[clue-talk] How do CLUEbies vote?

[Dennis J Perkins]

On Sun, 2007-09-30 at 14:23 -0600, Jed S. Baer wrote:
> On Sun, 30 Sep 2007 12:28:56 -0600
> Kevin Cullis wrote:
> 
> > From my History degree the one thing that I remember is the concept  
> > of primary and secondary sources. Primary sources are first hand  
> > accounts of something while secondary sources are writings about  
> > primary sources. All of the Bible manuscripts are primary sources,  
> > not secondary ones.
> 
> I'm afraid you'll have to do better than that, at least from my point of
> view. Just to play advocatus diaboli, I'll point out that there are
> extant many primary source accounts describing alien abduction. Simply
> labeling something "primary" doesn't automatically impute veracity.
> 
> I'll quote David: For what it's worth, Mark probably didn't write verses
> 9 onward.
> 
> Hmm, well then, who was the author? If we don't know who the author was,
> then how do we know whether he's a primary source?

It was not unusual for ancient writings to be attributed to a famous
person who did not write them.  Christian writings were no different.  I
can think of various reasons for this.  Someone wanted his book to be
taken seriously, so he used a famous person's name.  Or the writer had
the same name as a famous person and over time people began to associate
the book with the famous person. 

> I ran across a mention, in a treatise on Lutherans, that Martin Luther
> himself stated unequivocably that Paul was not the author of the epistle
> to the Hebrews. Same question.
> 
> When I think of primary sources, I think of things such as first-hand,
> eyewitness accounts, e.g. battlefield reports from Gen. Patton. The
> pentatuech is ascribed to Moses, but clearly, he wasn't present at
> creation. Of course, I've also read that Moses didn't literally write the
> pentatuech, but rather that is was oral history for a time before being
> commited to clay or parchment or whatever was used. (Sorry, don't have a
> source for that, it was probably in a commentary on the Torah or
> Judaism that I came across at some point.)
> 
> jed
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