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Re: Sects
---------------Original Message---------------
>>Jim West: If different manuscripts represent different sects, then does
this not imply different occupants of Qumran- or must we understand that all
the differing views were "imported" to the caves (but by whom and why?).
Yirmiyahu: You may be making a logically flawed assumption here regarding
the meaning of the term "imply" when you mean something on the order of
"suggest"?
To give an example:
Let x = "Different manuscripts",
Let y = "different sects",
Let x be true (i.e., "different manuscripts" were found there), and
*Let* x -> y (x implies y).
The above means that if x is true, y *is* true, absolutely and
undeniably -- well, by a scientist anyway (8-{)} -- not merely that "y seems
likely."
Logic stated this precisely can be translated into computer-
digestible statements that enable a computer to process the information and
return the correct statement of truth deriving from the input. This is the
level of logical discipline required in scientific and scholarly thinking.
One importance of this is that ambiguous questions too often turn
into ambiguous answers -- leading to endless replication of confusion.
By showing the plausibility of several other possible explanations
as well, another contributor has demonstrated that x does not imply y. On
the other hand, weighing the evidence may allow for x suggesting some as yet
undetermined likelihood of y (about which I'm making no comment at all, I'm
commenting strictly on the logic) -- a far more limited, careful,
disciplined and logically sound statement that is much less likely to foster
confusion.
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Yirmiyahu Ben-David, Pakiyd 16
K'hiylat Ha-N'tzarim
(World-wide Congregation of Nazarene / Nazorean Jews)
www.netvision.net.il/~netzarim
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