A forum for people with knowledge of the Bible in its original languages to discuss its manuscripts and textual history from the perspective of historic evangelical theology.
Cisne, J. 2005. How science survived: Medieval manuscripts' "demography" and classic texts' extinction. Science 307(Feb. 25):1305-1307. Available at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/307/5713/1305
Well, call me an old sceptic, but I don't think this is going to help anybody.
The modelling is both too complicated and too simplistic. It is too complicated in the general sense that it involves mathematics (something I repented of long ago). It is too simplistic in the sense that it transposes population growth assumptions onto the manuscripts (e.g. each manuscript is equal in its ability to reproduce - something that I doubt is true).
I suppose it is worth thinking about what variables to input into the modelling. The response article has some useful reflections:
Gilman, S.L., and F.E. Glaze. 2005. Enhanced: "How science survived"-medieval manuscripts as fossils. Science 307(Feb. 25):1208-1209. Available at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/307/5713/1208
Thanks to Wieland Willker for posting the titles to the textualcriticism email group.
Cisne, J. 2005. How science survived: Medieval manuscripts' "demography" and
ReplyDeleteclassic texts' extinction. Science 307(Feb. 25):1305-1307. Available at
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/307/5713/1305
Well, call me an old sceptic, but I don't think this is going to help anybody.
The modelling is both too complicated and too simplistic. It is too complicated in the general sense that it involves mathematics (something I repented of long ago). It is too simplistic in the sense that it transposes population growth assumptions onto the manuscripts (e.g. each manuscript is equal in its ability to reproduce - something that I doubt is true).
I suppose it is worth thinking about what variables to input into the modelling. The response article has some useful reflections:
Gilman, S.L., and F.E. Glaze. 2005. Enhanced: "How science
survived"-medieval manuscripts as fossils. Science 307(Feb. 25):1208-1209.
Available at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/307/5713/1208
Thanks to Wieland Willker for posting the titles to the textualcriticism email group.