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Permalink Reply by Rusty Gunn. on April 25, 2010 at 9:14pm

"How much information was lost forever when the Christians burned the Library at Alexandria?"

I spent a bit of time investigating that event and there appears to be some controversy over just who did burn down the library. One story is that a fleet of Roman ships in the harbor were intentionally set afire to, prevent them from falling into the wrong hands, and subsequently set the docks on fire. The library was close to the docks and it went up in flames during the conflageration. But, who knows, that could be a cock & bull story put out by the early church to take the "heat" off of them.

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Permalink Reply by Matt VDB on April 26, 2010 at 1:06pm

The burning of the library of Alexandria is definitely a well-known historical myth (sort of, at least), whether it was done by Christians or muslims (the two most well-known culprits).
However, real history is a little bit more complicated. The Great Library decayed and suffered various depredations and fires over the centuries. This happened to such an extent that when a Christian mob burned the Serapeum down in the Fourth Century (or an Islamic army in the Seventh Century), there was barely anything of the original Library left.

Interestingly, Roman culprits like Caesar and Aurelian tend not to get mentioned when people get into a frenzy over the "destruction" of the Library. The story of the library of Alexandria is a story about how the ancients (Romans, early Christians, some muslims, Egyptians) did not always take a great collection of knowledge seriously.

For a historiographic overview of the slow process whereby we eventually lost the library, see this site:
http://www.bede.org.uk/library.htm
(Yes, yes, I know it's written by a Christian, but I find the research and scholarship concerning the historical stuff to be fair and sound)

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Permalink Reply by Roy The Infidel on December 24, 2009 at 10:03pm

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." - Napoleon Bonaparte

That sums it all up.

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Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on December 25, 2009 at 1:42pm

On your original post/thoughts Rayray...

I think unconsciously, many of the books of the bible, especially the Old Testament, had more cultural identity motives behind them originally.

But the motives of the Council of Nicea were far more political. Even if they didn't acknowledge it out loud or even to themselves.

People, and especially leaders who feel they have God on their side, have an amazing ability to lie to themselves in order to tell a 'truth' (or what they believe that to be) to the public.

A boy is told from birth that he was chosen by God to be king. There's a good chance that deep down he really does believe it. "I am King. God chose me. The people need me to tell them what to do. Gee, I hate to burn all these heretics at the stake but it's what God wants from me."

One can easily satisfy any twinges of guilt over a latent, inner urge to be cruel for cruelty's sake and see people burned alive by shifting the responsibility to God. "Gee, it's not me that wants to torture you mercilessly, it's God, and you wouldn't want me to disobey God would you?"

Like right now, it's not really me that wants the second bowl of bad-for-me sugary breakfast cereal. It's some external deity outside of myself. Darn that external deity, 'making' me do this bad thing (which deep down I really wanted to do anyway)."

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Permalink Reply by Tedster on December 26, 2009 at 10:07pm

The Bible was written so that we can have rolling papers in any hotel that we stay in.

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Permalink Reply by Rayray on December 27, 2009 at 8:51am

Haha! Oh, nice!

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Permalink Reply by Matt A on December 31, 2009 at 1:58am

Much of the bible is simply adaptation from ancient Sumerian mythology. The biblical flood story in genesis is a direct rip off of the story of Gilgamesh. I would not be surprised it it was simply a collection of myths strewn together.

An Egyptian cult may have well used Sumerian myths, as Sumeria and ancient Egypt were contemporary societies.

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Permalink Reply by Howard S. Dunn on December 27, 2009 at 11:15am

The Bible - the one in the motel rooms you have to take the gold leaf off of that convenient blank page to roll with - had a ton of peoples' hands on it before it ended up in that drawer.

Much of that movie Zeitgeist is correct in its initial premise and a screed (def 1c) or 'case' made to suggest a circumstantial hypothesis as fact by barely more than simple assertion. We know that Egyptian after-life mythology predates Christianity and its Jewish foreshadowing. We know that the written tale of Gilgamesh predates the Noah story. We also know that deifying the ruler was common practice and, before that, the shaman of the tribe was always part of the way a government held its people together.

But, think about this - the 'people' were illiterate. Poetry and pottery were how information was passed down. 'Religion' is a word more directly tied to 'tradition' than 'god.' One meaning is 'relink' or 'link back.' Moses was just shy of being in line to be Pharaoh. This might be myth too - but someone wrote those first five books down, and they were subversive - the creation of a new god for a new government.

The Councils of Nicea and other political meetings were just that - political meetings to keep 'civilization' intact as the Christians gained power.

The Crusades, all the wars in the Holy land up to this day, The Inquisition, Henry the VIII's family, the trouble in Ireland (where the Bible was maintained and radically changed during the Dark Ages), Gutenberg and his movable type that allowed the protestants to succeed, etc. all had a hand in the written work.

But it goes back to two things - convincing people you speak for god is the most effective source of power, and oral traditions (often practical wisdom) can be made into an anthology that serves the process of 'convincing people you speak for god.'

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Permalink Reply by Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM on December 27, 2009 at 11:24am

If my memory of Christian history is correct, the various Christian Bibles (there are three versions: Protestant, Catholic, Coptic) are collections of books voted into a cannon of "god-inspired-because-we-say-so" books by a committee of clerics commissioned by the Emperor Constantine. It was the end of the process of inventing a religion which would unite the people of Rome. The "divinely inspired" process was full of blood-thirsty take-overs, the wholesale slaughter of rival groups and the destruction of manuscripts which could undermine the final crafted product. The history reads more like the work of an evil devil than a god described as "loving". In the end, the Biblical product was still in dispute, hence the three versions of it which remain. Surprisingly few Bible-Based-Christians are aware that the version they think of as the actual word-of-god is only one of the three versions which resulted from the 4th century Emperor's Commission.

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Permalink Reply by Howard S. Dunn on December 27, 2009 at 11:42am

This is a good summary of that aspect. However, there is now evidence that an Irish monk - keeping the Bible 'intact' - wrote the 'throw the first stone' parable from the blank page. Also, keep in mind that the Catholic Church - to this day - does not want its parishioners to read the Bible of interpret it. Rather, they want to read it to them, piecemeal, and interpret it for them via the homily.

As to the Bible-Based-Christians - yes it is surprising, since they want to take it literally at the same time.

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Permalink Reply by Gaylene Wetzel on April 25, 2010 at 10:30pm

the so-called Jehovah's Witnesses do the same thing, with the same nauseating results.

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Permalink Reply by Rayray on December 30, 2009 at 7:17pm

3 different versions came from the same council? Did not realize that. Was this to appease many different people?

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