Deutero-Thessalonians

Everyone agrees that Paul wrote a letter to the Christians at Thessalonica - among those in favour, the author of the New Testament's second letter thereto. This blog has been assuming that there was no real second letter. This derives from Bart Ehrman and lately Richard Carrier. Lately it occurs to me that the NT doesn't contain all of the Pauline corpus, forged or not. "Hebrews", "3 Corinthians", "Laodiceans" are famous; "2 Colossians" perhaps less-so. But also the Corinthians got a "lachrymose letter" after the first one; scholars still argue over that one's content, but all agree it was before or during canon 2 Cor.

So let us take our Second Thessalonians seriously - as Third Thessalonians.

As "3 Thessalonians", I for now set aside its authorship. I aim for what this missive was trying to refute, which was intimately involved with 1 Thess. "3 Thess", whether or not an authorial conceit, presented the Thessalonica Christendom as the recent recipients of a Pauline correspondence. Some say they can extract the Lachrymose content from what 2 Corinthians alludes. This poast will extract Deutero-Thessalonians from the allusions in what I'm (for now) calling "3 Thess".

What is refuted in "3 Thess" is not 1 Thess. "3 Thess" takes pains to parallel 1 Thess, as a common ground with the audience... and with Deutero-Thessalonians.

Deutero-Thessalonians stood in between. Its author was a Pauline, like the author of "Hebrews" and indeed like that of "1 Clement". Our man adhered closer than they to Paul's belief that the End was nigh. To repeat, 1 Thess was a shared text; although yet without the antiJewish interpolation, given that "3 Thess" won't address that pericope either. Deutero-Thessalonians also paralleled Philippians 4:5 that the Lord be at hand. Or even Romans 13:11-12.

Now: I doubt "3 Thess" would have attacked Philippians and I don't think anyone is claiming it had a problem with Romans, either. Deutero-Thessalonians had to stand out from these other works. One way it could so have done, would be to make claims about specific events of the Last Day. This is exactly what "3 Thess" will do: for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction.

Deutero-Thessalonians may have named an evil leader, termed "godless" and/or "christless". He would have gone to "destruction" as to herald the Day which Paul had promised. The laws of Rome no longer mattered any more than did the laws of the Jews. This all would be in parallel with the Revelation and 1 John, on "antichrists" - but stronger. One can ponder several Roman emperors who might fit this bill; over AD 68-9 Rome speedran four of them, as gamers might put it.

In Paul's own time, Tiberius had presided over the death of Jesus (and others), and Gaius Caligula was... Gaius Caligula. Claudius had enemies too.

The spiciest take of all might be that Paul authentically wrote Deutero-Thessalonians as his last testament on the coming apocalypse, from his prison in Spain. When he was executed and the apocalypse did not happen, his successors had to scribble out 3 Thess - now, "2 Thessalonians" - to stem the riot. The implication is that the rebels might be, themselves, breaking the restraint which is placed upon the antichrist. The eschaton is not to be immanentised.

Cheaper monoxide

Two decades ago Robert Zubrin pointed us to carbon monoxide's potential on Mars.

One use was for making methanol, as an easier-transportable liquid: Brookhaven's method is still up (doi 10.1021/jacs.3c14605), and we also own plenty of syngas articles. One constraint for all hydrocarbons was to get the hydrogen from water rather than, as over Venus, from acid; but let's assume a gentler planet for now. Or simply a planetoid we're mining with robots as don't need the hydrogen.

Our universal precursor is to get the monoxide from the dioxide. Brookhaven in March 2024 had handwaved this as photochemical reduction. ToughSF might be providing the basis for that assessment, from 2021: A Microwave-Assisted Boudouard Reaction: A Highly Effective Reduction of the Greenhouse Gas CO2 to Useful CO Feedstock with Semi-Coke. A look through Google Scholar, turns up that it's an ongoing field of study. For instance here.

The temperature mooted in that last, from 2024, was 796 °C which is 1070 K. That is hotter than Venus' surface. But it should be workable with a small modular reactor, on any planet. Also recommended is a catalyst, Barium Carbonate in 2021 (for 750°). None of the catalysts look terribly exotic.

Another Syrian florilegium

Western scholarship has not compiled a critical-text of Ignatius' work in its Syriac form. It may be just as well, given how our best witnesses to this form of the text are not, in fact, copies of a coherent collexion. The epistle to the Romans was translated independently: one version as part of the saint's Vita, and others as parts of whatever other project(s) - like Timothy Aelurus' project Against the Dyophysites. And then there's the florilegium which lacks Romans entire.

That florilegium was already known to Lightfoot as S₁. Other Syriac MSS in Lightfoot's day were 14577 / S₂ (which includes the letter to Hero), 17134 / S₃, and CUL MS Add. 2023 / S₄.

Dan Batovici, with Giorgia Nicosia, has lately published another florilegium - DS 28A. This one quotes Romans from outside the Vita; marked as the seventh. This implies the existence of six earlier letters; of which, the fifth is what we call "Trallians" and what the other florilegium called "Titilians".

As to Pento/Titilia 6:1-2, these overlap. DS 28A is the fuller text against S₁. These excerpts are not in any dedicated MSS so-far found, but they likely descend from the same source - and that source was not itself a florilegium. Batovici-Nicosia accept DS 28A that a Syrian recension of at least seven letters existed.

DS 28A is marked as "Syro-Orthodox" here. If I may clarify, its fathers include protoMaronite Jacob of Serugh and full Miaphysite Severus of Antioch. But we also get John Chrysostom and Theodoret of Cyrrhus; teacher and ally of Nestorius. Maybe that's why we're looking at Estrangela for the recent article's script. Maybe that's why Aelurus the Miaphysite ignored these excerpts, to do his own translation.

But we cannot assume the Syrian recension's identity with the "middle recension" of the Greek. It probably included the letter to Hero. This recension with Hero is what needs in any critical edition of the Syriac. By contrast the version of that to the Romans found in the Vita, and mutually independent ad-hocs like Aelurus', are to be excluded. I should further bypass DS 28A's Smyrnaeans 4.1b inasmuch as this quote is nested (under Theodoret). And I'd advise caution against DS 28A's little glosses except that Batovici-Nicosia are already aware of these.

I am not advising that Hero belongs in the critical edition of the Greek (in the way the Vita and Aelurus really would be useful, as independent checks on Greek Romans). Hero hasn't (yet) figured anywhere in the Syrian florilegia. Hero's content isn't obviously weird, but that may be the problem: it's an uninteresting pastiche, like "Laodiceans" or "3 Corinthians"... or "2 Colossians". Richard Carrier would add "1 Timothy".

The Levites' prayer, II

Last I looked at Nehemiah 9, I gathered 2010s-decadal research into a summary. It turns out that Marshal Cunningham was also doing this in 2023, but competently. The consensus of the early 2020s, we both agree, is that the prayer depends upon the Torah we got, but - nonetheless - that it floated outside the canon. Until Nehemiah's editors made the call to include it.

When reading it, Cunningham noticed that it doesn't mention the exile. That may be a problem for any argument that Nehemiah composed this work; but is an equal problem for the argument that the Torah is, likewise, a post-exilic document.

Cunningham argues here for a social amnesia. He doesn't bring up Orwell; he doesn't have to. In the Levitic mind, as opposed to the Deuteronomic, Jeremiahvic, or Ezekielian: Judah was handed over to Babylon but only the sinners were exiled thither. The people of Judah-and-Levi have inherited a land that was always theirs. Very golah might still mean scouring.

Revisiting sodium and lithium

Matt Ferrell updates us on the +1 ions, for cathodes. Here on this blog, I'd looked at sodium as an alternative to lithium. But since 2021ish we've found absolute mounds of lithium, with more to come, so the price has crashed.

We can however compete at the niches, like cell life. Sodium happens to compete with this and also works better at sharp swings of ambient temperature. This makes sodium work well near where solar power is viable, out in the deserts; which also happens to be near supplies of sodium in Wyoming (and Utah, I believe). Ferrell notes a company that is using passive cooling out there which is electricity that doesn't need for itself.

As to why sodium which is so much more common than lithium is struggling on raw price, elsewhere: Ferrell reminds us of the anode counterparty. This is "just" carbon... opposite lithium cathodes. Although graphite will do for lithium, the sodium cathodes must speak to better carbon. Ferrell notes coconut shells(!), or anthracite. I know we have lotsa coal but anthracite is a little harder to find.

As to why we want solar/battery driving electricity through the middle of apparent nowhere: the old Bonneville coast in Utah hosts several cities, of which SLC is comparable to Denver. Arizona and Nevada also have energy-hungry cities. They have mines out West, elsewhere. And if nothing else, as vehicles get electrified (sodium is tagged here as well, for those cross-country trips), they'll need electrical power top-ups.

Proposal

Today is the anniversary of Armistice. Americans honor their veterans, whilst Europeans respect the fallen. All may ponder the human cost of war. Except for Israel, whose war is ongoing. (To disclose: Ace has banned me - again - for the short version of this comment.)

Support for Israel is often termed support for "genocide". This post isn't going to assume that. A softer form is that it is support for "war", and/or "apartheid". This post will accept "apartheid" for the sake of argument, but will duck the morality thereof (inasmuch as Islam also prescribes apartheid, for Jews: dhimmat). This day is a day to look at war.

One may retort that it takes two to make a war, and that Israel's enemies aren't asking for ceasefires, so why pick on Israel, especially given the other wars Israel's enemies are fighting with nary a Jew in sight. Often amongst each other.

I have to ponder the thought that as long as Israel exists where it is, that war will not stop. The so-called "neo conservatives" have made their peace with that, so to speak. Meanwhile those of us whose income streams aren't that high are paying the price for it. Which is why the Republicans lost so hard. (And not by "fraud". And the $4.25 petrol signs where I live were not an op.)

Another reason the Republicans lost was that the Jewish vote the Republicans were chasing - the Scot Aronson vote - didn't come. I came, but I'm only 30% Jew (and only 30% of Jews joined me). Aronson and Woit got into their mutual insult-flinging, none of which budged Aronson on the topic of the Republicans as MAGA fascists or whatever. Back in the early 1990s, James Baker warned us as much.

It's not as if the Israeli religions are even (remotely) likely to be true. We've had thirty years of Robert Spencer and others trying to convince everyone that Islam is comparatively false and evil. (To disclose, again: I've done mine own research on Islam's falsity.) Look where we're at. So Zionists don't even have G-d on their side.

To sum up, we are prosecuting a war which won't end, absent a real genocide on one part or the other. The people on "our" side of that war are not on our side. Nobody's prayers are getting answered. Israelis represent, in south Syria, naught but a target; a bargaining-chip against all the world's other interests in the Near East. As the war drags on, only the antiSemites will win on Western countries, who - so Marx has taught us - are natural socialists.

My proposal, from the humanist perspective, is to phase an evacuation of everyone in Israel who is likely to suffer from a military strike. Those who seek peace with the Arab world can stay and hash out that peace, perhaps a dhimmat under the Damascenes.

Because being wrong shouldn't be a death sentence. But we also shouldn't be forced to pay for your nation-state.

Uriah and Bathsheba, across three languages

Most people looking in on the old Greek for the Old Testament, called "Septuagint" in its first five books, will be using the Rahlfs edition. Yesterday I noted the Samuel-Saul cycle in 1-2 Reigns / Samuel, Thackeray-Barthélemy's α-ββ. Once David ben Jesse ascends the throne, which this poast will term 2 Reigns; we're in kaige territory.

Someone had gone in and fixed the Greek on its way to the good Professor-Doktor. Historically, scholars have blamed Lucian. Some ancient editors had tweaked (e.g.) the ββ elegy on Saul as well; but there we have better attestation of who did what and when. So Lucian has been deemed the earliest-attainable Greek for kaige.

Over 2019-21, some Finns came to the SBL conference and mooted that we may have witness to non-kaige readings. These show up as translations into Latin. One witness is Palimpsestus Vindobonensis, La¹¹⁵ for short. This covers 4:10–5:25, 10:13–11:19, 13:13–14:3, 17:12–18:9 (Timo Tekoniemi fn. 5).

Tekoniemi flagged 2R 5 vv. 4-5, 21, 24 all still ββ, then 10:19 and 11:17 which over in Greek have since gone kaige. For chapter 5 Tekoniemi found - respectively - parallels with 4QSam^a's chronology, taking of Philistine idols for - as MT, against ββ - destroying them, and a hint at Asherah-groves. La¹¹⁵'s 5:4-5 and 24 readings must precede even the majority ββ but the 5:21 reading is more Lucian-ic. In 10:19, the Latin hints that David with Aram made a "covenant" (*יכרתו); everyone else says it was a "peace". In 11:17, the Latin allows for more blame upon David than the MT/Rahlfs will allow. Those will be early too.

In 2019 Tuukka Kauhanen had taken on 2 Reigns 11:11, where David's sin is more-explained. Tekoniemi aware of Kauhanen elsewhere did not use this one paper. Kauhanen for 11:11 argued for Rahlfs and Barthélemy. La¹¹⁵ mostly backs this.

The Lucianic text is, then, post-kaige.