Talk:Black Egyptian hypothesis/Archive 5

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Undue weight for Herodotus

I propose shortening the discussion of Herodotus reliability and moving to a Herodotus summary that is more similar to the Ancient Greece article. In its current form, the expansive discussion on Herodotus' reliability reflects the racist practices of 19th and early 20th century historians, as it glosses over Herodotus' shortcomings in an article about white/european history, while going on at length about Herodotus' shortcomings in an article about African history.

Proposed text, which merges one sentence from the Ancient Greece article with another sentence from the Ancient Egyptian Race Controversy article:

• Herodotus is widely known as the "father of history": his Histories are eponymous of the entire field. Written between the 450s and 420s BC, Herodotus' work reaches about a century into the past, discussing 6th century historical figures such as Darius I of Persia, Cambyses II and Psamtik III, and alluding to some 8th century ones such as Candaules. There is dispute about the historical accuracy of the works of Herodotus – some scholars support the reliability of Herodotus[12]:2–5[176]:1[177][178][179] while other scholars regard his works as being unreliable as historical sources, particularly those relating to Egypt.[180][181][182][183][184][185][186][187][188][189][190]

Existing text with undue weight to a discussion of Herodotus' reliability:

Reliability of Herodotus

Many scholars (Aubin, Heeren, Davidson, Diop, Poe, Welsby, Celenko, Volney, Montet, Bernal, Jackson, DuBois, Strabo), ancient and modern, routinely cite Herodotus in their works on the Nile Valley. Some of these scholars (Welsby, Heeren, Aubin, Diop, etc.) explicitly mention the reliability of Herodotus' work on the Nile Valley and demonstrate corroboration of Herodotus' writings by modern scholars. Welsby said that "archaeology graphically confirms some of Herodotus' observations".[77] A.H.L. Heeren (1838) quoted :::Herodotus throughout his work and provided corroboration by scholars of his day regarding several passages (source of the Nile, location of Meroe, etc.).[78] To further his work on the Egyptians and Assyrians, Aubin uses Herodotus' accounts in various passages and defends Herodotus' position against modern scholars. Aubin said Herodotus was "the author of the first important narrative history of the world" and that Herodotus "visited Egypt".[79] Diop provides several examples (e.g. the inundations of the Nile) that he claims support his view that Herodotus was "quite scrupulous, objective, scientific for his time". Diop also claims that:

Herodotus "always distinguishes carefully between what he has seen and what he has been told";

"One must grant that he was at least capable of recognizing the skin color of inhabitants."[20]:3–5

"For all the writers who preceded the ludicrous and vicious falsifications of modern Egyptology, and the contemporaries of the ancient Egyptians (Herodotus, Aristotle, Diodorus, Strabo, and others), the Black identity of the Egyptian was an evident fact."

Strabo corroborated Herodotus' ideas about the Black Egyptians, Aethiopians, and Colchians.[30][20]:2

Many scholars regard the works of Herodotus as being unreliable as historical sources. Fehling writes of "a problem recognized by everybody", namely that much of what :::Herodotus tells us cannot be taken at face value.[80] Sparks writes that "In antiquity, Herodotus had acquired the reputation of being unreliable, biased, parsimonious in his praise of heroes, and mendacious".[81][82][83][84][85] Najovits writes that "Herodotus fantasies and inaccuracies are legendary."[86] Voltaire and Hartog both described Herodotus as the "father of lies".[87][88] Alan B. Lloyd states that as a historical document, the writings of Herodotus are seriously defective, and that he was working from "inadequate sources".[89]

The reliability of Herodotus is particularly criticized when writing about Egypt. Nielsen writes that: "Though we cannot entirely rule out the possibility of Herodotus having been in Egypt, it must be said that his narrative bears little witness to it."[90] About the claim of Herodotus that the Pharaoh Sesostris campaigned in Europe, and that he left a colony in Colchia, Fehling states that "there is not the slightest bit of history behind the whole story".[80] Fehling states that Herodotus never traveled up the Nile River, and that almost everything he says about Egypt and Aethiopia is doubtful.[80][91]EditorfromMars (talk) 18:42, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

There is a perfectly adequate discussion of Herodotus' reliability on Herodotus' page and the sentence copied from the AE race controversy article provides plenty of sources and citations for aspects of Herodotus' reliability, as it relates specifically to Egypt. A review of the AE article sentence will confirm that there is no consensus on this topic with various modern authors supporting or not supporting Herodotus' work.EditorfromMars (talk) 18:44, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

• I think the subsection is very important to the article, as the hypothesis primarily relies on the works of greek historians, especially (by far) Herodotus. The defence of Herodotus reliability and the questioning of it are central to the section as it's mostly connected to the discussion of the hypothesis in the sources. Since a whole subsection has been given to the translation of the word Melanchroes, I think the Reliability of Herodotus is an even bigger controversy that's directly related to it. Maybe the subsection could be thinned down to three paragraphs, the first on the controversy on his general reliability, the second and third on the supporters and critics of his reliability while giving more focus to Egypt and the hypothesis. The proposed text is too short and seems designed to lean towards supporting his reliability. He was called the "Father of history" but also the "father of lies" Mohamed^Talk 11:45, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Mohamed above, and I utterly reject the insinuation that any modern scholar who disagrees with Herodotus is automatically a racist. The reliability of Herodotus was being ridiculed by the people of his own life-time, before races were even invented. I understand that Afrocentrists see most of scholarship as a giant racist conspiracy against them personally, but that kind of unsupported insinuation is racist in itself, and doesn't further either the encyclopaedia, or the critical drive to ensure that black lives matter.

The entire Black Egyptian hypothesis is a fringe theory, which hangs on the contested interpretation of a non-reliable "historian". This particular issue of reliability is thus absolutely central to the article. I don't care about any mistakes Herodotus may have made when writing about "white" history, as that is not part of this article. However I am sure that he made many such mistakes as well – particularly when he writes about the gods as though they really did interact with events on earth.

Certainly this section can be simplified a lot, and I would even support scrapping the section entirely and moving the topic into the section on "Greek and Roman historians".

The proposed paragraph is heavily biased. A more balanced paragraph would be as follows:

• "Herodotus has been called both the "father of history" and "the father of lies". Writing between the 450s and 420s BC, Herodotus lived at a time when Egypt was a colony of Persia, and had previously experienced a few decades under Kushite rule. There is dispute about the historical accuracy of the works of Herodotus – some scholars support the reliability of Herodotus[12]:2–5[176]:1[177][178][179] while other scholars regard his works as being unreliable as historical sources, particularly those relating to Ancient Egypt.[180][181][182][183][184][185][186][187][188][189][190]

Can we perhaps get consensus on these issues please? Wdford (talk) 13:05, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

support Wdford's proposed paragraph here. I actually think this is basically the template of adherence to WP:BALANCE. --Calthinus (talk) 21:27, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

@wdford the suggestion is if you only disagree with Herodotus in articles about black history, but never disagree with Herodotus in articles about white history (Greece history article, pythagoras article), then it's racist. If a reader is reading a Wiki article about white history, no one bothers to mention that Herodotus is unreliable. You have to manually switch articles to Herodotus' page to find that content. If you're reading an article about black history (according to the theory advocates), then one must wade through multiple paragraphs on Herodotus' veracity. Misstating my position doesn't help to move the discussion forward.EditorfromMars (talk) 13:45, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

If a reader is reading a Wiki article about white history, no one bothers to mention that Herodotus is unreliable. first of all, "white history" is cringey, and a historically invalid term. Second of all, this is just false. Herodotus, Strabo, Caesar etc are all widely questioned in the field of European adn Middle Eastern historical ethnography where their testimony is respectively relevant. Third, even if this were true, it is whataboutism -- a logical fallacy and WP:FORUM anyways, because we are reliant on sources, not our (often incorrect) personal opinions about what is "talked about". --Calthinus (talk) 21:25, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

@wdford I like your rewrite and agree to it, but can't agree to moving the discussion of Greek and Roman authors to another article because it is the most important position in the black theory. Without this discussion of Greek and Roman author's writings, there is no black theory. All black theory advocates rely on the work of classical Greek and Roman authors in their books. Also, I would change a few decades to several, or many decades, or just list the timeframe. It was nearly a century, so the words "a few decades" would be inaccurate.EditorfromMars (talk) 13:49, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

@memelord0 i literally copy/pasted the first sentence from the Greek history article and the second sentence is from the Ancient Egyptian race controversy article and from the Black theory subsection. If the first sentence is good enough for the article on Greece's history, why isn't it good enough for the article on Egypt's history? If the second sentence is good enough for the AE race controversy article, why isn't it good enough for this article?EditorfromMars (talk) 13:45, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

@wdford If I edit the Greek history article to add a sentence or two about the unreliabilty of Herodotus in the section next to his picture are you going to support my edit?EditorfromMars (talk) 13:55, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

• @EditorfromMars: Ancient Egyptian race controversy article isn't only about this theory, so clearly it should be more summarized there. Wdford's proposed text works, and I agree that if it's going to be summarized, there is no need for it to have its own subsection. It should be included in the general Greek and Roman historians section as Wdford suggest Mohamed^Talk 14:05, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I am NOT proposing to eliminate the discussion of Greek and Roman authors, I am proposing to retain it and to add in an extra paragraph explaining the non-reliability of Herodotus, so that the discussion is kept together.

I am happy to add the specific timeframe of the Kushite dynasty.

Whether or not I support your editing of the Greek history article will depend on what changes you actually make over there. Herodotus probably knew more about Greek history than that of Egypt and Colchis, since he was sort-of Greek himself. If you have sourced examples where Herodotus was wrong about Greek history, then by all means go ahead.

Wdford (talk) 14:18, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

About this article, I agree to the condensed Herodotus text and merger with the Greek and Roman subsection

About the Greek article, I don't plan to speak to any specific controversies, but instead make a general statement about his unreliability. The statement would be copied from one of the statements about his unreliability in the Herodotus article. That way all history articles mention that Herodotus is thought to be unreliable, not just the black history articles (according to the advocates). According to almost everyone ancient and modern, Herodotus visited Egypt (for years), so he had first hand knowledge of both Greece and Egypt, but let's not rehash this debate on the Talk page. The current long version above provides all of the details.EditorfromMars (talk) 14:30, 31 August 2020 (UTC)