User talk:Stae2
Apion[edit]
Unfortunately, your edits to this article were very strange, since none of Apion's works seem to be extant, he's at least as well known through the Josephus connection as any other, and there's no specific evidence that Josephus is unreliable in this context. AnonMoos (talk) 12:53, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- Strange? Josephus was writing a polemic against Apion. It is a classic polemic. Polemics are inherently unreliable.Stae2 (talk) 12:56, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- Apion wrote a book with significant anti-Jewish passages, and Josephus wrote a book rebutting Apion. The overall conflict or controversy is a significant part of Apion's "notability" for Wikipedia purposes, and deleting all mention of it is not any way to improve the article. AnonMoos (talk) 13:02, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- Dude, right at the beginning of book 2 of the Contra Apionem it says "Apion the grammarian...some of his writings". Furthermore, the idea that Josephus was "anti-Greek"[sic] in general would appear to be more of the tendentiousness that you appear to be trying to introduce into Wikipedia articles... AnonMoos (talk) 13:26, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- "Dude" You are confused and obviously dont know the history, primary sources or scholarship on the matter. You are not quoting" a book by Apion" as you falsely claim but a polemic against Apion.
- Here is some recent scholarship:
- A comparison of Josephus' portrait of Apion with other ancient testimonia shows that the Jewish historian, in his effort to discredit the grammarian, focused on the same failing of character that other ancient authors hadfound. Josephus also aimed a deceptive attack at Apion's ethnicity wherein he blurs the line between the Alexandrian's Greek cultural identity and his Egyptian origin. Josephus took pains to construct an ideal opponent, one with whom the reader of Josephus' treatise-be he Jew, Greek, or Roman-would not sympathize. An analysis of Apion's "case" against the Jews shows that Josephus himself culled various Jewish items from Apion's Aegyptiaca and, after distorting the original intention of the excerpts, cobbled them together to form an easily refuted indictment of Jewish history and practices. An appendix examines the evidence for a supposed κατα 'Ioυδαíων attributed to Apion. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/brill/jsj/2005/00000036/00000003/art00002
- That is Kenneth Jones in the Journal of the Study of Judaism. One cannot take Josephus' anti Greek polemic on this matter any more seriously than any anti-Semitic polemic14:30, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- Again Scholars state Josephus' Contraa Apion characterization of Apion's supposed bias on the Jewss as "cobbled" and an a distortion of Apion in order to set up a straw man. See: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/brill/jsj/2005/00000036/00000003/art00002 Stae2 (talk) 14:36, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- Dude, right at the beginning of book 2 of the Contra Apionem it says "Apion the grammarian...some of his writings". Furthermore, the idea that Josephus was "anti-Greek"[sic] in general would appear to be more of the tendentiousness that you appear to be trying to introduce into Wikipedia articles... AnonMoos (talk) 13:26, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- Your characterization of Josephus as "anti-Greek"[sic] shows you really don't know the first thing about the subject, other than selective material you seem to find through random Googling to agree with your preconceived views. Josephus was resistant to (in some contexts resentful of), Greek claims to cultural superiority and chronological priority, and he certainly advocated for Jewish claims in both cases. However, he was not really ascertainably "anti-Greek" in the sense of hating all Greeks and all things Greek. Frankly, those Jews who hated everything Greek did not spend decades of their lives writing very lengthy books in the Greek language... AnonMoos (talk) 15:39, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- "Anti Greek" is the term used by Scholars. Your running screeds are now becoming completely strange. You are accusing the scholars of holding preconceived notions. The SCHOLARS say Josephus "distorted" Apion in both content and intent.
- And you are repeating the same mistake you keep making. When you substitute Greek and Jewish in your above screed you can see how you are practicing a double standard. We don't know Apion wrote a single anti-Jewish word. The fact is Josephus is WIDELY believed to have perverted Apion's texts to create such an impression -- and this is the SCHOLARLY view as I noted.
- Again the scholars know Josephus made up and falsely attributed statements of Apion. He was doing so to chauvinistically pursue an anti-Greek agenda no different than any antisemitic agenda.23:20, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
- Whatever -- the fact that Josephus was sometimes a partisan advocate in a duel of competing rhetorics (in the ancient Classical style) has always been obvious to anyone who paid any attention while reading certain of his works. However, your theses and hypotheses are highly dependent on going far beyond this, and supposing that Josephus was a thoroughly dishonest liar without the slightest ethical inhibitions about fabricating out of whole cloth what other people allegedly wrote. Your habit of assuming (without presenting much direct evidence) that of course Josephus was a scummy scuzzy lying cheating rogue is rather off-putting, and has not done much to create an appropriate atmosphere for constructive discussion about collaboratively improving Wikipedia articles. Furthermore, Josephus was highly opposed to the conclusions of certain specific Greek authors, and annoyed by certain ethnocentric Greek habits of assuming a cultural superiority over "barbarians", but he did not hate or oppose all things Greek. For this reason, while calling him "anti-Greek" may make some sense in a particular narrowly-defined specific context, it is not a fair summary of his work in general, and really does not make too much sense as an overall unqualified descriptive epithet. AnonMoos (talk) 06:59, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
Unfortunately, your edits seem to have been mainly designed to prove how the Jews were always to blame for everything in the ancient ethnic strife there. That's really not any way to improve the article... AnonMoos (talk) 13:04, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- What a bizarre view of my edits. I am Jewish and two of my grandparents are originally from Alexandria. I know the history and sources quite well and have no such agenda. I am reflecting modern leadership on this issue, and have provided sources.
- You seeing this as "blaming the Jews" is part of your ignorance of the time, and nothing more. The Jewish communities of North Africa were undergoing inter-Jewish strife. see for example "Jews and Greeks in ancient Cyrene", Volume 28 By Shimon Applebaum pp 201-202 or any number of otehr contemporary scholars. Please also take a look at modern scholarship on the Alexandria riots which we also know now were also about inter Jewish tensions.Stae2 (talk) 13:15, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- Then why is the point of your edits to that article to claim that the Jews wantonly aggressed against the innocent Greeks??? We simply don't have enough available information to be able to support such claims in detail, and it's rather implausible on several grounds... AnonMoos (talk) 13:30, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- AnonMoos, So you oppose the scholars? OK, I just want to understand why? First of all the term "Greek" at that time in those communities more often refereed to Hellenized Jews, against which there is a mass of prejudicial polemics by more traditional orthodox Jew3ish groups. I gave you Applebaums take, there are plenty more. Did you read Jones? Please read pages 6-7 of the work I cited by him. These reflect the current scholarship. Stae2 (talk) 14:33, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- Your use of the word "orthodox" in this context is extremely anachronistic, and makes me question whether you know anything at all about this subject other than what you turn up through random Google searches. Furthermore, it's obvious that you know almost nothing about Wikipedia -- if there are recent alternative scholarly views on Apion, then the solution is to include them (if relevant and notable and within the range of accepted scholarly debate) in the "Apion" article -- not to cut the the length of the Apion article in half! AnonMoos (talk) 15:39, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- Your rants are becoming bizarre and do not belong on Wikipedia. And "orthodoxy" is THE term used by ancient religion scholars when discussing these movements between syncretic periods and movements and orthodoxies. Religions have always had orthodoxies and orthodox movements.
- My guess is you have done some research on Cyrene and have found that the historians note that the Jewish population massacred the non Jewish populations and you are now faced with someone with deep scholarly knowledge of the period as well as an udnerstanding of the primary and peer reviewed secondary works, to counter your bizarre and simply false assumptions, and you have no response but your near unintelligible rants on my page.23:26, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
- Funny thing about how your arguments always seem to circle around in the end to claims that in any conflict the Jews are guilty and their opponents are purely innocent. Meanwhile, I would be more impressed if you showed some minimal command of vocabulary which was actually relevant to the period (such as "Hellenizers" etc.), rather than terms which would appear to be a lot more relevant to Isaac Mayer Wise etc. than to the ancient history of Cyrene... AnonMoos (talk) 07:08, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
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