

Algorithm developed by Israeli scholars identifies Bible's authors - cappaert
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-ml-israel-bible-algorithm,0,1454957.story

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telemachos
The article's actual title is clearer and not as likely to be flamebait:
"Algorithm developed by Israeli scholars sheds light on the Bible's
authorship".

The point of the algorithm is _not_ to figure out if Moses or whoever wrote
the bible. The point is to track down strands of a multi-author book:

 _The new software analyzes style and word choices to distinguish parts of a
single text written by different authors, and when applied to the Bible its
algorithm teased out distinct writerly voices in the holy book.

The program, part of a sub-field of artificial intelligence studies known as
authorship attribution, has a range of potential applications — from helping
law enforcement to developing new computer programs for writers. But the Bible
provided a tempting test case for the algorithm's creators._

I studied this sort of thing a little from the Humanities side in graduate
school, and it can be fascinating. But a lot of room is still left for
interpretation and other factors. One example: Caesar's war diaries in Gaul
show significant shifts in vocabulary, word order, sentence structure and
narrative style between the early and later books. In that case though,
multiple authorship is much less likely than one author changing over time.
This sort of thing would probably make it harder to solve the Shakespeare
problem using this software (which someone mentions as a use case in the
article).

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bartonfink
Also, if I recall correctly from my humanities days, similar approaches have
"proven" that different people wrote Paradise Lost and Paradise Found (John
Milton wrote both and there is no serious argument to the contrary).

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telemachos
Funny - since I almost cited the article that (I think) you have in mind. The
article I remember wasn't an actual proof though: it was a _reductio ad
absurdum_ , used in a review of a book about Homer that used statistical
methods. The _reductio_ was, in a nutshell, to show that by the same argument
as the one in the book on Homer, the reviewer could prove that Milton didn't
write _Paradise Lost_.

In any case, here's a JSTOR reference to the article I'm thinking of:
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/641985>. (I can provide a pdf copy if anyone
wants it. Check my profile for email.) I wonder if this is the one you're
remembering.

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bartonfink
Exactly what I'm thinking of. If you assume two different people wrote the
Iliad and the Odyssey, the same logic shows the Paradise discrepancy.

Damn, that Latin degree pays for itself more and more.

------
telemachos
A follow-up on the actual research here:

<http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3233>

