by Seventhson » Thu Nov 17, 2005 3:06 am
History gets passed down orally and in the written word. many myths are based on real events and people, and many events are also confabulated into myths and lies.<br><br>This particular story doesn't seem to have much weight to it - but the use of the name in the same area where the oral and later written histories place it is pretty interesting.<br><br>Having travelled in the "Holy Land" of Israel/Palestine and been to many of the historical sites, it is easy to see both viewpoints. But the fact is that the Jews in particular were very intent (at least the priest class) in writing things down and passing them on. History may well have been rewritten and fabricated by Biblical writers.<br><br>But when you walk amidst the ruins of the Temple Mount and its environs, or on the Wall of ancient Jerusalem - or in the Monastary ruins at Qumran ; and you realize that there were REAL people who were believed to be prophets - there were real Kings an Patriarchs and priests; there were real battles and legends based on real events (and frankly as a historian I tend to give credence to many of the oral traditions as at least based on some factual foundation, even if more often than not factually distorted over time).<br><br>Did Solomon and David exist? I am pretty damn sure they did. In part because I have SEEN the ancient walls where the Temple stood.<br><br>I have been to the mountaintops of Masada and Moriah and Gethsemane (the Mount of Olives) and walked the Via Dolorosa as well as the alleged site of Mary Magdalene's village and Capernaum. These cities are ancient and were inhabited by educated Greeks and Romans and Syrians and Arabs over the millennia, not to mention the Jews who had their own scribes and historians.<br><br>I have been to the village alleged to be the place of Samson.<br><br>Just as ancient Greek stories may be based on fact (or the stories of Buddha or Confucius or Krishna), do not too readily dismiss the historical basis of something simply because it is written in "The Book".<br><br><br>When you are there in a palace bult by Herod on Masada - or in a cave alleged to have housed a scroll found in the 1940's but written more than 2000 years ago - or travel in the Dead Sea region where Sodom and Gomorrah were alleged to have been - or in the 10,000 year old cities of Jaffa or Jericho (which have been continuously occupied cities since their foundation) and you see the people (Jews and Arabs) who have been there for aeons , you begin to understand that these stories of their history, while probably very worn down and changed by the passage of the ages, mean so much and how someone might hang a lot on a thread of evidence.<br><br>But to ridicule the possibility of some truth to these events or the meaning of such discoveries (while I am admitting that they may be totally wrong as well) is, I think, to invalidate the power of words, ideas, and oral tradition.<br><br>I worked for many years with a Native American tribe whose soul history was really oral among themselves. But when you looked at the anthropological or European records - there stories were remarkable accurate.<br><br>We may have lost these traditions in the West with our passion for scientific proof and our descent in to illiteracy (even in oral traditions) - but when such "sacred" oral traditions which evolved into religious texts and purported history (as the Judaic texts often are and meticulously so) are involved, such a discovery as this one is sure to provide a sense for some researchers that it validates at least some of the story.<br><br>For me, the fact that a story is actually recorded somewhere as an historical account within modern times, i.e. the past three thousand years or so,(putting aside Genesis and Exodus which are based clearly on ancient myths and legends which may have very little basis in fact in most instances) - gives me some degree of belief that the stories may be based on factual events which were recorded and modified over time.<br><br>But I think that walking in that realm gives one a whole new picture/ Somebody built the early temple mount just as somebody built the pyramids of Giza and Central America. If you walk among the Pyramids of Giza and see the sculpted face of Tutankhamen or the Sphinx, you are not likely to say it is all just a fakery or that there are no such things as Pharoahs.<br><br>Cleopatra and Antony? They are much better doumented you may protest - but what these purpoorted scholars and reserachers are doing is LOOKING for the documentation. And MAN there are a lot of fakes. The issue of Jesus's birthplace in nazareth or Bethlemen - or his tomb - STILL get people rankled.<br><br>Golgotha? Forget it.<br><br>But if there is an oral history passed on from generation to generation and it is strong, and there is some little evidence to say the oral tradition is solid - then do not be too quick to think you know that they are all full oif shit. Maybe this one is. Maybe not (and this is as slender a piece of evidence as you usually see, like the recent Burial box of Jesus's brother James, for example).<br><br>But when you have walked in these places and heard the tales told as if the dust was still rising from the events (and read the Psalms of David in En Gedi or the Sermon on the Mount near Cana) you begin to see that SOMETHING happened here and it is not all total myth and fabrication.<br><br>At least that is my experience and my perspective.<br><br><br><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
