Name statistics argument 14: Josephus
from The Lydia McGrew Podcast Hosted by The Lydia McGrew Podcast
In principle it would have been barely possible for someone to make use of the works of Josephus to learn about 1st-century Palestinian male name statistics. In this respect the Josephus suggestion by Gregor and Blais passes a very minimal threshhold of possibility, unlike their other suggestions for sources of invented persons, which can't explain anything even aside from their intrinsic improbability. But the Josephus suggestion suffers from severe problems as well. How cumbersome would the process of collecting name statistics from Josephus have been under ancient conditions? Given that none of Gregor and Blais's other suggestions explain anything, how many different people would have had to undertake such an incredibly cumbersome, complex, self-conscious process? How likely is it that anyone would even think of doing so? What is the relevance of the fact that the realistic name statistics in the Gospels and Acts are the result of a few persons of each name in different documents, put together? Learn all that and more in this last presentation on the Gregor and Blais critique of Bauckham's name statistics argument.
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