J-D

No, we don't.

mountainman

[The Indian Vedas are documents and ramble on about the Sarasvati River as a flowing river. They represent provisional independent evidence that a great river called the Sarasvati once flowed southwest from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean. For many centuries this river was considered non existent because it no longer flowed, however recent satellite geographical analyses have established that the river bed of what was once the Sarasvati is clearly discernible. Subsequent archaeological digs etc have confirmed this.


The documents and the people are separate and distinct items constituting history that are related by the fact that the latter authored and manufactured the former in history.

The evidence for the existence of a person who authored a document is provisionally assumed. Whether that person is identifiable by name, whether that name can be associated to a known historical identity, and whether that known historical identity is still alive are additional questions related to the historical identity of the author, which itself is evidenced in the existence of the document.


Books authored by Arnold Toynbee furnish evidence towards the historical existence of Arnold Toynbee. As a separate issue the bones and cadaver of Arnold Toynbee perhaps resting near Wimbledon, London, might be identified by further evidence from the field traditions of ancient history.

There is evidence for the historical existence of "Paul" as the name associated with the authorship of the mss known as the "Pauline Letters". We have no bones, and no original mss. The evidence for the existence of a person who authored the Pauline Letters may be provisionally assumed.

Whether that person is identifiable by name as "Paul" in other sources and evidence, whether that name can be associated to a known historical identity, are additional questions about the historical identity who authored the mss before us.

mountainman

Yes one does because one is quite entitled to examine the historical existence of the author of a manuscript as a separate question. For example you write above:

This same statement can be made regarding the historical existence of "Paul" as a separate question of investigation. Therefore at this stage one needs to separate the hypotheses about the manuscript and the author, if one wishes to focus on the historical existence of the (person) author.

When examining all the evidence for the existence of "Paul" one gathers up evidence in which "Paul" as a person is mentioned, and this might include inscriptions and mss. When examining all the evidence for the existence of the "Pauline Letters" one gathers up evidence in which the "Pauline Letters" as a manuscript is mentioned. These two sets of evidence are not the same.

mountainman

WIKI on PAUL describes a possible historical identity


WIKI on the Pauline Letters describes a set of manuscripts.

It is clear that these are two separate items.
While they are related, they are not the same.
Separate hypotheses must be made for each.
especially if one is examining only one at once.


Hypotheses about the historical identity of "Paul the Apostle"

If you are unsure of what I mean by "historical identity"
the schematic at post # 298 above may clarify.

N/A

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

SAMPLE HYPOTHESIS (1): "Paul the Apostle was a genuine and authentic historical identity
SAMPLE HYPOTHESIS (2): "Paul the Apostle 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?

N/A

J-D

Correct. The surviving documents are pieces of evidence. The satellite images are also pieces of evidence. Some take them as constituting sufficient evidence that the Sarasvati river once existed. But whether or not that is so, the Sarasvati river does not now exist and is not now a piece of evidence.The documents and the people were separate items. The people (except if we're talking about recent history) are not anything any more.Assumptions are not evidence. Surviving documents are evidence. If X is a piece of evidence that Y once existed, that does not make Y into a piece of evidence.Bones, if they still exist, can be evidence. I don't know whether anything remains of Toynbee's bones, but if anything does, it may be evidence. My point is that only things which have survived the passage of time are evidence. They may be evidence that other things once existed, although they no longer do so: that does not make those things which no longer exist into evidence. They are not.Assumptions are not evidence. Things which no longer exist are not evidence. Bones which no longer exist are not evidence. Documents which no longer exist are not evidence. Documents which still exist are evidence.

Having collected evidence, we still have the question: what is it evidence for? If X is evidence for Y, X and Y may be (or have been) two separate things, but that is not the same as saying that X and Y are two separate pieces of evidence.The surviving documents are evidence. They may tell us much or little about whoever authored them. Authors are not, of course, the same things as documents. The author of a document is distinct from the document itself. But that does not mean that the author is a distinct piece of evidence, because, unless the author still survives, the author is not a piece of evidence at all.

J-D

You may wish to consider a different question instead of, or in addition to, the question Doug Shaver and I were discussing (although on the evidence of your past record I doubt your ability to formulate any such question with sufficient clarity). But if the questions are different, then it's only to be expected that discussion of your question might have different requirements from discussion of our question. If you want to do something different, that does not show that our discussion was vitiated by error.Not necessarily. The parallel is not sufficiently exact.We can't tell whether it is a separate question until the question has been specified with sufficient clarity: which so far it hasn't.No: such an approach is clearly misconceived. There are many manuscripts and inscriptions in which the name 'Paul' appears; they are not all talking about the same Paul, and so they are not all evidence for the existence of the same Paul. The problem arises because you have not formulated your question with sufficient clarity.That is unnecessary. Secondary evidence is not required to establish the existence of an object when the object itself exists. Other documents which refer to the epistles may be valuable evidence for investigating other questions about the epistles, but are not required to establish the bare fact of their existence.

J-D

The statements of the two hypotheses are not formulated with sufficient clarity for the question to be investigated properly.

tanya

Thank you J-D. I know that my own submissions to the forum often fall into this category of "insufficient clarity".

I appreciate your dialogue with Mountainman. Both sides of the discussion have offered instructive suggestions, and this thread, as a whole, has been beneficial, from my point of view.

mountainman

The OP relates to hypotheses in the field of ancient history, not the present moment. The ancient historian is entitled to make hypotheses on the basis of not what is now, but was then. The fact that the Sarasvati River no longer flows is irrelevant to its historical investigation.






Except that we are talking about ancient history, and we are examining in ancient history the separate items of the documents and the people.






It makes Y into a piece of evidence that may have existed in history. We are examining history, not the present.




You failed to address the first statement: books authored by Arnold Toynbee furnish evidence towards the historical existence of Arnold Toynbee. The author may not exist, but if his books exist then, for the purpose of ancient historical research, these books are evidence towards the historical existence of the author.



This is what I have been saying.




Yes it does.



The discussion is about ancient history. The present survival of the author is immaterial to the question of the author's historical activity being examined. History is not necessarily about people who still survive, its about people who once survived.

mountainman

Then perhaps you might suggest how they might be formulated with a greater degree of clarity.