Sauron

Indeed. It's interesting to note that neither Roger Pearse nor any of his co-religionists have tried to address my Herodotus example.

It's pretty obvious why they avoid doing so: they'd like to tell skeptics that detecting fanciful or spectacular claims like this one is pretty obviously done, based upon what we know about science and history. The only problem is they can't suggest any yardstick by which to reject spectacular claims in Herotodus, while allowing spectacular claims in the bible to stand. At the end of the day, all their left with is personal bias and special pleading.

So to avoid painting themselves into such a corner, they stay well and far away from addressing any examples like Herodotus. Roger et.al. are able to see checkmate coming in three moves just like everyone else can. :devil:

andrewcriddle

I've posted the Herodotus quote here.
IIUC Herodotus says that a/ he saw a lot of bones and b/ he was told some rather wild stories about them. He does not seem to claim to have actually seen live winged serpents.

Andrew Criddle

gstafleu

I would agree. Herodotus says he saw bones of serpents, but doesn't say these bones were of winged serpents: "On my arrival I saw the back-bones and ribs of serpents..." Then, when talking about the winged serpents, he says "The story goes that with the spring..." I think he has some reservations about the winged serpents.

Gerard Stafleu

Sauron

Two points:

1. The fact that he was reporting what others told him uncritically puts him square in the middle of the usual practice of antiquity. The question of whether we accept his testimony without questioning it -- or the testimony of whomever Herodotus interviewed -- still stands. And of course, it has parallel implications for similar claims in the bible (i.e., I don't think even bible literalists believe that Moses was around to see the advanced lifespan of Methuselah);

2. He did, in fact, say that he saw physical evidence of the animals. Read more carefully:

On my arrival I saw the back-bones and ribs of serpents in such numbers as it is impossible to describe: of the ribs there were a multitude of heaps, some great, some small, some middle-sized. The place where the bones lie is at the entrance of a narrow gorge between steep mountains, which there open upon a spacious plain communicating with the great plain of Egypt.

Minimalist

Herodotus makes a claim that Xerxes' invasion force for Greece numbered a combined 2.3 million, land and sea. Marching along a single road, the head of the column would have been weeks ahead of the rear. Caesar claims that a quarter of a million Gauls came to relieve Alesia a force which would have been gathered while the seige of the main army was already in progress.
The bible claims 185,000 Assyrians beseiged Jerusalem ( a town of perhaps 15,000 at the time.) For that matter, the bible claims some 2 million "Israelites" fled Egypt, which, were the numbers true, would have meant that they would have been evicting the Egyptians not the other way around.

In every case the inflation of the numbers serves to embellish the victory. There is no reason at all to suspect that the numbers are close to realistic. Before anyone thinks that this is strictly an ancient failing, let's remember that during WWII the US claimed that the Japanese were "trained jungle fighters." Tokyo is roughly at the latitude of San Francisco. There are damned few "jungles" around San Francisco. Captured diaries of Japanese soldiers on Guadalcanal showed exactly how unprepared they were for war in the "jungle." But facts make lousy propaganda.

Cheerful Charlie

Well you see, the ibises ate the last of the flying snakes 2000 years ago....

And is it any different than the 8 nillions that believed Joseph Smith's nonsense? Ancient books on golden plates indeed!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynocephaly

CC

Roger Pearse

There are many problems with numerals in ancient texts.

Firstly actually transmitting them accurately is very difficult. They tend to get corrupted very easily, since they are usually represented by letters, and so can be mistaken for words. Indeed St. Jerome himself made such a mistake while translating the Chronicle of Eusebius (he corrected it later), demonstrating that even in antiquity people got confused, never mind afterwards.

Secondly there is no means to accurately measure large numbers. Indeed the terms used may not signify to us what they did to the author; is 'myriad' 10,000? or just 'lots'? A Roman century of men is... 80 men.

When we see a figure that is written as 36,000 years, it may be a (ancient or modern) expansion of '120 sars', involving assumptions about what a sar actually is or means.

When we see 100 million, should we read "a myriad of myriads" (i.e. hyperbole for "lots")?

So some caution needed here, quite aside from any deliberate tendency to inflate numbers.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Sauron

So given all the above, why were you assuming, a priori, that the antediluvian patriarchs were men of extremely long age, and must have been 'different' than modern man?

As opposed to writing it all off as a probable mistake or mistranslation of the number of years they lived?

gurugeorge

Not if it's possible to "read between the lines" - i.e. the fact that people lie, that victors tell a skewed story of the struggle they came out on top of doesn't stop people trying to dig up the true story from inconsistencies in the lies, and remnants of the losers' stories (that kind of thing).

Objective history means first of all that at a certain time certain human beings moved around in a certain way, manipulated matter in a certain way, and certain sounds came out of their mouths. That's the baseline objectivity that's possible. Then on top of that, there will be an objective fact about how the significance of those sounds and movements will have been understood by contemporaries, and although this will obviously be harder to discover, it's not impossible in principle.

Roger Pearse

For the benefit of anyone else: 'Sauron' has long since gone into my ignore list.

Always good to see what is actually said. As Routh said, "always verify your references".

All the best,

Roger Pearse