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Franciscan Monkey & REtherman ~

First of all, in the Microsoft Paint Accessory-program, if you use the Edit Colors feature and create a color with the following specifications, the result will be what I picture:
Hue = 224, Red = 185, Sat = 193, Green = 20, Lum = 96, and Blue = 85.

(This could fairly be described by first-century standards as a shade of crimson, especially when it was viewed at night. Crimson can be produced, for comparison, using the Edit Colors feature in MS-Paint by entering Red = 220, Green = 20, and Blue = 60.)

FM: you need to show that the indigo dye was used to produce a garment of a color other than indigo, and that that garment was still called "indigo."

Once again Plinys writings help us out. At www.unc.edu/courses/romet...yeing.html theres a comment that Indigo was also used in Rome by Pliny's lifetime (AD 23-79). In his time, however, indigo referred to any blue pigment that was separated from plants. Today, indigo refers solely to a particular plant. So there you go. In the first century, indigo could refer to a variety of shades of blue (and it still does; in the course of preparing this reply I saw online references to light indigo and dark indigo -- at www.truecoloursyarns.co.uk/garments.htm for example).

In the first century, the same term -- such as indigo or purple could be used to describe what we, nowadays, would consider a wide range of tints and hues. And the reason why this was the case is that there was a tendency to describe colors according to the name of the dyes used to produce them. Purple-pigment, drawn from shellfish, was one such dye.

If the subject really interests you, theres more information about this at
www.mspong.org/cyclopedia/dying.html and
www.ancientroute.com/reso...th/dye.htm . The second resource includes comments about how garments could be shaded during production after the application of dye: When pots of various metals were introduced, it was quickly found that this changed the color or deepened the color. Prior to the use of metal pots, several naturally occurring minerals were used to the same shade-altering effect.

WR: If the term "red grapes" can be used commonly today, what does that say about the objection to using "scarlet" and "purple" to describe the same robe?
FM: Hence the qualifier "red" in "red grapes." Was the robe called a "scarlet purple robe" in any of the passages?

No. The same color is described two different ways -- according to its specific tint (scarlet), and according to its less-specific tint (purple, which could describe robes that were colored with myrex-derived dye, including robes of a reddish color as Pliny informs us). Now back to my question: if, even nowadays when our delineations of colors tend to be more precise than they were in the first century, red can be used to describe grapes, and grape can be used to define what is quite obviously a shade of the color purple, then what does that say about the objection to using scarlet and purple to describe the same robe? Since youve declined to answer the question, I will answer it: it exposes the baselessness of the question.

FM: The quote by Pliny doesn't show that the resulting reddish garment would be called a purple garment.

Yes it does.

Iz: Nobody failed to *grasp* your apology, some of us simply disagree that you[r] apology is the intent of the authors. Do you grasp the difference?

Yes, but your disagreement is not just with my analogy; it's with the data. Plinys statement shows that garments with a reddish color nevertheless were called purple, because of how they were produced. And a consideration of ancient dyeing-processes shows that there was no one color purple that had a monopoly on the name purple, any more than there is one shade of blue that disqualifies sky blue and cerulean blue and Saxon Blue from all being identified as blue.

WR: Pliny explicitly says that the purple dye is capable of being used to produce reddish-colored garments.
Iz: So what. That does not mean that a purple robe really means a scarlet robe.

It means that a robe could have a reddish hue and still be described as purple. I dont see why anyone should have any doubt about this.

WR: Whats with the color-wheel?
Iz: We are talking about colors aren't we?

Yes, and the processes used to produce them. But were specifically talking about descriptions of colors in the first century. Introducing a modern-day color-wheel risks the introduction of anachronistic standards of color-distinctions.

Iz: The sky is still blue, blood is still red, and grass is still green. Today's color definition may not be an exact hue match with 2000 years ago, but for the purposes of our discussion, they are close enough.

No theyre not. The colors of dyed garments, all made with the same distinctive dye, varied in the first century, depending to an extent on where a particular garment had been dyed. And shades of purple could vary quite a bit, as Pliny tells us -- and these shades could include reddish hues, which is what scarlet and crimson are.

Iz: Grape is both a fruit and a color in today's vernacular.

And purple was both a dye and a color (like blue, capable of describing a variety of shades) in first-century vernacular.

Iz: You must have missed this post. The bible already makes the distinction between scarlet and purple many times.

I saw that post. But what youre missing -- or ignoring -- is that scarlet and purple were defined according to their ingredients (cochineal and myrex-extractions), not just according to the colors which those ingredients produced.

Iz: you have failed to show that there is any precedence of an author using purple robe to in fact mean a scarlet robe.

I, and the material at the links Ive provided for you, show that Pliny regarded garments with a reddish tint as purple, because they were made with the purple dye, and that terms like purple had a wide range of meaning (not unlike the modern-day term blue in blue jeans) which was capable of including scarlet.

Yours in Christ,

Waterrock

Franciscan Monkey ~

(Wow; the speed at which you read the information at those links is incredible.)

FM: "You seem to be confusing the term "pigment" with "shade." A blue pigment is blue. Also, you would not call a light indigo color "indigo," you would call it "light indigo.""

No; I'm simply pointing out that a variety of pigments, even though they were all called "indigo" in the first century, would tend to produce a variety of shades of blue. Don't you agree?

FM: ... "The "red" in "red grapes" refers to a color, red, whereas the "grapes" in "red grapes" refers to the fruit. When the word "grape" is used to describe a color, it refers to a color nearly identical to purple, and does not refer to the color of red grapes."

Ah, so "grape" does not refer to the color of some grapes. Looks like we have to take 21st-century nomenclature into consideration to realize that. Now why, using first-century nomenclature, should "purple" be limited to refer to one particular color, among several that can result from varying factors in a garment's production-process?

FM: [Pliny's comment] "says that a reddish garment can be made from purple dye. Show me where Pliny calls a reddish or scarlet garment a purple garment."

A thoughtful consideration of Pliny's comments (already cited) should lead to that conclusion. He's talking about how purple garments are made. The reddish garment, to Pliny, is a purple garment, just one that is inferior in value (in his estimation) to a garment with a deeper, more "purply" tint.

Yours in Christ,

Waterrock