Hypatia - Myths and History
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- čas přidán 9. 09. 2024
- The story often told about Hypatia of Alexandria was that she was a great scientist, rationalist and scholar who was brutally murdered by a mob of Christians who hated her knowledge and learning, with her death ushering in the Dark Ages. But this story is mostly nonsense and the real history is far more complex and much more interesting.
Further Reading
Alan Cameron, “Hypatia: Life, Death, and Works” in Wandering Poets and Other Essays on Late Greek Literature and Philosophy, pp. 37-80, (Oxford, 2016)
Thony Christie, “Hypatia - What do we Really Know?”, Renaissance Mathematicus, 2019
Maria Dzielska, Hypatia of Alexandria, (Harvard, 1995)
Peter Gainsford, “Cosmos #3 - Hypatia and the Library”, Kiwi Hellenist, 2018
Christopher Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conflict (John Hopkins, 1997)
Spencer Alexander McDaniel, “Who was Hypatia Really?”, Tales of Times Forgotten, 2018
Edward J. Watts, Hypatia: The Life and Legend of an Ancient Philosopher, (Oxford, 2017)
Bryan J. Whitfield, “The Beauty of Reasoning: A Reexamination of Hypatia of Alexandria”, The Mathematics Educator, Vol.6:1 (1995), pp. 14-21
Tim, in case you ever feel down about the scale of the task of myth-busting, I'm one of the people who were 'cured' by your work. Keep going!
So the idea that she was murdered by Christians because she had a time machine and was going to disprove the resurrection isn't true despite what reddit claims! Knock me over with a feather.
Here from Paulogia, I look forward to exploring your channel!
I found Agora so annoying for many of the reasons you cover here, and you've even given me some new reasons to be annoyed with it, lol. There's also the fact that all the good guys in Agora speak with posh RP accents and tend to be more European-looking and fair-skinned, while the bad guys tend to look and sound more Middle Eastern (on top of the class dynamic you mention). I understand that the film is supposed to be, at least on one level, an analogy for the Islamic fundamentalism of the early post-9/11 era but it was done in such a smugly Eurocentric manner, the way in which _of course_ the enlightened people are going to be basically 21st-century upper-crust Britons teleported back to ancient times, tut-tutting the intolerance and ignorance of their social inferiors. And of course, she had to be young and beautiful, because heaven forbid that an actress over 60 should play the role. And not content with Hypatia's actual accomplishments, they just had to shoehorn in that ridiculous bit about her discovering heliocentrism and elliptical orbits. Might as well have had her "discover" atomism and quantum mechanics while they were at it.
Agora is pretty annoying. Notice also that the bad guys are not only swarthy and have Middle Eastern accents, but they all dress in black or dark colours, while the inexplicably British "good guys" are in all in nice white, off-white and beige. Not exactly subtle.
Unfortunately it also gets lauded as "very accurate". 🙄
@@historyforatheists9363 Very aKKKurate, sounds like!
Thanks for this, I really enjoy your channel, Tim O'Neil. Keep up the good work.
I followed your Blog from the very beginning and decided to check up on it again.... So happy that there is a CZcams channel now👍👍👍 keep up the good work
Thanks heaps for this Tim, the thoroughness is wonderful, and the Bibliography fantastic, while unfortunately somewhat rare these days. Good work, we need more of this.
The one thing I'd do different is interrogate the boundary between philosophy and religion, I think by this point significant parts of what we call philosophy - Middle/Neo-Platonism, Pythagorianism, certain strands of stoicism etc are, on a social level, functioning in a way that's largely indistinguisable from religion, but that might be getting a bit too much into the weeds.
Again, great work, keep it up
Great video. Thanks for the insight. I had known that the popular story was a fable for some time. Thanks for filling me in about the particulars. Just a wee comment from Poland: the name Dzielska is pronounced Jelska/Gelska 😉 Thanks again.
I knew I'd mangle that one. Thanks - I'll try to get it right in future. Polish is hard for we English speakers.
Came here from Paulogia's collab video.
The fact that the algorithm didn't recommend me your videos annoys me, and shows just how biased social algorithms are.
Now let me binge your stuff.
Glad you found me.
I guess the only reason we don't have a war started over a dancing ban in the historical record is that there wasn't any hostile states nearby, otherwise it went violently wrong in pretty much every possible way.
I am here because of Aron Ra being wrong. I do agree with you... that's why I am your new subscriber. I shouldn't listen to one atheist channel but many view points.
Elevated as a rationalist and feminist martyr, Hypatia has received a glossy shield of apologistic protection. She is a bipedal sacred cow. In the same way, everyone ignores Galileo's falseness and backstabbing and receives the interpretation of the inquiry into his science from biased sources. As well, the violence of the Alexandrian monks was not necessarily approved by the best elements in the local church. (See The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, editor Benedicta Ward.)
Great video
I viewed Agora as historical fiction and enjoyed it.
yeah, right. Next you'll try to tell people the Easter Bunny isn't real.
Good on you mate!
She has nothing to do with the library of Alexandria that came later after it was the caesareum.
"that came later"
What we refer to as the Great Library came *before* Hypatia, not after. And it had ceased to exist by her time.
"it was the caesareum"
The ceased to be a temple or house a library in the late fourth century.
I read your blog I found it very well researched and informative. Have you tried to tackle atheist myths about other religions like Buddhism for exemple ?
Most of the historical myths used by anti-theists tend to be aimed at Christianity and Islam. Few are about other religions, though some generic claims about the problems caused by “religion” generally are supposed to apply to all. And usually don’t work when you look at non-Abrahamic religions. So my articles are mainly re Christian history with some on Islamic stuff.
@@historyforatheists9363 Yeah, most atheists focus on Christianity and Islam. I guess some myths about Buddhists and other eastern religions is that they have a more peacefull history than their Abrahamic counterparts, free of persecution, violence and superstition , which is complete nonsense for anyone that is familiar with chinese or japanese history .
Great video as usual.
Though I have one note, apparently Socrates being a Novatian is an assumption many scholars are now skeptical of.
Really? Where can I read about this? That would give his animosity to Cyril a different perspective.
@@historyforatheists9363 In _The “Catholic” Church in Socrates of Constantinople and Pacian of Barcelona_ (published in _Vigiliae Christianae_ in late 2021), Colin Whiting addresses this question but doesn't attempt to answer it (although he does call it an "old question"). As far as I can glean, this seems to have been something scholars debated although the evidence seems to favor Novatian leanings. Whiting himself argues that SoC had, at least, Novatian sympathies, but questions whether the question itself -"Was Socrates of Constantinople a Novatian?" -is even useful. I don't know if that counts as growing scholarly skepticism or the usual scholarly skepticism, but there does appear to be some mystery. On his Wikipedia page there is one statement about this that's written in skeptical tones:
_"Socrates is often assumed to have been a follower of Novatianism, but this is based on the fact that he gives a lot of details about the Novatianists, and speaks of them in generous terms, _*_as he does of Arians and other groups._*_ He speaks of himself as belonging to the church."_
@@historyforatheists9363 Rev. A. C. Zenos, "Life of Socrates," A Selected Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. ii, eds. Henry Wace and Philip Schaff, (New York: Christian, 1887-1900), p. x-xi
He was not as Hostile to the Novatians as most Proto-Orthodox were, but the same is true of how he treats the Arians. But he does to seme to refer to himself as part of the Mainstream Church. VI. 20, 23; IV. 28; V. 19; VII. 3.
@@Kuudere-Kun Thanks.
@@historyforatheists9363 You're Welcome.
As usual the Truth is boring, mundane, and does not fit a stupid good-vs-evil Marvel movie narrative.
This is absurd, the people didn't understand difference is the reason they were violent against each other. It was the same reason that persecuted Christians in early days. People hated what they didn't understand.
Bro, you've gotta fix the hissing audio!
Yes, these vidoes that I produce on my phone in my living room really need to have the top quality audio you demand!
@@historyforatheists9363I don't understand the hostility.
These videos are clearly a bunch of work and with just a little more work you could have clean audio. It's hard to share these when they hiss like this.
Again, I produce these FREE videos as a gift to people like you in my living room. I've already invested in a top of the range Rode Lavalier GO Professional mic to ensure I get the best possible sound recording outside of a studio. I also post-process the sound tracks as much as I can using Audacity. So I don't know what else you want me to do. And I also can't hear this "hiss" you refer to when I listen to the video using my Sonos speaker system or my Bose headphones. So maybe the problem is at your end?
@historyforatheists9363 The hiss comes and goes and it seems like it's related to your mic audio.
Your first 22 seconds, super clean.
As soon as you say welcome, the hiss comes in.
Then the hiss disappears again when you get to the "once upon a time" card at about 30 seconds.
@@PlaylistWatching1234 Then as far as I can make out, you're referring to general background ambient noise from outside my aparment that the mic is trying to filter out. Short of soundproofing my living room, I can't do much about that. I already get up at 4.30 am to record these things to minimise the noise around me. And because I live under a major airport flight path, I often have to stop the recording while a jet goes overhead. So I'm afraid there's not much else I can do.
Hello
Is any history true???
Obviously, events happened. What's difficult is us working out which events happened and why. This is what the Historical Method is for. I explain how this works here: historyforatheists.com/2022/11/how-history-is-done/
@@historyforatheists9363 Thank you...
Poor amazing Hypatia, F the pdf files.
I am here fresh off your collab with @Paulogia and am very interested into delving into history. Like another commenter stated: I am surprised that the CZcams algorithm has not recommended your channel sooner (reworded), as I watch a variety of Atheist channels, along with channels that delve into the histories of religion, i.e. @ReligionForBreakfast.
So “Agora” is all partisan hackery.
Just like The Passion, Braveheart, JFK…