mountainman

These are Toto's, and also perhaps Doug's, postulates, so I cant answer that question.

mountainman

These are Toto's and/or Doug's postulates and I also agree - that if they are stated in such a manner - especially with (3) being explicit, then all is in order for these to be INPUT into the "Black Box of the Theory Generator" (see schematic above) and corresponding theoretical conclusions will result.

Ditto for any other set of postulates about Pauline letters ....

aa5874

As you say, postulates are not proof nor evidence.

One can postulate (make assumptions) about any matter to be discussed once it is understood that the postulate ( the assumption) itself does not resolve the matter.

The postulate (assumption) that Paul wrote letters do not determine that Paul actually or probably wrote letters or existed as postulated (assumed) in the discussion.

Doug Shaver

Are you trying to change the subject? That has nothing to do with anything I have said.

Doug Shaver

I do not regard them as postulates.

tanya

What are they, then, Doug?, quacks like a duck.....

J-D

So which are your postulates, and which alternatives are you using for your comparative evaluation?

mountainman

As summarised in the schematic I am looking at this in general and am therefore open to all possible postulates and thus conclusions which can be drawn from an examination of the evidence. I am not discussing any one theory or its postulates, I am examining the process itself.

After some years of research it occurs to me that despite the diversity of all modern theories, with few exceptions, are coming up with the same (sometimes dogmatic ) theoretical conclusions C1, C2, C3 .... etc

When we look at these conclusion they are of the general form, in very simple terms, like this:

C1: Jesus was an important historical figure and religious leader.
C2: The originating century of christian origins was the 1st century.

another series of conclusions might read ....

C1: Jesus was an embellished historical figure, and cant be reconstructed.
C2: christian origins covers the 1st and 2nd century.

another series might read ...

C1: Jesus was not an historical figure, legends have been embellished.
C2: The originating century of christian origins was the 2nd century.

These three sample conclusions are simplifications of course, but the point is that they represent the bulk of all theories on the matter.


WHAT-IF

To what extent are these conclusions reflective of the postulates? Some but not all of the theorists are explicit and deal with the postulated related to their conclusion. The explicit postulate to the theoretical conclusions above would be for the first two "It is reasonable to assume that Jesus was an historical figure", while for the last one the hypothesis would have to be the antithesis of this. Namely "It is reasonable to assume that Jesus was not an historical figure".

Therefore it appears to me that the entire field can be summarised by taking as postulates the answers to the following two questions ...

(1) Are we to assume that Jesus was an historical figure?

YES implies that "Jesus was historical" becomes our postulate.
NO implies that "Jesus was not historical" becomes our postulate.

(2) In which century did Christianity originate?

Pick a box: 1st century, 1st and 2nd centuries, 2nd century, etc

This simulates the conclusions of all theories in the field.

Does it therefore follow that every theory in the field must in some manner either explicitly or implicitly follow the above simple process? It seems to me that every theory in the field are each making theoretical conclusions that are reflected entirely by their postulates.

mountainman

In fact it is a necessary requirement that one must postulate (make assumptions) about any one item of evidence no matter how small or large because the evidence itself is never entirely self-explanatory (especially within this field dealing with the history of christian origins), and with a known chronology.

The postulates selected or crafted are therefore of critical importance to the whole business of doing history.

mountainman

Updated schematic showing as separated ...

* postulates to be associated with each of the items of evidence and
* general postulates.