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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Thanks for your contribution, Mr. Dawkins, but the truth of whether David and Goliath ever existed is ABSOLUTELY loving IRRELEVANT for the purposes of this discussion, which you would've noticed if you weren't so anxious to get off a cool edgy HEY DID U KNO TEH BIBBLE IS DUMB r/atheism post. The gently caress it is. People are making arguments about the historical real-world accuracy of slings based on the number of sling bullets the mythical David brought along with him to fight the equally-mythical Goliath. Might as well argue that castle walls were obsolete because someone knocked some down by blowing a horn this one time.
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Oct 8, 2016 00:56
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Swords or pistols at dawn gentlemen? first blood?
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Oct 8, 2016 01:25
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Phanatic posted:The gently caress it is. People are making arguments about the historical real-world accuracy of slings based on the number of sling bullets the mythical David brought along with him to fight the equally-mythical Goliath. Might as well argue that castle walls were obsolete because someone knocked some down by blowing a horn this one time. David isn't entirely mythical, there's archaeological evidence for a king by that name existing.
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Oct 8, 2016 01:44
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SeanBeansShako posted:Swords or pistols at dawn gentlemen? first blood? Slings, clearly. I don't actually know how to treat this. Could the verses about David and Goliath be considered a valid source on the efficacy of slings? Regardless of their accuracy, do they say anything about popular perceptions of the time? I mean, unless you want to claim that the bible was written by God, then the authorship consists of people who were alive and kicking while sings were a common battlefield weapon. What I'm getting (without any context, wasn't raised religious) is that the sling was seen as a decent weapon, but not one guaranteed (or even particularly likely) to defeat an armored opponent one-on-one.
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Oct 8, 2016 01:49
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I'd say that it's probably trustworthy as a lower bound for how many stones a slinger would carry (just because exaggeration would lead towards David only having the one stone he needs). I wouldn't take the terminal effects as gospel though.
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Oct 8, 2016 02:11
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The Bible is useful for historic study because it was written by contemporary people living in those times. Everything is written in a context that makes sense to them, thus giving you an idea of life in those times and a sense of what would have been considered normal.
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Oct 8, 2016 02:22
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chitoryu12 posted:The Bible is useful for historic study because it was written by contemporary people living in those times. Some of it was. By no means all of it. Seriously, there was no Exodus. It didn't happen, there's no actual archaeological or extrabiblical evidence for a mass emigration of Jewish slaves from Egypt into Canaan, it is a myth. As with all myths there can still be historic value in that (who wrote this? When? For what purpose? What does that tell us about the authors and the times they lived in, etc), but the events depicted in many cases did not happen and the accounts were certainly not written contemporaneously.
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Oct 8, 2016 02:30
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Phanatic posted:Some of it was. By no means all of it. Seriously, there was no Exodus. It didn't happen, there's no actual archaeological or extrabiblical evidence for a mass emigration of Jewish slaves from Egypt into Canaan, it is a myth. As with all myths there can still be historic value in that (who wrote this? When? For what purpose? What does that tell us about the authors and the times they lived in, etc), but the events depicted in many cases did not happen and the accounts were certainly not written contemporaneously. There is evidence of new settlements being built in the Judean uplands around 1175 BC, however, by culturally different people who didn't eat pork. While this doesn't prove anything directly, it is consistent with some refugees from Egypt fleeing during the chaos Sea Peoples invasions and setting up shop in the newly independent Levant region. The Exodus certainly didn't happen literally as the Bible tells it, but the general outline of the Hebrew alliance being founded by people fleeing Egypt is consistent with the archeological record.
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Oct 8, 2016 03:07
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Deteriorata posted:There is evidence of new settlements being built in the Judean uplands around 1175 BC, however, by culturally different people who didn't eat pork. While this doesn't prove anything directly, it is consistent with some refugees from Egypt fleeing during the chaos Sea Peoples invasions and setting up shop in the newly independent Levant region. The *overwhelming* historical consensus is that the Israelites are of Canaanite and not Egyptian origin. The Exodus didn't even happen figuratively as the Bible tells it.
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Oct 8, 2016 03:22
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Phanatic posted:The gently caress it is. People are making arguments about the historical real-world accuracy of slings based on the number of sling bullets the mythical David brought along with him to fight the equally-mythical Goliath. Might as well argue that castle walls were obsolete because someone knocked some down by blowing a horn this one time. There's a theory on the walls of Jericho that the marching around blowing horns was actually to cover the sound of sappers underneath the walls.  But really, it's no different than how they use tapestries, paintings, and drawings to deduce details about contemporary things. Sure there may be some inconsistencies, but there's reason to believe that contemporary writers know a thing or two about how equipment was used and whatnot. Just because there's all these knights riding snails doesn't mean that those helmet styles never saw the light of day, and maybe you should forgive the writers of old for spinning all these details into a parable of faith and because nobody's going to preserve their raw receipts for three thousand years. SlothfulCobra fucked around with this message at 03:42 on Oct 8, 2016 |
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Oct 8, 2016 03:39
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xthetenth posted:I'd say that it's probably trustworthy as a lower bound for how many stones a slinger would carry (just because exaggeration would lead towards David only having the one stone he needs). I wouldn't take the terminal effects as gospel though. Well of course not, the Gospels are in the New Testament.
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Oct 8, 2016 04:24
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Phanatic posted:The gently caress it is. People are making arguments about the historical real-world accuracy of slings based on the number of sling bullets the mythical David brought along with him to fight the equally-mythical Goliath. Might as well argue that castle walls were obsolete because someone knocked some down by blowing a horn this one time. The established miraculous nature of David's victory means we require a normative and realistic background to set it against, otherwise it is not a miracle but a total fantasy, and thus useless from a religious perspective (or even as just as a piece of storytelling). It is that normative baseline understanding, and its implications, that Fangz and I are trying to define, to some degree, and are discussing. Everyone else in the thread grasps this. Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 13:54 on Oct 8, 2016 |
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Oct 8, 2016 13:43
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Also the tale doesn't even need to date from the era of the mythical-historical David to tell us something about slings. It could have been the version being told around Jewish campfires in 200 BC and it would still apply as far as slings go, as the audience at that time would be familiar with them and expect that poo poo to be right. Kind of how like Renaissance paintings about biblical subjects are actually pretty great sources on how people dressed in Northern Italy in the 14th century. Of course you can't take that poo poo in isolation, but that's not what people in this thread have been doing. Taking the biblical David story alongside that source someone else mentioned about Roman medical treatments for sling injuries and you can see that the two match up pretty well. There are modern videos of people loving around with slings of the type David would have used that show, yeah, hitting even a big dude's head at that range would be possible but still something to celebrate as a pretty clutch shot.
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Oct 8, 2016 13:53
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But were Philistean foreskins the currency of choice for royal dowries is what I'd like to know.
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Oct 8, 2016 14:02
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What's that, a work of dubious historical accuracy might still contain accurate accounts of specific practices in order to achieve verisimilitude and those specific accounts can be used in historical discussions? Nonsense! *scratches neckbeard, blows bubble pipe, posts on Reddit*
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Oct 8, 2016 14:35
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Nenonen posted:But were Philistean foreskins the currency of choice for royal dowries is what I'd like to know. How many foreskins would it take to cover a shield frame from said era?
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Oct 8, 2016 14:38
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maybe five stones was all david could carry in his off hand? i don't think the record states if he had a bag or whatever
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Oct 8, 2016 14:53
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Being unaware that a source might not be 100% accurate and still contain important and useful information (and vice versa) is how we get stuff like wehraboos talking about the omnipotent tiger, or people taking Stephen Ambrose as gospel truth. Understanding that a source may be inaccurate, mythologised or plain wrong and still be useful is basic history that applies as much to memoir, histories and anecdote as it does to the Bible or any other religious text.
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Oct 8, 2016 15:02
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Remember, not everyone could read or write universally until the 20th century, so even if some of the source isn't 100% factual it is nice to get even a grain of truth or fact from it.
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Oct 8, 2016 15:04
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thatbastardken posted:maybe five stones was all david could carry in his off hand? 1Sam 17:40 Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.
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Oct 8, 2016 15:10
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:verisimilitude ah poo poo that's the word I wanted to remember So ayyo: how did the Roman military change from, say, Trajan to Constantine? Like I know about longer swords and flatter shields, and all that poo poo but I'm asking about administrative, logistical, political stuff. Also the broad strokes of events. It's a period of time that I know very little about, but seems pretty interesting. edit: To be clear I'm especially interested in the also-ran emperors (basically everyone in the 3rd century) Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Oct 8, 2016 |
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Oct 8, 2016 15:43
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lenoon posted:Being unaware that a source might not be 100% accurate and still contain important and useful information (and vice versa) is how we get stuff like wehraboos talking about the omnipotent tiger, or people taking Stephen Ambrose as gospel truth. Understanding that a source may be inaccurate, mythologised or plain wrong and still be useful is basic history that applies as much to memoir, histories and anecdote as it does to the Bible or any other religious text. This makes me wonder if there's going to be a mythological account of a man called Tommy destroying metal tigers that burp cannon shells with rifles or something.
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Oct 8, 2016 16:08
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It will be a long form epic poem which ends with him confronting the mighty King of the Tigers who sprains his ankle on his way to fight Tommy and forms a nice parable about the perils of hubris.
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Oct 8, 2016 16:33
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Needs the Duke of Panthers who catches fire when he gets up from his throne.
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Oct 8, 2016 16:35
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This needs to be written.
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Oct 8, 2016 16:41
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David, armed only with a tank destroyer, prayed to the Lord, who smote his infernal enemy's final drive. And there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth.
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Oct 8, 2016 17:00
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:ah poo poo that's the word I wanted to remember According to Peter Brown in Late Antiquity the Third Century Crisis provoked a massive reorganization of the Roman military on basically every level. Unwieldy legions get broken up into smaller, rapid response detachments of heavy cavalry ready to immediately punish attacks across the limes and the "dead wood" of traditional aristocratic commanders is replaced by an "artisanal well of talent" drawn from provincial professional soldiers, often of very humble birth. The army effectively doubles in size, supported by an enormous increase in taxes. The emperor actually becomes a more universal and more revered symbol of state order since he's no longer necessarily attached to Rome, and is instead roving across the empire's borders perpetually putting out fires and adjudicating provincial affairs. One consequence is that the Roman identity becomes steadily divorced from the city itself (which develops an important symbolic role instead as the "eternal city") and becomes claimed by the empire as a whole; people of all sorts of faiths and ethnicities across its length and breadth start considering themselves to be Romans proper and the empire itself just becomes called "Rome Land," Romania. One of my favorite products of this era is a brevium prepared for poorly educated provincials moving into high ranks of the military; it compresses all of Roman history from the founding of the city into about ten pages just so they have an idea of what they're fighting for. Fuligin fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Oct 8, 2016 |
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Oct 8, 2016 17:06
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Jerry was a titan with jungle cats that attacked on his word, but Tommy fought him off until at the last moment some guy named Joe Sherman came in to help.
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Oct 8, 2016 17:40
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Fuligin posted:One of my favorite products of this era is a brevium prepared for poorly educated provincials moving into high ranks of the military; it compresses all of Roman history from the founding of the city into about ten pages just so they have an idea of what they're fighting for.  This is amazing. Is there a translation you can share with us?
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Oct 8, 2016 17:44
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Eela6 posted:
I'm traveling out of town right now but you might find it with some googling. I'll take a look for it on Monday.
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Oct 8, 2016 17:47
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Hmm, how much does this flux in the military explain the sequence of coups that took place?
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Oct 8, 2016 18:12
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SlothfulCobra posted:Jerry was a titan with jungle cats that attacked on his word, but Tommy fought him off until at the last moment some guy named Joe Sherman came in to help. I can't help but hear this said around a campfire in the mad max universe.
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Oct 8, 2016 19:15
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Many speak of Abraham the emancipator and the agent of his will, the Sure-man; who laid the legendary city of Atlanta to waste , scattering it's ruin across the ocean.
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Oct 8, 2016 19:21
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Agean90 posted:Many speak of Abraham the emancipator and the agent of his will, the Sure-man; who laid the legendary city of Atlanta to waste , scattering it's ruin across the ocean. Abraham is also known for having found the cure for the dread plague drapetomania.
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Oct 8, 2016 19:24
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Sure-man kept a ronson lighter with him, always. It reminded him of March, and the sea.
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Oct 8, 2016 19:43
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It's time for another unwarranted bow post, this time a real rarity, one of the oldest intact hornbows ever found almost intact, dating from the 8-9th century. Brought to you by the Hermitage Museum. It has bone or antler reinforced ears, the left one is broken. These reinforcements are also on both sides of the grip. This find is quite interesting, because it is closely related to typical hungarian grave finds like this.  Oh btw, I found another bow like this in my archive, wonder where in russia that is from 
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Oct 8, 2016 20:04
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Fangz posted:Hmm, how much does this flux in the military explain the sequence of coups that took place? I can't say for sure but at this point in time succession to the throne was basically 'to the strongest'. Although that often meant competing co-emperors who had different spheres of influence and temporary alliances between rivals.
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Oct 8, 2016 20:05
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JaucheCharly posted:It's time for another unwarranted bow post Never stop bowposting.
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Oct 8, 2016 20:06
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As most of you know, I translate articles written for the World of Tanks website (and more recently, warspot). Since you can never have too much tankchat, I figured I'd let you guys pick the queue and not just the WoT thread. Already translated Queue: 7TP, 3.7 cm Pak, Renault R35 Available for request:  T2E1 Light Tank Christie Combat Car T1 and Convertible Medium Tank T3 M3A1 Combat Car T4 Medium Tank T1E1  Medium Tank Mk.II Medium Tank Mk.III A1E1 Independent  LTP T-37 with ShKAS ZIK-20 T-12 and T-24 T-55 HTZ-16 Wartime modifications of the T-37 and T-38 SG-122 NEW  Otto Merker's tanks Strv m/38 and m/39 NEW  TK-3/TKS Trials of the TKS and C2P in the USSR 37 mm anti-tank gun  SR tanks Type 95  Renault NC Renault D1 Renault R35 Renault D2 Renault R40  PzI Ausf. B PzII Ausf. a though b PzIII Ausf. A PzIII Ausf. B through D PzIV Ausf. A through C Renault R35 in German service 37 mm Pak Ensign Expendable fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Oct 9, 2016 |
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Oct 8, 2016 22:50
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I say 7TP. We need to talk more about Polish armour.
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Oct 8, 2016 22:57
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