Boshko

"In all the millennia that the Egyptian civilization existed, its religion has done almost no “direct” harm to humanity"
Well having of humans working for years to construct enourmous monuments to the idiocy of religion is fairly harmful, they toned things down a lot after the Old Kingdom, but a lot of resources were still drained into tombed.
Also Egyptian geometry was extremally advanced very early (it would have to be given their architectural abilities) and much of greek geometry came from the egyptians (the pathagorean theorum for example).

nerv111

Yes, I agree… that is why I said direct harm… and by direct I mean such things as religious warfare, the Inquisition, witch hunts, etc.

Also, the Egyptians were advance in medicine and surgery for their time. Their knowledge of anatomy was obtained through their experience with mummification. The mummies of the workers that build the pyramids show some very interesting medical procedures; in fact they even practiced a primitive from of brain surgery (I’ll try to find the exact example).

[ November 09, 2001: Message edited by: nerv111 ]

Marduk

"Well having of humans working for years to construct enourmous monuments to the idiocy of religion is fairly harmful, they toned things down a lot after the Old Kingdom, but a lot of resources were still drained into tombed."

True, but it was a great form of civilization building as well, think of the logistics, teamwork, organizational skills, technology, craftmanship etc. that went into that project and was learned from it. Will anything built today still be around in 4500 years for people to gawk at? On TV the pyramids look cool enough but you just don't appreciate the scale and how huge they really are unless you're standing next to them.
There is some evidense of successful head surgery (holes in skulls created long before the person died) but it's not clear that they knew what the brain was for, it was not preserved like the heart and other organs during mummification.

nerv111

They might not have known what the brain was for, but given that they carried out theses procedures, they at least knew of its importance to the wellbeing of an individual. After all, they would have observed changes in behavior if for example a person experienced a critical blow to the head.

Also, I’m not certain where I read this, but I’ve heard that the brain was removed during mummification since it is composed mostly of water, and therefore would have made the body decay faster.

Jimmy Higgins

Something I really think is ignored is the the pyramids are not mentioned once in the bible. Would think the slaves that built the pyramids would have mentioned it once or twice in the bible.

missus_gumby

The word "Egypt" is used 737 times in the King James 1611 bible. The words "Pyramid" and "Sphynx" are not used at all.

It took me an age to count up all those instances of "Egypt". Heh heh.

Perhaps Moses and his merry throng were incredibly short sighted.

Martin

[ November 10, 2001: Message edited by: missus_gumby ]

nerv111

I think that the fact that the Bible fails to mention the pyramids (which were supposedly built by the Hebrew slaves) is evidence for the fact that they were never in Egypt in the first place… I mean, how could they simply overlook something like the pyramids?

Besides this, to the best of my knowledge, there are no records of Hebrew slaves in Egypt. It is possible that the records were destroyed, or simply weren’t found yet. But you would think that there would be some mention of this, I mean if the Egyptian society did have slavery to the extent as claimed by the Bible (and the ignorant public) why are there no records of it? Also, we have to take into account the fact that the Egyptians kept records of almost everything. So, we are back to the question of why are records of Hebrew slaves in Egypt (to the best of our knowledge) non-existent?

Marduk

"I think that the fact that the Bible fails to mention the pyramids (which were supposedly built by the Hebrew slaves)"

In all fairness to the Bible, this isn't true, The City the Jews were to have lived in was nowhere near the Pyramid complex, and they are said to have built the city of Ramses and its store houses, the Pyramids were built long before Abraham was even born.
It was only recently that it was discovered that the Pyramids were not built by slaves of any kind, more of a public works project, the slavery idea was just an incorect historical assumption, not a Biblical one.
However in 1300 BCE Egypt had an estimated population of 2 million including women and children, how could they have kept over a million Jews there against their will?

nerv111

My mistake…

This may be true, but nevertheless the historical assumption was based on the Bible. Historians now know more, and this false premise has been corrected. But nevertheless the public generally assumes that the pyramids were built by slaves, because of the Biblical account of the Exodus. Still, some well educated people are misinformed about this. The wife of my psychology teacher has a degree in Archeology, and she still insists on claiming that a historical exodus did occur and that slavery existed to a very large extent.

Very good point; there are many such facts that contradict the claims that the Exodus occurred, and that there was slavery in Egypt to the extent claimed by some. And besides, Egypt controlled the Levant at that time, where could have the Hebrews have gone (after they finished wandering the desert for 40 years). Did they walk right back into the hands of their captors?