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Abraham, Arthur and Why We Know of Them
North Miami Beach, FL July 12, 2001 Aaron H.
Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on issues, ideas and reflections on the times. Published now and
then, Opinions pro or con are welcome.
ABRAHAM, ARTHUR AND WHY WE KNOW OF THEM
The advice is if you fall off a horse, get back on. The same goes for
falling off a bicycle. My bruises are fading and the swellings on my right
hand have gone down. I feel good and I feel much better now that I
completed the ride I aborted last week.
I think I will need to have the bike checked over at the shop where I
bought it. There is a rubbing I noticed and the tires need air. But the
title of this reads Abraham, Arthur and etc., so let me bend to the writers'
task and tell you what else happened this morning.
I finished the second tape in the course series on the Myth of King Arthur
while riding. Two half-hour sides match the length of my trip and listening
helps keep my mind off falling, traffic and things like that. Leaving after
7:00 a.m. also showed me something I needed to know. Getting started before
sunrise is good because the heat is absent and so is the glare from the sun.
Pushing off after 7 put me in the way of a lot of shade that has been absent
on earlier trips. I was able to take advantage of the shadows this time
although the heat caused me to end up sodden through with sweat.
Now, the question raised was there an actual historical personage such as
King Arthur? This is the same question that follows all the mythological
heroes. Was Abraham really a man who left Ur at the urging of his God and
became the progenitor of Jews, Moslems and Christians?
This tape considered the evidence about Arthur and it is lacking. Despite
the history of the travels of Abraham, his family and the involvement of The
Promised Land, there is practically no physical evidence. The histories are
written long after the events. When we turn to archaeology we also make
much of the little that is found. So, too, with Arthur. He appeared at the
end of Roman times in England or in Scotland or in Wales. We do not know and
several peoples claim him as ancestor.
The historicity of the man may rest in the imagination or the restorative
powers of a Monk, Jeffrey of Monmouth. Jeffrey's story is the one that put
it all together - along with a "Guinever". Carol's Evaluation: 9 out of 10.
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