Posted by Gary [GLamotta] on March 30, 1999 at 05:30:42 {.Oe37V.qjQMRXA6xmpscboLUiPtahc}:
In Reply to: ******ANSTEY'S CHRONOLOGY DEAD # 2 posted by COJ on March 30, 1999 at 03:12:34:
Hi Carl,
I finally did read Yamauchi's book and it was
much like reading a book of one of my favorite
authors who wrote a book called GTR3!
His book is a joke, historically, but there were some incredible research items in it that made reading it well worth the time.
He's quite thorough and just for the record,
as far as dealing with the chronological contradiction of Cyrus' birth, he claims she
was an older daughter, not the one Astyages
married
after the battle of Lydian-Median
peace agreement.
Furthermore, in a very new twist, he actually
did not find the 585BCE eclipse date realistic
and tries to date it to another period. But
he shows absolutely no insight in
this endeavor
either as he uses a partial eclipse substitution.
Not at all what I expected from a well-known scholar.
Of course, all of that is just speculation.
Of note, even though his book is called "Persia
and the
Bible" (or something like that), when
it came to the critical issue of Nehemiah and
the problem of Nehemiah and Ezra being together
at one point, since this didn't agree with
his chronology, he simply decided that
the
reference in the scriptures to Nehemiah and
Ezra being together was a "gloss", that is,
a spurious addition to the Bible and thus
can be dismissed.
How convenient.
So what his book really is, is not a
really
historical commentary as much as a historical
propaganda like somebody else's book we both
know about. So it was disappointing that he
really didn't deal with the contradictions,
he just dismissed them right and left
as
non-issues and ended up doing as much
historical revisionism of his own as any
real historical comparisons of the Bible
versus secular history. So his solutions
were very amateurish and surprisingly biased.
Therefore,
in no way a book to challenge any
Biblical chronology. Simply deciding what
text you don't like is "spurious" simply
doesn't cut it.
On the other hand, and I'm saying what, there
was an incredible inclusion in his book, a
photo of something, that made reading the
book worth while which opened up a clear
confirmation of something I'd always been
suspicious of.
Don't get me wrong. The book, like yours,
covers lots of great things and I got
many
wonderful things from the book, I was just
disappointed that he didn't really address
the Biblical contradictions and felt so free
to make up things without basis to get past
certain problems, such as subsituting a
partial
eclipse for the total eclipse event of the
Lydian-Median peace agreement. Why didn't he
just dismiss the entire event as fake as AF
had done?
But one gem I got from his book was that the
building at Persepolis
ended in the 7th year
of Artaxerxes! That means that it was finished
within three years of Darius' death and the
"city" only took about 5-6 years! So that was nice to find out. And that makes sense based
upon the buildings
that were there and that
were started by Darius but finished by
"Xerxes."
Actually, the book wasn't bad, I was just disappointed he was so casual about not dealing
with the historical accounts and when push
came to shove,
simply dismissing really
contradictory Biblical issues such as
Nehemiah's and Ezra's being together as
a Biblical "gloss."
Anyway, it was nice to know there was nothing really new that would have an impact on the
true
chronology.
Strange book. And here you are...quoting from it.... I should have known. (smile)
Cheers,
Gary