So, once upon a time, I was doing a deep dive into what Christian seminary textbooks say about Jews, and I started trying to figure out where the assertion that 1st-century Jews hated shepherds came from. (Cited in peer-reviewed papers!) Traced it to its source: an 1800s guy just made it up.
BeijingPalmerthe amount of times a number traces back to a guesstimate, and then has usually undergone distortion along the way. for instance, the sports industry, when arguing for legalization of gambling, used a figure that ended up getting quoted repeatedly in the Supreme Court hearings ...