I'm back.....:-)

That was probably me... I posted on it here: Thoughts on Reverence, Awe, and Epicurean Piety. I don't remember the details of the article although I do remember that it really got me thinking about the subject.

Also Susan et al we need to find a good online source for material from Philodemus' "On Piety." I think the major reference is a work by Obbirk from 1996 which I have looked at but not studied closely. This brings us back to the continuing frustration that there ought to be free online access to at least some aspects of the Herculaneum material, even if individual researchers want/need to copyright and profit from their commentaries on it. I think in fact there are pages which do contain some of the raw material, and we've even discussed some of them here on the forum, but we haven't used them regularly enough to really get familiar with the material.

And IMHO that's particularly important with On Piety, since the material is challenging and I think I remember that what is left from Herculaneum is much more fragmentary than some of the other Philodemus material. This is one of the most delicate areas where we need to verify for ourselves exactly what the translator is working with and how much they are reconstructing, so we can more confidently assess how much stock to put into what they come up with.

As we go down this road in pursuing the divinity aspect of the philosophy I think we can really contribute to the state of understanding if we rigorously check the sources to make sure the commentator is being faithful to the rest of the texts in their word choices.

Brett that's a great idea to devote a section to it - There are several options on how to implement that, including the "Lexicon" page. I haven't really figured out how to use it but I think it works like a shared wiki.

I set this page up here: Epicurean Techniques for Better Living

And gave write access to those of us participating in this thread - if I missed anyone please let me know.

I think at that location we can basically develop a numbered list perhaps? I would appreciate anyone's input on this - this is an example of where I can help provide the infrastructure but I am sorely lacking in creativity and imagination to get things going sometimes!

This is the "home page" of the Lexicon: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/wcf/lexicon/

This is the page announcing the setup and probably a good place to discuss how to use it:

Addition of the "Lexicon" Feature of the Forum

Quote from Susan Hill

As for the Hadzsits article, I don't think you will have a problem with his translations, because he doesn't translate anything. All sources are given in Latin and Greek.

Oh I HATE articles like that! I suppose academics have a right to write for other academics

Quote from Susan Hill

The Lexicon structure is probably better.

I am happy to give full access to any regular participant here who is interested in trying to work with the lexicon or other features. If someone tries to do something and doesn't seem to have access rights just let me know. I think it best that people go ahead on the "easier to get forgiveness than permission" theory. If someone posts something that we need to reorganize then we can do that afterwards - once material is typed in the hard part is done.

Quote from Susan Hill

Is there a point at which we can say "Okay, I think get the gist of this, let's give it a whirl!"

Yes I think we are definitely at that point and we need to talk about what "giving it a whirl" means. I keep thinking in terms of online interaction via zoom or skype or whatever, leading eventually to a polished presentation that we can maybe commit to video and then distribute for the use of others. That's something we can talk further about here in these threads and also on the 20th.