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Atlantis Found. Again.
Tufriast writes "Paul McCartney and Mythic eat your heart out! BBC News has an interesting revelation regarding the lost city of Atlantis: "American researchers claim to have found convincing evidence that locates the site of the lost kingdom of Atlantis off the coast of Cyprus."" Hey, here's an idea: The idea of an almost mythical lost civilization is common thread throughout all old human societies - much like, say, really big Floods. Perhaps there could be more then one story that fits? But, no, that wouldn't be a simplistic enough answer to be sound-bitten into oblivion.
But, no, that wouldn't be a simplistic enough answer to be sound-bitten into oblivion.
In today's USA political climate, any such suggestion smacks of rabid anti-bible terrorism. Better watch them words, pardner!
Infuriate left and right
OR perhaps all the stories originated from one actual occurance, but have become distorted through years of relay from one generation to the next.
-- i am jack's amusing sig file
I remember reading a while back about the possibility that Atlantis had been on the Northern edge (yep, that'll be all of them) of the Antarctic continent, before we entered the current ice-age (we're in an interglacial at the moment, technically still an ice age). See levels would have been higher, but Antarctica/Atlantis would have had a climate similar to modern britain.
Contrasting this, early greek explorers who went to 'Atlantis' noted that the natives were 'red skinned with horse-like hair', almost identical to Christopher Columbus' description of Native Americans!
Does this mean Disney will now claim rights to all of the artifacts, and will release toys packaged with Happy Meals.
Well I for one welcome our new alien over--I'm sorry, I'm reading from the wrong story. Well I for one welcome our new lost civilization overlords...
Don't sweat the petty things. Don't pet the sweaty things. --Stephen J. Simmons
Where have you been hidding in a hole or something? I have been watching a elite team explore this place every friday night on the sci-fi channel, get with the program why don't you!
Personal Website
Hey, here's an idea. The primary job of an editor is to edit not editorialize.
Sheesh.Perhaps there could be more then one story that fits? But, no, that wouldn't be a simplistic enough answer to be sound-bitten into oblivion.
If you're an archaeologist, it's alot easier to get funding for your excavation if you make it sound like your project has major ramifications to the history of humanity.
It's just good business to call it Atlantis.
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
They've got it all wrong. Atlantis can only be reached via the stargate using an 8 digit address!
Tsk, don't these people know anything?
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I want to know why everyone assumes the name of this discovery is Atlantis. How can we know the name of an ancient civilization we discover before we discover it?
Anyway, wouldn't Mediterranis be far more appropriate, given its location?
Atlantis NEVER existed!
l antis is a legendary island in the Atlantic, west of Gibraltar, that sunk beneath the sea during a violent eruption of earthquakes and floods some 9,000 years before Plato wrote about it in his Timaeus and Critias. In a discussion of utopian societies, Plato claims that Egyptian priests told Solon about Atlantis. Plato was not describing a real place any more than his allegory of the cave describes a real cave. The purpose of Atlantis is to express a moral message in a discussion of ideal societies, a favorite theme of his. The fact that nobody in Greece for 9,000 years had mentioned a battle between Athens and Atlantis should serve as a clue that Plato was not talking about a real place or battle. Nevertheless, Plato is often cited as the primary source for the reality of a place on earth called Atlantis. Here is what the Egyptian priest allegedly told Solon:
....
From
http://skepdic.com/atlantis.html
>>>>>>>>>>>
At
Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your state in our histories. But one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valour. For these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless continent.
Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. This vast power, gathered into one, endeavoured to subdue at a blow our country and yours and the whole of the region within the straits; and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind. She was pre-eminent in courage and military skill, and was the leader of the Hellenes. And when the rest fell off from her, being compelled to stand alone, after having undergone the very extremity of danger, she defeated and triumphed over the invaders, and preserved from slavery those who were not yet subjugated, and generously liberated all the rest of us who dwell within the pillars. (Timaeus)
The story is reminiscent of what Athens did against the Persians in the early 5th century BCE, but the battle with Atlantis allegedly took place in the 8th or 9th millennium BCE. It would not take much of an historical scholar to know that Athens in 9,000 BCE was either uninhabited or was occupied by very primitive people. This fact would not have concerned Plato's readers because they would have understood that he was not giving them an historical account of a real city. To assume, as many believers in Atlantis do, that there is a parallel between Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and Plato's Critias and Timaeus is simply absurd. And those who think that just as Schliemann found Troy so too will we someday crack Plato's code and find Atlantis are drawing an analogy where they should be drawing the curtains. Plato's purpose was not to pass on stories, but to create stories to teach moral lessons. What can we expect next from these lost scholars? A search for the grave of Cecrops, the serpent-tailed first king of Athens? The discovery of the true trident of Poseidon?
eat shiat and bark at the moon
I'm not trying to be a pessimist, but making claims about finding Atlantis based on preliminary sonar imagery might be jumping the gun a little bit. In a sea that's been heavily travelled since human kind first built boats, it could be a lot of different things. Even if it's a civilization, it could be one of many Mediterrannean settlements that nobody knew was missing.
My point is that until they come up with some underwater photos, artifacts, or both, it's a bit early to claim that they found something that might not have even existed in the first place.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
Amazing. All those speaking on topics they know so very little about. Oh well. I guess that's your right to do so.
Of course if some other ideology ruled the earth you wouldn't have the Internet or Slashdot.
Something to think about, from a 43 year old Marine Corps Vet.
Worst. Lost. Civilization. Evar.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
That looks just like the face on Mars so it must be true!
Personally, I'm just eager to see what they find, if it is found. Ancient archeological surprises are pretty cool, as it always astounds me how relatively advanced some of these civilizations were, to only fall back into ignorance before we finally moved into the modern age.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
In "western" civiliation there is no history of this story prior to Plato. Plato has a fictional character, Timeos (sp?), tell the story of Atlantis. The story is an obvious parable illustrating Plato's ideas about how things decline.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
The only mention of the place comes from Plato. He was telling a story about an evil, technologically superior force( The Atlantians) getting defeated by the 'just and moral' Athenians. Plato was telling a tale with similar themes to Star Wars, etc : The just and moral will overcome the wicked and powerful.
There was nothing more to it. No other historians wrote about it, none of Plato's contemporaries made any mention of it.
Now, were there civilizations that got zapped by a flood/volcano/earthquake, etc? Sure.
But was there an advanced civilization on an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean that got its ass kicked by the Greeks sometime between 1200-10000 BC (Depending on if you take Plato's words of 10k years literarly or not)?
Doubt it.
Jesus used to be my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
Looks like the existance of this story has been lost too!
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
The AP article can be found here, on CNN.
Just how often do we have to "solve" the mystery of Atlantis? When will the media accept that not every sunken city Atlantis, and that it probably isn't the last time that someone will find a site sunken by volcanic activity. Most of these discoveries are occuring in an area with large amounts of Volcanic activity, so doesn't it just make sense that these cities are there?
But I say I am skeptical about this discovery. Mainly because of who funded the expedition. It cost about $250k, which was raised by proceedes from book sales and donations, with the largest donation of $60k comming from a "Tourisim" society/acency in Cypris. Well, where does "Atlatis" show up? Off the coast of Cypris...
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
There are dreamtime stories about Atlantis but in keeping with Australian naming conventions they call it Kookanuggiebiddlybong and because Australians get everything upside down its tells the story of a city rising from the depths and making a sea disappear.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Altantis seems to be very mobile. It's been spotted in Cyprus now. Last time it was Ireland, before that it was in Spain and then Gibraltar
Prior to that it was in the mid atlantic where it moved to from Greece. Of course, it's original location was off the coast of Cornwall.
Really big floods aren't an outrageous mythical proposition. Neither is an anti-religion bias.
sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
... so here is one from some swedish news: a bunch of urns
Surprisingly that picture doesn't seem very common in related stories from a Google News search.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
2) The site is located 1600 meters (about 1 mile) below the surface.
3) The biblical flood he attributes to/identifies as the Flooding of the Med when the Atlantic broke through the mountain wall at Gibraltar. Geology indicates that while such an event did take place, it was 6 million years ago, not at the end of the Ice Age.
Therefore, it is more likley that the site is an old flooded out UFO base from the time period of the flood out, in my opinion. It would have been logical to have such bases in the Med basin, as there would have been spectacular salt flats in bottom of the Med basin, making an easy to find landmark from space, and a useful landing strip. Of course, any structures there have been flooded out very long ago.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Any new archaeological find is potentially interesting, but I wouldn't get all excited about this, for two reasons. First, nothing much is known. Sonar doesn't tell you very much, not even whether it is really an archaeological site. It is all too common for people to decide that something must be manmade because the edges are too straight or something like that, only for it to turn out to be a natural geological formation. Without further evidence, we won't know what this is.
Secondly, supposing that these are the remains of a city, what makes this one more exciting than any other? I submit that what makes it exciting is the association with the Atlantis legend of a particularly advanced society. But that is precisely the part of Plato's story that is most likely false. Even if his story is based on a real city that was submerged, it was most likely an ordinary city of its time, perhaps well off by the standards of the day, but not the amazingly advanced civilization of sci-fi movies. We can't of course rule it out entirely, but we will only have reason to believe it if actual evidence is found, and at present there isn't any.
Atlanta was more than just a delta hub. And the caffeine can really speed up the evolutionary process. Wooo doggies!
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
Err... I thought only the Atlantian island capital was lost? Plato (supposedly) never claimed that the entire continent was lost. This has led many to suggest that the Americas were the lost continent of Atlantis. The island capital could have easily been lost in a disaster such as a tidal wave.
Ancient Hindu texts may confirm this theory, as they refer to great wars in arial and orbital machines. Some have suggested that their enemy was the Atlantians, who were actually the Aztecs. This has been corroborated by some pretty strange artifacts like these. It's hard to look at those and not believe that they're planes.
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I know exactly where it is. It's at the intersection of I-75, I-85 and I-20. I go there all the time. What's the big deal?
What?
Oh AtlantIS.
Sorry.
In related news, the stories of voyagers traveling back in time and interacting with the present-day citizens of Earth, being a common threat in all five of the Star Trek series, as well as one of the movies, is proof that the events of Star Trek will all become real historical facts.
Upstairs Dog, Downstairs People.
Getting your history lessons from someone who can't even spell their own domain name properly is not a good idea...
Cayce followers have been good at editing his predictions as time passes. But you can always find old books in used book stores that have very detailed predictions about things that will happen in the 80's and 90's.
Plausible explanations are not the same as actual events. For every event there are thousands of plausible explanations.
The Minoan millennia's history is still almost completely unguessable. Archaeological sites that exist are difficult to find, sometimes obscured by this volcanic action, water (changing sea levels) or by the massive desertification that occurred in North Africa. There may be still much to learn from seawrecks on the bottom of the Mediterranean, though.
These events probably also formed the factual basis for the Biblical plagues of Egypt. (huge volcano-caused climate changes, tsunamis, earthquakes, etc. resulting in a 'nuclear winter' lasting several years in which a significant portion of the Northern Hemisphere's population died of starvation.) The volcanic caldera of the present-day Aegean island of Santorini was probably the location of this explosion. The surviving Minoans clearly were scattered across the world...the Phoenecians, the Carthaginians, and many other ancient Semitic cultures (the Sephardic Jews and the Arabs) may all be descended from them. So were the Pelasgians. And perhaps the Philistines of the Biblical era.
The Minoans were probably the real proto-Greeks.
They are truly an enigma. It appears that they lived most of this time in peace, indeed, the remains of their cities that we have found never have walls. They had indoor plumbing, flush toilets, buildings up to five stories high. There are traces of their influence all the way from Spain to India. They were probably the model for Tolkien's "Numenorians", as well as many cultural myths.. Read Platos "Critas' and "Timmaeus' for his version of the story.. Its fascinating. They were Europe's first advanced civilization... Their written language (what little that we have) Linear A has still not been deciphered and it is one of the great mysteries in linguistics...and cryptology..
Ah well, one can dream...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Hey, here's an idea: The idea of an almost mythical lost civilization is common thread throughout all old human societies - much like, say, really big Floods. Perhaps there could be more then one story that fits? But, no, that wouldn't be a simplistic enough answer to be sound-bitten into oblivion.
-Hemos, from the original post
Hemos tries to make a good point, but reduces himself to ineffectual sarcasm -- evidently because he didn't RTFA.
Yes, many cities were flooded and sunk in ancient times. Yes, these events have become mythologized as a generic Atlantis.
But the article makes very clear: the discovers believe that *this* Atlantis is the Atlantis of Plato, because the dimesions and layout of the sunken city closely correspond to Plato's descriptions.
-kgj
-kgj
Springfield . . .
They were looking around Cypress... what you expected them to get a donation from the Argentinian Tourism board for their research in the waters off Cypress? It's not like the Donation from the Cypress Tourism Board made them pick the location, they'd already picked the location, and got a donation from the locals.
This allowed Indonesia to be connected to mainland Asia, as well as Tasmania to Australia. I am uncertain as to the extent of the European Coast line, although it is likely certain that the English channel was dry land. There was much more land in the Bahamas. More and related info here. It is certain that some islands would disappear
And the Sahara was much more of a grassland with trees area, with plenty of people leaving rock drawings behind. So nomads with cities on the now submerged coastline is plausible as well.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
In Chinese mythology, there is a story of a great flood. The tale is very different from the Noah story though. Also given the nature of the story I suspect that this is due to a great flooding of the Yellow River rather related to the tales of a great flood in Asia Minor and Europe. But I can't remember any tales of a lost civilisation that disappeared beneath the waves. There are the mythological 5 emperors who were advanced in wisdom, technology, helped the Chinese people, etc. but they were very firmly based in China. I guess this means that Atlantis if it exists can't be around the Asian region then?
Is there a fine for returning an overdue civilization? At even five cents a day, that's going to be pretty fierce!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
It has become painful to read slash-dot lately with so many people posting replys when they don't know the subject.
It was not just Plato who talked about Atlantis (like we talk about, say, Chicago), but also the Eygyptians and the Hindus in Vedic manuscripts that still exist!
Yes, there is a lot of BS when we discuss antideluvian civiliazations. And, yes, there are lies and mis-truths from modern entrenched elites such as the mafias that run the archiology and anthropology departments world wide who seem to be in-bed with world freemasonr. (please no flame, I admit that the previous statement is a little paranoid).
There is a lot of evidence that contridicts what is taught in schools and displayed in the vanity mueseums created by the entrenche elites (such as the Simthsonian and various schools of archiology).
Atlantis, however, is such a pervasive story that is found in a lot of differnt sources from antiquity that it is most likely a real place.
Here is a small list of other cities or civilizations that were considered to be made up:
Troy
Ninevah
Minoan civilizations
the Miceneans
Throughout history there are those who make up stories. And they do this because it gives them a certain power. But you must be able to sort through the cruft.
When you reduce human tradegdy such as the distruction of a civilization to an 'obvious parable' then you do the rest of us a disservice.
It amazes me that in the United States there are 7,000 year old archiological sites that are left ignored. Why? Because the harvard and etc mafias have their world view and don't want to rock it. There is a site in Amesbury MA that is reported to be 7000 years old. There is no marker, no books, no mueseum and no way to get at the artifacts that were found there.
Whenever anyone finds anything precolumbian in the US the Smithsonian burries it.
For years Mystery Hill in New Hampshire was stated as being a fraud. And then after it came out that a lot of metholithic ruins were astronomical observatories, Mystery Hill was examined and it was also found to be one!
There are spirals that are found on rocks in Celtic ruins, in Spain, in North Africa and also on ruins in the American Southwest! The Hopi say these are 18 year moon-cycle calanders for observing the cycles of the moon. And yet pick up a book on the Celts and the authors don't know what these are.
The Zuni's of the American Southwest have recently been shown to most likely have been decendant from Buddist pilgrims from Japan who arrived in New Mexico region about 1000 years ago! Do your children get taught this in school? No. And why not? Because the establishment hasn't gotten around to learning these things yet.
Open your mind and please do not reduce the tradegies of human history into 'obvious parable'.
If you don't know, don't say.
Every time someone finds submerged (or even simply abandoned) ruins, he claims that he has found Atlantis. Completely disregarding the only sure thing from Homer's tales, that if it even existed, Atlantis was beyond the Pillars of Hercules.
You can argue all you want, that "beyond the Pillars of Hercules" means "far, far away", but that still doesn't change the fact, that Cyprus, Crete, Santorini are right in the middle of Hellenistic domain!!! Hence neither "beyond the Pillars of Hercules" nor "far, far away".
Abandoned or submerged ruins of ancient civilization? Sure. Atlantis? No fucking way!
Move along, nothing to see here.
Robert
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
Maybe there are myths about really big floods, because there have been really big floods.
No, I'm not talking about the earth being 6000 years old and Mosasaurs being proof of evolution.
For example, the Great Flood myth that pop up around the Persian Gulf all stem from the fact that the Persian Gulf filled up only about 9000 years ago. Well it may have gone from marsh to it's current form sometimes in there. Likewise it's a stretch, but not too much of one to have some of those myths derive from the end of the most recent Ice Age and the rising of the water levels from that.
They're just ornaments, there is no way any of those big solid metal things are going to fly anywhere.
When I read things like this on that site
"There seems to be no doubt that Vimanas were powered by some sort of "anti-gravity." Vimanas took off vertically, and were capable of hovering in the sky, like a modern helicopter or dirigible. Bharadvajy the Wise refers to no less than 70 authorities and 10 experts of air travel in antiquity. These sources are now lost."
It's easy to dismiss the whole lot as gibberish and gobbledegook. If you are making theories based purely on a series of suppositions then I am disappointed the conclusion isn't even more fantastic !
They're just ornaments
Indeed. Solid metal ornaments that depict something fairly air-worthy. The Egyptian "bird" also appears to be something of an advanced glider design.
"There seems to be no doubt that Vimanas were powered by some sort of "anti-gravity."
[...]
It's easy to dismiss the whole lot as gibberish and gobbledegook.
It is something of a conundrum, as UFOologists (ahem) have latched onto these things and added their own screwy ideas about them. A more thoughtful look at the craft reveals a few more plausible explanations:
1. The texts describe nuclear weapons. i.e. "An incandescent column of smoke and flame as bright as the thousand suns rose in all its splendour... An iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death, which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas.... the corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. The hair and nails fell out; pottery broke without apparent cause, and the birds turned white.... after a few hours all foodstuffs were infected.... to escape from this fire, the soldiers threw themselves in streams to wash themselves and their equipment..."
2. The Vinamas were "powered" by "careful heating of a yellowish mercury substance." If we believe that they had nuclear power, then nuclear rockets (similar to NERVA) seem likely. Especially if they were unconcerned about the fallout their engines produced.
3. "Vimanas took off vertically", as do rocket ships and Harrier jump jets.
4. "[A]nd were capable of hovering in the sky" It's difficult for me to tell if the author is talking about the same craft here. Supposedly the Hindu texts refer to quite a few different types of craft. Hovering ability could be achieved with a variety of methods: Ducted exhaust (like the Harrier), vertical flight profiles (like the DC-Y, "Delta-Clipper"), or lighter than air travel (hot air balloons, blimps, dirigibles, etc.)
If you are making theories based purely on a series of suppositions then I am disappointed the conclusion isn't even more fantastic !
Don't get me wrong. I don't suddenly believe in "anti-gravity" simply because of a few images that look like airplanes. However, I do think this is something worth investigating. There obviously existed a certain amount of knowledge of powered flight in the ancient world. Did they actually manage to construct these machines, or were they working on different theories based on birds as the Wright Brothers did?
It's certainly conceivable. Nuclear power was very easy to discover once the proper materials were found in sufficient quantities. (i.e. Pile up enough uranium of sufficient purity, and you've got a nuclear pile.) And flight was but a stone's throw away once the Holy Roman Empire stopped marking everyone as heretics. A great many lighter-than-air flights were performed in the 18th century, long before the Wright Bros. cracked powered flight.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The Nature of the Universe (a gooey mass of old theories and new ideas)
Pondering the subjective experience of time flowing way to fucking fast, i've come to yet another latest view on what i think the universe is and how it behaves.
I recently checked out a lecture on cosmology at the University given by a leading cosmologist in his field who informed me that omega is not equal to 1.
Quick background: Once upon a time scientists discovered the red shift, which is essentially the Doppler effect applied to light and shows that every galaxy in the universe is moving away from us. From this they decided that the universe must be expanding, and of course, an expanding universe leads to the question of whether or not this universe will continue expanding forever or eventually shrink back to a "big crunch". I was currently under the impression that they'd figured out that the universe would eventually shrink down and that it had simply existed forever and would exist forever going through cycles of blowing up, forming stars and planets etc etc etc and then shrinking down again only to blow up again.
But now i've got some guy with a Ph.D. telling me that the latest theory is that the universe will actually continue expanding forever, and even crazier than that, it appears to be expanding at an ever increasing rate.
OK, that trips me the fuck out. If there is any gravity at all, how could it possibly continue expanding faster and faster without any external energy being added to the system??? And they explain this away by not only creating "cold dark matter" but also creating "dark energy" which apparently makes up 75% of the universe's mass and has a repulsive quality stronger than gravity's attractive property. Or something. Idk, i need to read more about this. One day. When i have more time (in the past).
But i want to take this experimental evidence that the universe is expanding at an ever increasing rate and play around with it.
Because there are other theories out there.
First of all there is the theory that maybe this whole time speeding up thing isn't a subjective effect but rather that time really is speeding up. And since i can't think of anyone with a Ph.D. from whom i've ripped this theory off and i came to it by my own thinking, i'm calling it my theory, until someone proves me wrong.
So like i can't even remember why i started thinking that time was speeding up, but look at the implications. If time is speeding up, that means it was once going a lot slower. Let's say that around 5,000 revolutions around the sun ago time was going really really slow. In fact, let's say the graph forms an asymptote and that at a certain point in time it was approaching infinity and essentially not moving at all. Now, let's assume that in the first "day" after this asymptote time was going so slow that it what we consider a second actually took a million of our years, or even....4.6 million if you want to entertain science and religion...
If this were true, "God" could have easily created the heavens and the earth in one day. Hell the guy had millions or billions of years to do it. We could even stretch this so far as to perfectly match it up with how long science thinks it took from the big bang until we had a solar system and a relatively cooled earth. And the next day would be going a little faster, not quite as much could have been done in that second "day", and so on and so forth throughout the creation story, eventually by the 6th day there were human beings already and eventually that exponential curve hit that special point where the timelessness felt in Eden started moving fast enough to record and these primeval beings felt the effects of aging and pain. I think this can explain quite nicely why life expectancy was so much higher back then too: Methuselah didn't live any longer than any of us, but it sure as hell felt like 900 some odd years to him!
From this I also thought about extrapolating the graph to try to predict the future. One extra
Pardon my asking, but aren't these sources (Exodus, Numbers) the very sources which the grandparent posting calls into doubt as original works of Moses (transmitted to later scribes or otherwise)?
I love Exodus 17:14:
Seems like in order for the remembrance of Amalek to really be blotted out from under heaven, we'd have to destroy a bunch of Bibles!
Here's Exodus 24:4.
Exodus 34:27 is one of the "Giving of the Ten Commandments" narratives.
Numbers 33:2 purports to describe the Exodus from Egypt itself, and, intra, gives details about the route taken from Egypt by Israel.
Fine, if you can accept a source as justification for its own validity. But I would think that modern scholarship would look for some external validation for these claims. For instance, can any record be found among contemporary Egyptian chronicles giving just these vectors for the departing Israelites, a record that preferably wasn't available in the time of King Josiah?
I treasure the Bible, personally (I also treasure other, much older stories such as Gilgamesh.) But my appreciation of the Bible isn't constrained by having to believe that everything in it is true in the style of modern history (lots of untruth there, too.)
History is written by winners.
The Minoans were probably the real proto-Geeks.
"Pardon my asking, but aren't these sources (Exodus, Numbers) the very sources which the grandparent posting calls into doubt as original works of Moses (transmitted to later scribes or otherwise)?"
Now THAT is an example of begging the question.
I finally got a chance to use that phrase correctly. *tear runs down cheek*
The First Emperor burnt all the books in the 3rd century BC that was true, but a good deal of the Confucian texts survived thanks to the habit of Chinese scholars of memorising things word for word. The thing is we are not dealing here with historical texts though but *mythological stories* which would have survived any burning of the books as it is generally passed down by oral tradition. For example, mythological stories of the Shang and Hsia dynasties certainly survived the burning of the books. A lot of (real) history dealing with the Zhou and Shang also survived the burning of the books. It was a big set-back but it was hardly something that would have negated mythological stories of a lost civilisation.
As far as I know, there are no stories of any "lost" civilisation in Chinese mythology. There are certainly stories of visitors from foreign lands - I can think of stories about Indians (esp. with the spread of Buddhism. E.g. Shaolin's Dharma was an Indian. Journey to the West was about a trip to India) and stories about Japan (when the ruler priestess Himiko sent envoys to the Chinese emperor during the 3rd century AD). There's even vague references to Romans. There was even contact with Persia. But no "lost" civilisations besides the mythological Chinese dynasties which were located in Chinese proper.
Pardon my asking, but aren't these sources (Exodus, Numbers) the very sources which the grandparent posting calls into doubt as original works of Moses (transmitted to later scribes or otherwise)?
No, my point was that the Pentateuch as it currently exists does not consist of the exact words Moses recorded.
The likelihood of Moses' original writings surviving to modern times are very small. In all probability, the original writings were copied, distributed, and even repeated orally to maintain the history of the people. I'm at work now and don't have access to my library, but a study of the language style does in fact suggest that the books were written much later than 1200 BC (quite possibly during the reign of King Josiah).
2 Chronicles 34 contains the biblical account of his life. Specifically, it details how he was renovating the Temple and discovered a Book of the Law tucked away. It is clear from the text that the Law was not known among the people, was rediscovered, and then copied and distributed.
I'm not sure how familiar you are with 16th and 17th century english, but it's significantly different from our modern english. It would be understandable that spelling, grammar, sentence structure, etc, were rewritten and modernized for distribution to the general populace. As an example, compare the language of the original King James bible to that of the modern "New Living" translation.
In short, I'm not disputing the assertion that the texts are more modern than Moses. I simply disagree that the texts were significantly modified or wholly fabricated to prop up the reign of Josiah.
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
Atlantis is supposed to be a highly advanced civilization. Global warming is predicted to expose a good third of Antarctica. Nostradamus said we'll have a thousand years of peace before another huge war. Note that almost nobody had heard of Atlantis when Plato spoke of it, yet as we get closer to the epicenter of the destruction of a civilization (and perhaps a continent) more and more people have heard of it. Could it be that Atlantis hasn't been found yet because it's 1000 years in the future?
On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
Of course any relic found off the coast of the mediterranean will be picked up by the press and others as "Atlantis." The new agers (and sometimes some smart person you know) will rant and rave about time machines, solar lasers, etc. Its really sad to see so-called educated people buy into any conspiracy theory. The same was (and still is) true with the mythological Noah's ark. In the 70s there was no shortage of articles on how some relic found somewhere was the "true ark" and no shortage of clergy men to claim it is real. Now the "ark" supposedly is on top of some mountain somewhere.
These are the fruits of an anti-intellectual culture. Of a culture with a weak media. Of a culture that is religious and anti-skeptic.
This all reminds me of the intro to Sagan's 'Demon Haunted World' where he tells a cabbie he's a scientist and the cabbie's questions are all related to press-driven pseudoscience like Uri Geller, UFOs, time machines, etc. IIRC, Sagan had nothing to say as he didn't know where to start with someone so full of disinformation. This is a pretty good parable for a good part of the the world. Where to even begin when Nostradamus is ranked up there with Einstein and people think Archaeologists are after Atlantian magic machines while the press feeds them the same credulous crap everyday?
Ebla was for decades only a 'mythic' civilisation to archaeologists until they unearthed it in Syria starting with the sign at the city's entrance. Perhaps the Atlantis legend is not credible but that doesn't mean it didn't exist.
The thing is, everyone knows the Bible was written by men. A Christian believes that the writers were inspired by God, that the message is life to those who hear it, and that it is the key to knowing and having a relationship with God.
I encourage you to ignore all of the social issues, controversies, and right-wing chatter about the bible, and just read it with an open mind. Start with the book of 1st John, and if you like that then read the Gospel of John.
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
But consider how limited the finding is: there was a city in about the right place that seemed to have been sacked at about the right time (among other occassions). It is reasonable to suspect that this actual city is somehow connected to the legend we know from Homer. So there seems to be some grains of history in the Iliad, we don't know how big and frequent those grains are, but we do know that there is a lot of myth in there, too.
But the greater lesson of Troy is that the nay-sayers about Atlantis might be wrong. The point is taken. I might be wrong. The knowledge that I could conceivably be wrong doesn't prevent me from holding an opinion.
Parable or not Some have pointed out that Plato's character who recites the Atlantis story says that he heard this as an ancient Egyptian story. Plato was not the only person writing back then, and there is no other indication of this story (or of its story teller) for a very long time. The form of the story fits so tightly to Plato's political and metaphysical views, that either Plato made it entirely or dramatically adapted it for his purposes.While ancients also wrote about it, it really appears that they picked up the story from Plato and not from any sources that pre-date Plato, execpt that they repeat Plato's claim of an ancient Egyptian origin. And it was only the the 19th century that serious speculation began.
A deluge of flood stories There is no dispute that there are loads of ancient flood stories. There is also no doubht that there were lots of ancient floods. We don't know the scale of these. A flood that destroys a few villages will seem to the survivers to have engulfed the whole world. It seems to me that even small floods can generate big stories, and that those floods may have been much more recent.The Black Sea flood hypothesis is extremely interesting. If, indeed, the Black Sea did fill up rapidly, it certainly would have generated big flood stories for the generations that followed. But whether it is those or other floods that serve as the origin of the flood stories we know today is hard to determine.
If we treat Atlantis as a flood story, than it probably has the same kind of factual basis as many other flood stories: We'll never no location or scale of the floods, but there probably were lots of floods.
I've always thought of the Atlantis story is more than a flood story or earthquake story. Maybe I've just read too much Plato. If we really do take it to be about a lost civilization on some lost island, then I continue to bet on it being a myth.
On the otherhand, if we take it to be that some populated region was destroyed by earthquake or flood, then it almost certainly happened. But it is fruitless to try to tie a particular story to one of the many such events.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
I love Exodus 17:14:
Then the LORD said to Moses, 'Write this as a reminder in a book and recite it in the hearing of Joshua: I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.
The Hebrew word for "remembrance" is zikaron ; it connotates a participation in an event of the past rather than simply a mental recollection of that event.
When material is written by a culture, understanding of the language of the culture, rather than simply reading translations, leads to greater understanding of the intention of the writer.
In America today you can murder land for private profit. You can leave the corpse for all to see, and nobody calls the c
I know what you're referring to. From Wikipedia:
As I said, the mining and purification are the biggest difficulties with nuclear technology. A massive industrial base was required because of the time crunch imposed by the war. If we're talking smaller quantities and research performed over a few decades, then it is perfectly feasible for fissable materials to be produced in a smaller industrial base. There's actually an article somewhere on the Internet that explains how to separate small quantities of U235 and U238 with a metal bucket and some muscle power. Just don't expect to live to a ripe old age.
Either way, if you're proposing NERVA-style engines for aircraft, as you'd mentioned in your previous post, and a space program, you're going to need a _large_ industrial base to support it.
Why? How many traces currently exist of the V2 program? We certainly have the cultural aspect of the 50's sci-fi rockets resembling the V2. But could you produce a trace of a single V2 today? How about traces of a Saturn V? Lunar landers? Mercury Rockets?
The only traces of these things are in museums and in their cultural impact. If you keep in mind that the museums are a reflection of modern culture, what traces would remain? They certainly wouldn't be as far reaching as a launch pad that someone just "forgot" about. Such a pad would either have been destroyed in an attack, or torn down to make space for something else. Which, of course, assumes that someone bothered to build a launch pad in the first place. Retrofitting nuclear engines into a plane would mean that only a runway would be necessary. Runways erode, and may be mistaken for roads.
I'd actually have to say that super-structures (greek temples, pyramids, modern skyscrapers, etc.) are about the extent of what you could expect to survive a thriving civilization. Beyond that, you're looking for scraps of info. Abandoned airfields (which may or may not be airfields), cultural records, any sort of buried junkyard wreckage, etc.
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