J-D

You say this as if you think there's some incompatibility between 'prominent historical person' and 'pseudonym'. There isn't. Boz, Cary Grant, Ho Chi Minh, George Eliot, George Orwell, George Sand, Koba, Le Corbusier, Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, Mata Hari, Moliere, Pancho Villa, Pol Pot, Tito, Voltaire, Willy Brandt: all pseudonyms and all prominent historical persons.

Chili

oops, Paul was the forger, remember? and Seneca was the historical figure that he leaned Jesus against to add some [historical] substance to him.

Paul does not have to be historical in the mind of the believer until his doubt needs to be validated as Christian, simply because as a simple believer he would just not believe what Paul wrote.

Do they not call this 'double blind' today?

Funny is that now we have a blind man writing a blind story that Christians with their eyes wide open can't seem to figure out.

tanya

Paul could have been a real person.
Paul could have been a real person, whose name was not Paul;
Paul could have been an imaginary figure from a literary creation: the new testament.

I do not share this thinking.

presupposes the conclusion that Paul existed and wrote various letters.

My starting point is not: "Paul's existence as the default inference..."

My starting point is that since MUCH of the new testament is utterly phony baloney, then, "Paul's" epistles are also phony, UNTIL PROVEN LEGITIMATE.

For me, the fact that someone felt obliged to forge letters between an acknowledged historical figure, and Paul, only reinforces the idea that "Paul" is an invention.

Further, I am unaware of reference to Paul in the writings of Josephus. Am I in error here?

J-D

No, it does not. That is a misinterpretation.Why is that your starting point?How?

Chili

Paul was the cloak of Peter, who was stripped of his cloak when Thomas exclaimed "My Lord AND my God" when Jesus showed him his stigmata, and so came the end of doubt and as Twin of Peter in 'faith and doubt', and so Peter was stripped naked on his next fishing trip and therefore could not catch even a small fish that night. Prime mover here is that faith cannot be conceived to exist without doubt.

So then Jesus said that they were fishing on the 'wrong side of the boat' and then Peter put on a NEW CLOAK and dove in headfirst to catch those big inspired fish that nearly capsized the boat and they were hauled off to Rome to become Paul as the Infallible EX Cathedra cloak of the Pope.

Doug Shaver

A list of mere possibilities, without regard to probability, would be infinitely long. To what end are we supposed to try to compile such a list?

aa5874

And it also presupposes that Paul was known to be credible since no non-apologetic source of antiquity mentioned Paul and that he was a credible writer.

And, there seems to be a CONSENSUS among Scholars, whether MJ or HJ, that the NT is NOT historically reliable.

This is Bart Ehrman, an Historian who PUBLICLY support HJ in a debate with William Craig.

Your "NULL hypothesis" that the NT is NOT historically reliable is absolutely reasonable.

The "ALTERNATIVE hypothesis", which MUST be proven, is that the NT Canon is historically reliable.

All Claims about any character in the NT, whether by an author, Jesus, Paul, an apostle, or family of Jesus MUST FIRST be proven to be historically credible or else the NULL hypothesis, the CONSENSUS, that ALL the SOURCES and ALL the GOSPELS are NOT historically reliable can be ACCEPTED.

You are ABSOLUTELY reasonable. The Starting Point is the CONSENSUS that the NT is NOT historically reliable.

We see the very same pattern even in Acts of the Apostles.

Paul supposedly meets KNOWN figures of history.

1. Paul studied at the feet of Gamaliel--Acts 22

2. Paul was in the presence of King Agrippa and CONVERSED with him--Acts 25
3. Paul was taken to Festus, a Governor of Judea.

4. Paul attempted to Convert Felix, a Governor of Judea.

However the sources which mentioned Gamaliel, King Agrippa, Festus and Felix does NOT mention Paul

Your post is absolutely reasonable.

By the way since the 4th century, the Emperor Julian challenged his readers to produce a well-known writer who wrote about Jesus and Paul.

The NULL hypothesis, the Starting Point, is the Consensus that the NT is NOT historically reliable.

mountainman

I will take on board all above except that last statement on the basis of what I wrote above. My intention in this thread was to try and (impartially) explore the hypothetical possibilities associated with the various theories.




Yes I agree. In fact there may be an infinite series (P1, P2, P3, ... Pn) of such associated with every "what, who, when, where, how and why" question an investigator asks each of the evidence items E1, E2, E3, ... En. In one sense the evidence itself is infinite, because it includes all combinations and permutations of its elements. Hopefully we have agreement on this issue.






I have introduced a schematic and some conventions in this thread.
N/A

I find it useful in this discussion because it depicts an iterative process.
Others may disagree with the process or some with the terminology.
I have sought to achieve some form of agreement in the schematic
and have revised it a number of times during this discussion.
It is meant to provide a background for the discussion.





Here is one claim restated after all this discussion ...

the fundamental positive or negative historicity hypothesis about evidence items (En)


I attempted to introduce an idea or a principle above about just one of these infinite number of hypotheses (P1, P2 ... Pn) which might be formulated against one specific evidence item (En). Let's call it the fundamental positive or negative historicity hypothesis for that specific item of evidence.

It is represented by the selection of one, from an antithetical pair of hypotheses which cannot both be historically true - or by the null statement "Dont know or unknown or unknowable etc. The default position can in fact be taken as "I dont know" for all the items of evidence En.


I have cited above from the WIKI page on the Historical method the core principle:


The idea is this. Amidst the infinite series of hypotheses against every single element item En there will exist the "Fundamental (+/-) Historicity Hypothesis" related to the historicity of the evidence. The evidence we have has already been classified into a range of evidence categories discussed above (e.g. people, mss, coins, grafiti). Therefore this fundamental historicity hypothesis may have to be slighly modified to suit the category of the evidence. For people (purported historical identities) it takes this form:

Where evidence item (En) here is a person X (e.g. En = Jesus; En+1 = Paul, etc )


Positive Historicity Hypothesis: "X existed in history"
Negative Historicity Hypothesis: "X did not exist in history"

(NB: Null or Zero Hypothesis: "Dont know or unknown or unknowable etc.")


My claim is that the (+/-) historicity hypothesis must be addressed by any investigator who is examining every single item of the evidence, and is thus a fundamental concept to be understood. In the diagram this would appear against every item of evidence En. It applies especially for those investigators who for some strange reason suspect that the received "history of christian origins" contains within it a not insignificant distribution of negative evidence. (e.g. forgeries, fabrications, heresiological veneers, etc).

I am not expecting unconditional agreement on this idea, but the reason that I have attempted to discuss it here is because I see it as a very foundational principle in the field of ancient history, and one that is particularly relevant to questions surrounding "the history of christian origins".

J-D

It can't be a foundational principle in the field of ancient history when nobody in the field of ancient history follows it.

Toto

But you have not done this. You have not done anything resembling this.

The evidence is not infinite. Theoretically, you could come up with an unlimited (and therefore infinite) series of questions, but this does not sound like a useful way of approaching the evidence.

It is not helpful. A scientific theory involves formulating a hypothesis, testing it against the evidence, revising the theory, designing experiments, etc. But historians do not have the luxury of running experiments to generate new evidence. I don't see how you can have an iterative process when you have all of your evidence to start with.

THAT IS NOT THE NULL HYPOTHESIS

It appears that you have taken a simple proposition - to wit, that a historian needs to evaluate the available sources as to their authenticity - and surrounded it with algebraic formulas, a confusing terminology, and a lot of hand waving.

If you think you have something worth discussing, please take one concrete example and demonstrate why your plan clarifies or elucidates anything about it.