Corpus-Paul

["Eric Zuesse" <cettel AT shoreham.net>]

Re: Steve Black's:

> The scientific
> method means different things in different fields.

Not so: scientific techniques of investigation (which you are talking about)
are not the same thing as "the scientific method," which is an epistemology,
a systematic set of criteria for distinguishing between truth and falsity.
Many people make the mistake of equating techniques with methodologies, but
actually, science is a meta-methodology; I just didn't want to confuse
anyone by referring to "meta-" anythings.

Essentially, science is an epistemology (or meta-methodology) that relies
upon the individual knower's own perceptual stream as the ultimate "data."

Think of it this way: What does the important scientific concept of "a
replicable experiement" refer to in the physical sciences (which are a much
simpler conceptual model than the social sciences such as our own Pauline
one, history)?

A replicable experiment is an experimental regimen which, to describe to
another person, will provide any other person the means to verify or
disconfirm the experimental results within his own experience-stream (or
perceptual stream). If you describe the given replicable experiment to
another person, he will be able to duplicate it himself and see whether or
not he obtains the same results.

That's the (very simplified) model for science.

Notice that science (even in this simplified form I've just described)
systematically excludes considering anyone's *opinion* as "data" for forming
your own truth-falsity judgments; it's all based upon your own
experience-stream.

To a physicist, even an Einstein's opinion is not a datum; only data are
data, and physicists, just like all scientists, make a very clear
distinction between data and opinions--all opinions.

Scholars, unfortunately, do not. For example, most books on Paul rely at
least as much upon the opinions of other scholars to buttress their points
as they do upon the Pauline literature. Now, as I've said in other postings
(if they ever get posted; I sent them some time ago and they have not as yet
appeared), it is one thing when scholars authenticate or date a given
Pauline epistle, and quite another when a scholar interprets the meaning of
that epistle: scholars are experts at authenticating and dating, but not at
interpreting, and here's why:

In science, opinions--interpretations of the meaning of a given epistle, for
example--are not data; only data (the Pauline epistles themselves,
archaeological findings, other documents such as Josephus' The Jewish War,
etc.) are data. My interpretation of Paul, Hyam's interpretation of Paul,
Stendahl's interpretation of Paul, etc., are not data for you or for any
other historian of Paul. These interpretations might (their authors hope)
help you to come to your own interpretation of Paul, but if they do so, and
if you are a scientist, then you will state your interpretation upon the
basis of only the data, and not on the basis of other people's
interpretations of those data. You might refer to other interpretations in
order to say why they're wrong; a scientist, for example, reporting an
experiment, might refer to other such reports from other scientists, which
have produced contrary findings, in order to argue how and why those
findings do not indicate an error in his own. A scientist might also, in a
preface or conclusion, make reference to others' experiments that have come
up with the same results as his own. But, in either case, the given
scientist's work will stand or fall, as science, only on its own data, and
not on anyone else's results, confirmatory or disconfirmatory.
(Meta-analyses deal with the latter type of issues.)  Similarly, my
interpretation of Paul will stand or fall, scientifically, only on the data;
not on the interpretations of Paul that are done by others.

This is not the method that scholars use; I'm aware of that. But it is the
scientific method, and it can be applied to reconstructing the beginnings of
Christianity, and that's what I'm doing.

Now, I had said before that scholars are not experts at interpreting Paul,
but I didn't say why; and here is why they aren't:

There is such a thing as expertise in science. Expert opinions are never
data in science, but they are good for other scientists to consult in order
to enhance their own ability to do constructive scientific work themselves.
A scientist doesn't have any use for citing expert opinions, since they're
not data. But expert opinions do serve *other* constructive functions than
that.

The reason scholars are not experts at interpreting Paul is that they don't
understand science. Scholars think that a work on Paul should cite the
opinions of lots of other scholars in order to be good; this is
anti-scientific epistemology, but it's called scholarship, and this is the
reason for all those bulbous bibliographies at the end of these books.

Thus, scholars seek to establish truth by establishing professional
consensus. (That's what those bibliographies are really all about.)
Scientists seek to establish professional consensus by establishing truth.
For the scholar, consensus is the basis for finding truth. For the
scientist, truth is the basis for finding consensus.

Look at it this way: scholars head straight at finding consensus. Scientists
head straight to their own data; then, once they've gotten their data, they
look up from their work and ask themselves, "I wonder what other
investigators have found on this question, and how, and why?"

So, you might wonder why I rely upon a consensus-opinion of scholars in
order to establish my assumptions of authentication and dating of NT
documents? I do so because, after the work of people like F.C. Baur,
scholars, despite their not understanding what science means, managed to
grope their way, during the past two centuries, toward science, insofar as
authentication and dating of the NT corpus. If we give scholars a few
hundred years more, they might even  do it also for interpreting that
corpus--i.e., for reconstructing Christian origins from it. But I don't have
that long to wait.

Best,
Eric Zuesse
cettel AT shoreham.net