Toto

Please note the conjunction OR

I do not make that assumption. I list it as a possibility. Is there any dispute that one possibility is that the letters were written by Paul?

Another possibility is that someone wrote the letters under Paul's name.

Since we agree that the evidence are letters that state that they were written by Paul, I don't see how you can disagree with this.

How does this differ from what I wrote? One possibility is that someone wrote the letters as Paul (i.e., forged them.)

They are not assumed to be true. I have given two possibilities that I think are probable; under either possibility, Paul was a historical character.

OK - give me another inference that cold be drawn from other "postulates."

I will continue to argue that you don't understand what's going on here.

mountainman

Hey aa5874,

I think that if we were to characterize the HJ and MJ as two types of theories subscribed to by two types of theorists, then we might be able to easily distinguish the theories and the theorists on the basis of their holding to one of two postulates.

(1) The HJ: there was an historical jesus
(2) The MJ: there was not an historical jesus.

I think that your postulate might be the second.



Toto's inference is compatible with his formal statements about the evidence but he does not yet perceive that these formal statements are hypothetical and are being used as postulates, as being held to be true for the purpose of the inference.


I think that the most open approach is to deal with "Paul" in the same manner as "Jesus". If we were to characterize the HP (Historical Paul) and MP (Mythical Paul) then we might be able to distinguish the theories and the theorists on the basis of their holding to one of two postulates.

(1) The HP: there was an historical "Paul" (or even "It is likely that there was an HP")
(2) The MP: there was not an historical "Paul" (or even "It is likely that there was no HP")


Again I think that your postulate might be the second, rather than the first.

Note that I am not saying one is right or wrong, or that one is a more logical statement about the evidence of the "Pauline Letters" that the other. It is up to the theorists to formulate their own postulates - statements about the evidence which will be taken to be true for the sake of the (logical) exploration of the evidence.

Let me reiterate that the OP is examining the process described in the above diagram, of generating theoretical conclusions from a large series of postulates/hypotheses - statements that may be formulated to describe the evidence. The OP assumes that the generation of theories in ancient history concerning Christian origins uses deductive and inductive reasoning in order to make statements about the evidence (formulate postulates) and to compare postulates etc and to arrive at theoretical conclusions.

Thanks aa5874. You have here introduced the concept of chronological evidence, or evidence of chronology. I see this is most important. In addition to postulates formulated to deal with the "Pauline Letters" and the question of the historical existence of "Paul" there is also the critical matter of chronology. The "Pauline Letters" are, as everyone knows, undated.

As a direct result, it is mandatory to postulate the chronology, and there are a range of chronologies that have been hypothetically PUT FORWARD for the date of the authorship (or forgery) of these letters.

mountainman

A hypothetical example of an extreme case of one evidence item that might change an entire theoretical paradigm in theories addressing the history of christian origins would be if we found evidence of a securely dated Pauline Letter (or copy) from the 1st or 2nd century. By securely dated I mean a manuscript with a first century date written on it by the author, or a manuscript that yielded a C14 date in the first or second century. I do not mean Papyrus 46 for example, although it is common postulate of mainstream to admit, with suitable reservations, that palaeographically dated papyri fragments, while not securely dated, may be used to estimate a chronology.


The "Pauline Letters" have previously been characterized by their undatedness. The paradigm of dealing with unprovenanced and undated texts is well known to Biblical Scholars. New evidence may change that.

mountainman

No. That's one possibility.



See below.




When you write of the possibility that someone forged the letters of Paul above, you seem to treat Paul as an historical person. When I write of the possibility that "Paul" was forged, I do not necessarily assume that "Paul" was historical. I will allow as a possible postulate that "Paul" was just a fabricated name upon which to hang a host of epistles - that "Paul" may not have been a figure of history at all.



Everyone is entitled to phrase (and to reiteratively re-phrase) their own postulates about the evidence - they represent key and fundamental statements related to that evidence. The way you have stated them above leaves little room for the possibility that "Paul" wrote letters in the same manner that "Bilbo Baggins" wrote letters to Frodo and the Elves, etc. Under this possibility, "Paul" was not a historical character. The way you stated the two possibilities essentially contains an implicit assumption that "Paul" was not fabricated like "Bilbo Baggins" for example.

Toto

That is a third possibility -- that someone wrote letters and attributed them to a non-existent person. But then why would these letters have any sort of authority for Marcion or his critics?

There are still no postulates in evidence.

Sheshbazzar

Letters stating that Jebus was 'The Son of Gob' alone CANNOT determine that Jebus was probably known as 'The Son of Gob' in the 1st century before the Fall of the Temple.

Sheshbazzar

Or my view, that there was an original 'Paul', -Shaul a JEW-, who did write and preach about the subject of gentile circumcision long before christianity,
Whose scant writings were co-opted and wildly expanded and exploited by Johnny-come-lately christianity.
Shaul the JEW wouldn't recognize one-tenth of the content of these texts that 'he' wrote.

I'm waiting for the recovery of a 'Pauline writing' securely dated to the 1st century BC.






.

J-D

If you are treating those as postulates, what alternative postulates are you using for your comparative evaluation?

aa5874

Based on the definition of "postulate" your claim is in perfect order.

mountainman

All these possibilities are essentially possible postulates that people can make about one item of evidence - the pauline letters (nb: some people can examine each verse of these letters as separate items of evidence). There are obviously many more possibilities. Shesh adds one below.


The writings of Marcion form another separate item of evidence, where the process starts all over again, and one may claim various hypotheses from this evidence. The writings of Marcion's critics form another item of evidence, associated with which again, are a series of postulatory statement - either explicit or implicit.



This is another postulate that may be listed as being associated with the sample evidence item the pauline letters. Here if I understand Shesh correctly, the BCE letters of an historical Paul/Shaul were coopted, redacted and twisted beyond recognition at a relatively late epoch CE.

The mention of a securely dated manuscript is timely because it reminds us that the entire field of "Christian Origins" with few exceptions the texts are not securely dated at all. A further series of postulates that are specifically related to chronology will be found to be associated with all the various dating estimates for the pauline letters.

There is really no limit to the number of evidence-related postulates that can be made against the pauline letters (as just one example of an evidence item). If we were able to catalogue every postulatory statement that all researchers and commentators ever made about the pauline letters we would probably have a very large list of hypotheses.

Most certainly, only a very small number of these would be used by a large number of people, and overall there are various consenses of some of the postulates that might be routinely employed, and a scattering of more unique less explored postulates.

One object of this OP is to understand that when we are discussing each item of evidence (such as the pauline letters for example) we are really discussing and evaluating the merit of various postulates about the evidence, that we have thoughtfully formulated, and which represent, hopefully, a relatively accurate statement about the evidence.

Alternatively our postulates about the evidence items, in any one case or across the board, might be way off the mark.