Fingerprints of the Gods - Book Review

[Minimalist]

But underlying the whole story is a basic historical truth.

Well....Troy existed but I don't know that many other facets of the story can really be verifed.

[john]

the interesting thing is the consistent statistical correlation between the fragmentary remains of "oral tradition" - even when corrupted even further by multiple generations of "written tradition" - and what actually gets dug up out of the ground. Dang.

So, where's god?


John

[Beagle]

The Iliad is a monument to the veracity of "some" oral traditions. Homer is being constantly used make new discoveries. Most recently, the Isle of Ithaca seems to have been discovered using the directions to it given by Homer.

It's amazing to me that people will believe Platos' account of Atlantis but will not have any other faith in oral tradition.

I actually do though. Not word for word, and not literally. For a time in mans' history, oral tradition was the only historical glue available.

[Minimalist]

Archaeology cannot prove the involvement of any of the people featured in the story.

It cannot prove the reason for the war nor, apparently, can it prove that the Greeks and Trojans ever fought.

That there were a series of cities on the Hellespont is true. In that sense it has about the same historical reliability as arch's bible...which was written shortly afterwards.

As I hinted at elsewhere, the timing of the destruction of 'Troy' (or whatever it was called) is more or less consistent with the collapse of other Bronze Age cultures (including Canaan) at the end of the Late Bronze age. It's a topic that probably deserves its own thread.

[DougWeller]

What is the historical truth in the Iliad?

[Minimalist]

What is the historical truth in the Iliad?

I would say that Schliemann proved that there was a city in the general area in which Homer located Troy.

Subsequent work showed that one of those cities existed at the end of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1200 BC.)

After that......it gets a bit shaky. The last thing I recall hearing (on a documentary) was that Homer's Troy was levelled by an earthquake not a war.

I suppose we could also say that it has been "proven" that Turkey is a high-level seismic area, too!

[Beagle]

It's a topic that probably deserves its own thread

I agree with that. It'll probably wind up going every direction but that's OK.

[Minimalist]

Okay. You started the last one. I'll do this one.

[DougWeller]

What is the historical truth in the Iliad?

I would say that Schliemann proved that there was a city in the general area in which Homer located Troy.

Subsequent work showed that one of those cities existed at the end of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1200 BC.)

After that......it gets a bit shaky. The last thing I recall hearing (on a documentary) was that Homer's Troy was levelled by an earthquake not a war.

I suppose we could also say that it has been "proven" that Turkey is a high-level seismic area, too!

Ok, thanks. It's still a mystery -- was there ever a Trojan war? Homer's tale has a number of anachronisms, but there are probably bits of truth in it, just as there probably are in Plato's Atlantis, which may have bits from sorts of things Plato knew about. But this is way OT, sorry.

[Minimalist]

We now have a Trojan War thread, Doug. Feel free to join in.

[john]

Archaeology cannot prove the involvement of any of the people featured in the story.

It cannot prove the reason for the war nor, apparently, can it prove that the Greeks and Trojans ever fought.

That there were a series of cities on the Hellespont is true. In that sense it has about the same historical reliability as arch's bible...which was written shortly afterwards.

As I hinted at elsewhere, the timing of the destruction of 'Troy' (or whatever it was called) is more or less consistent with the collapse of other Bronze Age cultures (including Canaan) at the end of the Late Bronze age. It's a topic that probably deserves its own thread.

Minimalist -

my point eggsaxtly! both iliad and bible and a few other (thousand) sources are fragmentary recordings of oral traditions, and to my mind equally important in terms of "reverse engineering" the written - and highly suspect- religio/historic record. best recent western example i can think of is the arthurian brouhaha, which seems to combine a number of consecutive oral traditions combined with an historical figure, followed by subsequent interpretations driven by later political, religious, and intellectual squabbles. or troy. what a mess. where's heraclitus when we need him? my point is, just as a flaked point may be correctly identified in the strata of prehistory by its manufacturing technique, so may portions of a "legend" be located in the strata of linguistics and then in physical cultural remains. in both cases we do not know the author; i do not know either the name of the person who flaked the point nor of the person who passed on the story. and who cares? i tend to believe that we are applying a double standard - read talking out of both sides of our mouth - with this physical evidence vs. oral/ written historical evidence vs. religious "just so stories" veracity trip.

the jewel in the crown is that we have all kinds of bits and pieces of the crown. we just dont understand it yet. and getting into either a mythos huff, a logos huff, a biblical huff, or a scientific huff doesn't help matters at all..........


john

ps. apologies to kipling

[Minimalist]

I'm not sure I follow all that, JOhn, but do you make a distinction for situations where the artifacts support the textual material or where they do not support the textual material?

[john]

I'm not sure I follow all that, JOhn, but do you make a distinction for situations where the artifacts support the textual material or where they do not support the textual material?

minimalist -

neither. i'm saying that textual - and equally importantly, oral material, is just as much an artifact as any worked piece of techne.........

both have equal potential for greater understanding, either way the analytical river runs.

and just as anybody reasonably intelligent can play the chicken and egg argument ad nauseam, to nobody's benefit, so the incredible number of stultifying biblical vs scientific posts on this hyar site.

what i see here is people desperately seeking security in an uncertain world by throwing all their eggs - or chickens - into one basket and then defending that basket to the death.

which is what mark twain so deftly skewered in his "letters to the earth"

and the plain truth is that "it" never, never, stands still. so why perceive perpetual - and significant - change as a threat?

if you had to choose, religion over science, or science over religion, right now, what choice would you make?

in my opine, both choices are incorrect.

why? both advertise that they are The Answer.

there is not, nor ever will be "The Answer"




and by the way, if you meet the buddha and/or einstein on the interstate kill both of the bastards.

they are both imposters.



john

[Minimalist]

Ah.

Well. People lie. They lie in writing and they lie orally. Sometimes their lies are merely to make themselves look more important and sometimes their lies are to cover up crimes. It's a fact of life and I doubt human nature has changed much in the last 5,000 years.

Add in the difficulty of transcribing from dead languages to modern languages and the problem gets really serious. We think we know what the writers of old texts are trying to say but can we ever be certain that we understand the nuances of language?

But, when you take things in combination, if you compare the written record to the archaeological artifacts you have a chance to compare different sources and perhaps have a better understanding of the truth.

As an example, and I know it will send arch through the roof, but who cares? His bible claims an enormous empire for King David in the 10th century but there is no archaeological evidence to back up the claim. Areas which are supposed to have been controlled from Jerusalem do not show a single artifact or inscription bearing that out. Written records from other nations somehow fail to note this superpower in their midst. It would be like an American library failing to mention the USSR in the 1960's. Archaeology itself finds that Jerusalem was an insignificant village and Judah was a poverty stricken home to nomadic shepherds in the 10th century BC.

The biblical text and the lack of material remains cannot be reconciled in that case.

Now, arch has made his decision. He doesn't care about evidence he believes his bible. That's 'faith.' I find that ludicrous as no large and wealthy empire has failed to leave a mark on the landscape. I want tangible evidence. That's 'science.'

Everyone has to make his/her own decision and each issue has to be decided on its own merits.

If you read Caesar's histories you would see that he never lost a battle. Even though he did.

It's why written reports cannot be accepted at face value.


BTW, Buddha and Einstein never did anything to bother me.

[john]

Ah.

Well. People lie. They lie in writing and they lie orally. Sometimes their lies are merely to make themselves look more important and sometimes their lies are to cover up crimes. It's a fact of life and I doubt human nature has changed much in the last 5,000 years.

Add in the difficulty of transcribing from dead languages to modern languages and the problem gets really serious. We think we know what the writers of old texts are trying to say but can we ever be certain that we understand the nuances of language?

But, when you take things in combination, if you compare the written record to the archaeological artifacts you have a chance to compare different sources and perhaps have a better understanding of the truth.

As an example, and I know it will send arch through the roof, but who cares? His bible claims an enormous empire for King David in the 10th century but there is no archaeological evidence to back up the claim. Areas which are supposed to have been controlled from Jerusalem do not show a single artifact or inscription bearing that out. Written records from other nations somehow fail to note this superpower in their midst. It would be like an American library failing to mention the USSR in the 1960's. Archaeology itself finds that Jerusalem was an insignificant village and Judah was a poverty stricken home to nomadic shepherds in the 10th century BC.

The biblical text and the lack of material remains cannot be reconciled in that case.

Now, arch has made his decision. He doesn't care about evidence he believes his bible. That's 'faith.' I find that ludicrous as no large and wealthy empire has failed to leave a mark on the landscape. I want tangible evidence. That's 'science.'

Everyone has to make his/her own decision and each issue has to be decided on its own merits.

If you read Caesar's histories you would see that he never lost a battle. Even though he did.

It's why written reports cannot be accepted at face value.


BTW, Buddha and Einstein never did anything to bother me.

minimalist -

oboy - tangible evidence

so we've got the entire rock painting code (western europe, australia, africa, to name a few), old, old, stuff, and we've got chinese scapulae, and decorative pottery (let's say the "pornographic" greek stuff), and we've got the book of kells, just to pick a few morsels out of the stew.

language, oral and/or written, was preceded by a bunch of representational art. with, i would suppose, equal communicative impact to the people involved.

so where to draw the line at face value?

who to believe?

and a very eenteresting anthropological question.

when did representational lies enter the human equasion?

i choose to believe that our present politicians were by no means the first.

any anthropological book (in the sense of oddsmaking) on that?

i.e., i would like someone to identify the first outright lie in the human record.

maybe neandertals went extinct because of inability to lie?

i see a book in this.

john