medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Dear George,

On Friday, December 21, 2007, at 12:16 am, you wrote, quoting me:

> 
> >> I think it all hinges on the technical term used to describe Joseph 
> in 
> >> the Greek NT. 
> 
> >I rather think that the discussion as it has proceeded so far hinges 
> both on the plausible meanings of _tekton_ in a first-century 
> Palestinian context and 
> how the English-language words used to convey those meanings are 
> construed. 
> 
> In other words, it all hinges on the technical term used to describe 
> Joseph.  How English construes it, or the latin for that matter, is 
> rooted in the meaning of 
> the original word.

At the risk of seeming Clintonian here ("That depends upon the meaning of the word 'is'."), I submit that the discussion hitherto had not _all_ depended upon the meanings of _tektwn_.  Some of it also depended upon the meanings of "cabinetmaker" (vel sim.), as there were some who construed that English-language term solely as the designation of a trade whereas others used it more broadly in ways that would also admit it as the description of a recurrent activity.

Moreover, English does not construe anything.  People construe and they express their constructions in language which in turn is subject to interpretation.  The issues involved in the construction of a translated term may be quite independent of those involved in the construction of the latter's analog in the source language.  To say that a discussion that involves construction of terms in both a source language AND a target language _all_ hinges on meanings in the source language could be thought an oversimplification.

Put another way, there are hinges and then there are more hinges.  But I would agree that some are more cardinal than others.

Best again,
John Dillon

PS: Both the most pertinent part of Byrne's entry "Guilds" in _Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia_ and his bibliography are available on the Web in Google "snippet view" form at:
http://tinyurl.com/yojoer
(p. 478 not shown). 
Kathryn Reyerson has a similar comment about the French guilds in her much briefer entry "Guild" in _Medieval France: An Encyclopedia_.  See:
http://tinyurl.com/24j9oj

  
> 
> Beyond that, as I said, the discussion hinges on the meaning of the 
> term.  How was it used in the Greek of the period.  At long last, two 
> people have ponied 
> up references to how it was used.  Now that we have those references, 
> much greater clarity is provided.  It seems that the term is not 
> particularly specific, 
> thus the precise trade of Joseph is somewhat ambigous.  My curiosity 
> is rather satisfied.
> 
> 
> >> While I cannot speak to the 1st C. classification of 
> >> professions (used 
> >> loosely in this context) 
> 
> >A pity, as considerations of such classifications in contexts other 
> than those of the immediate writer/reader community of the New 
> Testament are unlikely 
> to be persuasive in this instance.
> 
> Obviously.
> 
> 
> >I do know that by the Middle Ages 
> >> professions/skilled trades, etc. were pretty clearly stratified and 
> if 
> >> one used a specific term to 
> >> describe someone's trade, it pretty narrowly described that trade.
> 
> >Do you know this or do you merely believe it to be true?  I know no 
> such thing.  I do know that there were trade organizations in 
> antiquity called 
> _collegia_.  I have also read, in writings of people to whom I give 
> some credit (e.g. Joseph P. Byrne, s.v. "Guilds", in Christopher 
> Kleinhenz, ed., _Medieval 
> Italy: An Encyclopedia_ [Routledge, 2004], I, 476-79), that the 
> evidence for the survival in Italy of these _collegia_ after late 
> antiquity is both very thin and 
> geographically quite limited and that guilds such as those of which 
> you speak emerge in Europe only after the year 1000.  Even if you use 
> ca. 1000 as your 
> starting date for the Middle Ages (some do), your assertion that _by_ 
> the Middle Ages such stratification already obtained requires more 
> than your sayso to 
> make it credible.  
> 
> 
> This is again, precisely the type of referenced information I was 
> looking for.  I'll add these to the list of books to track down.
> 
> Beyond that, I gravely doubt anyone wants to ask existential questions 
> about knowledge, knowability and such.  We read, we postulate, we 
> discover new 
> information, we re-postulate.  Even if we were there, how much would 
> we really "know" about any given subject?
> 
> And, yes, what I "know" on the matter is post-11th C. based on various 
> contracts, guild charters, etc. which, as you "know" become 
> increasingly common 
> into the Renaissance.  How widely do they apply?  Lack of 
> documentation is not proof of non-existence.  Documentation does not 
> prove universality of 
> practice.  So, how much do we really "know?"  Kind of like saying all 
> Renaissance artists were of the caliber of a Donatello because 
> Donatello's work 
> survives.  Even then, we don't always "know" its Donatello. . . the 
> fun goes on.
> 
> >> Beyond that, I would point out that in modern circumstances, while 
> a 
> >> carpenter might build cabinets, he almost never does professionally 
> 
> >> and would not be 
> >> described as a cabinetmaker or jointer.
> 
> >And the probative value of that utterance is?  
> 
> Because someone mentioned that in modern times carpenters might do 
> work other than build houses.  
> 
> 
> >> I grew up with carpenters and 
> >> come from a long line of people engaged in woodworking.  Some built 
> 
> >> houses for a 
> >> living, some did not.  Most did other types of woodwork, but none 
> did 
> >> more than one trade for a living.  While it is risky to extrapolate 
> 
> >> from modern 
> >> stratification to a 2000 year old situation, it does offer some 
> >> context for speculation, particularly when there is a long history 
> of 
> >> consistency.  Thus are the 
> >> principles of anthropology based (you can learn about past 
> >> civilizations/cultures based on the behaviours of modern socieities 
> 
> >> which have similarities).
> 
> >You can _conjecture_ about the remote past on the basis of more 
> recent similarities.  How often you can actually learn something that 
> is true through such 
> a procedure alone is another matter.
> 
> True.  Yet how many anthropological theories about, say, the caves at 
> Lauscaux have been built on that?
> 
> 
> >In this particular case, for the similarity you adduce to be 
> persuasive, it must also be shown a) that the population of 
> first-century Nazareth and its 
> immediate environs was probably large enough to sustain both carpentry 
> and other types of woodworking as separate trades and b) that such 
> separation of 
> the woodworking trades existed in contemporary or nearly contemporary 
> Palestine outside of the major cities. 
> 
> Actually, as you may have guessed from my comment concerning 
> knowability of any knowledge, I don't actually adduce anything to be 
> persuasive.  I merely 
> postulate based on recollection of information presented by sources 
> considered at one time or another as reputable, offer a thesis, and 
> see what happens.  
> The questions and citations you provide go a long way to furthering 
> the means of further discerning the "facts" of a subject, insofar as 
> they (or anything) is 
> knowable.
> 
> > 
> >> 
> >> The Medieval guilds pretty strictly stratified the trades into 
> their 
> >> various categories.  While it is true that the panel painter may 
> have 
> >> done jointery work, he 
> >> appears to have been more likely to farm out jointery work to those 
> 
> >> skilled in those areas.  Jointers, it seems, based on evidence from 
> 
> >> both Italy and Upper 
> >> Germany, constructed everything from altars to icon panels, to 
> chests, 
> >> etc.  They, in turn, relied on a different profession to go out 
> into 
> >> the forest and 
> >> harvest trees, etc.  
> 
> >_Vide supra_ for the evidentiary problem with the early Middle Ages 
> and thus for such a generalization as "the Medieval guilds" _tout 
> court_.  
> 
> Very true!  Well noted.
> 
> >> Yes, it is true that it was not uncommon for forest encampments of 
> 
> >> woodworkers to include a variety of professions, but each was farly 
> 
> >> well delineated.  
> >> Even family names reflect these delineations.  Zimmermann was a 
> house 
> >> builder (literally "room-man) or carpenter in our thinking.  
> >> Hoelzemann was less 
> >> clearly defined as anyone who worked with wood, although its likely 
> it 
> >> was primarily a jointer.
> > 
> >What evidence is there to sustain a view that first-century 
> Greek-speakers conceptualized these matters in the same way as 
> considerably later German-
> speakers?
> 
> I was hoping you might enlighten me in that regard.  What sources 
> provide insight into the 1st Cento situation?  As noted, I am not 
> particularly conversant in 
> that era.
> 
> >> So, yes, there was some nuance, but a technical term like tekton 
> would 
> >> - it seems - be unlikely applied to someone engaged in a general 
> >> woodworking 
> >> profession, or to someone who built homes.
> 
> >Gee, one of the English-language equivalents (perhaps _the_ first) 
> for _tekton_ in its first meaning in the Liddell-Scott-Jones is 
> "carpenter".   The smaller 
> _An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon_ based on an earlier edition of 
> Liddell and Scott glosses _tekton_ in its first meaning as "any worker 
> in wood, esp. 
> a carpenter, joiner."   Absent a showing that these standard scholarly 
> lexica are mistaken here, it seems rather that _tekton_ _would_ be 
> applied to 
> someone engaged in a general woodworking trade, or to someone who 
> built homes.
> 
> And, in the end, enlightenment!  Well referenced and exceptionally 
> useful.  Certainly a sop to the earlier suggestion (prior to mine) 
> that tekton mainly meant 
> "jointer".  I'll add this tome to my wish-list from Santa ;-))
> 
> 
> 
> >Best again,
> >John Dillon
> 
> Yourself as well!  Thanks for the excellent direction.  This is what 
> makes things fun ;-)
> 
> George (reasonably convinced that he probably exists, but hoping that 
> thought is not the foundation of Being)
> 
> **********************************************************************
> To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
> to: [log in to unmask]
> To send a message to the list, address it to:
> [log in to unmask]
> To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
> to: [log in to unmask]
> In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
> [log in to unmask]
> For further information, visit our web site:
> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html

**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html