Using INFER with Extrabiblical Greek Texts

[R. Mansfield]

If you have never used the INFER command much before, take a look at my new blog post, "Using the INFER Command with Extrabiblical Greek Texts." The post is only meant to be introductory and uses the Didache and New Testament as an example. 

 

Now, if only some extrabiblical Greek texts would go on sale...

[Enoch]

If you have never used the INFER command much before, take a look at my new blog post, "Using the INFER Command with Extrabiblical Greek Texts." The post is only meant to be introductory and uses the Didache and New Testament as an example. 

 

Now, if only some extrabiblical Greek texts would go on sale...

I bought everything that Logos was offering at least to AD 200. (I mean I wasn't interested in discussions in Greek about their current economic situation!)    The Perseus set as I recall was not very expensive & it is keyed to the included LSJ boat anchor lexicon which comes with Perseus (at least as I bought it).    Many Loeb volumes were & are offered at an incredibly cheap price if you bid on them in community pricing before they are produced.  I had wanted Accordance to offer these texts, but that did not happen.  Having all those texts the possibilities for studying the usage of a word are really great, as you can bring them all up (to the extent they are in the library).  

 

I took a quick look at your valuable blog on infer.  You say

 

 

 

You would want to use the INFER search most often when you are looking for issues in intertextuality—that is, where a text quotes another text either directly or through allusion. The INFER command is probably most often used in looking for places where the New Testament is quoting the Old Testament, but did you know it can be used with extrabiblical texts as well?

 

 I realize that you are using language common to Biblical discussions, and one should not get hung up on over-literal criticism of statements (not wishing to shoot cannon balls at canary birds). But let me suggest a different POV on such "quotes."

 

The following is my POV -- I hope it doesn't approach a rant!

 

I maintain that there are very few quotes in the Bible, NT of OT; in fact they are either non-existent or very rare.  A quote is an exact representation of what someone says. (Perhaps the 4th Word on the cross is partly a quote of Ps 22, though the Aramaic forsaken there is not the Hebrew.)   We use quote marks for it.  And if we changed a word even slightly, we would be committing a scholarly sin.  We might use ellipses and square brackets to avoid such.  We can't quote, "Row, row, row your boat" as "Propel, propel, propel your craft."  Nothing written in Greek is a quote of something written in Hebrew.  A quote of Hebrew must be in Hebrew.  We can say that "Somebody said something" truthfully without quoting, however.  I take it that what we have is the gist of what was said in Hebrew expressed in Greek.   And when you get into the supposed LXX, I don't know how anyone could prove that the LXX was quoted unless we have a copy of the actual LXX text written before the NT alleged "quote."

 

Similarly, I am doubtful about dating any quote presented in a Church Father as more ancient than a papyrus NT manuscript or (for example) Vaticanus, if the manuscript of the Church father is later than the Greek manuscript.  Suppose we have a quotation by Ignatius who lived before AD 120, but that quotation only exists in a 13th century manuscript.  IMHO, that is a 13th century witness, not something super old.  We don't know what Ignatius wrote before AD 120 unless we have a manuscript of it before AD 120.  

 

Thanks again for your infer blog.

Edited February 17, 2015 by Enoch