Toto

Why should I reconsider? McCullagh is clearly discussing hypotheses, meaning theories or models which are tested against the evidence. He is not discussing axioms. If he were discussing axioms, there would be no point to testing them.

Do you seriously have trouble understanding normal English usage at this level?

J-D

I take it that McCullagh is not using the word 'hypothesis' in sense 2 (which is close to 'postulate') but in sense 1 (which is different from 'postulate').

Doug Shaver

That question has been asked and answered countless times in this forum. If you still have to ask it, you have been paying zero attention.

I don't know, because I do not understand the question.

I have no idea. To what do you think any answer could be relevant?

mountainman

Who claimed that? My claim is that he is discussing postulates, and that postulates and hypotheses are commonly equivalent terms.


Axioms are the formal name given to postulates in the fields of mathematics and geometry, and were mentioned above in a totally peripheral fashion for the sake of an introduction. The OP is about historical theories, and the claim is that such historical theories, and specifically various theories concerning the history of christian origins, employ a series of postulates (we may call them hypotheses following McCullagh if you feel more comfortable with this arrangement.




Both in the OP and in the diagram at post #1 as far as I can see we can replace the occurrence of "postulate" with the word "hypothesis" and it would not make any appreciable difference to me, because I see the terms as roughly equivalent.


You answered at post # 7 as follows:

This discloses that you are well aware of what I meant in the OP by postulates. What if the OP had stated instead of postulates, hypotheses? Would your response have been substantially different, and if so, how?



The fact of the matter and of this OP is that is precisely the point I am attempting to make. Historicists and mythicists may not in fact be starting with the same set of "givens" (which we may call postulates and/or hypotheses). The persuasion angle between the two parties can also be seen as the relinquishment or giving up of certain specific assumptions (postulates and/or hypotheses) held by the opposing party.

Some of the postulates for either party (the historicists and mythicists) are explicit, but most are implicit, and need to be illicited from the dialogue.

You concluded your initial comment in the OP by:

Theories dealing with the history of christian origins do not have adequate and satisfactory sources and evidence to deal with - we are all aware of this problem. In the ansence of clearly undisputed unambiguous ancient historical evidence with a reasonably non-suspicious provenance, all theoriests can do is to make hypothetical (postulatory) statements about each item of evidence. These postulates (or hypotheses) are derived and created from from the conceptual framework of the theorist.

In the non ideal reality the historical (or mythical) jesus, it may be argued, is essentially an historical hypothesis or postulate, because bare skeleton of the near-to-vacuum-of-evidence does not permit any precise historical analysis of his existence.

mountainman

Sense 1 is labelled (sciences). The OP is about history, which is able to draw upon the sciences, but which itself is a humanity. Sense 1 specifically relates to the sciences such as physics, chemistry, astonomy, etc, etc, etc.

McCullagh is specifically writing about the historical method, not the scientific method, and therefore I take it that he is using the word 'hypothesis' in sense 2, and which is close to postulate, and able to be summarised as

An assumption taken to be true for the purpose of argument or investigation

J-D

I explained to you above how they're not.

mountainman

I asked that question in order to clearly demonstrate that your inference that Paul was an historical character is not based on the evidence itself, but in fact based on certain assumptions (postulates) that you have illicited from how you perceive the evidence from your conceptual framework.



The diagram at post #1 shows a list of evidence E1, E2, E3, ... En. For the purposes of the OP we define this list of evidence as simply a register of items that need to be interpretted by ancient historians. For example one item of evidence E42 might be an inscription exhibited at the Adana museum, another item might be an Oxyrynchus provenanced papyri fragment exhibited at the Oxford museum.

Associated with each of these items are a sometimes rather large list of assumptions and postulates which in many cases are shared and agreed to among researchers in the field. Alternatively some postulates concerning these same items of evidence might not be part of the consensus, and might therefore rfepresent more unusual and non-standard postulates that various theorists are exploring.

My point is that the evidence items are one thing, but that their interpretation within the conceptual framework of the theoriests is something else, and this something else can be identified as postulates held about that evidence item. See the diagram at post #1




The greater the number of postulates made by any one theory in relation to the history of christian origins, the more precarious the position of the theorist becomes. When the order of magnitude of the postulates becomes very large then you get a dog's breakfast. By this I mean, who is going to sit down and try and understand and make sense of a huge, perhaps vast, series of explicit assumptions? I know the answer to that question = "Biblical Historians".

If we went through all the various theories of the history of christian origins are carefully made explicit all the implied postulates inherent in each position the task would be monumental, and difficult.


Reverse Engineered BC&H historical theories of christian origins

It was for this reason in earlier posts I alluded to a reverse engineering of all such theories.

By reverse engineering I mean taking the historicists primary conclusions and using them as postulates in a theory that Jesus was historical, and that all the action of christian origins happened in the first century as declared by the evidence items they intend to address.

Ditto, by taking the primary conclusions of the mythicists and using them as postulates in a revised theory that Jesus was not historical, and that all the action of christian origins took place in the second century, as declared by the evidence items they also intend to address.

Allowing for in between positions (eg: an HJ or MJ with action in both the 1st and 2nd centuries) these two postulates are sufficient to describe the conclusions of perhaps 99% of all historical theories of christian origins.

The theorists still has the obligation to address the evidence, but the underlying primary conclusion is instead simply treated as a postulate. How would these reverse engineered theories using the conclusions as postulates be in any way be different from the originals? Ostensibly they appear to remain much the same.


The purpose of the exercise was to simplify the processing of perhaps thousands of postulates (hypotheses if you prefer) -- (which might not be agreed to by all parties, and hence billions of combinations) -- just to get to a conclusion. By addressing the primary question of the existence of "Christian origins" at the postulate level, it appears to simplify the spectrum of positions that are continuous discussed here.

That is why I asked for an estimate of the number of postulates.

mountainman

Three possible conclusions of centuries of research

* 1 ... HJ in century one

* 2 ... HJ in century one and two

* 3 ... MJ in century two


Many centuries of academic scholarship made the assumption of concluding the truth of (1) until it was perceived that at least some of the action (e.g. new testament authorship) had to PERHAPS have taken place in the second century, and the position (2) was explored. More recently the (3) Mythicist position has been advanced.

These three possible conclusions are still entirely hypothetical (i.e. postulatory)

The HJ and the MJ are more hypothetical than "conclusions", and as such they may be viewed as postulates which have not been made explicit in the theories 1, 2 and 3 above.

J-D

As I pointed out to you above, 'hypothetical' and 'postulatory' are not equivalent. There's a crucial methodological difference.

mountainman

You have yet to respond to post #45.

To summarise it, McCullagh is specifically writing about the historical method, not the scientific method, and therefore I take it that he is using the word 'hypothesis' in sense 2, and which is close to postulate, and able to be summarised as

An assumption taken to be true for the purpose of argument or investigation