05-30-2008, 07:17 PM | #81 | ||
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Come on. Who says? The Introduction to Fagles' Iliad addresses and refutes this bald assertion. It cites The Life of Charlemagne by a monk who was a servant of Charlemagne, that is objectively at least as credible as the Roman historians' writings or Josephus, and compares it to Song of Roland, roughly France's Iliad. Song of Roland is an epic poem, originally orally transmitted over many generations, and ultimately the first litary work in French, about the tragic conclusion of Charlemagne's ill-fated invasion of Islamic Spain. The introduction to Fagles' Iliad (written by another world class Classics scholar, Bernard Knox) notes that the Life of Charlemagne shows Song of Roland is mostly outright fabrication. For example in the ultimate scene it has Muslims attacking Christians, Charlemagne's rear guard, when it was really (according to the Life of Charlemagne) Basque Christians attacking.
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Interrupt all you like. We're involved in a complicated story here, and not everything is quite what it seems to be. —Paul Auster Last edited by SeattleUte; 05-30-2008 at 07:32 PM. |
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05-30-2008, 07:42 PM | #82 |
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Yes - the Bible is not an "epic poem"
Most of it is not written in dramatic literary style, some of it is written with a painfully dull insistence on recounting technical detail. The endless and otherwise pointless data laid out in Numbers and other books are evidence that many of the biblical authors were never merely about propagandizing - they were actually trying to record facts.
The two texts are, on most fronts, a bit of a stretch to compare. One was written for the express purpose of aggrandizing a monarch the other is an aggregation of many texts and sets of information. And in fact - the extensive and non-literary data presented in the books of Moses strongly suggests that there was something more than an oral tradition (like a proto-text that we simply don't have any more) underpinning the whole thing. |
06-01-2008, 05:51 PM | #83 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Seattle, WA
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Quote:
__________________
Interrupt all you like. We're involved in a complicated story here, and not everything is quite what it seems to be. —Paul Auster |
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06-02-2008, 03:34 PM | #84 |
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Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 2,326
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Rent this documentary
it gives you the genesis of all this: http://www.amazon.com/50-Years-War-I.../dp/B00004TX2W
Interviews many of the people who were actually there from both sides of the conflict. Great, great stuff that helps explain the current mess. |
Bookmarks |
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