medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Monday, August 4, 2008, at 4:13 pm, George R. Hoelzeman wrote:
> On Mon, 4 Aug 2008 21:02:12 +0100, Rosemary Hayes-Milligan and Andrew
> Milligan wrote:
>
>
> >> The widely held view that the biblically unnamed J. and A. of this
> text
> >> are wholly fictional characters proceeds from the standard
> scholarly
> >> assessment of the derivative nature of the work as a whole as well
> as from
> >> aspects of it that make it unlikely that its author was familiar
> either
> >> with Palestine or with Jewish custom. There are a number of
> surveys that
> >> may be consulted on this point; for convenience, see the discussion
> here
> >> by Wilhelm Schneemelcher and R. M. Wilson in their _New Testament
> >> Apocrypha: Gospels And Related Writings_ (Westminster: John Knox
> Press,
<SNIP>
> For example, in the quote above, the statement that Joachim and Anne
> are not mentioned in the bible implies that this immediately throws
> their identity into question.
The statement above, of which I and not Rosemary am the author, implies no such thing. One should not infer from this assertion of absence from the canonical books that said absence is sufficient to throw those identities into question. What throws those identities into question is the nature of the text in which they first appear, coupled with the aforementioned absence. Mentioning J.'s and A.'s absence from the canonical books merely indicates a lack of countervailing evidence from that source and says nothing about the force or quality of such evidence (were it to exist).
Best again,
John Dillon
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