Explanations of the CMB exhibited varied and often opposed epistemological motivations, and the models were correspondingly diverse. As the chapter clarifies, the explanations varied from subsidiaries to fully worked-out cosmological models, probing toy-models, and even the deliberate omission of modeling, relying on regular astrophysical insights alone. An admirable epistemic and observational diversity was achieved in the face of an emerging trend of ever-more centralized observational and theoretical programs that came to dominate much of physical science, including cosmology.