Soul Invictus

This is for those that exhibit skills in the forms of research - I've noticed that the mods and a few regs here are pretty well read in their interests so I ask for your tips.

There are a few questions I have for beginning to exercise due diligence in the form of personal research, and was hoping to gain a few tools in scholarship. When choosing a field of focus to study on, how do you go about the following:

1) Accumulating (verifiable) sources
2) Ascertaing if source information is reliable/credible
3) Analyzing evidence
4) Comparing information from consenting/dissenting opinions to those in the respective field
5) Surmising the most plausible theory(ies)
6) What is your methodology?
7) How do you weigh the importance of sources (primary vs secondary)

I will try to think of a few more. I notice that my interests are voluminous in nature. A former professor of mine stressed the importance of having a focal study, and that there could be peripheral studies outside of that, vs having multiple studies of which I do not concentrate any of my resources to for any considerable time. I recognize that I would not proceed in any study in depth if I am constantly pouring into different arenas, in a haphazard manner.

If I've failed to consider something, don't hesitate to let me know.

Best regards,

Soul Invictus

Dean Anderson

Buy a Bible at your local Christian bookstore. Make sure it is a KJV because that is the only Inerrant one - all the others are Satanic copies with deliberate errors to mislead the gullible.

The Bible says it is credible and reliable and therefore it must be (except those Satanic deceptions, of course)

All other evidence agrees with the Bible. If any evidence disagrees with it then you must be interpreting that evidence wrongly.

Dissenting opinions are the work of Satan and the only possible reason to read them is in order to build arguments against them.

The theory - however complicated - that agrees with the Bible is the only plausible one. Other simpler theories are implausible because they rely on naturalistic presuppositions.

Liberal copy/pasting from answersingenesis.com

The Bible is primary and is of the utmost importance. Other sources (such as Eusebius, Josephus, etc.) are of secondary importance and should only be used when they support my position.



I'm just joking, right...? Please don't kill me...

Toto

If you're talking about research into Biblical subjects, you usually have to start by learning the language that the texts are written in. (This is what has stopped me.)

Otherwise, you are at the mercy of those scholars who do know the languages. All you can do is read widely in the scondary sources, and have some background idea of what history is, what the possible problems and biases are, etc.