A brief history of history

November 6, 1:26 AMLA History ExaminerCharles Nichols

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AP Photo/Danielle Desnoyers

The modern definition of history equates the word with facts and actual events which occurred in the past.  A more accurate definition is “story.”  The modern histories taught in schools have very few facts and any events described in the texts have been so distorted as to be works of fiction.

The mass market books on history that fill the shelves of your local bookstore are no better.  The authors, for the most part, weren’t eyewitnesses to the events, nor have they read contemporary accounts written by persons who were far closer to actual events, both in time and space.

Modern historians who write for the mass market often are unable to read the ancient languages these accounts were written in.  Historians, with few exceptions, are not scientists.  They make no effort to distinguish between fact and fiction.  Much of their work is merely regurgitated pulp from the text books they grew up reading.  For them, “fact checking” involves little more than verifying a quote from the last book that was published on their subject.

History is either oral or written.  In illiterate societies, their history was passed down in songs or poems.  It is a quirk of human intelligence, that makes it far easier to memorize something that rhymes or follows some other simple pattern than to memorize a narrative.

The ancient Egyptians currently hold the record for the oldest written language.  In 1999 a few hieroglyphic inscriptions were found in a tomb dating to 3,600 B.C.  After some research, an Egyptologist noted that if the hieroglyphs were written phonetically; they were the names of various towns and cities in the region.  This was consistent with the nature of the inscriptions which had been placed as tags on offering jars to the deceased.  The ancient Sumerians had held the record for the oldest written language dating to about 3,500 B.C.  There was a third civilization in what is now a mountainous region of Pakistan, which seems to have simultaneously invented a written language.  All three of these languages were based on hieroglyphics.  A hieroglyphic language is actually quite easy to learn.  A hieroglyph, which is a picture of something, either represents the picture, or a sound; sometimes both in the same word.

We have something similar in the English Language.  Our alphabet is actually derived from the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic alphabet.  Our letter “A” was originally the head of a bull.  If you turn the letter on its side, the two legs represent the horns of a bull and the triangle represents the face of the bull.  Our letter “A” can represent an  “article” as in the phrase “A book” more often than not, it is used phonetically, which is to say it represents a sound (several sounds, in fact).  The same is true for the letter “I” it can represent a personal pronoun but is more often used phonetically.

Once a civilization becomes literate, when they put their oral histories into writing, one can no longer change the words of a spoken song or poem to rewrite history.  There is now a written record which makes it far more difficult to “change history.”  Totalitarian regimes attempt to control the press and severely limit access to any materials other than propaganda.  The former Soviet Union was probably the most recent quintessential example, succeeded today by North Korea.

In the United States, with a relatively free press, more so when one factors in the internet; the politicians rely on human apathy and the mass media to purvey their propaganda.  This isn’t limited to politicians of course.  Every group has its leaders and none of them seems to have truth as an agenda.

I was struggling with a passage from the Hebrew bible (the Old Testament) so I foolishly asked a rabbi if he could help with the translation.  I made the remark that I was astounded with how much of the Hebrew bible was derived from ancient Egypt and the Sumerians.  His response was “As a Divine document, the Torah is not capable of being influenced by ancient Egypt.”

For the record, the story of Noah and the Ark comes from the ancient Sumerian story the “Epic of Gilgamesh” dating back to at least 2000 B.C.  The Old Testament book “Song of Solomon” (“Song of Songs in the Hebrew bible) was taken, almost word for word, from a series of ancient Egyptian love poems between a brother and his sister from about 2,500 B.C.  Many Orthodox Jewish rituals (and prohibitions) are clearly based upon the ancient Egyptians.  Even circumcision, which the Jews believe is a commandment from god, was inherited from the ancient Egyptians.  Although the latter, was only practiced by professional warriors who, as adults, had themselves circumcised to prove their fierceness.  The ancient Egyptians had in turn adopted the practice from sub-Saharan tribes around 2,500 B.C.  It was never universally performed in Egypt and during the last millennium of Pharaonic history and on into the Christian era was all but abandoned, at least until it was imposed by the Islamic Arab invasion around 639 A.D.  The modern Jewish circumcision which removes all of the prepuce was not even invented until 100 A.D., which was 12 or 13 hundred years after this commandment from god was relayed through the biblical Moses.  Abraham’s wife Sarah becomes his half sister because when the Hebrew bible was first put into writing, the ancient Greeks were the dominant cultural, military, and political power.  The Greeks had no problem with a half-sister marrying her brother, so long as they had different mothers.  Presto, whamo and Allakhazam Sarah becomes a half sister and the Song of Solomon makes it quite clear that the boy and girl do not have the same mother.  I’m sure that if I asked, the rabbi would say that the Torah is not capable of being influenced by the ancient Greeks as well.  The creation story In Genesis was lifted almost entirely from the ancient Egyptian creation story.  There were two major variations in ancient Egypt however.  In one version, god (Ra) spoke through the god Thoth and created the universe.  Thoth was an Ibis headed deity, an Ibis is a bird.  In this other version of the creation story, Thoth laid an egg which broke open and the universe spilled out of it.  The ancient Hebrews went with the “And god spoke” version instead of “And god laid an egg…”  I think, in hindsight, the egg version of creation more aptly describes the world we live in.

Some years ago, the reporter John Stossel interviewed the book publisher Prentice-Hall, a once prestigious firm.  Prentice-Hall had published a grade school textbook which had a photograph of around thirty loggers joined hand in hand around the base of a redwood tree they were about to cut down.  The caption read that the loggers were environmentalists protecting the tree from loggers.  Stossel asked the representative of the publisher how they can outright lie like this.  The publisher responded that they have to.  They are told by the government book buyers what to print and if they don’t the government won’t buy their books.  The government book buyers could have asked for a story on a real environmentalist of the period – John Muir, but that would invariably bring up that most politically incorrect U.S. President who was more than any other man responsible for our National Parks - Theodore Roosevelt.  Teddy Roosevelt was all things evil to government bureaucrats; Republican, hunter, life member of the NRA and not the least bit hesitant in sending a fleet of battleships to put down an Islamic terrorist.  Far simpler for them to concoct a bunch of lies about non-existent environmental activists guarding a giant redwood tree.

As I said, everyone seems to have an agenda.  Something to think about the next time you watch a documentary on cable or help a child with his homework.

John Stossel - His web page at 20/20