RE: The brazen bull in the Quran?
March 5, 2020 at 5:05 am
(This post was last modified: March 5, 2020 at 5:14 am by WinterHold.)
(March 4, 2020 at 5:15 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:(March 4, 2020 at 4:41 am)WinterHold Wrote: The brazen bull is an ancient torture method that includes the "roasting of the victim" to death inside a "bronze" bull. The bull made a sound when the victims start to scream from the pain.
It was claimed to be invented by the ancient Greeks by Diodorus Siculus, recounting the story in Bibliotheca historica :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazen_bull
But the sound produced by the bull does open a new theory to me when looking at this ancient passage from the Quran:
The bible has a similar story; but it never mentions the "lowing sound". The brazen bull is unique for its sound; just like the mentioned calf is unique for its sound.
Burnt offerings were claimed by the bible to be "offered" for the calf. So were they put inside it; and it is the origin of the brazen bull ? but instead of "offerings" people were put inside later by the Greeks ?
Burnt offerings in the Bible were generally made on an altar in the open air inside the Temple, there's no suggestion that they were made inside a bronze bull.
I think the differences in the 'golden calf' story in the Bible and the Quran are the result of sloppy plagiarism, nothing more. Additionally, stories about the brazen bull as a torture device had been around for more than six hundred years before Mohammed got round to commercial religion - it's entirely possible that he'd heard about it and incorporated the 'lowing sound' into his book.
Boru
We don't have to take the literal story for granted; don't we?
The brazen bull has a door used to stuff people inside; so it would make a lot of sense that offerings were stuffed inside before it became a torture instrument.
We also know that most pagans used to burn people as offerings.
(March 4, 2020 at 6:44 am)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: The lowing sound could have been produced by someone in the base of the idol blowing a horn.
Makes a lot of sense.
The "golden calf" may had produced it lowing sound this way, then little by little Greeks developed it into the infamous brazen bull.
(March 4, 2020 at 7:12 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Don't think it would have been big enough.
Alternately, Mohammed could have gotten the story wrong, or could have added the bit about 'lowing' for atmosphere.
Boru
I doubt it.
Mohammed -peace be upon him- was not an encyclopedia of ancient stories. He couldn't even read.
(March 4, 2020 at 6:52 pm)arewethereyet Wrote: Seems that Atlas is just brimming with brazen bull****.
It's a personal theory.
(March 4, 2020 at 7:34 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote: I should point out that the history of the Brazen Bull is sketchy. There has never been any hard proof that it was ever used. It was most documented as an alleged torture device invented by Perillos for Phalaris, tyrant of Akragas (now Agrigento), Sicily. Phalaris tested it out by throwing Perillos in it, and Phalaris himself was thrown into it when he was overthrown in 554 BC. Even this is contested, and all the claims it was used after Phalaris' overthrow is sketchy, at best.
Do you know any other historical mentions of this device ?
