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ausar
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I was curious about the pros and cons of buying this book. I frequently encounter this publication but I am hessitant due to its infamous history. I direct this question to alTakruri due to his depth of Africana studies. How valuable is this book save for the dated information that George GM James is drawing from? Does it relate much on ancient Egyptian cosmogony?
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
alTakruri
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With works of this nature (and sadly I'm finding so
too with Seleem's work) it's hard to filter AE from
other esoterica from various times and climes. Really,
I don't think this question can be answered objectively.

What I can do is direct you to the most recent discussion
we had on the subject in 2008. I do suggest that you
borrow books before you buy them unless your goal is
to amass a resource center. I did that but lost nearly
my entire library in shipping. Trust me, insurance cannot
replace a collection culled from many countries over
many decades. Titles simply become unavailable over time.

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alTakruri
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I just looked at those threads and they don't have what
you want. So how about it's table of contents in portion?
quote:
Part I
Chapter I: Greek Philosophy is Stolen Egyptian Philosophy
Chapter II: So-called Greek Philosophy Was Alien To The Greeks And Their Conditions Of Life
Chapter III: Greek Philosophy Was the Offspring of The Egyptian Mystery System
Chapter IV: The Egyptians Educated the Greeks
Chapter V: The Pre-Socratic Philosophers and the Teachings Ascribed to Them
Chapter VI: The Athenian Philosophers
Chapter VII: The Curriculum of the Egyptian Mystery System

http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/stle/stle11.htm
Chapter VIII: The Memphite Theology is the Basis of all Important Doctrines in Greek Philosophy

http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/stle/stle12.htm

Well, how about this! Thanks to the managers of
Sacred Texts the whole text of the book is online
http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/stle/index.htm

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ausar
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My main goal is to acumulate as many books on obscure subjects concerning Africa,the so-called Middle East and Biblical history. I recently encountered this African-American book seller at a local flea market I frequent often and he is the only one in my area that carried books on Africana studies. I give him support because I am scared of losing his valuable resource.

I live in Florida and its dead when it comes to anybody interested in the works of Rogers,Diop and etc...


So most of my book purchases are mainly about North,West,Central and eastern Africa. All these areas ancient and modern fasinate me. I have recently ventured into studying more about tradiation African religions.

Anyway,alTakruri, I need your help in guding me in the right direction concerning books that are both afforable and inprint for me to purchase. I plan to leave this resource to my future child or children so they be objective under a historically biased academic structure.


I am sorry if this is bothering you but I appreciate all your help. Thanks

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ArtistFormerlyKnownAsHeru
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quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:
I did that but lost nearly
my entire library in shipping.

Man that must have been an extremely unpleasant experience.

Hopefully, you had a [pictographic] list somewhere you can still reference.

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Narmer Menes
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quote:
Originally posted by ausar:
I was curious about the pros and cons of buying this book. I frequently encounter this publication but I am hessitant due to its infamous history. I direct this question to alTakruri due to his depth of Africana studies. How valuable is this book save for the dated information that George GM James is drawing from? Does it relate much on ancient Egyptian cosmogony?

I think this is an essential books for people who are interested in reconnecting the 'missing' information and formulating a better view of world History, but its just important to know what you're getting in Stolen Legacy. It is an incredibly short book, so if you're looking for an exhaustive more in-depth look at the links between Greek and Egyptian civilisation, this will not give it to you (Civilisation or Barbarism- Diop, or Black Athena - Bernal). This book (as you probably know) focuses mainly on philosophy. What I believe it does excellently is give you a persepective of understanding about the circumstances in which great philosophies are written. Great philosophy, sciences, astronomy, biology, physics, mathematics etc are a) NOT created in the matter of a couple of generations and
b) NOT created in circumstances of political/civil unrest and under extreme persecution.
Reading the book, you come to an understanding of the plight facing the early greek philosophers and the impossible nature surrounding the apparent creation of thousands of books on philosophy. James brilliantly demonstrates that philosophy is something that just cannot be created in short phases of time and in situations of persecution. Reading it you realise that Greek philosophy was so revolutionary and contradictory to the Greek lifestyle that it makes no sense that it was so extensive. You also come to the understanding that Greek philosohpers were not 'trumpeted' in their lifetime, but rather, they were victims of extreme persecution. All of this and yet Aristotle was credited with creating thousands of "enlightened" books in spite of all of the surrounding contradictions. However, in the context of ancient Kemet, the Greek philosophy, sciences and mathematics make perfect sense. The thousands of years of generational development around the Nile, the peaceful lifestyle, the massive monolithic constructions, the library at Alexander, and the 30 years or so that Aristotle spent in training under Egyptian scholars all begin to give you an understanding of where much of the philosophy had its origins. James highlights the sheer impossibility of the Greek claims.

My advice, buy the book. It certainly is not extensive and slightly dated, but where it has its strengths is not in its length, but its ability to readdress and question the likelihood of a few Greek philosophers being masters of every intellectual trait known to man. This I believe it demonstrates is a fallacy.

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lamin
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The thing about the Western intellectual entreprise is that its members don't want to accept the fact that new ideas can come from anywhere and can be spread by diffusional borrowing.

It is because of this intellectual mindset that they are hesitant[for the most part] about accepting the idea that the foundations of their Greek intellectual patrimony could have come Ancient Egypt.

Some have accepted the influence of Egypt, Sumer and other cultures on Greece but before they do that--as in the case of Ancient Egypt--they must claim that the Ancient Egyptians were like themselves, i.e., "Caucasoids".

That aside, you might want to explore the continuing influence of AE thought and ideas throughout the relatively short time span of Ancient Greece. Check out ideas expressed in the Corpus Hermetica and the ideas expressed by Egyptian philosopher "Plotinus"--who influenced North African theologian, Augustine.

OK, Plato and Aristotle are eminent thinkers--who benefited from the cultural diffusion of AE ideas--but their ideas were also developed on by Plotinus and Augustine.

Re West Africa:

Ausar, you might want to get "Ahmad Baba de Tomboctou"(1556-1627) by Mahmoud Zouber, to get information on the writings of one of West Africa's prominent philosophers during precolonial times.

Re East Africa:
You could research the writings of Ethiopian philosopher Zara Yakub who lived in the 1600's.

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alTakruri
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OK, I presented this once but, since it was more
than obviously ignored and roorag to the contrary
is flying about yet again, here it is one more time.

What precisely does James mean by stolen legacy?
Let's let him answer in his own words:
quote:


... after the death of Aristotle, his Athenian
pupils, without the authority of the state,
undertook to compile a history of philosophy,
recognized at that time as the Sophia or Wisdom
of the Egyptians
, which had become current and
traditional in the ancient world, which compilation,
because it was produced by pupils who had belonged
to Aristotle's school, later history has erroneously
called Greek philosophy
, in spite of the fact that
the Greeks were its greatest enemies and persecutors,
and had persistently treated it as a foreign innovation.
For this reason, the so-called Greek philosophy is stolen
Egyptian philosophy
, which first spread to Ionia, thence
to Italy and thence to Athens. And it must be remembered
that at this remote period of Greek history, i.e., Thales to
Aristotle 640 B.C.–322 B.C., the Ionians were not Greek
citizens, but at first Egyptian subjects and later Persian
subjects.


Does everyone understand that James' title Stolen Legacy
is in reference to later historians erroneously labeling
Aristotles' students compiling the traditional Sophia or
Wisdom of the Egyptians.

Any other claim as to what James means is spurious
and results from not reading what James himself explains
is meany by the phrase 'stolen legacy.'

Now, why is Greek Philosophy called stolen Egyptian Philosophy?

Because later historians labelled it after Athenian compilations.

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alTakruri
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If anyone feels they have refuted any of James' claims
this thread is here for you to succinctly post such
supposed 'refutations' and to do so via quoted citations
referenced from James' work not from some polemical reviewers
as clueless as those who claim to have refuted James.

--------------------
Intellectual property of YYT al~Takruri © 2004 - 2017. All rights reserved.

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Djehuti
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^ This makes a heck of alot more sense than claims of Greeks raiding the Alexandrian Library which is a Hellenistic (Greek) library built in Egypt and then stealing Egyptian works to call it their own.

I could easily understand the mistaken misnomer and the propagation thereof in later times. The Greeks may have been cultural chauvanists, but they were not liars. And the very fact that they were cultural chauvanists, was why they made no effort to acknowledge which texts were foreign.

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akoben
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^ when are you going to stop beating around the bush and answer the post directed at you? Have you refuted James' claims as you claimed?
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alTakruri
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Let us now examine James chronological frame of
reference from the above quote which is "Thales
to Aristotle 640 B.C.–322 B.C."


(Below dates are approximate)

700 - 480 BCE = Greece's Archaic period
480 - 323 BCE = Greece's Classical period
323 - 146 BCE = Greece's Hellenistic period

ARCHAIC hi-lites
725 - Hesiod
590 - Thales
550 - Pythagorus

CLASSICAL hi-lites
399 - Socrates sentenced
380 - Plato's Athenian Academy established
335 - Aristotle's Athenian Lyceum founded
331 - Greek Alexandria built in Egypt

HELLENISTIC hi-lites
322 - Aristotle dead
310 - Zeno's Athenian Stoic school
307 - Epicurus' Athenian Stoic school
245 - Archimedes
221 - Ergamenes

James includes both Archaic and Classical philosophers
as 'redactors' of the Wisdom of Egypt. The Hellenistic
philosophers have a better claim to being "home grown"
and this is evidenced by the case of Egamenes the
ancient Sudani king who disregarded local spirituality in
favor of his training in Greek philosophy.

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alTakruri
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Please back this up with a properly cited quote
referencing James' Stolen Legacy, thank you.
Alexandria was not built up on virgin soil. There
was already a town, Ra Kedet, where Alexander was
to renovate the renowned city bearing his name.

quote:
Originally posted by DJ:
... claims of Greeks raiding the Alexandrian Library ...


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unfinished thought.
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In the fall of 1991 I was asked to write a review-article for The New Republic about Martin Bernal's Black Athena and its relation to the Afrocentrist movement. The assignment literally changed my life. Once I began to work on the article I realized that here was a subject that needed all the attention, and more, that I could give to it. Although I had been completely unaware of it, there was in existence a whole literature that denied that the ancient Greeks were the inventors of democracy, philosophy, and science. There were books in circulation that claimed that Socrates and Cleopatra were of African descent, and that Greek philosophy had actually been stolen from Egypt. Not only were these books being read and widely distributed; some of these ideas were being taught in schools and even in universities.

Ordinarily, if someone has a theory which involves a radical departure from what the experts have professed, he is expected to defend his position by providing evidence in its support. But no one seemed to think it was appropriate to ask for evidence from the instructors who claimed that the Greeks stole their philosophy from Egypt.

Normally, if one has a question about a text that another instructor is using, one simply asks why he or she is using that book. But since this conventional line of inquiry was closed to me, I had to wait till I could raise my questions in a more public context. That opportunity came in February 1993, when Dr. Yosef A. A. ben-Jochannan was invited to give Wellesley's Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial lecture. Posters described Dr. ben-Jochannan as a "distinguished Egyptologist," and indeed that is how he was introduced by the then President of Wellesley College. But I knew from my research in Afrocentric literature that he was not what scholars would ordinarily describe as an Egyptologist, that is a scholar of Egyptian language and civilization. Rather, he was an extreme Afrocentrist, author of many books describing how Greek civilization was stolen from Africa, how Aristotle robbed the library of Alexandria, and how the true Jews are Africans like himself.

After Dr. ben-Jochannan made these same assertions once again in his lecture, I asked him during the question period why he said that Aristotle had come to Egypt with Alexander, and had stolen his philosophy from the Library at Alexandria, when that Library had only been built after his death. Dr. ben-Jochannan was unable to answer the question, and said that he resented the tone of the inquiry. Several students came up to me after the lecture and accused me of racism, suggesting that I had been brainwashed by white historians. But others stayed to hear me out, and I assured Dr. ben-Jochannan that I simply wanted to know what his evidence was: so far as I knew, and I had studied the subject, Aristotle never went to Egypt, and while the date of the Library of Alexandria is not known precisely, it was certainly only built some years after the city was founded, which was after both Aristotle's and Alexander's deaths.

A lecture at which serious questions could not be asked, and in fact were greeted with hostility -- the occasion seemed more like a political rally than an academic event. As if that were not disturbing enough in itself, there was also the strange silence on the part of many of my faculty colleagues. Several of these were well aware that what Dr. ben-Jochannan was saying was factually wrong. One of them said later that she found the lecture so "hopeless" that she decided to say nothing. Were they afraid of being called racists? If so, their behavior was understandable, but not entirely responsible. Didn't we as educators owe it to our students, all our students, to see that they got the best education they could possibly get? And that clearly was what they were not getting in a lecture where they were being told myths disguised as history, and where discussion and analysis had apparently been forbidden.

Good as the myths they were hearing may have made these students feel, so long as they never left the Afrocentric environment in which they were being nurtured and sheltered, they were being systematically deprived of the most important features of a university education. They were not learning how to question themselves and others, they were not learning to distinguish facts from fiction, nor in fact were they learning how to think for themselves. Their instructors had forgotten, while the rest of us sat by and did nothing about it, that students do not come to universities to be indoctrinated --at least in a free society.

Was Socrates Black?

I first learned about the notion that Socrates was black several years ago, from a student in my second-year Greek course on Plato's Apology, his account of Socrates' trial and conviction. Throughout the entire semester the student had regarded me with sullen hostility. A year or so later she apologized. She explained that she thought I had been concealing the truth about Socrates' origins. In a course in Afro-American studies she had been told that he was black, and my silence about his African ancestry seemed to her to be a confirmation of the Eurocentric arrogance her instructor had warned her about. After she had taken my course, the student pursued the question on her own, and was satisfied that I had been telling her the truth: so far as we know, Socrates was ethnically no different from other Athenians.

What had this student learned in her course in Afro-American studies? The notion that Socrates was black is based on two different kinds of inference. The first "line of proof" is based on inference from possibility. Why couldn't an Athenian have African ancestors? That of course would have been possible; almost anything is possible. But it is another question whether or not it was probable. Few prominent Athenians claim to have had foreign ancestors of any sort. Athenians were particularly fastidious about their own origins. In Socrates' day, they did not allow Greeks from other city-states to become naturalized Athenian citizens, and they were even more careful about the non-Greeks or barbaroi. Since Socrates was an Athenian citizen, his parents must have been Athenians, as he himself says they were.

Another reason why I thought it unlikely that Socrates and/or his immediate ancestors were foreigners is that no contemporary calls attention to anything extraordinary in his background. If he had been a foreigner, one of his enemies, or one of the comic poets, would have been sure to point it out. The comic poets never missed an opportunity to make fun of the origins of Athenian celebrities. Socrates was no exception; he is lampooned by Aristophanes in his comedy the Clouds. If Socrates and/or his parents had had dark skin, some of his contemporaries would have been likely to mention it, because this, and not just his eccentric ideas about the gods, and the voice that spoke to him alone, would have distinguished him from the rest of the Athenians. Unless, of course, he could not be distinguished from other Athenians because they all had dark skin; but then if they did, why did they not make themselves bear a closer resemblance the Ethiopians in their art?

Was Cleopatra Black?

Until recently, no one ever asked whether Cleopatra might have had an African ancestor, because our surviving ancient sources identify her as a Macedonian Greek. Her ancestors, the Ptolemies, were descended from one of Alexander's generals. After Alexander's death in 323 B. C., these generals divided up among themselves the territory in the Mediterranean that Alexander had conquered. The name Cleopatra was one of the names traditionally given to women in the royal family; officially our Cleopatra (69-30 BC) was Cleopatra VII, the daughter of Ptolemy XII and his sister. Cleopatra VII herself followed the family practice of marrying within the family. She married her two brothers (Ptolemy XIII and XIV) in succession (after the first died in suspicious circumstances, she had the second murdered). Her first language was Greek; but she was also the first member of the Ptolemaic line who was able to speak Egyptian. She also wore Egyptian dress, and was shown in art in the dress of the goddess Isis. She chose to portray herself as an Egyptian not because she was Egyptian, but because she was ambitious to stay in power. In her surviving portraits on coins and in sculpture she appears to be impressive rather than beautiful, Mediterranean in appearance, with straight hair and a hooked nose. Of course these portraits on metal and stone give no indication of the color of her skin.

The only possibility that she might not have been a full-blooded Macedonian Greek arises from the fact that we do not know the precise identity of one member of her family tree. We do not know who her grandmother was on her father's side. Her grandmother was the mistress (not the wife) of her grandfather, Ptolemy IX. Because nothing is known about this person, the assumption has always been that she was a Macedonian Greek, like the other members of Ptolemy's court. Like other Greeks, the Ptolemies were wary of foreigners. They kept themselves apart from the native population, with brothers usually marrying sisters, or uncles marrying nieces, or in one case a father marrying his daughter (Ptolemy IX and Cleopatra Berenice III). Because the Ptolemies seemed to prefer to marry among themselves, even incestuously, it has always been assumed that Cleopatra's grandmother was closely connected with the family. If she had been a foreigner, one of the Roman writers of the time would have mentioned it in their invectives against Cleopatra as an enemy of the Roman state. These writers were supporters of Octavian (later known as Augustus) who defeated Cleopatra's forces in the battle of Actium in 31 B.C.

Does Racial Identity Matter?

The question of race matters only insofar as it is necessary to show that no classicists or ancient historians have tried to conceal the truth about the origins of the Greek people or the ancestry of certain famous ancient figures. It has been suggested that classicists have been reluctant to ask questions about Greek origins, and that we have been so "imbued with conventional preconceptions and patterns of thought" that we are unlikely to question the basic premises of our discipline. But even though we may be more reluctant to speculate about our own field than those outside it might be, none of us has any cultural "territory" in the ancient world that we are trying to insulate from other ancient cultures.

Did ancient Greek religion and culture derive from Egypt?

The idea that Greek religion and philosophy has Egyptian origins derives, at least in part, from the writings of ancient Greek historians. In the fifth century BC Herodotus was told by Egyptian priests that the Greeks owed many aspects of their culture to the older and vastly impressive civilization of the Egyptians. Egyptian priests told Diodorus some of the same stories four centuries later. The church fathers in the second and third centuries AD also were eager to emphasize the dependency of Greece on the earlier cultures of the Egyptians and the Hebrews. They were eager to establish direct links between their civilization and that of Egypt because Egypt was a vastly older culture, with elaborate religious customs and impressive monuments. But despite their enthusiasm for Egypt and its material culture (an enthusiasm that was later revived in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Europe), they failed to understand Egyptian religion and the purpose of many Egyptian customs.

Classical scholars tend to be skeptical about the claims of the Greek historians because much of what these writers say does not conform to the facts as they are now known from the modern scholarship on ancient Egypt. For centuries Europeans had believed that the ancient historians knew that certain Greek religious customs and philosophical interests derived from Egypt. But two major discoveries changed that view. The first concerned a group of ancient philosophical treatises attributed to Hermes Trismegistus; these had throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance been thought of as Egyptian and early. But in 1614 the French scholar Isaac Casaubon demonstrated that the treatises were actually late and basically Greek. The second discovery was the decipherment of hieroglyphics, the official system of Egyptian writing, completed by 1836. Before decipherment, scholars had been compelled to rely on Greek sources for their understanding of Egyptian history and civilization. Once they were able to read real Egyptian texts, and could disregard the fanciful interpretations of hieroglyphics that had been circulating since late antiquity, it became clear to them that the relation of Egyptian to Greek culture was less close than they had imagined. Egyptian belonged to the Afroasiatic language family, while Greek was an Indo-European language, akin to Sanskrit and European languages like Latin.

On the basis of these new discoveries, European scholars realized that they could no longer take at face value what Herodotus, Diodorus, and the Church fathers had to say about Greece's debt to Egypt. Once it was possible to read Egyptian religious documents, and to see how the Egyptians themselves described their gods and told their myths, scholars could see that the ancient Greeks' accounts of Egyptian religion were superficial, and even misleading. Apparently Greek writers, despite their great admiration for Egypt, looked at Egyptian civilization through cultural blinkers that kept them from understanding any practices or customs that were significantly different from their own. The result was a portrait of Egypt that was both astigmatic and deeply Hellenized. Greek writers operated under other handicaps as well. They did not have access to records; there was no defined system of chronology. They could not read Egyptian inscriptions or question a variety of witnesses because they did not know the language. Hence they were compelled to exaggerate the importance of such resemblances as they could see or find.

Did the theory of the transmigration of souls come from Egypt?

Because he tended to rely on such analogies as he could find, Herodotus inevitably made some false conjectures. Herodotus thought that Pythagoras learned about the transmigration of souls from Egypt, when in fact the Egyptians did not believe in the transmigration of souls, as their careful and elaborate burial procedures clearly indicate. Herodotus tells us that he wrote down what the Egyptians told him; but when they spoke, what did he hear? Since he did not know Egyptian, his informants could have been Greeks living in the Greek colony of Naucratis in the Nile Delta, or Egyptians who knew some Greek. How well-informed were his informants? On the question of origins, at least, it seems that neither group had any more than a superficial understanding of the other's culture. Perhaps someone explained to him about the Egyptian "modes of existence," in which a human being could manifest itself both materially, or immaterially, as ka or ba or a name, and that death was not an end, but a threshold leading to a new form of life. Belief in these varied modes of existence required that bodies be preserved after death, hence the Egyptian practice of mummification. Greeks, on the other hand, believed that the soul was separated from the body at death, and disposed of bodies either by burial or cremation. In any case, there is no reason to assume that Pythagoras or other Greeks who believed in transmigration, like the Orphics and/or the philosopher-poet Empedocles, got their ideas from anyone else: notions of transmigration have developed independently in other parts of the world.

Did Plato Study in Egypt?

Plato never says in any of his writings that he went to Egypt, and there is no reference to such a visit in the semi-biographical Seventh Epistle. But in his dialogues he refers to some Egyptian myths and customs. Plato, of course, was not a historian, and the rather superficial knowledge of Egypt displayed in his dialogues, along with vague chronology, is more characteristic of historical fiction than of history. In fact, anecdotes about his visit to Egypt only turn up in writers of the later Hellenistic period. What better way to explain his several references to Egypt than to assume that the author had some first-hand knowledge of the customs he describes? For authors dating from the fourth century and earlier, ancient biographers were compelled to use as their principal source material the author's own works. Later biographers add details to the story of Plato's Egyptian travels in order to provide aetiologies for the "Egyptian" reference in his writings. The most ironic anecdote of all is preserved by Clement of Alexandria: Plato studied in Egypt with Hermes the "Thrice Great" (Trismegistus). This is tantamount to saying that Plato studied with himself after his death. The works of Hermes could not have been written without the conceptual vocabulary developed by Plato and Aristotle, and is deeply influenced not just by Plato, but by the writings of Neoplatonist philosophers in the early centuries AD. In any case, whoever these teachers were, Plato seems never to have learned from them anything that is characteristically Egyptian, at least so far as we know about Egyptian theology from Egyptian sources. Instead, Plato's notion of the Egyptians remains similar to that of other Athenians; he did not so much change the Athenian notion of Egyptian culture as enrich and idealize it, so that it could provide a dramatic and instructive contrast with Athenian customs in his dialogues.

Was there ever such a thing as an "Egyptian Mystery System?"

Even after nineteenth-century scholars had shown that the reports of Greek visitors to Egypt misunderstood and misrepresented what they saw, the myth that Greek philosophy derived from Egypt is still in circulation. The notion of an Egyptian legacy was preserved in the literature and ritual of Freemasonry. It was from that source that Afrocentrists learned about it, and then sought to find confirmation for the primacy of Egypt over Greece in the fantasies of ancient writers. In order to show that Greek philosophy is in reality stolen Egyptian philosophy, Afrocentrist writers assume that there was in existence from earliest times an "Egyptian Mystery System," which was copied by the Greeks. The existence of this "Mystery System" is integral to the notion that Greek philosophy was stolen, because it provides a reason for assuming that Greek philosophers had a particular reason for studying in Egypt, and for claiming that what they later wrote about in Greek was originally Egyptian philosophy. But in reality, the notion of an Egyptian Mystery System is a relatively modern fiction, based on ancient sources that are distinctively Greek, or Greco-Roman, and from the early centuries AD.

In their original form, ancient mysteries had nothing to do with schools or particular courses of study; rather, the ritual was intended to put the initiate into contact with the divinity, and if special preparation or rituals were involved, it was to familiarize the initiate with the practices and liturgy of that particular cult. The origin of the connection of Mysteries to education in fact dates only to the eighteenth century. It derives from a particular work of European fiction, published in 1731. This was the three-volume work Sethos, a History or Biography, based on Unpublished Memoirs of Ancient Egypt, by the Abbé Jean Terrasson (1670-1750), a French priest, who was Professor of Greek at the Collčge de France. Although now completely forgotten, the novel was widely read in the eighteenth century..Of course Terrasson did not have access to any Egyptian information about Egypt, since hieroglyphics were not to be deciphered until more than a century later.

Why claim that Greek philosophy was stolen from Egypt?

Perhaps the most influential Afrocentrist text is Stolen Legacy, a work that has been in wide circulation since its publication in 1954. Its author, George G. M. James, writes that "the term Greek philosophy, to begin with is a misnomer, for there is no such philosophy in existence." He argues that the Greeks "did not possess the native ability essential to the development of philosophy." Rather, he states that "the Greeks were not the authors of Greek philosophy, but the Black people of North Africa, The Egyptians." It is not hard to understand why James wishes to give credit for the Greek achievement to the Egyptians, even if there is little or no historical foundation for his claims. Like the other nationalistic myths, the story of a "Stolen Legacy" both offers an explanation for past suffering, and provides a source of ethnic pride.

But although the myth may encourage and perhaps even "empower" African-Americans, its use has a destructive side, which cannot and should not be overlooked. First of all, it offers them a "story" instead of history. It also suggests that African-Americans need to learn only what they choose to believe about the past. But in so doing, the Afrocentric myth seeks to shelter them from learning what all other ethnic groups must learn, and indeed, face up to, namely the full scope of their history.

What people on earth have had a completely glorious history? While we point to the great achievements of the Greeks, anyone who has studied ancient Greek civilization knows that they also made terrible and foolish mistakes. Isn't treating African-Americans differently from the rest of humankind just another form of segregation and condescension? Implied discrimination is the most destructive aspect of Afrocentrism, but there are other serious problems as well. Teaching the myth of the Stolen Legacy as if it were history robs the ancient Greeks and their modern descendants of a heritage that rightly belongs to them. Why discriminate against them when discrimination is the issue? In addition, the myth deprives the ancient Egyptians of their proper history and robs them of their actual legacy. The Egypt of the myth of the Stolen Legacy is a wholly European Egypt, as imagined by Greek and Roman writers, and further elaborated in eighteenth-century France. Ancient Egyptian civilization deserves to be remembered (and respected) for what it was, and not for what Europeans, ancient and modern, have imagined it to be.

What is the evidence for a "Stolen Legacy?"

James's idea of ancient Egypt is fundamentally the imaginary "Mystical Egypt" of Freemasonry. He speaks of grades of initiation. In these Mysteries, as the Freemasons imagined them, Neophyte initiates must learn self-control and self-knowledge. He believes that Moses was an initiate into the Egyptian mysteries, and that Socrates reached the grade of Master Mason. In his description of the Greek philosophy, he emphasizes the Four Elements that play such a key role in Terrasson's Memphis and Masonic initiation ceremonies. He speaks of the Masonic symbol of the Open Eye, which based on an Egyptian hieroglyph but in Masonry has come specifically to represent the Master Mind. As in the University/Mystery system invented by Terrasson, Egyptian temples are used as libraries and observatories.

What then are the Greeks supposed to have stolen from the Egyptians? Are there any texts in existence that be found to verify the claim that Greek philosophy was stolen from Egypt? How was the "transfer" of Egyptian materials to Greece accomplished? If we examine what James says about the way in which the "transfer" was supposed to have been carried out, we will find that that few or no historical data can be summoned to support it. In fact, in order to construct his argument, James overlooked or ignored much existing evidence.

Did Aristotle raid the Library at Alexandria?

No ancient source says that Alexander and Aristotle raided the Library at Alexandria. That they do not do so is not surprising, because it is unlikely that Aristotle ever went there. Aristotle was Alexander's tutor when Alexander was young, but he did not accompany him on his military campaign. Even if he had gone there, it is hard to see how he could have stolen books from the library in Alexandria. Although Alexandria was founded in 331 BC, it did not begin to function as a city until after 323. Aristotle died in 322. The library was assembled around 297 under the direction of Demetrius of Phaleron, a pupil of Aristotle's. Most of the books it contained were in Greek.

Did Aristotle plagiarize Egyptian sources?

If Aristotle had stolen his ideas from the Egyptians, as James asserts, James should be able to provide parallel Egyptian and Greek texts showing frequent verbal correspondences. As it is, he can only come up with a vague similarity between two titles. One is Aristotle's treatise On the Soul, and the other the modern English name of a collection of Egyptian texts, The Book of the Dead. These funerary texts, which the Egyptians themselves called the Book of Coming Forth by Day, are designed to protect the soul during its dangerous journey through Duat, the Egyptian underworld, on its way to life of bliss in the Field of Reeds. Both Aristotle and the Egyptians believed in the notion of a "soul." But there the similarity ends. Even a cursory glance at a translation of the Book of the Dead reveals that it is not a philosophical treatise, but rather a series of ritual prescriptions to ensure the soul's passage to the next world. It is completely different from Aristotle's abstract consideration of the nature of the soul. James fails to mention that the two texts cannot be profitably compared, because their aims and methods are so different. Instead, he accounts for the discrepancy by claiming that Aristotle's theory is only a "very small portion" of the Egyptian "philosophy" of the soul, as described in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. On that basis, one could claim that any later writer plagiarized from any earlier writer who touched on the same subject. But why not assume instead that the later writer was influenced by the earlier writer, or even came up with the some of the same ideas independently, especially if those ideas are widespread, like the notion that human beings have souls?

James also alleges that Aristotle's theory of matter was taken from the so-called Memphite Theology. The Memphite Theology is a religious document inscribed on a stone tablet by Egyptian priests in the eighth century BC, but said to have been copied from an ancient papyrus. The archaic language of the text suggests that the original dates from sometime in the second millennium BC. According to James, Aristotle took from the Memphite theology his doctrine that matter, motion, and time are eternal, along with the principle of opposites, and the concept of the unmoved mover. James does not say how Aristotle would have known about this inscription, which was at the time located in Memphis and not in the Library of Alexandria, or explain how he would have been able to read it. But even if Aristotle had had some way of finding out about it, he would have had no use for it in his philosophical writings. The Memphis text, like the Egyptian Book of the Dead, is a work of a totally different character from any of Aristotle's treatises.

The Memphite text describes the creation of the world as then known (that is, Upper and Lower Egypt). It relates how Ptah's mind (or "heart") and thought (or "tongue") created the universe and all living creatures in it: "for every word of the god came about through what the heart devised and the tongue commanded." From one of his manifestations, the primordial waters of chaos, the sun-god Atum was born. When Ptah has finished creating the universe, he rests from his labors: "Ptah was satisfied after he had made all things and all divine words."

In form and in substance this account has virtually nothing in common with Aristotle's abstract theology. In fact, in Metaphysics Book 11, Aristotle discards the traditional notion of a universe that is created by a divinity or divinities, in favor of a metaphysical argument. If there is eternal motion, there is eternal substance, and behind that, an immaterial and eternal source of activity, whose existence can be deduced from the eternal circular motion of the heavens. The source of this activity is what is called in English translation the "unmoved mover."All that this theory has in common with the Memphite theology is a concern with creation of the universe. On the same insubstantial basis, it would be possible to argue that Aristotle stole his philosophy from the story of creation in the first book of Genesis.

Is there a diversity of truths?

There are of course many possible interpretations of the truth, but some things are simply not true. It is not true that there was no Holocaust. There was a Holocaust, although we may disagree about the numbers of people killed. Likewise, it is not true that the Greeks stole their philosophy from Egypt; rather, it is true that the Greeks were influenced in various ways over a long period of time by their contact with the Egyptians. But then, what culture at any time has not been influenced by other cultures, and what exactly do we mean by "influence"? If we talk about Greek philosophy as a "Stolen Legacy," which the Greeks swiped from Egyptian universities, we are not telling the truth, but relating a story, or a myth, or a tall tale. But if we talk about Egyptian influence on Greece, we are discussing an historical issue.

In historical and scientific discussions it is possible to distinguish degrees, and to be more or less accurate. As a classicist, I may overemphasize the achievement of the Greeks because I do not know enough about the rest of the Mediterranean world; Egyptologists may be inclined to make the same mistake in the opposite direction. We recognize that no historian can write without some amount of bias; that is why history must always be rewritten. But not all bias amounts to distortion, or is equivalent to indoctrination. If I am aware that I am likely to be biased for any number of reasons, and try to compensate for them, the result should be very different in quality and character from what I would say if I were consciously setting about to achieve a particular political goal.

Drawing a clear distinction between motivations and evidence has a direct bearing on the question of academic freedom. When it comes to deciding what one can or cannot say in class the question of ethnicity or of motivations, whether personal or cultural, is or ought to be irrelevant. What matters is whether what one says is supported by facts and evidence, texts or formulae. The purpose of diversity, at least in academe, is to ensure that instruction does not become a vehicle for indoctrinating students in the values of the majority culture, or for limiting the curriculum to the study of the history and literature of the majority culture. That means that it is essential for a university to consider developments outside of Europe and North America, and to assess the achievements of non-European cultures with respect and sympathy.

It is another question whether or not diversity should be applied to the truth. Are there, can there be, multiple, diverse "truths?" If there are, which "truth" should win? The one that is most loudly argued or most persuasively phrased? Diverse "truths are possible only if "truth" is understood to mean something like "point of view." But even then not every point of view, no matter how persuasively it is put across, or with what intensity it is argued, can be equally valid. The notion of diversity does not extend to truth.

Students of the modern world may think it is a matter of indifference whether or not Aristotle stole his philosophy from Egypt. They may believe that even if the story is not true, it can be used to serve a positive purpose. But the question, and many others like it, should be a matter of serious concern to everyone, because if you assert that he did steal his philosophy, you are prepared to ignore or to conceal a substantial body of historical evidence that proves the contrary. Once you start doing that, you can have no scientific or even social-scientific discourse, nor can you have a community, or a university.

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alTakruri
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Below articles from the Egyptology News blog.


Thursday, July 26, 2007
More about pre-Alexander Alexandria - at Rhakotis
MSNBC
The presence of occupations at Alexandria which predated Alexander was proposed by researchers analysing lead, and was reported in April last year. They proposed that there had been a bronze age settlement dated to the IV dynasty and an iron age settlement dated to about 1000-800 BC. The latest discoveries are summarized on the above site:
quote:

Now scientists have discovered hidden underwater traces of a city that existed at Alexandria at least seven centuries before Alexander the Great arrived, findings hinted at in Homer's Odyssey and that could shed light on the ancient world. . . .

Alexandria was known to have developed from a settlement known as Rhakotis, or Râ-Kedet, vaguely alluded to as a modest fishing village of little significance by some historians. Seven rod-shaped samples of dirt gathered from the seafloor of Alexandria's harbor now suggest there may have been a flourishing urban center there as far back as 1000 B.C.

Coastal geoarchaeologist Jean-Daniel Stanley of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and his colleagues used vibrating hollow tubes to gently extract three-inch-wide rods of sediment 6 to 18 feet long (2 to 5.5 meters) from up to 20 feet (6.5 meters) underwater. Collecting these samples underwater proved challenging. "Alexandria now is home to as many as 4 million people, and we were in the unfortunate position of having to deal with their discharge — human waste, municipal waste, industrial waste — which got released into the harbor," Stanley said. "It's not funny, but you have to sort of laugh."

Friday, July 27, 2007
More re pre-Alexandrian site at Rhakotis
International Herald Tribune (Associated Press)
quote:

The discoveries, reported in the August issue of GSA Today, the journal of the Geological Society of America, came by accident when his team drilled underwater in Alexandria's harbor, Stanley said.

Their project was part of a 2007 Smithsonian-funded study of the subsiding Nile Delta and involved extracting three-inch-wide sticks of core sediment some 18 feet long (5.5 meters), from up to 20 feet (6.5 meters) under the seabed. Egypt's antiquities department and a French offshore group were involved in the project. The goal was to understand what happened to cause later structures, from the Greek and Roman eras, to become submerged. "One of the ways you do this is by taking sediment cores and examining core structures," he told The Associated Press by phone from Washington. "This often happens in science. We were not searching for an ancient city," said Stanley, who has been working in the Delta region for 20 years.

When his team opened the cores, what they saw were "little ceramic fragments that were indicative of human activity." But there was no immediate cause for excitement. Then, more and more rock fragments, ceramic shards from Middle and Upper Egypt, a lot of organic matter plant matter and heavy minerals were found. All the materials were found by radiocarbon dating to be from around 1000 B.C.


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alTakruri
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I kindly ask you to please refrain from posting to
this thread unless you are willing to abide by my
request to base your contribution on actual cited
quotes referencing James' work. Otherwise please
broach an appropriate thread for your subject matter.
Thank you.

quote:
Originally posted by finished:


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akoben
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quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:
Thursday, July 26, 2007
More about pre-Alexander Alexandria - at Rhakotis
MSNBC
The presence of occupations at Alexandria which predated Alexander was proposed by researchers analysing lead, and was reported in April last year. They proposed that there had been a bronze age settlement dated to the IV dynasty and an iron age settlement dated to about 1000-800 BC. The latest discoveries are summarized on the above site:
quote:

Now scientists have discovered hidden underwater traces of a city that existed at Alexandria at least seven centuries before Alexander the Great arrived, findings hinted at in Homer's Odyssey and that could shed light on the ancient world. . . .

Alexandria was known to have developed from a settlement known as Rhakotis, or Râ-Kedet, vaguely alluded to as a modest fishing village of little significance by some historians. Seven rod-shaped samples of dirt gathered from the seafloor of Alexandria's harbor now suggest there may have been a flourishing urban center there as far back as 1000 B.C.

Coastal geoarchaeologist Jean-Daniel Stanley of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and his colleagues used vibrating hollow tubes to gently extract three-inch-wide rods of sediment 6 to 18 feet long (2 to 5.5 meters) from up to 20 feet (6.5 meters) underwater. Collecting these samples underwater proved challenging. "Alexandria now is home to as many as 4 million people, and we were in the unfortunate position of having to deal with their discharge — human waste, municipal waste, industrial waste — which got released into the harbor," Stanley said. "It's not funny, but you have to sort of laugh."


Prof. Asante in The Painful Demise of Eurocentrism (pg. 57) made reference to this also.
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alTakruri
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From the Al~Ahram article Alexandria before Alexander

quote:
Continuing his march westwards, Alexander reached a long, narrow sandy ridge where a series of islands separated the Mediterranean from Lake Maryut (Mareotis). Pharos, the largest of the offshore islands, protected a natural bay, and tradition holds that Alexander immediately perceived a site on the mainland opposite as an ideal location for his new city.

In fact, its strategic importance had been recognised much earlier. A community which existed nearby was probably founded in the 18th dynasty, about 1567 BC. This town was known as Rhakotis, a name it retained in the Egyptian community until the 12th century AD. This community grew, and two centuries later Ramses II built a temple there in honour of Osiris to cater to the people's spiritual needs. In the Saite Dynasty, six centuries before the arrival of Alexander, a military garrison was established at Rhakotis.

So it is clear from the above that alongside the site chosen by Alexander for his new capital there was already a large town with a temple, and there is indication, but no conclusive proof, that it was important enough for Nektanebo II, the last native Pharaoh before the Greek conquest, to consider being buried there.

Rhakotis was clearly not the insignificant village peopled by nomadic pastoralists and their flocks alluded to in classical sources, nor "the wretched fishing village" described by Idris Bell in his Egypt from Alexander the Great to the Arab Conquest.



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alTakruri
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More from the Al~Ahram piece:
quote:

The library of Alexander's former tutor Aristotle was also brought to Alexandria. The complex scriptures of the Zoroastrian Bible (Avasta Zend) were translated into Greek in the institution, along with the Hebrew scriptures and the Egyptian "king list", which was compiled by a priest called Manetho.

But little was done to collect or collate the rest of Egypt's enormous literary heritage, and one must ask why this was so. The answer is self- evident. It was because the Egyptians had their own library in the now upgraded temple of Osir- Apis (Serapis) in Rhakotis.

All important Egyptian temples had a "house of life" where ancient literature was stored, texts copied by scribes, and some of the papyrus scrolls cut and bound into books (codices). The temples of Heliopolis, Sais and Memphis were among the most famous for their scribes and sages, who studied the constellations and the courses of the planets, trained physicians, and copied their ancient wisdom from generation to generation through the millennia.


Under what is known as the Saite revival in the sixth century BC, for example, scribes were ordered to collect, document and recopy proverbial wisdom, medical prescriptions and sacred religious texts. Faced with mountains of inherited literature they had to acquaint themselves with an archaic method of writing, and soon became an exclusive class of society. They were not historians, however, and sometimes in their copies of the texts they added fresh associations, or rendered them in a form they never originally possessed. Recollections of earlier times had become hazy, and the interpretations sometimes confused. But they were proud of their heritage, and when Alexandria became the capital and a great centre of learning the contents of some of the most important "houses of life" in the temples may have been transported there.

In other words, the libraries of Alexandria, which are referred to in classical literature as the Great Library and the so-called Daughter Library established in the Serapeum "at some unknown date", may well have been two separate and distinctive libraries.


Since dated to Ptolemaic times this is post Alexander.
We will have to see how this fits into what James' actually
pins on to Alexander and Aristotle by examining his text.

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ArtistFormerlyKnownAsHeru
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Could you please explain this inconsistency, if you will:

quote:

(e) The elements in creation were Fire (Atom), Water (Nun), Earth (Ptah or Ta-tjenen) and Air.

SO Ptah is apparently Earth here, but...

quote:

These Eight Gods are the created Gods, the first creatures of this world; and Atum (Atom), the Creator God, the Demiurge, of whom Plato spoke. The Gods whom Atum (Atom) projected from his body were

(i) Shu (Air)

(ii) Tefnut (Moisture)

(iii) Geb (Earth) and

(iv) Nut (Sky);

...it also says Geb is Earth.

SO is Geb and Ptah the same thing???

sources of quotes: http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/stle/stle12.htm

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alTakruri
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AE cosmogony/philosophy/spirituality is very complicated.
James presents pieces of it filtered by Greek interpretation.
Can we curtail ourselves to critiquing James in this thread
and use another thread with the right header for discussing
the philosophical principles themselves, thanks.

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ArtistFormerlyKnownAsHeru
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quote:

In this way, the Greeks stole the Legacy of the African Continent and called it their own. And as has already been pointed out, the result of this dishonesty has been the creation of an erroneous world opinion; that the African continent has made no contribution to civilization, because her people are backward and low in intelligence and culture.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/stle/stle13.htm

Is it really the "result" of this "misrepresentation of African contribution regarding Egypt" that caused the creation of an erroneous world opinion [of African backwardness]?

That would imply that without Egpyt, Africa would be backwards. Is that really so? I think that would be presumptious unless he is trying to claim that African development was/is a unified body of work of which the Egyptian philosophy was an indispensable part (e.g. like a head without a body).

My current understanding of African development is that we have related, progressive but independent developments across various parts the African landmass at various times in history.

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alTakruri
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I don't know. I connect it to contemporaneous Diopian thought:

"The history of Africa will remain suspended in air and cannot be written correctly until African historians connect it with the history of Egypt."

and another quote I can't track down but Lamin summarized:

"Cheikh Anta Diop once wrote that Ancient Egypt should serve as the same kind of patrimonial model for Africa as Ancient Greek serves for Europe."

While it sounds good it leaves room for full satisfaction

http://www.egyptsearch.com/forums/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=8&t=002009

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zarahan aka Enrique Cardova
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quote:
Originally posted by Herukhuti:
Could you please explain this inconsistency, if you will:

quote:

(e) The elements in creation were Fire (Atom), Water (Nun), Earth (Ptah or Ta-tjenen) and Air.

SO Ptah is apparently Earth here, but...

quote:

These Eight Gods are the created Gods, the first creatures of this world; and Atum (Atom), the Creator God, the Demiurge, of whom Plato spoke. The Gods whom Atum (Atom) projected from his body were

(i) Shu (Air)

(ii) Tefnut (Moisture)

(iii) Geb (Earth) and

(iv) Nut (Sky);

...it also says Geb is Earth.

SO is Geb and Ptah the same thing???

sources of quotes: http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/stle/stle12.htm

Ptah is more considered the primordial,
force out of which other elementals sprung.
He is not "earth" per se, but is conceived of
existing before earth, as it were.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptah

Interestingly Geb as the Earth God is a male,
contradicting white femminist "goddess" claims
based on European examples, that deities of the
earth are all originally female.

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zarahan aka Enrique Cardova
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quote:
Originally posted by Herukhuti:
quote:

In this way, the Greeks stole the Legacy of the African Continent and called it their own. And as has already been pointed out, the result of this dishonesty has been the creation of an erroneous world opinion; that the African continent has made no contribution to civilization, because her people are backward and low in intelligence and culture.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/stle/stle13.htm

Is it really the "result" of this "misrepresentation of African contribution regarding Egypt" that caused the creation of an erroneous world opinion [of African backwardness]?

That would imply that without Egpyt, Africa would be backwards. Is that really so? I think that would be presumptious unless he is trying to claim that African development was/is a unified body of work of which the Egyptian philosophy was an indispensable part (e.g. like a head without a body).

My current understanding of African development is that we have related, progressive but independent developments across various parts the African landmass at various times in history.

Agreed. The "Stolen Legacy" argument can be
taken too far and can put too much stress on
Dynastic Egypt, and Greece. It could be argued that
the missing part of the record is the inheritance
pushed forward by the peoples of the Sahara, who
initially populated the Nile Valley, and whose culture
and technology- from mummification to cattle
domestication, to religion, etc etc laid the essential
foundations for the development of the indigenous
Egyptian state. The Greeks seem rather superfluous
latecomers compared to the massive developments
before them.

When Ancient Greek and Egypt did interact there
was cultural exchange both ways and a number
of Greeks spoke highly of certain aspects of
Egyptain civilization and knowledge. This is part of
the basis for Black Athena, and James' Stolen
Legacy. As Bernal points out, this heritage of
interchange in its myraid variants, has been obscured,
distorted and/or suppressed by the rise of the "Aryan
model attributing all things good to Europe while
disparaging the "other". Solid documentation exists
as to this interchange ranging from law to religion.

It is not the ancient Greeks who are the bad guys
but European ideologues and writers who advanced
a racial Aryan approach into the modern era. The
notion of the Aryan model is separate from the
various details as to exactly what was taken
or borrowed from Egypt by the Greeks. There is
much to debate there and both James' and Bernal's
arguments have a number of weaknesses.

But even conservatives like Mary Lefkotitz basically
agree that the rise of racist ideologies and models is a
prime source of errorneous impressions of Africa and
its peoples. The history of the infamous "Hamitic
Hypothesis" or the 'Dynastic Race" models which
attributed any significant developments to mass
influxes of mysterious Caucazoids are but two
examples of this well documented phenomenon.
Ancient Greek "theft" is not the problem. The
problem is modern era European racists and
their models.

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Doug M
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Actually the "stolen" part of Stolen Legacy refers to the tendency of Greek authors to claim themselves of the originator of certain ideas that existed long before them. It also refers to the fact that many ideas were attributed to certain Greeks long after they died and with relatively little direct evidence, by later Greeks. Lastly it refers to the hundreds of books on every subject supposedly written by a single author in their lifetime. The idea being that these authors are putting their name on ideas that they got from elsewhere, whether they enhanced it or not and pretending to be the origin of such.
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Please call me MIDOGBE
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From Ch.A. Diop (1981), Civilisation ou Barbarie, Paris: Présence Africaine, p.12.

 -


quote:
Originally posted by Ch.A. Diop:
We now would like to emphasize the abyss that separates us from Africans who believe that one should only distantly deal with Ancient Egyptian culture. To us, coming back to Egypt in every domain is a si ne qua non condition for reconciliating African civilizations with history, in order to be able to build a new paradigm of a modern human science, to renew African Culture.

Far from only being a delightment on the past, a look towards Egypt is our best perspective for conceiving and building our cultural future. Egypt will play, in the re-thinked and renewed African culture African, the same role as Greco-Roman Ancient Culture.

quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:
I don't know. I connect it to contemporaneous Diopian thought:

"The history of Africa will remain suspended in air and cannot be written correctly until African historians connect it with the history of Egypt."

and another quote I can't track down but Lamin summarized:

"Cheikh Anta Diop once wrote that Ancient Egypt should serve as the same kind of patrimonial model for Africa as Ancient Greek serves for Europe."

While it sounds good it leaves room for full satisfaction

http://www.egyptsearch.com/forums/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=8&t=002009


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zarahan aka Enrique Cardova
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quote:
Originally posted by Doug M:
Actually the "stolen" part of Stolen Legacy refers to the tendency of Greek authors to claim themselves of the originator of certain ideas that existed long before them. It also refers to the fact that many ideas were attributed to certain Greeks long after they died and with relatively little direct evidence, by later Greeks. Lastly it refers to the hundreds of books on every subject supposedly written by a single author in their lifetime. The idea being that these authors are putting their name on ideas that they got from elsewhere, whether they enhanced it or not and pretending to be the origin of such.

Fair enough. I agree with what you say about rhe uncertain nature of authorship re such Greeks as Socrates and others. But then the crucial question becomes whether said authors "stole" Egyptian ideas and presented them as "Greek Philosophy". Did Socrates indeed travel to Egypt to copy tomb inscriptions as James claims, or get the inscriptions from another source? James offers little credible evidence to back up either proposition. We know Socrates is an uncertain figure in some aspects but does this mean he went to Egypt to steal knowledge?

Also concepts such as a union of opposites (male versus female) are universal in many cultures. These concepts existed before the rise of the Greeks but the crucial point is to show where and how the Greeks "stole" them. The Greeks had plenty of other cultures around them with similar concepts to steal from.

What exactly does "stole" mean, and how is it different from normal cultural give and take? In America, blacks adopted the hymns of white protestant churches, blended them with African elements and rhythms, and created the "Negro Spiritual" Yet no one goes around saying that blacks "stole" the spiritual from the white man. Is it "theft" or normal cultural influence on both sides of the Mediterranean? As Bernal notes, some of the ancient Greeks openly gave the Egyptians credit for a variety of things.

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akoben
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Why don't you just follow the thread and see why "stolen" is used instead of talking rubbish?
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alTakruri
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Still letting your proposition perculate in its
potency and an analogy came to mind; the
case of the Dogon.

Not to play favorites but the Dogon have perhaps
the most profound cosmogony/theology/philosophy
in all continental Africa from their astronomy to
what I can only know describe as a "Zoharic body
of Adam Kadmon" (metaphysics).

Yet they're not aken seriously and Karl Sagan (or
somebody) totally non-plussed at an inner African
people knowing about the Sirius star system went
as far as to suggest a wayfaring Euro introduced
the Dogon to astronomy!

Perhaps, as James is maybe suggesting, if there were
no "misrepresentation of African contribution regarding
Egypt"
there would be no "erroneous world opinion of
African [in our case specifically Dogon] backwardness" and they would be
applauded and their world view a subject of regular
systematic collegiate study as say for instance is
Greek philosophy?


quote:
Originally posted by Herukhuti:
quote:

In this way, the Greeks stole the Legacy of the African Continent and called it their own. And as has already been pointed out, the result of this dishonesty has been the creation of an erroneous world opinion; that the African continent has made no contribution to civilization, because her people are backward and low in intelligence and culture.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/stle/stle13.htm

Is it really the "result" of this "misrepresentation of African contribution regarding Egypt" that caused the creation of an erroneous world opinion [of African backwardness]?

That would imply that without Egpyt, Africa would be backwards. Is that really so? I think that would be presumptious unless he is trying to claim that African development was/is a unified body of work of which the Egyptian philosophy was an indispensable part (e.g. like a head without a body).

My current understanding of African development is that we have related, progressive but independent developments across various parts the African landmass at various times in history.


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alTakruri
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Our aim here is to display the strengths and weaknesses
of James' propositions in Stolen Legacy by critical
examination of the text.


Evidence that you have not critically examined Stolen
Legacy
is in the snippets from you qouted below.

1 - You fail to understand James' preface/introduction

2 - You fail to supply a citation from James on Socrates.

3 - You failed to even read above posts with quotes
from James defining 'stolen' less lone the author himself.

How then can you offer any meaningful critique
when your comments are only based on a fantasy
supposition of what the author himself wrote?

If you haven't read James and refuse to offer cited
quotes referencing Stolen Legacy then please post
uninformed opinions elsewhere.

This thread is for a serious critique of James based
on study and analysis of his works not on polemical
reviews other people who also have not studied Stolen
Legacy
have written.

Thank you.


quote:
Originally posted by zarahan:
... then the crucial question becomes whether said authors "stole" Egyptian ideas and presented them as "Greek Philosophy".

Did Socrates indeed travel to Egypt to copy tomb inscriptions as James claims, or get the inscriptions from another source? James offers little credible evidence to back up either proposition. We know Socrates is an uncertain figure in some aspects but does this mean he went to Egypt to steal knowledge?

What exactly does "stole" mean, and how is it different from normal cultural give and take?


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ArtistFormerlyKnownAsHeru
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quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:
Still letting your proposition perculate in its
potency and an analogy came to mind; the
case of the Dogon.

Not to play favorites but the Dogon have perhaps
the most profound cosmogony/theology/philosophy
in all continental Africa from their astronomy to
what I can only know describe as a "Zoharic body
of Adam Kadmon" (metaphysics).

Yet they're not aken seriously and Karl Sagan (or
somebody) totally non-plussed at an inner African
people knowing about the Sirius star system went
as far as to suggest a wayfaring Euro introduced
the Dogon to astronomy!

Perhaps, as James is maybe suggesting, if there were
no "misrepresentation of African contribution regarding
Egypt"
there would be no "erroneous world opinion of
African [in our case specifically Dogon] backwardness" and they would be
applauded and their world view a subject of regular
systematic collegiate study as say for instance is
Greek philosophy?


quote:
Originally posted by Herukhuti:
quote:

In this way, the Greeks stole the Legacy of the African Continent and called it their own. And as has already been pointed out, the result of this dishonesty has been the creation of an erroneous world opinion; that the African continent has made no contribution to civilization, because her people are backward and low in intelligence and culture.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/stle/stle13.htm

Is it really the "result" of this "misrepresentation of African contribution regarding Egypt" that caused the creation of an erroneous world opinion [of African backwardness]?

That would imply that without Egpyt, Africa would be backwards. Is that really so? I think that would be presumptious unless he is trying to claim that African development was/is a unified body of work of which the Egyptian philosophy was an indispensable part (e.g. like a head without a body).

My current understanding of African development is that we have related, progressive but independent developments across various parts the African landmass at various times in history.


I think I get your point. Regarding the development of "other" humans outside of Africa who recieved African influences - Egypt appears to be the premiere influence.

And also, given the fact that Africa has been effectively historically suppressed and dis-inherited for 500 or so years, this has created a misunderstanding among non-Africans who have not had the opportunity of SEEING Africa contribute to their lives by way of Egypt - and these non-Africans are today still misunderstanding Egypt as a consequence. Of course we are aware that the misunderstanding of the Europeans is "self-inflicted" so the "others" we are referring to here are non-European non-Africans.

Perhaps then, if the Dogon truly were superior to Egypt, they might just be answer to the African quagmire. [Wink]

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Djehuti
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quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:
OK, I presented this once but, since it was more
than obviously ignored and roorag to the contrary
is flying about yet again, here it is one more time.

What precisely does James mean by stolen legacy?
Let's let him answer in his own words:

... after the death of Aristotle, his Athenian
pupils, without the authority of the state,
undertook to compile a history of philosophy,
recognized at that time as the Sophia or Wisdom
of the Egyptians
, which had become current and
traditional in the ancient world, which compilation,
because it was produced by pupils who had belonged
to Aristotle's school, later history has erroneously
called Greek philosophy
, in spite of the fact that
the Greeks were its greatest enemies and persecutors,
and had persistently treated it as a foreign innovation.
For this reason, the so-called Greek philosophy is stolen
Egyptian philosophy
, which first spread to Ionia, thence
to Italy and thence to Athens. And it must be remembered
that at this remote period of Greek history, i.e., Thales to
Aristotle 640 B.C.–322 B.C., the Ionians were not Greek
citizens, but at first Egyptian subjects and later Persian
subjects.


Does everyone understand that James' title Stolen Legacy
is in reference to later historians erroneously labeling
Aristotles' students compiling the traditional Sophia or
Wisdom of the Egyptians.

Any other claim as to what James means is spurious
and results from not reading what James himself explains
is meany by the phrase 'stolen legacy.'

Which means the open ass lied about Greeks actually stealing Greek philosophy and making their own. [Roll Eyes]
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akoben
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^ Quit with your silly semantics game to cover your ass. It's a stolen legacy, as clearly shown, no matter how you spin it. Now will you please tell us how did you "refute" Professor James' book, the one you dismissed as "Afrocentrist"?

And also, if I'm not mistaken you were asked to substantiate something [posted 14 January, 2009 07:00 PM]

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alTakruri
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Why can't you do as I ask and present a analytical
critque of Stolen Legacy instead of ranting and raving
your opinion without citing quotes and referencing
passages from James?

I'm going to ask for tight moderation of this thread
since Ausar directed his question to me and I want
the pros and cons to be delivered academically not
emotionally.

We have the opportunity here to overview and analyse
this work without the polemic that everywhere else
marks 'discussion' of the book. Love it hate agree
with it disagree with it -- I don't care. What I do
care is that we handle this in a scholarly fashion
and objectively as possible.

--------------------
Intellectual property of YYT al~Takruri © 2004 - 2017. All rights reserved.

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alTakruri
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Dear active moderator

Please read my above post. I'm hoping for this
one thread at least that you will act as a real
debate moderator and keep it clean and academic.

So far it's clear of personal attacks but posters
aren't being scholarly and just rehashing their
opinions. Can you please delete individual posts
(not the entire thread) that do not cite James'
Stolen Legacy with directly quoted references.

This is not an appeal to get rid of negative
assessments but an appeal that all assessments
show proof of actually studying the given text,
analyzing and critiquing it for both its strengths
and weaknesse. We already have threads
of personal opinions about it.

Thank you

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