Can studying history be of any importance?

Discuss the March 2021 Philosophy Book of the Month, The Biblical Clock: The Untold Secrets Linking the Universe and Humanity with God’s Plan by Daniel Friedmann.
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Sculptor1
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Re: Can studying history be of any importance?

Post by Sculptor1 »

Sushan wrote: April 18th, 2021, 8:56 am
Sculptor1 wrote: March 6th, 2021, 8:36 am
Sushan wrote: March 5th, 2021, 11:21 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: March 5th, 2021, 4:28 pm
Their is no evidence for a Trojan horse.
I doubt this book has anything of historical value.
The author is not a historian. He qualified as in engineering physics, and this book is "delf published" - in other world no publisher was willing to take it on.
I see. Trojan horse was just a creation of Homer.
No. You are not speaking from knowledge.
The horse does not appear in Homer.
It comes to us through Virgil
But the attack on Troy was true. So maybe the biblical stories have that sort of a historical value.
The location is Troy is still a speculation.
Wars are a constant factor of humanity, and it is no surprise that Schleiman found a buned level at the site he took to be Troy but later archaeology (where the evidence had not been completely ruined by his digging) shows that the burned layer on the site was at least 700 years earlier.
As of today the many sites that are candidates may or may not refer to what is essentially a "story" and not an "account" of an actual event. Most scholars regard Homer as giving a consdensed view of a long oral history.
I can tell you more about this, if you are interested, since I studied this in detail.
As for the bible, there are many inconsistencies and downright falsehoods.
Even so mundane a fact as Jews in Egypt is a speculation for several reasons.
There is not one scrap of evidence fro Egypt of the Jews ever being there. And compared to all other places Egypt provides the richest source of ancient history.

So what the bible is useful for is to understand how religions seek to invent for themselves a deeper history. Judaism was a new religous movement that emerged as late as 700bc, and they basically invented the genesis and exodus story it seems, from a point of ignorance.
Tell me why they thought the name of the ruler of Egypt was "Pharoah"? They did not seem to know which one. If they had then it would have been possible to date the exodus.

But the clown who wrote and self-published this book is not interested in any of that. He want so understand the meaning of the universe from the accounts of some post dark age goat herders.
This is insane.


And, yes, this author was not a historian, but he claims of studying the various scriptures (and I understand that scriptures cannot be taken as historical evidence either). And the book is self-published, and we actually do not know why is that, because this book has got many positive reviews and some author should have agreed to publish it. Maybe the author just self-published it.

Anyway, I agree with your point on that this book or this author's area of interest is not of any value when it comes to studying history.
I have not studied history in the manner that you have done. So I have only some common knowledge and there is a high chance for that to be false. I would like to here more regarding this war of Troy (or this so called 'speculation') from your deep and vast knowledge.
I assume you want to hear more about the seige of Troy? The oldest account is told in The Illiad, and the Odyssey is a story of the continuing advantures of Odysseus, wherein more of the background to the war and Ithaka's role is told. They can be read in verse or prose translations. I'd recommend the Rieu translations in prose. You will find the the adventures of the Greek heroes are embellished with many mythical elements and divine elements.
There is also nearly three thousand years of peripheral and exploratory reflections up to the modern day. Many of this is highly fictional, though there is much sober academic work which tries to reconstruct the social history of the times as well as serious attempts to uncover the halls of Illium and show archaeological evidence that such a seige took place.
Sadly the earliest person to spend real time and money on this was the German charlatan Heinrich Schliemann who faked much evidence and destroyed any subsequent attempts to complete serious excavations on the proposed site.

What is key to the discussion here is that The "poems" I mention above were considered a serious source of knowledge of the Gods, in ancient times, until outlawed by the later Christian establishments.
Today The Illiad and Odyssey can be mined for knowledge about the systems of beliefs from the ancient times. I regard the Bible in the same way; useful to understand the people of two thousand years ago, but utterly useless for today.


I agree. The Bible cannot be taken as a true historical data source. And also, seemingly, this author has no intention on giving a historically accurate story, but to just prove what he found by studying religious scriptures, logically and scientifically.
"Scientifically?" LOL
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Sushan
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Re: Can studying history be of any importance?

Post by Sushan »

Sculptor1 wrote: April 18th, 2021, 3:38 pm
Sushan wrote: April 18th, 2021, 8:56 am
Sculptor1 wrote: March 6th, 2021, 8:36 am
Sushan wrote: March 5th, 2021, 11:21 pm

I see. Trojan horse was just a creation of Homer.
No. You are not speaking from knowledge.
The horse does not appear in Homer.
It comes to us through Virgil
But the attack on Troy was true. So maybe the biblical stories have that sort of a historical value.
The location is Troy is still a speculation.
Wars are a constant factor of humanity, and it is no surprise that Schleiman found a buned level at the site he took to be Troy but later archaeology (where the evidence had not been completely ruined by his digging) shows that the burned layer on the site was at least 700 years earlier.
As of today the many sites that are candidates may or may not refer to what is essentially a "story" and not an "account" of an actual event. Most scholars regard Homer as giving a consdensed view of a long oral history.
I can tell you more about this, if you are interested, since I studied this in detail.
As for the bible, there are many inconsistencies and downright falsehoods.
Even so mundane a fact as Jews in Egypt is a speculation for several reasons.
There is not one scrap of evidence fro Egypt of the Jews ever being there. And compared to all other places Egypt provides the richest source of ancient history.

So what the bible is useful for is to understand how religions seek to invent for themselves a deeper history. Judaism was a new religous movement that emerged as late as 700bc, and they basically invented the genesis and exodus story it seems, from a point of ignorance.
Tell me why they thought the name of the ruler of Egypt was "Pharoah"? They did not seem to know which one. If they had then it would have been possible to date the exodus.

But the clown who wrote and self-published this book is not interested in any of that. He want so understand the meaning of the universe from the accounts of some post dark age goat herders.
This is insane.


And, yes, this author was not a historian, but he claims of studying the various scriptures (and I understand that scriptures cannot be taken as historical evidence either). And the book is self-published, and we actually do not know why is that, because this book has got many positive reviews and some author should have agreed to publish it. Maybe the author just self-published it.

Anyway, I agree with your point on that this book or this author's area of interest is not of any value when it comes to studying history.
I have not studied history in the manner that you have done. So I have only some common knowledge and there is a high chance for that to be false. I would like to here more regarding this war of Troy (or this so called 'speculation') from your deep and vast knowledge.
I assume you want to hear more about the seige of Troy? The oldest account is told in The Illiad, and the Odyssey is a story of the continuing advantures of Odysseus, wherein more of the background to the war and Ithaka's role is told. They can be read in verse or prose translations. I'd recommend the Rieu translations in prose. You will find the the adventures of the Greek heroes are embellished with many mythical elements and divine elements.
There is also nearly three thousand years of peripheral and exploratory reflections up to the modern day. Many of this is highly fictional, though there is much sober academic work which tries to reconstruct the social history of the times as well as serious attempts to uncover the halls of Illium and show archaeological evidence that such a seige took place.
Sadly the earliest person to spend real time and money on this was the German charlatan Heinrich Schliemann who faked much evidence and destroyed any subsequent attempts to complete serious excavations on the proposed site.

What is key to the discussion here is that The "poems" I mention above were considered a serious source of knowledge of the Gods, in ancient times, until outlawed by the later Christian establishments.
Today The Illiad and Odyssey can be mined for knowledge about the systems of beliefs from the ancient times. I regard the Bible in the same way; useful to understand the people of two thousand years ago, but utterly useless for today.


I agree. The Bible cannot be taken as a true historical data source. And also, seemingly, this author has no intention on giving a historically accurate story, but to just prove what he found by studying religious scriptures, logically and scientifically.
"Scientifically?" LOL
Thank you for the insight. I see your point. Many of these ancient literature are sources for us to see the thinking pattern of the people of those days. But it seems that for sometime the world has gone after a false lead by believing that these texts are actual history, rather than being mere fictional stories.

I think it is better not to take the bible also as a historical data source, because someday some other belief system or science may completely disprove what the biblical stories say. We can use the bible to get a general idea about the time period and to understand the thoughts of the people of that era and that particular geographical area.
“There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers”

– William James
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