User talk:Cush

MyTalk

Tolkienion Maps

Hey there Cush! I didn't know you were the owner of Tolkienion, I love that site, been going to it since the early days and have been working on getting that #1 spot on your links page for years :) All this talk about maps has got me thinking about uploading my maps I have offline to Tolkien Gateway, I know there are some in there that are yours from Tolkienion and I wanted to ask for permission from you first. Keep up the great work! --Hyarion 17:17, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Rohl

20th Dynasty of Egypt with 3 distinct lines

I have a question about Rohl's chronology (and yours I think). I see you divided the 20th Dynasty into three parts and overlapped them. It is a very interesting approach. Where can I find evidence for and against such approach? Is there any evidence that would not allow you to do this? Thanks and I'll be looking forward to your answer. AG —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.86.202.27 (talk) 19:41, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Because there are three distinct lines within the 20th Dynasty (see image). Cush (talk) 17:44, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Why did you take the chart off the Rohl page? Are you amending it? TuckerResearch (talk) 20:20, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I have downloaded the New Chronology (2005).xls from the Yahoo group and I have entered its data into my Local NC manager. Now I have to structure it so I can produce a new overview. I will also have to update my database, which will take quite some effort... Cush (talk) 21:45, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

NC manager

Cush, I am mightily impressed with your NC software. Is there any way you would share this wonderful tool? I have no programming capability and a million dates and names scattered throughout a bunch of notebooks. What do you think of the Lords of Avaris? I haven't read it yet. TuckerResearch (talk) 17:49, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, do you support the New Chronology as proposed by Rohl? That would be a requirement. And then I'd have to think about giving you access to my database (the software connects to a server).

As for the Lords of Avaris, I am still struggling with the complexity of interconnections that Rohl shows to exist. I am re-reading it at the moment to extract usable dates out of it.

Is there a way to send a personal message on wikiedia?

Cush (talk) 18:38, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, ever since I saw his Pharaoh's and Kings TV special when I was about 16. I have tweaked the years up and down because I have a different Exodus date, but all the synchronisms are the same. I haven't begun Lords of Avaris yet, and my contributions to the Yahoo! Group have been less than sparse since I started work on my PhD, but I am still a Rohlian at heart.

Is the NC manager a standalone piece of software?

I don't know about the personal messaging, if I had to guess I would say no.

TuckerResearch (talk) 23:06, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

The NC manager (which is a .NET application) is not really a standalone software. It requires a database on a (web-)server and a php script that will relay the data (since my provider does not host a .NET framework yet). But if you'd install e.g. xampp on your machine it'll work. I could also write an aspx page to replace the php on a local machine, but that would require IIS to be on your machine (comes with the windows setup). On the other hand I could of course let you use my database, so everything is stored in one place ;-) It would be best if you sent me an e-mail. Just use "E-mail this user" link on my user page.

Cush (talk) 05:06, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, y'all, I have implemented an offline-version of the NC manager. Who wants it?? Cush (talk) 20:10, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again, it works great so far. It is a helpful tool for people making chronologies and working with the New Chronology. TuckerResearch (talk) 04:25, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

No bugs found yet? :-) I think I will implement a few new ways to export data, maybe to Excel or so. Cush (talk) 05:42, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm still enjoying the NC Manager - capital work! I just began reading The Lords of Avaris, it seems there are a million more dates to look into! TuckerResearch (talk) 18:24, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Sandbox

Akhenaten and Palestine

"No he didn't!" (Sorry, getting into kid-talk mode there :). What's your source for saying he did? PiCo (talk) 09:45, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I can track down a book source, but have you ever read the Amarna letters PiCo? TuckerResearch (talk) 23:21, 24 September 2008 (UTC) -- Here: Elwell, Walter (2001). Tyndale Bible Dictionary. Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers. p. 409. ISBN 0842370897. - I added the citation to the Exodus page. TuckerResearch (talk) 23:31, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Chronology at the Crossroads

Cush,

Do you own a copy of Bernard Newgrosh's Chronology at the Crossroads: The Late Bronze Age in Western Asia? If you don't, I can make a pdf copy of its chapter 18, entitled "A Chronicle of the New Chronology," which give a nice list of events, synchronisms, and dates between 1182 and 870, and post it on the forum.

TuckerResearch (talk) 23:27, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I would indeed appreciate it very much, if you could make such a pdf for me. :-) Cush (talk) 01:50, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I added the pdf to your History-Book.net New Chronology forum, under Mesopotamian Chronology, in the Assyrian Chronology thread. I hope you find it informative. TuckerResearch (talk) 02:48, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Helpful site

I figured that this could be helpful to you: http://daahl.ucsd.edu/DAAHL/ TuckerResearch (talk) 20:17, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I will look into that. Seems interesting at a first glance. Cush (talk) 22:27, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

For your recent reversion at Pi-hahiroth‎. I think we have a recurring problem, have you seen [1]? 17:24, 2 January 2009 (UTC)dougweller (talk)

This is the the same stuff that is edited every now and then into the "Stations list of the Exodus" article. I am not sure there is a need for a Pi-hahiroth article in the first place. Cush (talk) 18:33, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

This edit summary

This edit summary is very similar to the writings of Dr. Joseph Goebbels, or is it a direct quote from him? What is your problem? Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 13:36, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Keep your personal attacks to yourself. The point is that only such people who have a religious interest in the Exodus being real will ever claim that it is. Without the Exodus Judaism and subsequently a number of Christian denominations are finished. The archaeological record for an actual Exodus as described in the bible is exactly ZERO. And what I hate is that the articles and discussions on WP are obviously driven by religious people. This is supposed to be a serious encyclopedia and not some fairy tale land.

BTW the Jewish ideology of chosenness is a lot closer to Mr Goebbels' ideals than what I could possibly write. The Jewish claim to be God's people is practically the same as Nazis claiming to be the Herrenrasse. Cush (talk) 14:37, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure some would draw some major contrasts between the two; but I'll leave you to your own opinions; just remember this is supposed to be a neutral encyclopedia. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 15:06, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

If this is supposed to be a neutral encyclopedia, then why is all the religiously biased POV material allowed to remain? Every article that starts with "according to the bible" but then goes on to elaborate on the issue as if it were history is basically worthless. Such as the "The Exodus" article. Cush (talk) 15:11, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

It's one of several competing views of history. It's not worthless to explain what the competing views are - as long as we make it clear that there are competing views. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 16:11, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

No. History and archaeology are sciences like all others. Either you have evidence to support your claims, or you don't. The reason why the "Exodus" is dated in a wide temporal range from the 13th Dynasty to the 20th Dynasty is exactly the complete lack of any evidence. All there is are the claims of a fundamentalist religion. That is worthless. And a book that was written hundreds, even thousands, of years after the events at issue and written by folks who have an interest in creating history is no reliable source whatsoever. Cush (talk) 18:39, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Hello, Cush. You have new messages at Gidonb's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Rehoboam

Needs a good rewrite. Some is written by a Creationist I'm pretty sure, the same person who used Bible and Spade for the chronology at Solomon which I've rewritten but needs work also. It needs to be rewritten in a non-universe style and the chronology bit reworked. Interested? Dougweller (talk) 09:30, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I can sure take a look at it and make some suggestions. Cush (talk) 15:56, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Ubaid

Yeh, I updated the Ubaid Period article to include the actual site (archaeology etc) and some misc updates, and coords. Seemed mostly ready to add to COTANE.Ploversegg (talk) 04:46, 15 April 2009 (UTC)ploversegg

I have adjusted the coordinates somewhat. I suppose this is the right spot?

I used http://www.baghdadmuseum.org/usace/ and entry off http://www.cemml.colostate.edu/cultural/09476/iraq05a.html which were about the same. Ploversegg (talk) 19:38, 15 April 2009 (UTC)ploversegg

The latter of your websites has 30.955608920,46.046645324 for Ubaid. However there is nothing visible at the surface. And it's almost 2 km from the location I gave. So which one is right? Cush (talk) 05:11, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

3RR Warning

Your recent editing history shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war; that means that you are repeatedly changing content back to how you think it should be, when you have seen that other editors disagree. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you are reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war; read about how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.

Being involved in an edit war can result in you being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you do not violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly.

I have informed Dougweller of your disruptive editing on the Passage of the Red Sea article without engaging in a discussion first. You are restoring the Rktect stuff without any consensus. Please stop forcing your or his WP:OR into the article. Cush (talk) 18:05, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

It isn't my POV. Yam Suf has been identified as the Red Sea throughout most of recorded history, including in the Bible itself (in the only place where geographical indications exist). I don't care if Rktect included that as part of his agenda; you can't delegitimize the translation just because Rktect used it as well. -Lisa (talk) 21:15, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Yam Suf does not translate as Red Sea no matter how much you may twist your biblical text. I do know that many older renditions (including the KJV) erroneously translate the term thus but more recent translations all have "Sea of Reeds". The most important point is to note that the Hebrew term literally means Sea of Reeds and that it derives from Egyptian, where the term never refers to the Red Sea to my knowledge. And given the geography of the Eastern Delta region of Egypt in the respective time frame it is obvious that any group flying from Egypt must have somehow crossed the chain of lakes between the Mediterranean and what today is called the Gulf of Suez (cf. map). The ONLY way out of Egypt was to avoid the military strongholds at Tjafanet (Zafane) and Miktol (Migdol) and the heavily guarded road "via maris" to Gaza (the seat of the Egyptian governor). Cush (talk) 22:55, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Some links

You might be interested in this site - it's a blog (very academic and respectable) with lots of links to online resources. Haven't found anything in it about biblical chronology yet :) PiCo (talk) 09:06, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Which site? Cush (talk) 12:03, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry - [2]. PiCo (talk) 00:01, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

That is a lot of religiously motivated material. I do not trust religious people when it comes to archaeological and historical accuracy simply because of their obvious conflict of interests. Especially I do not trust Jews, because people who fabricate deities have no trouble fabricating history as well. Jewish records of the Exodus or of the glorious kings and judges are just not sound. I wouldn't trust or even ask the Vatican or Evangelicals about the historicity of Jesus either... Cush (talk) 16:52, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

The site is academic, not religious. "PaleoJudaica.com is an experiment that aims to chronicle and comment on current developments (mainly as recorded in Internet sources) in the academic field of ancient Judaism and its historical and literary context." People with a religious slant would call it atheistic. It's run by Jim Davila, Reader in Early Jewish Studies at St Andrews University, Scotland - quite respectable in terms of his competence to pick what's relevant and interesting in the field. The link I put above is to various sources Davila has found online. His actual blog is here. PiCo (talk) 07:49, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

What in the world distinguishes Jews from Christians, Hindus, etc when it comes to 'fabricating' gods? It's just part of human nature in any case. Dougweller (talk) 10:00, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Rktect

Although I'm not happy about your comments about me, I thought I'd tell you I've removed some of his material from Moses and Midian and am looking at the articles he created. Dougweller (talk) 10:00, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

So if you are going after the Rktect stuff, please remove the File:Horeb.jpg image, because it is a map altered by himself to advance his position that the Exodus took place at the Gulf of Aqaba (he inserted the Horeb label at the bottom of the image himself).

And what comments? Sometimes I am just not so sure whether you demand adherence to WP rules from everybody in the same manner. Many articles about issues related to the ancient Middle East and subsequently the bible come across like religionist manifestos and are full of OR, e.g. from editors like User:Lisa (wasn't she an admin once?). Adherence to WP rules does not always produce the best results anyways, because the demand for secondary sources does not at all ask for the quality and neutrality of those sources (reliability is not the same as accuracy, Kenneth Kitchen is regarded a reliable Egyptologist but a closer look at his work reveals sloppiness and a clear submission to his christian fundamentalism). And many articles only have jewish or christian encyclopediae in their references section. That is just ridiculous. And I also wonder why you are the only admin around to take care of this whole mess of bible/history-related articles. WP is not religiously neutral, and I have no clue where you stand on that. Cush (talk) 10:35, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not clear why you don't remove the map yourself, why is that? I try to be consistent, I'm sure I fail at times. I believe in WP:RS and the statement "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true." If you can built an argument that Kitchen shouldn't be used in an article that I can support, I gladly will. Don't ask me why other Admins aren't involved in some of the articles I am, I've no idea why that is. I hope you've read WP:Religion because it could be a real problem and you might want to comment on the talk page, although at the moment it seems pretty quiet. I'm not sure what you mean by WP is not religiously neutral, do you mean by policy or? Dougweller (talk) 14:08, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

How do I remove an image?

WP:RS fails in producing reliable WP articles. Just because something has been published does not mean it is worth anything. What's more, the source of a publication is essential to its reliability. If an article about the historicity of a biblical figure refers to soures that are published by jewish or christian institutions then the reliability is zero because of the COI that these would be in if they were to produce accurate material. I wouldn't expect the pope to publish anything meaningful about the historicity of Jesus, but nevertheless a book by the current pope on exactly that matter exists and it would be accepted by WP as a reliable source. Does a reliable source not have to be neutral? Equally using Kitchen as a source should be rejected exactly because he is a devout pentecostal evangelical. What I have learned about the Kitched-Rohl enmity is that the chronology by Rohl does in fact open a possibility for the bible to be real history, but it also makes divine involvement superfluous. I think that is the real reason behind Kitchen's disproportionate rejection of Rohl. He reminds me of creationists rejecting evolution. But such considerations cannot reflected in WP articles, because it would amount to OR and personal POV.

WP is not religiously neutral because it allows editors to use non-neutral language in articles. Whenever I try to alter "Chosen People" to "Israelites" or "Promised Land" to "Canaan" I get reverted. I mean, such language can appear in quotations, but certainly not in the text body of the WP article itself, even if the context is clear. There are tons of neutrality violations in WP, and I suppose you know that. It is my impression that due to the large number of religionist editors such charged language is tolerated, although it violates WP:Religion "There is no "default" position".

Oh, and I really see no use in having citations in Hebrew as if this were the Encyclopedia Iudaica. Cush (talk) 16:32, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:Religion has no status right now I believe, a good thing because it would not help. I know there are a lot of neutrality violations, but I can only do what I can.

You can delete the image from the article easily, just as though it was text.

David Rohl considers the Bible to be more or less historical truth even though he's not a Christian, so I'm not sure how much better he is than Kitchen, he's just makes different arguments. I wouldn't make a creationist-evolutionist comparison here. Dougweller (talk) 16:44, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

• So WP:Religion is a guideline, not a rule? I did not say you should remove all the neutrality violations, but I definitely miss a concerted effort of admins to reduce the religious bias in the wording of so many articles.
• No, I mean removing the image, not just the usage in an article.
• Ok, there are two sides to this. Rohl's revision of Egyptian chronology had the effect that the biblical dating suddenly fell in place with the new dates he arrived at for Egypt. So, unlike everybody else in the past 150 years he did not start out with the bible and sought to verify it. He went on from there and tried to inject the info given in the bible into his Egyptian chronology to explain certain peculiarities in Egyptian history. I do notice there is sometimes too much readiness to take a biblical tale seriously. I did in fact realize while reading his books that in some passages he went overboard, which of course reduces the credibility and unfortunately moves Rohl in the Velikovsky direction. Some of these passages are clarified in his later publications, unfortunately not all. The point I am making is that although I do not uncritically accept Rohl I know for sure that the incorporation of the biblical story into the orthodox chronology does just not work, except when one arbitrarily picks and chooses from the bible whatever seems fitting. I like the coherence in Rohl's model which I miss in the others. I do agree, however, that Rohl and others needs to refine the model. But if Rohl is overall wrong, why has he not been shown to be wrong? Where is the evidence-based refutation? If he is wrong, showing so should be easy... Cush (talk) 17:35, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:Religion is just a draft, not even a proposal, and it may never get any further than a draft. I don't see any grounds to delete the image, what grounds would there be? I don't think that the Exodus, etc ever took place, I'm one of those that think the Israelite tribes in the main were indigenous to Canaan and that Judaism developed there during the first millennium. It doesn't appear many people take Rohl seriously enough to try to refute him. Dougweller (talk) 17:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

So you follow Finkelstein's reasoning? Cush (talk) 17:44, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

New Chronology page

Hey Cush. I just wanted to drop by and say that you've acquitted yourself very well in the "battle royal" over the New Chronology (Rohl) page. I particularly like your image, "File:NC Egyptian chronology comparison.png," though I'd like to recommend that you tell us who the "Shaw" of the conventional chronology and what work you got it from. You could put it in the caption or on the image description page. Otherwise, kudos.

TuckerResearch (talk) 02:19, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Warning about your behavior

Cush, you had a conniption when I used an off-color term to describe you on my own talk page. I was blocked for it for 24 hours. But as the following diffs show, you are regularly abusive, foul-mouthed, and bigoted, and your refusal to assume good faith and denigration of other editors has been going on for too long. I'm asking you to stop. Accept the fact that your opinion about religion is your opinion, and doesn't have any special standing on Wikipedia.

These diffs are a partial list. I got tired of going back through your history. But it's easy enough to extend the list. Change your behavior and your attitude, please.

• 20:25, 19 August 2009 "Lisa only suggests this name change to keep out material she does not like due to her religionist disposition"
• 07:08, 20 August 2009 "Lisa is widely known to manipulate articles to render a religion-friendly POV. She has been warned about that so many times it ain't even funny anymore." (this was a fabrication)
• 15:40, 20 August 2009 "when it comes to historicity religiously motivated publishers are in a COI"
• 20:37, 20 August 2009 "Reliable sources for the historicity of anything are scientific sources. That excludes all publications by religious institutions or religiously motivated individuals"
• 18:10, 9 September 2009 "anyone who has really read the bible and has an IQ above 5 will instantly recognize that it is a big fat lie", "religionists like you who may have "reliable sources" on their side but just no common sense or logic"
• 05:09, 10 September 2009 "you fail to admit your COI when it comes to biblical history"
• 18:34, 18 September 2009 "Religious people are in a COI when it comes to historical accuracy"
• 14:18, 27 September 2009 "nutjob who ever wrote about this"
• 12:42, 4 October 2009 "there is no such thing as a 'Jewish people'"
• 16:37, 4 October 2009 "religionist POV"
• 20:31, 9 October 2009 Personal attack
• 09:34, 19 October 2009 "Welcome to Wikipedia and its many endorsements of Jewish POVs"
• 17:09, 26 October 2009 "Divine intolerance towards dissent"
• 14:44, 30 October 2009 "digging up very old shit"
• 21:25, 2 November 2009 "Read the fucking Bible"
• 13:42, 3 November 2009 "Lisa is always Lisa", "Your Lisa-fundamentalism shows. As usual"

-Lisa (talk) 15:54, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

What is your point? You ARE trying to push your religious views into articles, and I am highly allergic to that. I am equally allergic to vain and empty religions such as Judaism, that are built on the ill imagination of fanatics. I have known you for too long to assume that you are capable of a neutral position in matters of levantine history and the related stuff that the adherents of your religion constantly try to sell as history. Most of the events described in the bible evidently never happened. That is why I cannot accept your religiously motivated arguments as serious discourse. All it always comes down to is the claims made in the Bible. That is insufficient for me. I knwo WP is not in search for truth, but at least accuracy. Realigion never produces accuracy.

I do not know you personally, and I do not assail you as a person, but as a prominent WP-representative of something that I judge irrational and highly dangerous. Cush (talk) 17:28, 3 November 2009 (UTC)