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  • From: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Can absence of evidence be evidence of absence?
  • Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 17:37:24 +0100

Dear Yitzhak,

See my comments below.



On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 8:16 AM, Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no> wrote:

Hypothesis 2: A group of 600,000 men and their families stayed in
Sinai some time between the 11th and 15th centuries B.C.E.
Prediction: We expect to find ...

Yes, what do we expect to find? Taking into account that this is said
to have happened more than 3,000 years ago, and the account says that
the group did not build houses and cities, what will we expect to
find? Perhaps this is a situation where "absence of evidence is not
evidence of absence"? If it is not, we should be able to point to
definite things that we would expect to find.

On a certain basis, this is the exact point. Anyone proposing a certain
theory must first provide some positive evidence that suggests it is true.
The Bible cannot itself be taken as evidence. Only if you a priori assume
the Bible to be true, is it "evidence," and if you assumed it to be true,
what's the whole issue with evidence anyway? If you do not assume it
to be true -- for example, if you start with the view that it may be all true
word for word, but not necessarily -- then it can no longer be taken as
evidence. Rather, you need external evidence. Furthermore, with no
reasons or evidence to support your theory, your theory cannot be
falsified, making it rather unscientific. By delineating what you expect
to find, you take the second step towards making a scientific theory,
the first step being stating the hypothesis itself. Thus, "absence of
evidence is not evidence of absence," but in the absence of any
expectations, we have no scientific theory, and in the absence of
positive evidence external to the Bible, we have no proposition on the
table.

RF:
It does not seem that you have a knowledge of the basics of the philosophy of science. A theory can be defined in this way: " a number of conceptions whose relationship is made explicit." A hypothesis can be defined this way: "a claim that fulfills two requirements, 1) we are not certain that it is true, and 2) we deduce logical consequences from the claim, either to test the hypothesis, or to predict or explain something,"

If you use "theory" according to its definition, your use does not collocate with your following points. But it seems that you use it as a synonym for hypothesis, and in that case you reveal that you do not know what a hypothesis is. You may want to read K. R. Popper (1980) "The Logic of Scientific Discovery". There you will learn that in science "positive evidence ...that suggests (that a hypothesis) is true" is not sought, because it is practically impossible to find such evidence. In scientific research hypotheses are falsified but not verified. To bring in the Bible and a certain view of it is completely irrelevant when the test of my hypothesis is the issue. In order to keep the discussion on a scientific level I refrained from stating my own viewpoints. And by definition, the hypothesis "The Pentatuch was written in the 15th century by a person called Moses" implies uncertainty regarding the claim; otherwise it was not a scientific hypothesis.

In an earlier post someone said that he was tired of the fundamentalism that permeated some posts. I will not use the word "tired," but I am certainly amazed at all the scientific fundamentalism that several posts reveal-and even worse-many persons do not realize that they are scientific fundamentalists. I am perfectly aware that very few scholars today would accept a Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. But why do most members of the list reject the same? Because Wellhausen did it? Because van Seters did it? Because the bulk of scholars do it? Here is where scientific fundamentalism comes into play: So many persons have a certain viewpoint that they never personally have researched in a systematical scientific way. And they believe it because those with authority believe it. This is in my view a faith that is comparable to the faith of fundamentalists

So, I formed the hypothesis in order to try to appeal to the intelligence, logic, and imagination of those who hold the mentioned view, trying to cause them to ask themselves: "Why do I reject the Mosaic authorship? Do I have proofs? Do I have evidence? What do I actually have?" So far I have not received any balanced answers based on sound scientific methodology. (And again, please remember that I in this post do not argue in favor of the Mosaic authorship, I am just asking questions.)




Let us then delineate something that could remain:
A large pile of quail bones. How many is "large"? Well, there were
600,000 men. The quail would come for 30 days (Num 11:20), but
only for 2 days is collection actually said to have taken place (Num
11:32), three times of collection in all (day, night, day). Collection
was at 10 pieces a person (at a minimum), so taken together that
is 600,000 * 10 * 3 = 18 million units of quail. So how about a
large pile of bones belonging to 18 million quail.

It is also specific enough so that even if we don't find any specific
reason to link this huge pile of quail bones to the Israelites, most
people would probably see a relationship.

Anyway, no such pile is known, and until we find such a pile, or
other positive evidence, we have no proposition on the table.

RF:
Here we need to go back to Duhem-Quine's problem. Your hypothesis is: "The 600,000 men in Sinai are said to have eaten Quails. And therefore we expect to find huge piles of quail bones." The test of the hypothesis is to look for quail bones.

What are the auxiliary hypotheses behind this primary hypothesis? I see at least three such auxiliary hypotheses:

1) The habit of the people was to collect the bones after the quails were eaten and make huge piles of them.
2) Quail bones can be preserved for more than 3,000 years without being dissolved.
3) The weather conditions have been favorable to a preservation of the bones, and they have not been swept away by strong winds, rains or other means; neither have they been covered by sand.

Please remember what Duhem-Quine correctly said about auxiliary hypotheses. it is quite clear that each of the auxiliary hypotheses are problematic. Moreover, Sinai is a big area, and the question is where to start to search for quail bones. If they are not found in one place, they can be in another place.


Textually, we could suggest something else: If the Pentateuch was
written after the 10th century, we would expect to find mention of
iron tools. Prior to this, we would expect copper tools to
predominate. We thus find such verses as Num 35:16, Deut 27:5,
or Deut 28:48, which mention ONLY iron tools, to be specifically out
of place. The iron chariots of Jos 17:16-18 also have very little to do
with the 15th or 14th centuries. Of course, you can doubt it, you can
try to falsify it, but it shows you what happens once we have a
specific proposition on the table: it becomes scientific and open to
discussion and alternative explanations.

As some posts already have shown, we cannot know the first time when iron was smelted. To speak of a bronze age with stages, an iron age with stages, and other ages with stages, as if the whole ancient words centered around particular metals, can be very misleading. Here we find a host of auxiliary hypotheses which may be questionable. How can we know that a particular community did not use iron tools when another community only used bronze tools? Only a small part of the communities in the ancient world have been researched. Because most ancient communities have not been explored we have a fine example that absence of evidence of iron is not evidence for the absence of iron.



In fact, if you want to examine the proposition that "The Pentateuch
was written in the 15th century by a man called Moses," you should
also be ready to examine the proposition that "The Pentateuch was
not written in the 15th century or was not written by a man or the
man was not called Moses." Furthermore, when actually dealing with
hypotheses, you would also be much more open to variant hypotheses,
since you may want to modify your original hypothesis as time goes
on. For example, you find a piece of evidence that has negative
implications for your original hypothesis (this is actually good, since
it means you are really considering those pieces of evidence that
may falsify your hypothesis), but you realize, being partial to your
hypothesis, that a slight restatement could deal with this evidence
and also withstand all the evidence that you have collected thus far.
Unless you are ready to examine variant hypotheses, you are not
taking a scientific approach.

Here you collide head on with scientific methodology! You cannot form a scientific hypothesis regarding what does *not* exist; that simply is nonsense. But if you again look at requirement 1) in the definition of a hypothesis, you will see that uncertainty is inherent in the hypothesis. It is the very test of the hypothesis that that may falsify it and show that what it proposes is not correct. You turn the situation upside down.



Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but it also means
you have no sound proposition to begin with (by definition: sound
means it rests on solid evidence).

Yitzhak Sapir
_______________________________________________


By way of conclusion I will say: There is no way to prove that the Pentateuch was written in the 15th century by a man called Moses. And conversely - and this is also corroborated by the lack of scientific tests of my hypothesis proposed by list-members - it cannot be proved that the Pentateuch was written at a later time.

Evidence for both possibilities may be found, but as I see it, so far this evidence is not conclusive - it must be interpreted and evaluated- and there are many possible errors. Fundamentalism in connection with Mosaic authorship is to believe that each word in the Tanakh was dictated by God. Fundamentalism on the other side is to follow the Latin saying "vox populi vox dei" (the voice of the people is the voice of god) but changing "the people" with "the scholarly consensus". My experience in academia and on this list is that this kind of fundamentalism is widespread indeed.

Between these two fundamentalist viewpoints, there is room for faith and consideration. A very fine translation of the definition of Christian faith in Hebrews 11.1 in the New Testament is found in the NWT:
"Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld." This translation does full justice to the Greek words hUPOSTASIS and ELEGCOS, and it implies that while faith has a subjective side it has a rational foundation. People may appeal to archaeological and linguistic data to find "the evident demonstration of realities," but in the last stance the subjective elements of faith is at work both among those who believe what the books of the Tanakh says about their writer and time of writing and those who reject it.

Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo






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