Secret Chief
Veteran Member
So if I write a book that starts with "In the beginning" I can then claim the content predates whatever I wish to say?
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Bible, the foundational book of books?
- Thread starter Colt
- Start date
Early communities usually lived near water. Floods are a common human experience. Before reading, TV, sports, travel, radio, politics, &c, local events and affairs were what people talked about. Legends grew.
But that's all Abrahamic legend and mythology.
There are older ones, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Asian.
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Peterson's speaking of Western, Judeo-Christian culture, not universal human experience.
"Roughly speaking. we [Western culture]have a bedrock of agreement -- that's The Bible, by the way."
"Literally there was only one book, like, as far as our Western culture's concerned..."
The Bible's a compilation of ancient writings and legends. The writings included have changed over time. The standard Catholic and Protestant books were not decreed by God, they were voted on by a specific sect, at specific conferences, to support a specific narrative. Some gospels and writings were included, some rejected. Since then, it's been heavily revised and edited, by men, with agendas.
Our "foundational book" is an accident of history, "because of the arbitrary dictates of power."
"Roughly speaking. we [Western culture]have a bedrock of agreement -- that's The Bible, by the way."
"Literally there was only one book, like, as far as our Western culture's concerned..."
The Bible's a compilation of ancient writings and legends. The writings included have changed over time. The standard Catholic and Protestant books were not decreed by God, they were voted on by a specific sect, at specific conferences, to support a specific narrative. Some gospels and writings were included, some rejected. Since then, it's been heavily revised and edited, by men, with agendas.
Our "foundational book" is an accident of history, "because of the arbitrary dictates of power."
The Torah, we think, was written fairly early but not very early in the first millennium BCE, and the rest of the Tanakh later.
But there were undoubtedly books in existence in Mesopotamia before 2000 BCE, and the Sumerian tales making up what we know as the Epic of Gilgamesh existed in writing by then ─ written in cuneiform on clay tablets, many of which we have.
The Egyptian "Story of Sinuhe" exists by 1800 BCE, though our earliest copies are from later.
The earliest Vedas in India are from the middle of the second millennium BCE.
The earliest Chinese texts are from the second millennium BCE as well, containing both poems and stories.
All of these can legitimately be called books, and are parts of book traditions from long before the bible.
ppp
Well-Known Member
Biblical references are important. But Greek and Roman literature are the backbone of Western lit. That includes, but is not limited to the new testament.
Suave
Simulated character
Our genetic code's Creator message left in our genetic code might very well be the basis of the Bible's first verse.
Our genetic code's creator has left this mathematical pattern in our genetic code conveying to me the symbol of an Egyptian triangle as well as the number 37 embedded in our genetic code.
Eight of the canonical amino acids can be sufficiently defined by the composition of their codon's first and second base nucleotides. The nucleon sum of these amino acids' side chains is 333 (=37 * 3 squared), the sun of their block nucleons (basic core structure) is 592 (=37 * 4 squared), and the sum of their total nucleons is 925 (=37 * 5 squared ). With 37 factored out, this results in 3 squared + 4 squared + 5 squared, which is representative of an Egyptian triangle.
The “Wow! signal” of the terrestrial genetic code Vladimir I. shCherbak, Maxim A. Makukov PII: S0019-1035(13)00079-1 DOI: Redirecting Reference: YICAR 10549 To appear in: Icarus Received Date: 26 June 2012 Revised Date: 31 January 2013 Accepted Date: 12 February 2013 Please cite this article as: V.I. shCherbak, M.A. Makukov, The “Wow! signal” of the terrestrial genetic code, Icarus (2013), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2013.02
https://earth-chronicles.ru/Publications_12/35/64182102-1-s2.0-s0019103513000791-main.pdf
The 3 main words (God, the heaven, the earth) in Hebrew have a gematria numeric value of 777 (111x7), ". which is divisible by 37.
The numeric value of the entire verse is 2701 which is divisible by 37.
We may now proceed to finding the number 37 interlaced in the first verse of the Bible. We can do this by discovering words or groups of words with number values evenly divisible by 37, e.g. the 3 main words (“God” + ”the heaven” + ”the earth” = 777 = 21x37), the 5 first words (“In the beginning” + “created” + “God” + “*” + “the heaven” = 1998 = 54x37), or the last two words separately (“and” = 407 = 11x37 and “the earth” = 296 = 8x37)
You shall have no gods before the Creator of the Heavens and Earth, life's Creator!
Neuropteron
Active Member
Hi,
Paul mentioned Peterson "interesting" type of debating concept in 1 Tim 6:4 " ..., not knowing anything but seeking to raise questions about words..."
The foundation for books is simply man's ability to put words in written form, followed by the invention of the codex.
The foundation for Christianity is the Bible.
To be fair, not everyting Paul says in that scripture might apply to Peterson, but it seems that starting such imaginative debates is simply a means of making himself interesting, and an attempt to divert attention to oneself instead of focusing on real issues.
Kooky
Freedom from Sanity
That's mostly due to the fact that the invention of bound books the way we know them coincides with the Christianization of Rome. Most ancient Mediterranean and Middle Eastern literature from BC was written on either papyrus scrolls or clay tablets.
Given how prominent Christianity came to be in Europe due to the dominance of the Roman Empire, I don't think it's a particularly surprising revelation that Christianity's primary literature would dominate medieval European writing.
A fun fact, though, is that an older, non-Abrahamic version of the Biblical flood myth can be found in the Epic of Gilgamesh, a Sumerian clay tablet text that significantly predates any version of the Bible.
Maybe in other cases... I don't believe in this case. I'll ask Jesus when I see Him.
In this day and age... you can write just about anything
Start your own religion too!
None of what you said is a point to disagree on.
BUT, of course, there still was a Daniel Boone even if legends proliferated.
That is what we are discussing. I'm simply going beyond the historical Abrahamic time frame back to Enoch and his parents.
sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
What you believe isn’t germane. What *is* is what’s cogent.
sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
But he wasn’t 9 feet tall, nor could he hit a b’ar at 300 yards between the eyes with his flintlock.
EXACTLY!
sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
Problem is, we can show that Genesis comes from much older Mesopotamian sources. That fact is “what is.” Your statement is a belief unfounded in fact.
The various philosophical works of ancient Greeks seem to dispute this, though. The Bible came much later than those works, and they remain influential in intellectual and literary fields to this day.
To a very significant extent, you are correct, DS. Though, I would offer this in a bit of refutation: the philosophical works of ancient Greece or Rome spoke more to the highly-educated than to the masses of people.