Uploaded February 2024 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
It's getting weird now! This week I examine Gregor and Blais's suggestion that Macdonald "doublets" of names would (if true) help to explain the accurate name statistics in the Gospels in a non-veridical way. The theory in question is that Mark made up mirror image pairs--one Simon who denies Jesus, one who carries his cross, etc. To be clear, they say that they consider the theory implausible (low prior) but they say that if it were true it would have explanatory value. But this is completely false as well. Such invented doublets have no explanatory power whatsoever for the fact that the Gospels and Acts track the actual name statistics of Palestinian males at the time.
It's getting weird now! This week I examine Gregor and Blais's suggestion that Macdonald "doublets" of names would (if true) help to explain the accurate name statistics in the Gospels in a non-veridical way. The theory in question is that Mark made up mirror image pairs--one Simon who denies Jesus, one who carries his cross, etc. To be clear, they say that they consider the theory implausible (low prior) but they say that if it were true it would have explanatory value. But this is completely false as well. Such invented doublets have no explanatory power whatsoever for the fact that the Gospels and Acts track the actual name statistics of Palestinian males at the time.
