Has anyone tried to group NT texts by a commonality of writing style among disparate NT authors?

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Bill Ross
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Has anyone tried to group NT texts by a commonality of writing style among disparate NT authors?

Post by Bill Ross »

Has anyone tried to group NT texts by a commonality of writing style among disparate NT authors?

From what I understand, the Pastorals are held by scholars to share sufficient features so that they are comfortable grouping them together as being by the same the author (which is not necessarily the same author as that of 1 Corinthians, for example).

Jude and 2 Peter share many common features.

What I'm wondering is if anyone has analyzed all of the Greek NT scriptures and parsed them by style rather than by alleged author?

What I'm seeking is a report of which NT scrolls share significant stylistic features, regardless of their alleged authors.

The author of "To the Hebrews" is not identified in the text. Does it share stylistic features with a certain subset of NT texts such that one might reasonably limit speculation on the authorship of Hebrews to one of them? I'm asking if such a breakdown of NT text styles is extant.

Thanks.
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Alan Bunning
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Re: Has anyone tried to group NT texts by a commonality of writing style among disparate NT authors?

Post by Alan Bunning »

Bill Ross wrote: August 9th, 2020, 4:42 am Has anyone tried to group NT texts by a commonality of writing style among disparate NT authors?
Yes, I have seen that analysis done in a couple of different ways, but I do not have any reference handy. The last one I remember seeing at SBL a few years ago was done based on syntax patterns.
Bill Ross
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Re: Has anyone tried to group NT texts by a commonality of writing style among disparate NT authors?

Post by Bill Ross »

Alan Bunning wrote: August 10th, 2020, 12:12 am
Bill Ross wrote: August 9th, 2020, 4:42 am Has anyone tried to group NT texts by a commonality of writing style among disparate NT authors?
Yes, I have seen that analysis done in a couple of different ways, but I do not have any reference handy. The last one I remember seeing at SBL a few years ago was done based on syntax patterns.
Syntax patterns sounds exactly like what I would be looking for.

Many people use the term "style" but I think that needs to be more specifically quantified to be meaningful.
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Jonathan Robie
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Re: Has anyone tried to group NT texts by a commonality of writing style among disparate NT authors?

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Alan Bunning wrote: August 10th, 2020, 12:12 am
Bill Ross wrote: August 9th, 2020, 4:42 am Has anyone tried to group NT texts by a commonality of writing style among disparate NT authors?
Yes, I have seen that analysis done in a couple of different ways, but I do not have any reference handy. The last one I remember seeing at SBL a few years ago was done based on syntax patterns.
I was very impressed by the Tiberias Stylistic Classifier, by Moshe Koppel (Computer Science, Bar-Ilan University) and Joshua Berman (Hebrew Bible, Bar-Ilan University):

Tiberias Stylistic Classifier

[youtube]https://youtu.be/yUx7VD6YHpw[/youtube]
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Bill Ross
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Re: Has anyone tried to group NT texts by a commonality of writing style among disparate NT authors?

Post by Bill Ross »

Wow! That is an awesome tool. That would absolutely be exactly what I'm seeking, but for koine.

What a day we are living in!
What I lack in youth I make up for in immaturity.
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Has anyone tried to group NT texts by a commonality of writing style among disparate NT authors?

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Bill Ross wrote: August 10th, 2020, 1:26 pm Wow! That is an awesome tool. That would absolutely be exactly what I'm seeking, but for koine.

What a day we are living in!
I think it could be used for Koine. The hardest part, really, is coming up with a measure and a statistical model for comparison. You can, say, compare even chapters to odd chapters within a book for a baseline, then compare that to the distance between two books. You can use measures taken from anything you can find in a syntax tree.

Of course, get a team of really good Greek readers to tell you if the results you are getting make sense. More than one.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
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