Freethought & Rationalism Archive

J-D · 11-15-2011, 01:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

So which are your postulates, and which alternatives are you using for your comparative evaluation?

As summarised in the schematic I am looking at this in general and am therefore open to all possible postulates and thus conclusions which can be drawn from an examination of the evidence. I am not discussing any one theory or its postulates, I am examining the process itself.

After some years of research it occurs to me that despite the diversity of all modern theories, with few exceptions, are coming up with the same (sometimes dogmatic ) theoretical conclusions C1, C2, C3 .... etc

When we look at these conclusion they are of the general form, in very simple terms, like this:

C1: Jesus was an important historical figure and religious leader.
C2: The originating century of christian origins was the 1st century.

another series of conclusions might read ....

C1: Jesus was an embellished historical figure, and cant be reconstructed.
C2: christian origins covers the 1st and 2nd century.

another series might read ...

C1: Jesus was not an historical figure, legends have been embellished.
C2: The originating century of christian origins was the 2nd century.

These three sample conclusions are simplifications of course, but the point is that they represent the bulk of all theories on the matter.

WHAT-IF

To what extent are these conclusions reflective of the postulates? Some but not all of the theorists are explicit and deal with the postulated related to their conclusion. The explicit postulate to the theoretical conclusions above would be for the first two "It is reasonable to assume that Jesus was an historical figure", while for the last one the hypothesis would have to be the antithesis of this. Namely "It is reasonable to assume that Jesus was not an historical figure".

Therefore it appears to me that the entire field can be summarised by taking as postulates the answers to the following two questions ...

(1) Are we to assume that Jesus was an historical figure?

YES implies that "Jesus was historical" becomes our postulate.
NO implies that "Jesus was not historical" becomes our postulate.

(2) In which century did Christianity originate?

Pick a box: 1st century, 1st and 2nd centuries, 2nd century, etc

This simulates the conclusions of all theories in the field.

Does it therefore follow that every theory in the field must in some manner either explicitly or implicitly follow the above simple process? It seems to me that every theory in the field are each making theoretical conclusions that are reflected entirely by their postulates.

In some cases it happens, of course, that people's conclusions are just their postulates. In history, as much as in other field, these people are engaging in circular reasoning, assuming what they are supposedly attempting to demonstrate, a procedure which has no value.

You seem to be saying that the only way to arrive at a conclusion is to postulate it, that all reasoning must be circular. That is not correct.

mountainman · 11-15-2011, 09:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

So which are your postulates, and which alternatives are you using for your comparative evaluation?

As summarised in the schematic I am looking at this in general and am therefore open to all possible postulates and thus conclusions which can be drawn from an examination of the evidence. I am not discussing any one theory or its postulates, I am examining the process itself.

After some years of research it occurs to me that despite the diversity of all modern theories, with few exceptions, are coming up with the same (sometimes dogmatic ) theoretical conclusions C1, C2, C3 .... etc

When we look at these conclusion they are of the general form, in very simple terms, like this:

C1: Jesus was an important historical figure and religious leader.
C2: The originating century of christian origins was the 1st century.

another series of conclusions might read ....

C1: Jesus was an embellished historical figure, and cant be reconstructed.
C2: christian origins covers the 1st and 2nd century.

another series might read ...

C1: Jesus was not an historical figure, legends have been embellished.
C2: The originating century of christian origins was the 2nd century.

These three sample conclusions are simplifications of course, but the point is that they represent the bulk of all theories on the matter.

WHAT-IF

To what extent are these conclusions reflective of the postulates? Some but not all of the theorists are explicit and deal with the postulated related to their conclusion. The explicit postulate to the theoretical conclusions above would be for the first two "It is reasonable to assume that Jesus was an historical figure", while for the last one the hypothesis would have to be the antithesis of this. Namely "It is reasonable to assume that Jesus was not an historical figure".

Therefore it appears to me that the entire field can be summarised by taking as postulates the answers to the following two questions ...

(1) Are we to assume that Jesus was an historical figure?

YES implies that "Jesus was historical" becomes our postulate.
NO implies that "Jesus was not historical" becomes our postulate.

(2) In which century did Christianity originate?

Pick a box: 1st century, 1st and 2nd centuries, 2nd century, etc

This simulates the conclusions of all theories in the field.

Does it therefore follow that every theory in the field must in some manner either explicitly or implicitly follow the above simple process? It seems to me that every theory in the field are each making theoretical conclusions that are reflected entirely by their postulates.

In some cases it happens, of course, that people's conclusions are just their postulates. In history, as much as in other field, these people are engaging in circular reasoning, assuming what they are supposedly attempting to demonstrate, a procedure which has no value.

You seem to be saying that the only way to arrive at a conclusion is to postulate it, that all reasoning must be circular. That is not correct.

The schematic represents a one-way process starting with the formulation of reasonable postulates about each item of the evidence, and other general postulates, all of which are the subject of "processing" to arrive at hypothetical conclusions or theoretical conclusions.

However the same one-way process may be reiterated over and over again by continually adjusting the statement of the postulates, and then reprocessing them, which is one mechanism by which theories evolve.

In another discussion group I received as part of a response to this OP the following which I will post for further discussion, since I think it is a very thoughtful and very insightful response to many of the basic questions permeating these issues.

Quote:

History's method is quasi-scientific; more exactly, it is as scientific (rigorous) as it can possibly be, given its particular circumstances.

Given that strict scientific methodology (i.e. up to double blind controlled trials plus metanalyses) is inherently impossible for History, the postulates of the historical hypotheses (often miscalled "theories") are subject to what is often called "mental experiements", in a nutshell rigorously controlled "what-if" speculation.

The traditional scientific methodology is reversed in one critical point; the results of the "mental experiment" (i.e. the present conditions of the issue at hand) are known in advance; it is the "methodology" of such process which is trying to be logically induced from such results.

In fact, the results are essentially the only potentially truly objective part of the process; ergo, extreme rigor is required for recording such results.

The process as a whole is superficially similar to pure philosophical research, given the ostensible relevance of logical reasoning (actually shared by any scientific discipline).

The critical difference is that, contrary to pure philosophical research and analogous to any scientific discipline, the method of History is restricted by the regular rules of evidence; the core falsifiable criteria of Popper are required too.

Even if in principle any past may be considered "History" in practice it is regularly restricted fundamentally to the study of the recorded (basically written) development of humankind; ergo, it is no surprise that the History method so often tends to overlap with the methodology of several other Humanities, notably anthropology and sociology.

My bolding.

mountainman · 11-15-2011, 10:24 PM

We often meet with historical theories of christian origins which Hector Avalos (see recent thread) describes in the following terms:

Quote:

Originally Posted by HA

So how is it that most Christian academic biblical scholars never see anything that Jesus does as wrong or evil? The answer, of course, is that most Christian biblical scholars, whether in secular academia or in seminaries, still see Jesus as divine, and not as a human being with faults.

The answer is of course they are starting with their postulates.
And their postulates are a "Jesus of Faith". Historicity 80% and above perhaps.

These sorts of postulates OBVIOUSLY need to be made quite explicit.

One method of achieving this is to have a general rule such as:

There must be at least one postulate per evidence item which relates to
a stated measure of either positive or negative historicity assessed against that evidence item

The following example provides such a range for the HJ. The same process essentially needs to be applied to every single evidence item to be dealt with. We can see that some items such as the "TF", "Pauls Letter exchange with Seneca", etc are going to be rated with negative historicity, while other items may be allocated positive historicity by the theorist.

Positive and Negative Historicity Spectrum of Jesus

+100 = Jesus was historical and God of the Universe inside Hubble linmit

+50 = Jesus was an important historical religious leader

+25 = Jesus was an oscure historical itinerant guru

+5 = Jesus cannot be reconstructed but he existed in history.

================================================== ===
ZERO = The fence upon which to balance .....
================================================== ===

-5 = Jesus cannot be reconstructed but he did not exist in history.

-25 = Jesus was not historical but a vision of "Paul" embellished by scribes

-50 = Jesus was not historical but was formed by the misappropriation of various extant legends, astrotheology and people.

-100 = Jesus was not historical, but was piously forged for expedient political purposes

Naturally we would like to see as little negative historicity (i.e direct evidence of fabrication and fraud etc) as possible, however if the evidence is such that forgeries have been identified and postulated, then we must ensure that there is a mechanism at the postulate level to allocate an assessment which can reflect what the evidence patterns suggest.

I see that such a postulate can be made explicit against each evidence item, even if the default is set to "EVERY BIT OF EVIDENCE IS GENUINE AND NOT FABRICATED", and changed for the odd known pious forgery. (Which is often how most "Biblical Scholars" have their "Theory Generator and Black Box" configured when they leave Theology College)

It quantifies the opinion of Christian biblical scholars, whether in secular academia or in seminaries, who still see Jesus as divine, and not as a human being with faults, by allocating to the HJ a high value of historicity.

J-D · 11-15-2011, 11:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

So which are your postulates, and which alternatives are you using for your comparative evaluation?

As summarised in the schematic I am looking at this in general and am therefore open to all possible postulates and thus conclusions which can be drawn from an examination of the evidence. I am not discussing any one theory or its postulates, I am examining the process itself.

After some years of research it occurs to me that despite the diversity of all modern theories, with few exceptions, are coming up with the same (sometimes dogmatic ) theoretical conclusions C1, C2, C3 .... etc

When we look at these conclusion they are of the general form, in very simple terms, like this:

C1: Jesus was an important historical figure and religious leader.
C2: The originating century of christian origins was the 1st century.

another series of conclusions might read ....

C1: Jesus was an embellished historical figure, and cant be reconstructed.
C2: christian origins covers the 1st and 2nd century.

another series might read ...

C1: Jesus was not an historical figure, legends have been embellished.
C2: The originating century of christian origins was the 2nd century.

These three sample conclusions are simplifications of course, but the point is that they represent the bulk of all theories on the matter.

WHAT-IF

To what extent are these conclusions reflective of the postulates? Some but not all of the theorists are explicit and deal with the postulated related to their conclusion. The explicit postulate to the theoretical conclusions above would be for the first two "It is reasonable to assume that Jesus was an historical figure", while for the last one the hypothesis would have to be the antithesis of this. Namely "It is reasonable to assume that Jesus was not an historical figure".

Therefore it appears to me that the entire field can be summarised by taking as postulates the answers to the following two questions ...

(1) Are we to assume that Jesus was an historical figure?

YES implies that "Jesus was historical" becomes our postulate.
NO implies that "Jesus was not historical" becomes our postulate.

(2) In which century did Christianity originate?

Pick a box: 1st century, 1st and 2nd centuries, 2nd century, etc

This simulates the conclusions of all theories in the field.

Does it therefore follow that every theory in the field must in some manner either explicitly or implicitly follow the above simple process? It seems to me that every theory in the field are each making theoretical conclusions that are reflected entirely by their postulates.

In some cases it happens, of course, that people's conclusions are just their postulates. In history, as much as in other field, these people are engaging in circular reasoning, assuming what they are supposedly attempting to demonstrate, a procedure which has no value.

You seem to be saying that the only way to arrive at a conclusion is to postulate it, that all reasoning must be circular. That is not correct.

The schematic represents a one-way process starting with the formulation of reasonable postulates about each item of the evidence, and other general postulates, all of which are the subject of "processing" to arrive at hypothetical conclusions or theoretical conclusions.

However the same one-way process may be reiterated over and over again by continually adjusting the statement of the postulates, and then reprocessing them, which is one mechanism by which theories evolve.

In another discussion group I received as part of a response to this OP the following which I will post for further discussion, since I think it is a very thoughtful and very insightful response to many of the basic questions permeating these issues.

Quote:

History's method is quasi-scientific; more exactly, it is as scientific (rigorous) as it can possibly be, given its particular circumstances.

Given that strict scientific methodology (i.e. up to double blind controlled trials plus metanalyses) is inherently impossible for History, the postulates of the historical hypotheses (often miscalled "theories") are subject to what is often called "mental experiements", in a nutshell rigorously controlled "what-if" speculation.

The traditional scientific methodology is reversed in one critical point; the results of the "mental experiment" (i.e. the present conditions of the issue at hand) are known in advance; it is the "methodology" of such process which is trying to be logically induced from such results.

In fact, the results are essentially the only potentially truly objective part of the process; ergo, extreme rigor is required for recording such results.

The process as a whole is superficially similar to pure philosophical research, given the ostensible relevance of logical reasoning (actually shared by any scientific discipline).

The critical difference is that, contrary to pure philosophical research and analogous to any scientific discipline, the method of History is restricted by the regular rules of evidence; the core falsifiable criteria of Popper are required too.

Even if in principle any past may be considered "History" in practice it is regularly restricted fundamentally to the study of the recorded (basically written) development of humankind; ergo, it is no surprise that the History method so often tends to overlap with the methodology of several other Humanities, notably anthropology and sociology.

My bolding.

I don't see how that is in any way relevant to the point I was making.

You seemed to be saying that anybody who takes a position about when or how Christianity originated must have reached that conclusion by first adopting it as a postulate. This is not correct. If you reach your conclusion by first postulating it, then your reasoning is circular and worthless. Any chain of reasoning that has any value about the origins of Christianity--or about anything else--must have a conclusion which was not included among the postulates. If somebody reaches a conclusion that (for example) Jesus was X, Y, or Z, the process of investigation and reasoning is valueless if a postulate was that Jesus was X, Y, or Z. Just because somebody reaches such a conclusion, you are not justified in saying that it must have been one of their postulates.

If I ask you your view about some topic (the origins of Christianity or anything else), and you say A, B, or C, and I then ask you 'What makes you think so?', and you respond that it's because you postulated A, B, or C (as the case may be), then your reasoning is worthless. You suggest that it's appropriate to treat everybody as if they're reasoning this way, and that's flat wrong.

Doug Shaver · 11-16-2011, 12:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tanya

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

I do not regard them as postulates.

Quote:

Originally Posted by [URL="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/postulate

dictionary dot com[/URL]"]
noun:
5. something taken as self-evident or assumed without proof as a basis for reasoning.
6. Mathematics, Logic. a proposition that requires no proof, being self-evident, or that is for a specific purpose assumed true, and that is used in the proof of other propositions; axiom.
7. a fundamental principle.
8. a necessary condition; prerequisite.

What are they, then, Doug?, quacks like a duck.....

"These letters were either written by Paul or by someone else and attributed to Paul" is an observation. The extant manuscripts include statements to the effect that the author's name was Paul.This fact would not have obtained unless either the author's name really was Paul or else, if that was not his name, he wanted his readers to think it was his name.

"Paul was a person that one would want to pretend to be" is a logical inference from the observation that if Paul did not write them, then they were written by someone pretending to be Paul. People do not ordinarily engage in pretenses unless they want to.

"Paul probably existed" is an inference from "Paul was a person that one would want to pretend to be." There is not, to my knowledge, anything that would motivate anyone to pretend to be someone who never existed.

J-D · 11-16-2011, 02:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

Quote:

Originally Posted by tanya

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

I do not regard them as postulates.

Quote:

Originally Posted by [URL="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/postulate

dictionary dot com[/URL]"]
noun:
5. something taken as self-evident or assumed without proof as a basis for reasoning.
6. Mathematics, Logic. a proposition that requires no proof, being self-evident, or that is for a specific purpose assumed true, and that is used in the proof of other propositions; axiom.
7. a fundamental principle.
8. a necessary condition; prerequisite.

What are they, then, Doug?, quacks like a duck.....

"These letters were either written by Paul or by someone else and attributed to Paul" is an observation. The extant manuscripts include statements to the effect that the author's name was Paul.This fact would not have obtained unless either the author's name really was Paul or else, if that was not his name, he wanted his readers to think it was his name.

"Paul was a person that one would want to pretend to be" is a logical inference from the observation that if Paul did not write them, then they were written by someone pretending to be Paul. People do not ordinarily engage in pretenses unless they want to.

"Paul probably existed" is an inference from "Paul was a person that one would want to pretend to be." There is not, to my knowledge, anything that would motivate anyone to pretend to be someone who never existed.

That logic seems faulty to me. People have been known to use pen-names for various reasons. Falsely identifying with a specific other individual is not the only one. Charlotte Bronte did not use the pen-name Currer Bell because she wanted her writings to be attributed to a known real person distinct from herself whose name was Currer Bell, but because she did not want them to be attributed to herself. This did not prevent erroneous speculation about the 'real' identity of 'Currer Bell'.

One among the many possibilities is that the various writings attributed to Paul were in fact written by different people, and that the writer of epistle X may have put the name 'Paul' on it to create the false impression that it was written by the same person as the earlier epistle Y, already circulating under the name 'Paul', and it does not necessarily follow from this that the author of epistle Y (whether or not his real name was 'Paul') was known for anything else apart from the attribution of epistle Y.

aa5874 · 11-16-2011, 02:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

"These letters were either written by Paul or by someone else and attributed to Paul" is an observation. The extant manuscripts include statements to the effect that the author's name was Paul.This fact would not have obtained unless either the author's name really was Paul or else, if that was not his name, he wanted his readers to think it was his name.

"Paul was a person that one would want to pretend to be" is a logical inference from the observation that if Paul did not write them, then they were written by someone pretending to be Paul. People do not ordinarily engage in pretenses unless they want to.

"Paul probably existed" is an inference from "Paul was a person that one would want to pretend to be." There is not, to my knowledge, anything that would motivate anyone to pretend to be someone who never existed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

"These letters were either written by Paul or by someone else and attributed to Paul" is an observation. The extant manuscripts include statements to the effect that the author's name was Paul.This fact would not have obtained unless either the author's name really was Paul or else, if that was not his name, he wanted his readers to think it was his name.

"Paul was a person that one would want to pretend to be" is a logical inference from the observation that if Paul did not write them, then they were written by someone pretending to be Paul. People do not ordinarily engage in pretenses unless they want to.

"Paul probably existed" is an inference from "Paul was a person that one would want to pretend to be." There is not, to my knowledge, anything that would motivate anyone to pretend to be someone who never existed.

Your statement is NOT logical. Why do you assume that Paul was known?

Your absurdity can be easily exposed.

1. gMark is a book attributed to a character called Mark--there is no external corroborative evidence that Mark existed.

2. gMatthew is a book attributed to a character called Matthew an apostle--there is no external corroborative evidence that Matthew did exist.

3. gLuke is a book attributed to a character called Luke a disciple of Paul--there is no external corroborative evidence that Luke existed.

4. gJohn is a book attributed to character called John an apostle--there is no external corroborative evidence that John existed.

5. Acts of the Apostles is a book attributed to a character called Luke a disciple of Paul --there is no external corroborative evidence that Luke existed.

6. There are epistles attributed to Paul--there is no external corroborative evidence that Paul existed.

7. There ARE epistles attributed to Peter an apostle--there is no external corroborative evidence that Peter existed.

8. There is an epistle attributed to James an apostle--there is no external corroborative evidence that James existed.

9. There is an epistle attributed to Jude--there is no external corroborative evidence that Jude existed.

10. There are epistles attributed to John an apostle--there is no external corroborative evidence that John existed.

11. There is a book called "Revelation" attributed to John an apostle there is no external corroborative evidence that John existed.

There is NO credible external evidence that any author of the NT did probably exist.

But, the Pauline writing have another problem, it has been deduced that more than one person USED the name Paul.

It is completely illogical to assume that someone probably existed because a name is attached to Canonised writing.

It is far more probably that an author of a Canonised writing did NOT exist and the dating of authorship is bogus.

mountainman · 11-16-2011, 03:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

"Paul was a person that one would want to pretend to be" is a logical inference from the observation that if Paul did not write them, then they were written by someone pretending to be Paul. People do not ordinarily engage in pretenses unless they want to.

"Paul probably existed" is an inference from "Paul was a person that one would want to pretend to be." There is not, to my knowledge, anything that would motivate anyone to pretend to be someone who never existed.

It is a common fact that some writers are motivated (by various reasons) to author fictional accounts. For example Bilbo Baggins is presented by Tolkien to have written letters to Frodo and the Elves and other important people. From this literary evidence can we logically infer that Bilbo Baggins was an historical character? You would have certain problems with this inference, the key one being you need to ADDITIONALLY postulate that the existence was not merely fictional, but historical.

At the end of the day it is a common fact that investigators have to routinely assess both positive and negative historicity to specific events, characters, artefacts and other evidence. My point is that we cannot just implicitly assume authenticity and then infer historicity, but we must explicitly assume authenticity and then infer historicity. My point is that the postulates must be explicated and brought to the surface.

J-D · 11-16-2011, 04:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

We often meet with historical theories of christian origins which Hector Avalos (see recent thread) describes in the following terms:

Quote:

Originally Posted by HA

So how is it that most Christian academic biblical scholars never see anything that Jesus does as wrong or evil? The answer, of course, is that most Christian biblical scholars, whether in secular academia or in seminaries, still see Jesus as divine, and not as a human being with faults.

The answer is of course they are starting with their postulates.
And their postulates are a "Jesus of Faith". Historicity 80% and above perhaps.

These sorts of postulates OBVIOUSLY need to be made quite explicit.

One method of achieving this is to have a general rule such as:

There must be at least one postulate per evidence item which relates to
a stated measure of either positive or negative historicity assessed against that evidence item

That may be a possible rule, but it's a stupid one, for several reasons.

Firstly, a physical object like a potsherd, a ruined wall, a mosaic, a piece of jewellery, or what-have-you, may sometimes be considered by historians as an item of evidence. What could it possibly mean to say that such a physical object has a positive historicity of 80% or a negative historicity of 30%? Here your suggested approach produces only useless gibberish.

Secondly, if the item of evidence being considered is the contents of a text, of what value is it to say that it has historicity of 80% or 30%? The important thing is not trying to figure out how much of it historically accurate, but figuring out which parts are historically accurate. A percentage doesn't help. (Here again by contemplating the possibility of a negative value your approach enables the production of useless gibberish.)

Thirdly, when it is important to decide which parts of a text are historically accurate, postulation is an inappropriate means of solving the problem. A conclusion about which parts of the text are historically accurate (or even about what percentage of it is historically accurate, if for some reason obscure to me that's considered important) should be justified by argument from underlying principles of a reasonable methodology. We don't start with a postulate about what's accurate and what's not; we investigate, compare with other evidence, check for factors which might tend to produce accuracy and factors which might tend to produce inaccuracy, and eventually (we can hope) arrive at some estimate of historical accuracy or inaccuracy which we didn't simply begin by postulating.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

The following example provides such a range for the HJ. The same process essentially needs to be applied to every single evidence item to be dealt with. We can see that some items such as the "TF", "Pauls Letter exchange with Seneca", etc are going to be rated with negative historicity, while other items may be allocated positive historicity by the theorist.

Here you're not even being consistent in your own methodology. Texts like the so-called Testimonium Flavianum and the letters attributed to an exchange between Paul and Seneca--or any other texts whatever--may possibly be considered as items of evidence. Whatever it is that you might mean by 'the HJ', it's not an item of evidence.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Positive and Negative Historicity Spectrum of Jesus

+100 = Jesus was historical and God of the Universe inside Hubble linmit

+50 = Jesus was an important historical religious leader

+25 = Jesus was an oscure historical itinerant guru

+5 = Jesus cannot be reconstructed but he existed in history.

================================================== ===
ZERO = The fence upon which to balance .....
================================================== ===

-5 = Jesus cannot be reconstructed but he did not exist in history.

-25 = Jesus was not historical but a vision of "Paul" embellished by scribes

-50 = Jesus was not historical but was formed by the misappropriation of various extant legends, astrotheology and people.

-100 = Jesus was not historical, but was piously forged for expedient political purposes

Naturally we would like to see as little negative historicity (i.e direct evidence of fabrication and fraud etc) as possible, however if the evidence is such that forgeries have been identified and postulated, then we must ensure that there is a mechanism at the postulate level to allocate an assessment which can reflect what the evidence patterns suggest.

Historians examining documents do need mechanisms to resolve questions about the possibility of forgery, but the appropriate way to resolve those questions is not by simply postulating an answer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

I see that such a postulate can be made explicit against each evidence item, even if the default is set to "EVERY BIT OF EVIDENCE IS GENUINE AND NOT FABRICATED", and changed for the odd known pious forgery. (Which is often how most "Biblical Scholars" have their "Theory Generator and Black Box" configured when they leave Theology College)

Historians do indeed arrive at conclusions about what is or might be forged and what is not, but they don't do so simply by postulating their answer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

It quantifies the opinion of Christian biblical scholars, whether in secular academia or in seminaries, who still see Jesus as divine, and not as a human being with faults, by allocating to the HJ a high value of historicity.

mountainman · 11-16-2011, 04:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

You seemed to be saying that anybody who takes a position about when or how Christianity originated must have reached that conclusion by first adopting it as a postulate. This is not correct. If you reach your conclusion by first postulating it, then your reasoning is circular and worthless. Any chain of reasoning that has any value about the origins of Christianity--or about anything else--must have a conclusion which was not included among the postulates. If somebody reaches a conclusion that (for example) Jesus was X, Y, or Z, the process of investigation and reasoning is valueless if a postulate was that Jesus was X, Y, or Z. Just because somebody reaches such a conclusion, you are not justified in saying that it must have been one of their postulates.

If I ask you your view about some topic (the origins of Christianity or anything else), and you say A, B, or C, and I then ask you 'What makes you think so?', and you respond that it's because you postulated A, B, or C (as the case may be), then your reasoning is worthless. You suggest that it's appropriate to treat everybody as if they're reasoning this way, and that's flat wrong.

I think you are missing one key point in that the postulates are being formulated with very careful examination of the evidence itself with the ramification / understanding that they are then going to be accepted as provisionally true for the sake of plugging them in to the theory generator to produce conclusions which are based on the provisional truth of those postulates.

If you read through the exchanges concerning the forumulation of postulates that might be made with respect to the Pauline letters for example, you will see the presence of "hidden postulates" that needed to be seen as such and explicated -that is made explicit.

Where postulates are implied and not explicit then people claim things like "I am not assuming the historicity of "Paul" but infering it from the evidence" and then make conclusions about the historicity of Paul - I see this as a primary example of circular reasoning that we are all guilty of in one way or another. Everyone has their own conceptual framework and possible agendas and these are generally visible in the postulates, with explicit postulates being more visible than implicit postulates.

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