Posted: Jul 10, 2017 2:12 pm
Tracer Tong wrote:Leucius Charinus wrote:Tracer Tong wrote:Leucius Charinus wrote:
The reasons I have for agreeing with one set of scholars over another should be logically obvious from the hypothesis raised in the OP and repeated for at least the 5th time in the bolded section immediately above.
Yeah, and I've read it for at least the fifth time. There's no argument there for thinking the reference is interpolated ...
It's not an argument it's a specific hypothesis in the field of history. Do you understand the difference? As far as I am aware a hypothesis requires neither evidence or argument. It must be falsifiable, and it must not be falsified by any available evidence. Ideally the hypothesis seeks to have a great explanatory power concerning all the available evidence (in the set of evidence under investigation)
Yeah, I get the difference. At the moment, you've hypothesised that the reference is interpolated.
I have hypothesised that all the references have been interpolated. That the entire set of references to Christians in the pagan literature of antiquity are interpolations of the church. Or like the case of Epictetus, errors of association.
I'm looking for reasons for thinking that hypothesis might be, you know, true.
So am I. Or false. I am not necessarily stuck on it. I am just following the historical method.