We are all Jews
Iov
Whole western world converted to Judaism and this religion allowed it to
grow and progress to present levels. I wonder what kind of lifestyle we
would live now if Christian religion did not persevere?
Augustus
Thank you, very much! I am a devout Christian and I most heartilly agree
with you. I'm reminded of an old saying: "Show me a Christian who is not a
Jew, and I will show you a Christian who is not a Christian."
Nubkhas
I am not sure what you all are driving at here. Judaism
and Christianity have one major difference--Jesus! Christians
believe Jesus is God. To Jews he is just another Jew. Had
the Christian religion not persevered, I doubt we'd all be
Jews. Judaism wasn't the prevailing religion in the world
before the advent of Christianity. What we'd be living
is probably a pagan lifestyle. (Not that we don't, anyway).
*The* Didaskalos
"Iov" <i...@sprintmail.com> wrote to and soc.history.ancient:
== Whole western world converted to Judaism and this religion allowed it to
== grow and progress to present levels. I wonder what kind of lifestyle we
== would live now if Christian religion did not persevere?
This is a gross misreading of history.
The triumph of Judaism/Christianity actually led to a destruction of
learning. It was only as secularists broke free from the restraints of
Judaism/Christianity that learning revived and advanced to what we
have today.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
Ye shall know the truth -- *The* Didaskalos
http://www.geocities.com/westhollywood/village/1360
http://www.glinn.com/pink
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
M. Ranjit Mathews
*The* Didaskalos wrote:
> "Iov" <i...@sprintmail.com> wrote to and soc.history.ancient:
>
> == Whole western world converted to Judaism and this religion allowed it to
> == grow and progress to present levels. I wonder what kind of lifestyle we
> == would live now if Christian religion did not persevere?
>
> This is a gross misreading of history.
>
> The triumph of Judaism/Christianity actually led to a destruction of
> learning. It was only as secularists broke free from the restraints of
> Judaism/Christianity that learning revived and advanced to what we
> have today.
Actually, Judaism reformed itself long before Christianity. Once the Talmud
had largely displaced the Torah for all practical purposes and the reforms of
Rabbis Hillel through Zakkai (and beyond ?) had taken hold and the
fundamentalists had lost their power by virtue of their defeats at Masada and
in the Bar Kochba revolt, Judaism, while orthodox, was no longer violently so
if for no other reason than that they never again had their own kingdom or
sphere of influence where another generation of strongmen could thrive. It was
Western Christianity that experienced the Dark Ages. Jews developed a
tradition of scholarship and Eastern Christians in Greater Syria maintained
their tradition of scholarship well into this millenium by which time the
Renaissance had already started in Europe. Christianity had an indirect
influence on the rapid progress of the Renaissance after printing because many
people learnt to read in order to read the Bible and then went on to reading
secular subjects.
Augustus
True. Christianity is very different from Judaism. However, beyond the more
metaphysical aspect (Christ, Mary, Holy Spirit), the founding principals
(morality, God Himself) of both are strikingly similar. In addition,
Christianity utilizes the same holy book as the Jews, albeit, a very edited
version. Perhaps the most compelling argument, which I doubt no Christian
can deny is that Christ, Mary, Joseph, Peter, and all of the Apostles were
Jews.; add to that that the God of Israel is also the Pater Omnipotens
Christi.
I admit that I do not practice Channuka (hope I spelled that right),
Passover, Yom Kippur or other Jewish holidays, so that means I am not an
outright Jew. But also, I don't attend church, and haven't for nearly 12
years and my father is an Iranian Muslim. Do any of these things disqualify
me from the Cross. Remember, it was the Star of David that was nailed to
the Cross.
--
In Amicitia
Augustus
Grendel
Gabriel Ataya wrote in message <3532A5...@ncs.co.nz>...
>Nubkhas wrote:
>>
>> >Thank you, very much! I am a devout Christian and I most heartilly agree
>> >with you. I'm reminded of an old saying: "Show me a Christian who is not
a
>> >Jew, and I will show you a Christian who is not a Christian."
>> >
>> >> Whole western world converted to Judaism and this religion allowed it
to
>> >> grow and progress to present levels. I wonder what kind of lifestyle
we
>> >> would live now if Christian religion did not persevere?
>> >
>>
>> I am not sure what you all are driving at here. Judaism
>> and Christianity have one major difference--Jesus! Christians
>> believe Jesus is God. To Jews he is just another Jew. Had
>> the Christian religion not persevered, I doubt we'd all be
>> Jews. Judaism wasn't the prevailing religion in the world
>> before the advent of Christianity. What we'd be living
>> is probably a pagan lifestyle. (Not that we don't, anyway).
>
>The diffrence between them is that Christians beleive Jesus to be the
>Messiah and the guys practising Judaism are still waiting for the
>messiah. Christians beleive him to be the Messiah based upon the
>fullfillment of prophecies in Isaiah and other books of the old
>testament.
>
Frankly I disagree with the whole subject. We are all not descendents of
Semitic people. I am sure that if we checked around here we would find some
who's ancestors spoke Semitic languages, some who spoke indo-European
languages, some who spoke Afro-Asiatic languages, and a grab bag of others.
This implies that we are by no means "All Jews."
Gabriel Ataya
Nubkhas wrote:
>
> >Thank you, very much! I am a devout Christian and I most heartilly agree
> >with you. I'm reminded of an old saying: "Show me a Christian who is not a
> >Jew, and I will show you a Christian who is not a Christian."
> >
> >> Whole western world converted to Judaism and this religion allowed it to
> >> grow and progress to present levels. I wonder what kind of lifestyle we
> >> would live now if Christian religion did not persevere?
> >
>
> I am not sure what you all are driving at here. Judaism
> and Christianity have one major difference--Jesus! Christians
> believe Jesus is God. To Jews he is just another Jew. Had
> the Christian religion not persevered, I doubt we'd all be
> Jews. Judaism wasn't the prevailing religion in the world
> before the advent of Christianity. What we'd be living
> is probably a pagan lifestyle. (Not that we don't, anyway).
The diffrence between them is that Christians beleive Jesus to be the
Messiah and the guys practising Judaism are still waiting for the
messiah. Christians beleive him to be the Messiah based upon the
fullfillment of prophecies in Isaiah and other books of the old
testament.
G
Thomas Dafnides
I wonder what the Jews would have become if they had converted to
Christianity.
Iov <i...@sprintmail.com> wrote in article
<6gr27n$fr4$1...@newsfep2.sprintmail.com>...
Alt173
*The* Didaskalos wrote in message <35317369...@news.alpha.net>...
>The triumph of Judaism/Christianity actually led to a destruction of
>learning. It was only as secularists broke free from the restraints of
>Judaism/Christianity that learning revived and advanced to what we
>have today.
Could you please provide some support for this hypothesis of yours? If
anything, it would seem that Christianity, through monasticism, did more to
preserve and promote knowledge through the middle ages.
oscar_...@yahoo.com
In article <6gr27n$fr4$1...@newsfep2.sprintmail.com>,
"Iov" <i...@sprintmail.com> wrote:
>
> Whole western world converted to Judaism and this religion allowed it to
> grow and progress to present levels.
Christianity grew because it adopted numerous elements of Greco-Roman
religon, and various Cult Religons popular in Rome, and later many
elements of Germanic society.
Judasim itself is very against growth, considering that active missionairy
work is rather frowned upon.
> I wonder what kind of lifestyle we
> would live now if Christian religion did not persevere?
Rather Big what-if.
---Oscar Schlaf---
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading
Nubkhas
> I wonder what the Jews would have become if they had converted to
>Christianity.
Well, one become God.
Iov
German
Thomas Dafnides wrote in message <022d84d9$6275eaa0$5986edcc@default>...
> I wonder what the Jews would have become if they had converted to
>Christianity.
>
>Iov <i...@sprintmail.com> wrote in article
><6gr27n$fr4$1...@newsfep2.sprintmail.com>...
>> Whole western world converted to Judaism and this religion allowed it to
>> grow and progress to present levels. I wonder what kind of lifestyle we
Grendel
>
> Christianity grew because it adopted numerous elements of Greco-Roman
>religon, and various Cult Religons popular in Rome, and later many
>elements of Germanic society.
> Judasim itself is very against growth, considering that active
missionairy
>work is rather frowned upon.
>
Interesting enough, in "The History of God" (I'll quote the author later),
it points out how heavily influenced modern Judaism was also influenced by
Greco-Roman philosophy. Let's also not forget how much both owe to
Zoroastrianism as well.
Gabriel Ataya
Thomas Dafnides wrote:
>
> I wonder what the Jews would have become if they had converted to
> Christianity.
They are called Messianic Jews. My aunty is one.
G
Snowlion
On Mon, 13 Apr 1998 12:32:18 GMT,
thedid...@TAKEMEOUTTOTHEBALLGAMEusa.net (*The* Didaskalos)
wrote:
>
>The triumph of Judaism/Christianity actually led to a destruction of
>learning. It was only as secularists broke free from the restraints of
>Judaism/Christianity that learning revived and advanced to what we
>have today.
>
>
Hmmm. It seems that you have not understood history at all.
Learning was destroyed and the dark ages initiated throughout the
western Roman empire because of the triumph of Germans. Learning
was preserved by Irish monks in the west and Greeks in what was
left of the empire. The Monks and the Greeks were both christian.
Many of the germans were pagan and the ones who claimed to be
christian did not demonstrate a great deal of conviction if we
are to judge by their behavior.
Will Harrington
*The* Didaskalos
"M. Ranjit Mathews" <ran...@austin.ibm.com> wrote to and
soc.history.ancient:
== *The* Didaskalos wrote:
==
== > "Iov" <i...@sprintmail.com> wrote to and soc.history.ancient:
== >
== > == Whole western world converted to Judaism and this religion allowed it to
== > == grow and progress to present levels. I wonder what kind of lifestyle we
== > == would live now if Christian religion did not persevere?
== >
== > This is a gross misreading of history.
== >
== > The triumph of Judaism/Christianity actually led to a destruction of
== > learning. It was only as secularists broke free from the restraints of
== > Judaism/Christianity that learning revived and advanced to what we
== > have today.
==
== Actually, Judaism reformed itself long before Christianity. Once the Talmud
== had largely displaced the Torah for all practical purposes and the reforms of
== Rabbis Hillel through Zakkai (and beyond ?) had taken hold and the
== fundamentalists had lost their power by virtue of their defeats at Masada and
== in the Bar Kochba revolt, Judaism, while orthodox, was no longer violently so
== if for no other reason than that they never again had their own kingdom or
== sphere of influence where another generation of strongmen could thrive. It was
== Western Christianity that experienced the Dark Ages. Jews developed a
== tradition of scholarship and Eastern Christians in Greater Syria maintained
Jews back then never developed by themselves any tradition of
scholarship other than in religious writing and kaballa.
It's true that they learned from the Arabs and carried Arab knowledge,
e.g., in medicine, into western Europe. But they didn't develop that,
only copied from the Arabs.
Jewish scholarship didn't flourish in any other areas until the
18/19th Century emancipation. Of course there were some exceptions,
such as philosophers Spinoza, and Philo of Alexandria. They may also
have made contributions to secular learning in Spain that I'm not
aware of, but there's always the question there of what emanates from
Jews and what from Arabs. A very telling point is that it was
Christians, not Jews who preserved the work of Philo. Jews simply had
no interest in any scholarship that was not religious or kabbala. If
they did, where is the product of it?
== their tradition of scholarship well into this millenium by which time the
== Renaissance had already started in Europe. Christianity had an indirect
== influence on the rapid progress of the Renaissance after printing because many
== people learnt to read in order to read the Bible and then went on to reading
== secular subjects.
==
I don't think that many people learned to read just so they could read
the Bible and then went on to great and glorious secular achievements.
What's your documentation for that contention? I've heard the claim
often enough from right-wing fundamentalist circles, but they never
document anything and nothing they say can be accepted without a
thorough check.
Nubkhas
>It's true that they learned from the Arabs and carried Arab knowledge,
>e.g., in medicine, into western Europe. But they didn't develop that,
>only copied from the Arabs.
This is how it worked:
In the 7th century a vast portion of the Eastern world was overrun by Arab
conquerors. In Persia, the Arabs learned of Greek medicine at the schools of
the Nestorian Christians (Nestorianism), a sect in exile from the Byzantine
Empire. These schools had preserved many texts lost in the destruction of the
Alexandrian Library (Alexandria, Library of). Translations from Greek were
instrumental in the development of a scientific revival and an Arabic system of
medicine, based on Greek and Roman thought, throughout the Arab- speaking
world. Followers of the system were known as Arabists. Important among Arabist
physicians were al-Razi, a famous clinician and writer, who was the first to
identify smallpox, in 910, and measles and to suggest blood as the cause of
infectious diseases; Isaac Judaeus, the author of the first book devoted
entirely to dietetics; and Avicenna, whose famous Canon remained the standard
synthesis of the doctrines of Hippocrates, Aristotle, and Galen. Arabists of
the 12th century include Avenzoar, who first described the parasite causing
scabies and was among the earliest to question the authority of Galen;
Averroės, recognized as the greatest commentator on Aristotle; Averroės' pupil
Maimonides, whose works on diet, hygiene, and toxicology were widely read; and
Al- Quarashi, also known as Ibn al-Nafis, who wrote commentaries on the
writings of Hippocrates and treatises on diet and eye diseases, and, most
important, was the first to indicate the pulmonary transit of blood, from the
right to the left ventricle via the lungs.
"Medicine," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1997 Microsoft
Corporation. All rights reserved.
The Arab ruler, Sultan Saladin, who
could have had any physician in Cairo, chose the Jew,
Moses Maimonides (who wrote "Guide For the Perplexed")
to be his personal doctor? In fact, by 1185 the most famous
physicians in the Near East were all Jews.
Nubkhas
>Jewish scholarship didn't flourish in any other areas until the
>18/19th Century emancipation. Of course there were some exceptions,
>such as philosophers Spinoza, and Philo of Alexandria. They may also
>have made contributions to secular learning in Spain that I'm not
>aware of, but there's always the question there of what emanates from
>Jews and what from Arabs. A very telling point is that it was
>Christians, not Jews who preserved the work of Philo. Jews simply had
>no interest in any scholarship that was not religious or kabbala. If
>they did, where is the product of it?
Well, you are. And all the other people who are alive due to
Jewish dedication to learning. If it were not for the tradition of scholarship
fostered among the Jews throughout the ages, evn the Dark, regardless of what
the scholarship consisted, Jews might have been content to go into trade (where
it was allowed) and not aspire to study.
However, the scholar was always revered above all others in
Jewish life. That is why Jewish boys went to college more per
ratio and learned the necessary skills to enable them to innovate
the means, above all, to insure that Humanity had a better quality
of life and a longer life-span. The Jews, while certainly being
a small minority among the nations, have made contributions to
Mankind far out of proportion to their number, despite the
following handicaps:
In the middle of the 10th century the center of learning, both secular and
religious, shifted from Mesopotamia to Spain, then a Muslim country. Colonies
of Jews had existed in Spain since before the ascendancy of the Roman Empire
and had long suffered persecution, particularly after the Visigothic rulers
accepted Catholicism in the 6th century. The Muslim conquest brought peace to
the Spanish Jews, who came to occupy prominent positions as statesmen,
physicians, financiers, and scholars. Jewish scholars contributed to the
beginning of the Renaissance (14th century to 17th century) in Europe by their
translations of Greek classics, brought for the first time to western Europe.
The peaceful Spanish era ended in the middle of the 13th century, with the
waning of Muslim domination in the Iberian Peninsula. Under the Catholic
monarchs, Spanish Jews were forced into the lowly position of other European
Jews. During the Middle Ages, persecution of Jews in Christian countries was
the rule. Much of this persecution was unleashed by mobs who condemned every
Jew as one who had taken part in the martyrdom of Jesus. During the Crusades
(1095-1270), thousands of Jews were massacred in the religious fervor of the
period. In 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council of the Roman Catholic church, called
by Pope Innocent III, proclaimed an official policy of restrictions, similar to
the Code of Omar, and ordered all Jews to wear distinctive badges. Throughout
Europe Jews were despised. In cities they were forced to live in special areas,
called ghettos, and were not permitted freedom of movement. During the 13th and
14th centuries several European monarchs filled their treasuries by
confiscating Jewish property and expelling the owners. In 1290 King Edward I of
England beggared and expelled the English Jews. King Charles VI of France
followed the English example in 1394, virtually ending Jewish history in France
until modern times. During the period of the so-called Black Death in the 14th
century, massacres of Jews were common throughout Europe, on the charge that
Jews had caused the plague by poisoning Christian wells. In Spain systematic
persecution by the church resulted in mass conversions by Jews attempting to
save their lives.
"Jews," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1997 Microsoft
Corporation. All rights reserved.
*The* Didaskalos
nub...@aol.com (Nubkhas) wrote to and soc.history.ancient:
== >Jewish scholarship didn't flourish in any other areas until the
== >18/19th Century emancipation. Of course there were some exceptions,
== >such as philosophers Spinoza, and Philo of Alexandria. They may also
== >have made contributions to secular learning in Spain that I'm not
== >aware of, but there's always the question there of what emanates from
== >Jews and what from Arabs. A very telling point is that it was
== >Christians, not Jews who preserved the work of Philo. Jews simply had
== >no interest in any scholarship that was not religious or kabbala. If
== >they did, where is the product of it?
==
== Well, you are. And all the other people who are alive due to
== Jewish dedication to learning. If it were not for the tradition of scholarship
== fostered among the Jews throughout the ages, evn the Dark, regardless of what
I've taken out your stuff on Jewish tradition of scholarship. I said
they didn't have anything but religious and kabbalistic scholarship,
and nothing you posted in that paragraph demonstrated otherwise.
== In the middle of the 10th century the center of learning, both secular and
== religious, shifted from Mesopotamia to Spain, then a Muslim country. Colonies
== of Jews had existed in Spain since before the ascendancy of the Roman Empire
== and had long suffered persecution, particularly after the Visigothic rulers
== accepted Catholicism in the 6th century. The Muslim conquest brought peace to
So if the Jews were such great scholars, who wasn't Spain a great
center of intellectual thought BEFORE the Arabs took over?
== the Spanish Jews, who came to occupy prominent positions as statesmen,
== physicians, financiers, and scholars. Jewish scholars contributed to the
== beginning of the Renaissance (14th century to 17th century) in Europe by their
== translations of Greek classics, brought for the first time to western Europe.
Merely serving as translator -- and of books written in living
languages at that -- isn't my idea of scholarship. "Brought for the
first time to western Europe"? I'm sure the Romans carried the Greek
classics around with them. Aren't we told that Irish monks preserved
them through the centuries? In any case, I don't dispute that Jews
helped disseminate scholarly works of others in places they lived and
traveled. Where are the *original* Jewish scholarly works of the
period?
As for the events of the Renaissance, the Columbia Encylopedia gives
an account quite different from the account you posted, which seems to
try to credit Spanish Jews with the origin of the Renaissance and
spread of ancient literature all over western Europe.
(I've taken out the parts that have nothing to do with the topic of
whether the Jews originated any scholarly works.)
==
== "Jews," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1997 Microsoft
== Corporation. All rights reserved.
==
A wonderful scholar, Bill Gates.
Nubkhas
>A wonderful scholar, Bill Gates.
>
>
><><><><><><><><><><><><>
>
>Ye shall know the truth -- *The* Didaskalos
>
>
Do you think maybe he could afford to buy a great
scholar like you a cup of coffee? Not only do you
appear to have a mouthful of sour grapes when it
comes to the Jews, but to the guy you purchased your
software from, as well!
AC
I've been "lurking" on this group for a few weeks now and am genuinly
impressed with the level of knowlege that is available. Truly noteworthy.
However, I am somewhat dissmayed by the
lack of citation of sources. Good arguments go back and forth but I
noticed a serious descrepency of source citation. Perhaps I'm biased. I'm a
lay genealogist and in all of our newsgroups and maillists we have a
cardinal rule: cite your sources when speaking of matters historical. It's
all fine and good to spout off, but oughtn't one back up his assertion with
somthing concrete? If I say, "Such and such," oughtn't I give credit to
where I learned it? Or ought it be taken for granted that I simply possess
this information by virture of my unasailble knowlege?
Just wondering. IMHO.
--
E-mail replies to: a6...@gte.net
*The* Didaskalos <thedid...@TAKEMEOUTTOTHEBALLGAMEusa.net> wrote in
article <3534f0e0...@news.alpha.net>...
> A wonderful scholar, Bill Gates.
>
>
> <><><><><><><><><><><><>
>
> Ye shall know the truth -- *The* Didaskalos
>
> http://www.geocities.com/westhollywood/village/1360
> http://www.glinn.com/pink
>
> <><><><><><><><><><><><>
>
One Of The Anunnaki
On 13 Apr 1998 21:32:29 GMT, "Augustus" <bobb...@gte.net>
wrote:
The Atra Hasis ( In Part )
Ea made his voice heard And spoke to the gods his brothers,
Why are we blaming them? Their work was too hard, their
trouble was too much. Every day the earth resounded. The
warning signal was loud enough, we kept hearing the noise.
There is... Belet-ili the womb goddess is present- Let her
create a mortal man So that he may bear the yoke... So that
he may bear the yoke, the work of Ellil, Let man bear the
load of the gods!
Belet-ili the womb goddess is present, Let the womb goddess
create offspring, And let them bear the load of the gods!
They called up the goddess, asked The midwife of the gods,
wise Mami, You are the womb-goddess, to be the creator of
Mankind! Create a mortal, that he may bear the yoke! Let him
bear the yoke, the work of Ellil Let him bear the load of
the gods! Nintu made her voice heard And spoke to the great
gods, On the first, seventh, and fifteenth of the month I
shall make a purification by washing. Then one god should be
slaughtered. And the gods can be purified by immersion.
Nintu shall mix the clay With his flesh and blood.
Then a god and a man Will be mixed together in clay. Let us
hear the drumbeat forever after, Let a ghost come into
existence from the god's flesh, Let her proclaim it as her
living sign, And let the ghost exist so as not to forget the
slain god. They answered "yes" in the assembly, The great
Anunnaki who assign the fates
On the first, seventh, and fifteenth of the month He made a
purification by washing. Geshtu-E, a god who had
intelligence, They slaughtered in their assembly. Nintu
mixed clay with his flesh and blood.
They heard the drumbeat forever after. A ghost came into
existence from the god's flesh, and she proclaimed it as his
living sign. The ghost existed so as not to forget the slain
god. After she had mixed that clay, She called up the
Anunnaki, the great gods.
The Igigi, the great gods, Spat spittle upon the clay Mami
made her voice heard And spoke to the great gods, I have
carried out perfectly The work that you ordered of me. You
have slaughtered a god together with his intelligence.
I have relieved you of your hard work, I have imposed your
load on man. You have bestowed noise on man, You have
bestowed noise on mankind. I have undone the fetter and
granted freedom. They listened to the speech of hers, And
were freed from anxiety, and kissed her feet: We used to
call you Mami, But now your name shall be Mistress of All
Gods. Far sighted Enki and wise Mami Went into the room of
fate.
The womb-goddesses were assembled. He trod the clay in her
presence; She kept reciting an incantation, For Enki,
staying in her presence, made her recite it When she had
finished her incantation, She pinched off fourteen pieces of
clay, And set seven pieces on the right, Seven on the left.
Between them she put down a mud brick. She made use of a
reed, opened it to cut the umbilical cord, Called up the
wise and knowledgeable Womb goddesses, seven and seven.
Seven created males, Seven created females, For the womb
goddess is creator of fate. He...them two by two, ...them
two by two in her presence.
(Once you know the truth you no longer have a excuse!!)
From One Of The Anunnaki
One Of The Anunnaki
On 14 Apr 1998 13:22:48 GMT, nub...@aol.com (Nubkhas)
wrote:
>>> I wonder what the Jews would have become if they had converted to
>>>Christianity.
>>
>>Well, one become God.
Where in your Bible do Jesus say (I am God Worship me?)
christians DO Not Read their own Books and have no clue
as to the true origins of the material they preach!
Point being everyone is not a JEW and the title JEW do not
make you a Isrealite. The bible tells you who everyone is
but Christians will not research the names and places
written in their own Bible.
Stop picking and chooseing what you want to read and read
the whole thing, thats the only way you'll Overstand what's
written.
One Of The Anunnaki
On 15 Apr 1998 15:52:09 GMT, nub...@aol.com (Nubkhas)
wrote:
And the Alexandrian Library was located where? and what
other great Library was located in that country before
Alexandria? (Luxor) its amazing how when a theif takes
something and then gives it their name some people call him
great!
Nubkhas
>>>
>>>Well, one become God.
>Where in your Bible do Jesus say (I am God Worship me?)
>christians DO Not Read their own Books and have no clue
>as to the true origins of the material they preach!
>Point being everyone is not a JEW and the title JEW do not
>make you a Isrealite. The bible tells you who everyone is
>but Christians will not research the names and places
>written in their own Bible.
> Stop picking and chooseing what you want to read and read
>the whole thing, thats the only way you'll Overstand what's
>written.
> From One Of The Anunnaki
><
Something tells me I should get even more picky....
Nubkhas
> And the Alexandrian Library was located where?
Try Alexandria.
> and what
>other great Library was located in that country before
>Alexandria? (Luxor) its amazing how when a theif takes
>something and then gives it their name some people call him
>great!
Who you calling "thief", then? The King of Egypt, Ptolemy
Soter, was the big book collector.
*The* Didaskalos
nub...@aol.com (Nubkhas) wrote to and soc.history.ancient:
== ><><><><><><><><><><><><>
== >
== >Ye shall know the truth -- *The* Didaskalos
==
== Do you think maybe he could afford to buy a great
== scholar like you a cup of coffee? Not only do you
== appear to have a mouthful of sour grapes when it
== comes to the Jews, but to the guy you purchased your
== software from, as well!
The question is accuracy in history. That's sour grapes to you?
The original claim to which I took exception was that Jews were the
originators of the Renaissance.
Your quotes aren't exactly from scholarly treatises. I suggest you
read some of Benjamin Disraeli's writings. You'll find similar
chauvinistic boasting.
From the Columbia Encyclopedia: "medicine" (which acknowledges
Maimonides -- and notes in its article on him that he wrote his great
philosophical work in Arabic rather than Hebrew):
"The first real light on modern medicine in Europe came with the
translation of many writings from the Arabic at Salerno, Italy, and
through a continuing trade and cultural exchange with Byzantium. By
the 13th cent., there were flourishing medical schools at Montpellier,
Paris, Bologna and Padua, the latter being the site of production of
the first accurate books on human anatomy."
ibid "renaissance":
"In the 12th cent. a rediscovery of Greek and Roman literature
occurred across Europe that eventually led to the development of the
humanist movement in the 14th cent."
***
The original poster claimed that all this started because Jews had
brought Greek texts to Spain and translated them. That doesn't seem to
be a historically accurate picture of what actually happened.
Nubkhas
>The question is accuracy in history. That's sour grapes to you?
As the great historian, Eugen Weber, noted, one man or woman's
version of History is not necessarily the same as that of another.
>
>The original claim to which I took exception was that Jews were the
>originators of the Renaissance.
Well, it wasn't my claim, but, in your eagerness to take exception,
you have attempted to relegate all the wisdom and learning of the
Jews to the texts pertinent to their own religion. Shame!
>
>Your quotes aren't exactly from scholarly treatises.
Why not? I quoted scholars who wrote the treatises for
Microsoft's Encarta where, presumably, you can paste quotes
from them (as long as you give the source credit) into discussions
like this one. I could have quoted other sources with the same
information, but that would have necessitated a lot more typing,
an effort which this dialogue hardly warrants.
> I suggest you
>read some of Benjamin Disraeli's writings. You'll find similar
>chauvinistic boasting.
How lucky you are you are not addressing Disraeli instead
of only me. The famous wit of that great "chauvanist" would
have ground you down to the bare atoms of your so-called
"scholarly superiority" by now.
>From the Columbia Encyclopedia: "medicine" (which acknowledges
>Maimonides -- and notes in its article on him that he wrote his great
>philosophical work in Arabic rather than Hebrew):
Maimonides lived in Egypt, whose language was Arabic. He doubtless knew it
well. How is one language better than another?
His other famous work, the "Mishneh Torah" was composed in Hebrew.
>"The first real light on modern medicine in Europe came with the
>translation of many writings from the Arabic at Salerno, Italy, and
>through a continuing trade and cultural exchange with Byzantium. By
>the 13th cent., there were flourishing medical schools at Montpellier,
>Paris, Bologna and Padua, the latter being the site of production of
>the first accurate books on human anatomy."
(snip of odd bits and pieces from the encyclopaedia)
What's the point of all this? I haven't the slightest wish to
take away one iota from the contribution to medicine of
the Arabs. Or the Egyptians before them, or the Greeks.
Yet I asked you, why do you suppose the Sultan preferred
to make the Jew, Moses ben Maimon, his Chief Physician
over all doctors of his own religion? What happened to the
superiority of Arab physicians over Jewish ones in Egypt at
the time? The only answer you furnished was to comment
that Maimonides wrote in Arabic. Why are evading my question?
Could it possibly be that you begrudge the Jews their accomplishments? It
certainly would seem so. As far as your
picture of the Jews spending all their time with their noses in
the Talmud goes, Maimonides, in his own writing, laments that
he was so busy ministering to the sick, both high-born and low,
from early in the morning until late at night that he barely had
any time to study the scriptures, only taking a little time to do so
on the Sabbath, which was also the day the Jews of the vicinity
consulted him on all sorts of matters out of respect for his great
reputation as a learned man. When Maimonides died on December 13, 1204, his
passing was marked by three days of
public mourning in Fostat (Cairo), a public fast in Jerusalem and
by expressions of grief throughout much of the Jewish world. He
lies buried in Tiberias, Israel.
That aside, there is no doubt whatsoever that Jewish thinkers
in the Spanish Muslim period were largely engaged in translating
and interpreting the Greek heritage to the dominant Muslim world.
Augustus
Irish? Nothing against them, but the only Roman exposure known to them was
at Durmahngum. Unless missionaries brought the classics with them, I know
of no such exposure. I was taught that the classics, as well as Roman law,
was returned by the Accursed Byzantines when they cowardly fled the forces
of the Turks. I could be wrong.
--
In Amicitia
Augustus
Lisa Simpson: " Well, I'd hate to tell the top cop how to do his job."
Chief Wigum: "No, it's the only way I'll learn."
*The* Didaskalos
nub...@aol.com (Nubkhas) wrote to and soc.history.ancient:
== > I suggest you
== >read some of Benjamin Disraeli's writings. You'll find similar
== >chauvinistic boasting.
==
== How lucky you are you are not addressing Disraeli instead
== of only me. The famous wit of that great "chauvanist" would
== have ground you down to the bare atoms of your so-called
== "scholarly superiority" by now.
That doesn't answer the matter of chauvinism in Disraeli's work.
== >"The first real light on modern medicine in Europe came with the
== >translation of many writings from the Arabic at Salerno, Italy, and
== >through a continuing trade and cultural exchange with Byzantium. By
== >the 13th cent., there were flourishing medical schools at Montpellier,
== >Paris, Bologna and Padua, the latter being the site of production of
== >the first accurate books on human anatomy."
==
== (snip of odd bits and pieces from the encyclopaedia)
==
== What's the point of all this? I haven't the slightest wish to
The point of this is that the Renaissance (and medicine as interjected
by other posters) was not the work of Spanish Jews. That's not to say
they didn't participate in it, but it is to say that they didn't have
the starring role suggested by the original poster. Yes, you say you
didn't say it, and I'm not suggesting you did say it. But to the best
of my recollection someone said it early in this thread. I don't know
if it was an opinion of the poster, or a quote from some dubious
source, such as Encarta. I suspect the Columbia Encyclopedia, with
editors Chernow and Vallasi, and with Consultants Awn, Bulliet, Cohen,
Lancaster, Melnick, and Weinberg cannot be accused of trying to
denigrate or minimize Jewish contributions to Western Civilization and
the Renaissance.
== take away one iota from the contribution to medicine of
== the Arabs. Or the Egyptians before them, or the Greeks.
== Yet I asked you, why do you suppose the Sultan preferred
== to make the Jew, Moses ben Maimon, his Chief Physician
== over all doctors of his own religion? What happened to the
== superiority of Arab physicians over Jewish ones in Egypt at
== the time? The only answer you furnished was to comment
== that Maimonides wrote in Arabic. Why are evading my question?
I'm not evading your question. I don't question his qualifications as
a physician, but if the Columbia Encyclopedia doesn't give him credit
for launching modern medicine, why do you expect me to? You must admit
that outside Jewish circles he is negligible, and I suspect that
inside Jewish circles his main value is his religious writing. I know
that Rambam has hospitals named after him, but you won't find many
non-Jews who know why.
== Could it possibly be that you begrudge the Jews their accomplishments? It
== certainly would seem so. As far as your
Here we go again with the persecution complex. I don't begrudge them
their accomplishments. Their genuine accomplishments.
== picture of the Jews spending all their time with their noses in
== the Talmud goes, Maimonides, in his own writing, laments that
== he was so busy ministering to the sick, both high-born and low,
== from early in the morning until late at night that he barely had
== any time to study the scriptures, only taking a little time to do so
== on the Sabbath, which was also the day the Jews of the vicinity
== consulted him on all sorts of matters out of respect for his great
== reputation as a learned man. When Maimonides died on December 13, 1204, his
== passing was marked by three days of
== public mourning in Fostat (Cairo), a public fast in Jerusalem and
== by expressions of grief throughout much of the Jewish world. He
== lies buried in Tiberias, Israel.
I don't deny that he was a greatly revered figure in the Jewish world,
as he is today. I have cited him myself to make points in discussions
of Leviticus.
But you've diverted this from a discussion of whether Jews were
responsible for the Renaissance to Maimonides.
In my original post, which I'm not going to resurrect, but which I
believe I can correctly characterize, I said Jews didn't make
contributions (meaning major ones that are notable and remembered
today) to secular learning until the emancipation of the 18th-19th
Centuries. I also mentioned exceptions to that, namely Philo and
Spinoza (I certainly hope I mentioned the philospher). Maimonides
would be another exception, and two exceptions instead of three
doesn't destroy the argument.
But the relative position of Spinoza and Maimonides should be
considered when we're evaluating their relative worth as contributors
to secular learning. Spinoza is still studied today as a worthwhile
and original contributor to philosophy -- he had the honor of being
taught in an introductory philosophy course I studied at Northwestern
University 40 years ago. Where is Maimonides as philosopher? Having
read some of Philo, I know the level of his "philosophy." I haven't
read Maimonides, but to me it is telling that Spinoza rather than
Maimonides is the Jewish philosopher who seems to have survived as a
philosopher. Enough of Rambam as secular scholar. Let him be valued
for his very genuine contributions to religious study, and let the
achievements of his life -- his attainment of a high position at court
-- be remembered. But that does not a secular scholar make.
== That aside, there is no doubt whatsoever that Jewish thinkers
== in the Spanish Muslim period were largely engaged in translating
== and interpreting the Greek heritage to the dominant Muslim world.
You don't show any evidence of that, but I don't doubt some were
involved in making translations. But the Columbia Encyclopedia account
does not support the idea that Spanish Jews were the source of the
Renaissance. Quite the contrary, it credits commerce with Byzantium
for disseminating Greek learning.
Furthermore, where is your proof that Jews were necessary for Muslims
to understand Greek? The Muslims had Greeks who spoke Greek to
translate for them. Their conquests brought to them many scholars from
Egypt and other places who spoke Greek. It was the language of the
Christian Church and known to all educated people in the areas the
Arabs conquered. To say that the Muslims living cheek-by-jowl with
these Greek-speakers never learned anything from them until Jews
happened on the scene strains credibility and smacks of the kind of
charvinism I was deploring.
If you contend that Muslims/Arabs never learned anything of ancient
Greek learning until Jews introduced them to it, please supply a
citation, and one of higher credibility than Encarta.
Vagor
Augustus wrote in message <6hbslh$53l$1...@gte2.gte.net>...
>Irish? Nothing against them, but the only Roman exposure known to them was
>at Durmahngum. Unless missionaries brought the classics with them, I know
>of no such exposure. I was taught that the classics, as well as Roman law,
>was returned by the Accursed Byzantines when they cowardly fled the forces
>of the Turks. I could be wrong.
You were probably taught that, not incorrectly, but incompletely. The Irish
connection to classical learning was probably through Spain, and thus
indirectly from the Egyptian and North African monks. The monastic tradition
in Ireland remained geographically and intellectually isolated from the
Western European trends and turmoil of the barbarian era, and preserved a
great deal of Greek and Roman writing and learning for reintroduction to the
continent when the climate was right (the early Renaissance).
Curious links are found between the remains of Egyptian and Irish monastic
ruins. The recent book "Barbarians and Romans", by Justine Davis
Randers-Pehrson, does a fine job of illustrating this. In fact, this is a
great little book that tries to illuminate and tie together the mystery and
confusion in the post-Roman era, as tribes and peoples swirled, collided,
and mixed in the vacuum of the Pax Romana, and formed the beginning of the
"dark" ages.
The futility of establishing personal links to things ancient should be
clear to anyone who understands the incredible chaos of that time, and all
time. A German, a Swabian, a Goth, and a Hun- who can say when the
ingredients became the stew? Modern Jews may or may not have much in common
with their ancient "brethren". The Irish may indeed be the "purest" of
non-Scandinavian European peoples, due to their isolation- but even that is
nonsense (Scandinavians and the English certainly sojourned there, and boys
will be boys). Somebody mixed to create the "native" Irish. Notions of
purity are bounded by the extent of recorded history.
M. Ranjit Mathews
Augustus wrote:
> Irish? Nothing against them, but the only Roman exposure known to them was
> at Durmahngum. Unless missionaries brought the classics with them, I know
> of no such exposure. I was taught that the classics, as well as Roman law,
> was returned by the Accursed Byzantines when they cowardly fled the forces
> of the Turks. I could be wrong.
The Turkish (Azeri ?) mercenaries fighting for Byzantines deserted them. Can you
blame the Byzantines for fleeing a losing battle ?
Alt173
One Of The Anunnaki wrote in message
<35385c8a....@news.farm.idt.net>...
>Where in your Bible do Jesus say (I am God Worship me?)
John 14:6-7 (NIV) ---
"Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes
to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my
Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.""
Here Jesus stresses the intimate connection between the father and himself.
Jesus brought a full revelation of the Father, so that the apostles had real
knowledge of him. [NIV Study Bible note for John 14:7]
Jesus is talking about the trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit), and the how
he is the incarnation of God the Father. Jesus is equating himself with God
the Father, and saying the way to God is through him, the Son.
For reference, try:
http://bible.gospelcom.net/
One Of The Anunnaki
>>One Of The Anunnaki wrote in message
>><35385c8a....@news.farm.idt.net>...
>>
>>>Where in your Bible do Jesus say (I am God Worship me?)
>>
>>
>>John 14:6-7 (NIV) ---
>> "Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes
>>to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my
>>Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.""
This verse still DO NOT answer my Question! So it still
stands; Where in The BIBLE do the words come out of JESUS'S
Mouth I AM GOD YOU ARE TO WORSHIP ME?
>>Here Jesus stresses the intimate connection between the father and himself.
>>Jesus brought a full revelation of the Father, so that the apostles had real
>>knowledge of him. [NIV Study Bible note for John 14:7]
DON'T you have a real connection with your father? wouldn't
you have real Knowledge of HIM if he was your father?
(Question still not answered)
>>Jesus is talking about the trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit), and the how
>>he is the incarnation of God the Father. Jesus is equating himself with God
>>the Father, and saying the way to God is through him, the Son.
Hum the Trinity huh. Would that be the same as
Osiris,Isis,&Horus from Egypt, Or sut,horus &shu the Gods of
the Triangle, Or just the Mother, Father, & son trinity
(Question still not answered)
Reference; John 8:15-18 where Jesus says I am NOT alone,BUT
I and the father that sent me.(18) I am one that bear
witness of (MYSELF),and the father that sent me beareth
witness of ME. ( clearly TWO as in 2 people) or is he
bearing witness of his self?
Once you know the truth you no longer have an excuse!
Peace! and WADU!
and If you like you can visit my web site at
http://www.angelfire.com/AncientKnowledge/index.html
One Of The Anunnaki
On 18 Apr 1998 19:27:17 GMT, nub...@aol.com (Nubkhas)
wrote:
So where did he collect the books from The Romans, The
Greeks,The Jews? How many Books were there before Ptolemy
was King? where are the Nubian Kingdoms that ruled Egypt at
in this, and what about those who invaded egypt and setup
kingdoms. Which are the Originals?and who are the fakes?
Who wrote the Books and who stole the Books?
>>
Alt173
One Of The Anunnaki wrote in message <353bc9e1...@news.farm.idt.net>...
>Hum the Trinity huh. Would that be the same as
>Osiris,Isis,&Horus from Egypt, Or sut,horus &shu the Gods of
>the Triangle, Or just the Mother, Father, & son trinity
>(Question still not answered)
>Reference; John 8:15-18 where Jesus says I am NOT alone,BUT
>I and the father that sent me.(18) I am one that bear
>witness of (MYSELF),and the father that sent me beareth
>witness of ME. ( clearly TWO as in 2 people) or is he
>bearing witness of his self?
It would be nice if you could make some sense and properly quote your
sources. But anyways, I think you still made my point. Jesus is the
incarnation of God in the Flesh. It's the trinity; three yet one. And how
do Osirus, Isis & Horus (and the others you mention) in any way invalidate
the Trinity? How does the concept of grouping things in threes make it
false? And please, if you want to quote scripture, do it properly. If you
need to, cut and paste from bible.gospelcom.net .
One Of The Anunnaki
My point is that a older version of the Trinity is found in
ancient Egyptian writtings, my point was that Jesus him self
makes a clear difference between himself and God, and No
where in the Bible do the words I am God, or I am the Father
come out of his mouth. The closest you can come up with is I
and the father is one in John, But in older versions of the
Bible that same verse reads I and the father is of one
accord. And its clear that this verse and maybe many others
have been changed to suit certian points of view. But If you
have a NIV study Bible, on page #5 there is a list of
Ancient text relating to the old testament, many are
Egyptian,and many Sumerian and when you study these ancient
texts & writtings you quickly see that the are the origin of
much of the Bible, specially old testament, but since the
new comes from the old then I would say the whole Bible.
I know you and maybe many others will disagree with me on
this but I will say at least check it out.Read the Egyptian
Negative confession , The Sumerian Atra-Hasis,The Tablets of
Adapa All of which are thousands of years older than
biblical text or at least the text they have let us see so
far. Hint, Hint
And incase you haven't figured it out yet I have studied
the religions of Ancient Egypt and Sumer for quite some time
not to mention growing up in a christian home, so I know all
3 quite well,
Have a nice Day! ALT173
>>
Nubkhas
>The King of Egypt, Ptolemy
>>>Soter, was the big book collector.
>So where did he collect the books from The Romans, The
>Greeks,The Jews? How many Books were there before Ptolemy
>was King? where are the Nubian Kingdoms that ruled Egypt at
>in this, and what about those who invaded egypt and setup
>kingdoms. Which are the Originals?and who are the fakes?
>Who wrote the Books and who stole the Books?
>>>
A recent book about all this is Luciano Canfora's "The Vanished
Library". It is easily obtainable. Ptolemy Soter collected books
from everywhere for the great library at Alexandria. According
to Canfora, there were other libraries in Egypt prior to that
one, possibly at the Ramesseum, the mortuary temple of Ramesses
II. Since papyrus is a fairly durable material, we can assume that
there were thousands of books in Egypt before Ptolemy became king. The bulk of
the books at Alexandria were, no doubt, collected from within Egypt proper,
from the various other libraries and temples. Two sources say that the
Alexandrian
library contained 40,000 books, which later turned out to be a
tragedy--all eggs in one basket not generally being a good thing.
As you know, the Alexandrian library was eventually destroyed
and most of the books lost to us forever. Even the" fakes", had
there been any, would have been welcome to us now.
What happened to the Nubian kings who ruled Egypt 747-656
BC? They ran afoul of the Assyrians, who established the Saite
dynasty with Egyptian kings, who later on, ran afoul of a new
conqueror, the Persians.
Sfz
nub...@aol.com (Nubkhas) writes:
>Two sources say that the Alexandrian
>library contained 40,000 books, which later turned out to be a
>tragedy--all eggs in one basket not generally being a good thing.
>As you know, the Alexandrian library was eventually destroyed
>and most of the books lost to us forever. Even the" fakes", had
>there been any, would have been welcome to us now.
The Alexandrian Library was only one of many public libraries
in the Roman Empire. It was a good one, and had many books.
It was probably not the largest - that would have been one of the several
in Rome or Constantinople I'd guess.
Books were very well spread in the Empire:
I think that lieracy was still quite high in the 500's, and many books existed
in at least these places (besides the Church facilities):
- semi-public libraries (State Christianity probably forced de-funding)
- private libraries (mainly the wealthy)
- bath libraries
- bath/forum/part-time schools/tutors; traditional education still was common
- businesses/workshop/factories (mainly "crafstman" texts)
- government administration, law
- bookshops and bookmakers
But even in the absence of State support, books were still common.
I would estimate the number of books/scrolls at 100,000,000 in 400 AD,
in the Mediterranean area.
What happened to them all?
Some were destroyed in various anti-pagan riots and pillagings in the 400's,
but most fell victim to the devastation brought by Justinian in the mid-500's.
The loss of the Library at Alexandria was indeed a tragedy, but I think that
it is overemphasized. Had the climate been supportive, the library could
have been rebuilt and repopulated without too much loss, I think. However,
the climate was hostile to new public libraries. Increasingly the books were
absorbed into private libraries, increasingly available only to the wealthy and
their associates.
Regards
Steve Zeigler
Alt173
One Of The Anunnaki wrote in message
>My point is that a older version of the Trinity is found in
>ancient Egyptian writtings, my point was that Jesus him self
>makes a clear difference between himself and God, and No
>where in the Bible do the words I am God, or I am the Father
>come out of his mouth. The closest you can come up with is I
Do you actually read what I post? I said that Jesus (the Son in the
Trinity) is the physical, human, flesh manefestation of God (the Father in
the Trinity). It is the concept that there are 3 entities, but yet they are
still one.
>and the father is one in John, But in older versions of the
>Bible that same verse reads I and the father is of one
>accord. And its clear that this verse and maybe many others
I'll say it again: Please properly quoute your sources (and list the actual
source). I can not respond to things you just throw out.
>have been changed to suit certian points of view. But If you
>have a NIV study Bible, on page #5 there is a list of
>Ancient text relating to the old testament, many are
>Egyptian,and many Sumerian and when you study these ancient
>texts & writtings you quickly see that the are the origin of
>much of the Bible, specially old testament, but since the
>new comes from the old then I would say the whole Bible.
I am looking at the page you are talking about, and it's far fetched to say
that one could "quickly see" that these are the "origin of much of the
Bible." They seem to be references to other ancient texts that give
background to / coroborate events from the Hebrew scriptures.
> I know you and maybe many others will disagree with me on
>this but I will say at least check it out.Read the Egyptian
>Negative confession , The Sumerian Atra-Hasis,The Tablets of
>Adapa All of which are thousands of years older than
>biblical text or at least the text they have let us see so
>far. Hint, Hint
What is in these texts that relates to this discussion?
> And incase you haven't figured it out yet I have studied
>the religions of Ancient Egypt and Sumer for quite some time
>not to mention growing up in a christian home, so I know all
>3 quite well,
It's interesting to converse with someone familiar with such ancient
religions. I have not had a chance to study the religions of Ancient Egypt
and Sumer, and for my own understanding, I would assume that you are talking
about religions in Ancient Egypt and Sumeria. Please correct me if I'm
wrong. But as far as these ancient religions are concerned, you have said
that some of the texts from them predate the Bible (Old Testament) by 1000
years. So, again correct me if I am wrong, it would be safe to say that
these Egyptian and Sumer religions are over 1000 years older than Judaism
and more than 2000 years older than the foundation of the Christian church.
If this is true, then one would think that these ancient religions would
still be practiced today and, at the least, have the same number of
practicing individuals as Judaism and Christianity, which are clearly much
younger than the ones you mentioned. Is this the case?
Also, as far as growing up in a 'Christian' home is concerned, I would not
assume from this that you would automatically know Christianity "quite
well." It's unfortunate that not everyone who claims to be a 'Christian' is
a true disciple of Christ.
> Have a nice Day! ALT173
Thanks to you I am. :)
Pro Christo et Patria
Augustus
> As you know, the Alexandrian library was eventually destroyed
> and most of the books lost to us forever.
Pray tell, by whom and when was it destroyed? I heard by J Caesar,
Augustus, and by Christians in the 4th century.
Mike Cleven
On 21 Apr 1998 19:08:03 GMT, s...@aol.com (Sfz) wrote:
>nub...@aol.com (Nubkhas) writes:
>
>>Two sources say that the Alexandrian
>>library contained 40,000 books, which later turned out to be a
>>tragedy--all eggs in one basket not generally being a good thing.
>>As you know, the Alexandrian library was eventually destroyed
>>and most of the books lost to us forever. Even the" fakes", had
>>there been any, would have been welcome to us now.
>
>The Alexandrian Library was only one of many public libraries
>in the Roman Empire. It was a good one, and had many books.
>It was probably not the largest - that would have been one of the several
>in Rome or Constantinople I'd guess.
The largest was supposedly at Pergamom in Asia Minor, that city being
the site of the Great Altar of Zeus. The Pergamene Library was
proclaimed by its curators to have been larger and more important than
the Alexandrian one; it is thought to have been mostly copies of what
was in Alexandria, many of these not so good copies, plus a great deal
of dross in the way of fakes and contributed materials; in other words
it was probably physically larger but of much less quality and
veracity than the Alexandrian library - which also appears to not have
been one institution, but an informal collection of public and private
collections referred to as a whole by "the library", most of which as
a loose entity is thought to have been in the Serapeum. In other
words, Alexandria as a whole was the library, in the way that in Paris
and similar places "the whole city is a university", with certain key
focal points and official repositories and debating centres.
Pergamom, on the other hand, was a single collection patronized by the
local ruler and kept in one place; and apparently not such a good
collection, albeit an apparently very large one.
The Pergamene libary, if I recall correctly, was destroyed around the
same time as the destruction of the Great Altar of Zeus (which St.
Paul had pronounced against as "the altar of Satan" or something
equally infantile). Copies of its more important materials were
doubtless preserved in Constantinople, and ultimately anything
valuable there would have been purloined off to Rome in 1204;
hopefully the same might one day prove to be true of the more
important Alexandrian materials - things like the history of Berasos,
period accounts of Alexander the Great and the Wars of the Macedonian
Succession, a full version of the works of Herakleitos, Sophokles,
etc.
>
>Books were very well spread in the Empire:
>I think that lieracy was still quite high in the 500's, and many books existed
>in at least these places (besides the Church facilities):
>- semi-public libraries (State Christianity probably forced de-funding)
>- private libraries (mainly the wealthy)
>- bath libraries
>- bath/forum/part-time schools/tutors; traditional education still was common
>- businesses/workshop/factories (mainly "crafstman" texts)
>- government administration, law
>- bookshops and bookmakers
>But even in the absence of State support, books were still common.
>I would estimate the number of books/scrolls at 100,000,000 in 400 AD,
>in the Mediterranean area.
>
>What happened to them all?
Christian (and Islamic) fanaticism. In some regions, they probably
made great kindling for peasants, too.
>
>Some were destroyed in various anti-pagan riots and pillagings in the 400's,
>but most fell victim to the devastation brought by Justinian in the mid-500's.
>
>The loss of the Library at Alexandria was indeed a tragedy, but I think that
>it is overemphasized. Had the climate been supportive, the library could
>have been rebuilt and repopulated without too much loss, I think. However,
>the climate was hostile to new public libraries. Increasingly the books were
>absorbed into private libraries, increasingly available only to the wealthy and
>their associates.
Did you not see that recent book? - I think it was called The Hidden
Library - which carefully traces what appears to have happened to the
Library of Alexandria and its predecessor, the Ramasseum? Apparently
the very last of it was burned at the time of the Islamic Conquest.
As noted above, hopefully one day a cache of its materials will turn
up intact........
Mike Cleven
http://home.bc.rogers.wave.ca/ironmtn/
The thunderbolt steers all things.
- Herakleitos
One Of The Anunnaki
Rahubaat Again Alt173
I will try to answer you questions as fast as I can, The
earliest known documents in cuneiform were recorded in
Sumerian, The language of the inhabitants of Southern
Mesopotamia and Chalda (which is where Abraham is from).
These tablets were recorded long before Aramic (Hebrew)or
Ashuric (Arabic) even existed. Hebrew & Arabic come from
Accadian or Akkadian (Genesis 10:10) These tablets are known
as the Atra-Hasis ,The Enuma Elish ,The Gilgamesh Epics ,
The Tablets of the Desents of Istar to the Underworld, The
Tablets of Nergal & Arishkegal , The Tablets of Adapa , The
Tablets of Etana to name a few.
These tablets give a more accurate account of creation,The
flood and the tower of babel, which proves that the Bible
wasn't Divinely sent by some All Powerful, Loving God, who
lives in heaven.
As for the Trinity: The laws of Christ were argued in the
Nicean Councils. The first Nicean council was in 325AD,
where Emperor Constantine called the council to settle a
dispute over the Arian views of the Trinity, and when Easter
should be celebrated, The Sabbath day, and whether Christ
was of the same Essence as God, and at that time The Nicene
Creed was adopted, which declared God and Christ as God and
of the same Essence.
The 2nd.Necean council was called by Empress Irene in
787AD,where the Nicean Decree was revoked and principles
governing the veneration of Images were laid down. This was
the birth of christianity as we know it.This council turned
Judaism was made into what they called a new group called
Christians. King James used a version put forth in 1526AD by
William Tyndale, who was also known as William Shakespear.
All of this is well documented, just do a web search for
the council of Nicean.
Now a Quick point, in sumerian religion, Gods name was Anu,
and those who came down to earth was called the Anunnaki or
Anunnaqi, which is the same as Eloheem. These Anunnaki are
our creators.This is explained in the Atra-Hasis and the
Tablet of Adapa ( the first man ).
NO ONE, NOT ONE CHRISTIAN NOR JEWISH SCHOLAR HAS COME
FORWARD TO DEBUNK THESE ANCIENT TEXT TO THIS DATE! THEY JUST
DON'T TALK ABOUT THEM! (I WOUNDER WHY)
HAVE A GOOD ONE!
Alt173
One Of The Anunnaki wrote in message
> I will try to answer you questions as fast as I can, The
>earliest known documents in cuneiform were recorded in
>Sumerian, The language of the inhabitants of Southern
>Mesopotamia and Chalda (which is where Abraham is from).
> These tablets were recorded long before Aramic (Hebrew)or
>Ashuric (Arabic) even existed. Hebrew & Arabic come from
>Accadian or Akkadian (Genesis 10:10) These tablets are known
>as the Atra-Hasis ,The Enuma Elish ,The Gilgamesh Epics ,
>The Tablets of the Desents of Istar to the Underworld, The
>Tablets of Nergal & Arishkegal , The Tablets of Adapa , The
>Tablets of Etana to name a few.
Interesting. Thanks for the info.
> These tablets give a more accurate account of creation,The
>flood and the tower of babel, which proves that the Bible
>wasn't Divinely sent by some All Powerful, Loving God, who
>lives in heaven.
I think you all together too quickly jump to assumptions when you say that
these documents are any kind of 'proof'. How do you go from "These tablets
give a more accurate account of creation,The flood and the tower of babel"
to "[this] proves that the Bible wasn't Divinely sent by some All Powerful,
Loving God, who lives in heaven." Where is the 'proof'?
> As for the Trinity: The laws of Christ were argued in the
>Nicean Councils. The first Nicean council was in 325AD,
>where Emperor Constantine called the council to settle a
>dispute over the Arian views of the Trinity, and when Easter
>should be celebrated, The Sabbath day, and whether Christ
>was of the same Essence as God, and at that time The Nicene
>Creed was adopted, which declared God and Christ as God and
>of the same Essence.
> The 2nd.Necean council was called by Empress Irene in
>787AD,where the Nicean Decree was revoked and principles
>governing the veneration of Images were laid down. This was
>the birth of christianity as we know it.This council turned
>Judaism was made into what they called a new group called
>Christians. King James used a version put forth in 1526AD by
>William Tyndale, who was also known as William Shakespear.
> All of this is well documented, just do a web search for
>the council of Nicean.
"christianity as we know it"; What do you mean by this ("as we know it")?
How do you know that the way you "know it" is the way others "know it"? And
your attempt to gloss over the issue still does nothing to deny the Trinity.
> Now a Quick point, in sumerian religion, Gods name was Anu,
>and those who came down to earth was called the Anunnaki or
>Anunnaqi, which is the same as Eloheem. These Anunnaki are
>our creators.This is explained in the Atra-Hasis and the
>Tablet of Adapa ( the first man ).
Very interesting again, but they are not my creators.
> NO ONE, NOT ONE CHRISTIAN NOR JEWISH SCHOLAR HAS COME
> FORWARD TO DEBUNK THESE ANCIENT TEXT TO THIS DATE! THEY
> JUST DON'T TALK ABOUT THEM! (I WOUNDER WHY)
I may be able to answer this 'mystery' for you. My guess would be that no
Christian or Jew (why don't you include Muslim, Buddist, etc.?) has bothered
to "talk about" (Caps removed :) these because they are oviously
insignificant and do nothing to refute Judaism / Christianity.
> HAVE A GOOD ONE!
YOU TOO! :)
Nubkhas
>> As you know, the Alexandrian library was eventually destroyed
>> and most of the books lost to us forever.
>
>Augustus, and by Christians in the 4th century.
>--
>In Amicitia
>Augustus
>
>
In 640 A.D. Amrou Ibn el-Ass raised the flag of the Moslem conquerors over
Alexandria. At that time, the remnant of the Great Library was in the care of
one John Philoponus. Amrou made friends with Philoponus but was answerable to
the Caliph in Baghdad. When he asked Omar what should be done with the books,
he received this "witty" answer: "As for
the books you mention, here is my reply. If their content is in
accordance with the book of Allah, we may do without them, for in that case the
book of Allah more than suffices. If, on the other hand, they contain matters
not in accordance with the book of Allah, there can be no need to preserve
them. Proceed, then, and destroy them."
The books were distributed to the public baths of Alexandria, where they were
used for fuel. There being about 4,000 baths in the city, it took
approximately six months to burn all the materials.
Therefore, on account of a closed mind the Wisdom of Ancient Egypt and the
ancient world at large was lost. The only books spared were those of
Aristotle.
This information I took from a very interesting book called "The
Vanished Library" by Luciano Canfora. The book discusses the "Hall of Records"
. According to Hecataeus of Abdera,
who saw it in person (as recounted by Diodorus Siculus), one accessed it
through the Mausoleum of Ramesses II at Thebes.
One Of The Anunnaki
On Wed, 22 Apr 1998 13:00:54 GMT, "Alt173"
<alt...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>One Of The Anunnaki wrote in message
>>
>>> I will try to answer you questions as fast as I can, The
>>>earliest known documents in cuneiform were recorded in
>>>Sumerian, The language of the inhabitants of Southern
>>>Mesopotamia and Chalda (which is where Abraham is from).
>>> These tablets were recorded long before Aramic (Hebrew)or
>>>Ashuric (Arabic) even existed. Hebrew & Arabic come from
>>>Accadian or Akkadian (Genesis 10:10) These tablets are known
>>>as the Atra-Hasis ,The Enuma Elish ,The Gilgamesh Epics ,
>>>The Tablets of the Desents of Istar to the Underworld, The
>>>Tablets of Nergal & Arishkegal , The Tablets of Adapa , The
>>>Tablets of Etana to name a few.
>>
>>Interesting. Thanks for the info.
>>
>>> These tablets give a more accurate account of creation,The
>>>flood and the tower of babel, which proves that the Bible
>>>wasn't Divinely sent by some All Powerful, Loving God, who
>>>lives in heaven.
>>
>>I think you all together too quickly jump to assumptions when you say that
>>these documents are any kind of 'proof'. How do you go from "These tablets
>>give a more accurate account of creation,The flood and the tower of babel"
>>to "[this] proves that the Bible wasn't Divinely sent by some All Powerful,
>>Loving God, who lives in heaven." Where is the 'proof'?
>>
>>> As for the Trinity: The laws of Christ were argued in the
>>>Nicean Councils. The first Nicean council was in 325AD,
>>>where Emperor Constantine called the council to settle a
>>>dispute over the Arian views of the Trinity, and when Easter
>>>should be celebrated, The Sabbath day, and whether Christ
>>>was of the same Essence as God, and at that time The Nicene
>>>Creed was adopted, which declared God and Christ as God and
>>>of the same Essence.
>>> The 2nd.Necean council was called by Empress Irene in
>>>787AD,where the Nicean Decree was revoked and principles
>>>governing the veneration of Images were laid down. This was
>>>the birth of christianity as we know it.This council turned
>>>Judaism was made into what they called a new group called
>>>Christians. King James used a version put forth in 1526AD by
>>>William Tyndale, who was also known as William Shakespear.
>>> All of this is well documented, just do a web search for
>>>the council of Nicean.
>>
>>"christianity as we know it"; What do you mean by this ("as we know it")?
>>How do you know that the way you "know it" is the way others "know it"? And
>>your attempt to gloss over the issue still does nothing to deny the Trinity.
>>
>>> Now a Quick point, in sumerian religion, Gods name was Anu,
>>>and those who came down to earth was called the Anunnaki or
>>>Anunnaqi, which is the same as Eloheem. These Anunnaki are
>>>our creators.This is explained in the Atra-Hasis and the
>>>Tablet of Adapa ( the first man ).
>>
>>Very interesting again, but they are not my creators.
>>
>>> NO ONE, NOT ONE CHRISTIAN NOR JEWISH SCHOLAR HAS COME
>>> FORWARD TO DEBUNK THESE ANCIENT TEXT TO THIS DATE! THEY
>>> JUST DON'T TALK ABOUT THEM! (I WOUNDER WHY)
>>
>>I may be able to answer this 'mystery' for you. My guess would be that no
>>Christian or Jew (why don't you include Muslim, Buddist, etc.?) has bothered
>>to "talk about" (Caps removed :) these because they are oviously
>>insignificant and do nothing to refute Judaism / Christianity.
Don't misunderstand me; I didn't say they don't know about
them or that they don't look at them, what I said was they
Have Not as you say refuted them.Like they have done other
material.
>>> HAVE A GOOD ONE!
>>
>>YOU TOO! :)
>>
>>alt...@yahoo.com
>>
>>Pro Christo et Patria
>>
>>
>>
Here are some links that you can check out if you have time,
I will respond to your posting later.
http://pubpages.unh.edu/~cbsiren/sumer-faq.html= Sumerian
Mythology.
http://www2.cruzio.com/~flower/1eh1.htm = The Sumerian
Record.
This site is called Twin River Rising, its a very good site
and there are links to many of the translations of the
Sumerian tablets written on stone.
http://web2.airmail.net/apkallu7/index.html
But if our really serious about studying Ancient Sumer this
site is the University of chicago's study site on that
Region of the world.
http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/DEPT/RA/ABZU/ABZU_REGINDX_MESO.HTML
and you will quickly see that Sumer is not as insignificant
as you might want to think.
Knowledge is power!and when you keep knowledge from people
they have no power and can do nothing but follow and believe
what they are told.
So keep in mind that neither you nor I lived in that time
and neither one of us really know what happen, all we really
know is what was written. There are no eye witnesses, all we
can do is search for as much information as we can. Some
choose to stop with the bible but I chose to carry on my
search. I researched names of people & places, I studied
events from all the different sides. example: where is the
Egyptian documentations on the Jews being inslaved? To find
the truth shouldn't you have the information from all sides
involved? The Bible is one sided. The Quran is one sided.The
Egyptian Book of the Dead is one sided. The Sumerian
Cuniform Tablets are one sided. But when you look at all of
them you get a much more clear picture of what took place.
The order I found was
Sumer,Egypt,Isrealites,Jews,catholic,Christianity & Islam
was where I begain.
Every source lead to Sumer.
{:-) Peace!
Wayne B. Hewitt
In article <353bd07d...@news.farm.idt.net>, StrongB...@idt.net
(One Of The Anunnaki) wrote:
>>> ...
>>>Who you calling "thief", then? The King of Egypt, Ptolemy
>>>Soter, was the big book collector.
>So where did he collect the books from The Romans, The
>Greeks,The Jews?
You obviously know nothing about libraries in general. Books were COPIED.
One man would read the text aloud and the SEVERAL scribes would write down
the words; then the text was double-checked. And by the way, what Romans?
You need a good time line.
>How many Books were there before Ptolemy
>was King?
A hell of a lot less than there were afterwards.
>Where are the Nubian Kingdoms that ruled Egypt
>in this, ...
Little known, as they wrote few books.
> ... and what about those who invaded egypt and setup
>kingdoms.
You mean the Indo-European Hyksthos 'Shepherd Kings' who introduced the
shaduf to Egypt? They come, they go. The Egyptian people abide.
Which are the Originals? and who are the fakes?
>Who wrote the Books and who stole the Books?
Your diatribe implies that you personally feel injured in some way by
History. (This is probably the source of a lot of crackpot revisionist
history thes days: blaming some supposed view of the past for one's own
current inadequecies.) The only "fakes" are the revisionist views scorned
by history a thousand times.
>>>
--
_B_a_r_b_a_r_o_s_s_a_ ;^{>
Encinitas, California
X-Face by "Saving Face" <http://www.santafe.edu/~smfr/utils.html>
*The* Didaskalos
s...@aol.com (Sfz) wrote to and soc.history.ancient:
== The Alexandrian Library was only one of many public libraries
== in the Roman Empire. It was a good one, and had many books.
== It was probably not the largest - that would have been one of the several
== in Rome or Constantinople I'd guess.
It may not have been the largest, but I wouldn't assume that the
capital city of the empire held the largest library. Wasn't Alexandria
was more noted as a center of learning than Rome, and certainly more
noted than Constantinople in those days?
One Of The Anunnaki
Hum, well as far as being hurt by history I don't see how
history can hurt anyone,But on the other hand It is quite
easy to see how some people can give their account of
history while making their role look much bigger than it
really was.and this is very easy to do while holding a whole
continent in slavery! Yes I have been hurt by the lack of
truth in telling of past events but these are the same
people that can place someone in bondage and use the bible
to justify doing it, these are the same people that envade
anothers land and claim it as their own while killing and
raping its inhabitants and then these same people are held
up as hero's great explorers, discoverer's of new land. So
yes there have been billions of people hurt by THE TELLING
OF FALSE HISTORY! NOT HISTORY.But there are those who just
sit back and make statments like I didn't do it, it wasn't
me while all the while reeping the benefits of the past
pillages of people and lands that were NOT THEIR'S, And the
sad part is that all of this was done under the name of some
GOD! Christian, Muslum,Jewish or what ever, the results are
the same!
( sorry did not have time to check for errors, had to run)
Have a Good Day-------Wadu.
One Of The Anunnaki
>>In article <353bd07d...@news.farm.idt.net>, StrongB...@idt.net
>>(One Of The Anunnaki) wrote:
>>
>>>>> ...
>>>>>Who you calling "thief", then? The King of Egypt, Ptolemy
>>>>>Soter, was the big book collector.
>>
>>>So where did he collect the books from The Romans, The
>>>Greeks,The Jews?
>>
>>You obviously know nothing about libraries in general. Books were COPIED.
>>One man would read the text aloud and the SEVERAL scribes would write down
>>the words; then the text was double-checked. And by the way, what Romans?
>>You need a good time line.
>>
>>>How many Books were there before Ptolemy
>>>was King?
>>
>>A hell of a lot less than there were afterwards.
>>
>>>Where are the Nubian Kingdoms that ruled Egypt
>>>in this, ...
since you know little about Nubia here is a Link to help you
get started in figuring out who they were/are.
http://www.library.nwu.edu/class/history/B94/B94nubia.html
(:-)
Wadu!
Alt173
One Of The Anunnaki wrote in message
>Here are some links that you can check out if you have time,
I've wasted enough time on this subject. Just rember, Virtue is not its own
reward.
Signing off
Wayne B. Hewitt
In article <353e4be1...@news.farm.idt.net>, StrongB...@idt.net
Wadu replied:
> Hum, well as far as being hurt by history I don't see how
>history can hurt anyone, but on the other hand it is quite
>easy to see how some people can give their account of
>history while making their role look much bigger than it
>really was, ...
Yes, history is "written by the winners" as we both well know. Inventing a
fictitious "Counter-History" as rebuttal defeats the whole purpose of
studying History.
>...and this is very easy to do while holding a whole
>continent in slavery!
Slavery was not new to Africa, or any other part of the World for that
matter, nor was it introduced by Europeans.
> ... Yes I have been hurt by the lack of
>truth in the telling of past events but these are the same
>people that can place someone in bondage and use the bible
>to justify doing it. These are the same people that invade
>anothers land and claim it as their own while killing and
>raping its inhabitants and then these same people are held
>up as heros, great explorers, and discoverers of new land.
Absolutely true. A contingent fact of History. And, completely
understandable in the context of the time. You seem to be castigating the
past for not being the future. However I can see your anger at those who
would use the past as a model for the present.
> ... So yes there have been billions of people hurt by THE TELLING
>OF FALSE HISTORY! NOT HISTORY [itself]. But there are those who just
>sit back and make statements like "I didn't do it", "it wasn't
>me" all the while reaping the benefits of the past
>pillages of people and lands that were NOT THEIR'S. And the
>sad part is that all of this was done under the name of some
>GOD! Christian, Muslim, Jewish or whatever, the results are
>the same!
I agree with you here also. Did you notice that in your statement that it
seems to be the monotheists who are always the most intolerant, and prone
to subjugate others?
>(Sorry did not have time to check for errors, ...
Be my guest!
> ...had to run)
> Have a Good Day-------Wadu.
By the way, I did read the NWU website on Nubia, all ten sections. I saw
nothing about the Library of Alexandria deriving various works of
literature and scholarship from Nubia.
Edward Reiss
>I agree with you here also. Did you notice that in your statement
that it
>seems to be the monotheists who are always the most intolerant, and
prone
>to subjugate others?
>
Sorry to but in, but I see this fallacy often.
Here is a short list:
Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Macedonians, Romans, Gauls,
Carthaginians, Han Chinese, Asoka (Hindu), Aztecs, Inca, Iroqois. All
these nations were polytheistic/animistic whatever, yet they were just
as intolerant/aggressive as any monothestic culture. In any case,
this was the only part of your post I had a problem with because it
seems to go against your statement "Inventing a fictitious
"Counter-History" as rebuttal defeats the whole purpose of studying
History." It is a very difficult thing to measure
intolerance/aggression. ;-) For instance, were the Tibetians less
aggressive than the Persians, or less able to project their opower?
Were the Romans more aggressive than the Macedonians or were they just
more tenacious and cohesive?
Ed
CAESAR
I heard this on NPR last fall, and found it fascinating:
"October 21, 1997 -- Archeologists have re-discovered one of the world's
oldest libraries. The Villa of Papyrus was buried under hundreds of feet of
lava when Mt. Vesuvius erupted and wiped out the town of Herculaneum at the
foot of the volcano. It was discovered and mapped in the 18th century, then
sealed and lost for another two centuries.
Now, as NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports, scientists, painstakingly, are
recovering some amazing material"
You can listen to the broadcast (it's only four or so minutes) by going to:
http://www.npr.org/plweb-cgi/fastweb?getdoc+npr+npr+6628+0+wAAA+Herculaneum
Apparently, at least some of the books in this library are recoverable.
Interesting (though, at this stage, fruitless) to speculate about the "lost
works" that may be "found"!
Regards,
CAESAR
Peter Metcalfe
On 22 Apr 1998, Nubkhas wrote:
>
> In 640 A.D. Amrou Ibn el-Ass raised the flag of the Moslem conquerors over
> Alexandria. At that time, the remnant of the Great Library was in the care of
> one John Philoponus. Amrou made friends with Philoponus but was answerable to
> the Caliph in Baghdad. When he asked Omar what should be done with the books,
> he received this "witty" answer: "As for
> the books you mention, here is my reply. If their content is in
> accordance with the book of Allah, we may do without them, for in that case the
> book of Allah more than suffices. If, on the other hand, they contain matters
> not in accordance with the book of Allah, there can be no need to preserve
> them. Proceed, then, and destroy them."
This fiction comes from a moslem source in the fourteenth century which
cites one John the Grammarian as its source. Unfortunately John the
Grammarian lived a century before the muslim conquest and so the
attribution is spurious. Given the elapsed time between the source and
the conquest, it seems most probable that it is calumny to slur the
arabic conquerers.
--Peter Metcalfe
Mike Cleven
A couple of years ago there was a news item about the discovery of a
huge collection of "books" (scrolls, that is) during the construction
of a new subway line in the area of the Agora in Athens. Turns out
this was recognized to be the Library of the School of Epicurus, and
numbers something like 40,000+ scrolls. The whole collection has been
preserved but, alas, not deciphered.
Just imagine what's in there! The biggest immediate problem in
uncovering the contents of the Epicurean library is the lack of
trained archaeologists and preservationists, who can un-roll the
scrolls and photograph and preserve them for further study. Then a
bigger problem emerges, which no doubt is similar to the situation at
Herculaneum - a lack of scholars trained in Classical Greek (or at
Herculaneum in Classical Latin) capable of translating and editing the
vast amount of material awaiting to be re-discovered.
Of Sophokles 130+ plays, only 7 survive, just for starters. The
complete works of Herakleitos? Other accounts of the life of
Socrates? Biographies of Alexander? The pillow-book of Alkibiades?
A period copy of the Iliad and the Odyssey? Lost works by Pindar and
other poets?
The mind reels.........
And they said classical scholarship was dead. No, not dead -
underfunded, maybe, and replaced by commerce and engineering schools
far too often, but not dead.........
One Of The Anunnaki
>>In article <353e4be1...@news.farm.idt.net>, StrongB...@idt.net
>>(One Of The Anunnaki) wrote:
>>
>>>On Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:15:54 -0700, whe...@ucsd.edu (Wayne
>>>B. Hewitt) wrote:
>>
>>>>Your diatribe implies that you personally feel injured in some way by
>>>>History. (This is probably the source of a lot of crackpot revisionist
>>>>history thes days: blaming some supposed view of the past for one's own
>>>>current inadequecies.) The only "fakes" are the revisionist views scorned
>>>>by history a thousand times.
>>
>>Wadu replied:
>>> Hum, well as far as being hurt by history I don't see how
>>>history can hurt anyone, but on the other hand it is quite
>>>easy to see how some people can give their account of
>>>history while making their role look much bigger than it
>>>really was, ...
>>
>>Yes, history is "written by the winners" as we both well know. Inventing a
>>fictitious "Counter-History" as rebuttal defeats the whole purpose of
>>studying History.
>>
>>>...and this is very easy to do while holding a whole
>>>continent in slavery!
>>
>>Slavery was not new to Africa, or any other part of the World for that
>>matter, nor was it introduced by Europeans.
Your correct in one since but on the other hand the type of
slavery brought about by the European slave trade was
different from anything that was done by africans.Never
before has millions of people been kidnapped taken across
the ocean and forced into slave labor, I think the number is
around 600 million slaves lost their lives.I know of no
other people treated the way the Africans were/are.
If you know of another whole continent of people that has
endured such hardships please inform me. And while we're on
the subject,why is it that America can apologize to the jews
for something the germans did,and apologize to the japanize
for bombing them during a war that japan started but can not
apologize or pay reperations to the African Americans who
through slave labor made many white Americans rich while
they themselves had nothing and was allowed nothing for
hundreds of years or the Indians who's land they stole and
placed on reservations. It seems like the two groups of
people that the U.S. owes the most to gets the least.
And anything that was done in the past to help is now being
taken away by using the caught phrase Quotas! while the real
agenda is nothing more that SOME white Americans wanting
things to stay the way it was when they had everything. They
want every job,They want everyone of their children to be
accepted in a university, so they can maintain their level
of power.
>>> ... Yes I have been hurt by the lack of
>>>truth in the telling of past events but these are the same
>>>people that can place someone in bondage and use the bible
>>>to justify doing it. These are the same people that invade
>>>anothers land and claim it as their own while killing and
>>>raping its inhabitants and then these same people are held
>>>up as heros, great explorers, and discoverers of new land.
>>
>>Absolutely true. A contingent fact of History. And, completely
>>understandable in the context of the time. You seem to be castigating the
>>past for not being the future. However I can see your anger at those who
>>would use the past as a model for the present.
>>
>>> ... So yes there have been billions of people hurt by THE TELLING
>>>OF FALSE HISTORY! NOT HISTORY [itself]. But there are those who just
>>>sit back and make statements like "I didn't do it", "it wasn't
>>>me" all the while reaping the benefits of the past
>>>pillages of people and lands that were NOT THEIR'S. And the
>>>sad part is that all of this was done under the name of some
>>>GOD! Christian, Muslim, Jewish or whatever, the results are
>>>the same!
>>
>>I agree with you here also. Did you notice that in your statement that it
>>seems to be the monotheists who are always the most intolerant, and prone
>>to subjugate others?
Yes I did, its that I'm right and your wrong mind set.
>>>(Sorry did not have time to check for errors, ...
>>
>>Be my guest!
>>
>>> ...had to run)
>>> Have a Good Day-------Wadu.
>>
>>By the way, I did read the NWU website on Nubia, all ten sections. I saw
>>nothing about the Library of Alexandria deriving various works of
>>literature and scholarship from Nubia.
Was not Nubia a part of Egypt,Did not Nubian Kings rule
Egypt at times? The two cultures were closer than many would
think. There were times where after the split they joined
together to fight off common enemys. they spoke the same
language, looked the same, which b.t.w. is quite different
that the way they are depicted in america, they were not
white, they were brown skinned Africans. If you ask a
Egyptian today what they are most will say African. many of
the Ancient pictures on the walls painted by them were of
people that was brown skinned RIGHT?
>>--
>>_B_a_r_b_a_r_o_s_s_a_ ;^{>
>>Encinitas, California
>>X-Face by "Saving Face" <http://www.santafe.edu/~smfr/utils.html>
Thanks for your responce,I always enjoy conversations with
open minded people searching for Knowledge and Truth
<http://www.angelfire.com/AncientKnowledge/index.html>
Wadu = BYE
James Conway
Not a lack but a lack of access.
>Of Sophokles 130+ plays, only 7 survive, just for starters. The
>complete works of Herakleitos? Other accounts of the life of
>Socrates? Biographies of Alexander? The pillow-book of Alkibiades?
>A period copy of the Iliad and the Odyssey? Lost works by Pindar and
>other poets?
>
>The mind reels.........
A complete Manetho and Berossos alone would shake the world
and one can't imagine the consequences of finding some works
that have word for word translations such as any of the
Hebrew books now lost.
Does anyone know of any plan and schedule for the content of
these scrolls to be made public. I want to get english
translations ASAP.
Peace
--
James Conway bb...@scn.org
Seattle, WA 98101 USA
http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/kjh/
http://www.std.com/obi/Religion/KJH/
Wayne B. Hewitt
In article <6hm4t6$4d9$1...@news01.li.net>, "Edward Reiss" <ere...@li.net> wrote:
Barbarossa wrote in a reply to Wadu:
>> ... Did you notice that in your statement ... it seems to be the
>>monotheists who are always the most intolerant, and prone to
>>subjugate others?...
Ed replied:
>Sorry to but in, but I see this fallacy often.
Barbarossa responds:
I am sorry myself. This seems to be a throw-away line at the end of a long
post. As I understood Wadu's post he was complaining that religion was
used to justify the enslavement of Africans. This is of course true. What
I should have said, was that it occurred to me that people whose religious
beliefs brook no flexibility toward the beliefs of others, tend to be
intolerant to the point of using religion as a justification for coercion.
I wondered if this was most intense among Monotheists?
Ed continues:
>Here is a short list :
>
>Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Macedonians, Romans, Gauls,
>Carthaginians, Han Chinese, Asoka (Hindu), Aztecs, Inca, Iroqois. All
>these nations were polytheistic/animistic whatever, yet they were just
>as intolerant/aggressive as any monothestic culture.
I would have added the Mongols; but, aggressive as they were, they were
more tolerant in a religious sense.
>In any case, this was the only part of your post I had a problem with
>because it seems to go against your statement "Inventing a fictitious
>"Counter-History" as rebuttal defeats the whole purpose of studying
>History." It is a very difficult thing to measure intolerance /
>aggression. ;-) For instance, were the Tibetians less aggressive than
>the Persians, or less able to project their power? Were the Romans more
>aggressive than the Macedonians or were they just more tenacious and
>cohesive?
>
>Ed
Perhaps the Question open to discussion now should be:
In the growth and expansion of historic cultures, what part did Religion
play? Which cultures were driven primarily by religious motives?
Wayne B. Hewitt
In article <353f21cb....@news.farm.idt.net>, StrongB...@idt.net
(One Of The Anunnaki) wrote:
=On Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:15:54 -0700, whe...@ucsd.edu (Wayne
=B. Hewitt) wrote:
= ...
=>Slavery was not new to Africa, or any other part of the World for =>that
matter, nor was it introduced by Europeans.
=You're correct in one sense, but on the other hand the type of
=slavery brought about by the European slave trade was
=different from anything that was done by Africans. Never
=before have millions of people been kidnapped, taken across
=the ocean and forced into slave labor. I think the number is
=around 600 million slaves that lost their lives. I know of no
=other people treated the way the Africans were/are.
With the recent publicity surrounding the release of the movie 'Amistad,'
many of us have read reports in the news and magazines about the horrors
of the slave trade and the middle passage. However, I find the number "600
million" a little large, as it is more than twice the population of the
United States today. Do you mean 600,000,000 blacks total were at any one
time enslaved?
=If you know of another whole continent of people that has
=endured such hardships please inform me. And while we're on
=the subject, why is it that America can apologize to the Jews
=for something the Germans did, and apologize to the Japanize
=for bombing them during a war that Japan started but cannot
=apologize or pay reparations to the African-Americans who
=through slave labor made many white Americans rich while
=they themselves had nothing and were allowed nothing for
=hundreds of years or the Indians whose land they stole and
=placed on reservations. It seems like the two groups of
=people that the U.S. owes the most to gets the least.
=And anything that was done in the past to help is now being
=taken away by using the catch phrase Quotas! While the real
=agenda is nothing more that SOME white Americans wanting
=things to stay the way it was when they had everything. They
=want every job, they want every one of their children to be
=accepted in a university, so they can maintain their level
=of power.
Okay, I've heard this view before. What do you YOURSELF want, Wadu? Please
do not blame me as an individual for the history of the World.
Wayne B. Hewitt
In article <353f21cb....@news.farm.idt.net>, StrongB...@idt.net
(One Of The Anunnaki) wrote:
Barbarossa wrote:
>>>By the way, I did read the NWU website on Nubia, all ten sections. I saw
>>>nothing about the Library of Alexandria deriving various works of
>>>literature and scholarship from Nubia.
>Was not Nubia a part of Egypt,Did not Nubian Kings rule
>Egypt at times?
Yes. The website:
<http://www.library.nwu.edu/class/history/B94/B94nubia.html>
used terms like "the subjugation of Nubia" or "the conquest of Kush." The
Nubian rule of Egypt lasted about 70 years and was shared with other
invaders. It was the Nubian rulers that adopted Egyptian customs and not
the other way around (or so the site says.)
>The two cultures were closer than many would
>think. There were times where after the split they joined
>together to fight off common enemies. They spoke the same
>language, looked the same, which b.t.w. is quite different
>than the way they are depicted in America. They were not
>white, they were brown skinned Africans. If you ask an
>Egyptian today what they are most will say African. Many of
>the Ancient pictures on the walls painted by them were of
>people that were brown skinned, RIGHT?
You make five or six (or seven?) assertions here, many of which have been
hotly debated in this newsgroup recently. However, if you check back with
the webpage you yourself suggested, I think you will find that:
1) Although the cultures were related, they were distinct, and believed so
by the people themselves.
2) Rarely did the Nubians as an independant country fight as allies with Egypt.
3) Their languages although in the same linguistic group were not the same
(as Spanish and Italian are not the same, although related.)
4) They did not look as alike as you would like to believe. Different
races are clearly portrayed in Egyptian art.
5) Which particular Egyptian wall paintings wre you referring to? For one
thing it was customary to portray males darker than females; this was true
of many cultures.
Edward Reiss
Wayne,
>In the growth and expansion of historic cultures, what part did
Religion
>play? Which cultures were driven primarily by religious motives?
>--
If we are looking to religion as a reason for expansion, Islam comes
to mind. One can also use the Crusades, but the motivations for them
were more complex.
Ed
a...@radix.net
Information on Alexandria can be found in
Luciano Canfora's _The Vanished Library. A Wonder of the Ancient World_ (Hutchinson) Radius 1989 ISBN 0 09 174049 5
There is a great WWW page on this, perhaps at
http://pw1.netcom.com/~aphilipp/index.html
The libraries mentioned in the book
A History of Libraries in the Western World by Elmer D. Johnson (1965)
Scarecrow Press NY
include
BCE library site
3000 Red Temple of Uruk (Erech)
2600 Khufu library
2350 Tello/Lagash
2000 Nippur
Ebla archives
1400 Tell-el Armana palace archive
Knossus
Pylos
Mycenae
12?? Ugarit
700 Khorsabad palace library of Sargon II
Nineveh library of Ashurbanipal
Nimrud
Mari Syria
Ur Great House of Tablets
Boghaz Hittite
Nuzi Hurrian
520 Polycrates of Samos
364 Clearchus of Heraclea founded lib of Bithynia
Larensis'
Patrae
Smyrna
2?0 Antioch, Temple of the Muses
Apamea Syria
Syracuse
Delphi
Corinth
Helicarnassus
Cos
Rhodes
Cnidos
Macedonian State Library moved to Rome 167
Alexandria
Museum, Brucheion, Great (295)
Serapeum
Caesarium, Sebasteum (130 CE)
Pergamum in Temple of Athena
Athens
Academy of Plato 360
Lyceum of Aristotle 330
School of Isocrates
Stoa of Zeno
School of Epicurus
Ptolemaion
Metroon official archives
Rome
Moneta
Atrium Liberatatis 39
Porticus Octaviae 33
Palatine in Temple of Apollo 28
Tabularium in the Forum
(Macedonian State Library moved to Rome 167)
Forum Pacis 71 CE
Ulpian 113 CE
Tivoli
Como
Herculaneum
Ephesus, Library of Celsus 117 CE
Tortona
Milan
Marseilles
Cordova
Byzantium Imperial Library 330 CE
Merv 494
Vivarium in Calabria
Any others?
--
ace (at) radix.net
Macedon
Wayne B. Hewitt wrote:
> In article <6hm4t6$4d9$1...@news01.li.net>, "Edward Reiss" <ere...@li.net> wrote:
> >Here is a short list :
> >
> >Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Macedonians, Romans, Gauls,
> >Carthaginians, Han Chinese, Asoka (Hindu), Aztecs, Inca, Iroqois. All
> >these nations were polytheistic/animistic whatever, yet they were just
> >as intolerant/aggressive as any monothestic culture.
>
> I would have added the Mongols; but, aggressive as they were, they were
> more tolerant in a religious sense.
First, the Iroquois were not polytheistic. Like most NA American Indian tribes,
their religion was and is a good deal more complex. There is one great god
(Gitchimanitou, Wakan Tanka, a'ne himu--take your linguistic pick) who rules all.
Then there are a number of other beings, beneficient, maleficient and amoral, who
coexist along with us and which may possess more "power" than us, but which are
NOT gods.
Please, please, don't perpetuate the fallicy that American Indians were and are
polytheistic. Most of them are as monotheistic as Muslims, Jews and Christians,
and the plethora of manitou are none too different from Catholic or Orthodox
saints (although the saints are never hostile and the manitou can be).
Second, I'm not sure what your source is, but the Macedonians were *not*
religiously intolerant! Good grief. Alexander had a habit of praying to about
anything he ran across in his travels, in an attempt not to accidentally offend
some stray god somewhere. ;>
> Perhaps the Question open to discussion now should be:
>
> In the growth and expansion of historic cultures, what part did Religion
> play? Which cultures were driven primarily by religious motives?
Now this is a good question, but perhaps a difficult one to answer. I'd say that
any religion which has strong evangelical tendencies would fit the bill, including
(but not limited to) Buddhism, Christianity and Islam.
Macedon
M. Ranjit Mathews
Edward Reiss wrote:
> >I agree with you here also. Did you notice that in your statement
> that it
> >seems to be the monotheists who are always the most intolerant, and
> prone
> >to subjugate others?
> >
>
> Sorry to but in, but I see this fallacy often.
>
> Here is a short list:
>
It seems that only a certain kind of intolerance is being alluded to. The
key words are atheism (had a different meaning then), disbelief,
blasphemy and heresy.
Atheism (failure to patronize the state religion) was punished by Greeks
and Romans. They didn't object to other gods so long as the official ones
were given their due. Blasphemy and heresy were punished primarily/only
by monotheists.
> Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Macedonians, Romans, Gauls,
> Carthaginians, Han Chinese, Asoka (Hindu), Aztecs, Inca, Iroqois. All
Which of these persecuted their own citizens for blasphemy or heresy ?
> these nations were polytheistic/animistic whatever, yet they were just
> as intolerant/aggressive as any monothestic culture. In any case,
Agressiveness need have nothing to do with religious tolerance or
intolerance. A lot of agression was for land (lebensraum). It is also
little recognized that many "polytheists" had one god who was the
greatest of them all and was similar to the Jehovah of the Hebrews. For
example, in the British Museum you can find a statue of the
Assyro-Babylonian god Nabu/Nebo/Nego with an inscription warning one to
worship none but Nabu. In the instance where Shadrach, Mesach and
Abednago were put in a furnace for not worshipping according to
Nebuchadnezzar's dictates, Abednago is curiously an Assyro-Babylonian
name (servant of Nego). Also, some of Nebuchadnezzar's persecution of
Judaism might had to do with Zedekiah's rebellion against him under the
banner of Judaism.
> this was the only part of your post I had a problem with because it
> seems to go against your statement "Inventing a fictitious
> "Counter-History" as rebuttal defeats the whole purpose of studying
> History." It is a very difficult thing to measure
> intolerance/aggression. ;-) For instance, were the Tibetians less
> aggressive than the Persians, or less able to project their opower?
> Were the Romans more aggressive than the Macedonians or were they just
> more tenacious and cohesive?
After the Romans adopted Christianity, they were less agressive, but more
intolerant.
One Of The Anunnaki
On Thu, 23 Apr 1998 13:21:50 -0700, whe...@ucsd.edu (Wayne
B. Hewitt) wrote:
>>In article <353f21cb....@news.farm.idt.net>, StrongB...@idt.net
>>(One Of The Anunnaki) wrote:
>>
>>=On Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:15:54 -0700, whe...@ucsd.edu (Wayne
>>=B. Hewitt) wrote:
>>= ...
>>=>Slavery was not new to Africa, or any other part of the World for =>that
>>matter, nor was it introduced by Europeans.
>>
>>=You're correct in one sense, but on the other hand the type of
>>=slavery brought about by the European slave trade was
>>=different from anything that was done by Africans. Never
>>=before have millions of people been kidnapped, taken across
>>=the ocean and forced into slave labor. I think the number is
>>=around 600 million slaves that lost their lives. I know of no
>>=other people treated the way the Africans were/are.
>>
>>With the recent publicity surrounding the release of the movie 'Amistad,'
>>many of us have read reports in the news and magazines about the horrors
>>of the slave trade and the middle passage. However, I find the number "600
>>million" a little large, as it is more than twice the population of the
>>United States today. Do you mean 600,000,000 blacks total were at any one
>>time enslaved?
RAHUBAAT:
60 million is a reasonable figure for the number of people
whose lives were directly transformed by the slave trade (as
people enslaved, killed, displaced, or allowed to die), but
it is far greater than the number of Africans who were
actually landed alive on American shores or removed from the
African continent as slaves during the nearly 400 years of
the Atlantic slave trade.
Despite a great deal of sometimes acrimonious debate among
scholars about their aggregate numbers and the means of
deriving them, even those who disagree with each other most
bitterly have come up with surprisingly similar figures for
the number of Africans landed alive as slaves on the shores
of the western Atlantic: between 10 and 15 million. The
lower figure is primarily based on the work of Philip D.
Curtin and published in his book The African Slave Trade: A
Census (University of Wisconsin Press, 1968). The higher
figure is derived by Joseph E. Inikori and provided in the
introduction to a book entitled Forced Migration, which is
edited by him.
The number of Africans landed alive on American shores,
however, does not reflect the number of people enslaved in
the interior of Africa for delivery across the Atlantic. To
find this number, we must "work backwards" to increase the
numbers to reflect several "ways of death" of the westward
journey. Most people tend only to think of the "middle
passage" (i.e. the crossing of the Atlantic by ship), but
there are some other segments of the westward journey which
additionally have to be taken into account. These include
the time during which slaves were maintained at or near the
coast in concentrated conditions waiting for loading aboard
ship, the forced march or journey from the interior point of
enslavement to the gathering point on the coast, and the
actual place and means of enslavement.
Each of these "legs" has differing rates of mortality
associated with it, and these rates of mortality differed
over time and according to local circumstances. Thus the
further away we get from American shores, the greater the
margin of error we face in counting. Working with aggregate
averages, scholars have found that average mortality on the
ocean crossing was 15 to 20% and the average mortality in
Africa (including those killed in battle, those who died or
were killed on the march to the coast, and those who died
waiting for ships at the coast) at between 15 and 30%. What
this means is that in many specific cases, such as that of
the slave trade from Angola to Brazil, of 100 people
enslaved in the interior of Africa for the Atlantic trade,
only about 50 of them made it alive to the Americas. Over
all, however, it is likely that of 100 people enslaved in
the African interior, about 60 of them made it alive to the
Americas. That represents a total average mortality along
the entire "way of death" of about 40%.
Our numbers for Africans landed alive on American soil must
therefore be increased by about 40% to account for the
entire number of people originally enslaved, counting those
who died along the many "ways of death." When we inflate 10
and 15 million by 40% we come up with 14 and 21 million,
respectively. Therefore somewhere between 14 and 21 million
Africans were enslaved in Africa to account for the delivery
of 10 to 15 million living slaves in the Americas.
But there is even more to this story. The number of slaves
transported westward across the Atlantic represented only
about half of all individual enslaved in Africa. Why was
this so? Because nearly half of all slaves generated in
Africa were retained and used there rather than traded to
Europeans at the coastline. The Atlantic slave trade or
slavery in the Americas was directly linked to slavery in
Africa. This is a fundamental point.
In addition a new international effort directed by the
United Nations' Educational Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) is now underway to restudy the slave
trade and come up with new and improved figures. The UNESCO
project is a decade-long one, and encompases more than
simply numbers. Its results are highly anticipated.
(Note: These numbers do not reflect slaves transported to
destinations other than those in the Atlantic. For example,
there was a slave trade northward across the Sahara desert
into the Mediterranean world and northeastward across the
desert and the Indian Ocean to the Arabian Peninsula and
Persian Gulf areas. It appears as if the Atlantic slave
trade, however, accounted for about 75% of all slaves
exported from Africa, while the other 25% can be allocated
to this second form of trade into the Mediterranean and
Islamic world.)
Peace! once you know the truth you no longer have a excuse!
WADU.
>>
>>
>>=If you know of another whole continent of people that has
>>=endured such hardships please inform me. And while we're on
>>=the subject, why is it that America can apologize to the Jews
>>=for something the Germans did, and apologize to the Japanize
>>=for bombing them during a war that Japan started but cannot
>>=apologize or pay reparations to the African-Americans who
>>=through slave labor made many white Americans rich while
>>=they themselves had nothing and were allowed nothing for
>>=hundreds of years or the Indians whose land they stole and
>>=placed on reservations. It seems like the two groups of
>>=people that the U.S. owes the most to gets the least.
>>=And anything that was done in the past to help is now being
>>=taken away by using the catch phrase Quotas! While the real
>>=agenda is nothing more that SOME white Americans wanting
>>=things to stay the way it was when they had everything. They
>>=want every job, they want every one of their children to be
>>=accepted in a university, so they can maintain their level
>>=of power.
>>
>>Okay, I've heard this view before. What do you YOURSELF want, Wadu? Please
>>do not blame me as an individual for the history of the World.
I do not blame you! Things have been done that they just
don't teach to the people ( Black or White ). And when the
subject comes up many want to put their heads in the sand
and pretend that what happen then has not benefited them in
their daily life and made their lifes easier today.
Point: If life is a race then White America has enjoyed a
400 year head start! And now SOME have the nerve to complain
because we've closed the gap a little.
And once again I'm not saying you are this way but i'm sure
those that do will respond!
Peace-Wadu
From one of the Anunnaki
One Of The Anunnaki
On Thu, 23 Apr 1998 13:21:50 -0700, whe...@ucsd.edu (Wayne
B. Hewitt) wrote:
>>In article <353f21cb....@news.farm.idt.net>, StrongB...@idt.net
>>(One Of The Anunnaki) wrote:
>>
>>=On Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:15:54 -0700, whe...@ucsd.edu (Wayne
>>=B. Hewitt) wrote:
>>= ...
>>=>Slavery was not new to Africa, or any other part of the World for =>that
>>matter, nor was it introduced by Europeans.
>>
>>=You're correct in one sense, but on the other hand the type of
>>=slavery brought about by the European slave trade was
>>=different from anything that was done by Africans. Never
>>=before have millions of people been kidnapped, taken across
>>=the ocean and forced into slave labor. I think the number is
>>=around 600 million slaves that lost their lives. I know of no
>>=other people treated the way the Africans were/are.
>>
>>With the recent publicity surrounding the release of the movie 'Amistad,'
>>many of us have read reports in the news and magazines about the horrors
>>of the slave trade and the middle passage. However, I find the number "600
>>million" a little large, as it is more than twice the population of the
>>United States today. Do you mean 600,000,000( blacks total were at any one
(Sorry 600 MILLION SHOULD BE 60 MILLION)=THE ANUNNAKI******
>>time enslaved?
>>
>>
>>=If you know of another whole continent of people that has
>>=endured such hardships please inform me. And while we're on
>>=the subject, why is it that America can apologize to the Jews
>>=for something the Germans did, and apologize to the Japanize
>>=for bombing them during a war that Japan started but cannot
>>=apologize or pay reparations to the African-Americans who
>>=through slave labor made many white Americans rich while
>>=they themselves had nothing and were allowed nothing for
>>=hundreds of years or the Indians whose land they stole and
>>=placed on reservations. It seems like the two groups of
>>=people that the U.S. owes the most to gets the least.
>>=And anything that was done in the past to help is now being
>>=taken away by using the catch phrase Quotas! While the real
>>=agenda is nothing more that SOME white Americans wanting
>>=things to stay the way it was when they had everything. They
>>=want every job, they want every one of their children to be
>>=accepted in a university, so they can maintain their level
>>=of power.
>>
>>Okay, I've heard this view before. What do you YOURSELF want, Wadu? Please
>>do not blame me as an individual for the history of the World.
Sfz
In article <3540a8aa...@news.farm.idt.net>, StrongB...@idt.net (One Of
The Anunnaki) writes:
Thank you for this informative post. It seems to agree with other credible
work on this sad topic.
I've read that the number of slaves brought to what is now the United States
was roughly 500,000 - 600,000. Is that about right?
Thanks
Steve Zeigler
a...@radix.net
> Luciano Canfora's _The Vanished Library. A Wonder of the Ancient World_
ISBN 0-520-07255-3
> There is a great WWW page on this, at
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/GreekScience/Students/Ellen/Museum.html
another reference appears to be
Mostafa El-Abbadi: Life and fate of the ancient Library of Alexandria. - Paris: UNESCO, 1992 (second, revised edition) ISBN 92-3-102632-1
--
ace (at) radix.net
Joseph Askew
Macedon (mac...@geocities.com) wrote:
I think Edward Reiss wrote
: > >Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Macedonians, Romans, Gauls,
: > >Carthaginians, Han Chinese, Asoka (Hindu), Aztecs, Inca, Iroqois. All
: > >these nations were polytheistic/animistic whatever, yet they were just
: > >as intolerant/aggressive as any monothestic culture.
Find me the slightest bit of evidence that Han China was either
intolerant (of anyone let alone any belief) or even particularly
aggressive.
: > I would have added the Mongols; but, aggressive as they were, they were
: > more tolerant in a religious sense.
No they were not. Perhaps by European standards but not by the
standards of the region they came from. They did wipe out the
odd Islamic sect they didn't like. They did try and force the
Chinese to adopt Tibetan Buddhism. When they adopted it themselves
they did so with a sizable degree of persecution and complusion.
: First, the Iroquois were not polytheistic.
This is obviously some new definition of polytheistic I wasn't
previously aware of. Did the Iroquois worship more than one God?
Yes they did. Therefore, I would think myself, they were not
monotheists. Where does this argument break down?
: Like most NA American Indian tribes,
: their religion was and is a good deal more complex.
Hard to get more complex than polytheism.
: There is one great god
: (Gitchimanitou, Wakan Tanka, a'ne himu--take your linguistic pick)
: who rules all.
That is one God then. And notice the very real possibility of the
impact of Christian teaching on them and the contaimination of the
surrounding intolerant cultures.
: Then there are a number of other beings,
: beneficient, maleficient and amoral, who
: coexist along with us and which may possess
: more "power" than us, but which are
: NOT gods.
How do you know? What do the Iroquois, or more importantly what
did they, call them then? They look like Gods to me.
: Please, please, don't perpetuate the fallicy
: that American Indians were and are
: polytheistic.
It is just not a fallicy though. It is an observable fact. At
least from the records we have which make it very clear they
were not monotheists.
: Most of them are as monotheistic as Muslims, Jews and Christians,
Yeah sure. Now they are.
: and the plethora of manitou are none too different from Catholic or Orthodox
: saints (although the saints are never hostile and the manitou can be).
They are wildly different and you can make a good case that Catholics
and Orthodox people aren't monotheists either. But they have tried to
square the circle by special complex theology that works around the
fact that what they do is to all intents and purposes polytheism. This
is not likely to be true of American indians.
Joseph
--
Of the common run of Shan-hsi men it is hard to say much good. They are
mean and cunning, and though by relentlessly skinning fleas for the hide
and tallow they often become wealthy, they remain to the end ignorant
and narrow. [...] For these reasons they have often been involved in
comparison with the Jews, which is a little hard on them perhaps.
-- Owen Lattimore _High Tartary_
b1ibpo97
*The* Didaskalos wrote:
> nub...@aol.com (Nubkhas) wrote to and soc.history.ancient:
>
> == > I suggest you
> == >read some of Benjamin Disraeli's writings. You'll find similar
> == >chauvinistic boasting.
> ==
> == How lucky you are you are not addressing Disraeli instead
> == of only me. The famous wit of that great "chauvanist" would
> == have ground you down to the bare atoms of your so-called
> == "scholarly superiority" by now.
>
> That doesn't answer the matter of chauvinism in Disraeli's work.
>
> == >"The first real light on modern medicine in Europe came with the
> == >translation of many writings from the Arabic at Salerno, Italy, and
> == >through a continuing trade and cultural exchange with Byzantium. By
> == >the 13th cent., there were flourishing medical schools at Montpellier,
> == >Paris, Bologna and Padua, the latter being the site of production of
> == >the first accurate books on human anatomy."
> ==
> == (snip of odd bits and pieces from the encyclopaedia)
> ==
> == What's the point of all this? I haven't the slightest wish to
>
> The point of this is that the Renaissance (and medicine as interjected
> by other posters) was not the work of Spanish Jews. That's not to say
> they didn't participate in it, but it is to say that they didn't have
> the starring role suggested by the original poster. Yes, you say you
> didn't say it, and I'm not suggesting you did say it. But to the best
> of my recollection someone said it early in this thread. I don't know
> if it was an opinion of the poster, or a quote from some dubious
> source, such as Encarta. I suspect the Columbia Encyclopedia, with
> editors Chernow and Vallasi, and with Consultants Awn, Bulliet, Cohen,
> Lancaster, Melnick, and Weinberg cannot be accused of trying to
> denigrate or minimize Jewish contributions to Western Civilization and
> the Renaissance.
>
> == take away one iota from the contribution to medicine of
> == the Arabs. Or the Egyptians before them, or the Greeks.
> == Yet I asked you, why do you suppose the Sultan preferred
> == to make the Jew, Moses ben Maimon, his Chief Physician
> == over all doctors of his own religion? What happened to the
> == superiority of Arab physicians over Jewish ones in Egypt at
> == the time? The only answer you furnished was to comment
> == that Maimonides wrote in Arabic. Why are evading my question?
>
> I'm not evading your question. I don't question his qualifications as
> a physician, but if the Columbia Encyclopedia doesn't give him credit
> for launching modern medicine, why do you expect me to? You must admit
> that outside Jewish circles he is negligible, and I suspect that
> inside Jewish circles his main value is his religious writing. I know
> that Rambam has hospitals named after him, but you won't find many
> non-Jews who know why.
>
> == Could it possibly be that you begrudge the Jews their accomplishments? It
> == certainly would seem so. As far as your
>
> Here we go again with the persecution complex. I don't begrudge them
> their accomplishments. Their genuine accomplishments.
>
> == picture of the Jews spending all their time with their noses in
> == the Talmud goes, Maimonides, in his own writing, laments that
> == he was so busy ministering to the sick, both high-born and low,
> == from early in the morning until late at night that he barely had
> == any time to study the scriptures, only taking a little time to do so
> == on the Sabbath, which was also the day the Jews of the vicinity
> == consulted him on all sorts of matters out of respect for his great
> == reputation as a learned man. When Maimonides died on December 13, 1204, his
> == passing was marked by three days of
> == public mourning in Fostat (Cairo), a public fast in Jerusalem and
> == by expressions of grief throughout much of the Jewish world. He
> == lies buried in Tiberias, Israel.
>
> I don't deny that he was a greatly revered figure in the Jewish world,
> as he is today. I have cited him myself to make points in discussions
> of Leviticus.
>
> But you've diverted this from a discussion of whether Jews were
> responsible for the Renaissance to Maimonides.
>
> In my original post, which I'm not going to resurrect, but which I
> believe I can correctly characterize, I said Jews didn't make
> contributions (meaning major ones that are notable and remembered
> today) to secular learning until the emancipation of the 18th-19th
> Centuries. I also mentioned exceptions to that, namely Philo and
> Spinoza (I certainly hope I mentioned the philospher). Maimonides
> would be another exception, and two exceptions instead of three
> doesn't destroy the argument.
>
> But the relative position of Spinoza and Maimonides should be
> considered when we're evaluating their relative worth as contributors
> to secular learning. Spinoza is still studied today as a worthwhile
> and original contributor to philosophy -- he had the honor of being
> taught in an introductory philosophy course I studied at Northwestern
> University 40 years ago. Where is Maimonides as philosopher? Having
> read some of Philo, I know the level of his "philosophy." I haven't
> read Maimonides, but to me it is telling that Spinoza rather than
> Maimonides is the Jewish philosopher who seems to have survived as a
> philosopher. Enough of Rambam as secular scholar. Let him be valued
> for his very genuine contributions to religious study, and let the
> achievements of his life -- his attainment of a high position at court
> -- be remembered. But that does not a secular scholar make.
>
> == That aside, there is no doubt whatsoever that Jewish thinkers
> == in the Spanish Muslim period were largely engaged in translating
> == and interpreting the Greek heritage to the dominant Muslim world.
>
> You don't show any evidence of that, but I don't doubt some were
> involved in making translations. But the Columbia Encyclopedia account
> does not support the idea that Spanish Jews were the source of the
> Renaissance. Quite the contrary, it credits commerce with Byzantium
> for disseminating Greek learning.
>
> Furthermore, where is your proof that Jews were necessary for Muslims
> to understand Greek? The Muslims had Greeks who spoke Greek to
> translate for them. Their conquests brought to them many scholars from
> Egypt and other places who spoke Greek. It was the language of the
> Christian Church and known to all educated people in the areas the
> Arabs conquered. To say that the Muslims living cheek-by-jowl with
> these Greek-speakers never learned anything from them until Jews
> happened on the scene strains credibility and smacks of the kind of
> charvinism I was deploring.
>
> If you contend that Muslims/Arabs never learned anything of ancient
> Greek learning until Jews introduced them to it, please supply a
> citation, and one of higher credibility than Encarta.
>
> <><><><><><><><><><><><>
>
> Ye shall know the truth -- *The* Didaskalos
>
> http://www.geocities.com/westhollywood/village/1360
> http://www.glinn.com/pink
>
> <><><><><><><><><><><><>
in this post as in others you refer to Columbia Encyclopedia what justify your
coise of referance
is there other sources for those subject , as Jews , Muslims and the Renaissance
thanks
Ragndra Das
A spirit in formation
Edward Reiss
In response to some others' posts, I was not saying that monotheists
are more *religiously* tolerant, I am saying that they are no more
aggressive than polythestic cultures. the Roman and Mongol empires
were *very* large and *very* aggressive, and they were not
monothestic. It is commonly assumed that Europeans were more
aggressive because of their monothestic religion, I say it is because
of their use of technology: ships, horses (especially in the New
World), gunpowder etc.
>Pardon me for injecting this thought, but in the studies I have done
>regarding the acceptance by a Polythesistic culture of the 'God' of a
>Monothesistic culture whom they encounter, it seems the attitude of
the
>former is "Let's accept this new God too... maybe (s)he can help our
>old Gods help us), whereas the Monotheistic culture views the 'Gods'
of
>the other cultures as being false.
>
But this does not make the polythestic culture less imperialistic.
>As for the part Religion played on the growth and expansion of
historic
>cultures, I think the effect of the use of a European Religion,
>Christianity, to enslave the Pueblo Peoples in New Mexico and
>eventually resulted in the Indian Revolts of 1680 and 1696 is a very
>good example of how the use, or mis-use of Religion can effect
history.
>
And the result of the Aztecs' enslavement of neighboring tribes and
the increase of tribute in the form of victims led many of thems to
throw their lot in with the Spaniards. (This is out of our period
though.) I would say that money and power motivate conquerors more
than religion. Religion usually comes in after the conquest is done,
though it might be used to justify a conquest.
______________________________________________
Edward Reiss <ere...@li.net>
http://www.li.net/~ereiss
______________________________________________
>Michelle Hunt
>Mich...@ix.netcom.com
>
M. Ranjit Mathews
Mike Cleven wrote:
> In the case of the Tibetans, they were an extremely warlike nation
> with considerable power outside their boundaries UNTIL their
> conversion to Buddhism.
They did't, however, neglect self-defence. They beat back Chinese attempts
to annex them (twice in the eatly 20th century) until they were against
hopeless odds with China under Mao.
Joe Bernstein
> >>
> >>Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Macedonians, Romans, Gauls,
> >>Carthaginians, Han Chinese, Asoka (Hindu), Aztecs, Inca, Iroqois.
> >>All these nations were polytheistic/animistic whatever, yet they were
> >>just as intolerant/aggressive as any monothestic culture.
Eh? Which Babylonians? The ones who were very heavily focused on
Marduk for their own religion, but fairly indifferent to their subjects'
religions, or the ones much much earlier who had a more diverse bunch
of gods but didn't really do much conquering?
Similar question for the Assyrians. The image of Egyptians as "just
as intolerant/aggressive as any monotheistic culture" just loses
me altogether - exactly *which* Egyptians engaged in the sort of
intolerance *or* aggression characteristic of, say, 16th-century
Spain *or* 4th-century Persia? I'll skip over a bunch of the rest
to stop at Asoka. Are you assuming that Asoka was a Hindu before
he became a Buddhist? This is a very risky assertion. He tells us
nothing about his prior beliefs; his family had a long history of
heterodoxy (the Jains allege that his grandfather followed their
faith, while his father is said to have favoured the Ajivikas, a now-
extinct predestinationist sect), and the Maurya empire is hardly
remembered in orthodox (?) historical tradition (the puranas etc.).
In any event, Asoka's war on Kalinga strikes me as pretty trivial
compared to his missionary effort on behalf of Buddhism, so I hope
you wrote "Asoka (Hindu)" specifically to exclude the better known
Buddhist Asoka...
(We can't be sure what sort of Buddhism Asoka followed, of course -
the sects were already well on their way by his time - but I have
a lot of trouble with the notion of any Buddhism that early as
"polytheistic", let alone "animistic", I might add.)
I realise this offers little to answer the question y'all have moved
on to, but this list bothered me in its own right.
Joe Bernstein
--
Joe Bernstein, writer and bookseller http://www.tezcat.com/~josephb/
Speaking for myself alone j...@sfbooks.com jos...@tezcat.com
Edward Reiss
To all:
Joe Bernstein wrote in message <6iosqr$9...@xochi.tezcat.com>...
Besides the rather nit-pickey tone of this post, I would like to point
out that you and several other people have completely missed my point.
Someone (I have forgotten who...) said that monothestic religions were
more agressive or imperialistic than cultures who are not monothestic.
So even if we disallow whatever portion of my post you disagree with,
the point still remains.
For instance, you asked which Egyptians I was speaking about. It
doesn't matter terribly much because several Pharoahs (I hope my
spelling is satisfactory to you, I don't recall the proper
spelling....) invaded their neighbors, the Egyptians fought the
Hittites etc. If my use of the terms Egyptians or Babylonians or
Assyrians does not pass muster with you because these cultures changed
over time, again it does not impact my point! The point is that
monothestic cultures are not more prone to agression than
non-monothestic ones. Thus your post is besides the point. (And even
if the belief that Asoka was Hindu is shaky, it is far from just being
pulled out of the air!)
>I realise this offers little to answer the question y'all have moved
>on to, but this list bothered me in its own right.
>
Maybe it would not have bothered you so much if you would have a
little more charity towards others and not expect every post to be a
doctoral dissertation on which Egyptians or Assyrians etc. were
mentioned. Unless it is the case that not a single Egyptian or
Assyrian etc. culture was agressive? Honestly, I cannot understand
why this bothered you so much. Was it actually this or do you believe
that monothestic cultures *are* more agressive? Is it not intolerant
to invade another region, as the Egyptians did, to use its people?
Were the Egyptians less agressive than Spain, or did the Egyptians
just have less technology at their disposal? (This is the problem I
see with your analogy above, 16th century Spain and Ancient Egypt
[pick your favorite agressive dynasty, or maybe the Ptolymaic
Kings?]are appls and oranges...)
In any case, I think this topic is rather dead for the time being.
Katherine Griffis
On Wed, 6 May 1998 16:47:15 -0400, "Edward Reiss" <ere...@li.net>
wrote:
All right, so the Egyptians fought with their neighbors over territory
- that is the nature of territorial disputes and expansionism for
resources and trade. I also fail to see that just because they warred
with one another over that says they were "intolerant" based upon
their religious system. They tended to adopt gods from foreign lands
they inhabited as part of their empire.
> If my use of the terms Egyptians or Babylonians or
>Assyrians does not pass muster with you because these cultures changed
>over time, again it does not impact my point! The point is that
>monothestic cultures are not more prone to agression than
>non-monothestic ones. Thus your post is besides the point. (And even
>if the belief that Asoka was Hindu is shaky, it is far from just being
>pulled out of the air!)
I think that the statements from the posters, Barbarossa and Michelle
Hunt, were that polytheistic religions tended to _assimilate_ other
cultures' gods as being helpful to their social and religious needs,
even if they warred against them. Since polutheistic cultures have a
multiplicity of gods to begin with, they tend to be more open to
assistance from gods similar to their own, or who may work better in
local surroundings. Monotheistic religions saw cultures with different
gods as being automatically "wrong" and contrary to them, and
therefore may have been more aggressive to them, in an effort to place
_their_ god as supreme over the conquered land.
That's been my take on it in a review of world history.
Katherine Griffis-Greenberg
Member, American Research Center in Egypt
International Association of Egyptologists
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Special Studies
http://www.geocities.com/Eureka/1692/index.html
Reading mail from me in a Usenet group does not
grant you the right to send me unsolicited commercial e-mail.
All senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail will be
reported to their postmasters as Usenet abusers.
Wayne B. Hewitt
In article <3551f5e6...@news.mindspring.com>, gri...@mindspring.com
wrote:
>I think that the statements from the posters, Barbarossa and Michelle
>Hunt, were that polytheistic religions tended to _assimilate_ other
>cultures' gods as being helpful to their social and religious needs,
>even if they warred against them. Since polytheistic cultures have a
>multiplicity of gods to begin with, they tend to be more open to
>assistance from gods similar to their own, or who may work better in
>local surroundings. Monotheistic religions saw cultures with different
>gods as being automatically "wrong" and contrary to them, and
>therefore may have been more aggressive to them, in an effort to place
>_their_ god as supreme over the conquered land.
>
>That's been my take on it in a review of world history.
>
>
>Katherine Griffis-Greenberg
>
>Member, American Research Center in Egypt
> International Association of Egyptologists
>
>University of Alabama at Birmingham
>Special Studies
Yes. In addition, remember that one of the original posts from Wadu, whose
e-mail address in part is "strongblackman@...." complained that the
Christians and the Muslims and [I think mistakenly] the Jews had all
justified their slavery of the black man by using religious arguments.
It seems to me that a strong belief that only YOUR God is the one TRUE God
makes it easy to enslave those whom you consider 'heathen;' that it is
better to be a slave and be saved by conversion, than to be free and be
damned.
Edward Reiss
>It seems to me that a strong belief that only YOUR God is the one
TRUE God
>makes it easy to enslave those whom you consider 'heathen;' that it
is
>better to be a slave and be saved by conversion, than to be free and
be
>damned.
What data do you have to support this? Were monothestic cultures more
apt to enslave than non-monothestic cultures, were monothestic more
apt to invade their neighbors than non-monothestic cultures?
Ed
Joe Bernstein
In article <6iqif2$r3o$1...@news01.li.net>, Edward Reiss <ere...@li.net> wrote:
> Joe Bernstein wrote in message <6iosqr$9...@xochi.tezcat.com>...
> >> >In article <6hm4t6$4d9$1...@news01.li.net>, "Edward Reiss"
> >> ><ere...@li.net> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >>Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Macedonians, Romans, Gauls,
> >> >>Carthaginians, Han Chinese, Asoka (Hindu), Aztecs, Inca, Iroqois.
> >> >>All these nations were polytheistic/animistic whatever, yet they
> >> >>were just as intolerant/aggressive as any monothestic culture.
> >
> >Eh? Which Babylonians? The ones who were very heavily focused on
> >Marduk for their own religion, but fairly indifferent to their
> >subjects' religions, or the ones much much earlier who had a more
> >diverse bunch of gods but didn't really do much conquering?
[snip a bunch similar]
> Besides the rather nit-pickey tone of this post, I would like to point
> out that you and several other people have completely missed my point.
Thanks, but no thanks. You even quoted my statement further on in my
post that I *knew* I was ignoring your point. And there's nothing
wrong with nit-picking in this context.
See, someone made a claim, and you made a counter-claim. To support
that, you offered the above list, as *evidence* for your counter-claim.
You actually succeeded very well in this; the original thread generally
accepted your counter-claim, moved on to rephrase the original claim so
it could square with your evidence, and finally died.
I, on the other hand, reading only a short while later, flipped as soon
as I saw the line "Asoka (Hindu)". You may not realise this, but that
is sort of like a line reading "Paul of Tarsus (Roman polytheist)", OK?
Admittedly, the evidence that Paul was never a worshipper of Jupiter is
stronger than the evidence that Asoka never did a brahmanical sacrifice,
but Asoka's fame rests so overwhelmingly on his Buddhism, and there is
so little evidence of friendship between him and "Hinduism" and so much
evidence of hostility, that the comparison is still apt.
So I got suspicious of your evidence and decided to look at some of
the rest. This is not nit-picking, this is legitimate questioning.
See, if your evidence doesn't hold up, neither does your counter-claim.
Personally, I have no investment in the mountains of bullshit thrown
around in this newsgroup to prove the sanctity, antiquity or whatever
of any given religion or nationality. I'm an atheist from the United
States; my own religious and national antecedents are not remotely
ancient, and I don't have much interest in insulting people on that
sort of basis. You will not find that I have some history of insulting
monotheists on this group. But I do have a history of asking questions
like this when someone's specific claims grab my attention.
> Someone (I have forgotten who...) said that monothestic religions were
> more agressive or imperialistic than cultures who are not monothestic.
> So even if we disallow whatever portion of my post you disagree with,
> the point still remains.
Only if enough portions remain to back your point up.
I might add that on reconsidering the topic, I find "aggressive or
imperialistic" a very loose formulation. I don't know if that's how
the original claim was worded or if it's your rephrasing, but I seem
to recall the word "intolerant" being in there at some point, and I
think the core image I carried from the prior posts I read (not the
entire thread, but a bunch) was of people who went out conquering
people *for the sake of imposing their beliefs on them*.
This is radically different from simply *being* a conqueror, let alone
being a people that ever once in history started a single war.
> >I realise this offers little to answer the question y'all have moved
> >on to, but this list bothered me in its own right.
(As noted above...)
> Maybe it would not have bothered you so much if you would have a
> little more charity towards others and not expect every post to be a
> doctoral dissertation on which Egyptians or Assyrians etc. were
> mentioned. Unless it is the case that not a single Egyptian or
> Assyrian etc. culture was agressive? Honestly, I cannot understand
> why this bothered you so much.
Honestly? "Asoka (Hindu)" is what prompted me to post. Given that,
I looked for other things to comment on, and found some. I thought
the claim of a specific type of intolerance in monotheism had been
fairly clear (though, to be fair, I tend not to read posts in date
order, and maybe it wasn't clear when you posted that list). Your
list cited all sorts of aggression, with little connection to that
specific type. Since I found the original claim appealingly plausible,
I knew it was likely to be false - most appealingly plausible
generalisations about history are - but I didn't like seeing it given
up so easily, when I didn't think it had really been challenged.
> Was it actually this or do you believe
> that monothestic cultures *are* more agressive? Is it not intolerant
> to invade another region, as the Egyptians did, to use its people?
Is that not a pretty major distortion of the word "intolerant" ?
It's not "intolerance" for which we attack things like the invasion
of Kuwait, for heaven's sake.
> Were the Egyptians less agressive than Spain, or did the Egyptians
> just have less technology at their disposal? (This is the problem I
> see with your analogy above, 16th century Spain and Ancient Egypt
> [pick your favorite agressive dynasty, or maybe the Ptolymaic
> Kings?]are appls and oranges...)
Well, OK. Pharaonic Egypt is the best-known imperial conquering form
of Egypt, and is pretty early in its best-known periods. But let's
talk about the 8th century BC or so here. Periods familiar from the
Bible, Jeremiah and so forth. In these centuries Assyria is a major
imperial power and Egypt sometimes a less major one, and they're both
being aggressive. Would you seriously argue that Assyria was not more
so? Would you seriously argue the cause of the difference was Assyrian
*technology*?
In contrast, I'd argue that a monolithic Assyrian faith - albeit neither
a monotheistic one nor one they tried to impose on their subjects - is
at least a plausible explanation for the difference. Have you read the
Report of Wenamun? This is a story from the Egyptian point of view of
a guy who goes to get Lebanon cedar for some pharaoh's tomb or whatever
in the 11th century BC, after the empire of the Ramesside pharaohs has
disintegrated. He's represented as running into all sorts of trouble,
but basically getting his wood in the end. Why? Partly because Amun
still gets some respect in those parts from imperial days. Partly
because he's a smooth talker. And partly because the prince in Lebanon
feels like condescending to the formerly supreme Egyptians. I repeat,
this is from the *Egyptian* point of view. I'm not sure I buy this as
a sign of a monolithic faith having been imposed on the Lebanese.
Pretty radical contrast with the picture painted by Assyrian documents,
let alone anti-Assyrian ones; and still more radical contrast with the
picture painted by 4th century AD Sasanid documents (to stay on-topic,
and thus drop the Spanish Inquisition). The Sasanids had a state
church, and in that century they enthusiastically persecuted subjects
who didn't adopt it. You may find claims that these included the
most severe persecutions of Christians in history, if you check the
right history books; you will also find that they included the tail
end of a still more spectacular persecution of Manichaeans (begun in
the late 3rd century). Writers on church history tend to say that the
Jews were pretty much left alone, but I haven't checked this against
Jewish sources. I gather the (unspecified pagans of) Hatra got hit
pretty hard. All this, and its echoes in later centuries, have by
the way something to do with the initial Muslim hatred for Zoroastrians...
So that example of mine, at least, was not apples and oranges, thanks.
Anyway, back to your list. Here's my detail notes; if someone wants
to pick them up and run with them, they can, but I don't feel satisfied
either that you've proven your point or that I've demolished it.
Babylonians - see previous post
Egyptians - ditto plus above
Assyrians - see above
Macedonians - I don't claim enough knowledge of their religious beliefs
Romans - you classify them right; they're ultra-aggressive and moderately
intolerant; relatively good evidence for your counter-claim
Gauls - I don't claim enough knowledge of their religious beliefs, let
alone how these relate to their conquests
Carthaginians - you classify them right; they're moderately aggressive
and not intolerant; not good evidence for your counter-claim though
not terrible
Han Chinese - I'm not sure you classify them right (of course animistic/
polytheistic/whatever is a very broad category!); I'm not sure how to
classify their aggressiveness (anywhere from mild to ultra, depending
on details I don't know) but they're not very intolerant except the
freak case of Qin Shi Huang Di; not very good evidence but maybe decent
Asoka (Hindu) - I take it you mean the Maurya empire? This is Asoka's
empire, anyway, founded by his grandfather, on whom see my previous
post. Or maybe you mean Magadha, whose imperial aspirations go back
a few reigns further under other dynasties. Religion still questionable.
Intolerance *extremely* unlikely. Aggression significant.
If you mean any other South Asian empires I'm less confident.
Aztecs - Well, if you can rule the Spaniards out of range, I can do
the same with these guys, right? Seriously though they look like
grade A evidence for your counter-claim, but this still depends on
your loose formulation of "aggressive or intolerant".
Incas - Are you *sure* you want to cite these guys? I'm not confident
enough to dispute you, but something suggests to me that they are not
as you claim.
Iroquois - Again of course off-topic on sha, and in any event I'm too
ignorant of them in these respects. Superficially, superb evidence
for your counter-claim.
Have fun, anyway.