* SBL 2004 paper

POxy 42.3000 Eratosthenes, Hermes [Epic poetry] roll, turn of the era, ed. P. J. Parsons --s
parts of two cols from end of the work? coronis? abbreviations?

POxy 44.3152 Euripides, Hippolytus [Tragic Poetry] roll, 2nd CE, ed. M. W. Haslam --
parts of two columns (plus fragments), marginal interlinear strokes,
some diacritics (and some later corrections)

POxy 45.3218 "New Comedy" roll, 1st CE, ed. S. Stephens --
part of one column, no side margins; overlined gamma in line 4

POxy 45.3230 Hes45.iod, Erga and Aspis [Epic poetry] roll, 2nd CE, ed. M. L. West --
spacing? (nothing obvious)(excerpts)

POxy 45.3232 Hesiod, Aspis [Epic Poetry] roll, 1st CE, ed. M. L. West --
on left margin of a single column with non-literary hand, spacing?, possible exthesis (top line)

POxy 47.3318 [not online 05no2004]
tag, against grain, theta number

POxy 47.3322 [not online 05no2004]
mg mks

POxy 48.3372 Herodotus [prose] roll, around 100 CE, ed. M. Chambers, W. E. H. Cockle, E.G. Turner
parts of two columns, interlinear marginal strokes, spacing with punctuation (mid dot)

POxy 49.3451 Thucydides [prose] roll, around 100 CE, ed. J. E. G. Whitehorne --
interlinear marginal stroke, hint of some word division

POxy 50.3538 "Melic Verse (Ibycus?)" roll, around 100 CE, ed. E. Lobel --
ornate coronis, corrections and some diacritics (added later?)

POxy 53.3695 Anacreon [Lyric poetry] roll, 1st CE, ed. M. W. Haslam --
interlinear marginal strokes, ornate coronis, diacritics (added later?)

POxy 53.3701 "Materia Medica" roll, 1st CE, ed. M. W. Haslam --
two columns, not "literary"; interlinear marginal strokes and sectioning by spacing

POxy 53.3716 Euripides, Orestes [tragedy] roll, ca 100 BCE, ed. M. W. Haslam --
marginal number abbreviation "K" (perhaps added later?) with horizontal stroke(s)

POxy 54.3725 "Epigrams" roll, ca 100 CE, ed. P. J. Parsons --
sectioned by spacing, plus marginal mark

POxy 56.3823 On Alexander [prose] roll, 1st CE, ed. A. Kerkhecker --
interlinear marginal stroke, some internal spacing (line 9)

POxy 57.3880 Thucydides roll, ca 100 CE, ed. M. W. Haslam --
use of spacing between some words (sentence breaks?), enlarged next letters in line

POxy 59.3969 "New Comedy (Menander?)" --
punct? (where??)

POxy 60.4009 Gospel of Peter (?) codex, 2nd CE, ed. D. Luhrmann-P. J. Parsons --
inline spaces and end of line, ekthesis, abbreviated KE

POxy 60.4024 Menander, Leukadia? [comedy] roll, 1st CE, ed. P. J. Parsons --
interlinear marginal strokes

POxy 60.4039 Aeschines, In Ctesiphontem [rhetoric] roll, ca 100 CE, ed. Eleonora Bassi --
interlinear marginal strokes

POxy 61.4099 "Mythological Compendium" roll, turn of the era, ed. R. L. Fowler --
no left margin; uses spacing between some words and at end of lines

POxy 62.4301 "Old Comedy" roll, ca 100 CE, edd. C. F. L. Austin/P. J. P. Parsons --
interlinear marginal strokes

POxy 62.4324 Demosthenes [rhetoric] roll, 1st CE, ed. J. E. G. Whitehorne
possible minor word spacing, possible coronis

POxy 64.4404 GMt codex, 2nd CE (late), ed. J. David Thomas
spacing ?? only one side is imaged, very abraded!

POxy 64.4427 Callimachus, Aetia [with commentary?] roll (?), ca 100 CE, edd. M. Richter - P. J. Parsons
diacritics (added later?), smaller second hand in upper margin

POxy 65.4451 "Commentary on Iliad I" roll, 1st BCE, ed. M. W. Haslam --
word/sentence spacing with enlarged first letters inline

POxy 65.4453 "Commentary on the Odyssey" roll, 1st CE, ed. M. W. Haslam --
interlinear marginal stroke, possibly some spacing?

POxy 66.4502 "Epigram (Nicarchus II)" roll, 1st CE ?, ed. P. J. Parsons
section spacing with titles, some tendency to word spacing (irregular hand)

Barnabas' TIH lesson assumes abbreviated numbers (in Genesis?); possibly in a Jewish produced MS. See also use of suspended names to identify amphitheater seat ownership -- BAR 2002 ?

JBL 121 (2002) 366ff review by Roy Jeal of Hengel The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Investigation of the Collection and Origin of the Canonical Gospels (ET John Bowden) Trinity Press International 2000: "Hengel claims that the Gospels did not first appear anonymously, that they were originally written on codices, not scrolls, and went into circulation very quickly" (367). "The fourth chapter, "'The Cross-Check': The Origin of the Collection of the Four Gospels and the Christian Book Cupboard -- AN Attempt at Reconstruction," offers a description of how the four gospels are likely to have been used in early Christian worship, the method of their production (originals and copies), and the method of storage and retrieval. ... following common synagogue practice ... [a cupboard] so that texts could be easily located. Hengel believes that these libraries held the Gospels (and likely the letters) as codices, and that it is probable that the codices carried written titles."

4. K.A. Worp and A. Rijksbaron, eds. The Isocrates Codex from Kellis,

Oxford: Oxbow, 1997; R. S. Bagnall, ed. The Kellis Agricultural Account

Book, Oxford: Oxbow, 1997.

http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/exhibitions/egypt/xegycat.html#59

http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/exhibitions/egypt/xegy.html#62

---

http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:MIyQVZOvwPkJ:gertoux.online.fr/divinename/getbook/ordering/name_story1.doc+ihesus+iesus+abbreviation&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 (tetragrammaton history) =

http://gertoux.online.fr/divinename/getbook/ordering/name_story1.doc

Gerard Gertoux, Paradox of the Anonymous Name The Name of God (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2002).

The Name of God Y.EH.OW.AH Which is Pronounced as It is Written I_EH_OU_AH
Gertoux, Gérard
$47.00 Lanhan, MD: University Press of America, 2002
pp. 328 Paperback

---

[RAK] Roberts estimated column height at "rather more than 30 lines and c. 28 cm. [11 inches]" with the average of 27 letters per line, or c. 10 cm. [4 inches] "Rolls of this format ...were commonly but not always de luxe editions" [ref to Schubart] (24f).

On early serifed fonts see Turner\1 #54 Thucydides PHamb 646 mid 3 bce

written area of complete col = 21-22 cm tall [8.25 inches]

#12 Homer Iliad mid 2 bce: serifs frequent; c 20 cm high [8 inches](est RAK) -- has abbrev # for stichos 200 ?

#20 Ibycus 2nd bce: serifs

SIZE comparisons: p/l height mgs (block) [lines] | width [letters] intercol

Rylands 458 Deut p 28 cm 30 | 10 cm 27

4QLev\a l 20 cm 1.3 28 | 10 cm 47-48 0.8

4QLev\b p 25 cm 34 | 11 cm 27-34

Fouad Gen (a) p | 15 cm 36

Fouad Deut(b) p 24 cm 3.5/4 16 21-23 | 11.5 cm 37 1.5-0.2

Fouad Deut(c) p 24 cm 16.4 21 | 17 cm 24 1.0

4QLXXNum l 25 cm 34 | 11 cm 27-34 1.5

Minor Prs A/B l 35 cm 42/33 | 10 cm 1.7

POxy Job p ?? | 19-22

POxy Esther p 30 cm 5 20 31 | 7 cm 25 2

PFouad (Turner #56) est 33 lines / col, writing 23-24 cm tall [9.25 inches + 1 inch each mg = 11.25 total?] , [27-30 lett / line]

["b"]The height of the roll was about 24 cm, with 21-23 lines per column, while the preserved columns vary from about 15.5 to 16.5 cm wide (about 37 letters per line, average, but line endings are irregular and the final letters sometimes cramped), and the width of vertical margins varies from about 1.5 cm down to 0.2 cm(!), with a tendency for the lower lines gradually to "move" their beginnings more to the left ("Mass' Law"). Similarly, there is a tendency for the top lines in a column to have more space between them than those at the bottom.

["c"]The height of the roll may have been about 24 cm (as with #848, item 8 above), with about 21 lines per column, but the width of the columns was much smaller, around 17 cm [sic! check] (about 24 letters per line, average, but with a great deal of variation), and the width of vertical margins may have been around 1 cm.

4QLXXLev\a

Full scroll height about 20 cm, with at least 1.3 cm top margin and 1.5 bottom; about 28 lines per column, with an average of 47- 48 letters per line (about 10 cm wide, with at least .8 cm between columns). There are faint traces of horizontal guidelines, with the letters dropped from the line. This produces greater linearity at the top of the roughly bilinear (with FY extending both above and below, and BRU and occasionally I below) upright informal round (tending to oval in places) rather cramped writing. Sporadic ornamentation, with left hooks at the feet of some RF letters, and a downward hook sometimes on the left horizontal of T. No shading. See Turner's "informal round" style?

4QLXXLev\b

A tall scroll, about 31 cm high (about 38 lines per column), with columns of about 10-11 cm in width (23-29 letters).

4QLXXNum

Large format, more than 25 cm tall (34 lines per column), with columns about 10.5-11 cm wide (27-34 letters per line) and perhaps a 1.5 cm margin between. Some use of spacing. Iota adscript. Highly decorated pronouncedly bilinear round/square hand (some oval letters, which tend to lean backwards) with no shading, similar to #802 (item 7 above). No occurrence of the tetragrammaton. A few corrections.

Minor Prophets

Dimensions can vary somewhat from column to column (especially widths), but in general the material was about 35 cm tall (42 lines per column for hand A, 33 for hand B) with column widths averaging around 9 cm (7.5-11.5 range), and about 1.7 average margins between. It is possible that the original scroll was around 10 meters long, if it was a single scroll containing all the Minor Prophets. It is also possible that two separate scrolls (hand A and hand B, thus #943a-b) are represented by the fragments. The leather inscribed by hand B is also coarser than that by hand A.

POxy Job

Dimensions may be as small as 14 cm tall (15 lines per column), or as large as 29 cm (39 lines) or even 32 cm (46 lines), depending on the identification of the poorly represented (3 legible letters!) 2nd column, with 19-22 letters per line. Informal (even careless) upright bilinear (some ovals, tending to lean left) with moderate ornamentation (mostly by hooks on some vertical strokes); no shading; some ligatures and cursive tendencies; dieresis/trema on the initial letter of I+WB.

POxy Esther

About 30 cm tall, with writing block 20 cm (31 lines) by 7 cm (25 letters average) and about 2 cm between columns. Has paragraph markers with enlarged initial letters of next line projecting into the left margin, and initial letters of most other lines also enlarged. Otherwise relatively bilinear with minimal ornamentation (some hooks and flourishes), and various "documentary" tendencies (ligatures, cursive forms, etc.).

---

THE WRITING WORLD OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS

by Rochelle Altman

http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_sd/altman_dss.html

WRITING SYSTEMS AND MANUSCRIPTS1

http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_sd/altman_writing.html

by Rochelle I. Altman

risa@mail.hol.gr

risa3@netvision.net.il (Rochelle I. Altman) Oct 02

...

Meanwhile, on the African side of the Ancient Near East, the Egyptians were writing on papyrus, a material made from the leaves of a reed-like plant. Papyrus is produced by laying strips of the inner layers of the plant (pith), one edge on another. The height of a papyrus roll was limited by the height of the strips of pith peeled off the inner layers of the plant. A leaf 12 inches high was costly while a leaf 14 inches high was very rare. A papyrus roll 9 inches or more in height was always a luxury item.

The Greeks had originally received their writing systems from the Asian side. When Alexander and his army conquered Egypt, they brought with them the Asian Near Eastern rules governing size. These size rules created a problem because they required that the law codes and government orders be the highest and the largest documents. Papyrus rolls high enough to attain the "correct" 14 inch size were in very short supply. The Greeks solved the problem by rotating the direction of writing ninety degrees. Greek official documents were 9 to 10 inches high by 14 or more inches wide. In turn, when Rome conquered Egypt from the Ptolemaic Greeks, the Romans adopted the rotation; they also increased the width of their legal documents to show that they were the ones in charge.

The writing material forced a ninety degree rotation in order to maintain the correct size hierarchy. This simple physical difficulty played an important role in creating a distinction between traditions. By the third century BCE the great diversity among authoritative and official formats and sizes crystallized into two primary streams: Semitic and Graeco-Roman.

On one side we find the Semitic descendants of the Phoenician system, which used different official scripts, but retained ancient practices almost intact. In this tradition, authoritative official texts were written in narrow columns, by utterance or breathings, that is, as spoken, and suspended from the upper writing limit. For example, the Hebrew practice was (and is) to divide the 8-9 inches reading area into two narrow columns, each approximately 3-1/2 to 4 inches wide. Even after the codex gained popularity over the scroll, the format remained essentially unchanged. Non-official, yet authoritative, documents were written in broad columns. Law codes were 14 inches in height with a reading area of 8-9 inches in width, _plus_ margins. Writings were somewhat shorter, around 11 inches. Secular documents, such as tax receipts, were smaller yet and varied in size depending upon the type of tax. Harking back to Akkad, deeds of sale, for example, were always narrow, around 3 to 3-1/2 inches in width, but varied in height depending upon the status of the seller.

...

...Eventually, the strictly bilinear Etrusco-Roman official sizes and formats fused with the trilinear Greek authoritative ones. The combined Latin Graeco-Roman official documents appear written in broad columns and in _scripto continuo_. Official single sheets were 12 inches high by 14 or more inches wide while official papyrus codices were 12 inches in height by 8-9 inches in width, *including* margins. Writings were 9-9-1/2 inches in height. Authoritative, but non-official, texts appear in narrow column format. In this tradition, the size of a tax receipt also depended upon the type of tax and the issuee. (People had to pay for the papyrus in their receipts. A typical low status receipt runs 3 x 5 inches.) Deeds of sale retained the ancient Akkadian practice and appear as very narrow leaves of papyrus.

Some sizes, however, are the same no matter what the political affiliation. A single size and format of document appears in both traditions. These texts run around 8 to 8-1/2 inches in height by 4-1/4 inches in width, or roughly a sheet of modern letterhead paper folded in half horizontally. In size, the resulting folded paper emulates the writing surface of a wax tablet.

...

More to the point, the oldest clear example of an authoritative serifed Greek font shows up in a fragment of Deuteronomy dated to the first half of the 2nd century BCE from Egypt (John Rylands Library, Papyrus 111,458, fragments, Manchester, England). Deuteronomy was hardly an official text of the Ptolemaic Greek government; it was an official text of the Jewish population of Alexandria. That a Graeco-Judean authoritative font would have serifs is to be expected: official Square Aramaic fonts are serifed. Further, the serifs of this font design follow the Aramaic practice of heavy serifs as opposed to the thin serifs used by Rome. Other than the serifs in Aramaic style, the font follows Greek practices: it is monoline, the mensural base of this script design is still the wider Greek 'o', and the written text still displays very loose kerning.

---

[risa on Bangor draft]

[Of course there is diversity! It would be astonishing if there weren't.

We have a collection of different classes of works here. Some of those

scrolls are private editions, copies made by some person for his or her

own use. Some of those scrolls are "authorized" versions, and some are

bookshop productions.

Private editions, quite obviously, will vary tremendously according to

literacy level of the person writing. Is the person accustomed to writing

on an everyday basis? Then the work will be competent, perhaps not as

professional as a master scribe's, but competent. It will also be full of

his or her personal idiosyncracies, such as the use of the tetragrammaton.

Is the person someone who writes infrequently? Then the work will appear

amateurish.

"Authorized" translations will use an authoritative format and a formal

script; it's size will be the correct one for the hierarchy.

Bookshop productions will vary from Class A to Class C -- depending upon

what the customer was willing to pay. (As is made perfectly clear in

Roman documents on the different requirements for each class.) What pre-4th

century docs survive is a mixed bag of different classes, we cannot, for

example, make any comments about the execution of a script without first

determining what Class book we are dealing with. Is the example a Class C?

Then the margins will be small, the writing squeezed in, and the doc careless

in execution. Does that make the execution "degenerate"? No; it makes it what

the customer paid for.

In other words, you absolutely must sort the docs into their classes before

you can come to any conclusions about each group and what these differences

indicate.

Step 1: Your first sort is by the level of formality of the script. Cursive

scripts are *never* used in a formal document, repeat, never. If the script

is cursive, the doc is either a private edition or a bookshop product.

Is the script formal, but not official? Then it's a class A bookshop

product... it will have wider margins and care will be taken in execution.

Step 2:

If the script is cursive, you now have to sort by size and then by format.

I included a condensed guide to some of the formats and sizes in standard

use in both the Greco-Roman and the African-Semitic hierarchies in that on-

line lecture for Jim Davila's Qumran seminar... "The Writing World of the

Dead Sea Scrolls." http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_sd/altman_dss.html.

The table also incudes Greco-Roman and Jewish-Chistian practices. I see no

reason to repeat it here when it is available on-line.

As many of these early docs are fragments, you will have to depend primarily

upon script and format.

For a doc found at Qumran, the chances are quite high that it is written

under the African-Semitic hierarchies. To put this another way; when the

Greeks adopted the Phoenician writing system back in the 9th BCE, they

also adopted the Semitic hierarchies. Ptolemaic Greek docs use the Semitic

hierarchies; Seleucid docs rotate. (See my Zoilos Report on the ORION site

to see how this works.) Date is another item you have to take into

consideration. There is far too much diachronic smear in your lecture;

it nullifies your conclusions.

Once you have sorted the docs by class, hierarchies, and dates, then you

can start collating data.]

[No, the "bound-book format" was not "new." Nor, I might add, was it

confined to "rough schoolbooks." Literary wax-tablet books show up at

Pompeii and Herculaneum right along with the far more common scroll. As the

Romans were as fad happy and novelty hungry as Modern Americans, it's not

surprising that we read references to the "codex" around 70 CE. And you are

emphasizing as a "technological" development what was a change in market

demand. What is being ignored is that the Romans did not invent the wax-

tablet; as I recall, a wax-tablet frame was found in the remains of a Semitic

shipwreck from ca. 1000 BCE. It was even mentioned on IOUDAIOS; ask Sigrid

about it, she brought it up. I sincerely doubt that the tablet bound-book

was a Roman invention, it was too "novel" -- just about had to be imported.

Being made of such perishable materials makes it very difficult to find even

pieces of wax tablets. Still, I do believe that Sigrid has a piece of info

that you can use in your argument.]

[The strictly bilinear writing limits are a result of the Augustan reforms

of the late 1st BCE. Bilinear limits "freeze" the text and are the limit

systems used by mystically-oriented societies. Hence, official and formal

texts in Egypt, Etruria and then Rome used bilinear writing limits. Informal

and un-official texts from Rome, even Etruria, use trilinear limits; the Greek

and Semitic writing systems used trilinear limits.

[1) If you wish to use this term, the standard use is either "scriptum

continuum" or "written in scripto continuo." The term, however, is quite

erroneous. The reason for no spacing is pragmatic: the texts, and that

includes the Greek Biblical codices you mention later, are written in

"utterances" or "breathings," that is, the words that can be said in one

breath. Look again at some of the early Greek docs. In broad column execution,

small spaces appear after an "utterance" but not during one. In narrow column

format, each line is an utterance. Simple when you know what you're looking

at, no?

2) Of what use is added punctuation in a writing system that employs writing

by utterance? None. The right-hand margin _is_ the punctuation; why waste

scribal time to add puntuation.

3) "the world of professional documents was more flexible." Not on your nelly!

This is totally and completely wrong: It had extremely tight restrictions

with required scripts, formats, and sizes for each and every class of docs,

from a receipt for local taxes, to recipts for arnona, to petitions. What you

are picking up as "flexible" results from conflating docs from one locale with

docs from another. There was precious little leeway granted in any type of

"professional" document.

The seemingly great "flexibilty" is not there at all. Hierarchies are

dependent upon locale and will vary within a specific permissible range

depending the status of the issuer; the local deviations within the primary

hierarchy, and the content.

These restrictions also made it simple for the Governor of a Nome, for

instance, to know where a document came from. When tax receipts from X must

be 3" x 6" and receipts from Y must be 2.5" x 5.5," and from Z must be 3.5" x

6" -- it makes it simple in a case for back taxes to see if the defendant

really paid the taxes to the proper locale.... and so on down to the smallest

transaction and throughout the Imperium!

It's the world of professional bookshops that had flexibility; government

docs most certainly did not. And don't confuse a chancery script with a

commercial script or a formal Class A bookscript with an official script.]

----------------------

BTW, my article, "The Size of the Law: Document Dimensions and their

Significance in the Imperial Administration" appears in _Confrontation

in Late Antiquity_ out next year from Orchard Academic.

-----------------------------------------------------

Of course letters seem to hang from the top line in both Greek and Hebrew

docs. The graphs hang from the top line in trilinear systems and the Greek

system was borrowed from the NorthWest Semitic systems.

Oh, please: all script designs are "highly sophisticated," from Sumerian

cuneiform to modern laser printer designs. To pick one out as better

than another, while quite common, is an application of modern aesthetics

and preferences to artefacts from the past. The application of modern

preferences belongs to the study of modern aesthetics. A reference to the

lettering as being "highly sophisticated" is an aesthetic judgement based

on Modern expectations; it is the mark of the calligraphic point of view

and has little to do with the performance of a working scribe.

You can refer to professional vs. non-professional or amateur, or to works

produced by Master scribes. Also, formal vs informal, official vs unofficial,

and other terms along these lines address scribal performance and not modern

aesthetics. One can hardly compare "formal" with "amateur" in any case... it

is false analogy.

Whether a doc is produced by a Master or not is always clear. And as far

as "less carefully executed" goes -- and what class doc is it? What you are

saying is that the "professional" quality docs are Class A while the others

are Class B or even C.]

[Writing by word division is normal for business letters in the Ptolemic and

later Roman world. Also, which DSS are by utterance and which are by semantic

unit? Date? Level of formality? Class of document? It makes quite a difference.

The Exodus fragments in the formal Square Script is written by "utterance."

This may or may not be "characteristic" of Jewish scribal practices. On the

other hand, do remember that Greek parsing units are of substantially greater

length on the average than Hebrew. This difference would necessarily be

reflected in the written record.]

[Modern preferences. How can there be "unanimity"! The "witnesses" come from

all over the place; from different religious parties; and from different time

frames. Look, among the DSS are some "authorized" versions and quite a few

bookshop products; most are private editions. How can anyone expect any level

of conformity about the use of the Tetragrammaton when so many of the examples

are the subject of private whim. Those private editions where the

tetragrammaton is replaced by dots tell us that the person writing was

superstitious indeed!

The Exodus frags show the tetragrammaton in ordinary square letter, and the

paleo-frags do not differentiate either. Yes, the tetragrammaton appears in

paleo in square letter docs. From 11QPs, this would be seem to have been the

approved manner as this scroll happens to be an authorized text. Even so, the

use of "antique" graphs for the name of a "God" in a text executed in a

"modern" script is a Babylonian practice and obviously intended to placate

conservatives who were against the use of Square script. (And this also is

mentioned in that lecture along with a professional analysis of the

consolidated script.)]

[1) Happy to see you quote that "carelessly executed"; that's a mark of

the calligraphic point of view for sure. What they are saying is that

many of these docs are either Class C bookshop or privately produced

by people not accustomed to writing on a daily basis.

[2)Does writing "degenerate"? No, this is another aesthetic judgement

from the calligraphic point of view. The "simplicity" merely reflects

the known desire by early Christians to distance themselves from "Pagan"

practices. Further, how many of these "degenerated" docs are executed by

private people and how many by professional scribes? BTW, if writing has

degenerated so much, why is this "phenomenon" not apparent in other parts

of the former Empire??]

[1) Do I have to go into the scriptum continuum aspect again? 2)"extremely

attractive"? Modern aesthetics again, also in 3) bilinear lettering --

which merely means freeze the words so their magic can be contained and used.

4) Those are not "Classical Greek norms." The Vaticanus borrows its authority

from Pre-Classic Greece; the Siniaticus, Alexandrinus, and Bezae borrow their

authority from Rome. 5) And the large scale codices are the result of

Christianity gaining official status. It's politics, not theology.]