History 104A, September 2: Geography, God and Floods!
Q Did you hear that the rich area of New Orleans, which was one of
the first areas to be rid of the waters, has actual snipers on the
rooftops that were hired by swat teams to keep people from stealing on
the property, but then the poor areas are just run amuck. And then
worse yet, the channel seven news was an extreme of this group of
people over there that flew in and are helping them and it turns out
that the police are actually doing the looting.
THE PROFESSOR: About half of the police are not doing their
work. You hear all the nastiness and evil about the looting, but
people in the superdome, whatever the hell it's called, close places
are indicated that they're coming in with the food and they're
distributing it far better than FEMA or anybody else. We're well
aware of part of the problem. It's an African-American community.
And when you look in those crowds, you do not see white people. And I
think that's where it's finally coming down to. It just deals with
the old south in many many ways. But that's a personal statement.
And even though it's on class time -- I didn't mean to take two
minutes, but you brought it up. As far as the snipers are concerned,
one or two, what you've got is Escape from New York or Escape from Los
Angeles sitting there. When you see what's going on in the cities
with the street gangs or whatever you want to call them, you basically
have what people said. These are movies. Every time I saw one of
those kinds of films, what the hell, Mel Gibson's --
A Mad Max.
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THE PROFESSOR: And then you see the sites of Los Angeles -- I
mean, the sites of New Orleans and it's -- and of course Bush's
response is transcendental meditation. If we all do human America
will be better in the future and New Orleans will rebuild.
They talked about running out of hot meals. I don't know why
they're not dropping in all of those nice military meals?
A A lot of the food has been broken on impact. The supplies by air
into the dome to feed those people, but a lot of that is breaking.
THE PROFESSOR: I'm sorry. I'm a socialist in the sense that I
would confiscate the cruise ships, literally confiscate them and move
them into the area without any hesitation.
Q The cruise liners?
THE PROFESSOR: That's a big harbor.
A The harbor is destroyed. There's nowhere to put the cruise ships
is the problem.
A They don't go to harbors. And they take all these secure little
boats out.
A But the boats have been destroyed is the problem. The boats are
not --
THE PROFESSOR: Cruise ships have their own boats.
A You're talking --
THE PROFESSOR: Have you ever watched these cruise liners? They
have got their own boats.
A 60,000 people.
A That would be one slight problem with that.
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THE PROFESSOR: How many people sit aboard a cruise ship?
They're moving them out to Houston or to Dallas.
Q Wouldn't that be like a communist government?
THE PROFESSOR: That's what I said. I have absolutely no problem
with that. I mean, I don't care what you call them.
A The problem --
THE PROFESSOR: Hawaii just recently put a cap on fuel price.
Q They can't go higher than that?
THE PROFESSOR: That's right.
Q Why can't we get that?
THE PROFESSOR: Because we're not communists.
Q Is Hawaii?
THE PROFESSOR: No, forgot it, we have to get back to subject.
He got me started. I just sit there literally and cry. I mean, it's
just --
Q Will the insurance companies a lot of them go out of business?
THE PROFESSOR: You know they're saying only a few. They said
only a few. Most of them have these kinds of reserves that they can
cover the costs.
Q For billions of dollars?
THE PROFESSOR: That's what they said at least three days ago
when I heard it.
Q Nobody should get gas because all of the gas companies could go
bankrupt. Half of America?
THE PROFESSOR: Well, I love our government's response, don't get
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gas unless you need it.
Q Because we got extra gas?
THE PROFESSOR: I think I drink it.
Q What I don't understand if all of the looters are in these
stores, don't these stores have insurance against these type of
crimes?
THE PROFESSOR: A lot of people don't carry insurance. When you
say, where do they get their money, it's outrageous. So in many cases
they just decide to gamble and take their chances. I honestly know
that there will be many that don't have it. The majority obviously do
have insurance.
A They're saying that the police are just standing there and
letting people take food because you have to do what you have to do to
survive.
THE PROFESSOR: Well, yeah, but when they walk out with TV sets
with no electricity, then there's other questions. If they're
sellable in Georgia -- I'm sorry. Let's get back.
We're back to flooding on the Nile and on the Tigress Euphrates.
And we get a picture of what happens when you live in flood zones.
The amazing part of course is the constant rebuilding in these areas
and people who do move back into the area. Of course one of the first
things that came into existence were calendars because calendars could
predict basically when the flooding would occur. And so astronomy
became a major topic of study. And of course along with that came
astrology and perhaps the best known for the development in expansion
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of astrology were the first Babylonians which we'll talk a little more
about. Many of you have seen the Merlin's hats and the stars. Those
were basically Babylonian wizard outfits. We have a lot that has been
passed down. And of course many believe that the whole Noah's arch
story obviously came about in large part due to the fact that these
early civilizations were on major river valleys, and that kind of
flooding could have taken place easily with 40 days and 40 nights in
those regions and of course that was their known world.
Q Do you personally believe with a worldwide flood?
THE PROFESSOR: Personally, worldwide? No. I would say that
obviously with the melting of the icebergs which whatever occurred on
that global warming, there's no doubt that massive floods took place
within certain periods of time which were certainly developed. Again,
I can't prove it any better than anybody else can. I certainly do not
believe that Noah's arch had dinosaurs aboard it because if some of
the interpretation is true, then some of the creationists have argued
that the humans and the dinosaurs live together. And I think it's in
Arizona that a slob of rock, molten lava which has a dinosaur foot and
human kind of feet right next to it. Anything is possible under
miracle belief.
Q Are there bones dated from when the dinosaurs were?
THE PROFESSOR: Well, you have to understand when you deal with
bones such as dinosaurs, there are those who have traditionally argued
that all of that evidence was put there by the devil to deceive you,
so you would believe that the dinosaurs are 60 million years old
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rather than 10,000. That's why you're going to go to hell, because
you're going to follow the anti Christ.
Q Who is that?
THE PROFESSOR: Certain fundamentalist Christians, which is one
of the reasons for intelligent design. What they're attempting today
is to create a scientific base to identify why these things can't
exist, deal with the discrepancies and come up with different answers
rather than strictly faith based belief systems. How do you deal with
it? The other argument is of course is, with dinosaur bones, wherever
they're found -- and I think I may have dealt with this before -- is
that with the flood, all of the Earth was uprooted, whatever you want
to call it, and so different layers really didn't occur at different
times. They occurred at all different times but the flood occurred
together, so the dinosaurs would have occurred. You have to have a
fundamentalist brother-in-law like I do to pick up on this.
Q Bible thumper?
THE PROFESSOR: He's constantly sending me articles. You ask if
I believe it. You know, it doesn't hurt to learn it is my feeling.
The only time -- I think I mentioned and I told him enough is enough,
is when we were visiting him in Sedona and looking at the beautiful
rocks. I think I mentioned and the red clay and how he said, isn't it
amazing what the flood did. At that point, I want to stare at the
rocks and I don't want to get into religious discussions. Let's get
away from some of the controversy -- although this is controversial.
Last time we were dealing with Mesopotamia and Egypt geographic
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determinism. (Egypt-Meso.ppt) That's interesting. It changed my Mac fonts back to a
standard font. I guess if you don't have the font on the machine -- I
haven't used PowerPoint before. I usually use the overhead, but I
figured I would catch up with modern times. And I thought it was
putting it in its base, but it doesn't. We may lose some of this.
What I attempted to do was summarize what we had talked about
last time. And sense it was at the end of the period -- I like my
fonts better -- I figured this would help in comparisons of the
differences. Now, we pointed out that Mesopotamia had basically
unpredictable floods. And that in ancient Egypt, the floods were
predicable based on the source of the Nile and the Euphrates River and
also identifying the concept of the rains coming at different seasons
versus a rainy season in the Congo.
Q Back in the days when they did have uncontrollable floods, did
they use to build their houses up on stilts?
THE PROFESSOR: Well, that's the amazing part. The point being
that they did not built on stilts. In fact, the kinds of houses often
were way off where the floods might not hit. Like any farming area
generally, if you go out to Iowa or wherever, you'll see that the
houses are in the middle of nowhere. And they've built around usually
with these massive trees and then there are thousands of acres of corn
fields. So they would learn where to put them to keep the floods away
from them. And then of course they would control them as time went on
with irrigation ditches, with canals to drain the water, with what we
would call levees. They were basically dams. Of course if it broke
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every 50-100 years, then there would be a loss of lives. But the
major cities were built in highland areas basically away from the
floods. Much of upper Egypt -- remember upper Egypt is lower on map,
but it's upper Egypt in reality. In upper Egypt today, I think it was
in the late 60s, they built what's called the Aswan dam in the
area where the tombs were and temples, down here flooded all of those
tombs and temples and burial sites. The pyramids were built in lower
Egypt here. The flooding, they tried to get as much out as possible.
And they actually raised up part of the major monuments for Rameses
the second who was pharaoh of Egypt around 100, 1250 BCE and is often
identified with the exodus and Moses. We'll get later into this. The
point being, by building that dam, they cut off the Nile River and
they created hydroelectric projects and things of that nature. If
that dam ever broke, like the Tennessee Valley Authority, if those
dams break, those people are gone. Remember what we're talking about
here is that is humans controlling nature up to the point.
Q So those are the two big cities back in the 1300 BC we're talking
about?
THE PROFESSOR: These are not cities. These are areas. And so
what we've got in Mesopotamia, the land between the two rivers flowing
in often is referred to as the fertile crescent, but it was not
unified and we will talk about that. Although unification took place
later and Egypt was unified earlier at around 3,000 BCE under a
pharaoh, first pharaoh by the name of the Greeks gave him the name
Menes, M-E-N-E-S which I keep in my mind as Narma. You create these
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reasons for N-A-R-M-A, Narma. And he did it as a warlord or as a
Maffia chieftain. He brought together the north, lower Egypt and
upper Egypt and set his capital, in a unification sense, at Memphis
which is basically near Cairo.
Mesopotamia here was constantly invaded. That was part of the
problem that we were trying to identify. And an indication in
Mesopotamia continued and it was very prone because there was movement
and there were very few natural boundaries. While the ancient Egypt
invasion was difficult, we identified those boundaries from outsiders
coming in. There were variation unification in Mesopotamia that
included the first major one by a King named Sargon, the Sargon the
First at around 2800 BCE. Again, dates will vary. There used
to be a great chess game named Sargon. It was the first major
computer chess game but that is irrelevant. My mind flutters as you
know. Sargon was Semitic. And by Semitic, we mean he was very
similar to or identical to the Semitic peoples there today which is of
course both the Jews the Hebrews and the Arabs. Now remember, Arabs
are not all Muslim. There are Christian Arabs. There are Druses
Arabs, Druses being a different religion. In any case, the main part
of Mesopotamia, the earlier city states, and we'll talk about the city
states including the City of U-R which the Bible says that Abraham
came from. And so we'll spend a little time on some of that history
as well.
Mesopotamia again was damp and humid; whereas Egypt, outside the
river valleys, was
very very dry and therefore created a certain
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stability of preservation of life where both, where instability
reigned in Mesopotamia. Construction in Mesopotamia came from clay
and bricks, bricks that were made and had to be baked and therefore
there was less permanent. Where stone and rock existed in Egypt in
many areas, not all, but was moved into those areas because of its
abundance cut off with stone tools and used for building and
construction, an appeasing job. They say there is less than a few
millimeters between the blocks of stone that were used to build the
pyramids. This was done without machinery. It's even more amazing on
building the pyramids that they were able to build -- the pyramid of
Khufu or Cheops C-H-E-O-P-S and K-H-U-F-U, Khufu being the Egyptian
name and Cheops being the Greek name, was the largest structure in the
ancient world. And up until modern times and skyscrapers remain such
at 480 feet high. All of those stones weighing 20 tons a piece were
placed on top of each other, that height, without using pulleys. Now,
of course Van Dankien argues that they were spaceships with
what do you call -- levitation devices. There are some explanations.
But if they were built the way it's been argued and described, it may
have taken, the Greeks said it took 20 years to build a pyramid under
those circumstances. Four of the pharaohs as burial areas?
A That was all?
THE PROFESSOR: Well that's a yes. Could it have been done in 20
years. And some people argue no and that's why Gould argues that they
use these ships for those that watch Star Gate ships.
Mesopotamia basically an insecure world as can be identified by
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the geography. And Egypt basically much more secure in life and
everything else. And basically the reason was not just to summarize
this here, but I wanted to raise some questions, inquiry questions.
I'm not sure you call these questions, but, you know. Based upon what
we've just gone through, what might we infer about the differences in
religion in the two areas? What kind of religions would have
developed based on that geography and description I gave you of the
differences?
Q Would you say that some were Jews and some were Christians and
some were Arabs?
THE PROFESSOR: No. I said that of the present Arab population.
Q Oh present?
THE PROFESSOR: We're talking now about ancient Egypt before
there were Jews there.
Q 3,000 BC?
THE PROFESSOR: Yeah, where religion starts developing around
3,000 BC. I believe that somewhere -- if you use the Bible, Joseph
would have arrived somewhere probably at around 1500 BCE to bring the
Jews into Egypt if that's the case.
Q Out of Egypt?
THE PROFESSOR: No -- into. It's Moses who takes them out which
would have been around 1250. Based upon those givens, any expectation
on the religions?
Q So they tell the flooding? Did it have anything to do with the
moon, like the lunar stuff?
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THE PROFESSOR: Tides refer to the moon. I'm not sure that the
flooding would have had much to do with the noon. Of course obviously
later we talked about the mother Goddess, but that was more to the
birth of the land, the giving life into the land like women give life
to humans, if you will. Tough, not as tough as you would think on
trying to analyze the religions. Basically when you live a secure
life, you're going to see your Gods as basically what? Good. And you
live a secure life. You love your life. You're going to see your
afterlife as what?
A Good.
THE PROFESSOR: Good. So you're going to look to the afterlife
as something that is going to be a continuation of a good life. And
of course that would apply to which area?
A Egypt.
THE PROFESSOR: So ancient Egypt where? Mesopotamia. Where life
is insecure, life is difficult, your attitude towards religion and the
Gods is going to be reflective very much in perhaps our book that we
we'll explain why later, where God is a God to be feared, a vengeful
God at times in the old testament, at least that's the interpretation.
But the ancient Samaritan Gods, the ancient Acadian Gods were also
Gods to be feared, Gods that were not predicable.
Q What the Egyptian one?
THE PROFESSOR: The Egyptian Gods were basically just Gods, nice,
helpful, useful, loving, and --
Q Weren't out to get you?
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THE PROFESSOR: They weren't out to punish you for having any
other Gods before them. And now they would get into battles with each
other from time to time over power, perhaps realistically. In
Mesopotamia, interestingly, there is hardly an attitude or a belief in
an afterlife. It underlies a little of the life, but the concept of
an afterlife good or evil is almost vacant. In fact, basically what
the belief is, is that when you're on this life, you live this life
and then you die, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. And so life was the
life you lived. And appease the Gods so they didn't make your life
that you were living anymore difficult. And what is very interesting
about that is that the people of the book, the Hebrews who we find
some reference to wandering tribes called a Habiru H-A-B-I-R-U
which people think were the -- you had their rock of ages. They
walked around with these arches with a big rock in it that reflected
their God. The Hebrew today based on the old testament do not have a
strong conception of an afterlife. It is hardly mentioned. Most of
the prayers, most of the values, most of the attitude except for some
of the newer Hebrew groupings supposes the Hasidic Jews with the long
sideburns and hair and the black halts, which are pretty recent by the
way in background, most of the Jews don't think about the afterlife.
I know, reflective of the period. Now again, we're talking a
different attitude with of course the coming of Christ, if you will or
if you believe it.
Q The Hebrews back in 3,000 BC, did they believe in the Hebrew or
Christian God?
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THE PROFESSOR: There wouldn't have been a Christian God 3,000
BC.
Q Like the old testament?
THE PROFESSOR: It's hard to say. It was probably in the putting
together of the later books of the Bible, Isaiah and others that you
begin to see the reference to the coming of a Messiah which begins to
question when rather than back at the old time of the Judah and the
Israel or David which is right around 900 BCE, you begin to see the
references to the coming of the Messiah who is going to save and
protect people from their sins, et cetera, et cetera. And guys, an
afterlife which comes into the writings -- it depends again if you
believe that the Bible was written during certain periods of time or
whether it is codified. Some people would argue 200 BCE. Others
might argue that it comes in with the Dead Sea scrolls and the
essence, where we find these writings around the time of the Christ.
A I was looking at that stuff last night. And there was a
reference to that to the Dead Sea scrolls.
THE PROFESSOR: Yeah.
A It was called the persmesia (?) was the name of the scroll.
Q Were those Kings and stuff mentioned in the Bible, like King
David, were they actually Kings documented in history?
THE PROFESSOR: As best we can tell, yes.
Q So other than the Bible, there are other sources?
THE PROFESSOR: There are a lot of sources out there including a
whole series of cuneiform tablets found in Syria that are interpreted
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to be named even before Abraham. Are they interpreting those names
loosely? We have the Upmemta (mark) story of the seven tablets of
creation in ancient Mesopotamia the ancient Samarian tablets that talk
about the great flood and Gilgamesh traveling and meeting with
Utnapishtim (Ziasudra-Sumerian name),
a man who had built a big arc to protect people and save animals from
the floods and these were pre Biblical or pre the writing of the
Bible. Now again, some people might say, well, the Hebrews took these
stories because they were in the area. Perhaps they were true and
they were just different renditions of the story. Or perhaps as some
people say with ancient religions who have commonalities with the
stories from the Bible of Christ, that these records were to allow --
I hate to use the term but it's often used by Christians and others --
pagans far better prepared to accept Christ because they had similar
stories of their own. There are a lot of different interpretations.
And again, you can take your own. And then there's the whole issue,
well, it's all true. And again, that's there too. There are other
ways of looking at these things in the history books.
Q But the Egyptians they have multiple Gods?
THE PROFESSOR: Ancient peoples generally had multiple Gods.
Again, I'm answering these questions and it's going to save me some
time in chronological lectures, but there is a period of time in
Egyptian history at around 1350 B CE when a pharaoh by the name of
Ikhnaton I-K-H-N-A-T-O-N or E-N. Sometimes you see it with an A-K-H.
A pharaoh by the name of Ikhnaton decided to create or set up a whole
new religion in Egypt by dealing with monotheism, one God. That's the
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first time we have any record in history of one God. Now the Hebrews
can say that it came from Abraham. Once again, there are no records
on that besides the Bible. We do have records and drawings and a lot
of information about the monotheistic belief.
Q What was that God?
THE PROFESSOR: The God's name as Aton (mark). Ikhnaton means
A-T-E-N or A-T-O-N. It was symbolized by the lights of rays coming
out of the sun which brought wisdom. And he basically persecuted the
priests of the ancient multiple Gods. And his -- some say son, some
say nephew -- was King Tut. And they believe King Tut was killed at
around 18. And of course the exhibit -- is it now in Los Angeles?
A It's already there.
A King Tut was before.
THE PROFESSOR: I'm sorry. King Tut was the nephew of Aton. The
priest came back to power and they killed him to return the God amen
A-M-E-N ray R-E Gods of ancient Egypt.
One of the more interesting stories, which I think were
historical works which by the way, was also described by Freud, the
psychologist, was the identity of Moses, always a mystery. A mystery,
Biblically, the name Moses. But in the Egyptian language, Moses is "a
God giveth". And when the name Moses or Mose was used in ancient
Egypt, it always had a God's name in front it; and yet Moses is only
half a name. And so the question arises, who was he? Where did he
come from? We do know that he was brought up in the royal palace
after floating down the river in a basket of reeds. And the
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speculation, as I indicated, Biblically they tie him to Rameses
because it was of course the name in the Bible. But the speculation
is that he actually what is a prince Atonmoses in the royal period of
Ikhnaton. And the reason he left with the followers because of the
elimination of monotheism in Egypt and that's how Moses went out in
the desert and the Jews developed monotheism based on that Ikhnaton.
I know there's a lot here. A lot of these details, aren't there,
for review again, we will have them up on-line with my having to spell
out some of these names better.
Q So they're saying that Moses came up with the Jewish --
THE PROFESSOR: I'm not. He did. I'm saying they're saying
that.
Q The Christians said that?
THE PROFESSOR: They being some historians, some writers and even
Freud. No, what I'm saying basically is that what is generally
accepted by Biblical scholars and in the Bible is that Abraham
introduced monotheism and created the Jewish faith at around the time
of 2,000 BCE in the City of U-R, the Samaritan city U-R that would
have been here. And there of course you know or come of you know the
covenant sign between -- it's guess or agreed to -- between Abraham
and Yahweh. And that is that he first tried to have him sacrificed by
son Isaac and then replace him with a lamb. And Abraham did not have
Isaac until Sara was 90 years of age. And they didn't even have
artificial insemination in those days. Dates can be different more to
the point, he did have a child before Isaac. His name was Ishmael.
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I'm talking too fast. And Ishmael was by the handmaiden Hagar who was
expelled because Sara was jealous. And Ishmael becomes quote/unquote
the father of the Arabic Muslim peoples. And so the fight between
Jews and Arabs has been going on for 4,000 years based on who's going
to inherit the world.
Q Did the Arab religion come up at the time?
THE PROFESSOR: The Muslim religion doesn't come into existence
until basically 622 AD, although really 610.
Q It was a while after Moses?
THE PROFESSOR: Well, the Arab -- I'm sorry, the Muslim religion
accepts both the Bible, old testament, and new testament as well as
the Koran as ancient books. And this is sort of quote/unquote later
day prophets, if you will. And so those books are acceptable and they
do believe that Moses and Jesus were prophets.
Q Does this belong in the same time period that the people on the
Phoenician areas around Greece were coming up with the theogony?
THE PROFESSOR: That's a word I don't know. It's a Greek belief
in their Gods.
Q Would this have been around the same time? That predates the
dark ages.
THE PROFESSOR: I don't know how to answer that. I'm not
familiar with that particular theory.
A I'm just asking what time period.
THE PROFESSOR: I can fall into the time period. The period is
1350 BCE. Historians date -- and again, we don't know dates of
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history -- date Phoenicia from around 1200 BCE. Phoenicia may well
have been there earlier under the Philistines along the coast here of
the Levant. And it is by Velikovsky and even others that there were
peoples of sea who settled there. Crete burned somewhere around 1200,
be it earthquake or be it invasion. Considering the army and the
battlefield they fought, that the Phoenicians may have been an exodus
from Crete and therefore came in there bringing some Greek background,
if you will, with Greek Gods. And of course Velikovsky identifies
those quote/unquote people of the sea. And that is the name of his
book with the ancient Crete society. In answer to your question, it's
within at least 150 years. And it is the time of Rameses and Moses'
exodus.
Q The Philistines --
THE PROFESSOR: The Philistines were here. And of course many
Palestines identify their history with the Philistines.
Q They weren't actual people?
THE PROFESSOR: Oh no. They were people. Whether there was a
Goliath that David killed, that would be another story. There's no
doubt that we have Philistines. The question is, were the Philistines
the Phoenicians, and what were these people there?
Q Did the Phoenicians make the Phoenician glass?
THE PROFESSOR: The Phoenician glass, the Phoenician alphabet,
the royal purple, all do come from that area. And this area was
heavily forested at one time.
Once again, back to religion, what I was identifying is that
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there or some very close ties to the old testament from the
Mesopotamian religion. Tied to that, it would be the argument that
the sense of an afterlife, the love of life, the positiveness comes
from the impact in Roman times of the continuation of the ancient
Egyptian fate. Of course tied to a belief in an afterlife, you have
mummification to keep the life going. And with not only
mummification, to keep your life the way it is. We also see a book of
the dead written in Egypt to tell you how to get there, what has to be
done. And that life is sort of what later becomes known in Greek
terms as an illusion feelings. You're going to maintain a good life.
You have paintings of your servants and little statues because if you
need them, they come back to life if you need them. Originally
servants were killed with the pharaohs. All people believed that they
can continue as people can afford it. Mummification took about 60
days and was an expensive process. You can get your pine box burial.
And obviously, the poorer people would continue their life in a
different fashion. That sense of a continuation of the goodness of a
positive sense about the afterlife, the more pessimistic sense leads
to -- and I'm going to summarize this faster -- in Egypt we describe
the society as spiritualistic. The writings and culture and value are
heavily involved with religion. We described the society in
Mesopotamia as materialistic, based in life, economics in everyday
life. And again, it is often been identified with the Hebrews coming
out of that area that they are seen today as materialistic, more
interested in quote/unquote money than spiritual means. So there may
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have been some impact that comes through 2000 years later.
I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but we'll have to wait till
next Wednesday where most of you will forget all of that.
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