We've talked a lot on this show about issues like scribal errors, where a scribe copying a text gets one little thing wrong, and changes the meaning of something forever. But how can we know when something like that has happened? Especially if it happened almost two thousand years ago, and we don't have any older source texts to compare it to?
This episode of Data Over Dogma, we welcome Lincoln Blumell, a scholar who has made a fascinating argument about 2 John. A single short, confusing passage from the translated writings of a first century theologian launched Blumell on a wild hunt for a long-lost understanding of the Johannine epistle, and now we may all have a vibrant new take on the work!
Blumell's book, Lady Eclecte: The Lost Woman of the New Testament takes the reader on a fascinating journey through just how this kind of scholarship is done. It explores the twists and turns that a scholar's mind takes when exploring a new idea that, if true, would overtune centuries of thinking. It follows his meticulous step-by-step process of analyzing grammar, looking at ancient papiri for similar constructions, and forming a theory that is not only plausible, but looks more and more like the best possible explanation for what we see in the text.
Check out Blumell's work here
https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9798889834243/Lady-Eclecte
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