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orion-list Re: Kuhn and Popper

Dear Russell and orion group,

	With all due respect, I see things differently. Surprised?  :-)

	That the two deceased scholars had disagreed quite deeply about the 
juxtaposition of Kuhn type paradigm shifts and Popper type falsifiability 
is documented fact. So is the unhappiness, even perhaps disdain, sometimes 
expressed by Kuhn about various uses of his paradigm shift analysis outside 
of hard science.
Do I need to document this or are you already aware?

	There are, I suggest, some myths and some straw-man uses of DSS 
"consensus." Few fields, after all, have seen more vigorous debate than 
DSS. You wrote that "the reigning paradigm" is that the sect arose early in 
first century BCE. Have you checked that with Vermes, Milik, Puech, 
Stegemann, et al. who insist Jonathan Maccabee was the wicked priest? No 
scholar with whom I am acquainted claims that all Qumran mss were penned at 
Qumran. Though some mss, I think, were. The inkwells suggest writing, 
surely. One can give many examples of lack of consensus about "the 
consensus." E.g., some time ago P. Davies and P. Callaway wrote books which 
described the consensus. The former included Murphy-O'Connor, who wrote 
that Essenes came in 2nd century BC from Babylon; the latter did not 
include him. J. Magness and others have revised de Vaux's chronology. Is 
that not progress, without revolution? Need the old historians be wrong 
about everything? Indeed, is that possible? As for what is and is not in 
"the historical record." we see that, and attending requirements, 
differently. E.g., if the Teacher is Judah the Essene, then he is mentioned 
in Josephus, teaching. Yet such a Teacher might hypothetically not be 
mentioned by Josephus, and still have existed. The historical record is, to 
some extent, growing and being refined.

	As for what you call "crisis" and what you see as evidence to help those 
like me putatively consensus-bound out of crisis, by all means present what 
evidence you have.

best wishes,

Stephen Goranson
Durham NC		


For private reply, e-mail to goranson <goranson@acpub.duke.edu>
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