Continuing Previous : XXI to XXXIII - getting to Troy (as we Tend to Do) (Update to XXXIX)

Creation vs. Evolution : How Much was Shinar Devastated by the Flood? · You Find a Fossil Whale Here, a Fossil Pterosaur There ... · Answering Carter and Cosner on Eden · Trying to Break Down "Reverse Danube" or "Reverse Euphrates" Concept · Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : With Damien Mackey on Four Rivers and Related, I to X · Continuing Previous, XI to XX - are Nile Rivers Excluded? · Continuing Previous : XXI to XXXIII - getting to Troy (as we Tend to Do)

You know that law which says, as arguments go longer, the probability of a reductio ad Hitlerum approaches 1? Well, as my arguments with Mackey grow longer, the probability of a conflict over Trojan War approaches 1 ...

Back to

main line of exchange:

XXI

Damien Mackey to me

7/9/2018 at 5:56 AM

Re: Gehon - Haydock comment

Then find me a proper archaeology for the Solonian era at Athens.

That is one thing German with which I agree, gruendlich, from the ground upwards.

At your rate you will never "get there", get there to a history that has a stratigraphical foundation to it.

I'd rather build upon solid foundations, gruendlich (rausch, achtung).

In the following

I give two exchanges in parallel, in order of sending of mails:

XXII

Me to Damien Mackey

7/9/2018 at 2:13 PM

Re: Gehon - Haydock comment

There is proper archaeology for Troy.

I thought you did not believe the Trojan War.

My principle is, I believe archaeology (what actually is there to see), and I believe history even more.

Your principle seems to be, you believe history less than archaeology, and history only when supported by archaeology - and yet you don't believe all there is in archaeology either.

Sounds like sth very close to radical scepsis and absolutely incompatible with Christianity, if carried out.

Archaeology is not the foundation of history, they are two different disciplines.

History is on the one hand more easy to fake in a sense, but on the other hand clearer.

Also, the sense in which history is easier to fake is marginal, and does not totally concern narrative history as a whole, more like special pleading types of history.

If you are content with "there must have been Protestants in 597 AD, even if I can't find any" or with "there must have been a secret tradition before 1717, going all the way back to Nimrod and to Adam, since Adam was a Freemason" - well, then history is easy to fake TO YOU.

But the documentation I would like PM to give for Protestants in 597 AD is not an archaeological, but a narrative one. One is NOT the foundation of the other, they go hand in hand, and history being more complete is also less supported by the other, without therefore being historically illsupported.

Solon has left writings to Athenians, therefore he existed. Homer has left songs (later written down) to Ionians and later Athenians. Therefore, he too existed.

Your criterium is the equivalent of requiring Moses' autograph for each book of the Torah, duly carbon dated to whenever he would have existed before believing Mosaic authorship.

You may be fine with making dogma an exception to your general theory of knowledge, I am very much not.

I like to say to Atheists "Moses wrote the Pentateuch, since he is credited with so having written it" - and universally credited by Hebrews, like Solon was universally credited by Athenians. Perhaps your professor taught you another approach, but in Medieval Paris professors taught it was a fault to "iurare in verba magistri".

XXIII

Me to Damien Mackey

7/9/2018 at 2:28 PM

"What exactly is Creation Science?"

[Refers to a paper of Damien's]

Six km of sedimentary mud under Eden ...

Your problem with "local Flood" and a few more problems of Creation Science is twofold:

• you are prepared to take an opinion (even a popular one) among Creation Science adherents as if it were an absolute corrollary of Creation Science as such.
  
  Canopy theory is ... scientifically perhaps a bit shady.
  
  Four Rivers "generic names" ... is un-Biblical.
  
  But, neither is as such a consequence of Creation Science.
  
  
• while you exact a certain "gruendlichkeit" from narrative history, you do not exact it for your own archaeology - it is the groundwork by definition (ain't it in the ground after all?) and so anything stated by it is by definition gruendlich.
  
  Not.
  
  I have my gruendlichkeit in narrative history too - like wondering how many camp survivors of certain camps have seen a certain type of execution, which to doubt in France might put me in conflict with "loi Gayssot". I like my blogs to remain legal, and I intend to republish this on blogs, so ...
  
  In archaeology, the counterpart would be : would the six km of mud actually be under Eden, and not over it or over where it was?
  
  Are there problems in dating?
  
  Ah, yes, this is a topic where some Gruendlichkeit would do you good, but carbon dating bores you .... well, if relevant subjects bore you, why make a general pronouncement at all on the matter? Why not stick to topics where you are not too bored to take in the viewpoints of both sides?

XXIV

Damien Mackey to me

7/10/2018 at 1:46 AM

Re: Gehon - Haydock comment

Moses is never credited with having written the Book of Genesis. Show me where.

Nor did he write the account of his own death in Deuteronomy 34 (from memory).

He was the primary, but not the only, EDITOR, of Genesis.

And some of the rest of the Pentateuch belongs to the Temple era, way later than Moses.

The Church says only that he was the "substantial", not sole, author.

You'll get there - I'll be long dead, though.

XXV

Damien Mackey to me

7/10/2018 at 1:55 AM

Re: "What exactly is Creation Science?"

You can be like the pharaoh who wanted a wise sage to build him a castle in the air.

AND when the king of Egypt had made sure that Haiqâr was slain, he arose straightway and wrote a letter to king Sennacherib, reminding him in it 'of the peace and the health and the might and the honour which we wish specially for thee, my beloved brother, king Sennacherib.

2 I have been desiring to build a castle between the heaven and the earth, and I want thee to send me a wise, clever man from thyself to build it for me, and to answer me all my questions, and that I may have the taxes and the custom duties of Assyria for three years.'

This "Haiqar" (Ahikar) is quite fictitious and not at all gruendlich.

But my Ahikar, biblical nephew of Tobit (and cousin of his son, Job), has a whole neo-Assyrian archaeology under his feet.

Any "castle" that he might have built would have been on solid historico-archaeological ground, and not, as in your system, suspended precariously between heaven and earth.

XXVI

Me to Damien Mackey

7/10/2018 at 9:42 AM

Re: Gehon - Haydock comment

I am not saying he got the story of Adam's fall by a vision, he got it from Hebrew TRADITION.

Final chapter of Deuteronomy, on his order, was written by Joshua, like final chapter of Joshua, on his order, was written by someone else.

Moses was the FINAL editor of Genesis, and made it his own book by adding the chapter one account of the six days, which he had from God on Sinai.

Also, arguably, where Genesis has Adonai, it is possible that Moses replaced Elohim with Adonai in those places, also a work by a final editor making Genesis his own work. Why? From memory, in some places Genesis has Adonai, but Exodus says God had not revealed that name to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Putting anything of the Pentateuch into the Temple era, as to first authorship, is simply heresy.

One can imagine updates in spelling and even onomastic updates were continuously being made. Obviously vocalisation started out as by memory and neither the dots nor the matres lectionis consonants were original parts of the text. One could extend this to names, to comments on Joshua's stones, to points of grammar.

In Sweden we do that quite a lot to our Classics (except the inserting comments or onomastic changes part, there we have footnotes).

Take a look at this stanza:

Den ena som en ek sköt fram,
och som en lans är hennes stam;
men kronan, som i vinden skälfver,
liksom en hjelm sin rundel hvälfver.

You probably get zilch. But the point is, while "open E" sound as short tonic vowel could be ä if the word had a in other forms, it was normally e (especially after j).

Fast forward to 1870's (after it was written). Now you could get a reedition in which you instead had ä for nearly all "open E", the short as well as the long, it would if so have looked like this:

Den ena som en ek sköt fram,
och som en lans är hennes stam;
men kronan, som i vinden skälfver,
liksom en hjälm sin rundel hvälfver.

Comes the dire year of 1906. The Academy gives the Nobel Prize of Literature to Inno a Satana (it means what you think it means) by Carducci. More to the point (just giving the spiritual background to it), certain consonants which had alternative spellings now get only one (but sh/wh - it's a sound between the two, except in Finland where it is sh) and yod which had more spellings than any other retain them.

The result now looks like this, and this is how I read it in an abridged edition:

Den ena som en ek sköt fram,
och som en lans är hennes stam;
men kronan, som i vinden skälver,
liksom en hjälm sin rundel välver.

And if it had been prose, perhaps the archaic word "rundel" would have been replaced by some more easily comprehensible word, like "klot" or "cirkel" (globe or circle, I think "rundel" is a very exact rendering of khug in that famous Isaiah 40:22).

THIS is the limit of the reediting which can have happened during either first or second Temple.

If you argue "such and such a form in Pentateuch is younger than a form in the Psalms of David, therefore cannot be by Moses, and so the text is not" you are basically arguing that - had we only had the redacted copy with "välver" today - the text cannot be by Tegnér, because "välver" doesn't exist before 1906 (or only very sporadically, not sure which), and Tegnér died 1848 and is credited by tradition with having written the poem in 1825. By the way, my memory failed slightly, he died in 1846.

Other example of the poem, first original, then introducing changes which would have been there in a prose rendering:

Hur gladtigt sam han i sin slup
med henne öfver mörkblå djup!
Hur hjertligt, när han seglen vänder,
hon klappar i små hvita händer!

Hur glatt simmade han i sin slup
med henne öfver* mörkblå djup!
Hur hjärtligt, när han seglen vänder,
hon klappar i små vita händer!

This too, changing the rhythm, but immaterial outside poetry is a kind of change which could easily have happened during the temple era.

In English, replacing "swam" with "swimmed" would be incorrect, but in Swedish, not replacing "sam" with "simmade" would be and was already in Tegnér"s time, archaic.

A comment about "Kiryat-Arba" as "Kiryat-Arba which is Hebron" is really the utmost limit of what the temple era could have changed.

The law was made for oral reading (to be read in public once every seven years) and a footnote in the margin of the text, not pronounced, would not have been any use to the audience.

You asked where I find this?

In Tradition. Church Fathers and Scholastics say nothing about this or that or sundry being added during the temple era. They credit Moses as virtually sole author.

I also credit him with having been the substantial author - since changing "swam" to "swimmed" (should that happen to English) or "Kiryat Arba" to "Kiryat Arba which is Hebron" (change probably under Joshua or at least before King David) is not a substantial change. Adding narrative which was not there is.

How about Moses having inherited most of Genesis from earlier? Since he a u t h o r i s e d the story, he is literally a u t h o r of it. If Pacelli penned and Pope Pius XI signed an encyclical, its author in the literal Latin sense of this term is Pius XI.

Is there ANY kind of argument for your little heresy about "some of the rest of the Pentateuch belongs to the Temple era, way later than Moses" which I have not dealt with in this response?

Oh, by the way, if you have it from your bishop, do feel free, even urged to pass on to him that I consider his position as very gravely heretical in a man of his position, since as a bishop he is required to know all of the faith and has no excuse for being a badly instructed Catholic, like you may have.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Note

*öfver - actually it should have been changed to över, 1906 again, but I missed this item from fatigue.

XXVII

Me to Damien Mackey

7/10/2018 at 9:50 AM

Re: "What exactly is Creation Science?"

Taking narrative even without archaeology as a reliable source is not something suspended between heaven and earth, but - outside certain Academic and also heretical cliques - normal procedure.

Note, I said "a reliable" not an "always infallible or inerrant" source.

When Ulysses came back to Ithaca, it caused an upheaval on Ithaca. His archery may have been boosted by magic or may have been boosted by hidden archers who did not get the credit, but the suitors of his presumed widow did find the news of his démise highly exaggerated.

When Ulysses tells Nausicaa of how he dealt with Polypheme ... well, since Ulysses was alone, Nausicaa only had his word for it. Homer wisely left it inside Ulysses' narrative to Nausicaa - not in his own words.

So, I'll not be dogmatic on whether Polypheme existed or not, but I am about his return.

Troy being sacked by the Greeks was good enough for St. Augustine on the basis of the narrative of Virgil, based on earlier ones.

You might say we have imporved* methods now?

My point is, I don't think they are at all an improvement. They are a deterioration for reasons stated in the earlier mails./HGL

Note

* imporved should be improved, of course, fatigue.

From here

only the latter titale is continued:

XXVIII

Damien Mackey to me

7/11/2018 at 2:28 AM

Re: "What exactly is Creation Science?"

You believe in Troy?

How come it has never been found? You have as much chance of finding a so-called Troy as finding a Cyclops.

XXIX

Me to Damien Mackey

7/11/2018 at 9:10 AM

Re: "What exactly is Creation Science?"

Archaeological Site of Troy
https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/849

XXX

Damien Mackey to me

7/12/2018 at 1:28 AM

Re: "What exactly is Creation Science?"

Oh, Hissarlik. I've long heard of it.

And one day, perhaps long after I'm gone, they might even find an ancient stele there on the site of Hissarlik telling: "This is the site of Homer's Troy". "And here you can see a piece of Achilles' heel".

Keep living between earth and sky, H-G L.

XXXI

Me to Damien Mackey

7/12/2018 at 2:09 PM

Re: "What exactly is Creation Science?"

Schliemann and the local priest put up a sign saying "this is where Christ appeared to King Priam".

Eagles tend to live between earth and sky, beasts from the earth tend not to ...

Seriously, if you have SO much trouble with trusting simple tradition on simple fact (here was a war, the people involved were named so and so ...) even when parts of it have been confirmed (Paris was also known as Alexander, and this name for Tarwusha / Wilusha region has been confirmed by ancient diplomacy, he could have been the diplomat of his father ... or to extreme sceptics, the real ruler of Troy, but that I won't buy ...). If you have SO much trouble with that, why do you trust archaeology on anything either?

After all, you were not there at most digs!

There is a dig outside ancient hills of Hissarlik, where archaeologists and military have found traces of a military encampment ... but since the tradition of this dig comes via youtube and me, trusting it would obviously be too much of a life of the eagles' young for your taste!

XXXII

Damien Mackey to me

7/13/2018 at 2:02 AM

Re: "What exactly is Creation Science?"

Schliemann was nuts as well.

Archaeology : Behind the Mask of Agamemnon
Volume 52 Number 4, July/August 1999
https://archive.archaeology.org/9907/etc/calder.html

"For 25 years I have researched the life of Heinrich Schliemann. I have learned to be skeptical, particularly of the more dramatic events in Schliemann's life: a White House reception; his heroic acts during the burning of San Francisco; his gaining American citizenship on July 4, 1850, in California; his portrayal of his wife, Sophia, as an enthusiastic archaeologist; the discovery of ancient Greek inscriptions in his backyard; the discovery of the bust of Cleopatra in a trench in Alexandria; his unearthing of an enormous cache of gold and silver objects at Troy, known as Priam's Treasure. Thanks to the research of archaeologist George Korres of the University of Athens, the German art historian Wolfgang Schindler, and historians of scholarship David A. Traill and myself, we know that Schliemann made up these stories, once universally accepted by uncritical biographers. These fictions cause me to wonder whether the Mask of Agamemnon might be a further hoax. Here are nine reasons to believe it may be ...".

"Paris" would have been another biblical appropriation, likely Perez (of Judah).

Unless you think that Paris is in France, and somewhere between earth and sky.

XXXIII

Me to Damien Mackey

7/13/2018 at 10:30 AM

Re: "What exactly is Creation Science?"

Let's distinguish "Paris" as in Paris, Paridos, Paridi, Parida, Paris (son of Priam) from Lutetia Parisiorum, also known as Parisius in scholastic Latin, shall we?

"a White House reception; his heroic acts during the burning of San Francisco; his gaining American citizenship on July 4, 1850, in California"

Never heard of those parts.

"his portrayal of his wife, Sophia, as an enthusiastic archaeologist"

Let's put it like this, he "married" her because she was Greek, because she knew Homer. She would have been somewhat ... incongenial in her role ... if she had not at least humoured her husband's main interest.

In her case especially as it was an adultery, Schliemann was a divorcee when marrying her.

As to Priam's treasure and death mask, it is now fairly agreed among archaeologists, they are the wrong level of Troy for being close to Trojan War. They are "Troy II" while Trojan War would be one of the levels like "Troy VI" or "Troy VII".

As to Schliemann being fraudulent on many items, that doesn't detract from his discovery.

Indeed, just as he agreed a fake with the local priest about "this is the place where Christ appeared to King Priam", exactly so, he may have made up lots of other stuff in order to have enough prestige in what was then (and still is) Turkey to be allowed to dig.

As I supposed, you were not enough involved in correct keeping of VIII commandment to believe tradition by me that later archaeologists have found a war camp outside the Hissarlik ancient city, confirming Trojan War, so, here is a BBC story:

The Truth of Troy - transcript
First broadcast: BBC Two, Thursday 25 March 2004
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2004/troytrans.shtml

Or do you think Eric Cline and Manfred Korfmann are dishonest people just because Schliemann more or less had to be, when doing things among Turks who see so much on personal prestige?

Update:

XXXIV

Damien Mackey to me

7/14/2018 at 2:02 AM

Re: "What exactly is Creation Science?"

Yeah they're on the wrong level, on the wrong page, in the wrong place, probably on the wrong planet.

XXXV

Me to Damien Mackey

7/16/2018 at 9:49 AM

Re: "What exactly is Creation Science?"

You want that as your final word on this series of posts?

Creation vs. Evolution : How Much was Shinar Devastated by the Flood? · You Find a Fossil Whale Here, a Fossil Pterosaur There ... · Answering Carter and Cosner on Eden · Trying to Break Down "Reverse Danube" or "Reverse Euphrates" Concept · Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : With Damien Mackey on Four Rivers and Related, I to X · Continuing Previous, XI to XX - are Nile Rivers Excluded? · Continuing Previous : XXI to XXXIII - getting to Troy (as we Tend to Do)

XXXVI

Damien Mackey to me

7/17/2018 at 1:36 AM

Re: "What exactly is Creation Science?"

You have a nice rest, H-G.

XXXVII

Me to Damien Mackey

7/17/2018 at 4:19 PM

Re: "What exactly is Creation Science?"

If you thought debating you was stressful, you are wrong.

XXXVIII

Damien Mackey to me

7/18/2018 at 2:09 AM

Re: "What exactly is Creation Science?"

Like I said before, you have more points than a porcupine.

Arch. Fulton Sheen had the right idea, KISS - Keep It Short, Stoopid.
No offence intended.

XXXIX

Me to Damien Mackey

7/18/2018 at 2:08 PM

Re: "What exactly is Creation Science?"

Oh - you need a rest? Fine.