Well, thanks. I don't know whether you're aware of this but there is a board or staff now assembled by David Marotta that is putting together a new FAQ trying to spell out very carefully the etiquette and appropriate delimitations of subject matter for B-Greek, and when finished, that will make it easier to do the policing. I've always been reluctant to do the policing but felt that somebody had to do it if only to put out the potential flame wars before they start. It's a good board--I recommended you for it, but I think that David Marotta was reluctant to put anybody on it that hadn't volunteered. And Jonathan Robie has done wonders in finding space as well as ironing out the software problems for the new archive; we hope to have the remainder (backwards) of 1996 up before too much longer. I guess it's just as well to keep the Synoptic Problem off of B-Greek except where it bears very directly upon Greek textual questions (of course it always does all the time, but not in the way th
at most B-Greekers are concerned with the Greek text). But I do see your contributions to Crosstalk and, less frequently, I guess to Elenchus (which is sputtering right now with a moribund controversy over the Shroud of Turin). Crosstalk I follow religiously, deleting quite a bit without even reading it but always interested in new developments seriously concerned either with the Synoptic problem or with probabilities of the historical Jesus. But I really don't have time to contribute to it--I've a fairly heavy teaching load and some committee work, and it's all I can do to keep up with B-Greek.
>Speaking of which, I'm planning on writing a series of essays concerning
>the Synoptic Problem, which I will publish to my web page. The first one
>is tentatively entitled "The Synoptic Problem is a Literary Question" and
>it will demonstrate that the synoptics are indeed literarily interdependent
>and will rebut Eta Linnemann's latest book. I have another essay in me
>called "The Cogency of Streeter's Fundamental Solution" which will show
>what exactly Streeter did prove and didn't prove. (I have a thesis that
>explains why Streeter thought his arguments were conclusive.) After
>writing them, I plan to announce their availability on the appropriate
>lists and ask for comments. We'll see with my new job I'm starting in
>December writing software patents how much time I actually get to have
>in writing them.
I'd very much like to see these essays even before you get them up on a web site. You say "planning on writing," so I guess you haven't gotten very far. That first title is magnificent and it seems to me so fundamentally right! Moreover, I can't think of any book that I'd rather see rebutted right now than that wretched thing--I assume that you mean _Is There a Synoptic Problem_? Strident, intellectually dishonest ..., whatever. I don't know why, but it seems to me that converts to a diametrically opposed position to what they used to believe are the most fiercely fanatical of all. Your statement about Streeter reminds me very much of the work that a colleague of mind is doing on Milman Parry and Homeric formulae; he's arguing that Parry has been misunderstood to a considerable extent by both "unitarians" and "analysts" and that his work is sounder than has generally been recognized.
Software patents? Well, I guess you've gotten well experienced in that. Are you going to stamp out piracy? What about the Chinese?
>By the way, I recently checked out your page on the N.T. and Early
>Christianity. You still have two links to my old account at George
>Mason University; you should delete those links. Are you still
>following Crosstalk? The list has died down somewhat, but there is
>a continuing series on the special Luke material being posted by a
>Phil Lewis.
Yes, as I say, I'm following that.
Regards, Carl