h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Interesting. Just posted about trees falling in the woods making noise (concerning possible interpretation of what Norman Mailer meant with his coinage of 'factoid') on the Useless Facts thread and then come here and read Nog's post. Oh, well, no big thing.

By the way, I suck at earthquake prediction, I am happy to report.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9779057/Italy-bans-card-payments-in-Vatican-over-money-laundering.html

*Warm glow*

Effers used to love this thread. She was one of the most frequent contributors offering up everything from sincere appreciations of humanity's better gifts like love and tolerance to unabashed mockery of the fools she would not suffer. There is a section in the backlog here when she attended the anti-Pope rallies in London with an almost joyous irreverence for everything the church stands for. And she was equally honest about her feelings toward Dawkins and militant Atheism. She was also a Mistress of Irony and many of her rants and raves soared over many heads. She will be missed. She left a poignant quote on her homepage. U1508701 A eulogy thread for Effers has evolved on my homepage. http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F59446?thread=8299424 Feel free to attend. And feel free to post a more generic link than that alabaster biased one of mine. I dunno how to do that and am lead to believe it may not work for other skins. ~jwf~

There is a theory called the "Persian imperial authorisation ... This proposes that the Persians, after their conquest of Babylon in 538 BC, agreed to grant Jerusalem a large measure of local autonomy within the empire, but required the local authorities to produce a single law code accepted by the entire community. The two powerful groups making up the community—the priestly families who controlled the Temple and who traced their origin to Moses and the wilderness wanderings, and the major landowning families who made up the "elders" and who traced their own origins to Abraham, who had "given" them the land—were in conflict over many issues, and each had its own "history of origins", but the Persian promise of greatly increased local autonomy for all provided a powerful incentive to cooperate in producing a single text." [wiki]

Along these lines the story of Joseph, Egypt and the Exodus is believed to be a cobbled together redaction of folk stories plus add ons to create a foundation story:
"According to current thinking, a first draft (the Yahwist) was probably written in the 6th century BCE during the Babylonian exile; this was supplemented and completed as a post-Exilic final edition (the Priestly source) at the very end of the 6th century or during the 5th century, and further adjustments and minor revisions continued down to the end of the 4th century. ...

The purpose of the book is ... to reflect the historical experience of the exile community in Babylon and later Jerusalem, facing foreign captivity and the need to come to terms with their understanding of God.

... the story of the infant Moses's salvation from the Nile has its basis in an earlier legend of king Sargon, while the story of the parting of the Red Sea trades on Mesopotamian creation mythology. Similarly, the Covenant Code (the law code in Exodus 20:22-23:33) has notable similarities in both content and structure with the Laws of Hammurabi. These influences serve to reinforce the conclusion that the Book of Exodus originated in the exiled Jewish community of 6th-century Babylon, but not all the sources are Mesopotamian: the story of Moses's flight to Midian following the murder of the Egyptian overseer may draw on the Egyptian Tale of Sinuhe." [wiki]

I think it is time to put to bed Velikovsky's interpretation?

So onto irony:

It seems that the creation of the Pentateuch ("books of moses"), which forms part of the Jewish identity, is partly down to Persian (Iranian) influence (with add-ons). Christian identity is largely a creation from the Jewish identity (with add-ons). Muslim identity is largely a creation from the Jewish identity (with add ons). The secular work-ethic is largely a creation of the protestant work ethic (with add ons etc ... see Weber etc). The notion of laws of science (and the search for a unified theory - GUTs etc) comes from the "religious" concepts of monotheism ...

Parting of the Re(e)d Sea:

>> The Bible records … four separate occurrences in which a prominent biblical figure … divides a large body of water. [1] … Exodus 14 … Moses divides the Sea of Reeds for the benefit of the fleeing Israelites [2] … parting of the river Jordan for the Israelites entering the promised land under the command of Joshua (Joshua 3:14-17) [3] … parting of the Jordan by the prophet Elijah (2 Kings 2:8) [4] … repeat of this same event by the prophet Elisha (2 Kings 2:14).

[T]he idea of parting waters … plays a prominent role in … the Hebrew Bible, starting with the creation story … nascent universe as … formless watery mass … [divides the waters] into two discrete parts … [creating the heavens and earth] …

It is widely recognized by scholars today that the writer of this material has adapted a Babylonian variant of an ancient Mesopotamian myth of Sumerian origin called the Enuma Elis. Originally a creation myth, it evolved into a story about an ancient rivalry between competing divinities, one in which a young, powerful storm god defeats a rival who represented the forces of darkness and chaos and who was often portrayed as the tumultuous waters of the sea. In the Babylonian version the war god is Marduk and the defeated foe is Tiamat. With powerful winds and arrows Marduk splits the body of Tiamat in half and from the two parts creates heaven and earth. …

Taken & paraphrased from B.M. Wildish (From Skeptic, Vol. 9, Number 4, 2002)

Regarding the Hebrew Bible (rules on sabattical & jubilee years):
"... the problem that this legislation [see Leviticus] was addressing was a problem recognized by the kings of Babylon in the second millennium BC, which naturally suggests the possibility of a much earlier date of codification. These Babylonian kings ... occasionally issued decrees for the cancellation of debts and/or the return of the people to the lands they had sold. Such "clean slate" decrees were intended to redress the tendency of debtors, in ancient societies, to become hopelessly in debt to their creditors, thus accumulating most of the arable land into the control of a wealthy few. ..."

Hilarious, the Bible contains rules that would have prevented todays economic crisis ... where some individuals have accumulated wealth greater than individual nations.

That Judaism was created by the Persians is nowadays hardly a matter of debate, the primary question is now when. Following Magee http://askwhy.co.uk/judaism/index.php the prime mover seems to have been Darius II in the late 5th century BC, and most of the Old Testament dates from that time down to the compiling of the Greek language Septuagint in the 3rd century BC. What's much less clear is to what extent it was compiled or adapted from older sources. Certainly an outline history of the Israelite Kings can be traced back as far as Omri (c870 BC) but it's simply not known whether the source was indigenous or drawn from the Assyrian annals (or both).

The Persians seem to have been masters of the art of taking real history and folk tales (whether based on real events or wholly invented), and adding their own stuff on for political/religious propaganda purposes. The Biblical account of the Exodus is a good case in point.

The Papyrus Ipuwer, now definitively dated to the very end of the Middle Kingdom, recounts a time of destruction of crops, sickness of animals, and death, a time when the Nile ran red like blood, and the land was consumed by fire, all of which have parallels in Exodus. Any likelihood that this is just a coincidence should have been removed with the discovery of a Canaanite-Semitic city at Pi-Rameses. The question is "How was knowledge of this event transmitted to the later texts (including the Bible)"?

Moses, on the other hand, seems to be a late addition (as far as we can tell), and is probably a stand-in for Ezra and/or Nehemiah, Persia's agents in Jerusalem.

Which element of Velikovsky's interpretation were you thinking of?

Noggin

>> Which element of Velikovsky's interpretation were you thinking of? <<

Well if I follow your comment (below) & the link you provided ... >> ... Judaism was created by the Persians is nowadays hardly a matter of debate, the primary question is now when. Following Magee http://askwhy.co.uk/judaism/index.php ... <<

Dr Magee (who he?) states that Moses & Exodus were a myth and should be discounted when matters of real history are concerned. Yet Velikovsky's interpretations are predicated on the more or less literal verity of Exodus.

Dr Magee's about me page can be seen here http://www.askwhy.co.uk/science/mdmagee.php

His premise, quite correctly, is that the bible should not be taken prima facie as history. How much "history as background" for it's politico-religious propaganda it contains is to be decided by historical research. Comparing biblical events with the standard chronology he comes to the conclusion "not much", especially for the early stuff.

*But* he then calls the standard chronology into question because it's not, in fact, supported by the archaeology, which should be the final arbiter, which leaves him back at square one.

What I said is that Moses is probably mythical (though we can't be *absolutely* sure), because the first mention of him is from a late text (where between 550-250 you place it doesn't change that). Other elements of the exodus story, however, appear in an old Egyptian text and in the archaeology, with a degree of correspondence that is difficult to write off as "coincidence". The nature of the relation, or how the information was transmitted from that time to the later writings, and any absolute dating, I left open to debate.

Noggin

Noggin: I came across the obituary of Geza Vermes (1924-2013) considered a leading expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish background to the NT. His specialism seems to have been the period around which "Jesus the jew" lived. Have you read any of his work and does it look into the chronology etc? [I have never read him but he seems to be an important figure in this field]:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/world/europe/geza-vermes-dead-sea-scrolls-scholar-dies-at-88.html?_r=0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9za_Vermes

Funny line heard on the Steven Colbert show:

"Oh thank god Jesus didn't live to see this!"


~jwf~

>> "Oh thank god Jesus didn't live to see this!" <<

... as in a certain morality is dead? ... or some ideology of literal Christianity is wrong ... or something else? It sounds like a cheap insult of those that believe rightly or wrongly that Jesus "lives on" (although many probably "mean" by that that their own take on Christian idealism lives on).

Steven Colbert is a brilliant satirist who plays a right wing
redneck TV journalist. He is also a 'devout' Catholic often calling
himself America's most famous Catholic or even the American Pope.

And whenever there is 'news' of some tragic happening that impacts
the status, reputation or power of the right wing or the Mother Church
he will pretend to being outraged or sometimes even weep openly.

I can't recall the exact news story he was reporting the other night
but he was 'aghast' and covered his eyes, muttering: "Thank god
Jesus didn't live to see this."

I was convulsed in a huge at this new variation.

I am always willing to borrow good material from any source
when I think I can make it work and get a good larf. My intention
is to use that line often. It is iconoclastic and self-deprecating
and profoundly ironic and it occurred to me that this long going
thread would be a good place to start.

I take it from your response that I should probably use it more
carefully in a clearer context. Trouble is, in many situations -
such as the Pope's washing of Muslim feet - too many people
will read it it at face value, missing the irony as they often do
and believe I could actually make such a stupid statement.

Yeah, it's a cheap insult, deeply sacreligious and offensive to
those who still believe and who can't begin to imagine how
ridiculous their belief is to an existential realist like myself.
It's funny because it steams so close to the Truth of what
some people are capable of 'thinking'.


~jwf~

>> Steven Colbert is a brilliant satirist who plays a right wing
redneck TV journalist. He is also a 'devout' Catholic often calling
himself America's most famous Catholic or even the American Pope.

And whenever there is 'news' of some tragic happening that impacts
the status, reputation or power of the right wing or the Mother Church
he will pretend to being outraged or sometimes even weep openly. <<

So presumably the "right wing redneck" he plays is also a puritanical protestant Christian ...
so in this instant he would have been poking fun at right wing puritanical rednecks? I don't
think there are many of these types in the UK ... so it could be difficult to understand the meaning
of a string of words / a sentence when it is expressed in an ironic sense and directed at the "right wing
puritanical" stereotype.

There is a saying that if God didn't exist he would need to be invented (from Voltaire apparently).

The debate regarding "evil" and whether that is consistent with "God" has been going on since mankind first postulated Gods.
When horrible news occurs
a) the militant atheist can say: that proves god doesn't exist so those that believe in god are idiots
b) the "believer" can say: it is through my belief in god that I can cope with this horrible news

The difference between the two is that a) is a negative expression whereas b) is a positive expression.
Of course you can get various of strands from a to b.

The right wing puritanical redneck seems to be something else.

>> The right wing puritanical redneck seems to be something else. <<

Indeed. The word hypocrite comes to mind. But too often
it is not a conscious hypocrisy just a complete failure
to understand the most obvious conflicts of reality with
their ideological fantasies.

They also have a pathological inability to feel anything
like empathy; the idea of walking in someone else's shoes
is beyond comprehension unless its a pair of Jesus' sandals
and then only in a metaphorical way and sockless.


~jwf~

Just reinstating the original Subject Title as it is actually a question



lil x

How big a grouping is the right-wing puritanical red-neck in the US - I suppose they are concentrated in the south? I suppose from this grouping come the fundamentalists who have a literal interpretation of aspects of the bible? We don't have this in the UK to any significant extent.

http://nclinksandthinks.wordpress.com/2013/01/18/red-vs-blue/

The 'Republicans' currently 'enjoy' the (moral) majority in the
rural south, west and central US. These are the Red states.
The coastal regions both east and west are Blue states and
are considered liberal, urbane, intellectual and Democrat.

~jwf~