Talk:Correspondence of Paul and Seneca

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 (talk) 03:46, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that the Correspondence of Paul and Seneca was cited in the Middle Ages to claim that the Roman philosopher of Stoicism Seneca had converted to Christianity? Source: "Paul and Seneca in Dialogue", p. 30/31. (Offline book, but... you can see snatches from GBooks preview here.
  • ALT1: ... that English Bishop J. B. Lightfoot called the Correspondence of Paul and Seneca, a set of letters purportedly between the Apostle Paul and Seneca, "inane and unworthy throughout"? Source: Dissertations on the Apostolic Age, page 318/319
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/1962 Isly massacre
  • Comment: Main hook is a bit more boring but also more informative for readers who might not recognize Seneca. ALT1 is punchier, but "work gets scathing review" might not be unusual enough.

5x expanded by SnowFire (talk). Self-nominated at 18:02, 5 March 2022 (UTC).

• I'll review this one.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 23:29, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy compliance:

• Adequate sourcing: - AGF
• Neutral:
• Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Thank you very much for this really interesting article. But I still I have some suggestions and questions. In the scholar section the first phrase mentions Scholars almost universally believe the correspondence to be forged. Who then believes it is not forged? Otherwise I'd add a Today before the phrase or remove the first (and also unsourced) phrase in the scholar section. Then how about linking to Sotion, if not, why not? And does the Hine p.26 citation also source the phrases before? I found a source for some phrases, but I guess it isn't as prominent as yours. Then I'd also include the content in the lead; like the 8 and 6 letters between 58 - 64 in the body and add a source for it. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 00:50, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

• • That sentence is sourced, just maybe less clearly than it could be - it's sourced by later references in the paragraph. I'll add a reference next to the sentence directly. For the "Today" bit, as best I can tell scholars changed their opinion pretty quickly after Erasmus turned on the letters, so I wouldn't want to imply that it's only recently there's been a shift. I didn't go into detail because as best I can tell, the modern experts think that the people who advocated legitimacy are marginal and irrelevant (or else massively out of date). The fact there are a few dissenters is solely mentioned in footnotes and both Ehrman's book and the "Paul and Seneca in dialogue" book, and both unsubtly hint that this might be colored by nationalistic bias - Ehrman writes ""Only very few scholars, most of them Italian, have thought it possible that parts of the correspondence are authentic", but the citation, to a work by Ilaria Ramelli (who herself think they're apocryphal) (EDIT: Maybe not? Seems more like "mostly apocryphal"), is to a work in Italian I can't read and don't have access to. I can dig up the footnote in a few days in the "Paul and Seneca" in dialogue if you want what little is there since I believe a name of an actual supporter was mentioned there - I just didn't (and still don't) want to highlight what appears to be a fringe view that wasn't considered very important in the sources that do cover it, the 1 academic who thought it was legit vs. 1000 who think it's a forgery.
  • For Sotion (Pythagorean), eh, it's a matter of wikilinking style. I don't think it's a high value link because Sotion isn't important in the context of the correspondence - it's just a side mention in Jerome's brief biography. That said, it's not like it's a problematic link either. Feel free to add it yourself if you think it'd help, I'm just personally inclined to avoid too many side-topic wikilinks (same with Lucan).
  • For the first paragraph on content, the whole thing is sourced to both Hine & Ehrman (2003/2012) - they don't really say anything of note differently. I can double-check if you want or add in more repeat citations if required, just didn't want to overcite. (Just might have to wait for Tuesday for me to check the Paul & Seneca book with the Hine section back out again.) SnowFire (talk) 03:05, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the explanation. I personally apply AGF to you and the article, and I also understand that Erasmus is a credible scholar on that matter, but as it is a little delicate issue (for example for christians or Italians. The stoics might see it similar as Lightfoot) and it goes to the main page, I suggest to source as much as possible at least once. On the Sotion wl I learned a new linking style to which in this context I can agree to.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 07:11, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
      • @Paradise Chronicle: I added the data you requested to explain "almost" and talk more about Ramelli's position, since you raise a fair point that if we're going to highlight Lightfoot's spicy take, we should include the contrarian view too. Hines does actually mention a few more names supporting authenticity, but they appear to be nobodies - Giuseppe G. Gamba, Paul Berry, "E Franceschini". I can't find much evidence at all of their existence or their credentials online, so I'm not inclined to mention them in the footnote too prominently other than kicking interested readers to Hines's chapter. (And Hines then immediately follows with why the reasons they raised aren't convincing and a citation to an academic restating the modern case for inauthenticity.) SnowFire (talk) 17:04, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
        • Thanks for the adaptions. Article is long enough, new enough, no copyvio issues, QPQ done. Sources approved per AGF as they are often not accessible, but I found a lot of info mentioned in the article confirmed by less prominent sources. I'd prefer to go with the original hook because that a prominent stoic philosopher like Seneca was meant to be a christian (by Jerome, one of the four fathers of the church even suggested as a Saint) by prominent personalities was a great surprise to me and I guess also to others.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 18:02, 16 March 2022 (UTC)