Debunking Archives - Page 13 of 19 - Tales of Times Forgotten

Were Achilles and Zeus Black in Greek Mythology?

The miniseries Troy: Fall of a City, which originally aired on BBC One in the United Kingdom in spring 2018 and was thereafter distributed internationally on Netflix, created quite a stir of controversy due to the fact that, in the series, the characters Zeus and Achilles are portrayed by black actors. Many people attacked the series, accusing it of “blackwashing.”

It is true that, in ancient Greece, Achilles and Zeus were both consistently portrayed as what most people today would generally consider “white.” That being said, I think that most of the outrage over the fact that Troy: Fall of a City portrays Achilles and Zeus as black is motivated more by racial prejudice than by actual concern for faithfulness to traditional portrayals.

Yes, Public Schools Can Teach About Religion

In many countries around the world, teaching about religion in public schools is normal and generally uncontroversial. For instance, in Germany, all public schools are required by law to offer courses about religion and all students are required to take either classes in religion or classes in philosophy and ethics. In Greece, students are required to take classes in Eastern Orthodoxy, although parents are permitted to opt their students out of these classes if they choose.

In the United States, though, very few public schools offer classes that are solely devoted to religion and most people incorrectly believe that public schools are not even allowed to teach classes about religion at all. In reality, public schools in the United States are allowed to teach about religion, but there are limitations on how they are allowed to teach about it.

Religion is only allowed to be taught in public schools in the United States if it is taught in an academic, non-sectarian manner. Schools are not allowed to encourage students to follow any religion or discourage them from following any religion; they are only allowed to teach students the facts.

Common English Words You Probably Didn’t Know Came From Ancient Greek

There is a popular perception that words derived from Greek are long, exotic-sounding, and mostly only used in discussion of science and philosophy. It’s true that there are a lot of Greek words that fit this description. For instance, very few people would use words like otorhinolaryngology, homoousian, ataraxia, or peripeteia in casual conversation.

There are, however, a lot of really simple Greek words that people use nearly every day. Some of these words don’t sound Greek at all because they have passed through so many languages that they no longer bear any of the distinctive sounds or spellings that we normally associate with Greek words, but they are still of Greek origin.

Is Karl Marx’s Great-Great-Grandson Really Doing Parkour in London?

Earlier today, I stumbled across this Quora answer by Eric Wang about a teenaged parkourist named Joseph Marx who lives in London and claims that he is the great-great-grandson of Karl Marx. The story was so bizarre and yet so awesome that I started looking around on the internet to see if I could find out more. I uncovered at least half a dozen articles online talking about it.

Despite how intriguing I found this story, I very quickly became skeptical of it because I noticed that some of the details didn’t seem to fit. I have always had an interest in reading about living descendants of famous historical figures and I had a bit of time on my hands, so I decided to investigate this claim.

I can’t prove for certain that this Joseph Marx is not a descendant of Karl Marx, but, having now charted all Karl Marx’s known descendants, I’m 90% convinced that Joseph Marx is just some guy who happened to have the same last name and incorrectly assumed that Marx was his great-great-grandfather without any solid evidence.

The Amazing Origin of the Story of Achilles’s Heel

We all know the story of “Achilles’s heel.” The story you probably learned in school goes like this: When Achilles was a baby, his mother Thetis dipped him in the river Styx to make him immortal and impervious to all wounds—except she held him by his heel, meaning his heel was the only part of him that was vulnerable. Many years later, near the end of the Trojan War, the Trojan prince Paris shot him in the heel with an arrow guided by the god Apollon and killed him.

This story is the source of our English phrase “Achilles’s heel,” which is often used to refer to a single fatal weakness in something that is otherwise seen as invincible. It may come as a surprise to some people that this story is not actually found in the Iliad or in any other work of classical Greek literature from before the Roman Era. In fact, in the Iliad, Achilles isn’t even invulnerable at all!

Were Mythical Creatures Inspired by Fossils?

It is popularly believed that stories about dragons and other mythical creatures must have arisen when ancient peoples discovered fossils of prehistoric animals, especially dinosaurs. As we shall see in a moment, there is definitely some evidence that ancient peoples did sometimes discover fossils of prehistoric creatures and interpret them as the remains of mythic beasts.

Fossils, however, seem to have only rarely been the source of belief in such mythic creatures to begin with; it seems to have been far more common for people to interpret fossils in light of mythic creatures they already believed in, rather than inventing entirely new mythic beasts to explain the fossils.

Furthermore, the vast majority of claims about specific mythical creatures being inspired by specific prehistoric creatures don’t hold up to any kind of scrutiny. There is almost no solid evidence to support the assumption that dragons, Cyclopes, or griffins were inspired by prehistoric fossils and there is actually quite substantial evidence against these assumptions.

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.

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.

Who Was the Pharaoh of the Exodus Really?

In popular culture, Rameses II (ruled 1279 – 1213 BC) is almost always portrayed as the pharaoh of the Exodus. He is most famously portrayed as such in the 1956 epic film The Ten Commandments, but he has also appeared in this role more recently in the 1998 DreamWorks animated musical drama film The Prince of Egypt, in the 2013 History Channel miniseries The Bible, and in the 2014 epic film Exodus: Gods and Kings.

It may come as a surprise to many people, then, that the Book of Exodus never actually gives the name of the pharaoh who supposedly tried to keep the Israelites from leaving. Instead, throughout the book, the pharaoh is merely referred to by the Hebrew word פַּרְעֹה (par‘ōh), which is the source of our English word pharaoh. How, then, did we all come to think of Rameses II as the pharaoh of the Exodus? And, more importantly, who was the real pharaoh of the Exodus? Let’s delve back into the mists of antiquity and find out the truth.

What Was the Conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity Really Like?

The transition from traditional Greco-Roman religion to Christianity in late antiquity has often been portrayed in terms of the so-called “triumph of Christianity over paganism.” This is an idea that originates from Christian triumphalist accounts of the era that portray Christianity as having eradicated “paganism” within a single generation.

Anti-Christian writers, especially in recent years, have seized upon this propagandistic idea of the “triumph of Christianity” and twisted the Christian propaganda into anti-Christian propaganda by portraying Christians as militant zealots and obscurantists who destroyed classical civilization in the span of a single generation because it was too great for their small minds. Unfortunately, this story is no more accurate than the story Christians have been telling for centuries; indeed, if anything, it is even less accurate.

In reality, the process of the Roman Empire’s “conversion” to Christianity was both far more gradual and far complicated than it has often been portrayed. In many ways, traditional religions were not so much “eradicated” as transformed. In many ways, Christianity and traditional religions melded so that the “Christianity” that emerged from late antiquity was not the same “Christianity” that had gone in, while “paganism” was more domesticated than vanquished.