Am I the only person who looks at pictures of those big honkin’ ossuaries that purportedly have the bones of the whole Jesus clan and wonders if female ghosts are going to emerge and melt the heads of anyone opening them?
Anyone? Anyone else at all?
In case you’re not up on this, a documentary entitled “The Lost Tomb of Jesus,” produced by James Cameron–who is king of the world but not, so I’m told, king of the Jews–details the discovery of some bone boxes bearing the names of Joseph, Mary, Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and…best of all…the latter two’s son. This has resulted in the expected reactions ranging from dispassionate curiosity to outrage over another perceived attack on Christianity, and everything in between. Naturally my own leanings are toward the dispassionate curiosity side: I find it interesting, but I simply don’t see how it’s possible to prove it definitively. Still, I have to admit I was in stitches over the comments of one Rev. David Knapp of Port Jefferson Station in Long Island who asserted:
“This is all hocus-pocus. Jesus died and rose from the dead and left the tomb and went up to heaven–and there were 500 witnesses to that, so there are no bones to be found. This is not going to shake our faith.”
It’s not the sentiment that breaks me up so much as the phrasing. The announcement of a scientific discovery, an archaeological find, is considered “hocus-pocus,” while the notion of rising from the dead, departing your burial place and being transported to heaven…a concept rooted in, at the very least, the supernatural, the uncanny, the magical…THAT he’s got no problem accepting.
I’m just really saddened that Jesus is no longer a character on “South Park.” They’d have a field day with this.
PAD
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He didn’t do the digging. The archeological dig that unearthed this burial cave was done in the 80’s by the Israeli Antiquities Agency.
Well, true, but he’s shilling it.
Interesting article at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/24/wjesus24.xml
Money quotes:
Mr Gat died several years ago. His boss, Prof Amos Kloner said that while the names together had “a certain power” they are standard.
“At least three other ossuaries have been found inscribed with the name Jesus and countless others with Joseph and Mary,” he said.
The 10 ossuaries were taken initially to the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum outside the Old City of Jerusalem. Nine were catalogued and stored but the tenth was left outside in a courtyard.
That ossuary has subsequently gone missing.
…Prof Kloner said there was no way the tomb housed the Holy Family.
“It is just not possible that a family who came from Galilee, as the New Testament tells us of Joseph and Mary, would be buried over several generations in Jerusalem.”
Atthis point, the most amazing part of this story is that they left an ossuary out in a yard for anyone to swipe! I realize archeological rareties are a dime a dozen in the holy Land but cripes!
I believe the episode was called “Red Sleigh Down” and it aired a few years ago. Santa’s sleigh was shot down over Iraq. The boys and Jesus went there to rescue him. Jesus died in the attempt. Santa declared that from now on Christmas would not only be a day of giving gifts, it would also be a day for remembering the death of Jesus Christ.
If they can kill Kenny for real one season and bring him back without explanation after a long absence, they can bring back Jesus, if they wanna use him. Otherwise they can still have a field day with it.
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Jose Giles said:
“If somebody were to fly up to the skies in times of the Roman Empire, I’d expect lots of scribes telling us stories. Instead all we got is silence.”
—–
Ah, so true. Except that only a few “true believers” were able to see it happen.
Just as today, only a select few are able to speak directly to god and get an answer, said answer usually involving asking the fleeced to donate more money.
.
esus was the son of G-d. It was the holy spirit that impregnated Mary.When he died he rose to heaven to be with his holy father.
Hercules was the son of Zeus. He took the form of, (Eagle? I forget) that impregnated his mother. When he died he rose to Olympus to be with his father.
Shhhhhh…don’t point that out…they hate it when you do that (and it was a shower of gold).
So Hercules was born due to his mother being given a “Golden Shower”?
Hmm,that puts a whole new spin on the situation…
Bobb
This is nothing new. In 2002 a small chalk ossuary was found that was asserted to be that of Jesus’ brother James, and it was found to be a forgery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ossuary and http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/Final_Reports.htm). Those who blindly accept such artifacts never explain how DNA testing can confirm that it’s the mythological Jesus the Christ of Nazareth, when we have no DNA of such a person to compare it with, or why a poor man like Jesus would be buried in a midd-class tomb, especially when the religion based on him wasn’t founded until decades after his death by Paul of Tarsus, or how anything alleged in the Bible can be taken on face value without independent corroboration when it was written thousands of years ago before the modern practicies of historiography and critical analysis, etc.
This wasn’t the first relic alleged to be connected to Jesus, and it won’t be the last.
“…or why a poor man like Jesus would be buried in a midd-class tomb…”
Well, it is strongly believed by many that Mary Magdalene or her family had a fair bit of money. If you were running on the idea that Jesus and Mary had indeed wed, then you would have an argument for how he could have then become middle-class or be buried in an middle-class manner by family. Cameron is working off of that idea, and thus he can rationalize a middle-class tomb.
“Micha at February 27, 2007 04:49 PM”
I don’t think that you can discount the “placebo” effect, or the power of the mind over the body. Why would believing that a relic will help/heal you be any different?
“If they can kill Kenny for real one season and bring him back without explanation after a long absence, they can bring back Jesus, if they wanna use him. Otherwise they can still have a field day with it.”
Yeah, I still hold out hope that they’ll bring him back. They got a lot of mileage out of him.
I suspect that they’re not bringing Jesus back to South Park because they like the joke of him having died permanently when they could bring him back so easily. I saw an interview awhile back where the talked about the episode where they said “šhìŧ” a lot. They made a point how they could get away with not bleeping it now, but they don’t because in the world of South Park it’s forbidden again.
I’m not discounting the placebo effect. This is a modern concept. If I were to ask why a relic worked in a given situation, and I wanted to give an explanation that is not contrary to modern scientific principles, I would probably say that it was a placebo effect. But I was talking about the beliefs of people about relics not the effect of relics. My point was that the people who used relics in the past (and maybe some today) believed that the relics had a real effect because the ritual caused the saint in question to intercede before god on the sick person’s behalf. Miracles described in the medieval sources sometimes sound like a placebo effect, sometimes like dreams and hallucinations (visions). But the point is that miracles were and accepted occurence in the minds of medieval people and even later, in some places to this day.
Belief in medicine – this pill (whose inactivity is unknown to the user – ie they think it’s active ) will cure me, or belief that a relic will get a saint/holy person to intercede for me – what is the difference?
I would argue that, yes the name “placebo” is new, the action/reaction is as old as humankind.
“Belief in medicine – this pill (whose inactivity is unknown to the user – ie they think it’s active ) will cure me, or belief that a relic will get a saint/holy person to intercede for me – what is the difference?”
There is no difference. A medieval historian might speculate that some of the effects attributed to relics were the result of a the placebo effect. But most medieval historians are not interested in the medical effects of relics, they are interested in what people believe and how they behave. So a modern historian might study the belief of modern people in medicine while a medieval historian will study the belief in relics. A comparative historian might compare them. But the focus is not the actual effect, but the beliefs, rituals, and attitudes of people.
In the context of this discussion relics were mentioned not because of their possible medical effect but because of their religious significance to medieval people.
I’m pretty skeptical about this “discovery.” Even if the names were written on the tomb, how do you prove that *the* Jesus and Mary were buried there? Fingerprints? D.N.A.? A bunch of depressed angels sitting around, shaking their heads?
As for the sometimes fanatical response from some religious folks, it’s not surprising. In the very good book RELIGION GONE BAD by Mel White, the author looks at how some people — especially fundamentlaist evangelicals — view the Bible as “ineffable.” This idea is that the Bible is the literal word of God and is literally true — not just the Resurrection, Christ’s divinity, and Adam and Eve, but people living hundreds of years, giants roaming the earth (usually to be defeated by the Israelites), and it being legal to kill an unruly child or person preaching a different religion. (It’s amazing what warrants death in the Old Testament.) So you can imagine how people who take the “small” things as absolutely true react when one of the cornerstones is claimed to be false.
(And for those who need a good Christmas gift for that special rleigious fana– believer, the Goats website http://www.goats.com has t-shirts “SCIENCE is SATAN spelled backwards” complete with a microscope with pentagram and blasphemous diagrams)
I’m baaack!
Given that the Romans practically invented bureaucracy, and NOTHING happened anywhere in the Empire or any province, or in the known world without Rome heard about it, reported it, and filed said reports in triplicate, the lack of any contemporary reports of a Jewish carpenter rising from the dead, then flying up to the sky strikes me as a tad iffy. (Breathe). I kinda think those are the events that Rome would know about.
Now we have the irony of devout Christians saying that possible physical proof of their favourite bedtime story is fraudulent, and disbelievers saying that evidence that they might be wrong is real. (Insert head spinning here.)
Posted by Bill Myers:
“Science to a degree relies on faith. No one has ever seen an atom with their naked eye, but scientists believe they exist based on the available evidence. Granted, there’s dámņ good evidence of the existence of atoms — I mean, look what happens when we split one… KABOOM! Still, there is a leap of faith that must be taken, however small.”
Bill, I don’t believe science requires faith. Science relies on observation of the world, collection of evidence, and experimentation to find a theory that fits the evidence.
Religion, and faith, require a deep desire that the world be a certain way, evidence be dámņëd. Chris’s quote from Corinthians says it all. In order for the Christian faith to survive, there absolutely MUST be a resurrection and bodily ascension to heaven. Without these, faith vanishes in a puff of logic (thank you, Douglas Adams) and the religion goes with it.
Devout Christians, like Rev. Knapp, therefore need these ossuaries to be fraudulent. Otherwise, the foundations of their religious and spiritual world fall out from under them.
By the way, will “Jesus Christ:Vampire Slayer” star Micheal Biehn as Jesus, Lance Henrickson as Joseph, Bill Paxton as James, and Kate Winslet as Mary Magdelene? Please please say special appearance by Sigourney Weaver as Mary and Arnld Shwarzenegger as Pontius Pilate (or God, I’m good either way)
Given that the Romans practically invented bureaucracy, and NOTHING happened anywhere in the Empire or any province, or in the known world without Rome heard about it, reported it, and filed said reports in triplicate, the lack of any contemporary reports of a Jewish carpenter rising from the dead, then flying up to the sky strikes me as a tad iffy. (Breathe). I kinda think those are the events that Rome would know about.
2 points–while the Romans were awfully bureaucratic, they could be frustratingly skimpy onthe important deatils. We know all sorts of things about Roman battles except the one thing we would really like to know–ow they fought! A Roman was a lot more likely to write a detailed account of the loot taken than go into any detail of tactics. Very frustrating.
Also, the Roman mind saw the supernatural in everything. They had gods for virtually every detail of life–the god of the doorway, the god of the roof, the god of the walls, etc, etc. I’m not so sure the stories of Jesus would have made all that much an impact. Especially since his message was so antithetical to the Roman mindset–poverty is good?
Well, if nothing else, at least this whole episode with Jmaes Cameron should serve as a lesson to Christians everywhere–it’s not always a good thing when somebody finds Jesus.
Bill, I stand properly humbled.
I still think the 500 witnesses is a steaming crock though. If 500 people saw something that dámņ big, someone would have talked or left a detailed record independant of the Gospels.
Given the date of the Library of Alexandria’s destruction ranges anywhere from 48 BC to 645 AD, it’s hard to say if the library held any records at all. It may have burned down 50 some years before the Big Show.
The Roman’s seeing the supernatural in everything was rather the norm at the time, though. Greeks, Goths, Vikings all had rather large pantheons. The fact that the Big Show had to be reported without corroboration takes more wind out of the sails for me.
Larry of Norman, Oklahoma posted the following at “Unca Harlan’s Art Deco Dining Pavilion” (I hope that he doesn’t mind my posting it here):
“Pope, Others Admit Christianity Not True
“Pope Benedict XVI, after seeing the documentary about Jesus by James Cameron, wiped away a tear and said, ‘Holy šhìŧ, I’m out of a job!’
“Across the pond, the Rev. Jerry Falwell was seen tossing an armload of Bibles into a dumpster. ‘I’ve long worried that Christianity was too good to be true,’ said Falwell, ‘and now I’m sure of it. By the way, I’m renaming my school Liberty Humanist University.’
“At his Texas ranch, President Bush, looking agitated, said, ‘Whoa! Just a minute here. This, uh, this Titanic guy, this, uh, Leo di Cameron fella, he’s saying that Christianity isn’t, uh, not true? Hey, lottsa good folk believe that. I mean, that it’s TRUE. Lots. Christianity, good religion. Poppy believes it. Bar believes it. I mean, if Jesus isn’t God, then who told me to, uh, you know, invade Iraq?’
“Vice President Ðìçk Cheney, standing nearby, suddenly noticed that the entire White House press corps was looking at him. He sneered, cleared his throat, and rolled his eyes heavenward.
“Somewhere in the distance, a cow farted.”
Actually, it was Perseus was conceived when Zeus took the form of a “golden shower”. Hercules (or Herakles, to use the correct Greek version of the name) was conceived when Zeus impersonated Alcemane’s husband.
Andrew Laubacher: “I mean, if Jesus isn’t God, then who told me to, uh, you know, invade Iraq?”
Luigi Novi: Pay no attention to those Halliburton executives behind that curtain!
Micha:”There is an ongoing struggle between archelogists who find bones often and Ultra-Religious Jews who accuse them of desecrating Jewish graves (althogh you can’t always be surethey’re Jewish or even human).”
It must be early because for a minute or so I thought you were talking about the Ultra-Religious Jews, not the bones. Gave me a bad moment, there.
Adam Neace: -The debris found at the Foster Ranch wasn’t all that was found. According to some reports, a ways over the nearly-intact vessel with occupants was found embedded in a hillside. That hardly ever comes up, all most people(pro and con) ever talk about is what Brazel brought in. And unless you were in fact on the ranch or at the crash site in Corona, you can’t say WHAT came down.
You know what I’ve always found interesting? Take the average religous person, talk to them about something miraculous or incredible happening NOW, chances are they won’t believe you. Try it. It’s fun. The world is either wondrous viewed through mundane eyes, or mundane viewed through wondering eyes.
Den: “Hercules… was conceived when Zeus impersonated Alcemane’s husband.”
Yeah, and supposedly her husband really did come home later that night, so they ended up having twins, one mortal born and one god born.
I love myths like that, where you can easily imagine how the myth got started. A man and woman have twins, but they don’t look alike. That’s odd, but no big deal. As adults one of the twins has a fairly normal life, nothing legendary, while the other one surpasses every possible expectation. He’s so awesome that people start making up stories about how he must have a different daddy than his brother.
No having sex with bulls, no splitting someone’s head open and a woman comes out. Just a simple, “There’s no way that kid is Bob’s son,” and then the story grows from there.
I have a bone I’d like to pick with Christians: What difference does it make how he died or if he was mortal or divine? It’s the MESSAGE he focused on. If you don’t believe the message, then you’re just believing in a boogy-man.
Sounds like Paul had no faith in his ability to spread Jesus’s message, so he played up the boogey-man angle. If there’s no threat of eternal dámņáŧìøņ, I have no reason to be charitable?
How could a religion marketed as faith be founded on such a lack of it…
Just wanted to pop in and say this week’s X-Factor was one of the best things I’ve ever read. I did not expect Jamie to allow him autonomy. Your new vision for X-factor is so much darker than I expected. I love it.
“500 witnesses and not a single one of them (except for the ones who already were apostles) wrote about it?”
How many writings of *any* sort do you have from Jesus days. There is at least one other account about Jesus from these time (that I know of) this is Josephus, a Jewish historian, corroborated much of what was being said about Jesus (though he didn’t believe it himself).
Sean Scullion wrote: “The debris found at the Foster Ranch wasn’t all that was found. According to some reports, a ways over the nearly-intact vessel with occupants was found embedded in a hillside. That hardly ever comes up, all most people(pro and con) ever talk about is what Brazel brought in. And unless you were in fact on the ranch or at the crash site in Corona, you can’t say WHAT came down.”
Exactly: We can’t know, because we weren’t there. Reports of recovered alien spacecraft/bodies didn’t surface until almost 30 years later. Same thing for the resurrection. Nobody writing about it (or even reading about it by the time Mark, Luke, et. al. commited it to paper) was there.
It’s possible that I’ve become too skeptical. I don’t believe either Jim Cameron or Rev. Knapp have it right. Why should it matter if Jesus rose bodily to Heaven? Or if he rose from the grave? Or even if he was indeed the divine son of God in the first place? Somewhere along the line, many vocal Christians became so focused on the story of his death, that they forgot to focus on his life. To me, it’s his life that is inspiring – his courage, grace and generosity are astounding. The importance of Christ lies, I believe, in the messages he imparted to humanity.
Anyway, that was way off my original point, which was that eye-witness accounts pretty much suck 😉
Josephus lived during the Jewish Rebellion against the Romans around 70 AD, and wrote afterwards.
Acounts of events like Jesus’s life usually are passed by word of mouth and maybe less commonly by the vague memories of people who were there. The 500 witnesses is more of a literary convention.
Anyway, Christianity and other religions have shown an ability to adapt to changing attitudes quite nicely if often reluctantly. It will survive this movie.
“I have a bone I’d like to pick with Christians: What difference does it make how he died or if he was mortal or divine? It’s the MESSAGE he focused on. If you don’t believe the message, then you’re just believing in a boogy-man.
How could a religion marketed as faith be founded on such a lack of it…”
Faith in what? I’m not Christian or religious, but the whole point of religions is that they have a divine source. In Christianity it’s even more important because the leader of the religion is divine himself. Also, non divine messages are a hard sell even today, and quite difficult 2000 years ago. Even the idea of monotheism — an abstract god — was too much for many people, so you have angels, saints, devil, demons, djinns, and spirits. Today, some are willing to follow religious ideas in an abstracted and not divine format. This may be more difficult for Christians because of the divine aspect of the founder.
Adam–first, if my response to you came across harsh, that was the FURTHEST thing from my intention. When I said, “you can’t say WHAT came down,” I was using the collective you, not singling you out, Adam. As far as eyewitnesses go, I’m right there with you. I think part of the problem may not be so much that the reports are unreliable, but that different people focus on different things. While a group of people may be watching something together, they all focus on different things.
Micha brings up an interesting point about the angels and saints. The way I was always taught was that God was It, The One, and yet you’ve got people who pray to saints and wear the medals and everything. Is that inconsistent, or am I missing something?
Posted by Tjob
Did you ever hear the one about the professor who spent thirty years proving conclusively that The Odyssey was not composed by Homer, but by another Greek with the same name?
Posted by Manny
In other words, you aren’t taking anything on faith when you believe in what science tells you.
You have personally observed atoms, electrons, protons, neutrons and quarks, personally analysed the Bethe Solar Phoenix reaction that powers the Sun, derived the laws of gravity and thermodynamics and/or discovered the germ theory of disease and invented pasteurisation?
You don’t take any of those on faith because someone who you consider better-educated than yourself told you they were true?
Posted by Bill Mulligan
In his WW2 book, Up Front, Bill Mauldin says aomething like “…I don’t bother doing drawings that show how the rest of the squad cover a grenadier as he moves in to knock out a machine-gun nest, because it never occurs to me that there’s anyone who hasn’t seen it for themselves…”
Same with the Romans – they knew how the legions did their thing. They were more interested in the results than the process. Modern novels (unless it’s important to the plot, or the author is paid by the word and needs to buy groceries) don’t describe how you start the engine, manipulate the shift and the wheel and the pedals and so on, they just say “He got in the car and drove to Angie’s house…”
Posted by Sean Scullion/b>M
The Official Position on that is that we/they don’t worship the saints, you pray to them to go to God and ut in a Good Word in the Big Guy’s ear.
All i know about that is that the Catholics i’ve ever actually talked about it with used terms in referring to praying to intercessors (particularly Mary) that sounded a lot like worship to me.
Which reminds me:
Jesus drops by the Pearly Gates.
“How’s it going, Pete?”
“Just fine, Boss.”
“Uh huh. Look, Peter, I’ve been looking around on the Golden Streets, and every day I see a bunch of people I told you weren’t allowed in. What’s up with that?”
“Boss, it is not my falt. They come up, I ask their names, i check the Big Book and see they’re on the ‘no-fly’ list, I tell ’em they can’t come in…
“Then they whip out cell phones and call your Mom, and she comes down and lets ’em in at the side gate…”
>They were all stories handed down through oral tradition. And the basis for these stories? Eye-witness accounts.
Knowing how the ‘telephone game’ shows such word-of-mouth can be unreliable – to say the least – I also have to point out that, back then, vanishingly few people knew how to read and write and, in many cultures, as far as many people were concerned, history was often passed on verbally. I’m not saying this automatically made them accurate, but that people were sometimes more used to remembering things and passing them on than we are.
The way I was always taught was that God was It, The One, and yet you’ve got people who pray to saints and wear the medals and everything. Is that inconsistent, or am I missing something?
Maybe they were taught differently?
Same with the Romans – they knew how the legions did their thing. They were more interested in the results than the process. Modern novels (unless it’s important to the plot, or the author is paid by the word and needs to buy groceries) don’t describe how you start the engine, manipulate the shift and the wheel and the pedals and so on, they just say “He got in the car and drove to Angie’s house…”
I suppose that’s possible…though why a typical Roman would have a greater knowledge of battlefield tactics than the average American (who has access to books, TV, movies, the internet, etc) escapes me. There’s also the matter of how some of the few surviving mentions of tactics in all likelihood get it wrong. That is, the tactics described make no sense and seem to be the result of someone making it up as they go along.
I suspect that ancient warfare was so insane and confused that nobody was really sure what was going on, You didn’t even know who won until you saw at the end whether you were alive or dead (a telling clue).
“Did you ever hear the one about the professor who spent thirty years proving conclusively that The Odyssey was not composed by Homer, but by another Greek with the same name?”
Something similar actually occured. Today historians believe that Homer, or somebody else took together bits of songs that were passed along from person to person for a long time.
“In other words, you aren’t taking anything on faith when you believe in what science tells you.
You have personally observed atoms, electrons, protons, neutrons and quarks, personally analysed the Bethe Solar Phoenix reaction that powers the Sun, derived the laws of gravity and thermodynamics and/or discovered the germ theory of disease and invented pasteurisation?
You don’t take any of those on faith because someone who you consider better-educated than yourself told you they were true?”
We have to distinguish between several things;
1) The scientific system is different than religion on the methodological level. So even when scientists talk about something they haven’t seen, like atoms, they are doing it not by faith alone but in a context of a system that is quite different than religion. This system is considered more reliable than stories passed down from ancient times.
2) still there is an element of faith inside the scientific community. Faith in the system, faith that the world works according to consistent principles, that it can be understood by humans, that a good explanation is the simplest one, and so forth.
3) Lay people have faith in the authority of acientists as they did in the past in the authority of priests. Still, there’s a difference between having faith in people and having faith in god, and there is a difference between having faith in the sense of trusting them based on past performence, and in the knowledge that you can study up on things if you want, and the faith in god. In the second case peole use the word faith to say that they don’t ask for any further explanation or proof.
“Micha brings up an interesting point about the angels and saints. The way I was always taught was that God was It, The One, and yet you’ve got people who pray to saints and wear the medals and everything. Is that inconsistent, or am I missing something?”
It’s consistent with the internal logic of Caholicism and Orthodox Christianity. Saints are not gods, or equal to god, but they are worshiped. If you look at it from a psychological point of view you could say that people needed something that was closer to them and more tangible and understandable than the distant god. In any case, protestants used to mock catholics for worshiping saints — it was idolatry for them; muslims and Jews mocked Christians for worshiping a son of god that came to earth; theists mocked all religions for worshiping a god that concerns himself with everyday human behavior; and atheists mocked everybody for believing in any god. But all these people exhibit signs of irrationality at some point in their life. So it’s better to let people live each in their own faith.
“I suppose that’s possible…though why a typical Roman would have a greater knowledge of battlefield tactics than the average American.”
Two answers. (1) The avarege Roman learned about tactics when he served in the army. What he didn’t learn he didn’t feel he needed to know. (2) The people who wrote and read Roman history books were higher class people who served in command positions.
“Jesus drops by the Pearly Gates.
“How’s it going, Pete?”
“Just fine, Boss.”
“Uh huh. Look, Peter, I’ve been looking around on the Golden Streets, and every day I see a bunch of people I told you weren’t allowed in. What’s up with that?”
“Boss, it is not my falt. They come up, I ask their names, i check the Big Book and see they’re on the ‘no-fly’ list, I tell ’em they can’t come in…
“Then they whip out cell phones and call your Mom, and she comes down and lets ’em in at the side gate…””
Here is something I read in book called the Dialogue of Miracles from the 13th century:
A laybrother (a monk from a lower class uneducated background usually) was praying to Jesus asking for something. so he told Jesus: “If you don’t answer my prayers I will tell your mother.” That’s what”s called popular piety.
Oh, I recently saw the episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise in the last season about the Vulcans. I think they really missed an opportunity to explore a civilization whose religion is logic.
“Maybe they were taught differently?”
Wait, you’re saying, someone was taught things other the One Truth that I was? They must be vanquished!
The StarWolf makes the point that I was gonna, but it always happens that there are so many interesting points around here that I leave stuff out. So, if few people can read, how many people who could would write stuff down?
If you read Oliver Sacks, you may notice Sacks disregards convention by giving a neurological framework for the “immaterialism” George Berkeley proposed 400 years ago.
Sacks basically said the same thing he said about color — there’s no reason to believe there really is such a thing as linear time. The perception of linear time is just something our brains evolved to construct.
Faith is omnipresent and, in a sense, the medium of human life itself.
If you’re familiar with Malcom Gladwell’s ideas, you know practicing something until you get it right, and verbalizing that practice, are two different things.
Since the former does not depend on the latter, neglecting the latter probably only served to prevent useless and wrong paradigms from polluting their martial effectiveness.
The Rosewell analogy to the resurrection story is pretty good. Something happens in a distant, not very sophisticated part of the Empire. It takes time to filter to the center and have impact. During this time things get altered and embelished.
The avarege Roman learned about tactics when he served in the army. What he didn’t learn he didn’t feel he needed to know.
Certainly possible, though did ALL Roman citizens serve in the army?
It just surprises me when you contrast it to the way modern humans are–we have a hunger for the details of war. The number of books written about a single battle in the Civil War can thumber in the hundreds, at least. Considering the detail that Homer goes into during the Illiad, it just surprises me that things get so skimpy during the times of the Romans. But of course there is a lot we don’t know about that time–if not for Pompey we would probably be very ignorant of the way the Romans lived, surprising considering the influence they have on us still.
All it means is that a person with a common name, said to be the son of another person with a common name, died and was buried at the approximate time and place Jesus was said to have done whatever he did. DNA evidence, should it be readable, would establish nothing in any direction. If it is human, well, Christians believe Jesus was fully human as well as fully divine – so what? If it contains something non-human, it’s old and could be contaminated with God knows what – so what? Mitochondrial DNA might be a bit of a problem for those who believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary, should it match any current strain, but a lineage through sisters or cousins could answer that, probably. I just don’t see how anyone can form any conclusions about an old box.
“Certainly possible, though did ALL Roman citizens serve in the army?
It just surprises me when you contrast it to the way modern humans are–we have a hunger for the details of war. The number of books written about a single battle in the Civil War can thumber in the hundreds, at least. Considering the detail that Homer goes into during the Illiad, it just surprises me that things get so skimpy during the times of the Romans. But of course there is a lot we don’t know about that time–if not for Pompey we would probably be very ignorant of the way the Romans lived, surprising considering the influence they have on us still.”
1) History was written to the elite minority by the elite. Today more people know how to read and write, and print makes production and distrubution more easy.
2) The culture of the common man was passed orally. So even if they spent hours talking about wars and who did what, it left no trace.
3) For the elite, the purpose of history was more to encourage virtue and demonstrate greatness. Talking about something technical like military tactics would have been considerd (I think) below the genre.
When has writing about military tactics become a respectable genre?
4) Different forms of literature in different periods and places have different convention. The Old Testament is very succinct, and has little details about anything. The Iliad is very detailed.
5) The strategy in the Illiad is more about the personal prowess of individals than tactics. Also, it depicts changes in tactics over a long period of time. It has chariots, but the chariots are only used to go to the battle and not in the battle. That’s because chariots were new thechnolgy that was introduced into a story that was originally about foot soldiers.
6)Pompey? Are you sure? Did Pompey write anything. I’m not that informed about Roman history, but I think a major source on miltiary tactics is Caesar’s book about the Gallic Wars (which i have but have not read). There are also other — not many — sources on Rome.
I’d like to cooment on the thread about Lost and Heroes, but I haven’t seen this week’s chapters yet.
I’d like to comment about Mike’s post above. It’s an interesting subject, and he’s a pretty knowledgable guy. But I’m afraid the discussion will deteriorate very quickly. It’s a shame really.
Jeffrey, Cameron’s case seems to be based mostly on the claim that all these names were statistically unlikely to appear in one place. But I belong to the 20% of the population who don’t believe in statistics. I don’t think he has a case. If non human DNA were found that would be really interesting, since it wopuld suggest that the person in the grave was not human, but nor would he be a god. Do gods have DNA?
Micha, I was thinking about the city of Pompey, which I am doubtlessly misspelling. Luigi was actually there, darn him. It’s one of the few places I must get to before I die and wouldn’t it be ironic if I get there and Vesuvius erupts?
Pompeii, that’s how it goes.
The nearby town of Herculaneum was just reported to have some new books discovered. Maybe one of them will be How We Kicked Úš; Fighting the Roman Way.
“The nearby town of Herculaneum was just reported to have some new books discovered. Maybe one of them will be How We Kicked Úš; Fighting the Roman Way.”
That would be nice. I should have added to my list that many books probably did not survive. Maybe one of them is the lost book on military tactics. However, I’m sure there are many modern history books about the Roman military in any university library. You’re probably familiar with some of them. Here are some:
Brian Campbell, Greek and Roman military writers: selected readings (London : Routledge, c2004).
John Peddie, The Roman war machine (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Pub., c2004).
Re-enactment as research : proceedings of the Twelfth International Roman Military Equipment Conference, held at the Customs House, South Shields, UK, 24th-26th September 1999, edited by A. T. Croom and W. B. Griffiths (Chirnside, Duns, Berwickshire : Armatura Press, c2002).
C. M. Gilliver, The Roman art of war, 1st paperback ed. (Stroud, Gloucester : Tempus, 2001,c1999)
Antonio Santosuosso, Storming the heavens: soldiers, emperors and civilians in the Roman Empire (Boulder, Colo. : Westview Press, c2001).
Adrian Goldsworthy, Roman warfare, [1st] paperback ed. (London : Cassell, c2000).
John Drogo Montagu, Battles of the Greek and Roman worlds : a chronological compendium of 667 battles to 31 B.C., from the historians of the ancient world (London : Greenhill Books, c2000).
Theodore Ayrault Dodge, Caesar: a history of the art of war among the Romans down to the end of the Roman empire, with a detailed account of the campaigns of Caius Julius Caesar, 1st Da Capo Press ed. (New York : Da Capo Press, 1997)
I have to admit, for me personally, the Christianity Today interview with James Cameron was very enlightening:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/februaryweb-only/109-42.0.html
Iowa Jim
Iowa Jim, you are aware that article was satirical, correct?
Micha, thank you for the reading tips. Hopefully some are available in audio versions. (The lovely wife got me an mp3 player! Booyah!)
I’d also recommend Garrett Fagan’s work. Wonderful stuff.
Bill, I haven’t read these books, so I can’t recommend them. This is just a sample I found by searching the internet site of the Israeli university libraries. I put the ones that seemed the most useful for your interest and recently published. I’m not familiar with the field, so I can’t tell you which ones are the best, and who are the most notable historians in the field. You probably know more about this than I do. There’s a guy named Martin Van Krefeld, who is a military historian from the Hebrew University, who, I understand, has international renown in this field, but not specifically about the Romans. However, I haven’t studied with him. He probably did deal with Roman military history, because in an non academic article of his he compared Bush’s mistakes in Iraq to Augutus’s in Germany. I also won’t hold my breath for audio versions of such academic books. Maybe there are audio versions of things like the Illiad, Plutarch, San Tzu’s The Art of War, Machiavelli’s the Prince, and Gibson’s The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Micha, Bill–I have both the Illiad and the Oddessey on audio tape, so at least I know for certain(ish) that they’re available.
The evidence here is weak.
The names were scrawled on the tombs with a Sharpie.
Posted by: Bill Mulligan at March 1, 2007 08:23 PM
Micha, thank you for the reading tips.
Yes, Micha, thank you for teaching Bill Mulligan how to read. Next, would you be so kind as to teach him how to eat with utensils? 🙂
Oh, don’t you play the victim with me, Mulligan. That last jab of yours was worth ten come-backs, at least.
When my wife has time to read your post to me, Myers, you’re gonna be in trouble.
The more I hear about this “documentary” the less impressed I am. John J. Miller points out that they hired Harvard’s Frank Moore Cross, a scholar of some repute, to read the names on the ossuaries but never get around to asking him his opinion on their central premise. Miller does. The answer:
I am skeptical about Jacobovici’s claims, not because of a faulty reading of the ossuary which reads yeshua’ bar yosep [Jesus son of Joseph] I believe, but because the onomasticon [list of proper names] in his period in Jerusalem is exceedingly narrow. Patriarchal names and biblical names repeat ad nauseam. It has been reckoned that 25% of feminine names in this period were Maria/Miryam, etc., that is variants of Mary. So the cited statistics are unpersuasive. You know the saying: lies, dámņëd lies, and statistics.
Nothing to see here, move along…