Jonathan Robie wrote:Patricia Walters wrote:I am writing a Perl software program to analyze Unicode Biblical Greek, based on the methodology I developed by hand in The Assumed Authorial Unity of Luke and Acts: A Reassessment of the Evidence (Cambridge University Press, 2009). I call this methodology "prose composition criticism" since (following Dionysius of Halicarnassus in his literary critical essays on prose composition) it deals with matters of style such as hiatus, dissonance, and other elements.
Can you say more about this methodology? Do you have any articles online?
The methodology (as developed in my book) challenges the authorial unity of Luke and Acts by first looking at passages from Luke and Acts deemed most likely to be authorial, i.e., seams and summaries. Second, I collected actual examples of prose compositional elements from the works of ancient critics (Aristotle in
Rhetoric Book 3, Pseudo-Demetrius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Pseudo-Longinus). Stylistic elements important in antiquity include hiatus, dissonance, clause and sentence transitions, and others. I do not propose that the author of Luke or Acts used these elements; indeed, by not paying attention to them, the author/s would have likely written in a style for which no differences beyond normal, random stylistic variability would appear. Third and finally, I examined the Luke and Acts passages based on the prose compositional elements. This means I noted the occurrences of each element in the passages and entered the numbers in a statistical program (MINITAB). The result was that patterns of the prose compositional elements in Luke differed either highly significantly or significantly from those in Acts. I am able to say with a ninety-nine (or in one case, ninety-five) percent level of confidence that the author of the Luke passages was not the same as the author of the Acts passages.
For the full story, you will need to consult the book... Thank you for your interest.
Patricia Walters
Department of Religious Studies
Rockford College
Beloit College
Patricia Walters, Ph.D.
Department of Religious Studies
Rockford College
Beloit College