John in a letter expounding on things biblical:
>On this basis, the influence of Aegean Sea Peoples into early
>biblical tradition occurred. Thus rather than a Semitic influence >into
>the Greek Corpus (as Dennis Poulter and Glen Gordon has been >claiming), I
>believe rather it was an Aegean influence into the >Semitic that Dennis has
>been documenting.
Quoi? I may have missed something vital here but... as far as I am aware,
after putting aside the contraversy of the validity of the bible's
historical account, the operative word here would be... historical. I don't
think the bible was recounting about the time of 6000 BCE which is the time
that I suggest was the arrival of the agricultural Semitish language to the
Balkans. Alot of languages can go extinct in 3000 years.
Let me clarify some more. I don't believe that the Semitish language was at
all present in the Balkans by 3000 BCE. Between 6000 to 5000 BCE the
language found itself in the Balkans after a quick spread from the south. In
the next two thousand years, other languages native to the Balkans
(IndoTyrrhenian dialects) and Anatolia (Hattic) would reclaim their
linguistic dominance and succesfully wipe it out with only IE and Kartvelian
evidence of its existence, evidence which nonetheless remains very clear in
regards to its presence and quite unarguable.
All the Bible can tell us is kyootsy-ootsy things like "The universe was
created in 6 days and then God did 40 winks on the 7th". Of course, it
doesn't seem to concern anyone that the universe was made out of... nothing.
Wouldn't that mean that the universe is an illusion, because how can
something be created out of nothing unless it's still nothing?? And I wonder
if God created the moon first so that he could time himself. Was God at rest
when he created the universe or was he approaching the speed of light?
Should the effects of time dilation be factored into that "week"? :) ... but
I digress.
Anyways, conclusion: John's rebuttle here in relation to the bible is very
kyootsy-ootsy and says nothing against the presence of Semitish at 6000 BCE.
Back to the tell-all numerals, the origin of Semitic-looking IE *sweks &
*septm or the even stronger influence on Kartvelian (examine Georgian ekvsi
"6", s^vidi "7", rva "8" [cf Arabic arba "4"]) can't be effectively
explained with the vague "Aegean" influence arguement. John will inevitably
be assimilated to Semitish.
- gLeN
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