?”
Without knowing these scholars, I would guess that they just can’t stand by and watch bad science happening without doing their duty to peer review it. That’s how science gets at the truth, not just by making up stories to fit the preexisting conclusions
Yeah, pretty much. When I see a bad argument, and I have a chance/interest/knowledge to weigh in, I will. I didn't know the texts well enough to do this myself, so I was content with a feeling of "I bet the sample size is too small". When Kamil asked me to help with the analysis, it was great to contribute that part of it with someone who knows the texts so well.
1:55 IT'S OVER 9000 😂. Jokes aside, absolutely fab piece of work, as always Paulogia.
This is one of my favorites Paul! Thank you bro.
2:00 I found it very strange to have someone say 'over 9000' on a UA-cam video without having the appropriate meme being shown.
I watched Kamil and Braian.discuss this book on a MythVision interview. Thank you for highlighting them on this episode
Mr. Gregor has such a strong czech accent. It's nice to see my fellow countryman on Paulogia.
Pozdravy z Česka!
Thumbs up for both Homer Simpson and Hans & Franz in the first 30 seconds!
I came for the paulogia, I stayed for the dice.. This is relevant to my interests..
Is that a decoder ring that J.Warner Wallace is proudly displaying on his right hand @34:50?
I would think that the most popular names on the die would be the smallest, to allow for the opposite sides to be the largest, to get a better chance of the most popular names to be rolled
If the most popular names were the largest side, then it would be more typical that the opposite side of the most popular names would be rolled.....assuming that the die is more likely to stop face down on the larger sides
You roll them on a glass table and look from the other side.😉
Such a good video highlighting such an important paper! Apologetics like this would've resonated with me when I was a Christian, and I 100% would not have fact checked it at the time. It sounds credible on the surface, and unlike 90% of the apologetics being used, it's not easy to disprove without the knowledge beyond what most laymen have.
And that's exactly what they bank on!
Growing up in a German Lutheran atmosphere, many people I knew has similar names.
When I moved to another area of the country there were a lot more variations in peoples names.
And it wasn’t like someone just sat around writing down names of passerby’s.
I have absolutely no idea what anyone was talking about
I really enjoyed it! Took a bit for me to pick up what was being discussed, because I was listening with audio only. Maybe I should have listened to the introduction a little bit better! I enjoy using real statistics to disabuse imprecise ones
I'm sure Bauckham will issue a "whoopsie, sorry about all that", any day now.
I feel bad for any ancient Jew named “Zeus.”
He was like the boy named “Sue.”
Rough
Paul, I've been following you for a few years now and I enjoy your attention to detail.
I liked this particular video in part because I am a statistics nerd and still use statistics routinely for my main hobby (I'm a retired biochemist). Very nice work.
I will watch for the relevant Mythvision video.
So, Bauckham is more like a mock giant. Gigantic from the distance but shrinks to a dwarf the closer you look.
As always, amazing, but the dig at Turek was the line that made me LOL.
This is an interesting argument. Now I would like to see a similar argument for OT names. How probable is it that there were dozens of people who had names that were on-the-nose foreshadowing their fate. Like Job ('object of hostility') or the sons-of-law of Naomi, who died young: Mahlon ('grow sick') and Chilion ('come to an end').
We don't know if those were the meanings of those unfortunate names, because, A we don't get an in-story explanation, B they could have an alternative meaning (Mahlon could come either from disease or forgiveness, or even jewel, while Chilion could come from finish or from clothes) and C, there are a few people with unfortunate names in the Bible with no significance to that name (the name is mentioned as part of a list)...
However, a few of those stories probably aren't real, as they just serve as an allegory...
@@adrianblake8876 Yes, it would probably very difficult to give good probabilities on Iron age or Bronze age names, they would be of course all just educated guesses. But when it comes to people who don't think these are allegorical stories, it's not wise IMO to talk about names as your argument. I just feel the whole argument of building trust based on authentic names falls apart if we apply it to the whole Bible. The OT gives names a lot of meaning, often changing names of central characters to reflect their changed status. So other names in the clearly allegorical tales could have some theological or didactic meaning, which could suggest they are not really historical. The OT also offers some weird folk etymologies to some names, like Moses and Yahweh, which are probably botched, failed attempts.
But who knows, it's one of those things you only think about seriously when you're out of fundamentalism. Fundies just would cry argument from ignorance and dismiss all critiques. It could be interesting to see if any apologist has tried to explain these, probably yes.
Or how many actual tribes in reality get their name from a single forebear instead of from an attribute of strength or a peculiarity of their living space? Meanwhile legends LOVE to make that association and plenty of cultures have a rich supply of such myths to "explain" history that predates and memory or records.
12 "tribes" = 12 brothers, but not quite as one brother doesn't get any remembrance, but two of his sons do and the 14th name is given to the caste of priesthood not a territorial tribe... that is a lot of coincidence.
@@finnguy9096 1. What's so weird about the etymology that YHVH's name comes from the verb "to be" (esp, given the reconstructed aforementioned pronounciation)!?
2. Job not being real and merely allegory is the mainstream opinion, given in the Talmud.
3. Forgot to say in my first comment, they were Naomi's sons, their wives were her daughters-in-law!
@@adrianblake8876 The premise of this video and my comments is to address people who have the non-mainstream idea that all of these tales are 100% fact and 0 allegory.
The name YHWH is probably from a time when the Hebrew language didn't exist and could well be from a foreign language (from Midian perhaps). The Scriptures are from the Iron Age and the attempt in Exodus to link it to a Hebrew verb seems a bit forced. The "I am what I am" part is not fully in line with the word YHWH. Now I'm not a Hebrew expert, but so I've heard experts comment on it.
This is a fantastic video. One of the best and most informative for a while.
Interesting stuff. Would love to see Kamil do more videos.
Yay fresh Paulogia material, i'll grab a coffee.
*Permanently Ambiguous ;* _(I'll tell you what Jesus said)_
The Biblical God could have given us the very words of Jesus _in his own handwriting,_ original documents with a "rock solid chain of custody".
Instead we get "philosophical arguments" or "probability estimates", based ultimately on the "faith" that the disciples accurately relayed Jesus's messages. (faith in man)
Most of Christianity is based on the teachings of Paul, a man _that never met the "living Jesus",_ but only claimed to interact with his spirit/ghost. (very common through history)
1:05 "One way we know the gospel writers were familiar with the setting they were writing about"
Wow. Barely a minute in and we've already hit "New York doesn't prove Spider-Man" territory. It doesn't matter if they were familiar with the setting. What matters is if the stuff they were writing about was true. Familiarity with the place where Jesus is claimed to have performed miracles doesn't prove that Jesus actually performed miracles.
I was about to post when I saw your comment. Peter is a common name so that proves Peter Parker was real
This is basically what the "maximalists" Erik Manning (Testify, the guy doing the video being reviewed), McLatchie which Paul debated before, and the McGrews (of whom Lydia McGrew was the one to come up with the maximalist case with her book covering undesigned coincidences) do all the time. It is part and parcel of the maximalist case though you will hear them deny up and down that no they don't apply this fallacy even though they actually do.
Yes, it is a whole literary genre: "historical fiction".
Also just because several hundred people state they were abducted by aliens or saw the Virgin Mary, does NOT make their stories factual.
It's a good job Bauckham doesn't actually claim that, then. Have you read Bauckham's book?
Exactly when writing fiction you chose a place you are familiar with.
0:52 - "Today we're looking at one of the familiar narratives from Richard Bauckham"
Bauckham? I hardly know 'im!
It's a dreadful joke and it doesn't quite work. But oddly it works better for these faults!
@@methodbanana2676 Thank you, I'll be here all week
Mean median mode and standard deviations...those were the days! Analysis of Variance class. I passed by the skin of my teeth.
I don't know what this is about yet but I feel excitement
Always a great day when Paulogia posts!❤
I used to get them wrong all the time they were hard to pronounce🤷🏿♂️
The incorrect figures in red are intolerable for a published paper. I'd be ashamed if I had that many errors even for home use.
Adding a comment to feed the UA-cam algorithm.
Another outstanding video. I find your channel to be the best scholarly source of good info regarding apologetics, such great guests you have.
Kamil from AcademicBiblical? Woo!
I am so thankful for the nerds who research all this! Kamil and Brian have done great work here
I'm not in the field and I still felt that beat down.
amazing work. wonderful. thank you!❤
Outstanding research! Thanks so much.
I love the Office clip of Pam telling Creed that corporate wants him to look for the differences in the same picture. 😂
Creed Bratton is the best character! Fight me.
Wow, great episode!!
1:53 “the Jews are over 9000!”-some racist dragon ball character probably
Not the best idea for them to pick Germany and go into names. In Germany names follow certain trends and some names fall out of favour for whole generations, especially when they’re older.
When I was an infant, French names were the biggest hit in addition to some classics you’ll also find in the US (just with different pronunciations). You would’ve never found someone with a name like “Heinrich” or “Elisabeth” during my childhood.
In the early 2010s those names made a short-term comeback unbeknownst to me. I gave my child a trend name for a trend I didn’t even know about, by choosing a name that would’ve been a problem during my childhood. In fact, I was supposed to be named that, but it was seriously too old fashioned for the 80s.
Look at Census records or famous people from politics or the military over the decades and you see that UK, France, USA also have such trends. It's an important category on baby name sites too.
I love Cam’s stuff
Is it surprising to anyone that Jews from 30 to 60 years later knew what popular names were? That's such a weak argument just on the face of it
If i want to research the names popular in Germany 100 years ago i'd look up things like phonebooks, census records maybe lists of the fallen in WW 1 etc... Heck even the cast listings of movies from the 1910s and 20s would help me get a feeling about a rough distribution of popular names. And acceptable rare ones.
It won't be impossible for a person living around 100 CE to find comparable things for Palestine in 35-40 CE... like tax records, descriptions of court trials etc. WE have lost those records 1900 years later, but only 3-4 generations later??? absolutely not implausible that they had at least some records they could base it on.
A religious scholar manipulated data to support a presupposed position??! NEVER!
Hey hey! Another good one!
Me: How many ancient Jews do we know of?
Kamil Gregor: OVER 9000!!!
There are some interesting questions here about the tricky decisions one would have to make in order to properly investigate the proportionality of character names in the texts. By removing known historical figures, it focuses the question, yes, but reduces the number of names total, contributing to the issues of small sample size. For example.
The simple fact that names _are_ repeated for me contributes to the verisimilitude of the texts as "honest" recountings. Few fiction authors would reuse character first names, simply to make it easier for readers. But a work constructed by numerous different individuals might reuse common names _more frequently_ than reality. One that is accumulated over time from a number of different but related stories seems consistent to me with what we see, but that could also be the result of independent construction combined with later editing.
Altogether, quite fascinating.
Great video, thanks!
Excellent analysis
Very interesting. Thanks.
Great to see Kamil again!
The chart at 2:30 is pretty dodgy - joining categorical counts with a line - I hope that doesn't come from the paper.
no
Another amazing informative video! I appreciate the guest’s knowledge and humor.
@30:15 - I have long thought that some of the names of inconsequential characters in the Gospels and Acts were actually named for patrons of the early churches. The equivalent of putting a patron's name in a memorial brick.
Sweet, feels like it's been a minute
Excellent - it is really worthwhile presenting a detailed scholarly assessment of the credibility of apologist arguments that claim a scholarly basis. The conclusion is not in the least surprising.
It seems to me that anyone from anywhere in the Hellenistic or Roman world could work out a viable list of names for a novel without getting anywhere near Palestine. In any diaspora community, the first generation from "the old country" would have loads of Palestinian names...the next generation would still have lots of them...and anyone who communicated with that community would therefore instantly have a mother lode of names to use for their novel. Such communities were all over the Mediterranean world in the first and second centuries. Not hard at all.
On the subject of frequency distribution, there is one popular name that is under-represented. If memory serves, there is only one Joshua (Jesus) in all of the gospels and Acts, which is unexpected given the popularity of the name.
Barabbas is called Jesus in some manuscripts, though generally you are right
@@jaojao1768Correct, I forgot about that! Though I strongly suspect that specific character naming betrays a particular intent.
Wasn't there census taken at the time? lists of names and where they are at specific times