You are utterly incorrect that Ovid had no ability to read and understand the Greek philosophers. I am not sure where you think you are going with this, but Ovid was fluent in Greek as well as other major languages-as he had to be. You say you taught yourself Egyptian hieroglyphs. That has zero bearing here.

By the by, your contention of "iudex" meaning only "god" is violated by your own suggestion of allegorical defenses. You are seriously cherry picking and manipulating here. This subject material (philology and the Classical languages) is the stuff of my degrees. As for your "application" of Theagenes, it is more than a bit disingenuous, as the very same sources you used to get his name went on to say about him:

"All that he wrote is lost to contemporary history.Information about his life has been available in the existing documents written by his contemporaries,and of those of future generations,these having felt his influence."

Cut this shit out. You are taking both sides, then neither, then bouncing back and forth and none of it is compelling.

(November 30, 2011 at 5:56 pm)Rhythm Wrote: So those earliest people who created mythological or legendary traditions weren't trying to explain reality (unless you want to propose cave philosophers)? Wouldn't that rule out your hypothesis as well?

.
Culture is memory!
Nobody “creates” tradition.
Without realizing it, you are depriving humanity of its past.
Ancient people were gathering round the fireplace telling the stories they knew from grandma and grandpa. That’s what myth and legend is.
Have you heard of Geomythology? In August 2004, the 32nd International Geological Congress held a session on "Myth and Geology", which resulted in the first peer-reviewed collection of papers on the subject (2007).

(November 30, 2011 at 5:56 pm)Rhythm Wrote: People create gods that behave like people. People in unrelated cultures are still people, and very similar. The other three might have something to do with the fact that we're people as well, prone to do strange things for shoddy reasons.

.
Do you know of any two tribes, peoples or nations having created and wearing identical clothing?
Of any two poets having written the same poem?
Of any two musicians having composed the same melody?
Of any two authors having written the same story?
Of any two scientists having created the same theory at the same time or of two inventors having accomplished the same invention?
They all invented gods and giants but not the wheel!!

Your argument cannot be taken seriously and although people do strange things for shoddy reasons, as you said, the fact that people all over the earth were deforming artificially the skulls of their infants in the same way for thousands of years, deserves a better explanation.

(November 30, 2011 at 5:56 pm)Rhythm Wrote: I'd also like to mention that there are differences as well as similarities between pantheons, vast differences, also completely in line with the situation between people of dissimilar cultures. You seem intent on ignoring the differences and focus only on the similarities. Even then, you may be prone to interpreting things into being similar when they are not.

.
Pantheons are created by theologians and are not worth studying. It is the myths on which the pantheons stand that count and they are all similar: gods created people imperfectly, had to destroy them and try again until people could take no more revolted and expelled gods who found refuge in the sky!!

(November 30, 2011 at 5:56 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Again, scientology, cargo cults. You seem to like the egyptian texts very much, and in each of these conversations you've argued that you have found a way to make all religions somehow equivalent to these texts.

.
The point is to find out how did it happen and humanity was originally infected with the idea of the gods. Scientology, cargo cults, Shamanism and what not, are symptoms of the infection.

(November 30, 2011 at 5:56 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Going further you give a hypothesis (supported by your love of these texts and how many ways you can interpret other myths to be so similar) based on an actual and singular event in each and every case. Perhaps the funerary texts are just fanciful stories. What then?

.
The funerary texts contain unknown details of the story of the gods because they were written almost two thousand years before Homer recorded the myths of the Greeks and the information they provide is no different from the information found in the texts of the cuneiform script.
As for Zeitgeist, yes, we have here a mini egyptological Zeitgeist. For decades the translators of the Egyptian language were informing the scientific community that the ancient Egyptians believed that the souls were building houses, were having their own neighborhoods and homes, that they were acting as defense witnesses during judgment and a lot of similar nonsense. Now the souls disappeared from their translations. What is one bound to think of that?

(November 30, 2011 at 11:27 pm)Epimethean Wrote: You are utterly incorrect that Ovid had no ability to read and understand the Greek philosophers. I am not sure where you think you are going with this, but Ovid was fluent in Greek as well as other major languages-as he had to be.

.
I am afraid, sir, you do not pay much attention to what I write or my knowledge of the English language is really bad. I wrote:

Ovid could not read the Pyramid texts. Ovid had not the means to know that what the Greek philosophers taught about the soul, the underworld and the judgment was the result of the Egyptian priesthood having presented the judgment of the living, which is described in the texts, as a judgment of the dead. The experiences of the people who survived judgment, which are narrated in the texts, were changed into experiences of dead people who were plowing, sowing, eating, drinking and having sex after their death.

Ovid could read Greek. At that time even the illiterate disciples of Jesus could read and write in Greek (you are utterly incorrect as regards judeo-xtianity. It is Greco-xtianity. The gospels and everything else was written by authors who knew the Greek language but not the Hebrew or the Aramaic one ).

(November 30, 2011 at 11:27 pm)Epimethean Wrote: By the by, your contention of "iudex" meaning only "god" is violated by your own suggestion of allegorical defenses.

.
As I understand the situation, “Perseus” translation: They lived safe without a Judge is correct.
I am not saying that “iudex” means only “god” but taking into account the fact that Ovid is referring to people living without gods, that the gods were killing people and that the gods WERE and in a sense still ARE judges, yes I believe that by “iudex” Ovid meant “god.” What is your interpretation of the verse in question?

(November 30, 2011 at 11:27 pm)Epimethean Wrote: As for your "application" of Theagenes, it is more than a bit disingenuous, as the very same sources you used to get his name went on to say about him:

"All that he wrote is lost to contemporary history.Information about his life has been available in the existing documents written by his contemporaries,and of those of future generations,these having felt his influence."

.
Theagenes’ testimonia I have in Greek. Do you read Greek, ancient or modern?

(November 30, 2011 at 11:27 pm)Epimethean Wrote: Cut this shit out. You are taking both sides, then neither, then bouncing back and forth and none of it is compelling.

.
I guess you right. I am an atheist who loves the Old Testament but… I am not dogmatic and so I am free to seek whatever is of value in those archaic texts.

Culture might be more than just memory (specifically the implication that it is a memory of actual events). Great works of fiction spring to mind and are relevant to the discussion at hand. Genesis and Exodus, for example. It's "memory", but only in the narrative sense, as it could in no way be argued to be a history of actual events as described. Still, Genesis and Exodus are a huge part of culture, are they not?

Identical clothing- Yes. Just about every society with similar environmental concerns comes up with the same ass covering. Show me a subarctic people who wear bikinis, or tropical people who wear heavy furs. The cut and lines of clothing have alot to do with human anatomy, and that's the same anywhere you care to go.

Same poem- Well, you're arguing that all of the religious narratives are all essentially the same poem are you not?

Musicians and melody- Happens so often that there are laws to protect the guy who goes public first.

Authors and stories- Again, yes, and again this is exactly what you're arguing for is it not?

Scientists, inventions, theories- Pretty commonplace, yes.

Not really sure what this comment about the wheel means.

Why can't my argument be taken seriously, because it doesn't end with the same conclusion as your own? I'm criticizing your hypothesis based on it drawing such overarching conclusions with so little evidence, sourced from so many disparate places whilst ignoring all the bits of myth, legend, and recent history with regards to the same that don't agree with your conclusions.

Now, you were just going on about norse mythology so you can see where I might take issue with this (again). Not all traditions state that men were created by the gods imperfectly (or even created by the gods at all), or that the gods are attempting to destroy us and start over. Ragnorak has nothing to do with human beings other than us being cannon fodder for the battle, and in that regard our support is highly sought out by the gods. Some traditions say we were created perfect, some have no gods, many have no "end of days", and more than just a few gods never lived in the sky. Even more have absolutely no mention of human beings ever revolting (which would in many cases be utterly ridiculous/blasphemous to even consider...as if human beings could revolt against the gods.)

Ah, so you don't want to address scientology or cargo cults directly, and prefer to state that somehow, some way, they must support your hypothesis. Well, I don't buy it, that's all.

Paleolithic/neolithic people were often buried with items they would require for their afterlives. They certainly seem to have believed in some sort of "neighborhood in the afterlife" or they wouldn't need their tools. This behavior predates the egyptian funerary texts by an incredibly large amount of time. I'm not really certain what you mean about souls dissappearing from translations as I'm not familiar with how translations of the egyptian texts change over time. Here's the deal, I don't buy it, but I'll just go ahead and give you the whole bit about egyptian texts describing your hypothesis to a t. Now what does that have to do with the entirety of human myth and legend? Every time you're challenged on this you retreat to the egyptian texts. How about you limit your claim to those texts (and that single tradition) alone, since they seem to be the only "support" you have for any of your conclusions? Now, understand that I'm not saying that you are 100% wrong in each and every case, simply that what you've presented thusfar is too weak to make a claim to absolute truth. Especially a claim with such extraordinary breadth and scope as to blanket the entirety of human myth, legend, and superstition. You not only have to re-translate words and myths to suit your argument, you have to assert that people really did not believe what they seem (and claim) to have believed. Well, short of digging them up, raising them from the dead and asking them, how can you be so sure of this? A lot of work (in time, resources, and labor) seems to have gone into idols, trinkets, temples, and tales for something that people didn't believe.

(I wouldn't liken my own position to Zeitgeist if I wanted people to take me seriously, it's an insult, Zeitgeist is garbage too)

(December 1, 2011 at 4:27 am)dtango Wrote:

(November 30, 2011 at 11:27 pm)Epimethean Wrote: You are utterly incorrect that Ovid had no ability to read and understand the Greek philosophers. I am not sure where you think you are going with this, but Ovid was fluent in Greek as well as other major languages-as he had to be.

.
I am afraid, sir, you do not pay much attention to what I write or my knowledge of the English language is really bad. I wrote:

Ovid could not read the Pyramid texts. Ovid had not the means to know that what the Greek philosophers taught about the soul, the underworld and the judgment was the result of the Egyptian priesthood having presented the judgment of the living, which is described in the texts, as a judgment of the dead. The experiences of the people who survived judgment, which are narrated in the texts, were changed into experiences of dead people who were plowing, sowing, eating, drinking and having sex after their death.

Ovid could read Greek. At that time even the illiterate disciples of Jesus could read and write in Greek (you are utterly incorrect as regards judeo-xtianity. It is Greco-xtianity. The gospels and everything else was written by authors who knew the Greek language but not the Hebrew or the Aramaic one ).

(November 30, 2011 at 11:27 pm)Epimethean Wrote: By the by, your contention of "iudex" meaning only "god" is violated by your own suggestion of allegorical defenses.

.
As I understand the situation, “Perseus” translation: They lived safe without a Judge is correct.
I am not saying that “iudex” means only “god” but taking into account the fact that Ovid is referring to people living without gods, that the gods were killing people and that the gods WERE and in a sense still ARE judges, yes I believe that by “iudex” Ovid meant “god.” What is your interpretation of the verse in question?

(November 30, 2011 at 11:27 pm)Epimethean Wrote: As for your "application" of Theagenes, it is more than a bit disingenuous, as the very same sources you used to get his name went on to say about him:

"All that he wrote is lost to contemporary history.Information about his life has been available in the existing documents written by his contemporaries,and of those of future generations,these having felt his influence."

.
Theagenes’ testimonia I have in Greek. Do you read Greek, ancient or modern?

(November 30, 2011 at 11:27 pm)Epimethean Wrote: Cut this shit out. You are taking both sides, then neither, then bouncing back and forth and none of it is compelling.

.
I guess you right. I am an atheist who loves the Old Testament but… I am not dogmatic and so I am free to seek whatever is of value in those archaic texts.

Yes, I do read Greek, Attic, Koine and Demotic (in addition to Latin), and I did get your point about Ovid. You seem to think because you taught yourself a rudimentary use of hieroglyphics, you have a better understanding than a man who not only could read the ancient texts of commentators in Greek, but who, through temporal proximity, had access to thousands of texts we no longer have available to us. Your suggestion that Ovid could not have known what you know has only your bias as basis, and your bias seems to be rehabilitating the OT as a major influence on Greco-Roman writers in antiquity, which is an old ploy that has generally been shot through with holes by philologists and historians worth their salt.

Having testimonia about Theagenes is like saying that you have Michael Moore's notes on a lecture he once attended by a student of Nixon and then representing it as the actual Nixon in person.

As for how I read the use of "iudex" in the passage from Ovid, I am not saying that it cannot refer to god or gods, but that it almost certainly does not refer to any christian god or the concept thereof. If you want to conflate Iuppiter, Yahweh, and Mithra, and you are willing to accept that the caused and effect you are suggesting could as easily be tail forward, I would be willing to meet you halfway. But to suggest that the OT is THE influential text here is simplistic at best, and dishonest at worst.

(December 1, 2011 at 10:00 am)Epimethean Wrote: Yes, I do read Greek, Attic, Koine and Demotic…

.
Ειλικρινά χαίρομαι πολύ!
I am pleased to hear that!

(December 1, 2011 at 10:00 am)Epimethean Wrote: You seem to think because you taught yourself a rudimentary use of hieroglyphics, you have a better understanding than a man who not only could read the ancient texts of commentators in Greek, but who, through temporal proximity, had access to thousands of texts we no longer have available to us.

.
I only wrote that Ovid could not read the Pyramid texts and as a result of this he was not in a position to know that the idealist Greek philosophers were teaching the rubbish that the Egyptian clergy had provided them with.
As a matter of fact neither you can read the Pyramid Texts because older translations are of no use and the modern ones are half translations since the translators leave key words unmolested, expecting the reader to decide himself for their meaning.

(December 1, 2011 at 10:00 am)Epimethean Wrote: Your suggestion that Ovid could not have known what you know has only your bias as basis, and your bias seems to be rehabilitating the OT as a major influence on Greco-Roman writers in antiquity, which is an old ploy that has generally been shot through with holes by philologists and historians worth their salt.

.
My suggestion was that WE, moderns, know more than what Ovid knew because we have in our disposal knowledge of people from all around the globe while he only knew his little world.
As for the OT influencing Greco-Roman writers...well, to be really influenced by the OT one has to know what the Sumerians and Egyptians wrote before understanding anything out of the apparently paranoiac stories of the OT.

I respect OT in the same way I respect the epics of Homer and Gilgamesh but in the case of the OT I also respect the scholars who transformed the oral traditions of the Hebrew nation into a history of their nation. A feat that no one else accomplished.

(December 1, 2011 at 10:00 am)Epimethean Wrote: Having testimonia about Theagenes is like saying that you have Michael Moore's notes on a lecture he once attended by a student of Nixon and then representing it as the actual Nixon in person.

.
Why is it that the fame of Theagenes bothers you? Are you of the opinion that the ancient Greeks, the layman, was worshiping the sun under the name of Apollo, for example?

(December 1, 2011 at 10:00 am)Epimethean Wrote: As for how I read the use of "iudex" in the passage from Ovid, I am not saying that it cannot refer to god or gods, but that it almost certainly does not refer to any christian god or the concept thereof. If you want to conflate Iuppiter, Yahweh, and Mithra, and you are willing to accept that the caused and effect you are suggesting could as easily be tail forward, I would be willing to meet you halfway. But to suggest that the OT is THE influential text here is simplistic at best, and dishonest at worst.

.
Please allow me to say that you jump to conclusions with an astonishing speed!
First of all OT cannot be blamed for Christianity. If you want someone to blame, there is the illustrious pupil of the Egyptian priesthood, Plato.
The OT was not translated into Greek for the use of the Christians. The OT has nothing to do with Christianity. The god of the OT is not a god of love.

As a philologist you ought to know that in all languages of the earth there is no word like “Elohim” because this word means “Judges”, “Angels”, “gods” and “God”. It is a single term that relates more than half of the story of the gods. If it was found to mean “Shepherds” too, it would be the case of a single word telling one whole story.

(December 1, 2011 at 9:55 am)Rhythm Wrote: Still, Genesis and Exodus are a huge part of culture, are they not?

Correct! Culture that has undergone the filtration of the intellect. Or, if you prefer it, tradition which has been infected by theology. The same holds for the epics of Homer, though in a much smaller degree.

(December 1, 2011 at 9:55 am)Rhythm Wrote: Identical clothing- Yes. Just about every society with similar environmental concerns comes up with the same ass covering.

.
How many...ass coverings of the same color and style you have in mind? Are there any identical national costumes?
You know very well what will happen if you present this case to a judge. You have two people without any connexion between them telling the same story and you telling the judge that the story is made up because as humans those two can only think of one and the same story.
Zeitgeist might be ridiculous but some arguments supported by the scientific community are no better.

(December 1, 2011 at 9:55 am)Rhythm Wrote: .[/color]Not really sure what this comment about the wheel means.

.
That every people on earth should have invented the wheel at the same time and independently.

(December 1, 2011 at 9:55 am)Rhythm Wrote: Why can't my argument be taken seriously, because it doesn't end with the same conclusion as your own? I'm criticizing your hypothesis based on it drawing such overarching conclusions with so little evidence, sourced from so many disparate places whilst ignoring all the bits of myth, legend, and recent history with regards to the same that don't agree with your conclusions.

.
Because legends that are not common in more that two cultures are of no value when trying to reconstruct past events.

(December 1, 2011 at 9:55 am)Rhythm Wrote: Now, you were just going on about norse mythology so you can see where I might take issue with this (again). Not all traditions state that men were created by the gods imperfectly (or even created by the gods at all), or that the gods are attempting to destroy us and start over. Ragnorak has nothing to do with human beings other than us being cannon fodder for the battle, and in that regard our support is highly sought out by the gods.

.
The key figures in the stories of gods, humans and giants are the giants.
In most mythologies the giants are killed by the gods. In the Celtic tradition, however, the Jewish and that of the North American Indians, as far as I know, the giants are killed by men.

Now, we are today in a position to know that the story of the giants matches what of the history of the Neandethals we have so far reconstructed. Why is it that a theory that draws parallels between giants and Neanderthals bothers everyone? Theists and atheists alike!
I have been working on that hypothesis for ten years now and I am used to the reaction it triggers, but still I am wondering because people don’t stop to think even for a minute. They have to react negatively as if to protect what they already know.

You are asking me what have the Egyptian texts to do with the entirety of human myth and legend. The answer is that they are unbelievably (remember they are the oldest texts of all the archaic texts) realistic. The gods kill people in their slaughter houses. The hieroglyphic terms iAty and nmt mean “shambles” and “slaughter houses” and there is unanimous agreement between older and contemporary translators as regards the meaning and the function of these slaughter houses. Gods also burn people alive but this is not news since that is what Yahweh did in the Sodom area.
Anyway, lately I found out that there was a Greek edition of the Bok of the Dead and I was astonished when I took it in my hands because it was perfect. I found in there vignettes I had read about but had never seen. Still the translation from English to Greek was done by a simple translator while the English originals were written by the Egyptologist themselves. So, when I reached the point where the slaughter houses of the gods were mentioned, I read about the altrar of the gods!!

People cannot bring themselves to think of gods killing people in slaughter houses.
You wrote Even more have absolutely no mention of human beings ever revolting (which would in many cases be utterly ridiculous/blasphemous to even consider...as if human beings could revolt against the gods, that is to be expected. Imagine those people reading about men slaughtering gods (The Cannibal Hymn) .

If Genesis and Exodus never mentioned a god they still wouldn't be history, or even approaching history. The events described did not happen. That's a tradition of fiction, if it's a tradition of anything at all.

Ah, I see, two robes which aren't the same color just aren't similar enough. Nevermind that they're both robes. Well then, two giant narratives aren't similar enough, nevermind that they're both giants.
Except that they don't tell the same story. They tell similar stories. Free cars in Red Square my friend. No better? By all means, go find a peer reviewed journal and correct them yourself.

Why should they have? You know we do have a long history of inventing or discovering similar or even identical things in disparate places with no interaction or cultural connection. Sometimes thousands of years between them, other times very close to each other in. Agriculture comes to mind.

You're assuming here that legends can always be trusted to be based in past events to begin with. Scientology. You're also assuming that because you can find similarities that they were intended, or even there to begin with. Some myth may have basis in history, irish fairy tales come to mind, and they're certainly not about forced interbreeding with neanderthals if they are. Still, to say that these fairy tales are certainly history is a huge stretch, and there's much better evidence for this than your own hypothesis. They are now, and will most likely always remain, fairy tales.

So sayeth you, but christians would disagree, as would anyone with a giantless tradition. You have your hypothesis, if it's worth it's salt it's going to have to get by people much more knowledgeable than myself. It's not going to be able to do that with what you've presented thusfar. While we're on about giants...just how big do you think neanderthals were? Hint, the average for ourselves and neanderthals (as far as we can tell from the bones) was about the same, 5'5. Some giant.

Realistic with respect to what? Realistic as in when you think about it you can just see it? Well I can still see Narnia, 20 years later. What does these myths being "realistic", if they even are, have to do with their ability to then speak for all religion? Trust me, I can bring myself to think of gods doing terrible things, and so can the religious. Remember, some temples were literally drowned in human blood to appease the gods. This was the sort of shit they figured the gods would like.

I'm starting to get the sinking feeling that you believe there were slaughterhouses in operation where the neanderthals were somehow involved (perhaps eating us, or the other way around), before men rebelled and the gods went up into the sky...whatever you think that means....in reality, as opposed to myth. Or, people believed in anthromorphic forces that controlled the weather or what have you (and some still do, btw)...just like they claimed to. Which to choose, which to choose.....

You know what, I could have saved myself alot of typing with two words:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

(December 1, 2011 at 2:37 pm)dtango Wrote:

(December 1, 2011 at 10:00 am)Epimethean Wrote: Yes, I do read Greek, Attic, Koine and Demotic…

.
Ειλικρινά χαίρομαι πολύ!
I am pleased to hear that!

(December 1, 2011 at 10:00 am)Epimethean Wrote: You seem to think because you taught yourself a rudimentary use of hieroglyphics, you have a better understanding than a man who not only could read the ancient texts of commentators in Greek, but who, through temporal proximity, had access to thousands of texts we no longer have available to us.

.
I only wrote that Ovid could not read the Pyramid texts and as a result of this he was not in a position to know that the idealist Greek philosophers were teaching the rubbish that the Egyptian clergy had provided them with.
As a matter of fact neither you can read the Pyramid Texts because older translations are of no use and the modern ones are half translations since the translators leave key words unmolested, expecting the reader to decide himself for their meaning.

(December 1, 2011 at 10:00 am)Epimethean Wrote: Your suggestion that Ovid could not have known what you know has only your bias as basis, and your bias seems to be rehabilitating the OT as a major influence on Greco-Roman writers in antiquity, which is an old ploy that has generally been shot through with holes by philologists and historians worth their salt.

.
My suggestion was that WE, moderns, know more than what Ovid knew because we have in our disposal knowledge of people from all around the globe while he only knew his little world.
As for the OT influencing Greco-Roman writers...well, to be really influenced by the OT one has to know what the Sumerians and Egyptians wrote before understanding anything out of the apparently paranoiac stories of the OT.

I respect OT in the same way I respect the epics of Homer and Gilgamesh but in the case of the OT I also respect the scholars who transformed the oral traditions of the Hebrew nation into a history of their nation. A feat that no one else accomplished.

(December 1, 2011 at 10:00 am)Epimethean Wrote: Having testimonia about Theagenes is like saying that you have Michael Moore's notes on a lecture he once attended by a student of Nixon and then representing it as the actual Nixon in person.

.
Why is it that the fame of Theagenes bothers you? Are you of the opinion that the ancient Greeks, the layman, was worshiping the sun under the name of Apollo, for example?

(December 1, 2011 at 10:00 am)Epimethean Wrote: As for how I read the use of "iudex" in the passage from Ovid, I am not saying that it cannot refer to god or gods, but that it almost certainly does not refer to any christian god or the concept thereof. If you want to conflate Iuppiter, Yahweh, and Mithra, and you are willing to accept that the caused and effect you are suggesting could as easily be tail forward, I would be willing to meet you halfway. But to suggest that the OT is THE influential text here is simplistic at best, and dishonest at worst.

.
Please allow me to say that you jump to conclusions with an astonishing speed!
First of all OT cannot be blamed for Christianity. If you want someone to blame, there is the illustrious pupil of the Egyptian priesthood, Plato.
The OT was not translated into Greek for the use of the Christians. The OT has nothing to do with Christianity. The god of the OT is not a god of love.

As a philologist you ought to know that in all languages of the earth there is no word like “Elohim” because this word means “Judges”, “Angels”, “gods” and “God”. It is a single term that relates more than half of the story of the gods. If it was found to mean “Shepherds” too, it would be the case of a single word telling one whole story.

It is very nearly impossible to say that Ovid did not have resources through Phoenician scribes which would have allowed him access to Egyptian thought, and I have to laugh when you suggest that the Egyptian priests furnished rubbish. All of this stuff is rubbish of various flavors if we want to analyze it for truth. The OT is as full of rubbish as any text ever created. Ovid had access to texts we have never seen, so it would be best not to suggest we know more than he about the ancient world and its sacred texts.

You are also wrong about the OT being the only example of a people's (specious) history being transformed into literature. What do you think the Aeneid is, and it has more literary merit for art than the OT ever could.

Resent Theagenes' reputation? You are missing the point that we do not know his actual words, but only have other people's assessments of them, and those in third and fourth hand documents. When you offer up Theagenes, all you do is use a legend to defend a myth. Hardly scholarship, that.

Back away from your neo-Platonic pretense. The OT is much more responsible than Plato, though your affinity for Augustine et al might suggest otherwise.

As for your focus on Elohim, it really is irrelevant out of context. There is no etymological connection save for your desire that it be so. You supplied it because you wanted it to be there. I'll just let you go to it, and hope you read Rhythm's link at the end of his last post.

@ Rhythm, Epimethean

Gentlemen,
It was approximately a decade ago that it was suggested to me for the first time to read about Confirmation bias, there is no point therefore in continuing our discussion without having some evidence on which to base it.

I’ve completed a study on Great Mother which I’ve published in a blog but it is in Greek «Η Μεγάλη Μητέρα».
Epimethean may have a look at it if he wants too. I am currently translating it into English but it will take some time until it is finished.

If you want however to have an idea of what is going on with the Egyptian text entitled “The Dispute of a man with his Ba” and the translation of the hieroglyphs, I’ve published in English an article on this text of which the first part is named The Livings.

The hieroglyphic term ba which is translated as soul occurs 59 times in the Pyramid texts but only in two cases out of 59 it has the meaning of soul.
In other words: no one ever produced the idea of the soul. It is the product of misinterpreting a word. All 59 occurrences of the term are presented, translated word for word and analyzed in a study which, unfortunately, it is still in Greek «Η ψυχή στα ιερογλυφικά (αποσπάσματα)», but I mention it in case Epimethean would like to have a look at it too and realize that I am not an Augustine’s fan.