Zosimus wrote: ↑Mon Feb 06, 2023 1:54 am
I say that because you are assuming that the ancients had some conception of a "beyond" or something that existed "abroad" across the briny ocean. That's not how they understood the world and maps as late as the 15th century AD show that.
I was merely assuming that the ancients had a conception that SOMETHING/ANYTHING, was beyond the briny ocean. What had not been discovered or mapped was a mystery. But something was beyond the unknown which was the course in which Lehi was undertaking.
Zosimus wrote: ↑Mon Feb 06, 2023 1:54 am
Lehi would have understood that there was a single landmass surrounded by ocean, as a sort of disc. The assumption is usually made that Lehi and his family boarded their ship and sailed off into the deep blue sea, away from the coast, knowing that they would reach some other distant shore. Europeans up until the 15th century didn't even dare do that so its quite a stretch to argue that a desert-dwelling family from Jerusalem in the 6th century BC, that had never seen the ocean in their lives, would dare attempt it. To them the world would have looked like this:
I am not overly concerned about what Lehi understood as a landmass and the ocean or the world map of his day. What concerns me in this particular exercise is what a pious Jew might think when pushing off the southern coast and wondering what direction GOD will send him via a magical compass. Further south? Turn right? Turn left? And with that, what symbolic implications might a superstitious/pious Jew have in making such a turn?
Zosimus wrote: ↑Mon Feb 06, 2023 1:54 am
No, look at the map above from the 5th century BC. There's no sea south. There's a single landmass in the shape of a disc and a single ocean surrounding it. With that (mis)understanding, who in their right mind would sail out into OCEAN away from sight of land? That's why nobody tried it until the 15th century. It was suicide. Here's the world according to Anaximenes, c. 500 BC
I think we can agree that as Lehi stands on the temple mount looking south and contemplating the sea that lies south -- the Indian ocean is towards the south, period. It certainly is not to the north! The whole purpose of this exercise is to understand how they left Jerusalem and traveled south until they reached the ocean. And that ocean is south of Jerusalem regardless of what a map might indicate because the cardinal directions are always a constant. What is beyond the ocean makes no difference other than they are led to the promised land.
Zosimus wrote: ↑Mon Feb 06, 2023 1:54 am
I don't see Lehi sitting in his boat, as it sails away from the only disc of land the ancients knew, trying to decide whether to turn right or left.
Zosimus, do please read my posts more carefully and understand that it was not Lehi
trying to decide where to turn. It was the magic ball (Liahona) that determined or decided when and where they would turn. It was simply a matter of following the direction of the ball. These are the choices that the ball made via GOD:
1. Continue south until such time a turn must be made
2. Begin to turn eastward
3. Begin to turn westward
Zosimus wrote: ↑Mon Feb 06, 2023 1:54 am
The Garden of Eden wasn't myth to a Hebrew in the 6th century BC, and they knew it was in the east, towards the rising sun. Noah and the flood didn't change the direction of the rising sun.
The garden of Eden is a myth to you and me. What Lehi (assuming there really was a Lehi as this exercise is about) thought of Eden really makes little difference. This thread is about going SOUTH.
Zosimus wrote: ↑Mon Feb 06, 2023 1:54 am
Sorry, the location of paradise had everything to do with directions in Judeo-Christian cartography until the Middle Ages. Even Columbus was trying to find the opposite side of paradise, by sailing west instead of east. Finding the Garden of Eden in ASIA was one of his primary motivations.
Zosimus, please pay attention. Columbus set his own compass and did his own thing in 1492. That’s entirely a different story.
Lehi was commanded to follow the directions on the ball and go wherever it pointed. That is the point of this exercise. Which direction did
God want him to go? Right or left? The decision was God’s, not Lehi’s!
[ ] Right
[ ] Left