Religion
In reply to the discussion: Why Is Religion So Afraid Of Women? [View all]okasha
(11,573 posts)The first five books of the OT were compiled during the reign of King Josiah, in the 7th. century BCE, in an effort to establish Yahwist monotheism in the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. The wheelbarrow would hardly be "an emergent technology" to a people who routinely moved multi-ton building stones, built aqueducts and irrigation systems,and lethally efficient battle chariots. (Actual Bronze Age people would have been equally familiar with such "emergent" technologies, though. Where does Harris think the Egyptian temples and pyramids came from? Or the chariots in which, say, Akhenaten and Tutankhamen are portrayed driving?)
And Paul was almost a thousand years in the future of the Bronze Age. Harris apparently thinks the Roman army somehow got around its vast empire without supply wagons. I would not argue for purging historical illiterates from culture, but I do wish someone would teach them to read before they hit the keyboard. It would be an act of charity.