Conversation

Notices

1. mental meltdown (netdoll@ryona.agency)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 09:35:31 JST mental meltdown

   • Alex
   • mia
   @hermit @mia Unleavened for mourning usually, especially around themes of exile. Yeast-risen bread connotes a certain level of stability and prosperity that times of calamity don't have, and the bread being unleavened also calls back to the observance of the Passover ritual from the time of the (legendary, IMHO) captivity in Egypt and the subsequent events stemming from that. Incidentally, this actually turned into a point of contention between the West and the East when Christianity came around since for the Eucharist, the Roman West used unleavened bread in keeping with the Passover tradition, and the East used yeast-risen bread to symbolize the resurrection and kingship of Christ.
   • mental meltdown (netdoll@ryona.agency)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:01:29 JST mental meltdown

     in reply to

     • Alex
     • mia
     @hermit @mia Then you would have to argue that Phoenician city-states underwent the same development and the archaeological record just doesn't bear that out. Phoenician glyphs did derive in an indirect sense from Egyptian and Mesopotamian writing systems, but that was more down to commercial trading relationships with said places than to any legendary blood memory of Egyptian captivity (based as it was on the effects of the Bronze Age Collapse on the region)
   • Alex (hermit@hermitmountain.top)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:01:30 JST Alex

     in reply to

     • mia
     @netdoll @mia
     >(legendary, IMHO) captivity in Egypt
     
     Wait, how do you explain proto-Hebrew then? It looks to me like it was clearly the result of enslaved former Canaanites in Egypt who had lost their literacy appropriating Egyptian heiroglyphs as a phonetic alphabet to write their own language in.
   • mia (mia@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:04:58 JST mia

     in reply to

     • Alex
     @netdoll @hermit
     
     It seems more likely that slavery was a metaphor representing the collapse of Egyptian regional control and the opportunity for Yaweh cult to expand.
     mental meltdown likes this.
   • mental meltdown (netdoll@ryona.agency)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:05:43 JST mental meltdown

     in reply to

     • Alex
     • mia
     @mia @hermit And the collapse of said authority started during the Bronze Age Collapse so my point still (at least partially) stands.
   • mia (mia@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:07:58 JST mia

     in reply to

     • Alex
     @netdoll @hermit
     
     I was saying "more likely" in contrast to the Moses story at face value, not against your post (which is a bit beyond me) sorry if that was unclear.
     mental meltdown likes this.
   • mental meltdown (netdoll@ryona.agency)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:08:18 JST mental meltdown

     in reply to

     • Alex
     • mia
     @mia @hermit Yeah no worries lol, I think the two narratives complement each other if anything
   • mental meltdown (netdoll@ryona.agency)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:13:34 JST mental meltdown

     in reply to

     • Alex
     • mia
     @hermit @mia Possibly historical although the record is so muddled we have no definite way of knowing one way or the other. But historical or not, he represents a way to bind Mesopotamian influence into the incipient Jewish ethnocultural identity.
   • mia (mia@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:13:35 JST mia

     in reply to

     • Alex
     @hermit @netdoll
     
     This is right at the end of that era, yeah. As the Egyptian empire falls apart local powers suddenly find themselves to be big fish.
   • Alex (hermit@hermitmountain.top)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:13:35 JST Alex

     in reply to

     • mia
     @mia @netdoll I WANT to contradict this but I can't call to mind the thing that I'm thinking of. 2021 was a blur of frenzied research for me and I burned all my notes like a true schizo. Oh well.
     
     While you're both here: thoughts on the historicity of Abraham?
   • Alex (hermit@hermitmountain.top)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:13:37 JST Alex

     in reply to

     • mia
     @mia @netdoll But doesn't Egypt have records where they flex about shitting all over Canaan?
   • mia (mia@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:13:41 JST mia

     in reply to

     • Alex
     • mia
     @hermit @netdoll
     
     It's bigger than just the Egyptians though, it's not even directly them. It's the entire known international order going sideways all at once. End of the Hittites, rise of the Neo-Assyrian.
     mental meltdown likes this.
   • mental meltdown (netdoll@ryona.agency)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:17:35 JST mental meltdown

     in reply to

     • Alex
     • mia
     @mia @hermit I'm going to slap you for that one one of these days.
   • mia (mia@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:17:36 JST mia

     in reply to

     • Alex
     @netdoll @hermit
     
     The Ur-Heretic. ;)
   • Alex (hermit@hermitmountain.top)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:21:16 JST Alex

     in reply to

     • mia
     @netdoll @mia The Bible as History by Werner Keller focuses primarily on biblical archaeology with a particular emphasis on how 19th century archaeologists found Ur by retracing the steps in the story of Abraham. That's not necessarily an argument for the historicift of Abraham himself but I do find it suggestive.
     
     What gets me most is the actual story of Abraham's life tho. It's not really in line with the rest of the material, is it? The guy is a very obvious magician described as performing a ritual that put him into contact with a god. No moral commandments are given to him, in fact, this god seems to be at his beck and call, with a vested interest in securing his family and lineage (consider that Sarah openly laughs when this god says it can restore her fertility, and nothing bad happens; it simply calls her out on having laughed and then makes good on its promise.) There's no apparent moral to the story of Abraham, it just describes a magician getting rich by scamming a pharaoh.
     
     Why include that for the purposes of some kind of allegory?
     mental meltdown likes this.
   • ec670@pawoo.net's status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:22:40 JST ec670

     in reply to

     • Alex
     • mia

     @hermit @mia @netdoll
     Source?

   • Alex (hermit@hermitmountain.top)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:22:40 JST Alex

     in reply to

     • ec670
     • mia
     @ec670 @mia @netdoll
     mental meltdown likes this.
   • Alex (hermit@hermitmountain.top)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:22:55 JST Alex

     in reply to

     • ec670
     • Alex
     • mia
     @ec670 @mia @netdoll But seriously, I burned my notes from back then and I'm having trouble digging it out now, so I'm wondering if I somehow gaslit myself
     mental meltdown likes this.
   • mia (mia@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:23:29 JST mia

     in reply to

     • ec670
     • Alex
     @hermit @ec670 @netdoll
     
     If you just say "Nag Hammadi" with enough sneer, people believe it.
     mental meltdown likes this.
   • mental meltdown (netdoll@ryona.agency)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:31:31 JST mental meltdown

     in reply to

     • ec670
     • Alex
     • mia
     @mia @hermit @ec670 If I remember correctly, regardless of their origin in the Aegean, they assimilated to Semitic language and culture over a couple of generations or so, and this language was the same one the Paleo-Hebrews spoke, as well as the Phoenicians and their trading colonies.
   • ec670@pawoo.net's status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:31:32 JST ec670

     in reply to

     • Alex
     • mia

     @hermit @mia @hermit @netdoll
     My understanding is that Paleo-Hebrew was the same language as the Philistine and Canaanite language. When David was pursued by Saul and defected to the Philistines, he did not require a translator.

   • mia (mia@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:31:32 JST mia

     in reply to

     • ec670
     • Alex
     @ec670 @hermit @netdoll
     
     > Philistine
     
     Why would Aegean migrants speak Canaanite?
   • mia (mia@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:34:37 JST mia

     in reply to

     • ec670
     • Alex
     @hermit @ec670 @netdoll
     
     I think I was just just reflexive disagreement on my part, I don't have a real issue to argue, lots of time between immigration and Saul anyway.
     mental meltdown likes this.
   • Alex (hermit@hermitmountain.top)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 10:34:38 JST Alex

     in reply to

     • ec670
     • mia
     @mia @ec670 @netdoll They must have been trading surely? I don't know how much mutual intelligibility there was. Aegean languages seem primarily Indo-European and Canaanite seems to have been Semitic, so not much overlap on the surface I guess.