[Avodah] ?????: medieval jewish history

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Aug 04, 2009 at 11:01:43PM -0600, Daniel Israel wrote:
: rabbirichwolpoe at gmail.com wrote:
: >So if academics TODAY trash what was out there 100 years ago, then in
: >one hundred years should we expect to trash current prevailing
: >academic opinions?

: Not sure what your point is.  In any case, this seems to be driving 
: towards a pet peeve of mine.  The scientific model is not that 
: subsequent models trash previous models, rather subsequent models refine 
: previous models...

OTOH, when an academic studying Talmud thinks he can correct the
understanding of Rabbi Yishmael compared to the teirutz given by Reish
Laqish, one can be understandably skeptical.

Because when it comes to academia studying halakhah, the model RDI
describes isn't really what holds. There is also a problem that in
history, unlike science, more information and cultural cues are lost
over time than discovered.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha