Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Clivedurdle · 03-12-2009, 09:01 AM

Heads up about latest In Our Time!

Xianity is the fault of this Library - they translated the Septaguint, and yes it had several probably minor hits from Julius Caesar, the xians (Hypatia - probably a sub library) and the Muslims, but it probably just decayed away.

It however left us universities, classification, academic study, museums...

Quote:

Had the library at Alexandria not existed, it would have been invented by one of the many stories housed within its walls. It is a building of legendary status, a library built to contain all the knowledge of all the world on rank upon rank of Egyptian papyri.

Others were not so impressed. Timon of Phlius evoked the spirit of the place in his remark that ‘in populous Egypt many cloistered bookworms are fed, arguing endlessly in the chicken coop of the Muses’.

Whatever your view of it, the legacy of the library is with us today, not just in the ideas it stored and the ideas it seeded but also in the way it organised knowledge and the tools developed for dealing with it. It still influences the things we know and the way we know them to this day.

Contributors

Simon Goldhill, Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge

Matthew Nicholls, Lecturer in Classics at the University of Reading

Serafina Cuomo, Reader in Roman History at Birkbeck College, University of London

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/...nourtime.shtml

Roger Pearse · 03-12-2009, 09:44 AM

Good to remember. I wonder how many people realise that the sands of Egypt still contain many, many lost books, waiting to be found?

And that no-one is looking.

jon-eli · 03-12-2009, 09:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Xianity is the fault of this Library - they translated the Septaguint

I'm sure there were other factors contributing to the emergence of Christianity. The Septuagint is hardly a singular cause.

Roger Pearse · 03-12-2009, 09:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jon-eli

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Xianity is the fault of this Library - they translated the Septaguint

I'm sure there were other factors contributing to the emergence of Christianity. The Septuagint is hardly a singular cause.

I don't suppose Clive thought otherwise. But it was undoubtedly a seminal event.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

jon-eli · 03-12-2009, 09:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

I don't suppose Clive thought otherwise. But it was undoubtedly a seminal event.

Supposing one were to argue that the Septuagint was the most important factor... Would this be because of Mark's use of the Septuagint?

Clivedurdle · 03-12-2009, 09:55 AM

Now - might Mark have been written in Alexandria?

jon-eli · 03-12-2009, 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Now - might Mark have been written in Alexandria?

I don't believe we'll ever know. It could just as easily have been written in Rome. Or Paris.

Clivedurdle · 03-12-2009, 10:03 AM

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

http://www.online-literature.com/shelley_percy/672/

(This site has many ads etc!)

Clivedurdle · 03-12-2009, 10:07 AM

Unlikely to have been Paris, might have been Lutetia!

Roger Pearse · 03-12-2009, 10:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

If you read this, read it aloud (if quietly). That way you can feel the words, which will otherwise remain dead splodges on the page.

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03-12-2009, 09:44 AM	#2
Roger Pearse Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: N/A Posts: 4,370	Good to remember. I wonder how many people realise that the sands of Egypt still contain many, many lost books, waiting to be found? And that no-one is looking.

03-12-2009, 09:55 AM	#6
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	Now - might Mark have been written in Alexandria?

03-12-2009, 10:03 AM	#8
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: `My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away. http://www.online-literature.com/shelley_percy/672/ (This site has many ads etc!)

03-12-2009, 10:07 AM	#9
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	Unlikely to have been Paris, might have been Lutetia!

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