Mesopotamian Origins

juantoo3 said:
Interesting...so I presume we can equally rubbish "The Golden Bough" by the same argument?
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You should not rely on anything in the Golden Bough that you do not find confirmed in other sources; the same goes for Robert Graves and his very interesting but often misguided speculations. Hislop is much worse than either Frazer or Graves, though not as bad as Zachariah Sitchin, whom I would classify with L. Ron Hubbard, Erich von Daeniken, and Immanuel Velikovsky as borderline-insane.
 
Bob...IMHO you should seriously reconsider your statements about The Golden Bough and Sitchin's work. Of course most serious researchers would not come to the same conclusions that Sitchin did. But I've met and discussed certain things with him and he's certainly not anything like the others that you mentioned.

He did not do the work, in the beginning years, to earn money, begin a religion, or to gain notoriety. He did it for the joy inherent in the discovery of new things. At one time I was a member of the Oriental Institute at Chicago and had access to their library. For my own peace of mind I personally researched and confirmed to my own satisfaction many of the facts which he had uncovered and wove together into his conclusions. Unfortunately I don't agree with his ancient astronaut conclusions. As for Von Daniken, a book of his titled, Gold of the Gods, raises many valid issues which I've also confirmed to my satisfaction. But again I don't agree with his ancient astronaut hypotheses.

The worthwhile nature of Frazier's and Sitchin's work was in the factual information that they compiled and how it was presented. The Golden Bough is acknowledged by many Anthropologists as the first modern comprehensive work of it's kind which effectively tied global cultural patterns and practices together. One doesn't have to base his/her opinions on an author's opinion. But if independently confirmed to one's satisfaction, factual information in any work should be considered to be valid.

flow....:rolleyes:
 
The problem with grand theories is that so many sharp corners get truncated in the process of trying to tie everything together. The best information is in peer reviewed scholarly journals, but one has to know what they are looking for, or have a lot of spare time to browse through and parse a lot of information.

Chris
 
flowperson said:
But I've met and discussed certain things with him and he's certainly not anything like the others that you mentioned.

He did not do the work, in the beginning years, to earn money, begin a religion, or to gain notoriety.
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Neither did Velikovsky or von Daeniken. One of my old roommates met Velikovsky, found him very impressive (I believe he's dead now, not sure). But all three of those guys just went thoroughly bats, no nice way to say it. Le Plongeon and Churchward were classic examples of similar mind-set in earlier generations.
Frazer and Graves are not in that category, and many students of comparative mythology have a lot of affection for their works. But they were working from fragmentary and often distorted information. You should not rely on such outdated sources: Newton's Principia Mathematica would not be a good calculus textbook today, nor is Darwin's Origin of the Species cutting-edge biology!
 
Bob...You are right. The past is the past, and the present is the present. Human abilities of discernment must come into play here. The researcher today must parse past information from what may be known due to findings in the intervals between past and present. Still, there is no denying that today's knowledge base is built upon what has been done in the past. It is the process which proves truth, not individual conclusions.

flow....;)
 
(Mes·o·po·ta´mi·a) [from Gr., meaning "[Land] Between Rivers"].
 
Clue
From the Bible​


Historians have long pointed to the plains of Mesopotamia as the original home of civilization and language. This, in fact, is in full agreement with what is recorded in the Bible. The book of Genesis, in chapter 11, describes an event that took place in the land of Shinar, in Mesopotamia, which provides the needed clue to our investigation.



"All the earth continued to be of one language and of one set of words," says Genesis 11:1. The unity, however, was misused by the people in defiance of God’s purpose for them. "They now said: ‘Come on! Let us build ourselves a city and also a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a celebrated name for ourselves, for fear we may be scattered over all the surface of the earth.’"—Genesis 11:4.


The tower, of course, was the infamous Tower of Babel. Thus, it was in the land of Shinar in Mesopotamia that God confused man’s language. "That is why its name was called Babel, because there Jehovah had confused the language of all the earth, and Jehovah had scattered them from there over all the surface of the earth."—Genesis 11:9.
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mee...once again you have attempted, and failed, to tie the archaeological and historical record as it pertains to ancient Mesopotamia with the mythological materials in the Bible. There is nothing in the bible that has been tied to historical and scientific fact that a common language of the people of earth was differentiated in a supernatural action by any deity which dwelled there in a tower.

In fact, accumulated evidence points to the differentiation of the common ancient language(s) in the area of what is now Belarus and Ukraine (indo-european languages) and/or South Africa where remnants of the most ancient human language is still spoken by the Khosian or San people of the Kalahari desert.

Since mythological materials by their nature are timeless in their understanding and application to historical events, this all may be happening today since a literal translation of the word "Babel" means "confusion". I choose to believe that cell phone towers are facilitating the process cited in your post concerning the myth in Genesis. Does that make me a heathen ?

flow....:rolleyes:
 
SURPRISING as it may seem to many,
the architecture of this world’s religions does not have noble origins. ​

It has much in common with a building project undertaken many centuries ago in defiance of God’s purpose for mankind to spread about in the earth.—Gen. 11:4.
This happened not long after the global flood in the days of Noah. A considerable number of the human family settled in the plains of Shinar along the Euphrates River. (Gen. 11:2) There they began building a city, Babel, and a tower. That tower was doubtless a ziggurat, to be used in the worship of false gods. Says the Encyclopædia Judaica:
"Scholars agree that the edifice referred to in Genesis 11 is clearly a ziqqurat, or Mesopotamian temple tower. The ziqqurat . . . was the central feature of the great ​

temples which were built in all important Mesopotamian cities."—Vol. 4, p. 23.
 
Okay mee. I'm going to recite a mantra to myself that every time I see your name next to a post, I will totaly disregard it's content and out-of-context, cut-and-paste message, and its implications. Unfortunately you are the first forum member in the past two years that I've had to take this tack with.

If you are purposefully being annoying in your usurpation of the purposes of this forum in the interest of asserting the veracity of your religious beliefs and those of your equally annoying brethern, then so be it. All I know is that the COC is clear on the issue of prosyletization.

I would certainly consider that what you do here is clearly not promoting open discussion in the interest of gaining knowledge about other belief systems. It is to manipulate and coerce others who are looking for their own answers into following your somewhat distorted, cut and paste versions of reality, history, and their interpretations.

You are perfectly within your rights to do so lacking the intervention of monitors, but at least I no longer have to pay any attention to what you are doing here which is, IMHO, slowly ruining a perfectly viable and open forum for the discussion of beliefs.

Ad Nauseum. Good Luck.

flow....:(
 
Awww Chris...and I always thought that you were such a cute guy. I've got a freezer full of popsicles in the basement.

Or on the other hand he's supposed to be looking out for the arrival of The Man. What if He turns out to be someone like us ? What a dilemma !

flow....:rolleyes:
 
flowperson said:
Okay mee. I'm going to recite a mantra to myself that every time I see your name next to a post, I will totaly disregard it's content and out-of-context, cut-and-paste message, and its implications. Unfortunately you are the first forum member in the past two years that I've had to take this tack with.

If you are purposefully being annoying in your usurpation of the purposes of this forum in the interest of asserting the veracity of your religious beliefs and those of your equally annoying brethern, then so be it. All I know is that the COC is clear on the issue of prosyletization.

I would certainly consider that what you do here is clearly not promoting open discussion in the interest of gaining knowledge about other belief systems. It is to manipulate and coerce others who are looking for their own answers into following your somewhat distorted, cut and paste versions of reality, history, and their interpretations.

You are perfectly within your rights to do so lacking the intervention of monitors, but at least I no longer have to pay any attention to what you are doing here which is, IMHO, slowly ruining a perfectly viable and open forum for the discussion of beliefs.

Ad Nauseum. Good Luck.

flow....:(
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:)
 
the bible speaks about BABYLON THE GREAT And Gods people are commanded to GET OUT OF HER revelation 18;4 , the book of revelation is highly symbolic for the most part , but here it is very clear what this is refering too .

IT IS THE WORLD EMPIRE OF FALSE RELIGION .



And it is a very big confusion :)
 
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