Originally posted by Capt_Fantastic
Not if this is representative of your opinion of legitimate:
Originally posted by Nellinator
You think the great pyramids were built in one lifetime? I can see many of them being built by one pharoah, but not the great pyramid of Khufu, not with the distances between the quarry and the pyramid and definitely not without the horse and wheel. However, I would believe 100 years.
Tell me, what does the entire population of a country that lives off grain do when there is no grain? Starve and die out, of subsist off teh taxed storeshouses maintained by the state? You think the Egyptian governemnt taxed gold from it's peasant farmers? Nope, it was teh grain they fed back to them in the form of wages for state funded labour.
Originally posted by Imperial_Samura
And you are playing right into an increasingly outdated view. The Australian aboriginals had a complex cultural history, oral tradition, artistic, sea faring and broad agricultural practices and the like. They are primitive compared to the English who discovered them - but it is not right they should be declared uncultured.
"Oral traditions"? 😂 Please, anyone can talk and tell a story. In terms of technology and contributions, the Aboriginals have shit. Except for maybe the boomerang, which is a pretty fun toy when you're a kid. They have absolutely nothing on the Chinese or the Mesopotamians or the Egyptians or the Aztecs.
Originally posted by Imperial_Samura
Because you see - a culture doesn't need to have made a major scientific discovery to be considered possessing complex culture. It would be good to see a day when words like "primitive" and "barbarian" were completely left behind and anthropological dating used to define - stone age, hunter gatherer etc.
If a given culture lacks a writing system and permanent structures/buildings, then they're primitive.
The Discovery Channel had made some great finds...............It seems that the pyramids were done gladly to that civilization............only because they were in that belief system also...................If they were there like 400 years like stated in the Bible don't you think they would absorb some thoughts on religion........yes they would!.............Can you say that after 100 years that your belief and those of your children would be the same as when you intered??..Nope........
Originally posted by debbiejo
The Discovery Channel had made some great finds...............It seems that the pyramids were done gladly to that civilization............only because they were in that belief system also...................If they were there like 400 years like stated in the Bible don't you think they would absorb some thoughts on religion........yes they would!.............Can you say that after 100 years that your belief and those of your children would be the same as when you intered??..Nope........
Originally posted by Quiero Mota
"Oral traditions"? 😂 Please, anyone can talk and tell a story. In terms of technology and contributions, the Aboriginals have shit. Except for maybe the boomerang, which is a pretty fun toy when you're a kid. They have absolutely nothing on the Chinese or the Mesopotamians or the Egyptians or the Aztecs.
Well, I complement you on your ignorant, Eurocentric, psudoclassical view of history. And here is a little news flash for you... you know Homer? The Odyssey and Iliad? Do you know scholars believe that it existed primarily as an oral traditions for hundreds of years before it actually was recorded? Yes.... Oral tradition means nothing, it simply in one case gave us one of the greatest epic poems ever.
But then I forget - you don't see the arts as relevant do you? If I'm not mistaken you didn't think Russia had given anything to the world bar the AK-47 and Vodka - who cars about the great composers and authors.
Perhaps I could buy you a plane ticket so you can come and tell the Australian historical community that there work on a remarkably complex hunter gatherer culture is "shit" - maybe you can knock the aboriginals themselves with a 20,000 year oral history. And knock their sea craft - sea craft which saw them spread to islands all around Australia long before the Europeans were doing similar. And their religious culture, and their mythology.
Disgusting really.
If a given culture lacks a writing system and permanent structures/buildings, then they're primitive.
And as I said there is a determined move away from such definitions in the historical community in the modern world as they realise the definition of "primitive" has negative connotations and degrees of bias and derogative thought processes.
An comparison to Rome would see many other cultures classed as "primitive" based upon erroneous definition and failing to take into account the numerous cultural aspects - art, culture, history, religion, craftsmanship and all the rest. It is why historians are becoming less happy with automatically applying the phrase primitive to "hunters and gatherers" because the term has placed emphasis upon settled culture, and ignores rich and vibrant cultural, intellectual and artistic ideals.
And that is unfair.
I've always thought that Egyptian and Canaanite religions would be the only ones with a chance of influencing Judaism. However, there is little evidence of influence from Egyptian sources or from the Canaanites.
Pop down to your university, a good place to start is Claus Westermann's Genesis 1-11 : a commentary - it explains this section, while looking at it in a social and historical context. I memory serves I believe there were valid reasons to think Sumerian and other ancient Mesopotamian had an influence on what the Israelites wrote - from creation to the flood (assimilated from Sumerian myth and so on.)
Originally posted by Imperial_Samura
Pop down to your university, a good place to start is Claus Westermann's Genesis 1-11 : a commentary - it explains this section, while looking at it in a social and historical context. I memory serves I believe there were valid reasons to think Sumerian and other ancient Mesopotamian had an influence on what the Israelites wrote - from creation to the flood (assimilated from Sumerian myth and so on.)
Originally posted by Alliance
Its obvious that severe floods happen around the world from time to time.
True, and it is most certain that history has been full of floods more severe then the one in Sumerian legend - but there seems to be valid arguments for linking the OT story of Noah and the flood and the Sumerian version.
Slightly more out there was suggestions that perhaps the Biblical flood was a reference to the Egyptian creation myth where the Primordial mound arouse out of the primordial waters (Nun) representing chaos and so forth. Which sometimes has a birth/death cycle (that the Egyptian creation account has the body and Ka of a dead god rising out of the waters, so the death of the old existence and birth of the knew = eg. the Jews claim God drowned the world and it essentially was cleansed and born a-new)
Which has some possibilities due to the Memphite Theology that has Ptah, the heart and word, "speak" existence into being (sometimes replacing or augmenting the above Heliopolis Theology version) - which bares a striking resemblance to the claims made by the Israelites hundreds of years later.
And myths about how men are made (from raw materials) and referances made in things like the Eulogy of Ramesses II about "breathing life into the noses of man"
Originally posted by Nellinator
Ya, but what was the last on the scale to merit a myth? Most myths originate around the same time.
Actually in the ancient word, when the earths population was about 0.017% of what it is now, many floods that we see today could have been thought of as the end of the world. Could you imagine the indonesian tsunami if only you and a few others survived it out of the few thousand that would have been living there back then. Even Katrina could have become mythical if it had happened when there was no means to communicate with the outside world and the population was smaller.
-edit-
by population I meant population of homo sapiens
Originally posted by Nellinator
Ya, but what was the last on the scale to merit a myth? Most myths originate around the same time.
False. Most myths occur consecutively....one after the other, one borrowing and re-defining the myth that came before it.
Observe:
Greek Mythology---->Roman Mythology
Egyptian mythos + Greek Mythos + Persian setting= Zoroastrianism and Judaism
Zoroastianism / Judaism----> Christianity
Christianity + Arab mythos-------> Islam
Originally posted by Lord Urizen
False. Most myths occur consecutively....one after the other, one borrowing and re-defining the myth that came before it.Observe:
Greek Mythology---->Roman Mythology
Egyptian mythos + Greek Mythos + Persian setting= Zoroastrianism and Judaism
Zoroastianism / Judaism----> Christianity
Christianity + Arab mythos-------> Islam
The Egyptians and the Greeks had little to no influence on either Zoroastrianism or Judaism. If anyone can claim influence on Judaism it would be the Sumerians, however, the flood seems to be the only connection. Zoroastrianism did not affect Christianity. Christianity is based purely on OT prophecy concerning the Messiah. OT prophecy was not influenced by Zoroastrianism. Christianity did not really affect Islam. Islam developed out of Judaism not Arab mythos or Christianity.
You seem to think everyone borrowed ideas from everyone else, but is simply not true. Have you ever thought that maybe some similarities may indicate a portion of the truth of what happened? Probably not. You are way too biased to be considered credible.
Originally posted by Nellinator
You simply don't understand cultural influences of the time. Greek and Roman mythology is of course closely linked. The Romans were descended from survivors of Troy who carried with them their myths. That's not rocket science.
Though it isn't as simple as that, and the whole "Trojan War" is not believed to have really been like it was represented in the epic poems - that is if it even if it really occurred at all. The Greeks fought the Trojans at some point certainly, in fact if I'm not mistaken it is believed they fought them on many occasions.
And the Roman's did have beliefs separate from the Greeks as I mentioned earlier - ones reminiscent of animists.
Islam developed out of Judaism not Arab mythos or Christianity.
Not strictly true - Arab's did have remarkable pagans beliefs that were overcome by Islam, and the actual growth and response of Islam has been strongly linked as a reaction to spreading Christianity - especially as Islam acknowledges Jesus as a prophet of Allah as opposed to the son of him. It is seen, intellectually, as a tool to unify Arab culture against assimilation by a foreign religion. Many ancient historians spoke of the benifits of religion as unifying and brining people together.
As to influences on Judaism - there are believed to be links other then the flood - the book I mentioned is a good starting place about Judaic response against natural religious history by supplementing it with salvation religious history - the way in which the Jews removed the power of sun and moon imagery from the creation account (making light before the sun) and so on.
And remembering there is an Egyptian creation account that has Ptah speaking the existence into being which could have been a belief long held prior to the centralising and streamlining of the Judea faith. Which means it would have been there for the Israelites to be influence by before they managed to get their religion organised.
Originally posted by Nellinator
You simply don't understand cultural influences of the time. Greek and Roman mythology is of course closely linked. The Romans were descended from survivors of Troy who carried with them their myths. That's not rocket science.
Yeah...you know the whole Romans from Troy thing is a myth?
That was made up by the Romans in order to give them credibility and attachment to the Greek world, which they would do anything to attain.
It may not be rocket science, but there's a clear difference between histoical myth and fact. It is my opinion that you have trouble discerning between the two.
Originally posted by Alliance
Yeah...you know the whole Romans from Troy thing is a myth?That was made up by the Romans in order to give them credibility and attachment to the Greek world, which they would do anything to attain.
It may not be rocket science, but there's a clear difference between histoical myth and fact. It is my opinion that you have trouble discerning between the two.
Exactly.
And I'm looking at you Virgil.