A Scholarly Abnormalcy in Glottalic Theory

[ignorantianescia]

And we have another expert from an unrelated field dabbling in historical Jesus scholarship. Paul J. Hopper, a linguist who is an early proponent of (the now discredited) glottalic theory in Indo-European, compares the use of finite past tense verb forms in the Testimonium Flavianum to other passages in Josephus about Pilate and concludes it is an interpolation. Who ever knew you could base such far reaching conclusions on so little evidence? Seriously, he doesn't even seem to consider that the fact that the TF is a digression may influence how tenses are used, which is weird because you would expect fewer aorists in digressions. And you'd think that, without comparing the verb use to other passages, it is far too weak evidence for any conclusion other than "the use of aorists and imperfects is different".

This work is promoted by no one other than that good old Orientalist channeller Murdock. She does provide some evidence in this that against all expectations she has some abilities in reading comprehension. That might be more notable news than the above, actually.

www.examiner.com/article/jesus-passage-josephus-a-forgery-says-expert

[labarum]

Given the cited article is by D. M. Murdock, we are already in shaky territory. If I remember the article in question, there were all sorts of problems with his analysis even at a superficial level. For example, he claims the TF mimicked the wording of the later creeds, but this is simply false. The TF makes no mention of the divinity of Christ, no mention of his death as a sacrifice for sins, no mention of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, no mention of a virgin birth, no mention of an ascension, no mention of a second coming and judgment, no mention of a church, no mention of baptism, etc. All that appears in the TF is what you would expect from someone who may have had some peripheral contact with early Christians.