Dear Avira,
You are misunderstanding my posts completely. The authorship of Perek Shirah is not at all the discussion. The controversy is that the conflicting accusations here imply that a Tosafist forgery and Karaite forgery could theoretically look the same. As to say that the division between Jews a thousand years ago did not have much depth.
You brought up how much weight to give to words of the Rishonim versus others. I really do not buy it. I think all scholars can speak for themselves. If we need to give their words added weight, than why bother with what they said? If you think that the value of Our Sages is the esteem we accord them, then why bother? Instead of going on, I’ll just respectfully disagree. The words of the Chachamim need to be delved into to the utmost. There is no place for sacred goats in Judaism.
You are even further of off the beaten path with your statement about Beraisah and Torah Shebal Peh. The focus is on the scholars not scholarship. That is not how heresy works. You seem to have compartmentalized the Rambam’s edifice of proper thought and true belief.
We agree about the intellectual dishonesty of making the student comfortable with the texts instead of properly analyzing them. As well as using under quoted
The rebb you mentioned, was he well read in their biographies, or did he just assume that. Because it sounds silly to charge Zunz, Buber, or Lieberman- with opening a sefer and not knowing all it’s contents.