Toto

Normally, you do not test hypotheses by generating theories. You look for evidence, or you evaluate the evidence you do have to calculate the probability that one hypothesis is true.

J-D

Hypotheses should have a basis in evidence, but hypotheses are not evidence. The evidence provides grounds for hypothesising the historical existence of the Sarasvati River, but the river itself is not a piece of the evidence.We were discussing evidence. The evidence for history is not identical with history itself. It is possible for something to be part of history without being part of the evidence for history. Surviving ancient manuscripts are evidence for the existence of ancient authors. The ancient authors are part of history, but not part of the evidence for history.

J-D

I suggest you try to formulate a question without using the word 'Paul' in it.

mountainman

Let's assume for the sake of the argument that we have done sufficient research to be able to have registered all the evidence that has been cited and/or considered and/or conjectured and/or presented as evidence by the current generation of Biblical Scholars, and those that went before the present generation, and the generation before that, etc, etc, etc.

Certainly new evidence can turn up anytime, such as gJudas in 2006 CE. But at such moments a new item as gJudas is added to our list of evidence, along with the existence of historical people, the names of whom we may never know, that were responsible for the authorship, manufacture, editorship, etc of the new evidence item - a Coptic manuscript called Codex Tchacos.



This "evaluation of all other evidence" can only represent two things. Either it represents a reconsidered perhaps modified conclusion in the process as described or it represents a re-evaluation of all other hypotheses made against all other evidence that are contradicted by making (provisionally assuming the truth of) either hypothesis (1) or (2), and then a conclusion as described.

Except in a case where there are changes to the background conceptual framework of all the investigators - in which case their foundational hypotheses are re-examined and revised and new theoretical conclusions presented - the conclusions of centuries of Biblical Scholarship seem to be governing the selection and the consideration of fundamental hypotheses about the existence of a variety of identities represented in the entire theoretical historical saga of christian origins.

I hope you see and understand that I have purposefully avoided the question of probability at the hypotheses level and purposefully attempted to DRAFT two antithetical hypotheses that are mutually exclusive - one is true and one is false, and we must choose which to use by the relative validity of the theoretical conclusions taking into account all evidence and all such hypotheses about all evidence items.

mountainman

I have prepared a list of two more sample hypotheses about "Paul the Apostle".

SAMPLE HYPOTHESIS (3): The named author of the "Pauline Epistles" was a genuine and authentic historical identity
SAMPLE HYPOTHESIS (4): The named author of the "Pauline Epistles" was NOT a genuine and authentic historical identity.

Only one of these can be correct.

How does one theoretically go about deciding which hypothesis is the correct one?

J-D

I see you're still making the mistake of trying to formulate hypotheses without first clearly articulating the question. But I can guess what you'd produce as a question, namely:

'Was the named author of the "Pauline Epistles" a genuine and authentic historical identity?'

Still not clear enough, I'm afraid.

The underlying problem is that you haven't grasped the implications of the fact that real documents are not written by non-existent people. Whoever the author of a real document was, it must have been somebody who really existed. Therefore, although there are many questions one might meaningfully ask about such an author (for example, 'what was the author's name?', 'when did the author live?', 'what else did the author write?'), it's obviously not meaningful to ask whether that author existed.

mountainman

Why not? It looks to be a valid question on the surface as defined in the schematic above.


The underlying mystery is that in the above schematic are two separate and distinct boxes, one labelled "Peoples' Names' and connected to a box called AUTHOR (connected to the evidence category MS) and a separate box called "Historical Identities", and you appear to think I have not yet understood the basics clearly enough.



I have before me the letters of Bilbo Baggins to Frodo, the Elves, and other assorted identites.

It is obviously quite meaningful and reasonable to make one of two hypotheses in response to an analogous way you framed your question above:



Hypothesis (1BB): The author of the Bilbo Epistles was an authentic historical identity

or

Hypothesis (2BB): The author of the Bilbo Epistles was not an authentic historical identity.



Only one of these can be correct.

How does one theoretically go about deciding which hypothesis is the correct one?


And can we decide?

More importantly if the conclusion is still 42 does it really matter?

J-D

If the documents you are referring to when you talk about 'the Bilbo epistles' are the ones I assume you mean, then their author was JRR Tolkien, as I would guess you are well aware. Historically, JRR Tolkien was a real person (that is, before he died). I don't know whether you would say JRR Tolkien was 'an authentic historical identity', as it's not sufficiently clear what you mean by that expression.

J-D

I can easily frame the question 'Does my brother have a moustache?' The words are all familiar English words and they're arranged in a simple English sentence structure. I can then go on to frame two possible answers to that question, as follows:
(1) My brother has a moustache
(2) My brother does not have a moustache

Taking your approach, you might want to say that only one of those hypotheses can be correct.

How might we find out which one of them is correct? Could we look at my brother? Could we look at photographs of my brother? Could we ask people who have known my brother?

No, we can't do any of those things, because I don't have a brother (and never have had). Because I do not have a brother, the question is not about anybody. The grammatical construction makes it look as if the question is about 'my brother', but since I have no brother, for the purposes of any empirical enquiry (and history is an empirical subject) the question is not about anybody.

So that's the problem with your approach. Any statement of a historical question, a historical hypothesis, or a historical topic, must be have a subject, and it has to be a subject whose actual existence is, if not an absolute certainty, something which is taken to be established for the purposes of the enquiry. Historians who agree that there was once a river which matched the descriptions in the Vedas can have a meaningful discussion about when it stopped flowing, why, what the consequences were, and so on. For historians who hold there never was such a river, those specific questions are meaningless.

In a similar way, historians who agree that a man once lived who whose life story matched the descriptions given in Acts (specifically, the stories attached there to the name of 'Paul') can meaningfully discuss what part, if any, of the epistles traditionally attributed to 'Paul' he actually wrote. For historians who hold that there never was a man whose life matched those stories, questions about what he might have written are meaningless.

mountainman

That's what I mean ... JRR Tolkien "was a real person". A series of other independent corroborative evidence also strongly supports that this is the name of a real person. Our working postulate is that JRR Tolkien was a real person.


Hence my insistance that one of the more foundational hypotheses for an investigator is the question of historical existence - in the above case of the person described as "brother" in your statement.

It may therefore be clearly seen that some historians are running with a working hypothesis that there once existed an historical Sarasvati river, whereas other historians are running with the antithetical hypothesis that there was not, and the river is ahistorical.


Again it may therefore be clearly seen that some historians are running with a working hypothesis that there once existed an historical "Apostle Paul", whereas other historians are running with the antithetical hypothesis that there was not, and the "Apostle Paul" is ahistorical.



However each set of historians still have to address common sets of questions and explain common sets of evidence by using their respective working hypotheses. The questions do not become meaningless, they are simply treated in a different fashion by each set of investigators according to their respective hypotheses. Some of these questions were already dealt with in your discussion with Doug. Where the hypothesis that Paul was not a real person is selected to be run with, the question must be answered ............... "If "Paul" was ahistorical and did not author the Pauline Letters, then who did?". These are not necessarily meaningless questions because, after all, until the entire investigation is resolved, we still dont know which hypothesis is the correct one.