Tales of Times Forgotten

What Early Christians Thought about Marriage and Sex

Christians have never completely agreed on anything, but the general view of early Christians towards marriage, sex, and procreation was that they were bad. Of course, even the Christians who believed that these things were bad disagreed over exactly how bad they were. Some of the more radical early Christians believed that sex was so evil that it was better for a person to be literally burned alive than for them to marry and have sex with their spouse.

Most early Christians were more moderate; they believed that marriage and sex were essentially necessary evils. They thought that it was morally acceptable for a man and a woman to marry and have sex, but that it was better for a person to remain unmarried and celibate if possible and that a person should only marry if they couldn’t control themself otherwise.

Was Scaphism a Real Thing?

In November 2019, I published an article about how most supposed “medieval torture devices” were actually never used during the Middle Ages. A number of people responded to that article by asking whether or not scaphism was real. I have therefore decided to write an entire article specifically dedicated to this question.

In case you’re unfamiliar with scaphism, it is a method of execution that was supposedly used in ancient Persia. Supposedly, it involved sealing the victim between two boats, feeding him milk and honey, and covering his face with milk and honey so that flies would swarm around his face. Then, as the victim defecated inside the boats, flies and maggots would grow up inside and slowly begin to devour his flesh. Thus, the victim would die an incredibly slow, agonizing death.

Scaphism is known for being quite arguably the most disgusting, horrible way a person can possibly die. It is hard to say, though, whether the ancient Persians ever actually executed anyone in this manner, since there is only one independent ancient source for the use of scaphism and there are some very good reasons to doubt this source’s reliability.

Did the Ancient Greeks Really Think Archers Were Cowards?

There is a popular misconception that the ancient Greeks believed that archers were all cowards because they attacked from a distance rather than from up close. What is often ignored is that some of the most revered heroes in Greek mythology, including Herakles, Philoktetes, Odysseus, and Teukros, were archers and so were the deities Artemis and Apollon. The Greeks also used archers extensively in warfare.

While there are a couple passages from surviving works of ancient Greek literature in which certain characters do condemn archers as cowards, these passages are usually taken out of context. One of these passages comes from a character who has just been shot in the foot by an archer. The other passage comes from a villain in a tragedy who is immediately refuted by one of the good characters. When read in context, it becomes clear that these passages do not demonstrate a general disdain for archers in ancient Greek culture.

Sean Hannity Does Not Know Latin

Apparently, Sean Hannity, the conservative host of the political commentary show Hannity on Fox News, has a new book. The title is Live Free Or Die: America (and the World) on the Brink. The book is currently set to be released by the conservative publishing imprint Threshold Editions on 4 August 2020. Judging from the description on Amazon, the book is going to be yet another banal diatribe attacking liberals as evil and praising President Donald Trump as the savior of American freedom.

Some people have noticed, though, that there is a Latin motto that appears on the front cover. It reads: “Vivamus vel libero perit Americae.” Ordinarily, this wouldn’t warrant any attention. After all, Sean Hannity—an older conservative white man who thinks he knows a lot more than he really does—is exactly the sort of person you would expect to have a Latin motto. There is a slight problem with this particular motto, though; it’s complete and utter gobbledygook. It is clear that whoever came up with this motto does not even know the basic noun cases in Latin or how they work.

What Did the Buddha Really Look Like?

In the western world, whenever someone hears the word “Buddha,” they virtually always immediately think of East Asian statues depicting a smiling obese man with a bald head and elongated earlobes dressed in a robe that displays his enormous belly. You can find these statues all over East Asia and miniature versions of them are often sold as souvenirs in gift shops. Because these statues are referred to as “Laughing Buddhas,” most westerners naturally assume that they depict Siddhārtha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism.

Contrary to popular belief, however, these statues do not, in fact, depict the Gautama Buddha, but rather a completely different figure from Chinese folklore. In this article, I want to talk about the real iconography of Siddhārtha Gautama. I also want to talk about the evidence in the surviving written sources for what the historical Buddha really looked like.

No, “Edelweiss” Is Not an Austrian Folk Song or a Nazi Song

There are a lot of popular misconceptions about the song “Edelweiss.” Many people think it is an age-old Austrian folk song. Many people even think that it is the national anthem of Austria. Other people have gotten the bizarre impression that it was composed as a Nazi song or even that it was the national anthem of Nazi Germany.

In reality, the song “Edelweiss” was composed by the American composing duo Oscar Hammerstein II and Richard Rodgers as an original song for the 1959 musical The Sound of Music. Although Hammerstein and Rodgers were trying to imitate the overall genre of folk music, they did not base their song on any preexisting lyrics or melody.

The Strangest Books in the Bible

The Bible is a collection of various ancient texts that are considered by Christians to be the inspired Word of God. The number of books in the Bible varies depending on which branch of Christianity you happen to belong to. The standard Protestant Bible only has sixty-six books, the standard Roman Catholic Bible has seventy-three books, and the standard Eastern Orthodox Bible has seventy-eight books.

Many of the texts that are included in the Bible seem rather strange—at least when you read them for the first time. There are some books in the Bible that are a bit peculiar in the sense that they don’t fit in well with the other books in the Bible. Then there are other books in the Bible that just seem downright bizarre—at least until you decipher what they’re talking about.

In this article, I want to talk about five of the most unusual books in the Bible. These are books that are striking either because they are so different from the others or because they employ such bizarre imagery.

Is the United States a Democracy or a Republic?

There is considerable debate among people in the United States over whether this country is supposed to be a democracy, a republic, or both. Generally, liberals and progressives tend to argue that the United States should be both a democracy and a republic, while conservatives tend to argue that it should only be a republic.

In this article, I want to examine the history of this debate, look at the etymologies and definitions of the words republic and democracy, and decide which of these words best describes the form of government that exists in the United States.

Could Countries Today Restore the Religions They Had in Antiquity?

Most people have heard about the religions that were practiced in ancient times in places like Greece, Rome, Egypt, Persia, and Scandinavia. Some people have wondered things like, “What happened to those religions? Would it be possible to revive them today in the countries where they were once practiced? What would it be like if someone did?”

Not all ancient religions completely died out. Most notably, Zoroastrianism, the religion of ancient Iran, never completely died out and is still practiced by some people in Iran today. Other ancient religions, such as ancient Greek polytheism, did die out, but have been revived by small groups of worshippers in the modern age.

None of these ancient religions, however, are the dominant religion in the countries where they were once practiced today and it is highly unlikely that any of them will become dominant in those countries again anytime in the near future.

Were the Ancient Spartans Blond?

The ancient Spartans have been a subject of intense fascination and speculation for thousands of years. The Sparta that exists in the popular imagination is often quite different from the one that existed in historical reality. This phenomenon is so well established that it even has a name; historians have labelled the imaginary Sparta that has so intrigued people throughout history “the Spartan mirage.”

One very peculiar aspect of how Sparta has been imagined in modern times is the idea that the overwhelming majority of the ancient Spartans had blond hair. This idea was far more popular a century ago than it is today, but it still hasn’t entirely died out. The idea is especially prominent among white supremacists, who like to imagine the ancient Spartans as blond Aryans who defended Greece against the non-white barbarian hordes of the Persian Empire.

The idea of the “blond Spartans,” however, is based on very little evidence. People mostly only continued to believe in it because it supports their own mythology of racial superiority.