Plato and the Pentateuch

[ABuddhist]

a) Besides maybe Gmirkin, and maybe DM Murdock/Acharya S, who accepts M. Lockwood's proposal about Alexandria?

b) Brahmi script pre-dated the Library of Alexandria, so it was not invented there. See Peter T Daniels books if you don't trust my previous reference.

I was not saying that I agreed with Lockwood's proposal, but that it was interesting. That can be said about other theories also, regardless of whether they are true.

With regard to your claims about Brahmi script, the following source disagrees with you:

"Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan Languages" (Oxford University Press, Dec 10, 1998), by Richard Salomon, on p 17: "... the Brahmi script appeared in the third century BCE as a fully developed pan-Indian national script (sometimes used as a second script even within the proper territory of Kharosthi in the north-west) and continued to play this role throughout history, becoming the parent of all of the modern Indic scripts both within India and beyond. Thus, with the exceptions of the Indus script in the protohistoric period, of Kharosthi in the northwest in the ancient period, and of the Perso–Arabic and European scripts in the medieval and modern periods, respectively, the history of writing in India is virtually synonymous with the history of the Brahmi script and its derivatives."

Furthermore,

As of 2018, Harry Falk refined his view by affirming that Brahmi was developed from scratch in a rational way at the time of Ashoka, by consciously combining the advantages of the pre-existing Greek script and northern Kharosthi script. Greek-style letter types were selected for their "broad, upright and symmetrical form", and writing from left to right was also adopted for its convenience. On the other hand, the Kharosthi treatment of vowels was retained, with its inherent vowel "a", derived from Aramaic, and stroke additions to represent other vowel signs. In addition, a new system of combining consonants vertically to represent complex sounds was also developed. See Falk, Harry (2018). "The Creation and Spread of Scripts in Ancient India". Literacy in Ancient Everyday Life: 43–66 (online 57–58). doi:10.1515/9783110594065-004. ISBN 9783110594065. S2CID 134470331. Archived from the original on 2021-12-10. Retrieved 2020-01-04.

So such a claim is not chronologically incompatible with an Alexandrian origin.

[Russell Gmirkin]

In other words:
a) Besides maybe Gmirkin, and maybe DM Murdock/Acharya S, who accepts M. Lockwood's proposal about Alexandria?

b) Brahmi script pre-dated the Library of Alexandria, so it was not invented there. See Peter T Daniels books if you don't trust my previous reference.

Professor Michael Lockwood has argued in several books and many articles that the delegation of Buddhists who traveled to Alexandria in the time of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (and other Greek centers of learning) in a diplomatic mission documented in a well-known stele from the time of Ashoka the Great (ca. 268-232 BCE) invented the Brahmi script (which has clear affinities to Greek) in order to record in writing certain previously oral works on Buddhist religious teachings to be added to the Great Library. (Lockwood had already developed these theories several years before encountering my research, by the way).

(1) On what basis do you claim that I accept Michael Lockwood's thesis? I am merely reporting it. I am familiar with it, but that does not mean the same thing. Another classic instance of SG failure to accurately grasp plain English.

(2) The visit to Alexandria, reported in the stele of Ashoka, is completely uncontroversial. Lockwood, who appears to have a firm grasp of the primary evidence as well as secondary literature, argues that the Brahmi script is of later date than has been proposed in the past. I'm not a specialist in this area, so I cannot evaluate whether his arguments are correct, but they appear competent. See also ABuddhist's informed comments.

[StephenGoranson]

"However, a new body of material has recently come to light that seems to support the older theory that Brahmi existed before Mauryan times, that is, in the fourth century B.C. or even earlier."
Page 12, Richard Salomon, Indian Epigraphy, a Guide..., Oxford University Press, 1998.

[Russell Gmirkin]

"However, a new body of material has recently come to light that seems to support the older theory that Brahmi existed before Mauryan times, that is, in the fourth century B.C. or even earlier."
Page 12, Richard Salomon, Indian Epigraphy, a Guide..., Oxford University Press, 1998.

Why is it I wonder that you omit Salomon's remarks in the same paragraph that the inscribed potsherds may be intrusive to that strata and may actually belong to a later period?

[ABuddhist]

"However, a new body of material has recently come to light that seems to support the older theory that Brahmi existed before Mauryan times, that is, in the fourth century B.C. or even earlier."
Page 12, Richard Salomon, Indian Epigraphy, a Guide..., Oxford University Press, 1998.

Why is it I wonder that you omit Salomon's remarks in the same paragraph that the inscribed potsherds may be intrusive to that strata and may actually belong to a later period?

Furthermore, the passage which I quoted came from later in his book, suggesting that Salomon did not regard the evidence as proving that Brahmi was pre-Mauryan.

[neilgodfrey]

But given this is the humanities and nothing matters yes you can keep pointing to this or that "bit of evidence" (which isn't "evidence" per se but just a log which keeps the theory afloat).

Wait. Are you actually condemning the practise of citing evidence in order to support a theory?

He does, you know. He complained that when one responds to his arguments with facts and references from a range of sources one makes it pointless for him to continue the discussion:

I don't get it. But somehow the answer is to be found on a certain page of Grimkin's work or a footnote or something that was said in another book or a review somewhere or ...

What's the point.

A strange fellow. I find my time here much more pleasant when I avoid bothering to read any of his comments.

[Russell Gmirkin]

<<Nothing worth quoting>>

Stephen Goranson’s approach to my research is highly reminiscent, in my opinion, of contemporary responses to Galileo’s research in the early 1600s. You will recall, Galileo was a scientific innovator, a mathematicus who wrote a number of books regarding discoveries he made by means of telescopic observations: the mountains of the moon, the moons of Jupiter, the phases of Venus (which proved the orbit of Venus around the sun), and several others. He was an advocate of the heliocentric model of the solar system, a paradigm that ran counter to the Ptolemaic geocentric paradigm of the Catholic Church and contemporary university scholarship that held the earth to be the center of the universe. He famously had debates with his fellow scholars and with the Church, and was tried more than once by the Inquisition, who finally forced him in 1633 to renounce on pain of death his heretical scientific discoveries that ran counter to biblical teachings and Catholic doctrine, and to abstain from teaching his heliocentric views. He remained under house arrest from 1633 until his death in 1642.

His views quite obviously did not change the majority views of his contemporaries, but are now universally accepted. Why? Because they were right, and he had the evidence to prove it.

But who accepted the evidence during his lifetime? Basically, one could divide up his contemporary into two opposing camps: those who looked at his evidence, and those who did not. Kepler and other astronomers, of course, agreed with his conclusions. Jesuit astronomers, though initially skeptical and quite hostile to his scientific viewpoint, which ran counter to Church teachings, were won over, for a very simple reason: they obtained quality telescopes, they checked his observations, and confirmed that he was in fact correct.

The other group included prominent theologians, philosophers (that is, natural philosophers) and other scholars. These educated elites (or shall we say elitists) rejected his views because of their adherence to Aristotelian philosophy, Ptolemaic astronomy and Catholic doctrine. Quite famously, and not coincidentally, they adamantly refused to look through Galileo’s telescope to see for themselves the evidence he put forward in his books, despite given the opportunity. Galileo wrote about them as follows in a famous letter to Kepler:

My dear Kepler, I wish that we might laugh at the remarkable stupidity of the common herd. What do you have to say about the principal philosophers of this academy who are filled with the stubbornness of an asp and do not want to look at either the planets, the moon or the telescope, even though I have freely and deliberately offered them the opportunity a thousand times? Truly, just as the asp stops its ears, so do these philosophers shut their eyes to the light of truth.

One of Galileo’s contemporaries, the Aristotelian philosopher Cesare Cremonini of the University of Padua, after hearing of Galileo’s claim to have seen mountains on the moon, refused to look at the moon through a telescope. Later sources quoted him as saying:

I do not wish to approve of claims about which I do not have any knowledge, and about things which I have not seen … and then to observe through those glasses gives me a headache. Enough! I do not want to hear anything more about this.

One can thus trace exactly how Galileo’s opponents, including prominent academics of his day, were able to maintain their opposition to his paradigm-changing views: by refusing to view the evidence. And rejecting his dangerous theories on that basis.

Although Stephen Goranson is nowhere remotely in the same league as the scholastics and intellectuals of Galileo’s day, he resorts to the same stratagem, staunchly refusing to read the books he arrogantly claims to refute. Evidently reading a book gives him the same headache Cremonini claimed he got from looking through a telescope. I suspect tracing an academic argument from evidence to conclusion (such as I carefully present in all my books and articles) would give him a splitting migraine.

He sees himself as a defender of scholastic orthodoxy and believes that truth is measured, not by evidence and argument, but by a show of hands.

Tell me, Stephen, exactly how that model applies to the time of Galileo.

Or do you believe the sun circles the earth, based on the majority opinion of those of Galileo’s day?

Recommended reading:
Kuhn, Thomas S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

[Secret Alias]

Neil, I don't miss someone who pretends that after 15 years of this theory no one in the field has bought into it. Like the effect a theory has is different that actually demonstrating it can be a working model for the origins of Judaism, Hebrew or anything else. Just think of the implications of this theory. Our understanding of Hebrew as a language mostly comes from the study of the Pentateuch. But wait! Now we know nothing about Hebrew before 270 BCE when it was allegedly used to render Greek writings into this barbarous tongue. Really? Is anyone going to turn upside down the entire study of Hebrew to accommodate people who want to make Jews and Judaism "barbarous" once again. Unlikely. But taking stupidity seriously isn't my thing.

[Secret Alias]

[like] contemporary responses to Galileo’s research in the early 1600s

And I guess your Galileo in this analogy.

[Secret Alias]

I am waiting for an Israeli scholar to develop the theory that the Greek philosophers didn't exist until the establishment of the library of Alexandria when Greek stole the books of Hebrews and other barbarous people to invent Plato, Aristotle and the like. There is no end to the writing of silly books.