mountainman

You have already stated that you understand the quote that I presented earlier by Richard Carrier. Do you think that the following paraphrase of that quote is valid:

Investigator X frequently argues that historians need to explain the evidence of "Paul". But in a Bayesian equation, the evidence is not "Paul", but the production of a story about "Paul". That there was an actual "Paul" is only a theory (a hypothesis, i.e. h) to explain the production of the story (which is an element of e). But this theory must be compared with other possible explanations of why that story came to exist (= ~h, or = h2, h3, etc.), and these must be compared on a total examination of the evidence (all elements of e, in conjunction with b and the resulting prior probabilities).

Hence a common mistake is to confuse actual hypotheses about the evidence, with the actual evidence itself (which should be tangible physical facts, i.e. actual surviving artifacts, documents, etc., and straightforward generalizations therefrom).

I wrote "drawn together" .... in order to make comparisons etc.

But this theory (also termed HYPOTHESIS) must be compared with other possible explanations of why that story came to exist (= ~h, or = h2, h3, etc.), and these must be compared on a total examination of the evidence (all elements of e, in conjunction with b and the resulting prior probabilities).

Scotsguy44

Having read and followed this thread through I can but add my consideration that it is truly 'much ado about nothing'.

Thanks
Matt

Toto

Stop there. You are not paraphrasing Carrier's quote. You do not have an example of an investigator who feels the need to explain the evidence of Paul, and claims that a historical Paul is the only possible explanation. If you do, please provide a citation.

And the evidence for Paul is not a story about Paul, but writings that come from Paul. Someone wrote them, and a historical Paul is one possibility - but then you are back to my original statement.

J-D

Whether the name refers to anybody independently of the letters is part of the question. To give any meaning to the name beyond the fact of its use for an authorial attribution in the letters is to begin defining part of a possible answer to the question and therefore goes beyond defining the meaning of the question.

If somebody finds an object with a name written on it, it is meaningful to ask why that name is written on that object, and a definition of who the name refers to is not a prerequisite to defining the meaning of the question.

mountainman

Yes I am.



Carrier's general thesis is not just about any specific bit of evidence any INVESTIGATOR feels inclined to trot out onto the boardwalk, such as the specific example Carrier uses, in which the investigator is William Lane Craig and the evidence he is taking for a walk is the discovery of an empty tomb. He says one example will suffice.

It is meant to be applied to all the items of evidence I have introduced here as E1, E2, E3, ... En both in text and schematic.




With respect to the Bayesian equation, the evidence for an historical (or otherwise) Paul E1, who MAY be later associated by authorship to the Pauline epistles, is a separate item of evidence than these pauline epistles E2. It should be obvious that E1 and E2 are separate and distinct elements of (what Carrier calls e - the evidence set). YES they may be highly related, however they are separate and distinct items and separate and distinct hypotheses need to be produced for each.

According to what Carrier writes, in a Bayesian equation, the evidence is not "the Pauline Epistles", but the production of a hypothesis or hypotheses (P1, P2, P3, ..., Pn) about "the Pauline Epistles".

Similarly it is not the evidence "Paul" that is directly represented in theorizing, but the production of a hypothesis or hypotheses about "Paul".

The two elements E1 "Paul" and E2 "The Pauline Letters" are separately represented within the Bayesian process, each by one or more hypotheses (i.e. simple statements).



At post # 262 you will note that a historical Paul is listed as one sample hypothesis, but there are other hypotheses also to be considered. Which of the sample hypotheses is to be preferred?


You did not reply to my question about the difference between implicit and explicit assumptions.


ALSO, you will note that in the following (REVISED) schematic, the evidence does not get INPUT into the theorizing process directly. The only thing that is INPUT into the theorizing process are our own hypotheses. This is precisely what Carrier is writing about.



The original diagram ALSO had an arrow from the box marked evidence directly connected to the "Theory Generator" but this is not the way it works. The evidence is not present in our theorizing, but is represented exclusively by hypotheses about the evidence.

mountainman

Thanks Matt. Do you mind if I ask why you think it is truly 'much ado about nothing'?

J-D

Carrier says (and you quoted this yourself):The empty tomb in question is not evidence, because it is not an actual surviving artifact--or, to be precise, not one which can now be uncontroversially identified and inspected (although no doubt there can be found in the world today various empty tombs, and in a relevant investigation any empty tomb which physically exists now would be a piece of evidence). The stories about the discovery of the empty tomb are pieces of evidence, because they are (parts of) actual surviving documents.

The documents widely known as 'the Pauline epistles' are actual surviving documents which investigators can now inspect, and therefore, by Carrier's stated standard, count as pieces of evidence.That was clearly not meant by Carrier, who would surely have referred to your text and schematic if that were his intention.Your definition of 'E2' as 'the Pauline epistles' identifies them clearly as actual existing documents, and thus as evidence in Carrier's sense. Your definition of E1 as 'the evidence of a historical (or otherwise) Paul' does not clearly identify any particular actual existing artifacts, documents, or the like, and so does not refer to any identifiable evidence in Carrier's sense.You have not yet clearly defined your E1 as being any items at all.Wrong. Carrier specifically refers to the fallacy he is discussing as that of confusing theories with evidence, and in discussing it he uses 'hypothesis' and 'theory' as synonyms. A theory/hypothesis is not evidence. In the specific case he referred to, he did not say that the evidence was the hypothesis about the discovery of an empty tomb, he said that the evidence was the story about the discovery of an empty tomb. What makes that story evidence, as Carrier defines it, is that is (part of) actual existing documents. The texts which record the discovery of an empty tomb are, as Carrier says, evidence, for which an explanatory hypothesis or theory may be sought or advanced. 'People discovered an empty tomb' is one such explanatory hypothesis/theory, or part of one. In the same way, the texts known as 'the Pauline epistles' are evidence, for which an explanatory hypothesis or theory may be sought or advanced. 'A man named Paul wrote the Pauline epistles' is one such explanatory hypothesis/theory, or part of one.

William Lane Craig says, wrongly, that any hypothesis/theory has to explain the discovery of the empty tomb. Carrier responds, correctly, that all that is required is to explain the existence of stories about the discovery of the empty tomb. He does not say that it is unnecessary to explain the existence of those stories, because the stories do exist.

It would be wrong to say that any hypothesis/theory has to explain why Paul wrote the Pauline epistles. It would also be wrong to say that it is unnecessary to explain the existence of those epistles, because they do exist.Actually existing people called 'Paul' (like Paul Macartney, Paul Krugman, and Ron Paul) may be pieces of evidence in relevant investigations. By itself, without further explanation, the name 'Paul' does not identify any particular piece of evidence.Before it's meaningful to discuss which hypothesis is to be preferred, you need to establish (as you have so far failed to do) which question it is that is being investigated or which evidence it is for which an explanation is being sought.No, that is not what Carrier says. He says that we should not confuse hypotheses and evidence. He does not say that we should not use evidence as input.

Toto

Carrier is discussing the confusion between explaining evidence and explaining a story about evidence. This does not apply to every piece of evidence. Besides, William Lane Craig is not an investigator, and Carrier's point is that the discovery of the empty tomb is not evidence that needs to be explained.

I disagree. The evidence consists of the epistles.

False. This is the opposite of what Carrier says.
Incoherent

So?

Wrong. It might be confirmed by the discovery of new evidence.


ditto

Incoherent. This not a new hypothesis. It is a statement of the relative probability of the first two.

There must have been a reason why. I get tired of correcting your errors.

It is precisely not. It represents utter confusion. Watch out or Carrier will sue you for smearing him by associating him with your nonsense.

mountainman

Defining the elements of the question is not beyond defining the meaning of the question, and your question has two elements - the letters (in which the name Paul appears) and the name of Paul. The first element is essentially evidence in the form of manuscripts and their translations while the second element is essentially the evidence of an historical character who we shall refer to as Paul, who may or may not be the author of the texts.

The general scenario is that we find a series of texts that claim to have been written by person X. If this is a brand new scenario, if we have never heard about these texts or this person X, then we admit into historical analysis, theorizing and discourse, new evidence of the text collection T (or T1, T2, T3 etc) AND new evidence of an historical person X.



The original question was about two elements - WHAT (the Pauline Letters) and WHO (Paul). It is certainly meaningful to ask WHY a name has been written on the WHAT, and to ask other things about the WHAT. These questions are part of the iterative method by which hypotheses are forumulated and refined about the WHAT.

But when you have finished that half of the groundwork, in order to properly answer your question of two elements, you also need to do the same thing for the 2nd element WHO (the name of Paul). Julius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Josephus, Origen, Peter, Mark, Matthew, John, Pachomius are all names of people for whom a claim of existence has been made.

J-D

But this is not a case which involves the name independently from the letters. This is a case concerned with the name as it appears in the letters.

If you need a mechanism to make distinctions for the sake of clarity, all that is needed is question and answer.

Question: 'Which "Paul" are you talking about? Are you talking about Paul Macartney, or Paul Samuelson, or Ron Paul, or some other Paul, or what?'

Answer: 'I am talking about the name "Paul" as it is used in the attributions of authorship contained in these texts.'No. That is not the case. The name 'Paul' is not the same thing as any particular individual referred to by that name.If there is any other evidence of a historical person named X, it may be relevant to answering the question. But the question and its definition are the same whether there is any such other relevant evidence or not.No, it wasn't. The original question was about one thing: an attribution of authorship. That attribution is part of the evidence, because it's contained in an actually existing document (the 'WHAT', if you like). But there is no actually existing 'WHO' as part of the evidence.Not necessarily. That depends on how we answer the original question, which you have not yet properly understood.

If, for example, somebody considers the original question about the reason the attribution of authorship was made and gives the answer 'for the original intended audience there was a person well-known by the name of "Paul" whose name would be taken as adding weight to any document attributed to his authorship', that might lead next to the question 'what else can we discover about the person to whom authorship was being attributed by the use of the name "Paul"?', or it might lead next to the question 'how much, if any, of the texts was in fact written by the person to whom authorship was being attributed by the name "Paul"?', or it might lead next to the question 'what did the original intended audience believe about the person whom they knew as "Paul", and why?'. But answering, investigating, or defining any of these questions is not a prerequisite to the definition, investigation, or answering of the original question.I fail to see the relevance of this remark.