Zeluvia

Why were those Greek texts never used or translated? Was it like creationists buring Origin of the Species?
Was healthcare not an issue, since faith in God should cure all ills? And if it didn't, did you like Job, deserve your suffering?

I think what you guys SHOULD be looking at is cultural value of education and intelligence and TRUTH pre and post Xtianity.

I don't think you just take a culture and "kill science" from it, what you do is systematically destroy knowledge and education, which in turn kills scientific and technological advance. The greatest accomplishment of humans has been the ability to transfer vast amounts of information across generations and teach our young so each individual doesn't have to learn by trial and error. Any interruption of the progression of knowledge from this system is bound to affect every aspect of the society, including science.


I think you could make a case for that having happened under Christianity vs pre-christian societies.

Toto

I wonder if you read Carrier's blog post completely?

From Carrier's blog:

GakuseiDon

Yes, I did. That's why I think Carrier and Flynn actually agree. The only reason that Carrier is disagreeing is because he has taken only one sentence from Flynn, and has decided from that what Flynn meant.

Here is it again, only this time I've put the sentence from Flynn that Carrier is responding to in his blog as well as the sentence following that (my bolding below):

Flynn:

"The Latin West never lost its Greek heritage because it never had it to begin with. Most of it was never translated until the Christians, hearing that it was available in Toledo, swarmed there from every nation once the jihad had ebbed, eager to translate the Greek works."

Carrier:

"This is false: the Latin West had entire wings of their libraries (almost every city had one) stocked with Greek treatises, and Latin scientists spoke and read Greek. Even private libraries in the West were once well-stocked in Greek texts (like the one we've been excavating in Herculaneum)."

What is Carrier actually declaring "false" from Flynn's statement, in your opinion? To me it's obvious that Carrier thought that Flynn meant the Latin West kept no Greek treatises, otherwise why make a point of saying "the Latin West had entire wings of their libraries stocked with Greek treatises"? But obviously Flynn thought they kept them, otherwise how could they be there for translating later?

And even if Latin scientists spoke and read Greek, so what? According to Carrier, "the [Latin West] Christians lost interest" and "made little effort to preserve or recover what was lost". Flynn's point is that they didn't take up their Greek heritage, which is pretty much what Carrier is saying as well.

dog-on

The part where Flynn says that "it never had it to begin with" seems to be the issue for Carrier. At least as I read it.

GakuseiDon

Yes, that's exactly right. Carrier is taking that to mean that Flynn is saying that the Latin West never had Greek texts, which is why Carrier responds, "This is false: the Latin West had entire wings of their libraries (almost every city had one) stocked with Greek treatises, and Latin scientists spoke and read Greek." Carrier notes that later the Latin West lost interest in both Greek and Greek texts.

But Flynn's point is not that they didn't have Greek texts; they had them but didn't consider them as part of their heritage. If they had, presumably they would have translated them into Latin (Flynn notes that the Latin West kept catalogs of their Latin works) or kept up with their Greek.

Carrier in fact is saying pretty much the same thing as Flynn. Is Flynn questioning whether the Latin West had Greek texts, or whether they could speak Greek or not (at least at the start)? If not, why does Carrier respond the way he does?

dog-on

Carrier's point seems to be that the texts were indeed part of the heritage, though there was no need to translate them into Latin simply because the people involved spoke Greek.

avi

Thanks Clive. You may be correct, however, I have three reasons for supposing the contrary to be the case.

1. North American trade between "Indians" living in Ontario, Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and those living in Georgia, Florida, Alabama and South Carolina. The respective (Copper south, Sea Shells north) artifacts recovered, suggest long distance, rather than simply local trade.

2. Greek influence on both China and Japan suggests, at least to me, that Asians spent time, physically present, in Greece.

3. Commercial realities:
Silk manufacture in FuJian, (origin of the silk route) was a labor intensive enterprise, which required, for this kind of commerce, huge investments. Think of transporting coal or lumber from Montana to Boston. What, you are going to truck it from Helena to Pierre, and then stop, to sell the wood and coal to a merchant there, in South Dakota? Not likely. Such a trader would soon become bankrupt, because there is no demand in South Dakota for the goods being transported at high cost to the merchant. Boston, on the other hand, needed those raw materials--big demand= big profit.

In other words, for the trade to make economic sense, the merchandise has to receive a generous markup in price, compared with the cost of transporting plus the huge risk of total loss due to banditry. Where was the big demand for Silk? Surely not next door, in WuHan or HangZhou.

The ancient Romans were so keen on silk, that they endeavored to learn how to cultivate the silk worm, in order to meet the high demand for silk garments. But that's another story. My point is simply this: No, I don't believe for a minute that the Han Chinese merchants would simply yield their valuable cargo to some Uighurs, Uzbeks or Turks, who undoubtedly theatened to steal the entire cargo, if it were not entrusted entirely to them to transport to Istanbul, terminus of the route.

To maximize high profits, the merchants simply needed a modest size army to accompany the caravan. Labor in China has always been "free", and hiring an extra thousand swordsmen and archers was no big deal. Keeping them alive, after an attack, however, was not so simple, and that's where Chinese medicine and surgery was so successful. There was no way to replenish those loyal troops, once fallen, so wounded warriors headed west from Urumqi after a local skirmish, necessitated an extra month long delay, to heal and prepare for the next battle, perhaps at Samarkand....

avi

GakuseiDon

Bottom line: If Carrier is using "heritage" to mean "they had the Greek texts", does Carrier seem to suggest that Flynn is saying that the Latin West didn't get Greek texts?

Here is Carrier's response again:

Toto

No.

I don't see how you can make that misreading, or why you persist.

Carrier clearly is saying the Greek texts were part of the Latin West's heritage. They were at one point widely read and well integrated into Roman knowledge (much as Latin texts would have been widely understood a few centuries ago among the educated classes.) The point is that something was lost in the Dark Ages.

Flynn for some reason did not think that the Greek texts were part of that heritage - he clearly knew that some Roman libraries had Greek texts, but he seems to say that they were not part of the cultural heritage. I don't know why - he may have a different idea of what the Latin West is, or what counts as cultural heritage, or he might have been mistaken.

Toto

I see you edited your post after I answered it.

You now say: I don't think that is how Carrier is using the term heritage. He implies much more than the mere possession of the texts.