Franktalk wrote:Chap wrote:OK, Franktalk has no effective answer. He has given up the argument that Nineveh was once thought to be mythical, but then was rediscovered, so the same might apply to Book of Mormon sites.
He had to do that, because I pointed out to him that a non-Biblical ancient writer, Herodotus, who continued to be read by all educated people into modern times, mentioned Nineveh, so that no-one pre-Layard could have maintained that it was a purely Biblical myth.
According to Layard:
"The history of Assyria had been written by Herodotus and Ctesias.
Unfortunately, the work of the former, who was so scrupulous in recording
facts and traditions, has been entirely lost."
http://books.google.com/books?id=HwwYAA ... &q&f=falseSo you want me to believe that because Herodotus mentioned Assyria (Nineveh) but the book was lost that no one treated Nineveh as Myth. Using your same logic then the mention of Zarahemla by Joseph Smith should cause no one to doubt its existence as well.
You should read what Layard says about Ctesias as well.
Oh dear. I was wrong is suggesting that Franktalk could understand what was known about Nineveh before Layard from Google without the benefit of an education to help him understand it. What Layard is talking about is a book specially devoted to the history of Assyria that Herodotus is said to have written - that is certainly lost. However, we do have the
Historia of Herodotus in its entirety, and that does mention Nineveh, nine times in all.
You may search the text for yourself here:
http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.mb.txtI quote - see extract 3 for Herodotus' reference to his intention to write about the Assyrians in a special treatise apart from his
Historia.
1. Having reigned three-and-fifty years, Deioces was at his death succeeded
by his son Phraortes. This prince, not satisfied with a dominion which
did not extend beyond the single nation of the Medes, began by attacking
the Persians; and marching an army into their country, brought them
under the Median yoke before any other people. After this success,
being now at the head of two nations, both of them powerful, he proceeded
to conquer Asia, overrunning province after province. At last he engaged
in war with the Assyrians- those Assyrians, I mean, to whom Nineveh
belonged, who were formerly the lords of Asia. At present they stood
alone by the revolt and desertion of their allies, yet still their
internal condition was as flourishing as ever. Phraortes attacked
them, but perished in the expedition with the greater part of his
army, after having reigned over the Medes two-and-twenty years.
2. On the death of Phraortes his son Cyaxares ascended the throne. Of
him it is reported that he was still more war-like than any of his
ancestors, and that he was the first who gave organisation to an Asiatic
army, dividing the troops into companies, and forming distinct bodies
of the spearmen, the archers, and the cavalry, who before his time
had been mingled in one mass, and confused together. He it was who
fought against the Lydians on the occasion when the day was changed
suddenly into night, and who brought under his dominion the whole
of Asia beyond the Halys. This prince, collecting together all the
nations which owned his sway, marched against Nineveh, resolved to
avenge his father, and cherishing a hope that he might succeed in
taking the town. A battle was fought, in which the Assyrians suffered
a defeat, and Cyaxares had already begun the siege of the place, when
a numerous horde of Scyths, under their king Madyes, son of Prtotohyes,
burst into Asia in pursuit of the Cimmerians whom they had driven
out of Europe, and entered the Median territory.
3. The dominion of the Scythians over Asia lasted eight-and-twenty years,
during which time their insolence and oppression spread ruin on every
side. For besides the regular tribute, they exacted from the several
nations additional imposts, which they fixed at pleasure; and further,
they scoured the country and plundered every one of whatever they
could. At length Cyaxares and the Medes invited the greater part of
them to a banquet, and made them drunk with wine, after which they
were all massacred. The Medes then recovered their empire, and had
the same extent of dominion as before. They took Nineveh- I will relate
how in another history- and conquered all Assyria except the district
of Babylonia. After this Cyaxares died, having reigned over the Medes,
if we include the time of the Scythian rule, forty years.
4. Assyria possesses a vast number of great cities, whereof the most
renowned and strongest at this time was Babylon, whither, after the
fall of Nineveh, the seat of government had been removed.
5. The later of the two queens, whose name was Nitocris, a wiser princess
than her predecessor, not only left behind her, as memorials of her
occupancy of the throne, the works which I shall presently describe,
but also, observing the great power and restless enterprise of the
Medes, who had taken so large a number of cities, and among them Nineveh,
and expecting to be attacked in her turn, made all possible exertions
to increase the defences of her empire.
6. But little rain falls in Assyria, enough, however, to make the corn
begin to sprout, after which the plant is nourished and the ears formed
by means of irrigation from the river. For the river does not, as
in Egypt, overflow the corn-lands of its own accord, but is spread
over them by the hand, or by the help of engines. The whole of Babylonia
is, like Egypt, intersected with canals. The largest of them all,
which runs towards the winter sun, and is impassable except in boats,
is carried from the Euphrates into another stream, called the Tigris,
the river upon which the town of Nineveh formerly stood.
7, 8 The natives told me that there was a subterranean passage from this
lake to the Libyan Syrtis, running westward into the interior by the
hills above Memphis. As I could not anywhere see the earth which had
been taken out when the excavation was made, and I was curious to
know what had become of it, I asked the Egyptians who live closest
to the lake where the earth had been put. The answer that they gave
me I readily accepted as true, since I had heard of the same thing
being done at Nineveh of the Assyrians. There, once upon a time, certain
thieves, having formed a plan to get into their possession the vast
treasures of Sardanapalus, the Ninevite king, which were laid up in
subterranean treasuries, proceeded to tunnel a passage from the house
where they lived into the royal palace, calculating the distance and
the direction. At nightfall they took the earth from the excavation
and carried it to the river Tigris, which ran by Nineveh, continuing
to get rid of it in this manner until they had accomplished their
purpose.
9. Thou, on thy part, must wait
till the tenth day after I am entered within the town, and then place
near to the gates of Semiramis a detachment of thy army, troops for
whose loss thou wilt care little, a thousand men. Wait, after that,
seven days, and post me another detachment, two thousand strong, at
the Nineveh gates; then let twenty days pass, and at the end of that
time station near the Chaldaean gates a body of four thousand.
Please note that the material by Layard to which Franktalk refers mentions a number of other ancient historians who referred to Nineveh.
Franktalk's case that Nineveh was thought to be mythical before Layard rediscovered it is therefore completely exploded, simply by what Layard himself wrote. No educated person with a classical education can have been under the impression before Layard's discoveries that, as Franktalk suggests they may have thought, Nineveh was a mere Biblical myth.
Hence Franktalk's suggestion that, by analogy, we may expect disbelief in Nephite cities to be similarly disproved is rendered baseless.