World History 201 Section 05: From the Big Bang to 1500 C. E.

Instructor: Carol Cutter Umi-ai-moku Helekunihi

Office: Social Science Bldg. 120A

Office Number: (808) 675- 3640

Classroom: GCB 185

Tuesday nights only 5:15 pm-8:15 pm

World History 201

Overview: History is exactly

that. In order to make

informed decisions it is helpful

to see what worked and didn’t

in the past. It is not humanly

possible to do anything but a

drive by shooting of this time

period, so hang on for some

fairly spectacular discoveries.

Daily Pop Quiz of previous readings and Participation 10 Points (Beginning of

class) 20%

One well developed paper with Hard core Thesis from online library source. 25%

http://lt.byuh.edu/sites/lt.byuh.edu/files/history201-library/main.html

Final Exam 25% In the Testing Center

(You need a Blue Book for Final only)

Movie Reviews and Book Report 10%

Homework 10%

Class Presentation (Group) 10% How does man make sense of the universe?

Presentations 23rd

February, 2012.

Class Expectations:

Class begins @ 5:00 pm. Please be on time and attend every class.

The readings should be done by the day of class.

Please come prepared with a three ringed binder to put all paper work into.

We will begin each class with a quiz on readings. Your name and date

should be placed on a piece of paper that you bring. It will be corrected by

another student in class and your grade will be placed on the top. This will

generate discussion and let me know about your attendance.

You will write a one page response to longer video presentations.

You will write one 8-10 page paper by accessing the library online source at:

http://lt.byuh.edu/sites/lt.byuh.edu/files/history201-library/main.html

Paper Due 29th March, 2012.

Those who plagiarize will be shot. No mercy.

The paper has to be submitted to Turn This In electronically and you need to also

hand in a hard copy. The Turn It In is a website that checks for plagiarism.

You will do a group presentation. (Nov. 1) The subject is How does man make

sense of the universe?

You need a Blue Book for your one and only final exam in the Testing Center.

TBA

You need to find a book written during our time period Big Bang to the 1500’s.

Read it and then write a book report on it. Here is the format:

1. Introductory Paragraph

The first sentence should state for which instructor and class the book-report is

being written.

The second sentence should state the title of the book and the author's name.

The third sentence should tell how many pages the book has and the name of

the publisher.

The fourth sentence can state basic bibliographic information about the book.

Bibliographic information means not only the author and title but also what

company published the book, what year it was published in and any other

relevant information such as the edition and if the book has been translated,

simplified or abridged. (see copyright page and the back of the title page.)

The next sentence should state the reason(s) you decided to read this book. Why

did you choose this particular book? Typical reasons might be:

o You like the author.

o You like this type of book (i.e. mystery, western, adventure or romance,

etc.).

o Someone recommended the book to you.

o It was on a required reading list.

o You liked the cover.

These reasons do not have to be complex. Most people choose the books they

read because they like the author or somebody recommended it to them. If you

chose the book because you like the author, then state why you like that author.

An optional sentence can be used if the cover (back cover) of the book gives

you any additional information then add a sentence with that information.

o Was the book a best seller?

o Are there X million copies in print?

o Did it win any major awards?

2. Main Character(s) Paragraph

The first sentence of this paragraph should state who the main character or

characters of the book are, and why they are important. Refer to this person or

these persons as the Main Character or Main Characters.

You will need at least a complex sentence for this, and probably more than one

sentence.

3. Other Characters Paragraph

You should compose at least one sentence for each of the other prominent or

important characters in the book. State the name of each of the other important

characters, and the key role that each one plays in the book

Most books have five or six prominent characters besides the main character, so

simply listing each one and stating their role in the book will give you a good

sized paragraph.

4. Plot Summary Paragraph

This is perhaps the hardest paragraph to write in five sentences or so. If you have

to write a bit more don't worry. Here are the main points to cover:

o State the type of book (Mystery, Western, etc.).

o What place or country was the book set in?

o What time period was the book set in? (19th century, the present, ancient

Rome, the 23rd century).

o Other physical locations which are important, like: ships, airplanes,

houses, or buildings.

o Other notable attributes of the book. (Was it violent, scary, fast paced,

etc.).

o What is the main character trying to do?

o What is the outcome of the book?

o etc.

Make sure you cover all of the major parts of the plot. You might have to go back

through the book, chapter by chapter, and make a few notes.

5. Personal Impressions and Conclusion Paragraph

Simply talk about what you liked or did not like about the book. Use this

paragraph as your conclusion. It should summarize your overall impressions of

the book and bring the report to a close.

o Start with a sentence that states that you are now writing a conclusion.

(For example: "My final thoughts on 'A Fine Balance' are that it is a

fascinating book but I am not entirely sure if I completely understood the

thematic message of the book."

o Restate your reasons why you liked and/or disliked the book using

different words.

o Write two sentences that talk about the books good points and weak

points.

o Write a sentence or two about what you learned from the book.

o Close with a sentence that states whether you would recommend the book

to others.

Don't be afraid to give your own honest impressions of the book. After all, if

you've read the book thoroughly, you are entitled to your own interpretation of it.

Typically, your book report should not exceed two double-spaced pages, and it

should be somewhere between 600 and 800 words in length.

Your Book Report will be due Nov. 15, 2011.

We will also have a mid-term Temple field trip. For those who are Not endowed or

members, we will arrange for you to go to the Visitors Center. We are hoping for

Tuesday, February 16th, during class time, 6:00 pm session but please be 45

minutes early so we can all go in the same session. LOL

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

The purpose of this history course is to prepare BYU-Hawaii students for global

citizenship in the 21st century by focusing on the historical and cultural processes that

have produced the complexities of the contemporary world. The course takes seriously

the goal of BYU-Hawaii’s mission statement to “promote world peace and international

brotherhood” by “providing a period of intensive learning in a stimulating, multicultural,

gospel-centered environment.”

Envisioned and supported by the BYU-Hawaii General Education Committee, the

course closely examines experiences within and between cultures. We will explore the

inter-cultural contacts and conflicts that have displaced and remade the world in the past

five hundred years. Centered on an island in the middle of the Pacific, we are in a

position to develop a unique angle of vision. We will study groups of people from all

types of “islands” (from atolls to continents). The lessons we learn should help us to

both understand and transcend the limitations of our own perspectives.

Here is your chance to live up to the verse in the Doctrine and Covenants which

urges us all to “study and learn, and become acquainted with all good books, and with

languages, tongues and peoples.” (D&C 90:15)

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

“From this school will go men and women whose influence will be felt for

good towards the establishment of peace internationally.” David O.

McKay

1. Gain hands-on experience with text, readings and contexts.

2. Learn the role of perspective in records of the past and present.

3. Emphasize effective communication through integrated assignments.

4. Exercise voice and recognize voice in others.

5. Prepare for global citizenship through the study of cultural and historical difference.

TEXT:

Hansen, Valerie and Kenneth R. Curtis, The Voyages in World History Vol. I To 1600.

Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, Boston, MA. 2010.

Please note the following from the University:

BYU-Hawai‘i Honor Code The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sponsors Brigham Young University - Hawai‘i Campus in

order to provide a university education in an atmosphere consistent with the ideals and principles of the

Church. Honesty in academic conduct is expected of every student. Cheating, plagiarizing or knowingly

giving false information are serious violations of the Honor Code.

Preventing Sexual Harassment

Title IX of the education amendments of 1972 prohibits sex discrimination against any participant in an

educational program or activity that receives federal funds, including Federal loans and grants. Title IX

also covers student-to-student sexual harassment. If you encounter unlawful sexual harassment or gender-

based discrimination, please contact the Human Resource Service at 780-8875 (24 hours).

Student With Disabilities

Brigham Young University-Hawai'i is committed to providing a working and learning atmosphere, which

reasonably accommodates qualified person with disabilities. If you have any disability that may impair

your ability to complete this course successfully, please contact the students with Special Need Counselor

Leilani Auna at 293-3999 or 293-3518. Reasonable academic accommodations are reviewed for all

students who have qualified documented disabilities. If you need assistance or if you feel you have been

unlawfully discriminated against on the basis of disability, you may seek resolution through established

grievance policy and procedures. You should contact the Human Resource Services at 780-8875.

Mid-Term and Reflection Tuesday, 16th

February.

Group Presentation, Thursday, 23rd

February.

Book Report Thursday 8th

of March.

Research Paper and 5 Tutorials Thursday, 29th

March.

Final 11th

– 13th

April.

Readings: Listed

Thursday, January 12th

, 2012.

I Perception (Observed Light/Quantum) and Cosmology

PowerPoint Perception

Class Syllabus

In Perspective

Thursday, January 19th

, 2012

Go to the Library and up the stairs to the Library Instructional room on your right by 5:00

pm. and sign-in with me. Begin your 201 on-line research paper with 5 tutorials.

http://lt.byuh.edu/sites/lt.byuh.edu/files/history201-library/main.html

Due: Thursday, Dec. 6, 2011

Class work is to complete the first tutorial have it signed and hand it in that night in place

of your quiz.

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

Review readings:

National Geographic Vol. 189, No. 3 March 1996

The Dawn of Humans: Face-to-Face with Lucy’s Family by Donald C. Johanson

p. 96-117

Hugh Nibley’s writings on evolution

Hansen and Curtis Textbook Voyages in World History Vol I to 1600/Chapter 1 The

Peopling of the World, to 4,000 B.C.E.

Pearl of Great Price Donl Petersen Commentary

Paleolithic Rock Stars:

Due:

Text Chapter 1 page 2-25

Answer questions for analysis on page 14 (3)

Study Chapter Review p. 26-27

Define all Key Terms on page 26

Worth 19 points

Group formations for presentations on how man makes sense of the universe.

Hopefully you have gone and done Research tutorial paper #2

Thursday, February 2nd

, 2012.

Ancient Man and His Edifices

Quiz: Name and Date/History 201

Readings: What is a Temple? A Preliminary Typology by John M. Lundquist

Found in Temples of the Ancient World (FARMS)Deseret Books: Salt Lake City, Utah, 1994. (p. 83-111)

____________Ancient Temples: What Do They Signify? By Hugh W. Nibley p. 402-403 graph/picture

____________What is Reality? By John M. Lundquist p. 622-624

____________The Brother of Jared at the Veil by M. Catherine Thomas p. 388-397

Biblical genealogy

Adam to Abraham

Name (KJ

version)

Name (NIV

version)

Date of

Birth

Age

Upon

1st Son

Age at

Death

Years

Lived References

Adam Adam 1 130 930 1 - 931 Genesis 5:3-5

(NIV)

Seth Seth 131 105 912 131-

1043

Genesis 5:6-8

(NIV)

Enos Enosh 236 90 905 236-

1141

Genesis 5:9-11

(NIV)

Cainan Kenan 326 70 910 326-

1236

Genesis 5:12-14

(NIV)

Mahalaleel Mahalalel 396 65 895 396-

1291

Genesis 5:15-17

(NIV)

Jared Jared 461 162 962 461-

1423

Genesis 5:18-20

(NIV)

Enoch Enoch 623 65 365 623-988 Genesis 5:21-24

(NIV)

Methuselah Methuselah 688 187 969 688-

1657

Genesis 5:25-27

(NIV)

Lamech Lamech 875 182 777 875-

1652

Genesis 5:28-31

(NIV)

Noah Noah 1057 500 950 1057-

2007

Genesis 6:8-9:29

(NIV)

Shem Shem 1559 100 600 1559-

2159

Genesis 11:10

(NIV)

Arphaxad Arphaxad 1659 35 438 1659-

2097

Genesis 11:10-13

(NIV)

Salah Shelah 1694 30 433 1694-

2127

Genesis 11:12-15

(NIV)

Eber Eber 1724 34 464 1724-

2188

Genesis 11:14-17

(NIV)

Peleg Peleg 1758 30 239 1758-

1997

Genesis 11:16-19

(NIV)

Reu Reu 1788 32 239 1788-

2027

Genesis 11:18-21

(NIV)

Serug Serug 1820 30 230 1820-

2050

Genesis 11:20-23

(NIV)

Nahor Nahor 1850 29 148 1850-

1998

Genesis 11:22-25

(NIV)

Terah Terah 1879 70 205 1879-

2084

Genesis 11:24-32

(NIV)

Abram/Abraha

m Abram/Abraham 2009 100 175

2009-

2184

Genesis 12:1-

25:10 (NIV)

Lecture

Lecture on The Brother of Jared At The Veil by M. Catherine Thomas found in Found in Temples of the Ancient World (FARMS)Deseret Books: Salt Lake City, Utah, 1994. The temple is the narrow channel through which one must pass to re-enter the Lord’s presence. A mighty power pulls us through that channel, and it is the sealing power of the at-one-ment of the Lord Jesus Christ. Draw an illustration on the board. In scripture we can study how the ancient great ones were drawn through that narrow channel to find their heart’s desire:

1. Adam, cast out, bereft of his Lord’s presence, searching relentlessly in the lonely world until he finds the keys to that passage to the Lord

2. Abraham searches for his priesthood privileges (Abraham 1:1) and after diligent quest exclaims, “Thy servant hath sought thee earnestly; now I have found thee” (Abraham 2:12).

3. Moses on Horeb 4. Lehi at the tree 5. Nephi on the mountain top.

All these and more conducted that search which is outlined and empowered in the temple endowment, gradually increasing the hold, the seal, between themselves and their Lord. This was the very search for which they were put on earth;

1. TO REND THE VEIL OF UNBELIEF, 2. TO YIELD TO THE PULL OF THE SAVIOR’S SEALING POWER, 3. TO STAND IN THE LORD’S PRESENCE, ENCIRCLED ABOUT IN THE

ARMS OF HIS LOVE ( D & C 6:20, 2 Nephi 1: 15) This then is the Temple endowment:

1. Having been cast out… 2. To search diligently according to the revealed path… 3. At last to be clasped in the arms of Jesus

Back to the Brother of Jared

He experienced elements of the temple endowment:

1. The Tower of Babel-

He rejected the spiritual chaos at the time when Nimrod had his followers reject the

gospel and God in order to empower themselves. Nimrod, as you remember, was a

direct descendent of Ham’s wife Egyptus, who brought the curse of the priesthood

through the flood with her. Nimrod had a multitude who followed him in his belief

that it was cowardice to submit your will to God. Nimrod then had the people build a

tower as some type of temple in order to reach God.

__________The name Babel in Akkadian means ‘gate of God’ and is a play on the

Hebrew word ‘Balal’ meaning to ‘mix or confound’. It is apparent that the tower then

became a counterfeit gate of God or temple, that Ham’s priesthood-deprived descendants

built in rebellion against God.

2. Probation-

Jared and his family rejected this false temple and were spared the Lord’s punishments.

The Jaredite community enjoyed both the spirit of at-one-ment and the powerful Adamic

language and wanted to enlarge their privileges of righteousness.

As the Jaredites, so will be your journey; they were set about on a journey of tests,

strident tests and training in the wilderness, building two sets of barges and enduring

strong chastenings. As their obedience increased, so did their privileges with the Lord.

(Ether 2:5) for “the Lord did go before them, and did talk with them as he stood in a

cloud, and gave directions whither they should travel.”

Successful navigation of their tests brought the brother of Jared to the need for more light

and thus to the mount Shelem

3. The Brother of Jared at the Cloud-Veil-

Shelem= peace offering of the law of sacrifice, fellowship, sealing, at-one-ment,

tranquility, a place that is suitably high for temple activity

Thus, when the brother of Jared went up to the mount he was seeking further light and

knowledge with the Lord. He seems to be going there under influences not fully

conscious but his spirit seems to understand.

At first he seems to be afraid of the Lord’s anger because he feels unworthy and he fights

the temptation to withdraw. He then presses past his fear knowing that the Lord has asked

him to ask and he would receive.

a. King Benjamin’s people fell to the earth because they had viewed themselves in

their carnal state. This awareness of their falleness to God’s perfection caused

them to ‘fear.’

b. Isaiah in a vision of the Lord, contrasts himself and realizes he is ‘undone’ with

‘unclean lips’ and desires to be ‘cleansed.’

Many give up, but the righteous press on and exercise mighty faith as the brother of Jared

did at the ‘Cloud-Veil’ and are able to come into ‘His presence.’ It was his faith that

allowed him to believe and rent the veil of unbelief. Spiritual belief precedes spiritual

knowledge. And Christ shows Himself to the brother of Jared.

You too can enter into the presence of the Lord by entering into the fullness of the

Melchizedek Priesthood, which is only received in the house of the Lord.

4. Faith and Knowledge

Faith led the brother of Jared to the Lord. It was after seeing the Lord that he had perfect

knowledge of the Lord. The knowledge given by the Holy Ghost is not a perfect

knowledge. We need an extended period of probation in order to qualify ourselves as the

brother of Jared did. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ leads in one direction and that is into

the Lord’s presence. D & C. 93:1 “Every soul who forsaketh his sins and cometh unto

me, and calleth on my name, and obeyeth my voice, and keepeth my commandments,

SHALL SEE MY FACE AND KNOW THAT I AM.”

Even the least Saint may know all things as fast as he is able to bear them…

We must have the desire to have our calling and elections made sure. We can do this by

following the pattern of the brother of Jared…

1. He rejected counterfeit worship

2. He pushed past all comfortable way stations

3. He sacrificed in order to be obedient

4. He received his endowment where the Savior of the world sealed him His..

President Benson taught:

“God bless us to receive all the blessings revealed by Elijah the prophet so that our

callings and election will be made sure. I testify with all my soul to the truth of this

message and pray that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will bless modern Israel with

the compelling desire to seek all the blessings of the fathers in the House of our Heavenly

Father.”

.

Thursday, February 9th, 2012.

Hansen and Curtis Chapter 2 The First Complex Societies in the Eastern Mediterranean, ca. 4000-550 BCE

Define the following terms: 1. Mesopotamia

2. Gilgamesh

3. Complex Society

4. Sumer

5. Cuneiform

6. Sargon of Akkad

Objective: Looking for the connection between Noah, Utnapistim, and

Sargon of Akkad. All these stories come from the same region and a similar time period.

The gospel and disproportional relics can be pieced together into one grand whole of truth if we are willing to look analytically at the historical record.

The Flood. The story of the Flood is a familiar one, as we shall see in Genesis

and Popol Vuh (Plato also gives an account of the Flood and the city of Atlantis in the

dialogue, Critias ; the Nez Perce of the Palouse also have a flood story in which the only

humans that survived did so by climbing the mountain, Yamustus, that is, Steptoe Butte).

The Epic of Gilgamesh Summary

The epic’s prelude offers a general introduction to Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, who was two-thirds god

and one-third man. He built magnificent ziggurats, or temple towers, surrounded his city with high

walls, and laid out its orchards and fields. He was physically beautiful, immensely strong, and very

wise. Although Gilgamesh was godlike in body and mind, he began his kingship as a cruel despot. He

lorded over his subjects, raping any woman who struck his fancy, whether she was the wife of one of

his warriors or the daughter of a nobleman. He accomplished his building projects with forced labor,

and his exhausted subjects groaned under his oppression. The gods heard his subjects’ pleas and

decided to keep Gilgamesh in check by creating a wild man named Enkidu, who was as magnificent as

Gilgamesh. Enkidu became Gilgamesh’s great friend, and Gilgamesh’s heart was shattered when

Enkidu died of an illness inflicted by the gods. Gilgamesh then traveled to the edge of the world and

learned about the days before the deluge and other secrets of the gods, and he recorded them on

stone tablets.

The epic begins with Enkidu. He lives with the animals, suckling at their breasts, grazing in the

meadows, and drinking at their watering places. A hunter discovers him and sends a temple prostitute

into the wilderness to tame him. In that time, people considered women and sex calming forces that

could domesticate wild men like Enkidu and bring them into the civilized world. When Enkidu sleeps

with the woman, the animals reject him since he is no longer one of them. Now, he is part of the

human world. Then the harlot teaches him everything he needs to know to be a man. Enkidu is

outraged by what he hears about Gilgamesh’s excesses, so he travels to Uruk to challenge him. When

he arrives, Gilgamesh is about to force his way into a bride’s wedding chamber. Enkidu steps into the

doorway and blocks his passage. The two men wrestle fiercely for a long time, and Gilgamesh finally

prevails. After that, they become friends and set about looking for an adventure to share.

Gilgamesh and Enkidu decide to steal trees from a distant cedar forest forbidden to mortals. A

terrifying demon named Humbaba, the devoted servant of Enlil, the god of earth, wind, and air, guards

it. The two heroes make the perilous journey to the forest, and, standing side by side, fight with the

monster. With assistance from Shamash the sun god, they kill him. Then they cut down the forbidden

trees, fashion the tallest into an enormous gate, make the rest into a raft, and float on it back to Uruk.

Upon their return, Ishtar, the goddess of love, is overcome with lust for Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh spurns

her. Enraged, the goddess asks her father, Anu, the god of the sky, to send the Bull of Heaven to

punish him. The bull comes down from the sky, bringing with him seven years of famine. Gilgamesh

and Enkidu wrestle with the bull and kill it. The gods meet in council and agree that one of the two

friends must be punished for their transgression, and they decide Enkidu is going to die. He takes ill,

suffers immensely, and shares his visions of the underworld with Gilgamesh. When he finally dies,

Gilgamesh is heartbroken.

Gilgamesh can’t stop grieving for Enkidu, and he can’t stop brooding about the prospect of his own

death. Exchanging his kingly garments for animal skins as a way of mourning Enkidu, he sets off into

the wilderness, determined to find Utnapishtim, the Mesopotamian Noah. After the flood, the gods had

granted Utnapishtim eternal life, and Gilgamesh hopes that Utnapishtim can tell him how he might

avoid death too. Gilgamesh’s journey takes him to the twin-peaked mountain called Mashu, where the

sun sets into one side of the mountain at night and rises out of the other side in the morning.

Utnapishtim lives beyond the mountain, but the two scorpion monsters that guard its entrance refuse to

allow Gilgamesh into the tunnel that passes through it. Gilgamesh pleads with them, and they relent.

After a harrowing passage through total darkness, Gilgamesh emerges into a beautiful garden by the

sea. There he meets Siduri, a veiled tavern keeper, and tells her about his quest. She warns him that

seeking immortality is futile and that he should be satisfied with the pleasures of this world. However,

when she can’t turn him away from his purpose, she directs him to Urshanabi, the ferryman. Urshanabi

takes Gilgamesh on the boat journey across the sea and through the Waters of Death to Utnapishtim.

Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh the story of the flood—how the gods met in council and decided to destroy

humankind. Ea, the god of wisdom, warned Utnapishtim about the gods’ plans and told him how to

fashion a gigantic boat in which his family and the seed of every living creature might escape. When

the waters finally receded, the gods regretted what they’d done and agreed that they would never try to

destroy humankind again. Utnapishtim was rewarded with eternal life. Men would die, but humankind

would continue.

When Gilgamesh insists that he be allowed to live forever, Utnapishtim gives him a test. If you think

you can stay alive for eternity, he says, surely you can stay awake for a week. Gilgamesh tries and

immediately fails. So Utnapishtim orders him to clean himself up, put on his royal garments again, and

return to Uruk where he belongs. Just as Gilgamesh is departing, however, Utnapishtim’s wife

convinces him to tell Gilgamesh about a miraculous plant that restores youth. Gilgamesh finds the

plant and takes it with him, planning to share it with the elders of Uruk. But a snake steals the plant

one night while they are camping. As the serpent slithers away, it sheds its skin and becomes young

again.

When Gilgamesh returns to Uruk, he is empty-handed but reconciled at last to his mortality. He knows

that he can’t live forever but that humankind will. Now he sees that the city he had repudiated in his

grief and terror is a magnificent, enduring achievement—the closest thing to immortality to which a

mortal can aspire.

Text: p. 36 Sargon of Akkad ruled over southern Mesopotamia and their language was

close to modern Arabic and Hebrew mixed. The Epic of Gilgamesh was retold and

embellished in Akkadian. After the fall of the Akkadian Empire, around 2200 BCE, a

new city, Babylon, north of Uruk, gained prominence.

Text: Chapter 2 Egypt and Nubia

The Black Pharaohs

The Black Pharaohs

An ignored chapter of history tells of a time when kings from deep in Africa conquered ancient Egypt.

By Robert Draper

National Geographic Contributing Writer

Photograph by Kenneth Garrett

In the year 730 B.C., a man by the name of Piye decided the only way to save Egypt from

itself was to invade it. Things would get bloody before the salvation came.

“Harness the best steeds of your stable,” he ordered his commanders. The magnificent

civilization that had built the great pyramids had lost its way, torn apart by petty

warlords. For two decades Piye had ruled over his own kingdom in Nubia, a swath of

Africa located mostly in present-day Sudan. But he considered himself the true ruler of

Egypt as well, the rightful heir to the spiritual traditions practiced by pharaohs such as

Ramses II and Thutmose III. Since Piye had probably never actually visited Lower

Egypt, some did not take his boast seriously. Now Piye would witness the subjugation of

decadent Egypt firsthand—“I shall let Lower Egypt taste the taste of my fingers,” he

would later write.

North on the Nile River his soldiers sailed. At Thebes, the capital of Upper Egypt, they

disembarked. Believing there was a proper way to wage holy wars, Piye instructed his

soldiers to purify themselves before combat by bathing in the Nile, dressing themselves

in fine linen, and sprinkling their bodies with water from the temple at Karnak, a site holy

to the ram-headed sun god Amun, whom Piye identified as his own personal deity. Piye

himself feasted and offered sacrifices to Amun. Thus sanctified, the commander and his

men commenced to do battle with every army in their path.

nt a messenger to tell Piye, “Be gracious! I cannot see your face in the days of shame; I

cannot stand before your flame, I dread your grandeur.” In exchange for their lives, the

vanquished urged Piye to worship at their temples, pocket their finest jewels, and claim

their best horses. He obliged them. And then, with his vassals trembling before him, the

newly anointed Lord of the Two Lands did something extraordinary: He loaded up his

army and his war booty, and sailed southward to his home in Nubia, never to return to

Egypt again.

When Piye died at the end of his 35-year reign in 715 B.C., his subjects honored his

wishes by burying him in an Egyptian-style pyramid, with four of his beloved horses

nearby. He was the first pharaoh to receive such entombment in more than 500 years. A

pity, then, that the great Nubian who accomplished these feats is literally faceless to us.

Images of Piye on the elaborate granite slabs, or stelae, memorializing his conquest of

Egypt have long since been chiseled away. On a relief in the temple at the Nubian capital

of Napata, only Piye’s legs remain. We are left with a single physical detail of the man—

namely, that his skin was dark.

Piye was the first of the so-called black pharaohs—a series of Nubian kings who ruled

over all of Egypt for three-quarters of a century as that country’s 25th dynasty. Through

inscriptions carved on stelae by both the Nubians and their enemies, it is possible to map

out these rulers’ vast footprint on the continent. The black pharaohs reunified a tattered

Egypt and filled its landscape with glorious monuments, creating an empire that stretched

from the southern border at present-day Khartoum all the way north to the Mediterranean

Sea. They stood up to the bloodthirsty Assyrians, perhaps saving Jerusalem in the

process.

Until recently, theirs was a chapter of history that largely went untold. Only in the past

four decades have archaeologists resurrected their story—and come to recognize that the

black pharaohs didn’t appear out of nowhere. They sprang from a robust African

civilization that had flourished on the southern banks of the Nile for 2,500 years, going

back at least as far as the first Egyptian dynasty.

Today Sudan’s pyramids—greater in number than all of Egypt’s—are haunting

spectacles in the Nubian Desert. It is possible to wander among them unharassed, even

alone, a world away from Sudan’s genocide and refugee crisis in Darfur or the aftermath

of civil war in the south. While hundreds of miles north, at Cairo or Luxor, curiosity

seekers arrive by the busload to jostle and crane for views of the Egyptian wonders,

Sudan’s seldom-visited pyramids at El Kurru, Nuri, and Meroë stand serenely amid an

arid landscape that scarcely hints of the thriving culture of ancient Nubia.

Now our understanding of this civilization is once again threatened with obscurity. The

Sudanese government is building a hydroelectric dam along the Nile, 600 miles upstream

from the Aswan High Dam, which Egypt constructed in the 1960s, consigning much of

lower Nubia to the bottom of Lake Nasser (called Lake Nubia in Sudan). By 2009, the

massive Merowe Dam should be complete, and a 106-mile-long lake will flood the

terrain abutting the Nile’s Fourth Cataract, or rapid, including thousands of unexplored

sites. For the past nine years, archaeologists have flocked to the region, furiously digging

before another repository of Nubian history goes the way of Atlantis.

The ancient world was devoid of racism. At the time of Piye’s historic conquest, the fact

that his skin was dark was irrelevant. Artwork from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome

shows a clear awareness of racial features and skin tone, but there is little evidence that

darker skin was seen as a sign of inferiority. Only after the European powers colonized

Africa in the 19th century did Western scholars pay attention to the color of the Nubians’

skin, to uncharitable effect.

Explorers who arrived at the central stretch of the Nile River excitedly reported the

discovery of elegant temples and pyramids—the ruins of an ancient civilization called

Kush. Some, like the Italian doctor Giuseppe Ferlini—who lopped off the top of at least

one Nubian pyramid, inspiring others to do the same—hoped to find treasure beneath.

The Prussian archaeologist Richard Lepsius had more studious intentions, but he ended

up doing damage of his own by concluding that the Kushites surely “belonged to the

Caucasian race.”

Even famed Harvard Egyptologist George Reisner—whose discoveries between 1916

and 1919 offered the first archaeological evidence of Nubian kings who ruled over

Egypt—besmirched his own findings by insisting that black Africans could not possibly

have constructed the monuments he was excavating. He believed that Nubia’s leaders,

including Piye, were light-skinned Egypto-Libyans who ruled over the primitive

Africans. That their moment of greatness was so fleeting, he suggested, must be a

consequence of the same leaders intermarrying with the “negroid elements.”

For decades, many historians flip-flopped: Either the Kushite pharaohs were actually

“white,” or they were bumblers, their civilization a derivative offshoot of true Egyptian

culture. In their 1942 history, When Egypt Ruled the East, highly regarded Egyptologists

Keith Seele and George Steindorff summarized the Nubian pharaonic dynasty and Piye’s

triumphs in all of three sentences—the last one reading: “But his dominion was not for

long.”

The neglect of Nubian history reflected not only the bigoted worldview of the times, but

also a cult-like fascination with Egypt’s achievements—and a complete ignorance of

Africa’s past. “The first time I came to Sudan,” recalls Swiss archaeologist Charles

Bonnet, “people said: ‘You’re mad! There’s no history there! It’s all in

Egypt!’ ”

That was a mere 44 years ago. Artifacts uncovered during the archaeological salvage

campaigns as the waters rose at Aswan in the 1960s began changing that view. In 2003,

Charles Bonnet’s decades of digging near the Nile’s Third Cataract at the abandoned

settlement of Kerma gained international recognition with the discovery of seven large

stone statues of Nubian pharaohs. Well before then, however, Bonnet’s labors had

revealed an older, densely occupied urban center that commanded rich fields and

extensive herds, and had long profited from trade in gold, ebony, and ivory. “It was a

kingdom completely free of Egypt and original, with its own construction and burial

customs,” Bonnet says. This powerful dynasty rose just as Egypt’s Middle Kingdom

declined around 1785 B.C. By 1500 B.C. the Nubian empire stretched between the

Second and Fifth Cataracts.

Revisiting that golden age in the African desert does little to advance the case of

Afrocentric Egyptologists, who argue that all ancient Egyptians, from King Tut to

Cleopatra, were black Africans. Nonetheless, the saga of the Nubians proves that a

civilization from deep in Africa not only thrived but briefly dominated in ancient times,

intermingling and sometimes intermarrying with their Egyptian neighbors to the north.

(King Tut’s own grandmother, the 18th-dynasty Queen Tiye, is claimed by some to be of

Nubian heritage.)

The Egyptians didn’t like having such a powerful neighbor to the south, especially since

they depended on Nubia’s gold mines to bankroll their dominance of western Asia. So

the pharaohs of the 18th dynasty (1539-1292 B.C.) sent armies to conquer Nubia and

built garrisons along the Nile. They installed Nubian chiefs as administrators and

schooled the children of favored Nubians at Thebes. Subjugated, the elite Nubians began

to embrace the cultural and spiritual customs of Egypt—venerating Egyptian gods,

particularly Amun, using the Egyptian language, adopting Egyptian burial styles and,

later, pyramid building. The Nubians were arguably the first people to be struck by

“Egyptomania.”

Egyptologists of the latter 19th and early 20th centuries would interpret this as a sign of

weakness. But they had it wrong: The Nubians had a gift for reading the geopolitical tea

leaves. By the eighth century B.C., Egypt was riven by factions, the north ruled by

Libyan chiefs who put on the trappings of pharaonic traditions to gain legitimacy. Once

firmly in power, they toned down the theocratic devotion to Amun, and the priests at

Karnak feared a godless outcome. Who was in a position to return Egypt to its former

state of might and sanctity?

The Egyptian priests looked south and found their answer—a people who, without setting

foot inside Egypt, had preserved Egypt’s spiritual traditions. As archaeologist Timothy

Kendall of Northeastern University puts it, the Nubians “had become more Catholic than

the pope.”

Under Nubian rule, Egypt became Egypt again. When Piye died in 715 B.C., his brother

Shabaka solidified the 25th dynasty by taking up residence in the Egyptian capital of

Memphis. Like his brother, Shabaka wed himself to the old pharaonic ways, adopting the

throne name of the 6th-dynasty ruler Pepi II, just as Piye had claimed the old throne name

of Thutmose III. Rather than execute his foes, Shabaka put them to work building dikes

to seal off Egyptian villages from Nile floods.

Shabaka lavished Thebes and the Temple of Luxor with building projects. At Karnak he

erected a pink granite statue depicting himself wearing the Kushite crown of the double

uraeus—the two cobras signifying his legitimacy as Lord of the Two Lands. Through

architecture as well as military might, Shabaka signaled to Egypt that the Nubians were

here to stay.

To the east, the Assyrians were fast building their own empire. In 701 B.C., when they

marched into Judah in present-day Israel, the Nubians decided to act. At the city of

Eltekeh, the two armies met. And although the Assyrian emperor, Sennacherib, would

brag lustily that he “inflicted defeat upon them,” a young Nubian prince, perhaps 20, son

of the great pharaoh Piye, managed to survive. That the Assyrians, whose tastes ran to

wholesale slaughter, failed to kill the prince suggests their victory was anything but total.

In any event, when the Assyrians left town and massed against the gates of Jerusalem,

that city’s embattled leader, Hezekiah, hoped his Egyptian allies would come to the

rescue. The Assyrians issued a taunting reply, immortalized in the Old Testament’s Book

of II Kings: “Thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed [of] Egypt, on which if a

man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: So is Pharaoh king of Egypt unto all that

trust on him.”

hen, according to the Scriptures and other accounts, a miracle occurred: The Assyrian

army retreated. Were they struck by a plague? Or, as Henry Aubin’s provocative book,

The Rescue of Jerusalem, suggests, was it actually the alarming news that the

aforementioned Nubian prince was advancing on Jerusalem? All we know for sure is that

Sennacherib abandoned the siege and galloped back in disgrace to his kingdom, where he

was murdered 18 years later, apparently by his own sons.

The deliverance of Jerusalem is not just another of ancient history’s sidelights, Aubin

asserts, but one of its pivotal events. It allowed Hebrew society and Judaism to strengthen

for another crucial century—by which time the Babylonian king Nebuchadrezzar could

banish the Hebrew people but not obliterate them or their faith. From Judaism, of course,

would spring Christianity and Islam. Jerusalem would come to be recast, in all three

major monotheistic religions, as a city of a godly significance.

It has been easy to overlook, amid these towering historical events, the dark-skinned

figure at the edge of the landscape—the survivor of Eltekeh, the hard-charging prince

later referred to by the Assyrians as “the one accursed by all the great gods”: Piye’s son

Taharqa.

So sweeping was Taharqa’s influence on Egypt that even his enemies could not eradicate

his imprint. During his rule, to travel down the Nile from Napata to Thebes was to

navigate a panorama of architectural wonderment. All over Egypt, he built monuments

with busts, statues, and cartouches bearing his image or name, many of which now sit in

museums around the world. He is depicted as a supplicant to gods, or in the protective

presence of the ram deity Amun, or as a sphinx himself, or in a warrior’s posture. Most

statues were defaced by his rivals. His nose is often broken off, to foreclose him returning

from the dead. Shattered as well is the uraeus on his forehead, to repudiate his claim as

Lord of the Two Lands. But in each remaining image, the serene self-certainty in his eyes

remains for all to see.

His father, Piye, had returned the true pharaonic customs to Egypt. His uncle Shabaka

had established a Nubian presence in Memphis and Thebes. But their ambitions paled

before those of the 31-year-old military commander who received the crown in Memphis

in 690 B.C. and presided over the combined empires of Egypt and Nubia for the next 26

years.

Taharqa had ascended at a favorable moment for the 25th dynasty. The delta warlords

had been laid low. The Assyrians, after failing to best him at Jerusalem, wanted no part of

the Nubian ruler. Egypt was his and his alone. The gods granted him prosperity to go

with the peace. During his sixth year on the throne, the Nile swelled from rains,

inundating the valleys and yielding a spectacular harvest of grain without sweeping away

any villages. As Taharqa would record in four separate stelae, the high waters even

exterminated all rats and snakes. Clearly the revered Amun was smiling on his chosen

one.

Taharqa did not intend to sit on his profits. He believed in spending his political capital.

Thus he launched the most audacious building campaign of any pharaoh since the New

Kingdom (around 1500 B.C.), when Egypt had been in a period of expansion. Inevitably

the two holy capitals of Thebes and Napata received the bulk of Taharqa’s attention.

Standing today amid the hallowed clutter of the Karnak temple complex near Thebes is a

lone 62-foot-high column. That pillar had been one of ten, forming a gigantic kiosk that

the Nubian pharaoh added to the Temple of Amun. He also constructed a number of

chapels around the temple and erected massive statues of himself and of his beloved

mother, Abar. Without defacing a single preexisting monument, Taharqa made Thebes

his.

He did the same hundreds of miles upriver, in the Nubian city of Napata. Its holy

mountain Jebel Barkal—known for its striking rock-face pinnacle that calls to mind a

phallic symbol of fertility—had captivated even the Egyptian pharaohs of the New

Kingdom, who believed the site to be the birthplace of Amun. Seeking to present himself

as heir to the New Kingdom pharaohs, Taharqa erected two temples, set into the base of

the mountain, honoring the goddess consorts of Amun. On Jebel Barkal’s pinnacle—

partially covered in gold leaf to bedazzle wayfarers—the black pharaoh ordered his name

inscribed.

Around the 15th year of his rule, amid the grandiosity of his empire-building, a touch of

hubris was perhaps overtaking the Nubian ruler. “Taharqa had a very strong army and

was one of the main international powers of this period,” says Charles Bonnet. “I think he

thought he was the king of the world. He became a bit of a megalomaniac.”

The timber merchants along the coast of Lebanon had been feeding Taharqa’s

architectural appetite with a steady supply of juniper and cedar. When the Assyrian king

Esarhaddon sought to clamp down on this trade artery, Taharqa sent troops to the

southern Levant to support a revolt against the Assyrian. Esarhaddon quashed the move

and retaliated by crossing into Egypt in 674 B.C. But Taharqa’s army beat back its foes.

The victory clearly went to the Nubian’s head. Rebel states along the Mediterranean

shared his giddiness and entered into an alliance against Esarhaddon. In 671 B.C. the

Assyrians marched with their camels into the Sinai desert to quell the rebellion. Success

was instant; now it was Esarhaddon who brimmed with bloodlust. He directed his troops

toward the Nile Delta.

Taharqa and his army squared off against the Assyrians. For 15 days they fought pitched

battles—“very bloody,” by Esarhaddon’s grudging admission. But the Nubians were

pushed back all the way to Memphis. Wounded five times, Taharqa escaped with his life

and abandoned Memphis. In typical Assyrian fashion, Esarhaddon slaughtered the

villagers and “erected piles of their heads.” Then, as the Assyrian would later write, “His

queen, his harem, Ushankhuru his heir, and the rest of his sons and daughters, his

property and his goods, his horses, his cattle, his sheep, in countless numbers, I carried

off to Assyria. The root of Kush I tore up out of Egypt.” To commemorate Taharqa’s

humiliation, Esarhaddon commissioned a stela showing Taharqa’s son, Ushankhuru,

kneeling before the Assyrian with a rope tied around his neck.

As it happened, Taharqa outlasted the victor. In 669 B.C. Esarhaddon died en route to

Egypt, after learning that the Nubian had managed to retake Memphis. Under a new king,

the Assyrians once again assaulted the city, this time with an army swollen with captured

rebel troops. Taharqa stood no chance. He fled south to Napata and never saw Egypt

again.

A measure of Taharqa’s status in Nubia is that he remained in power after being routed

twice from Memphis. How he spent his final years is a mystery—with the exception of

one final innovative act. Like his father, Piye, Taharqa chose to be buried in a pyramid.

But he eschewed the royal cemetery at El Kurru, where all previous Kushite pharaohs

had been laid to rest. Instead, he chose a site at Nuri, on the opposite bank of the Nile.

Perhaps, as archaeologist Timothy Kendall has theorized, Taharqa selected the location

because, from the vista of Jebel Barkal, his pyramid precisely aligns with the sunrise on

ancient Egypt’s New Year’s Day, linking him in perpetuity with the Egyptian concept of

rebirth.

Just as likely, the Nubian’s motive will remain obscure, like his people’s history.

Robert Draper is the author of Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush. He

recently wrote for National Geographic about 21st-century cowboys. Kenneth Garrett

shot the August 2007 National Geographic feature on the Maya civilization.

1. Who was Piye?

2. When and where did he live?

3. Did he believe Egypt needed to be saved from itself?

4. Why?

5. How were his soldiers to purify themselves before battle?

6. Who was Piye’s own personal deity?

7. After vanquishing his foes the newly appointed Emperor of the Two Lands did

something astonishing. What was it?

8. Piye was buried in a tomb with his horses. What remains of his body?

9. What then, becomes the single detail that we know of him?

10. What is unique about the rulers of the twenty-fifth dynasty?

11. Their empire stretched from where to where?

12. True or False. Today Sudan’s pyramids—smaller in number than all of Egypt’s—

are haunting spectacles in the Nubian Desert.

13. What have man made dams got to do with Nubia?

14. Was there racism in the ancient world?

15. When and why did the ‘color of people’s skin’ matter?

16. What was this ancient civilization called?

17. True or False. The saga of the Nubians proves that a civilization from deep in

Africa not only thrived but briefly dominated in ancient times, intermingling and

sometimes intermarrying with their Egyptian neighbors to the north. (King Tut’s

own grandmother, the 18th-dynasty Queen Tiye, is claimed by some to be of

Nubian heritage.)

18. When Piye died, what did his brother Shabaka do?

19. Did he execute his foes?

20. What did he do with them?

21. What did he have built for himself at Karnak?

22. Is it possible that the Nubian Kings saved Jerusalem from Assyrian Sennacherib?

23. In fact it allowed the Hebrew society to what?

24. Who is Taharqa.

25. What did he build?

26. Why did his enemies take off the nose on his statue?

27. He was the military commander and King of what two empires?

28. He became a bit of a megalomaniac. What humbled him?

29. What did the Assyrians do with his family?

30. Why did he choose his burial site to be in a different place then the other Kings?

Thursday, February 16th, 2012.

Mid-term in the Temple or Visitor’s Center

6 pm. Temple Session or 5:00 pm Visitor’s Center

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012.

Group Presentations

Thursday, March 1st, 2012.

Egypt (con’t)

Readings for class discussions

The Egyptian Book of the Dead

THE DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL LIFE.

Egyptian belief in a future life.

The doctrine of eternal life in the VIth dynasty.

The ideas and beliefs which the Egyptians held in reference to a future existence are not

readily to be defined, owing to the many difficulties in translating religious texts and in

harmonizing the statements made in different works of different periods. Some confusion

of details also seems to have existed in the minds of the Egyptians themselves, which

cannot be cleared up until the literature of the subject has been further studied and until

more texts have been published. That the Egyptians believed in a future life of some kind

is certain; and the doctrine of eternal existence is the leading feature of their religion, and

is enunciated with the utmost clearness in all periods. Whether this belief had its origin at

Annu, the chief city of the worship of the sun-god, is not certain, but is very probable; for

already in the pyramid texts we find the idea of everlasting life associated with the sun's

existence, and Pepi I. is said to be "the Giver of life, stability, power, health, and all joy

of heart, like the Sun, living for ever."[1] The sun rose each day in renewed strength and

vigour, and the renewal of youth in a future life was the aim and object of every Egyptian

believer. To this end all the religious literature of Egypt was composed. Let us take the

following extracts from texts of the VIth dynasty as illustrations:--

Last of the Old Kingdom V Dynasty and VI Dynasty 2498-2181 BCE

1. ha Unas an sem-nek as met-th sem-nek anxet

Hail Unas, not hast thou gone, behold, [as] one dead, thou hast gone [as] one living

hems her xent Ausar.

to sit upon the throne of Osiris.[2]

[1. ### Recueil de Travaux, t. v., p. 167 (1. 65).

2. Recueil Travaux, t. iii., p. 201 (1. 206). The context runs "Thy Sceptre is in thy hand, and thou givest

commands unto the living ones. The Mekes and Nehbet sceptres are in thy hand, and thou givest commands

unto those whose abodes are secret."]

{p. lvi}

2. O Ra-Tum i-nek sa-k i-nek Unas . . . . . . sa-k pu en

O Ra-Turn, cometh to thee thy son, cometh to thee Unas . . . . . thy son is this of

t'et-k en t'etta

thy body for ever.[1]

3. Tem sa-k pu penen Ausar ta-nek set'eb-f anx-f anx-f

O Turn, thy son is this Osiris; thou hast given his sustenance and he liveth; he liveth,

anx Unas pen an mit-f an mit Unas pen

and liveth Unas this; not dieth he, not dieth Unas this.[2]

4. hetep Unas em anx em Amenta

Setteth Unas in life in Amenta.[3]

5. au am-nef saa en neter neb ahau pa neheh t'er-f

He[4] hath eaten the knowledge of god every, [his] existence is for all eternity

pa t'etta em sah-f pen en merer-f ari-f mest'et'-f

and to everlasting in his sah[5] this; what he willeth he doeth, [what] he hateth

an ari-nef

not doth he do.[6]

[1. Recueil Travaux, t. iii., p. 208 (ll. 232, 233).

2. Recueil de Travaux, t. iii., p. 209 (l. 240)

3. Ibid., t. iv., p. 50 (l. 445). The allusion here is to the setting of the sun.

4. I.e., Unas.

5. See page lix.

6. Recueil de Travaux, t. iv., p. 61 (ll. 520, 521).]

{p. lvii}

6. anx anx an mit-k

Live life, not shalt thou die.[1]

The doctrine of eternal life in the XVIIIth dynasty.

In the papyrus of Ani the deceased is represented as having come to a place remote and

far away, where there is neither air to breathe nor water to drink, but where he holds

converse with Tmu. In answer to his question, "How long have I to live?"[2], the great

god of Annu answers:--

auk er heh en heh aha en heh

Thou shalt exist for millions of millions of years, a period of millions of years.

In the LXXXIVth Chapter, as given in the same papyrus, the infinite duration of the past

and future existence of the soul, as well as its divine nature, is proclaimed by Ani in the

words:--

nuk Su paut ba-a pu neter ba-a pu heh

I am Shu [the god] of unformed matter. My soul is God, my soul is eternity.[3]

When the deceased identifies himself with Shu, he makes the period of his existence

coeval with that of Tmu-Ra, i.e., he existed before Osiris and the other gods of his

company. These two passages prove the identity of the belief in eternal life in the XVIIIth

dynasty with that in the Vth and VIth dynasties.

But while we have this evidence of the Egyptian belief in eternal life, we are nowhere

told that man's corruptible body will rise again; indeed, the following extracts show that

the idea prevailed that the body lay in the earth while the soul or spirit lived in heaven.

1. ba ar pet sat ar ta

Soul to heaven, body to earth.[4] (Vth dynasty.)

[1. Recueil de Travaux, t. v., p. 170 (Pepi, 1. 85).

2. ###. Plate XIX., l. 16 (Book of the Dead, Chapter CLXXV.).

3. Plate XXVIII., 1. 15.

4 Recueil de Travaux, t. iv., p. 71 (l. 582).]

{p. lvii}

2. mu-k er pet xa-k er ta

Thy essence is in heaven, thy body to earth.[1] (VIth dynasty.)

3. pet xer ba-k ta xeri tut-k

Heaven hath thy soul, earth hath thy body.[2] (Ptolemaic period.)

Constancy in the belief in the resurrection.

There is, however, no doubt that from first to last the Egyptians firmly believed that

besides the soul there was some other element of the man that would rise again. The

preservation of the corruptible body too was in some way connected with the life in the

world to come, and its preservation was necessary to ensure eternal life; otherwise the

prayers recited to this end would have been futile, and the time honoured custom of

mummifying the dead would have had no meaning. The never ending existence of the

soul is asserted in a passage quoted above without reference to Osiris; but the frequent

mention of the uniting of his bones, and of the gathering together of his members,[3] and

the doing away with all corruption from his body, seems to show that the pious Egyptian

connected these things with the resurrection of his own body in some form, and he argued

that what had been done for him who was proclaimed to be giver and source of life must

be necessary for mortal man.

The khat or physical body.

The physical body of man considered as a whole was called khat, a word which seems to

be connected with the idea of something which is liable to decay. The word is also

applied to the mummified body in the tomb, as we know from the words "My body (khat)

is buried."[4] Such a body was attributed to the god Osiris;" in the CLXIInd Chapter of

the Book of the Dead "his great

[1. Recueil de Travaux, t. v., p. 43 (l. 304).

2. Horrack, Lamentations d'Isis et de Nephthys, Paris, 1866, p. 6.

3. Already in the pyramid texts we have "Rise up, O thou Teta! Thou hast received thy head, thou hast

knitted together thy bones, thou hast collected thy members." Recueil de Travaux, t. v., p. 40 (1. 287).

3. Book of the Dead, Chapter LXXXVI., 1. 11.

4. Papyrus of Ani, pl. vii., 1. 28, and pl. xix., 1. 8.]

{p. lix}

divine body rested in Annu."[1] In this respect the god and the deceased were on an

equality. As we have seen above, the body neither leaves the tomb nor reappears on

earth; yet its preservation was necessary. Thus the deceased addresses Tmu[2]: "Hail to

thee, O my father Osiris, I have come and I have embalmed this my flesh so that my body

may not decay. I am whole, even as my father Khepera was whole, who is to me the type

of that which passeth not away. Come then, O Form, and give breath unto me, O lord of

breath, O thou who art greater than thy compeers. Stablish thou me, and form thou me, O

thou who art lord of the grave. Grant thou to me to endure for ever, even as thou didst

grant unto thy father Tmu to endure; and his body neither passed away nor decayed. I

have not done that which is hateful unto thee, nay, I have spoken that which thy ka

loveth: repulse thou me not, and cast thou me not behind thee, O Tmu, to decay, even as

thou doest unto every god and unto every goddess and unto every beast and creeping

thing which perisheth when his soul hath gone forth from him after his death, and which

falleth in pieces after his decay . . . . . Homage to thee, O my father Osiris, thy flesh

suffered no decay, there were no worms in thee, thou didst not crumble away, thou didst

not wither away, thou didst not become corruption and worms; and I myself am Khepera,

I shall possess my flesh for ever and ever, I shall not decay, I shall not crumble away, I

shall not wither away, I shall not become corruption."

The sahu or spiritual body.

But the body does not lie in the tomb inoperative, for by the prayers and ceremonies on

the day of burial it is endowed with the power of changing into a sahu, or spiritual body.

Thus we have such phrases as, "I germinate like the plants,"[3] "My flesh

germinateth,"[4] "I exist, I exist, I live, I live, I germinate, I germinate,"[5] "thy soul

liveth, thy body germinateth by the command of Ra

[1. ###. Lepsius, Todtenbuch, Bl. 77,1. 7.

2. This chapter was found inscribed upon one of the linen wrappings of the mummy of Thothmes III., and a

copy of the text is given by Naville (Todtenbuch, Bd. L, Bl. 179); for a later version see Lepsius,

Todtenbuch, Bl. 75, where many interesting variants occur.

3. ###. Chapter LXXXIII., 3.

4. ###. Chapter LXIV., 1. 49. (Naville, Todtenbuch, Bd. I., Bl. 76.)

5. ###. Chapter CLIV. (Lepsius, Todtenbuch, 75.)]

{p. lx}

himself without diminution, and without defect, like unto Ra for ever and ever."[1] The

word sahu though at times written with the determinative of a mummy lying on a bier

like khat, "body," indicates a body which has obtained a degree of knowledge[2] and

power and glory whereby it becomes henceforth lasting and incorruptible. The body

which has become a sahu has the power of associating with the soul and of holding

converse with it. In this form it can ascend into heaven and dwell with the gods, and with

the sahu of the gods, and with the souls of the righteous. In the pyramid texts we have

these passages:--

1. Thes-thu Teta pu un-thu aaa peh-tha hems-k

Rise up thou Teti, this. Stand up thou mighty one being strong. Sit thou

xent neteru ari-k ennu ari en Ausar em Het-aa amt Annu

with the gods, do thou that which did Osiris in the great house in Annu.

sesep-nek sah-k an t'er ret-k em pet an

Thou hast received thy sah, not shall be fettered thy foot in heaven, not

xesef-k em ta

shalt thou be turned back upon earth.[3]

2. anet' hra-k Teta em hru-k pen aha tha xeft Ra

Hail to thee, Teta, on this thy day [when] thou art standing before Ra [as]

[1. Brugsch, Liber Metempsychosis, p. 22.

2. Compare Coptic ###, "magister."

3. Recueil de Travaux, t. v., p. 36 (1. 271). From line 143 of the same text it would seem that a man had

more than one sahu, for the words "all thy sahu," occur. This may, however, be only a plural of majesty.]

{p. lxi}

per-f em aabt t'eba-tha em sah-k pen am baiu

he cometh from the cast, [when] thou art endued with this thy sah among the souls.[1]

3. ahau pa neheh t'er-f pa t'etta em sah-f

[His] duration of life is eternity, his limit of life is everlastingness in his sah.[2]

4. nuk sah em ba-f

I am a sah with his soul.[3]

In the late edition of the Book of the Dead published by Lepsius the deceased is said to "

look upon his body and to rest upon his sahu,"[4] and souls are said "to enter into their

sahu";[5] and a passage extant both in this and the older Theban edition makes the

deceased to receive the sahu of the god Osiris.[6] But that Egyptian writers at times

confused the khat with the sahu is clear from a passage in the Book of Respirations,

where it is said, "Hail Osiris, thy name endureth, thy body is stablished, thy sahu

germinateth";[7] in other texts the word "germinate" is applied only to the natural body.

The ab or heart.

In close connection with the natural and spiritual bodies stood the heart, or rather that part

of it which was the seat of the power of life and the fountain of good and evil thoughts.

And in addition to the natural and spiritual bodies, man also bad an abstract individuality

or personality endowed with all his characteristic attributes. This abstract personality had

an absolutely independent existence. It could move freely from place to place, separating

itself from, or uniting itself to.

Assignment: In-class

Abraham is the tenth generation from Noah and twentieth from Adam. He goes into Egypt twice according to the Book of Genesis. He is father to the Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Biblical Abraham 2009-2184 from Adam

Genesis 12:10 (Biblical record of Abraham being in Egypt)

A FACSIMILE FROM

THE BOOK OF ABRAHAM

No. 1

EXPLANATION

Fig. 1. The Angel of the Lord.

Fig. 2. Abraham fastened upon an altar.

Fig. 3. The idolatrous priest of Elkenah attempting to offer up Abraham as a sacrifice.

Fig. 4. The altar for sacrifice by the idolatrous priests, standing before the gods of

Elkenah, Libnah, Mahmackrah, Korash, and Pharaoh.

Fig. 5. The idolatrous god of Elkenah.

Fig. 6. The idolatrous god of Libnah.

Fig. 7. The idolatrous god of Mahmackrah.

Fig. 8. The idolatrous god of Korash.

Fig. 9. The idolatrous god of Pharaoh.

Fig. 10. Abraham in Egypt.

Fig. 11. Designed to represent the pillars of heaven, as understood by the Egyptians.

Fig. 12. Raukeeyang, signifying expanse, or the firmament over our heads; but in this

case, in relation to this subject, the Egyptians meant it to signify Shaumau, to be high, or

the heavens, answering to the Hebrew word, Shaumahyeem.

A FACSIMILE FROM

THE BOOK OF ABRAHAM

No. 2

EXPLANATION

Fig. 1. Kolob, signifying the first creation, nearest to the celestial, or the residence of

God. First in government, the last pertaining to the measurement of time. The

measurement according to celestial time, which celestial time signifies one day to a cubit.

One day in Kolob is equal to a thousand years according to the measurement of this earth,

which is called by the Egyptians Jah-oh-eh.

Fig. 2. Stands next to Kolob, called by the Egyptians Oliblish, which is the next grand

governing creation near to the celestial or the place where God resides; holding the key of

power also, pertaining to other planets; as revealed from God to Abraham, as he offered

sacrifice upon an altar, which he had built unto the Lord.

Fig. 3. Is made to represent God, sitting upon his throne, clothed with power and

authority; with a crown of eternal light upon his head; representing also the grand Key-

words of the Holy Priesthood, as revealed to Adam in the Garden of Eden, as also to

Seth, Noah, Melchizedek, Abraham, and all to whom the Priesthood was revealed.

Fig. 4. Answers to the Hebrew word Raukeeyang, signifying expanse, or the firmament

of the heavens; also a numerical figure, in Egyptian signifying one thousand; answering

to the measuring of the time of Oliblish, which is equal with Kolob in its revolution and

in its measuring of time.

Fig. 5. Is called in Egyptian Enish-go-on-dosh; this is one of the governing planets also,

and is said by the Egyptians to be the Sun, and to borrow its light from Kolob through the

medium of Kae-e-vanrash, which is the grand Key, or, in other words, the governing

power, which governs fifteen other fixed planets or stars, as also Floeese or the Moon, the

Earth and the Sun in their annual revolutions. This planet receives its power through the

medium of Kli-flos-is-es, or Hah-ko-kau-beam, the stars represented by numbers 22 and

23, receiving light from the revolutions of Kolob.

Fig. 6. Represents this earth in its four quarters.

Fig. 7. Represents God sitting upon his throne, revealing through the heavens the grand

Key-words of the Priesthood; as, also, the sign of the Holy Ghost unto Abraham, in the

form of a dove.

Fig. 8. Contains writings that cannot be revealed unto the world; but is to be had in the

Holy Temple of God.

Fig. 9. Ought not to be revealed at the present time.

Fig. 10. Also.

Fig. 11. Also. If the world can find out these numbers, so let it be. Amen.

Figures 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21 will be given in the own due time of the

Lord.

The above translation is given as far as we have any right to give at the present time.

A FACSIMILE FROM

THE BOOK OF ABRAHAM

No. 3

EXPLANATION

Fig. 1. Abraham sitting upon Pharaoh’s throne, by the politeness of the king, with a

crown upon his head, representing the Priesthood, as emblematical of the grand

Presidency in Heaven; with the scepter of justice and judgment in his hand.

Fig. 2. King Pharaoh, whose name is given in the characters above his head.

Fig. 3. Signifies Abraham in Egypt as given also in Figure 10 of Facsimile No. 1.

Fig. 4. Prince of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, as written above the hand.

Fig. 5. Shulem, one of the king’s principal waiters, as represented by the characters above

his hand.

Fig. 6. Olimlah, a slave belonging to the prince.

Abraham is reasoning upon the principles of Astronomy, in the king’s court.

Geography of Belief Systems: Symbols and Rituals

Text: Read p. 53-55 The History of Ancient Hebrews According to Archaeological

Evidence and answer Questions for Analysis p. 55 (3)

History of Judaism

The Old Testament books of the Bible describe numerous struggles of the

Jewish people. After their triumphant Exodus from Egyptian captivity

following Moses, they wandered around in the desert for forty years before

entering the Promised Land. They had many conflicts with neighboring

societies, yet for several centuries were able to maintain a unified state centered

in Jerusalem.

This occupation of the Promised Land was not to last, however. In 722 BC, the

northern part of the Hebrew state fell to Assyrian raiders. By 586 BC,

Jerusalem was conquered by Babylonians. The land of Israel was successively

ruled by Persians, Macedonians, Greeks, Syrians, and Romans in the time that

followed. As a result of the Syrian King Antiochus IV Epiphanes' attempt to

suppress the Jewish religion, a rebellion led by Judas Maccabaeus in 167 BC

resulted in the independence of the Jewish nation. This is celebrated today by

the festival Hanukkah.

In 70 AD, the Roman army destroyed Jerusalem, and the Jews were forced out

of the area and settled in Mediterranean countries and in other areas in

southwest Asia. This migration of the Jewish population is known as Diaspora.

Rome and Judaism Review

Many of these Jews settled in Europe and became victims of persecution and

poverty. Ghettoes and slums became their homes and massacres were common.

Because of these living conditions, many fled to the United States in the late

19th century. Migration to the States especially climbed during the aftermath of

the Holocaust, the organized murder of Jews during and after World War II.

Today the United States has the largest population of Jewish people with high

concentration areas in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Miami, and

Washington D.C.

In 1917, an attempt to reestablish Palestine as the Jewish homeland began. By

1948, the State of Israel became an independent country. They have regained

their Hebrew language, which involved inventing words for modern inventions

and concepts unheard of centuries ago and writing a Hebrew dictionary to unify

the language.

Josephus, Flavius, Josephus Complete Works. Kregel Publications; Grand Rapids,

Michigan, 1960.

Joseph ben Matthias was born 37 C. E. and as a young student studied three different

forms of Judaism; the Essenes, the Pharisees and the Saducees. At 26 he went to Rome to

obtain the release of certain priests who were to be tried by Nero but on his way he was

shipwrecked. Rome was burning. He returned home. Vespasian advanced upon Jerusalem

and they were forced to surrender to Rome. Josephus became a prisoner. At this time

Josephus prophesied that Vespasian would become emperor, thus putting an end to the

Caesarean line. When Nero committed suicide, that is exactly what happened. When

Vespasian became emperor he freed Josephus and had him accompany him to Alexandria

where Vespasian changed Josephus’s name to Flavius, the family name of Vespasian.

Josephus returned to Jerusalem with the son of the emperor, Titus, and witnessed first

hand, the destruction of Jerusalem. He had gone about the city begging the people to

surrender, which they would not do. He fell out of favor with both the Romans and the

Jews.

After the destruction of Jerusalem, he was offered a nice tract of land in Jerusalem where

he could settle down for the rest of his life but chose to return to Rome with Titus, where

he became a client of the Flavian family, received Roman citizenship and was

commissioned to write a history of the Jewish people, which he did.

He first wrote his accounts in the Syro-chaldaic, which was the common language of the

Jews at the time. As a commissioned historian he began to write in Greek, which even the

most ‘ordinary persons’ could understand at the time. He manifested a tender regret for

his nation but he was also personally grateful for the Roman tolerance and bounty placed

before him.

His creation story is very similar to Genesis and explains why the pre-flood people lived

so long; they were beloved of God and their food was fitter. He calls the Tower of Babel

the Tower of Babylon, he writes of Abram and his battles, the Arab nations, and all of

Abraham’s posterity. His history is much more extensive than the old testaments.

It is when he comes to his own contemporary time where his detailed knowledge shows

great breadth and depth as to both the Roman Empire and Jerusalem.

In Book XV Chapter XI, Josephus writes about Herod building his temple. “So Herod

took away the old foundations (Solomon’s), and laid others, and erected the temple upon

them”.

In Book XVIII Chapter III verse 3, he writes, “Now, there was about his time, Jesus, a

wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works,-a

teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him many of the

Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion

of principle men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the

first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine

prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and

the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day”.

Josephus’s Antiquities ends with Titus burning and ransacking the temple and city of

Jerusalem.

In the Appendix, Dissertation I there is a discussion on Jesus Christ, John the Baptist, and

James the Just, using Josephus as a citation.

“You (Jews) knew that Jesus was risen from the dead, and ascended into heaven, as

the prophecies did foretell was to happen.” Josephus

There are also many historical records from the subsequent time periods that trace the

diaspora of the Jewish race to death of Jesus Christ.

,

Thursday, March 8th, 2012.

Book Report due

The Essenes and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Nibley, Hugh. Teachings of the Book of Mormon Part Three p. 40-48

(Nibley even speaks of Cyrus the Great in this reference)

The Book of Ezra speaks about Cyrus the Great

What does the discovery of these scrolls reveal about first century Judaism

and the roots of Christianity?

Christianity

First century Christianity about 4 different interpretations of the doctrine:

Jewish converts who use Law of Moses

Jewish converts who stop using mosaic law but believe in circumcision for all new

members

All converts no longer use mosaic law

L. Michael White:

Professor of Classics and Director of the Religious Studies Program University of Texas at Austin

PAGANISM IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

As you leave Jerusalem and go to the south and to the

east, toward the Dead Sea, the terrain changes rapidly

and starkly. You move off gradually from [the] ...

rolling hillside, through the ravines, and it becomes

stark and desolate. It's dry. It's arid. It's rocky, and it's

rough. And all of a sudden, within a span of only

about thirteen miles, the entire terrain drops out in

front of you as you go from roughly 3400 feet above

sea level at Jerusalem, to nearly 1400 feet below sea

level at the surface of the Dead Sea. It is in that rugged cliff face, on the banks of the

Dead Sea, in this arid, desolate climate, that the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered at the

site known as Khirbet Qumran. The Scrolls were discovered, according to the story that,

now, many people know, of a shepherd boy wandering along with his flocks and, as boys

tend to do, throwing rocks in a cave. So the story goes that he heard a crack in one, went

in to investigate and found a ceramic pot with what appeared to be pages inside. Those

were then taken out and eventually found their way onto the market, and were only later

rediscovered and deciphered as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Subsequent to that first discovery, eleven different caves have been found at Qumran.

And new discoveries are expected even now. Among the caves were found, then,

thousand of fragments of manuscripts and quite a number of whole, or mostly complete,

manuscripts in scrolls stored in these jars. Among the cache of scrolls that we now call

the Dead Sea Scrolls, are three distinct types of material. First, we have a collection of

copies of the actual books of the Hebrew Scriptures. These people were copyists. They

were preserving the texts of the Bible itself. Secondly, there were commentaries on these

biblical texts. But these commentaries also show their own interpretation of what would

happen. This is where we begin to get some of the insights into the way the Essenes at

Qumran believed, because of the way they interpret the prophecies of Isaiah, or the

prophesies of Habakkuk as well as the way they read the Torah, itself. So among the

scrolls, then, we have a complete set of almost all the biblical books, and commentaries

on many of them. "The Isaiah Scroll" is one of the most famous of the biblical

manuscripts. And the commentaries on Isaiah is also very important for our

understanding of Jewish interpretation of Scripture in this period.

The third major type of material found among the Dead

Sea Scrolls, though, in some ways is the most interesting

insight into the life of the community that lived there,

because this material includes their own sectarian

writings, that is, their rules of life ... their prayer book.

Included then, is the book of the rule of the community

or sometimes called "The Manual of Discipline”, which

talks about how one goes about getting into the

community. The rules for someone who wants to be pure and a part of the elect

community. We also have something called "The War Scroll" and the War Scroll seems

to be their own battle plan for the war that will occur at the end of the present evil age.

And so this is something that really is real in their mind ... that this coming end of the age

will be a cataclysmic event in their view. Also was found something called "The Copper

Scroll". Quite literally, with the letters incised, in Hebrew, into soft, burnished copper.

And the contents of the Copper Scroll are still a source of great interest among many

people, because people think it may be a treasure map of their own holdings.

Who were the Essenes?

The Dead Sea Scrolls are usually thought to have been produced by a group known as the

Essenes. And the Essenes are a group that literally abandoned Jerusalem, it seems, in

protest... against the way the Temple was being run. So here's a group that went out in the

desert to prepare the way of the Lord, following the commands, as they saw it, of the

prophet Isaiah. And they go to the desert to get away from what they see to be the

worldliness of Jerusalem and the worldliness of the Temple. Now the Essenes aren't a

new group in Jesus' day. They too, had been around for a hundred years at that point in

time. But it would appear that the reign of Herod, and probably even more so, the reign of

his sons and the Roman Procurators, probably stimulated a new phase of life of the

Essene community, rising as a growing protest against Roman rule and worldliness.

The Essenes are what we might best call an apocalyptic sect of Judaism. An apocalyptic

sect is one that thinks of itself as, first of all, the true form of their religion. In fact, that's

part of their terminology. Again, using the prophet Isaiah, they think of themselves as the

righteous remnant ... the chosen ones ... the elect. But they're also standing over against

the mainstream ... most of Jewish life, and especially everything going on at Jerusalem.

So they're sectarian. They're separatists. They're people who move away.

The basis for that understanding is their reading of Scripture. They interpret Scripture,

especially the prophets, Isaiah, the Torah itself, to suggest that the course of Judaism is

going through a profound change. "Far too many people are becoming worldly," they

would have said. The end, as they understood it, of the present evil age is moving upon

them inexorably. And they want to be on the right side when it comes. In their

understanding, there will come a day when the Lord revisits the Earth with power. And in

the process establishes a new kingdom for Judaism. It will be like the kingdom of David

and Solomon. A return to the golden age mentality. And this is part of that apocalyptic

mind set.

...The Dead Sea Scrolls show us a lot about the beliefs of the Essenes. Now, we typically

think of this language of the coming kingdom as reflecting a belief in the end of the

world ... as somehow coming upon them or us soon. But in fact, that's not exactly what

they thought. They use language like "the end" or "the last things" or "the last days", but

what they mean is the present evil age is coming to an end. Now this "end time" language

is what we typically call "the eschaton" or "eschatology" ... thinking about the end. But in

Jewish eschatology of this period, what they usually seem to be talking about is an end of

a present evil age and a coming new glorious age ... a new kingdom.

The idea that the coming kingdom is always to be accompanied by a Messianic figure is

not entirely accurate for Judaism in this period. We hear of some groups, for example,

who expect the coming change, but never mention a Messiah, or a Messianic figure at all,

either as a deliverer figure, or as some sort of heavenly agent. So some forms of Judaism

in this period don't ever talk about a Messiah. At Qumran, on the other hand, among the

Dead Sea Scrolls, we hear not of just one Messiah, but at least two Messiahs. Some of

their writings talk about a Messiah of David that is a kind of kingly figure who will come

to lead the war. But there's also a Messiah of Aaron, a priestly figure, who will come to

restore the Temple at Jerusalem to its proper purity and worship of God. In addition to

these two major Messianic figures, we also hear of a prophet figure.

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and our growing knowledge of the Essene

community that produced them, gives us one of the most important pieces of evidence for

the diversity of Jewish life and thought in the time of Jesus. Now, it has sometimes been

suggested that Jesus, himself, or maybe even John the Baptist, were members of this

group. And that can't be proven at all. But what the Essenes and the Qumran scrolls do

show us is the kind of challenges that could be brought against some of the traditional

lines of Jewish thought, and even the operation of the Temple itself. So if one of our

perspectives is that there is this growing tension in Jerusalem, the Essenes are probably

the best example of how radical that questioning of Temple life might become.

Shaye I.D. Cohen:

Samuel Ungerleider Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies Brown University The Dead Sea Scrolls

10:19

Christianity

The Nag Hammadi Library: The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Philip and the Gospel

of Mary

The Old Testament and Related Studies Unrolling the Scrolls—Some Forgotten Witnesses by Huge Nibley p. 115-166

p. 122-129

Thursday, March 15th, 2012.

Text: Chapter 6 New Empires in Iran and Greece

Define the following terms:

1. Darius

2. Herodotus

3. Achaemenids

4. Satrap

5. Zoroastrianism

6. Ahura Mazda

7. Cyrus

Josephus p. 228-233 Cyrus and Darius pay for the Jews to reconstruct their temple. (Handouts)

Greek Reason and Philosophy

Socrates, Plato and Aristotle

Allegory of the Cave Expanded

Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" is a story that conveys his theory of how we come to

know, or how we attain true knowledge. .

In short, Plato's cave allegory unveils the heart of his philosophy. The Good--as

symbolized by the sun--is not only the source of all other essence and existence, but

is the foundation of all knowledge. Because it grounds my knowledge of the world it

also, if truly grasped, is the necessary and sufficient cause of my becoming virtuous and

happy. To leave the cave and come to know the Good is then the goal of the

philosopher's life. If it is accomplished, the philosopher not only knows the Good, but

she becomes Good. By becoming virtuous she becomes happy.

Teaching Plato in Translation by Susan Gorman, Boston University

Original text © 2004 Susan Gorman

The Republic

The Allegory of the Cave

The Cave Allegory is the best known (and most widely excerpted) section of the Republic. This explanation works very well in describing the forms, even though it can be difficult to understand at first.

Basically, imagine a dark cave. There are many people there, weighted down with chains, sitting between a wall and a fire. Someone else is by the fire, putting objects in front of it so that their shadows are projected on the wall for the chained people to see. If all those people ever saw were those shadows, they may believe that shadows are the totality of the real world. This world inside the cave is that which most people experience.

In an amazing break with the known world, one prisoner escapes his chains. He is able to turn his head and see the objects that are being held in front of the fire. This sight is shocking! All of a sudden, his entire perception of reality must be changed. Now those objects are the new reality.

Seeking to know more, this escaped prisoner runs up a hill toward the mouth of the cave. Stepping out into the light of the sun, he is dazzled again. Once more, he experiences a shock. Again, his understanding of the world must change entirely.

Explain the connection between the allegory of the cave and the forms. The world of the forms is the world outside the mouth of the cave. Realizing that there are forms and that what we see is simply a projection of the forms into our world is the work of philosophy. Ask students about what they think of the cave allegory. Does it work as an explanation of forms?

The shock of the cave allegory should not be understated. Ask your students to imagine a time when what they believed was shown to be untrue (an example could be some of the myths we tell children about certain holidays). Think about how devastating it can be to realize that one has been lied to. Especially about something so vividly important. Ask your students how they know that what they think is reality is actually real?

The Allegory of the Cave

1. Plato realizes that the general run of humankind can think, and speak, etc.,

without (so far as they acknowledge) any awareness of his realm of Forms.

2. The allegory of the cave is supposed to explain this.

3. In the allegory, Plato likens people untutored in the Theory of Forms to

prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads. All they can see is the

wall of the cave. Behind them burns a fire. Between the fire and the

prisoners there is a parapet, along which puppeteers can walk. The

puppeteers, who are behind the prisoners, hold up puppets that cast shadows

on the wall of the cave. The prisoners are unable to see these puppets, the

real objects, that pass behind them. What the prisoners see and hear are

shadows and echoes cast by objects that they do not see. Here is an illustration of Plato’s Cave:

From Great Dialogues of Plato: Complete Texts of the Republic, Apology, Crito Phaido, Ion, and Meno, Vol. 1. (Warmington and Rouse, eds.) New York, Signet Classics: 1999. p. 316.

4. Such prisoners would mistake appearance for reality. They would think the

things they see on the wall (the shadows) were real; they would know

nothing of the real causes of the shadows.

5. So when the prisoners talk, what are they talking about? If an object (a book,

let us say) is carried past behind them, and it casts a shadow on the wall, and a prisoner says “I see a book,” what is he talking about?

He thinks he is talking about a book, but he is really talking about a shadow.

But he uses the word “book.” What does that refer to?

6. Plato gives his answer at line (515b2). The text here has puzzled many

editors, and it has been frequently emended. The translation in Grube/Reeve

gets the point correctly:

“And if they could talk to one another, don’t you think they’d suppose that the

names they used applied to the things they see passing before them?”

7. Plato’s point is that the prisoners would be mistaken. For they would be

taking the terms in their language to refer to the shadows that pass before

their eyes, rather than (as is correct, in Plato’s view) to the real things that

cast the shadows.

If a prisoner says “That’s a book” he thinks that the word “book” refers to the

very thing he is looking at. But he would be wrong. He’s only looking at a

shadow. The real referent of the word “book” he cannot see. To see it, he would have to turn his head around.

8. Plato’s point: the general terms of our language are not “names” of the

physical objects that we can see. They are actually names of things that we

cannot see, things that we can only grasp with the mind.

9. When the prisoners are released, they can turn their heads and see the real

objects. Then they realize their error. What can we do that is analogous to

turning our heads and seeing the causes of the shadows? We can come to

grasp the Forms with our minds.

10. Plato’s aim in the Republic is to describe what is necessary for us to achieve

this reflective understanding. But even without it, it remains true that our

very ability to think and to speak depends on the Forms. For the terms of the

language we use get their meaning by “naming” the Forms that the objects

we perceive participate in.

11. The prisoners may learn what a book is by their experience with shadows of

books. But they would be mistaken if they thought that the word “book” refers to something that any of them has ever seen.

Likewise, we may acquire concepts by our perceptual experience of physical

objects. But we would be mistaken if we thought that the concepts that we

grasp were on the same level as the things we perceive.

Plutarch’s History of Alexander the Great 356-323 BCE.

Thursday, March 22nd, 2012.

Mormon Doctrine McConkie Signs of the times and Second Coming

Text: Chapter 5 p. 114-143 The Americas and the Islands of the Pacific, to 1200 C. E.

p. 129 Questions for Analysis Answer 4 Questions worth 4 points

The Aztec Empire of Mexico: 1325-1519

Text: p. 421-424

p. 420 Focus Questions; First 3 worth 3 point

The Inca Empire, 1400-1532

Text: p. 424-431

Hand in from Textbook work p. 129 Questions for Analysis 4 questions and Text page

420 Focus Questions:

1. How did the Aztecs form their empire?

2. How did the Inca form theirs?

3. How did each hold their empire together?

4. What was each empire’s major weakness?

Thursday, March 29th, 2012.

Paper Due with all 5 Tutorials

Carol, Hello

Do India first and then Islam

Arab Golden Age (750–1258 C.E.)

Text: Islamic Empires of Western Asia and Africa, 600-1258 CE Chapter 9 p. 238-267 Go to Chapter Review p. 266 and define the Key Terms. PPT India (Buddhism and Hinduism India: PPT Freshmen Chapter 9 Cross Cultural Exchanges Youtube: Islam in Europe - When Muslims Ruled in Europe Part 1/11

Discuss: The Prophet Mohammad Discuss: The Origins of Islam The Arabs founded a flourishing civilization stretching from Iran to Morocco and Spain

when the Europeans were still wearing animal skins. Harun's Baghdad is perhaps best

known the wealth and luxurious life-style of its inhabitants. Silk and porcelain from

china, spices and precious metal from India, gold dust and ivory from Africa white slaves

from Scandinavia and Russia were shipped to Baghdad by sea. Harun's wife, Zubaidah,

wore jewel-studded shoes and had a tree of mechanical chirping birds made of pure gold.

Harun wanted Baghdad to be the center of world learning, and to this end he invited

famous poets and scholars from all over the Middle East to come to Baghdad to work and

live. The intellectual ferment began with the translation of books from all over the world

into Arabic . what we know now as Arabic numerals, the decimal system, and the use of

the number zero have come to the west by way of Haroun's Baghdad. There were famous

practicing physicians as well, such as Al-Razi, known to the west as Rhazes. Al-

Razi wrote books on smallpox and measles as well as his most famous work, an

encyclopedia that catalogued all Greek, Hindu, and Persian medicl knowledge as well as

his own medical research. An equally famous physician, Ibn Sina, known to the west as

Avicenna, codified all Greek and Arabic medical knowledge into a volume that become the

standard medical textbook in the Arab and in Europe for the next eight hundred years.

Original scientific researches were also conducted in the field of astronomy, chemistry,

zoology, music, geography, and philosophy. Al-Khawarizmi, the mathematician, wrote a

book on algebra that was widely used in Europe and thus introduced the word " algebra"

in to English. The theological colleges were established for the advanced study of Islam.

There were public as well as private libraries, and many bookstalls were to be found on the

streets of Baghdad. A well-trained police force was organized to keep order in the towns of

the empire, and a standing army helped keep the countryside under control and safe for

travel. For the benefit of the travelers, inns and hostels were maintained in various parts of

Harun's domain, and the delivery of mail was supplemented by a carrier-pigeon service for

the speedy exchange of messages... p.pearson http://www.shvoong.com/social-

sciences/1880417-arab-golden-age-haroun-al/

India

Text: Chapter 3 Ancient India and the Rise of Buddhism 2600 B. C. E. to 100 C. E. p. 60-87.

Thursday, April 5th

, 2012.

Text Readings: Chapter 4 Blueprint for Empire: China, 1200 B. C. E.- 220 C. E. p. 88-

113 Do all the key terms on page 112

Chapter 12 China’s Commercial Revolution, p. 328-355

Mandatory Final Review in-class

Finals in the Testing Center. April 11th

- 13thth

, 2012.

Please don’t forget to bring your Blue Books for the essay portion of the final.