Re: Isaiah and Essenes

[netzarim@netvision.net.il]

Stephen Goranson:
>My concern, which I may not have expressed well enough, is that you (David 
Kaufman) sometimes declare what cannot be known.  E.g., your declaration 
that one cannot know whether the Qumran cave mss are connected with the 
khirbet involves an unwarrented assumption of knowledge itself.<

David Kaufman:
>The proof is in the proving. Show me evidence that it can be known and I 
will acknowledge that it can be done. Until there is irrefutable proof, not
theories, and what that proof might be I have no idea, we can not KNOW, but
can theorize.<

Logic dictates that we distinguish between what we *can* or *cannot* know 
and what we *do* or *do not* know.  We can properly state that "Until there 
is irrefutable proof, not theories, we *do* not know, but can theorize."  
Stevan is correct, however, that it isn't logically justified to assert that 
we *cannot* know, as what we *cannot* know, itself, requires irrefutable 
proof.  Scholars do not accept a simple assertion that we *cannot* know as 
justification to quit working on an intractable problem and switch to 
working on a different problem that has some likelihood of having a 
solution.  Scientists require "irrefutable proof" to give up on a problem as 
being intractable.  Review the Uncertainty Principle in physics.  Even then, 
some Einstein type always seems to come along with a new approach and 
invalidate the "irrefutable proof" about what we *cannot* know.

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Yirmiyahu Ben-David, Pakiyd 16; Ra'anana, Israel
Q'hiylat Ha-N'tzarim
(Global Congregation of Nazarene Jews)

N'tzarim Virtual Community Center:
www.netvision.net.il/~netzarim

N'tzarim... Authentic
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