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Post by Sharrukin on May 10, 2004 8:58:34 GMT -5
There are plenty of supernatural occurances in Herodotus. One of his favorites was to mention the prophecies of Delphi to both Greeks and barbarians. Apollo certainly made promises to many people!!!
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Ioulianos
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Post by Ioulianos on May 10, 2004 11:27:58 GMT -5
There are plenty of supernatural occurances in Herodotus. One of his favorites was to mention the prophecies of Delphi to both Greeks and barbarians. Apollo certainly made promises to many people!!! Just as you said he only mentions the prophecies of Delphi and the frecuency of these refers shows the big influence of clergy,for minor to important issues,to both Greeks and Barbarians at this period.This is something a historian need to mention.Herodotus doesnt defend these prophecies.In fact,he makes clear how ambigous they were. |
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Ioulianos
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Post by Ioulianos on May 10, 2004 12:12:24 GMT -5
Well, the god Pan did appear to the messenger sent by the Athenians to Sparta according to Herodotus. I would call that "supernatural". I think you are right on this,Herodotus indeed verifies the appearance of Pan,in "Eratw" if im not wrong.He also mentions a couple of times the appearance of Gods as visions while people sleeping.So 3-4 cases in his 9 book history(even in these cases Gods dont affect the events).On the hand Herodotus traveled a lot,he made autopsy of the locations he mentions,he used topography and ethnography as methods,he interviewed people present to the events he describes,he is reserved in case he is not sure,sometimes he mentions his sources.He may not be Thukydidis,but he makes a decent try to write his stories in a scientific way.Could this work worth the same with hebraic legents?Mythologies can be very informative,if you can decode the information from it,but since the issue is the importance of the source for a modern historian or archaeologist,bible can be compared to Homer(best case) or Isiodos(IMO),not Herodotus. |
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Post by Graeme on May 10, 2004 12:37:42 GMT -5
I thought this thread came under history and prehistory. Religious writings and myths are not historic. I would rather believe what can be substantiated by finds, artifacts, remains of buildings, scrolls and so on that back up the writings of all those authors of the Torah or the bible. Herodotus obviously believed in the Gods and supernatural events. He was a man of his time. The Pythagorians had beliefs about the Cosmos and music. Not everything that is written can be substantiated.
Maybe it is because of my satanic nature, but the bible is just a good read, that is all.
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Post by Sharrukin on May 12, 2004 1:01:50 GMT -5
I agree that religious writings are not history, but they do contain "history". Even the writers of such biblical books as I and II Chronicles and I and II Kings make reference of secular records such as The Annals of the Kings of Judah or The Annals of the Kings of Israel. But as always, what they claim obviously have to be weighted by other mitigating evidence. Sometimes the biblical evidence is even confirmed. For a time the Babylonian king Belshazzar of the Book of Daniel was thought to have been a fictitious character, until we found cuneiform tablets which established that indeed he was a king, co-ruler of Babylon with his father Nabu-na'id. His original Babylonian name was Bel-shar-usur.
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