Ben C Smith

I agree to some extent with this argument, based on probability. Perhaps I was not very clear. What I disagree with is your inconsistency: You claim to be ignoring the nonextant texts, but you are actually predicting their contents.

Ben.

gstafleu

I'm starting to see what you mean, although I don't think I agree. I think it must be possible to form a hypothesis without referring to nonextant texts. True, if the hypothesis holds that would have consequences for what one would expect to find in the non-extant texts once they came to light. I just doesn't think that this counts as a reference to those texts, while you do (I think it counts as a reference to the nonextant texts once they come to light, a subtle difference).

I suspect we are getting into philosophical theory here. Compare my possible answer to "Does a tree make a noise if it falls while nobody is there to hear it." My "official" answer would be: that is indeterminate, I'll start to worry about it once the question of the yes/no noise impacts something observable. I think that this is called "operationalism" in philosophy, which seems to be related to "verificationism." That would make sense, as what I'm after is saying that only hypotheses that can be verified (by existing evidence) count.

Gerard

Ben C Smith

Not only do I agree with that, but I also gave examples of it.

My answer, on the other hand, is: Of course it makes a noise. That I cannot hear it makes no difference at all. One may as well wonder whether human speech makes a noise if there is a deaf person in the room.

Ben.

Roger Pearse

I'm afraid that I don't recognise my post in your editing. Bye.

Roger Pearse

gstafleu

I'm not sure if this is a BC&H issue, but the question is not whether you or I can hear it, but whether the event has any observable effects. If it has none, what is its relevance? If something has no observable effects, like documents that never come to light, are never referred to by other documents etc, then what can we possible say about the event. Well, we can say that it happened by definition (Of course...), but that is about it. There is quite literally nothing we can do with it. The moment we actually can observe something about it is also the moment it is no longer alone and unobserved. But this is probably something more for the philosophy forum. They can go on about things like that forever! (Not that we would ever carry on about anything forever and a day of course...)

Gerard

Ben C Smith

Too philosophical for me. Sorry.

Thanks for the exchange.

Ben.

aa5874

Your argument is still fatally flawed. Let's deal with the evidence that exist. The evidence does not ONLY claim Jesus was crucified.

The evidence that exist now show that Jesus was the offspring of the Holy Ghost and had no earthly father as witnessed by his mother Mary.

The evidence that exist now show that Jesus was transfigured as witnessed by Peter, James and John.

The evidence that exist today show that Jesus was raised from the dead and ascended to heaven as witnessed by the disciples.

The evidence that exists clearly indicate and witnessed that Jesus was a God.

spamandham

IMHO, the very existence of these documents against the odds of time strongly implies a biasing mechanism. They were only preserved because they have remained cherished over the entire ~2000 year span.

spamandham

Ok. Thanks for looking into it!

Doug Shaver

If it seemed to you that I was distorting your position, then I apologize. The remainder of your post did not look to me like a qualification. It looked to me like an illustration.

I am not about to deny that chance played a significant role in determining which ancient documents survived long enough for us to have become aware in our own time of their existence. But I believe custodial decisions were also significant and must be taken into account when we assess the likelihood that certain documents might have existed at one time.

With rare exceptions involving fortuitous storage in a nondestructive environment and fortuitous rediscovery in modern times, no ancient document survived unless it was copied many times over a span of many centuries. For a significant portion of that span, lasting for most of a millennium, the only institution in the Western world that was doing any copying was the church. To consider the effect this had on what survived, there is no need for me or anyone else to accuse the church of intentional supression, much less destruction, of any documents. It need only be noted that nothing would have been copied unless somebody in a position of authority believed that the document was worth preserving for whatever reasons seemed compelling to them.

And so it was not entirely random. There was a kind of triage going on. Documents that were valuable in the church's estimation got copied. Documents that were not so valuable in the church's estimation did not get copied, or at least not often enough to avoid extinction. Chance plays a big role in biological evolution, too, but that doesn't mean survival of the fittest never happens.

It is therefore reasonable to suppose that certain classes of documents would have had more or less than the background random probability of surviving. It is not solely by chance that some of the oldest ancient documents that still survive are those of the Christian canon. Nor is it solely by chance that we have nothing written by any of the early adversaries of what became orthodox Christianity. If somebody else had won the doctrinal wars, the historical paper trail would look rather different than it does now.

This all has a bearing on arguments from silence. It provides reason to believe that certain documents, if they had existed, probably would have survived despite the odds because the church would have been highly motivated to preserve them. It is also a counterargument to those who claim that if certain opinions had been expressed by the church's adversaries, we would know about them. We would not necessarily know, because by its own lights the church would have had no reason to think that the documents recording those opinions were worth preserving.