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Yes - there is a presumption that someone has the truth, and we can all go and check against it. When in reality it is very hard to know truth, even in the pre

Yes - there is a presumption that someone has the truth, and we can all go and check against it. When in reality it is very hard to know truth, even in the present time, even in one's own experience. So, if that is the case, why make such an outlandish claim? Well, there is value to someone if they can say 'I have the truth' and other people believe them. The initial lie, once believed, takes on a life of its own thanks to the belief that becomes invested in it, especially when it is under someone's external control.

hef19898 4y ago
We are talking about religion, so in all practical terms a form of propaganda. In a historical context, a text becomes truth if enough people believe it. The question of forgery is relevant to find out whom and when created said forgery.
- hef19898 4y ago
  Too late to edit, but I think this passage from the article fits here quite well: >> Take the story of a group of fallen angels who descend to earth to seduce beautiful women. Using his new technique, Langlois discovered that earlier scholars had gotten the names of some of the angels wrong, and so had not realized the names were derived from Canaanite gods worshipped in the second millennium B.C.—a clear example of the way scriptural authors integrated elements of the cultures that surrounded them into their theologies. The priests from the new religion wrote a text portraying the ancient gods as "evil". Sounds like an efficient use of propaganda to me. And that is something that makes historical research of religious texts very worthwhile.
Beltalowda 4y ago
I'm not really interested in discussing the truth of religion itself, just the meaning of "forgery" and "authentic" in this context. You don't need to believe any of the religious claims to discus that.
- moloch-hai 4y ago
  The historical development of texts and how they are doctored is informative. For example, early Canaanite texts assigned territory to tribes according to their number of gods. In a later text, it was by their number of tutelary angels. In current texts it is unspecified why they got their allocation. Oldest Canaanite texts have a goddess Asherah, equal to YHWH in importance (and always shown with a cake), involved in important rites. Nowadays they use a stick in her place, which appears to suffice. They clearly would have preferred to do away with her entirely, but weren't willing to abandon the rites that needed her. Religious rites were indistinguishable from magic spells, and the ancients didn't care who they came from, if they seemed to work. They were swapped around like coleslaw recipes. You can see how they were thought of particularly in Numbers, where it clearly doesn't matter who uses them: if you say it, it works, priest or no.

hef19898 4y ago

We are talking about religion, so in all practical terms a form of propaganda. In a historical context, a text becomes truth if enough people believe it. The question of forgery is relevant to find out whom and when created said forgery.

hef19898 4y ago
Too late to edit, but I think this passage from the article fits here quite well: >> Take the story of a group of fallen angels who descend to earth to seduce beautiful women. Using his new technique, Langlois discovered that earlier scholars had gotten the names of some of the angels wrong, and so had not realized the names were derived from Canaanite gods worshipped in the second millennium B.C.—a clear example of the way scriptural authors integrated elements of the cultures that surrounded them into their theologies. The priests from the new religion wrote a text portraying the ancient gods as "evil". Sounds like an efficient use of propaganda to me. And that is something that makes historical research of religious texts very worthwhile.

Beltalowda 4y ago

I'm not really interested in discussing the truth of religion itself, just the meaning of "forgery" and "authentic" in this context. You don't need to believe any of the religious claims to discus that.

moloch-hai 4y ago
The historical development of texts and how they are doctored is informative. For example, early Canaanite texts assigned territory to tribes according to their number of gods. In a later text, it was by their number of tutelary angels. In current texts it is unspecified why they got their allocation. Oldest Canaanite texts have a goddess Asherah, equal to YHWH in importance (and always shown with a cake), involved in important rites. Nowadays they use a stick in her place, which appears to suffice. They clearly would have preferred to do away with her entirely, but weren't willing to abandon the rites that needed her. Religious rites were indistinguishable from magic spells, and the ancients didn't care who they came from, if they seemed to work. They were swapped around like coleslaw recipes. You can see how they were thought of particularly in Numbers, where it clearly doesn't matter who uses them: if you say it, it works, priest or no.