J-D

Earlier I was making the point that there is more than one possible reason why somebody might make an attribution of the authorship of a document by name (in this case, 'Paul'). I gather that you are suggesting that, in the case of the documents under discussion, the most probable reason for attributing their authorship to a 'Paul' is that, in the context in which the attribution was made, there was a well-known 'Paul' whose name would be taken as adding weight to any document attributed to his authorship.

Is that what you are saying? If so, then I have not yet seen you give a reason why you think this explanation more probable than any alternatives.

J-D

On the contrary. No investigator can start from any of those options as you have worded them, since as you have worded them they are gibberish.

However, even if some similar wording were produced which made actual sense, it would still not be necessary for an investigator to begin by postulating any of them, and it's certainly not how I would begin. Your approach, as I mentioned before, appears to consist of the investigator beginning by deciding what the main answer to the main question of the investigation will be. That is not only not necessary, but plainly the wrong way to proceed. As I said before, it is possible to arrive at a conclusion without starting out by assuming it, even if this approach lies beyond the scope of your personal abilities.

mountainman

All these are supposed to represent possible postulates with varying strength of certitude. The 0% option does not equate to uncertainty but to a valid opinion on the relic in the form of a statement saying that we can cannot say that the evidence is either genuine or fabricated.


The two descriptions are antithetical.



The meanings are antithetical, and cannot be the same. The positive series consists of statements about the evidence being genuine and authentic. The negative series consists of statements about the evidence being fabricated and inauthentic. The zero statement separates the two series of antithetical claims, statements - in this case postulates.



You seem to be missing the point that the purpose of the series here is to make a simple list all the possible postulates people can make about the authenticity and genuine nature of the historical existence of Paul (as an exmple).

The premise is either Paul is historical or Paul is fabricated. The list is labelled mutually exclusive. Thus you are permitted to select one and one only postulate between +100 and -100 including the 0 postulate. You cannot explore two postulates concurrently. The idea is that you lock in the postulate that best represents what you think the evindence best represents, and then move on down the list of evidence items - and there may be hundreds. Once the postulates are set, the POSTULATES about the evidence is input into the "Theory Generator" and conclusions are the output.

Note that this does not mean the same process cannot be repeated again and again and again in which different values are selected for "Paul", but only one value can be selected at once.

Another comment on ...
The item is either genuine or fabricated, and we are ready to start testing hypotheses. If we only had the one scale with the positive authenticity being gauged, then anyone who has found, or suspects forgery and fabrication in the evidence, at worst, can only say "There is zero percent authenticity in this evidence."

The negative scale permits the antithetical statements "Not only is this evidence NOT authentic, it has been fabricated". The evidence must be represented by statements. A listing of all possible statements must include the antitheses of those statements, and therefore there will always be this +/- mirror which can be read as probability as you portray above.

mountainman

There is a cut down version:


Antithetical Historicity POSTULATES about "Paul"

+1 Paul is likely an authentic and genuine historical character

0 Unable to tell whether Paul is either authentic or fabricated.

-1 Paul is likely an inauthentic and fabricated historical character

mountainman

After dealing with some responses in this thread I am not so sure the process can be best described as thinking. Those who deal with dogma for example are often hostile to the examination and discussion of postulates that are antithetical to their own.

mountainman

aa5874 and J-D both appear to have identified a logical error in the statement of your postulates (and perhaps about infering things from the evidence), and I was just pointing out that it may not necessary be the case. But please feel free to disagree ....

Toto

We're up to multiple pages on this thread, but you haven't identified any different postulates as most of us define the term. What you label "postulates" are more like conclusions. And there is no indication of how people who start from these different positions would have anything to say to each other.

J-D

Somebody wrote Philippians. Whoever wrote it, and whenever it was written, the text claims both that the author was a Pharisee and that Jesus Christ is Lord and every knee should bow at his name.

If it is correct to say that no Pharisee would ever claim that Jesus Christ is Lord and every knee should bow at his name, then that would provide grounds for concluding that the author of Philippians was not a Pharisee and that the assertion to the contrary in the text is a falsehood. But that by itself doesn't tell us anything about when Philippians was written or what the author's name was.

J-D

I did not say that Doug Shaver's conclusion was wrong. I have expressed no view about Doug Shaver's conclusion. I said that the reasoning Doug Shaver gave in support of that conclusion was faulty. I have expressed no view about whether there is some other line of reasoning which does support that conclusion.

As for the reasoning you present in the present post, you have given no grounds to accept the conclusion that Romans and Galatians (for example) were written by the same person, and you have given no grounds to accept the conclusion that the Tertius referred to in Romans and the Paul referred to in Romans were two different people.

aa5874

J-D has CONCLUDED, not postulated, that Doug Shaver's CONCLUSION is logically FLAWED or based on FAULTY reasoning.