mountainman

When the evidence looks suspicious, an investigator makes hypotheses. Such as WHAT-IF we are dealing with forgery? I see this as equivalent to formulating postulates that allow for forgery when the evidence warrants it.

For some fascinating data and assessments of genuineness and fraud from the 19th century relating to the possible forgery of Codex Sinaiticus have a look through the thread Is Codex Sinaiticus a Forgery After All?

aa5874

Again, one can postulate (make assumptions) about any matter once it is understood that the postulate itself is NOT evidence or proof.

For example, one can postulate that a character called PAUL did or did NOT write letters as stated in the NT.

1. If PAUL wrote letters and was ALL over the Roman Empire in Major Cities Preaching that a resurrected Jewish Man had a name above every other name and that the resurrected Jewish man was the END of JEWISH LAW Before the Fall of the Temple what influence would we expect to see in the writings of apologetic and non-apologetic sources of antiquity?

2. If Paul did NOT write letters and did NOT preach about a resurrected Jewish Man Before the Fall of the Temple what would we expect to see in the writings of apologetic and non-apologetc sources of antiquity?

Postulates (assumptions) can be employed about any matter under discusion once it is understood that the postulate itself is NOT the evidence or the proof.

Other data must be used in conjunction with postulates in order to come some reasonable conclusion.

mountainman

And in fact postulates MUST be employed about any matter of evidence because the evidence itself does not formulate statements about itself.

Every item of evidence will have with associated with it a different series of explicit postulates, and all of these postulates about any item in all of the evidence are in theory present inside the "Black Box" of the theory generator. The other data used in conjection with postulates in order to arrive at some reasonable theoretical conclusions, are other postulates associated with other evidence, and perhaps other general postulates.

mountainman

There may still be a few adjustments required to the verbal statements in the above. The positive values perhaps need an additional statement inserted at the opening of the statement that "The relic is not fabricated, and ...." while the negative values perhaps need the additional statement that "The relic is not genuine and authentic, and ...."


Adding values to the possibilities available to postulate

The important point is that the range presented above is a range of possibilities to which only ONE and ONE alone may be selected or used or postulated. They are mutually exclusive. Hence the assertion from Toto that this arrangement adds nothing is false - because the arrangement actually provides for additional information to be stated as possible against each and every item of evidence to be considered by the investigator, and these may be hundreds of items.

Under the default generally accepted arrangement of positive values ONLY, it is clear to see that the negative series of postulates above must all find their home in the postulate labelled 0% - that the relic is not found to be genuine and authentic. This prior arrangement of positive only is thus essentially less informative, and can be quite misleading, as we have already seen in the attempts to infer positive historicity from positive postulates while ignoring negative possibilities.

Doug Shaver

You did present an argument for the conclusion that the evidence is consistent with Paul's nonexistence. The conclusion for which I was arguing was not that Paul certainly existed. My conclusion was that he probably existed. You cannot refute that with an argument to the conclusion that it was possible he did not.

aa5874

J-D pointed out that you arrived at your conclusion through FLAWED reasoning.

Letters with names attached only signify that the named author MIGHT or MIGHT NOT have written the letters and MIGHT or MIGHT NOT have existed.

It has already been shown to you that an epistle to the Romans attributed to Paul is claimed to have been written by TERTIUS.

Romans 16:22 - Now, please review your FLAWED logic.

mountainman

The references in the above to "conclusions" is equally valid to "postulates" and when we understand that different people are using different postulates then there is really no LOGICAL errors.


For example, is the following a fair summary?



(Mutually exclusive) Positive and Negative Historicity POSTULATES about "Paul"

100% Paul is an authentic and genuine historical character - can be reconstructed as such 100%
95% Paul is an authentic and genuine historical character - can be reconstructed as such 95%
75% Paul is an authentic and genuine historical character - can be reconstructed as such 75%
55% Paul is an authentic and genuine historical character - can be reconstructed as such 55%
50% Paul is an authentic and genuine historical character - can be reconstructed as such 50%.
45% Paul is an authentic and genuine historical character - can be reconstructed as such 45%
25% Paul is an authentic and genuine historical character - can be reconstructed 2as such 5% <<===== Doug & Toto
5% Paul is an authentic and genuine historical character - can be reconstructed as such 5%

0% Unable to tell whether Paul is either authentic or fabricated. <<=========== J-D

- 5% Paul is an inauthentic and fabricated historical character - can be reconstructed as such 5%
-25% Paul is an inauthentic and fabricated historical character - can be reconstructed as such 25%
-45% Paul is an inauthentic and fabricated historical character - can be reconstructed as such 45%
-50% Paul is an inauthentic and fabricated historical character - can be reconstructed as such 50%
-55% Paul is an inauthentic and fabricated historical character - can be reconstructed as such 55% <<==== aa5874
-75% Paul is an inauthentic and fabricated historical character - can be reconstructed as such 75%
-95% Paul is an inauthentic and fabricated historical character - can be reconstructed as such 95%
-100% Paul is an inauthentic and fabricated historical character - can be reconstructed as such 100%


All investigators must start somewhere from one of these options ....

All investigators are quite capable of make postulatory hypothetical statements about the evidence as not only being true, but also about it being false. All claims can be accepted, but so can their antithetical claims. The HJ postulate and the "Historically authentic Paul" postulate have been ultimately derived from the Jesus of the Faith. With the Jesus of the Faith, there was no room for the antithetical claims to be considered. I hope we have moved on somewhat.

aa5874

Doug Shaver disagrees with you.

Doug Shaver is NOT postulating but has CONCLUDED that Paul PROBABLY existed based on the fact that there are letters with the name Paul.

J-D has CONCLUDED, not postulated, that Doug Shaver's CONCLUSION is logically FLAWED.

I have shown that an epistle attributed to Paul is ACTUALLY claimed to have been written by TERTIUS in Romans 16.22.

Now, let me POSTULATE for a second.

If the epistle to the Romans is regarded as authentic and was actually WRITTEN by TERTIUS then all the so-called "authentic" epistles were WRITTEN by TERTIUS and NOT by Paul.

TERTIUS might have been the author of all the so-called authentic Pauline writings so it is not necessary for "Paul" to have existed.

mountainman

Actually I think the term that Doug and Toto used was INFER from the evidence.

Hopefully above it has been demonstrated that the evidence does not speak, and that we have to formulate postulates about the evidence, and it is from these postulatory statements that we are then free to INFER.

It has been demonstated above that the postulates of Toto representing Doug do not admit the possibility that "Paul" was fictional or ahistorical. It is therefore no wonder that the "conclusion" that "Paul" was probably historical can be "infered" from such postulates.

That Jesus or "Paul" was either historical or ahistorical is a postulate or a hypothesis.
At a most fundamental level we need to see our fundamental postulates exposed in clarity.
There is no harm in defending and exploring either avenue, but we need to be upfront.
There should be no reason to deny that the statement "Paul" was probably historical"
(or any variant thereof) is a postulate or a hypothesis about evidence.

It is NOT the evidence.

Are there any objections with this reasoning? The earlier quote from Carrier bears repeating:

mountainman

To Toto, Doug, aa5874 and J-D,

In the range of statements below about the letters of Paul and the examination of the nature of Paul, I have placed using an arrow <<===== where I think your preferred postulates may be located, but this is a guess only. I would be happy to be corrected if my guess is far from the mark of where you yourselves assess your position to be. Thanks,


Pete