Epic Failure

[theyellowhobbit]

So I've been working on my 7-10 page paper, which I got an extension on until Sunday morning, and I ran into the following problem:

My thesis doesn't work.

As in it's wrong and the archaeological evidence proves that it's wrong. And it's not the kind of thesis where I could just argue the opposite. I need to reformulate it and everything now.

At least I recognized this instead of trying to make the evidence work where it doesn't.

Comments

[aesthetistician.livejournal.com]

What is your thesis, out of curiosity? In statistics it's pretty okay to end up with a conclusion you weren't expecting, though I suppose I can see why that mightn't work so well in a less numbery discipline.

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

My original thesis was going to state how the purity system for the second temple (as detailed in Leviticus and later rabbinic sources) was transferred to the synagogue upon the temple's destruction in 70 CE, and that's why there are ritual baths in existence in that time period. However, the texts that talk about synagogue purity systems were written centuries later than when the ritual baths were being used. So now I have to have a new theory about the purity beliefs and how they came to be.

Also, I like working around the time period of 300 BCE to 200ish CE, and these texts are 6th and 7th century CE, so I'm really out of my element here.