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Swords to ploughshares

I sympathize with your concern for history and I respect the time you've put into this site, but having emotional outbursts like you did above doesn't necessarily differentiate yourself from the war machine. It just makes you out to be a soldier from another mother, an accessory to aggression and violence, but from another POV, an altogether different war machine, but a war machine nevertheless. Claude AnShin Thomas writes, "War is a collective expression of our individual aggression, it is a collective expression of our individual suffering...Wake up to the roots of war in you. And, allow them to be your teacher". War can't exist outside of ourselves if we are in control of our thoughts. Changing the world (and the way history is represented in the world) begins and ends by changing the way you think. Viriditas (talk) 23:23, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

There is no such thing as "moral equivalency" between Truth and Falsehood. Yes, these two are opposed to each other, but being opposed to each other does not make the two things morally equivalent. No matter what is said and done, Truth will still be Truth, and those committed to falsehood will loathe it. Either there is some actual, credible, tangible archaeological or historiographic evidence that the Biblical Israelites believed in a "sea monster named Rahab", or else, the "sea monster named Rahab" is entirely the unattested fictional invention of the modern-day bullshit artists, all within the last century or so. This is but one example. I have seen wikipedia take an intolerant stance toward anyone daring to suggest the Israelites DIDN'T believe in a "sea monster named Rahab". In this case, the best argument they've got for it seems to be "Truthiness" (Hey, a "sea monster named Rahab" just sounds right, doesn't it? So therefore that proves it MUST be what they believed, it is declared 100% Hebrew doctrine by wikipedia, and dissent from this view isn't an option in this case.) Never mind the fact that we have fairly extensive records of who believed what, many thorough descriptions of Hebrew beliefs written by themselves and others; a good corpus of tablets indicating what the Canaanites believed, that approximates fairly well the historiographic descriptions of what the Canaanites believed; and similar for most of their neighbours; and if anyone can find in all of that, any population group ever recorded to have imagined any kind of sea creature with any name remotely resembling "Rahab", I may be proved wrong.

On the other hand, tons of contemporary literature attesting that the Mandan and Blackfeet leadership were less than happy about their people being exterminated with disease, can be pretended not to exist because their viewpoint on the matter is "irrelevant", see how it works? The whole idea can be conveniently scapegoated on a modern professor who was born decades after these things were written, and the idea goes away. Or at least they want the idea to go away. I am confident in the ultimate victory of truth over falsehood, there IS such a thing as justice in the universe, and if they must spend eternity with themselves it would be fitting. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 09:50, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

BTW: The "sea monster named Rahab" is such patent modern-day BS (unheard of in ancient times) that I daresay even those who spout this babble themselves don't believe it for a minute, and really know better. They tell themselves they are pulling the wool over someone else's eyes, but of whom? Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 10:09, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Notice that in the first case (Rahab), "evidence please" is the last thing the "fringe" wolfpack wants to be asked, because they are trying to put it in the category of "Things You Will Never Understand As A Neophyte". You're not supposed to ask for evidence, you're supposed to take it as read that Rahab just "is" a sea monster, because the People Smarter Than You in their white smocks conducted an experiment in a locked room, and conclusively divined this information by means that would go over your head, and what's more, they all agreed on it. In the second case, the pack can't repeat "evidence please" enough. Every time they are shown more evidence from contemporary accounts, then those with the air of a judge, jury and executioner will declare them unreliable, will declare them inadmissible, and then repeat "evidence please". (Knowing full well that no evidence shown will ever do, because it is a circular argument devoid of logic) It's part of a sure-fire method to turn npov upside down by means of .ftn, so I will probably just watch and see how bad it gets before totally collapsing. There are some articles I had promised to fill in references for, I don't know if that may be a moral obligation at some point. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 15:22, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Sea Monsters in the Bible

Let's get to the bottom of the curious phenomenon of the multiplication and spread of sea monsters throughout the text of the Bible, we may find out a lot.

'Multiplication and spread of sea monsters' is not hyperbole; it may be seen that several of the English translations written after 2000 prefer to use the term "sea monster" in Isaiah 51:9 to correspond to the original Hebrew word tannin, even though most traditional commentaries produce intelligent arguments that tannin ought to be understood here as the crocodile representing Pharaoh (the ruler of Egypt), as the same word is often used explicitly to refer to Pharaoh in Ezekiel and elsewhere in the Bible (and by the way not an exact equivalent for "Rahab" in the preceding clause which as they all say is rather a name for Egypt itself.) Even the "New King James Bible 2000 version" has put "sea monster" here for tannin, whereas the real King James Bible used "dragon" for tannin, as influenced by LXX Drakon. Tannin (plural Tanninim, Tanninot) appears throughout the Hebrew Bible, has been confused with Tenim "jackals" in a few versions, and has been translated as a bewildering number of different animals and mythological creatures over the years, including but not limited to: crocodile, whale, serpent, jackal, fox, wild dog, hedgehog; dragon, siren, onocentaur, satyr, sea monster, and lamia. The completely unreferenced, dubious, and not too helpful article Tannin (demon) even claims it is the name of a demon. But the earliest rendering of tannin as "sea monster" in any Bible that I could find is Douay Rheims, for exactly one instance of tannin, Lamentations 4:3, and "sea monster" was again picked up in that verse in King James, which often relied heavily on Douay Rheims. The proliferation of sea monsters over 400 years is evident: From their beachhead 400 years ago in a single verse at Lamentation 4:3, this interpretation now appears as an acceptably "modern" rendering of tannin in a variety of other verses as we have seen.

In Clarke's Commentary for Lam 4:3, he notes: "The word תנין tannin, signifies all large and cruel creatures, whether aquatic or terrestrial; and need not here be restrained to the former sort." He agrees with all the other commentators that in that verse it is almost certainly the whale which indeed has internal mammaries that are withdrawn. "Sea monster" as in KJV and D-R would appear to be a very quaint choice of words here in Lamentations 4:3. How did it get there? Can it be traced back any further than D-R? Where did these sea monsters come from that can multiply and spread themselves all over the Bible?

Before the Douay Rheims, English versions of Lamentations such as Wycliffe and Coverdale had used the word "lamia" in 4:3 where the later versions had opted for "sea monsters". They simply adopted the term "lamia" from the Latin Vulgate which reads lamiae in that verse. The article Lamia doesn't mention it, but "Lamia" is also the Greek word for "shark", and the Lamia is sometimes also characterized as a sea monster in Greco-Latin folklore. So the appearance of the "Lamiae" in the Latin Vulgate of ca. AD 400 might then plausibly mark the very first introduction of any kind of "sea monster" into any version of the Bible, if that's how it was understood by the time of Wycliffe (1395).

The thing is, "lamia" in Latin means jackal, not shark. When Jerome translated the Vulgate into Latin, he is thought to have had a Hebrew copy that read tenim and not tannin, fitting the plural tense of the verb better grammatically anyway, which is why he chose to render it as lamiae, jackals in Lamentations 4:3.

I have found that all of these points about the meanings of tannin and lamia have been repeated so many times by so many Biblical scholars that it seems trivial to do so here again. Yet ignoring all this valid scholarship, some of the newest sloppy English translations choose to repeat the mediaeval nonsense about sea monsters, not just in Lamentations but all over the place. Isaiah is prophecy; it refers to Pharaoh as a "tannin" as a visionary term, much like other prophets refer to both nations and kings as various animals or even "dragons", and it is part of a vision concerning the Exodus, not by any stretch a "polytheistic creation narrative" as one truly "fringe" school of thought has it. When Moses during the time of the Exodus is said to had his staff turn into a serpent (tannin) through the Power of YHWH, it destroyed the tanninim of the Pharaoh's magicians. There is little actual agreement in all the scholarship on the various uses of the word tannin throughout the Bible. Of course this still gets nowhere near the additional grand assumption by some that "Rahab" itself is a sea monster simply because it is mentioned in the same verse as a Tannin -- another idea that traces to late mediaeval misinterpretations that nowadays seem to be becoming irrefutable dogma in some of the unenlightened, intolerant backwaters of wikipedia of all places. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 02:20, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Fried fish

Given the claims you have made on Talk:Fried fish, and the considerable expenditure of time that has entailed for other editors, you owe it to us to see the matter through to a satisfactory conclusion. To do otherwise would raise issues about the integrity of your statements.

Spurred by your assurances that it is very easy to establish notability, I set out to find the evidence. Eventually, I had to look at every likely source on the web. The nearest source I can find indicating an international status for fried fish in the Lahori style is here, together with an uncommented recipe here. There are, of course, plenty of local recipies, and there is a local mix used to fry the fish. And there are, of course, a small number of passing references by restaurants and Pakistan newspapers. There is nothing relevant in Google Books, and the "Reliable Sources Search Engine" by A Quest For Knowledge also turns up nothing of value. All this is a loooong way from establishing some sort of general notability. There are more reliable sources on fried fish in Auckland, where I live, a city that has one tenth the population of Lahore.

So there we are... I'm still assuming good faith and trusting that you have not just gratuitously send me off on a wild goose chase. So it's time now for you to stump up and disclose the sources you have found. I assume they are off line, since I can't find them on line, so you will need to quote the relevant parts. Thanks. --Epipelagic (talk) 03:21, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

On Springfield Mountain

Thanks for helping clean up the article. I have included sources for the new information I added, which you removed, so that the claims are verifiable. I am having some trouble finding other sources in the article, please lend a hand over at Talk:On_Springfield_Mountain if you have any ideas! Memtgs (talk | contribs) @ 23:54, 31-03-2013 UTC 23:54, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Mobilesig

Template:Mobilesig has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • View signature as intended) 12:11, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Even this is not true. It has been "listed" for "discussion". I see no nomination or proposal to delete on that page. Illiteracy is a dark journey. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 13:46, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you Til, you're quite right of course. I'm honestly not trying to impose my version, I just think it's polite to leave a contested edit in the original version (the default, so to speak) while it's discussed on Talk. PiCo (talk) 21:14, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what I was referring to there (I don't clearly remember the circumstances). What I MIGHT have meant was that by the end of the 19th century most Anglican and Catholic clergy no longer held that Genesis 1-11 was literally true. Or maybe it was even narrower, and it was only the creation narrative. Anyway, what I was remembering, or misremembering, was no doubt the Introduction to Ronald Numbers' The Creationists (the 1992 version). He says on page x (the first page of the Introduction) that within decades of the publication of Darwin's Origin, had "captivated" scientists and was beginning to draw favourable comment from religious leaders.

I wish you'd comment in this latest brouhaha in Creation narrative. I'm going to recuse myself. PiCo (talk) 21:44, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Curse of Ham

Hello, You told others to adhere to consensus and undid to a latest version, yet you not really restored the lastest version, but also removed all this information that was before, already:

"Another explanation of the Curse, as told by the ancient rabbis, including the great Eleazer, calls for an entirely different rendering of the strange story in Genesis from the version in the King James Bible. They taught that the ’erwath of Genesis did not mean ‘nakedness’ at all, but should be given its primary root meaning of ‘skin covering.’ Read thus, we are to understand that Ham took the garment of his father while he was sleeping and showed it to his brethren, Shem and Japheth, who took a pattern of it (salmah) or else a woven garment like it (simlah) which they put upon their own shoulders, returning a skin garment to their father. Upon awaking, either learning from Shem and Japheth or from his own recollection, Noah realized what Ham had done.

Theft alone could not have accounted for such a drastic Curse. However, the Curse is given a more clear justification when one understands the sacred nature and history of the particular garment involved. The Talmud confirms: "And there was a certain coat of skins which God had made for Adam. When Adam died this coat became the possession of Enoch; from him it descended to Methusaleh, his son; Methusaleh gave it to Noah, who took it with him into the ark. And when the people left the ark Ham stole this coat, and hid it from his brothers, giving it secretly thereafter to Cush, his son. Cush kept it hidden for many years, until out of his great love he gave it to Nimrod, the child of his old age. When Nimrod was twenty years of age he put on this coat, and it gave him strength and might; might as a hunter in the fields, and might as a warrior in the subjection of his enemies and opponents. And his wars and undertakings prospered until he became king over all the earth." ref:The Talmud: Selections, by H. Polano, Part First, Chapter 1

Thus, the garment of which we are speaking was handed down through Patriarchal lineange from Adam to Noah. The rightful possession and use of which garment designated he who could act and speak for God. When Noah awoke to find the "skin covering" which "God had made for Adam" stolen by Ham, he cursed Canaan to be a servant to his heirs who did not attempt to take priesthood authority by usurpation or theft (See Hebrews 5:4." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goose friend (talk • contribs) 23:43, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

As I said in the edit summary, I reverted to the latest stable version that had consensus. The place to discuss how plausible this or other additions would be for the article, is on the article talk page, not here. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 00:03, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Clarification

I did NOT call you irrelevant. READ other people's posts caefully first before answering. Please redact your comment, because as it reads now, it appears that you are accusing me of making a personal attack. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 02:48, 8 April 2013 (UTC)