I looked at Polish Wikipedia to read an article about Marcion and it turned out to be … an interesting adventure. I will quote:
[…] Around 140 he came to Rome [2]. For some time he was a member of the Roman community, in which he played a significant role, as he donated his considerable fortune (200,000 sesterces and part of his extensive book collection) to the needs of the community. […]
“Part of an extensive book collection”? Where did it come from?
I follow the footnote that leads to the book by Jan Wierusz Kowalski “Reformatorzy Rzymu” (people who reform Christian Rome ) and it really is, but unfortunately that’s the end. No footnote to the ancient source.
Tertullian informs us about the monetary donation and its return in two quotations:
1. Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum 30: 2
2. Adversus Marcionem IV 4: 3
No Marcion’s books in Tertullian.
I can only guess that this ancient source is the anti-Marcionite prologue to the Gospel of John, in which we read:
[…] verum Marcion hereticus, cum ab eo fuisset inprobatus eo quod contraria sentiebat, abiectus est a Iohanne. hic vero scripta vel epistulas ad eum pertulerat a fratribus missas, qui in Ponto erant afideles in Christo Iesu domino nostro […]
Any other proposals?
Jarek said
I looked at Polish Wikipedia to read an article about Marcion and it turned out to be … an interesting adventure. I will quote:[…] Around 140 he came to Rome [2]. For some time he was a member of the Roman community, in which he played a significant role, as he donated his considerable fortune (200,000 sesterces and part of his extensive book collection) to the needs of the community. […]
“Part of an extensive book collection”? Where did it come from?
I follow the footnote that leads to the book by Jan Wierusz Kowalski “Reformatorzy Rzymu” (people who reform Christian Rome ) and it really is, but unfortunately that’s the end. No footnote to the ancient source.
Tertullian informs us about the monetary donation and its return in two quotations:
1. Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum 30: 2
2. Adversus Marcionem IV 4: 3
No Marcion’s books in Tertullian.
I can only guess that this ancient source is the anti-Marcionite prologue to the Gospel of John, in which we read:
[…] verum Marcion hereticus, cum ab eo fuisset inprobatus eo quod contraria sentiebat, abiectus est a Iohanne. hic vero scripta vel epistulas ad eum pertulerat a fratribus missas, qui in Ponto erant afideles in Christo Iesu domino nostro […]
Any other proposals?
I wrote a monograph years ago that was published by a respected journal in my field, which is not NT studies. The monograph included a footnote that made absolutely no sense. The editors didn’t catch it. And no one who has since cited that work has ever mentioned the errant note.
But the note wasn’t an accident. Hidden in it was a message to my girlfriend at the time.
My point?
Folks tend to ignore footnotes, which is unfortunate. They often can’t bear the weight authors place upon them.
The important question, CEJ, is — did the girlfriend notice? And did it matter?
My own articles, also not NT-related, tend to be heavily footnoted, mostly to provide additional information and supporting documentation without unduly cluttering the main argument of the text. As a member of an editorial board, I always read footnotes (although I do not necessarily verify them unless there is a compelling reason to do so), and assuming that your note was not sufficiently obscure as to merely look reasonable, I would presumably have commented on it.
JAS said
The important question, CEJ, is — did the girlfriend notice? And did it matter?My own articles, also not NT-related, tend to be heavily footnoted, mostly to provide additional information and supporting documentation without unduly cluttering the main argument of the text. As a member of an editorial board, I always read footnotes (although I do not necessarily verify them unless there is a compelling reason to do so), and assuming that your note was not sufficiently obscure as to merely look reasonable, I would presumably have commented on it.
She didn’t notice on her own. I had to point it out to her. She was appreciative and sometimes bragged about it to friends and family.
Stephen said
Just for the record as a reader I prefer footnotes to endnotes. Like anybody ever asks.
They are harder on layout, although modern software helps. They are still problematic if notes get long and start to fight with text for space on the page. One thing I really dislike is the trend to using endnotes, and not inserting note tags in the text, but merely relying on page references and a key phrase. With those, you do not know when there is a note, without having to look for it.
JAS said
Stephen said
Just for the record as a reader I prefer footnotes to endnotes. Like anybody ever asks.
They are harder on layout, although modern software helps. They are still problematic if notes get long and start to fight with text for space on the page. One thing I really dislike is the trend to using endnotes, and not inserting note tags in the text, but merely relying on page references and a key phrase. With those, you do not know when there is a note, without having to look for it.
Yeah I have a book with one line of text and a footnote that fills the rest of the page. And then there’s another book with a footnote that goes on for two and a half pages! Still I prefer that to having to skip back and forth. And while I’m making my readerly demands let me just say that a non-fiction book without an index is an act of evil that will certainly extend the author’s time in purgatory.
A good subject index is a hard thing to create. I did one, and it took me a full year of working on it (in what time I could spare). I am quite proud of it, and it has held up over the years — and I am not eager to attempt another one. (This particular subject index was made more difficult because the nature of the book itself was necessarily very episodic, while a book with a more consistent flow of material might be somewhat easier.) Most people do not understand that a good subject index is not merely replaced by a search function for e-text. A subject index normalizes references that may not be fully spelled out in the text to find.
Endnotes are absolutely diabolical, and I despise them with an unholy passion. If occasionally a note is too long to layout sanely–just make it an appendix, but for the love of all that is good, don’t make the reader flip back and forth constantly just because of a rare, problematic note.
CEJ said
Folks tend to ignore footnotes, which is unfortunate. They often can’t bear the weight authors place upon them.
Footnotes are where all the interesting stuff gets said, precisely because R2 doesn’t read them carefully. They are interesting because you can get away with murder in the notes.
If reviewers were half as diligent about reading the content of notes as they are about reading the body, I’d never have gotten the chance to say anything worth reading.
But in truth it certainly does cut both ways: sticking a call-out behind a sentence doesn’t make it true.
JAS said
A good subject index is a hard thing to create. I did one, and it took me a full year of working on it (in what time I could spare). I am quite proud of it, and it has held up over the years — and I am not eager to attempt another one. (This particular subject index was made more difficult because the nature of the book itself was necessarily very episodic, while a book with a more consistent flow of material might be somewhat easier.) Most people do not understand that a good subject index is not merely replaced by a search function for e-text. A subject index normalizes references that may not be fully spelled out in the text to find.
Truly an art rather than a science. When I start a new book I like to go through the index and read references in the text that interest me. Then I go back and read the book from the beginning. One of my few perversions.
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