Posted: May 09, 2015 1:08 pm
Agrippina: sorry for my poor eyesight, and for letting my Historians' existing recognition of the name Agrippa, to cause me to see that, instead of what was written.
some responses to what you said:
No, you would not ASSUME it was ancient Greek pottery, you would SUSPECT that it is, and check, as you describe. The difference in those two words is very important.
Think of this: there is an important practical difference between acting on an ASSUMPTION, and acting on a suspicion, or a still evolving deduction. An ASSUMPTION results in the door to further weighing of facts being closed.
Many mistakes have been made in the study of the past, precisely because of people making false ASSUMPTIONS about what they were looking at.
Yes. But the reason you said that, was to imply that because they were obsessive (which, by the way, is an opinion, and not something that you or anyone else can prove), that the lack of a record about a specific person, can be used as proof that he either did not exist, or was not who others claimed he was. Aside from the fact that the characterization of the Romans as being "obsessive" about record keeping isn't born out by archaeology or existing libraries, even if it were true, the reasoning from that, does not support any suggestion that "lack of proof equals proof of lack."
As I pointed out above, you only made the note about fanatical attention to detail, in order to support the idea that a lack of records which we know of, allows us to positively conclude something about what we see no records of. That is what I was trying to say to you, which YOU didn't get.
" if there had been a really important event such as described in the NT, it would've been recorded."
The same logical error repeated, based on the same ASSUMPTION about Roman record keeping. Is there a chance that you are yourself suffering from a very common Historians' syndrome, wherein we don't notice that since the bulk of what we have studied from our peers, makes a general assumption about someone or something, that the assumption is accurate?
In my own daily life, making my near poverty living as a service technician, I am confronted almost every day by people who think that because THEY don't carefully count how many screws or connectors are included in a given machine assembly, that I am a "fanatic record keeper" because I do. Similarly, the fact that most businesses count every penny they have in their cash registers at the beginning of the day, and at the end of the day, does not mean that they are "obsessive record keepers." If they WERE "obsessive record keepers," they would also take notes on what every clerk was wearing, how many customers walked into the store and how many rode in on wheelchairs, how many times someone sneezed, and so on.
The fact that we have more Roman records available for study today, does not support the characterization that they were "obsessive record keepers."
some responses to what you said:
agrippina: OK so say I come across a shard of pottery, and it has what I think looks like a Greek pattern on it, and it looks really ancient, and is a little fragile. Would I be correct in assuming it might be ancient Greek pottery and then would I be right to take it to a museum for clarification, or should I just toss it away because "assuming is not recommended?"
No, you would not ASSUME it was ancient Greek pottery, you would SUSPECT that it is, and check, as you describe. The difference in those two words is very important.
Think of this: there is an important practical difference between acting on an ASSUMPTION, and acting on a suspicion, or a still evolving deduction. An ASSUMPTION results in the door to further weighing of facts being closed.
Many mistakes have been made in the study of the past, precisely because of people making false ASSUMPTIONS about what they were looking at.
I didn't say they kept 100% records of everything. I said they were obsessive about record keeping, but we know that even obsessiveness doesn't work 100% of the time.
Yes. But the reason you said that, was to imply that because they were obsessive (which, by the way, is an opinion, and not something that you or anyone else can prove), that the lack of a record about a specific person, can be used as proof that he either did not exist, or was not who others claimed he was. Aside from the fact that the characterization of the Romans as being "obsessive" about record keeping isn't born out by archaeology or existing libraries, even if it were true, the reasoning from that, does not support any suggestion that "lack of proof equals proof of lack."
That's not what I said. And people make mistakes, even people who quibble about the volumes of records make mistakes, note your error above with my name. Mistakes are easy to make, being obsessive means that you're inclined to make fewer errors than the people who aren't as meticulous about record-keeping. For example, if you had been entering my name in a census record, and 1000 years later someone came across that record, they would question why the male form of my name was used, rather than the female one since all the other evidence tends to demonstrate that I was a woman. Yes, I know you made a mistake, but that's the point, people make mistakes all the time.
As I pointed out above, you only made the note about fanatical attention to detail, in order to support the idea that a lack of records which we know of, allows us to positively conclude something about what we see no records of. That is what I was trying to say to you, which YOU didn't get.
That's not what I said. Read it again. I said that the Romans were obsessive record-keepers and that if there had been a really important event such as described in the NT, it would've been recorded. However, we are now 2,000 years down the line, even if they did keep a record of every single event in their history, after this amount of time, hardly any of those records will have survived. I am also only too aware of how records disappear, how they are falsified, and how sometimes not all the information is recorded.
" if there had been a really important event such as described in the NT, it would've been recorded."
The same logical error repeated, based on the same ASSUMPTION about Roman record keeping. Is there a chance that you are yourself suffering from a very common Historians' syndrome, wherein we don't notice that since the bulk of what we have studied from our peers, makes a general assumption about someone or something, that the assumption is accurate?
In my own daily life, making my near poverty living as a service technician, I am confronted almost every day by people who think that because THEY don't carefully count how many screws or connectors are included in a given machine assembly, that I am a "fanatic record keeper" because I do. Similarly, the fact that most businesses count every penny they have in their cash registers at the beginning of the day, and at the end of the day, does not mean that they are "obsessive record keepers." If they WERE "obsessive record keepers," they would also take notes on what every clerk was wearing, how many customers walked into the store and how many rode in on wheelchairs, how many times someone sneezed, and so on.
The fact that we have more Roman records available for study today, does not support the characterization that they were "obsessive record keepers."