Loading...I continue here my thread on how I go about writing a trade book for general audiences. So far I have talked about how I start with reading about the topics of relevance. When I’ve done a lot of that I eventually get to the point where I realize I’ve read all the major works that I need to have read in order to have a good sense both of what others have said about a topic and about what I have to say myself.
Maybe I should pause a bit – for a post or two — on this question of “what I have to say.” There are several aspects of this question that are important and fairly interesting. The first has to do with having an idea about what to write. I’ll get to the issue in a roundabout way, which is my wont, as you may have noticed…
I’ve had graduate students now for twenty-six years, and over the years they have evidenced a wide range of both ability and temperament. Of course, the only people who become graduate students are those who have not just done well in undergraduate work, or in previous masters work, but who have excelled. So these students are always very smart and accomplished. If they weren’t we wouldn’t admit them into our program. Competition for admission to graduate programs (at the PhD level at least; this isn’t as true for programs that offer only an MA) is extremely tough, at least in my field.
Over the past twenty years or so, UNC has gone from being a completely second-tier graduate program in religious studies to being one of the very best in the nation. National rankings in recent years almost always put our graduate program as one of the two or three best in the country. That’s largely due to the amazing faculty we have; my colleagues are as good as any faculty anywhere, in terms of ability, productivity, and reputation. But that means it’s very difficult to get into our program as a graduate student, since there’s so much competition.
This year, for example, I expect that we will have 30-35 applications from students who want to do a PhD in early Christianity (that would include the New Testament on up to the fourth century; the applicants will have a range of things they would like to work on in that broader field, everything from the historical Jesus, to the writings of Paul, to the persecutions of early Christianity, to Gnosticism, to the formation of the canon, to early Christian understandings of demons, to early Christian apocalyptic thought, to… to scores of things). 30-35 may not seem like that many, but we will probably be able to admit only one of them, maybe two. So odds are not good. And most of the 30-35 will be really top flight. And so it goes.
Now, my point in this little digression is that…
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Say, can I mention something off-topic? Before I start, I want to make it clear that I know you have the latest information, and I’m sure what you’ve told us is correct.
I was rereading Wikipedia’s article on crucifixion, and discovered that they say the broken leg bones in that ossuary containing the heel-bone with tne nail in it came from the same person as the heel-bone. They don’t indicate that the bones were broken after death, either. Could you – a person with authority – give them the facts?
In their other article specifically about the crucifixion of Jesus, they confused me by saying there are two known sites where remains of crucified people have been discovered, one in Jerusalem and one outside it. Huh? They lost me completely – I didn’t think to check what their source was.
Back in the main “crucifixion” article, they mention the breaking of legs in contexts that may not be traced to the New Testament. Here’s a passage that seems to refer to crucifixions in Rome itself, at an earlier date:
“The attending Roman guards could only leave the site after the victim had died, and were known to precipitate death by means of deliberate fracturing of the tibia and/or fibula, spear stab wounds into the heart, sharp blows to the front of the chest, or a smoking fire built at the foot of the cross to asphyxiate the victim.”
This is their source:
Retief FP, Cilliers L (December 2003). “The history and pathology of crucifixion”. South African Medical Journal 93 (12): 938–41. PMID 14750495.
And here’s another passage:
“The citizen class of Roman society were almost never subject to capital punishments; instead, they were fined or exiled. Josephus mentions Jews of high rank who were crucified, but this was to point out that their status had been taken away from them. The Romans often broke the prisoner’s legs to hasten death and usually forbade burial.”
For that, they say “citation needed.” It’s included in a section where almost everything is marked “citation needed”!
Yes you will find plenty of modern people who say these things, about bones typically being broken. But if you find an *ancient* source that says anything like that (apart from Christian sources influenced by the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ execution) I would very much like to know about it. The forensic anthropologists who examined Jehohanan included Joe Zias, whom I have cited here before. He wrote the definitive article, that everyone else relies on, either directly or indirectly. He does not think there is any evidence to suggest that Yehohanan’s legs were broken to hasten death.
But can you, or someone with expert credentials, set Wikipedia right?
And I don’t know how to determine the sources that might have been used for an article published in South Africa over a decade ago. But I find it interesting that the author mentioned the breaking of legs as one of *several* ways of speeding death.
Yes, that’s interesting. I don’t know of any evidence to support that claim, but I would love to see it. And yes, in theory I could correct the Wikipedia page, but if I start doing that, I’d have to give up the blog!
What I just posted reminded me of something else I’d been meaning to ask you…
You told us crucifixion nails were sometimes kept as talismans.
And you said some people have thought nails being found near ossuary boxes indicated that crucified men were interred there. But in fact, those nails had been used to carve inscriptions on the boxes, then abandoned because their having been so near dead people’s remains made them no longer acceptable for use.
Someone asked a question that seemed to take for granted that the nails in question were crucifixion nails. Whatever the question was, the answer didn’t require saying whether they were or weren’t.
*Were* the nails used to carve inscriptions on ossuary boxes necessarily crucifixion nails? How could anyone – at a later date – *know* whether they were crucifixion nails or just ordinary nails?
The only way to suspect this is if human organic material is on the nails (suggesting they had been driven into a human body at some point).
*Has* it been found on many of those nails found near ossuary boxes?
I don’t know!
I’m in awe of your graduate students! It’s no wonder your program is high-rated, with students being prepared to take on topics as ambitious as these.
Yeah, they’re a bunch of smart cookies!
I’m one of those 30-35 PhD applicants to the Fall 2015 term, and this is not too encouraging 🙁 Guess I’ll wait and and see how it goes, I know this is very competitive.
Go for it!
I think I have finally grasped why the synoptic Gospels are so similar and yet are also contradictory but not as contradictory as one might expect would have resulted from decades of oral transmission. Hence, let me make sure I have the basics: After the death of Jesus, the “history” of Jesus was passed via oral transmission for three or four decades until the Gospel of Mark was written. As a result of this oral transmission, this “history” was modified, revised, and changed. Then, Mark wrote his Gospel. Then, another decade or two passed and the authors of Matthew and Luke then used the Gospel of Mark, Q, and either L or M as sources to write their Gospels. These synoptic Gospels are similar to each other because the authors of Matthew and Luke used the Gospel of Mark as a source and they differ from each other because the authors of Matthew and Luke also used a few other sources but not that many. The differences would have been greater if the authors of Matthew and Luke had not used the Gospel of Mark as a source and/or had used more than just a few other sources. Moreover, evidently, changes via oral transmission were not as pronounced after Mark was written to provide some stability of the “history.” Then, later John was written and the author of John used a different oral tradition than the author of Mark used. Maybe, the author of John lived in a different country than the author of Mark. Hence, the Gospel of John contradicts the other Gospels quite a bit.
Is this the basic outline of the issue? Thanks.
Yup, that’s pretty much it. But Matthew and Luke differ from mark also because they occasionally chose to change his stories. But I think the changes in the oral tradition continued full speed after Mark was written, since most people in the world had no idea that Mark had been written, even among the Christians!
Thanks. Good point about most people not knowing that Mark had been written.
Question was the last supper actually U shaped instead of da vinci painting ?
I don’t know.
So, when a disciple or Mary Magdalene is described as having seen Jesus he or she could have dreamed this?
Absolutely!