Recent Comments

1. about 9 hours ago on Shoe

   Pretty good. Throw in the concepts of arete and hubris and the moral that nice guys wind up dead and you’ve got a first class essay.

2. about 10 hours ago on Ink Pen

   How is it wrong? Kelpies are, in general, more dangerous than púcas, but I wouldn’t trust either one with my cell phone.

3. about 11 hours ago on Shoe

   Schliemann being careful wouldn’t have changed much. A lot of 19th century “archaeology” would be better designated as “tomb robbing.”

4. about 12 hours ago on Loose Parts

   Two different explanations… Both may be right. I suspect that your experience may be the more common than programmers trying to build job security in for themselves. I’ve had to work with some (insert nasty adjective here) programs where, I suspect, the programmers told the project managers, “This isn’t ready for release yet!” Only to have the project manager answer, “We got to release it… Marketing promised it would go on sale two weeks ago!”

5. about 14 hours ago on Shoe

   The Greeks weren’t big into colonization until later. The time period of the war against Troy… Assuming there really was a war and it isn’t just all fiction (most of it certainly is) the city that was later designated as the site of Troy might have been inhabited by Hattians, or Hurrians, or Hittites or some other group we don’t even know the name of. And some don’t call the Mycenaeans, the inhabitants of the Peloponnesian Peninsula, Greeks until after the Dorians arrive later.

   Yep, it’s a mess.

6. about 19 hours ago on Non Sequitur

   Those only work if you’re a flat earther. And there are way too many. The Bible comes from a particular time in history and gives an interpretation of the events – as all writings of an event give an interpretation. Archaeologists use any written material that may help them interpret the material remains they are working with – be it Egyptian hieroglyphs, Cuneiform monuments and clay tablets, Persian court records, or Greek writers. Why remove the Bible as a source? That seems to reflect a bias on your part. If the flat-earthers were proclaiming the Egyptian Book of the Dead literally true would it mean the Book of the Dead shouldn’t be studied for what it is?

7. about 20 hours ago on Non Sequitur

   You might also notice I didn’t use the term Biblical archaeology. That’s because I know it is a hotly debated term even by the men and women engaged in field work. Some say it is too confusing for the average person and others insist it is a meaningful term and if the simple-minded don’t understand it, it is not their fault (and the continued use of the term helps bring in funding – archeologists need $$ to finance digs).

8. about 20 hours ago on Non Sequitur

   The term Biblical archaeology is debated by archaeologists. Before I went on my first dig I had people telling me that archaeology had proved every word in the Bible false. I had people telling me archaeology had proved every word in the Bible true. Neither is correct. Archeologists specialize in geographic regions and time periods, “Pre-Columbian Meso-America,” for example. To that extent “Biblical Archaeology” refers only to geographic and temporal limitations (recognizing that it actually extends rather earlier – you can’t understand the Late Bronze or Early Iron ages of the Middle East without looking back at the Neolithic – Middle Bronze age… Heck, you really need to even look at Paleolithic). It does not exist to prove the Bible right. It does not exist to prove the Bible wrong.

   Two caveats: First, the above only applies to legitimate archaeology. There is way too much bogus archaeology which thought it was there to “prove” the Bible right – see most “archaeology” from the 18th-early 20th century (including the clown who found the walls of Jericho! (two different walls from time periods centuries away from the required time period). Second Your claim that the phrase is often perverted for political or theological ends is absolutely true.

9. about 23 hours ago on Ink Pen

   It do indeed.

10. about 23 hours ago on JumpStart

    That was my thought. Did he ever get a kite in the air?