In The
Fabric of Reality, physicist David Deutsch equates knowledge with better
explanations. Accurate predictions, he writes, are a byproduct of explanation
and very important. But Deutsch insists that explanation is more crucial to
understanding than prediction. He notes that the 17th century
Catholic Church hierarchy okayed the publication of Galileo’s heliocentric
theory because they welcomed its predictive benefits. What frosted them – and led
to the famous heresy trial, conviction, and recantation – was Galileo’s
contention that universal mathematical laws based on empirical observation had
more explanatory power than Holy
Scripture. That, not prediction, is what upset the Church hierarchy. (On Value and Values: Thinking Differently
About We In An Age Of Me, by Douglas K. Smith © 2004, 2011; iUniverse,
Inc., Bloomington, IN; p. 51)
The witnesses, laying their coats at the feet of Saul, were the men that would cast the first stones at Stephen in Acts 7. Why did they all lay their coats at Saul’s feet? The Talmud contains a very interesting account of the act of stoning that may provide the answer. “When the trial was over, they take him [the condemned person] out to be stoned. The place of stoning was at a distance from the court, as it is said, ‘Take out the one who has cursed.’ [i] A man stands at the entrance of the court; in his hand is a signaling flag [Hebrew sudarin = sudar , ‘scarf, sweater’]. A horseman was stationed far away but within sight of him. If one [of the judges] says, ‘I have something [more] to say in his favor,’ he [the signaler] waves the sudarin , and the horseman runs and stops them [from stoning him]. Even if [the condemned person] himself says, ‘I have something to say in my favor,’ they bring him back, even four of five times, only provided that there is some substance to...
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