Graham Phillips (1) (1953–)

What a strange place to be in, someone like Graham Phillips, to (a) say the Bible isn't true or fact or anything, and (b) then use scores of random, cherry-picked verses that you declare to be true because it fits YOUR theory of what is REALLY the true fact. Weird.

So, for instance. The Bible can't be believed, it wasn't written till the 500s, but, since Phillips is positing that there were TWO Moseses, i.e., Moses was a composite of two real people, Phillips notes that the same Bible you can't trust give two names for Moses's father-in-law. Two fathers-in-law, two Moseses. Believe the Bible, just here. Weird.

Anyway, Phillips (who can't trust the Bible or its chronology), believes implicitly in the chronology of whatever the last book of Egyptology says the chronology of Egypt was. He says one Moses was Kamose, a priest under Thutmose III, and one Moses was Prince Thutmose, elder brother of Akhenaten. Get it, KaMOSE, ThutMOSE, MOSEs.

He goes stranger, though, claiming that Edomites were an original tribe of Hebrews, that the northern kingdom of Israel's Bethel temple to Baal/calf god was the real, original religion of Moses and the Hebrews and was actually at Petra in Edom. Oh, and Bethel is Mt. Sinai. Oh, and the original religion was just the Kabbalah. And God is a moon god sun god hermaphrodite snake god calf god of some sort. And "Yahweh" just means "my Lord" and Baal "Lord" so they were one and the same.... And, believe him because he has a copy of the Book of Jasher published in 1995 in Philadelphia (listed in his notes, but not in his bibliography!). A book NOBODY else has. No library, no Library of Congress, nobody. From a professor nobody's ever heard of. Oh, and, I tracked down the quotes from this Book of Jasher. It's from a book commonly called "Pseudo-Jasher," attributed to Alcuin, but really printed in 1750 and a forgery by one Jacob Ilive. It's Pseudo-Jasher with, interestingly enough, just the additions Phillips needs to "prove" his theories. It calls Edom a tribe, seems to place Mt. Sinai/Bethel at Petra, etc.

What a sad pseudo-historical work. I had seen Phillips in television documentaries and thought him interesting, if unconventional. Having finally read a work by him I find him unconvincing and shady.… (mer)

En investigación histórica nunca se puede decir que se ha escrito la última palabra. La Historia es un relato y, como tal, la Historia es una historia. Cuando se tienen numerosos testigos, ya textuales o arqueológicos, cada historiador se ve impelido a reescribir la Historia desde su criterio y época. Por otro lado, cuando los testimonios son escasos o conforman una leyenda, buena parte del trabajo histórico es especulativo. Sin embargo la crítica textual, la historia comparada y el cotejo de relatos dispares con hechos suficientemente confirmados pueden aportar luz a episodios de los que poco se sabe con certeza, y lo poco que se conoce puede resultar contradictorio. Éste ha sido el trabajo de Graham Philips y Martin Keatman en torno a la leyenda de Robin Hood, uno de los mitos medievales más conocidos y recurrentes hasta nuestros días. A salvo de algún nuevo documento que pudiera aparecer, posible pero poco probable, los autores desmenuzan los datos de la Gesta, la relacionan con otras leyendas, exponen convincentemente sobre la posible historicidad de algunos personajes y apuntan a las tres figuras que pudieron ser la base histórica para la leyenda de Robin más allá del arquetipo mítico que pueda representar.
Los tres apéndices que completan el volumen son realmente flojos siendo uno de ellos una simple guía turística.
Seguro que los autores no han escrito la última palabra sobre Robin Hood, ejemplo de ello es la película de Ridley Scott del año 2010 donde el realizador juega con la idea del suplantador ofreciendo una arista más a la poliédrica figura del personaje y al desarrollo del mito, pero desde la historiografía han aportado una sólida argumentación que habrá de servir de base a posibles futuras investigaciones.… (mer)

King Arthur is one of the most enigmatic figures in world history that has become familiar to us through many medieval tales, fables, novels, movies and TV series. This had lead many scholars to regard King Arthur as a myth. However, Graham Phillips has been determined to find the man behind the myth (if he exists) and has described his historical detective tale in this fast paced, well-written book. The book also includes maps and illustrations where relevant.

Graham Phillips examines the earliest stories of Arthur as well as a variety of ancient manuscripts to determine the exact locations of Camelot, Arthur’s tomb, and the sword Excalibur. In addition, the author visits various ancient monuments and post-Roman ruins to verify the literature. Graham Phillips has shown through a substantial quantity of literary and scientific evidence, that King Arthur was a real man who unified the Britons to repel invasions from the Anglo-Saxons around 500 AD and that Camelot did in fact exist. He has also determined the location of Camelot and King Arthur's burial place, however this would require expensive archaeological excavations to verify.

I have no desire to spoil the interesting and exciting detective work elucidated in this book by explaining the findings, so if you want to know the identity of Arthur, the location of Camelot, where King Arthur is probably buried, then you need to read this book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and definitely think the author is onto something. I can't wait for someone, with too much money, to spend a little on excavating what is possibly King Arthur's tomb.









… (mer)