Sven

Thanks for the answer. But why do you think everyone (anyone) else would be such curious to know if any place named Eden once existed? Apparently, there is no one in this forum who shares this curiousity. So I see no point in bringing this article even up.

Oops! Then V-Bird must be actually right with his ideas which I occasionally called BS...

I read the first paragraph and it indeed proves nothing. The only thing remotely resembling a "proof" is this sentence "Eden is mentioned in babylonian trade records". But since you give no references, this prooves in essence nothing.

I don't understand why this was not edited out.

You mean like much of your article?

Someone who starts one of his first posts with some attacks against others should not be suprised if he is attacked back. But this comment is another thing which I would have expected to get edited.

Sorry, but anyone can call something a fact. Without substantiating it with references, it remains an unsupported claim. That's why someone called this article looking "like something written for a high school creative writing class."

They thanked you for a good laugh, or am I wrong?

Sven

You're of course right, there doesn't always have to be an obvious point in a study (actually my whole PhD work is mostly pointless to any layman ).

But I simply don't understand what's so interesting about knowing that at some time there was a real place named Eden. Since it (if it existed) obviously had nothing in common with the Eden depicted in the bible, I can really only say: So what? If I (tried to) demonstrate(d) that a place named Minas Tirith (thanks to Celsus) actually existed, what would be your reaction?

Vorkosigan

Immediate purchase of one-way plane tickets.

spin

Rohl is a crackpot who appeals to a different audience to the others, but they are all conspiracy mongers. Rohl's conspiracy regards academics who collude to cover up his "discoveries", ie that Egyptian chronology is all wrong (shades of Velikovsky), so everything based on it must be wrong as well, as also everything independent from it which supports conventional chronology. His key document incidentally is the bible, which he takes somehow to preserve history as she happened, appealing obliquely to the fundamentalist who doesn't like the encroachment of reality to shatter the dream and are therefore prepared to take further flights of fancy to maintain the fundamentalism. Rohl's shills are willing. They know no better and can't see the crackpot nature of the stuff they're buying. He uses outmoded scholarship, questionable translations, and high selectivity of the data he presents, especially of academics such as Kenneth Kitchen, who in no way supported Rohl's manipulation of Egyptian chronology -- Kitchen being one of the foremost scholars in 3rd Intermediate Period Egyptian studies. Rohl sells snake oil.


spin

Dean Anderson

Visiting Eden would be like visiting Mt. Olympus. Even though the mythology that has been built around it is not 'true history', it would still be a historically significant place.

As for Minas Tirith, that is part of a novel - not a part of a mythology that has shaped the history of the world for the last couple of thousand years. There is a bit of a difference in the level of historical significance there, don't you think?

Dean Anderson

The problem with Rohl is that (unlike the others that were mentioned) his theories look sound to a layman.

Anyone can look at a Von Daniken book and see that his 'spaceman' theories are far fetched, but you need to know about historical, archeological and linguistic methodology to be able to pick holes in Rohl's arguments. I certainly couldn't, for example...

At least, that was the case for his first couple of books about the Egyptians and the Sumerians. By the third book - 'The Lost Testament' (basically a rewrite of OT 'history' in a 'this is how it really happened' style) it is obvious that he is somewhat 'out there'.

Sven

Even though it has virtually nothing to do with the mythology build around it?
OK, I also don't understand why knowing that Mt. Olympus exists is in any way significant...

Apart from being the place where the "fall of humans" supposedly took place, it has no significance to the rest of the bible or even to Christianity. Sorry, I still don't see the "historical significance".

As an aside: There are clearly people who are greatly influenced by the LotR - there is for instance MERP (middle earth role playing game), to which some people cling to almost religiously. It's kind of similar to Star Trek and Trekkies. This is not an argument, I just wanted to mention this.

Dean Anderson

I guess we'll just have to agree that significance is relative and we find significance in different things.

Unless you're one of those pesky 'Objective Significists' claiming a single universal metaphysical standard of significance...

[completely off topic] Hell yeah! I I've played MERP / Rolemaster with some of these Tolkein Nazis before...

...it's almost as bad as playing Ars Magica with Historical Purists or playing Mage with Physicists... [/completely off topic]

Sven

I agree. And I surely don't claim this

[completely off topic]
Actually it's no problem playing RPGs with scientists (chemists, physicists, etc.) - I even found that more of them are interested in such games than students of other subjects.
[/completely off topic]

Vorkosigan

<dons mod hat>

<rusty mod voice>

We're drifting off topic here, folks.