[joshua_78]

Thank you VERY much.

[joshua_78]

What bugs me about this book is my personal feelings, as a parent, regarding the children of ancient Greece having to memorize these lines. I expect to grant leniency on many things, when dealing with works throughout history, affording more as I go further back. Especially with literature on war, I expect it to be disgusting and bring out every horrible aspect of mankind. What troubles me is thinking of children memorizing some of the very grotesque depictions of death, particularly the empaling of people in detailed fashion. This is my first reading of epic poetry so you might be right that I’m not reading it in the proper sense. However, I sense a lot of psychological damage was unfortunately bestowed on many generations of greek children. I will say this much, I feel I learn more about myself from reading/seeing things that I do not like as opposed to things I do. For that reason, I feel I must finish this book just for the sake of self-exploration.

[joshua_78]

Apologies on my improper terminology; I meant B.C. Or BCE (which I dislike, personally). I’m just trying to get a grasp at the times before we started keeping records in a linear fashion. Your reply time is understandable and I appreciate you replying.

[joshua_78]

Thank you professor Jewell… After going through your lecture on Homeric poems and Ancient Greek religion, I’ve decided to keep on trucking through the Iliad.

[joshua_78]

I must say, I haven’t been enjoying the Iliad, one bit. I am reading the Barnes & Noble version translated by Samuel Butler. It seems like a lot of senseless violence for 115 pages straight. I understand we’re dealing with much more brutal times but I am wondering what I would hope to get out of this book aside from understanding when other authors use this book as a comparison? I do enjoy classical literature but I am just not enjoying this one.

[joshua_78]

I thought the timeline was a little less than 600 years but after reopening the book immediately saw that you were right. What I was pondering for myself was the idea/possibility that since all pre-history comes from a fixated timeline, relying on the accuracy of the Egyptian empire, that maybe there’s even more of these gaps out there. Aside from Velikovsky, whom i was told was an idealist, simply trying to promote the legitimacy of his religion, I hadn’t much to go on regarding whether there was truth to his calculations. After hearing your presentation on the Grecian theory around a dark age, I’ve been reinvigorated to look at this further.

I was always fascinated by Velikovsky’s work but thought it was isolated. Though there are varying gaps in time, is it fair to argue that if there is any truth to overlapping rulers, that much of pre history is suspect? In other words, either of these theories may be true based on which pharaoh ruled singularly or concurrently. Taking Everything into consideration: the intermediate periods of Egyptian rule, the multiple rulers at one time (on occasion), the understanding that Egyptian scribes only wrote about what they wanted known (ie, they never wrote about losing battles, mummification, etc.), the strange fact that each pharoah had 5 names-some of which were interchangeable with other pharoahs- and the fact that we use this as the basis for calculating all of pre-history, I guess I’m basically curious of how deep this goes? Are there any more works of scholars that might help make pre-history more concrete for someone interested?

[Author]

Posts