Did he do it?

[ewx]

[Poll #1015302]

(By "much what he's said to have done" I'm thinking in fairly broad terms; for instance Jesus performed miracles, was put to death, lived again, Caesar conquered Gaul and was murdered by senators, etc; but not getting bogged down in the specific details of e.g. who Jesus cured of what disease.)

Comments

[naath.livejournal.com]

Mohammed - definitely existed and did... well, I guess I think he wrote the Koran, was the leader of some people etc. etc. I just don't think that he actually had the Koran dictated to him by Allah.

[uisgebeatha.livejournal.com]

Did he do it?

Any fule kno that the butler did it... ;)

*ducks*

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

'Floating in the river' meaning 'among the rushes at the edge'. Implication/explicit explanation (depending on where you look) is that the basket was watertight and on the surface of the water, just not going anywhere.

[simont]

Didn't vote on the river question, partly because there wasn't a "don't know" option, but also because Sargon of Akkad is a new name to me. Also didn't vote on Mohammed because apart from the vaguely specified "founding Islam" my knowledge of exactly what he's said to have done is too sketchy.

[sparrowsion]

There's the option of "definitely existed but was probably misreported" which I'd've used in a couple of cases.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

The relevant point is that the Moses story appears to be a descendant of the Sargon story.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

By "Hercules", I assume you are referring to Steptoe and Son's HORSE, who certainly did do what it said on the tin. The heroic Graeco-Etrusco-Roman stable-cleaner of that name probably didn't exist, sadly.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know. But I've heard people assert that 'bulrushes aren't in the river', which is patently nonsense, particularly wrt the Nile.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Oh right, I'd not realized there was any dispute on that point. If the basket was supposed to be on dry ground then the construction would have been rather OTT - it is obviously intended to be waterproof!

Sargon gets the luxury of a lid, which Moses seems to manage without...

[gareth-rees.livejournal.com]

Another floating-down-the-Nile motif appears in the myth of Osiris.

[gerald_duck]

Gosh; I'd have expected my answers to be a minority view. It seems a lot of people are far more confident that Mohammed really existed and that his life is documented reasonably accurately than they are for Biblical figures, even in the UK.

Is that what you were expecting?

[lnr]

Don't suppose you could put such a big poll under a cut?

[1ngi.livejournal.com]

Yes, me too, I'd have gone for Abraham and Jesus with that option.

[stephdairy.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised that you're definite about Abraham.

(S)

[ewx.livejournal.com]

The historicity of Mohammed doesn't seem to get as much debate as e.g. Jesus, at least that I get to see. WP thinks there are non-Muslim sources, but doesn't give much detail, and refers to an offline article, which leaves me unable to form an opinion on them.

[songster.livejournal.com]

Aye, we're missing the "definitely existed and was probably(definitely) misreported" option(s).

Caesar: definitely existed, but I bet the historical record isn't fully accurate.

Mohammed: definitely existed, but the historical record is wildly inaccurate (at least insofar as Gods dictatings stuff is concerned).

Jesus: definitely existed, but the historical record probably conflates more than one person, and much of it is flat-out rubbish (miracles etc).

Abraham, Hercules, Moses: Probably was some leader / celebrity around with names not a hundred miles from the known ones, but the details of what they did are now largely obscured by encrustations of myth - even more so than Jesus.

[emperor]

This poll lacks a "probably existed, but dindn't do much of what was reported" option.

[1ngi.livejournal.com]

Well perhaps being definite is being misguided. Perhaps the plethora of world traditions is a flimsy way to argue the existence of one of the patriarchs and I might have been wiser to poll 'might'.

I'll certainly be bowing to your opinion.

[stephdairy.livejournal.com]

Err, sorry, I didn't mean to say "you are wrong"! I was just curious that you might know of some evidence for Abraham's historicity that I wasn't aware of!

(S)

[gjm11.livejournal.com]

He's more recent, and what's reported about him is mostly not so startling as for (say) Jesus; you can believe that M. existed and did roughly what he's said to have done without accepting Islam, whereas you can't believe the same of J. without accepting at least something very like Christianity.

[1ngi.livejournal.com]

Wasn't a snark. I doubt I would know any evidence that you wouldn't already know about, given your study in related fields. I'm no scholar, but I know the attempts to match him with this king or that tradition or Brahma even are on going. I'm sure it gets confused with abrahamic believers pointing to stuff to lend credence to evangelism and I do get absorbed by everyman documentaries. I suspect you are probably more in touch with the most recent and acurate theories than I.

And I'm all ears.

Well eyes.

:)

[armb.livejournal.com]

Sargon of Akkad was new to me too, but I assumed ewx wouldn't have asked unless the stories had a parallel, and then cheated and Googled him before voting....
I'd be interested to see where King Arthur came here (and whether a "might have been based on someone who really existed but was probably so misreported that you can't really count the story as the same person" option would make a difference in some cases).

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

I know I should know about Sargon, but I don't remembering hearing such about him, and in any case I don't think ticking Moses could count as wrong :)

Caesar was the only one who wrote down his own story (well, to a point), so I think he has an advantage over the others.

But I think what I wanted to be able to tick for all the others was an option along the lines of 'might have existed and might have done what he's said to have done but mirepresentation is possible'.

Of course, some are perhaps more likely to have existed than others, depending on e.g. the amount and variation of evidence for their existence.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, Arthur would have been an excellent one. And perhaps Alfred, or a question about the ethnicity of the early kings of Wessex.

P.S.

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised Hercules and Romulus are being dismissed outright by so many people. As your poll shows, you don't have to believe in their divinity to believe they existed, and apart from that there's quite a lot of evidence for both of them of varying kinds (no less than for e.g. Jesus).

[gerald_duck]

I think what I find relatively convincing is the continuity of the historic record. The tomb of Mohammed at Medina is essentially known to be on the site of the original tomb, and we're pretty sure we can trace his descendents, too.

That, and the claims of him are intrinsically less far-fetched.

[liv]

That's exactly it. I'm neither Christian nor Muslim, but what Islam claims about Mohammed (PBUH) is a lot more plausible to me than what Christianity claims about Jesus. I think that if you accepted Mohammed's revelation as literally direct from God, you'd pretty much have to be Muslim. But if he sincerely believed that God was inspiring him and acted accordingly, that still makes most of the stories about him roughly true.

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

He could not read nor write but he existed. Yes, there is evidence. Somebody wrote the Koran for him. I don't believe in God dictating anything. A great Rabbi Maimonides who lived in Marroko during the middle ages said "God is indefinite". That sounds very close to Atheism or Agnostics but all Jews are following his teachings.

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

Sorry I made mistake with Hercules. I thought you meant Herodes. He might have existed but the reports are not absolutely true.

Yes, there is evidence

[ewx.livejournal.com]

OK, what is the evidence?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

You can edit poll entries if you want (http://www.livejournal.com/poll/?id=1015302&mode=enter).

Re: P.S.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I'm curious what the evidence is for the existence of Hercules or Romulus.

Re: Yes, there is evidence

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

There are realistic historical reports. Read history books. For example the historians know when he lived that he had several wifes. He had mental problems and one of his wifes always helped him. He heard voices all the time. He learnt from the Jews and suddenly wanted them to accept him as a prophet. When he was turned down he declared war against them. He spread out his ideas to other nations by war. He called it a "Holy War". Muslems would never admit the truth because it sounds so negative.

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

I missed that, too. "He definitely existed but was misreported".

Re: P.S.

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

Hercules: major figure of Greek stories, some of which at least are based around events that are supposed to have happened in Greek history (or at least the Greeks thought so - we, of course, doubt them[1]) - e.g. the events preceding the Trojan War. Some of these recorded at an early date (there is good reason to believe parts of the Homeric epics date back to pre-Mycenaean times, but at the earliest the 7th century), and following that there is a huge literary tradition based around Hercules (as well as cult worship, etc.). To call him a 'mythic' character (as he was even in those days) isn't to say he didn't exist, because the classical world has something of a tendency towards creating lots of stories (often including divinity, etc.) around mythic characters.

Romulus: a bit different to Hercules, since he's linked to an event which must have happened in some form (the founding of Rome) and which is assigned a solid date in Roman history. Appears not so much in poetry but in works of history (the most important of which now is Livy). Again issues of divinity may be attributed to the tradition rather than the person (but there's no knowing).

So, to summarise: it's a bit like Jesus really, since the characters are recorded in a predominantly literary tradition (though in slightly different ways) but have gone on to be assigned all sorts of different levels of relevance.

Sorry if I'm over-explaining. I don't imagine you didn't know what I described, so if the question was more whether there is any non-literary evidence for these characters, the answer would have to be no :)

[1] The benefits of hindsight![2]
[2] That was sarcasm, which I'm aware doesn't come across very well when written down, hence the labelling.

Re: P.S.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I'm not really expecting archaeological evidence.

However the existence of a large tradition around Hercules doesn't seem like evidence of his existence to me; there's a large tradition around Dr Who, too, and he certainly doesn't exist. The fact that the stories are very ancient doesn't really tell us any more than that good stories get retold.

I'm afraid solid dates don't impress me much either - our predecessors assigned solid dates to the creation of the world, too, and we're certain they got that wildly wrong; so why would we imagine that they got the founding of Rome right, 700 years after the supposed fact?

My understanding was that modern thinking had it coalesce out of a collection of villages, rather than be founded in a single act, in any case. If there was a founder then I could certainly believe that he gave his name to the city - but equally I could believe that the legend grew up as a way of explaining the name, with the existence of a founder simply assumed, perhaps because the real meaning was lost or because it was politically inconvenient.

Re: Yes, there is evidence

[ewx.livejournal.com]

There are realistic historical reports.

Which ones did you have in mind?

Read history books

I've read many, including a number that cover the 7th century. Did you have one in mind that specifically addresses the historicity of Mohammed?

For example the historians know ...

So you say, but the question was about how things are known, not what things are known.

Re: P.S.

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

Well, I didn't mean to say I thought there was *good* evidence for their existence (IMO there isn't, but that doesn't bother me because I'm much more interested in learning about the tradition and think their existence or lack of it is somewhat less exciting) - rather just that the 'evidence' isn't really of inferior quality to that for a figure such as Jesus (i.e. predominantly literary).

As for the founding of Rome, it's true that there's a much more 'organic' view of how the settlement grew these days (which doesn't of course mean that there wasn't a single person associated with some sort of event of foundation, e.g. a decree of some sort, but probably not some guy who did all the building himself). OTOH, it would be interesting to know when AUC dates were first used, because if there is early evidence for them then that would be much better evidence that the date of some sort of foundation event might have been securely known (but I'm just hypothesising here - what with working on the Greek side of things, I'm not even sure where to find out the answer to this question!).

[(Anonymous)]

http://www.legendofkingarthur.com/

he cites what appears to be historical and geographical evidence to make a what appears to be a convincing case for a Scottish Arthur. Of course someone with more knowledge would need to critique it.