The original study that I sent in looked at 47 authors.  I now have 149.  I intend to look at every single Life of Christ that I can readily get ahold of.

Sep 6, 2010 -- 7:14PM, samuelbb7 wrote:

If people are speaking on the same topic I do not know how they can avoid often sounding alike.

I had thought that way too!

From my study:

Early Expectations

It was initially assumed that given the average person’s vocabulary of some 20,000 words, given a single topic (the life of Jesus Christ, further narrowed to specific events in His life, in this case, the trial before Pilate and Herod), given the shared perspective of the authors (Protestant vs. Catholic, believer vs. skeptic, etc.), and given the probability of any reader-author being attracted to and therefore recalling and reusing a memorable turn of phrase, one could therefore expect frequent repetition of phraseology among the various authors. Though there were common expressions, such as Pilate being described as "vacillating," Jesus being described as a "religious enthusiast," Jesus answering "not a word," Herod and Pilate’s "curiosity," Pilate’s wife’s "warning"; and the Jesus being condemned as an "innocent man," overall, this assumption did not prove to be true. The variety of phraseology among authors writing on the same subject proved to be far greater than initially expected.

92. "Read “Paradise Lost” written by John Milton in 1667. For 25 years he studied every book he could find about the Biblical Creation. He wrote his epic poem “Paradise Lost” as a result of those 25 years of study, no vision. Now read all that Ellen wrote about Adam and Eve in the Garden. Odd how it is almost exactly the same story. sometimes whole sentences of John Miltons are used." (August 30, 2010)

And yet I can't find a single sentence; that isn't really surprising since Milton was writing a poem in free verse so there aren't any sentences to begin with!

You're welcome!

Now I have 184 authors in my study and the one on Lazarus has 100 authors.