When I wrote yesterday about GOP frontrunner Dr. Ben Carson’s 1998 claim that the pyramids of Egypt were built by the Jewish patriarch Joseph to store grain during the Biblical seven years of famine, I assumed that like most crackpot claims from candidates it would be a one-day wonder. But then Carson doubled down on his assertion, repeating it in interviews yesterday and adding that “secular progressives” were trying to mock him for a claim that he regards as a “personal belief” that should be immune from criticism. He also asserted that the Bible supports his views on the true function of the pyramids. The story isn’t going away: It was covered on the Today show again this morning. There’s a lot to unpack there, so it’s probably worth devoting a little more space to this unusual foray of a major political figure into the realm of pseudo-archaeology. The most concerning part of this anti-science debacle is Carson’s assertion that claims about ancient history are merely “personal beliefs” that should not be evaluated against facts. When asked directly if he was specifically claiming that the pyramids were literally built under the direction of Joseph and were used to store grain, Carson replied, “It’s a plausible belief […] because I believe in the Bible.” But facts aren’t “beliefs,” and it’s disturbing that Carson feels that he can use “belief” as a magic wand to avoid having to support his feelings with facts. When we also note that Carson seems unable to distinguish between ancient astronaut theorists and actual scientists—he asserted that “all these scientists” believe the pyramids to be the work of aliens—we see a portrait of a man who seems to view knowledge as a series of competing belief systems rather than an attempt to approximate reality through observation and conclusions drawn from observations. But the second part of his defense was also upsetting because he cast his “belief” as existing in opposition to “secular progressives,” as though Christians would uniformly accept a crackpot version of ancient history—or the Bible. The fact of the matter is that the claim doesn’t appear in the Bible at all. The story of Joseph and Pharaoh is told in Genesis 41, where Joseph tells Pharaoh that a prophetic dream foretells seven years of famine. In Genesis 41:48, we read that Joseph collected grain in each Egyptian city as insurance against the famine, and in Genesis 41:56 we read that this grain was kept in storehouses. If we read this literally, it would seem that there was a storehouse in each city, so even if you believe literally in Genesis, these storehouses cannot be the pyramids. That did not stop people from speculating about them, however. Here is where things start to get complicated. According to some sources, the monk Rufinus reported in the second of two books he added to his translation of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History that pyramids were shown as Joseph’s granaries in his day, c. 410 CE, but this passage doesn’t appear in modern editions, for reasons unknown to me. (The closest source I can find is a sixteenth century hagiography.) In St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice, there is a series of murals made in 1204 that depict scenes from Genesis. Because many of these match closely to images in the illustrated Cotton Genesis, a copy of the Book of Genesis made in the fifth century CE, it’s assumed that the remaining murals reflect pages missing from the incomplete Cotton Genesis. One of these shows Joseph’s granaries as the Pyramids of Egypt, with holes at their peaks for pouring in grain. If this assumption is correct, then the Cotton Genesis would be the oldest identification of the pyramids with the granaries of Joseph. (Interestingly, at the same time the Church Fathers also identified Noah’s Ark as being pyramid shaped, suggesting a reason that Late Antiquity came to view the pyramids as Arks in stone that preserved knowledge just as the wooden Ark preserved life.) Julius Honorius, a Roman writer of Late Antiquity (c. 500 +/- 50 years), was apparently the first to describe the pyramids as Joseph’s granaries, in his Cosmographia, in which he says that the pyramids “are called the storehouses of Joseph,” but without elaboration. The claim appears again in the commentaries of Pseudo-Nonnus in the first half of the 500s. Gregory of Tours, who in 594 CE wrote in the History of the Franks 1.10 that Joseph’s granaries were made of stone, wide at the base, and narrow at the top. Although he had never seen the pyramids, they are clearly his inspiration. In 825 CE the monk Dicuil, writing in the Liber de Mensua Orbis Terrae 6.13, described the monk Fidelis’s visit to the pyramids and identified them as Joseph’s granaries. The claim appears as well in the commentaries of Nicetas of Heraclea in the eleventh century and the Byzantine Etymologicum magnum of the twelfth century (among other sources), in both of which the word “pyramid” is said to derive from the Greek word for “grain.” The reason for this belief is a little unclear. Some of it is likely due to sheer ignorance at the end of Antiquity, when Egypt was slowly falling out of the increasingly isolated West’s orbit. Although the Byzantines had the legend, it was never as popular in the East, where Classical views of the pyramids in Greek competed with Christian views. The oldest Islamic attestation of the granaries myth that I know of is Al-Idrisi’s History of the Pyramids (c. 1150 CE), which was likely reporting it from a Christian source; however, I have read that earlier Islamic authors dismissed the granaries claim as unfounded. Prior to that, Islamic lore generally considered the pyramids to be antediluvian structures, or at least vastly ancient, and the storehouses to be much more recent. Another reason is probably cultural appropriation. Reassigning the pyramids from pagan Egyptian tombs to holy granaries of a Biblical patriarch Christianized them and made them an acceptable monument to the Judeo-Christian heritage in the years when Christianity finally overcame paganism in Byzantine Egypt. But the clearest and best explanation is an inference that can be found in our friend Rufinus, who reported in Ecclesiastical History (his translation of Eusebius) 11.23 that Christians and Jews in Egypt alike both identified Joseph with the Greco-Egyptian god Serapis, a form of Osiris, and the Jews said that a statue of Serapis the grain-giver actually depicted Joseph. This claim can be found as far back as Tertullian, in Ad nationes 2.8 (197 CE): “For that Serapis of yours was originally one of our own saints called Joseph” (trans. Peter Holmes). Thus, some scholars have argued that the sarcophagus of the Apis bull (in this period, an aspect of Serapis) became identified with the sarcophagus of Joseph, and both Joseph and Osiris-Serapis were said to have had their coffins drowned in the Nile (the former in a Jewish tradition repeated by Christians and Muslims). But what is most relevant is from this is that because the pyramids were known to be tombs, and the Late Antique Egyptians associated death with Serapis, the inference is that pyramids were seen as the realm of Serapis. Thus, some scholars have concluded that for Christians and Jews, these became the structures of Joseph, and since Osiris-Serapis was identified with the grain in Egypt (as Plutarch reported in Isis in Osiris), it’s a small inference to call the pyramids the place where the grain-giving Joseph operated. Whatever the cause, the belief was by no means universal even in the West, but it was frequently repeated by medieval chroniclers. Famously, Sir John Mandeville—the fictitious author of a plagiarized travelogue—described the pyramids in these words: “And some men say, that they be sepultures [= tombs] of great lords, that were sometime, but that is not true, for all the common rumour and speech is of all the people there, both far and near, that they be the garners [= granaries] of Joseph; and so find they in their scriptures, and in their chronicles.” Mandeville was perhaps the first modern doubter of the tomb theory, asking why, if these pyramids were tombs, they were all empty. His answer, though, reflected a widespread Christian claim, more popular in the West than, as he claimed, in Egypt itself. But that was the high point of the granaries theory. It went out of fashion very quickly once the struggle against Islam settled into a stalemate after the fall of Constantinople and travel to Egypt became, if not easy, somewhat easier for Westerners. In 1484, no less pious a fellow than a Catholic canon from Mainz, Bernhard von Breydenbach, visited the pyramids on his way back from a tour of the Holy Land—he was as religious as they come. He took one look at the pyramids and wrote the following, published in 1486 in a medieval bestseller called Peregrinatio in terram sanctam: Beyond the Nile we beheld many pyramids, which in ages past the kings of Egypt caused to be built over their tombs, of which the vulgar say that these are the granaries or storehouses which were built there by Joseph in order to store grain. However, this is clearly false, for these pyramids are not hollow inside. (Latin edition, f116r, my trans.) That final sentence effectively ended the granaries claim for several centuries, as every scholar thereafter—whatever his beliefs—recognized that solid blocks of stone with, at best, one or two tiny rooms would make ridiculous storehouses. Well, almost. An eighteenth century edition of Hertel’s Iconologica illustrated the story of Joseph’s granaries with a picture of a pyramid. Nevertheless, as the number of European travelers to Egypt increased in the 1500s and 1600s, the idea of granaries became increasingly insupportable in light of observation. If there were any remaining doubt, the famed professor John Greaves squashed it in his monumental Pyramidographia (1646), the most important work on the pyramids between ancient and modern times. He called the claim “most improper” on account of the fact that pyramids are the wrong shape to maximize storage, and the “fewness of the rooms within (the rest of the building being one solid and intire frabrick of stone) do utterly overthrow this conjecture.”
At this point, science tended to govern European attitudes toward the pyramids, and I am not aware of any scholar who seriously argued that they were granaries after 1800. But that doesn’t mean that no one ever did. In 1895, Mrs. Jane Van Gelder received merciless mocking for her book The Store-Houses of the King, or the Pyramids of Egypt, in which she tried to resurrect the granaries theory “simply to uphold the truth of the Holy Bible.” This suggests that beneath the surface of elite opinion the older view of Joseph’s granaries remained wedged in some religious traditions and communities, largely outside of the observation of the so-called “secular progressive” scholars, who are surprised by the occasional recurrence of medieval ideas. I do not know of any fundamentalist groups that officially teach this view, but it would not surprise me if Carson is not alone in mistaking medieval Christian legend for evidence of Biblical truths. [Update: James Tabor has some fascinating information about twentieth century evangelical literature on the pyramids as the granaries of Joseph in this blog post.] I guess we’re experiencing another outbreak of medievalism, but we can take heart that if it is true than the story was inspired by Jews and early Christians trying to syncretize their faiths with the glory of grain-giving Serapis in the Roman era of Egypt, then there is some irony in the pagan origin of Carson’s Christian extremist beliefs.
81 Comments
Clete
11/6/2015 11:13:04 am
You know, if they were storehouses for anything, it would make more sense to turn them upside down and hollow them out. This should have been an easy task for Ancient Aliens (who could move stone by an anti-gravity devise and hollow them out with diamond saws). It is a sad commentary on someone running for the highest office in the land that he doesn't know the difference between real scientists and fringe "researchers" and comes down on the side of the fringe types. Then just excuses that by saying it's his personnel belief.
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need to lookup pyramids power the shape of help keep food 2-3 times longer an that grain was found in the tombs that were thousands of years old back in sixtys milk was kept in pyramid shape cartons to keep it from spoiling that does not mean that that that pyramid shape storage was not used by people long ago
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Clete
11/13/2015 03:47:13 pm
Matt...you really need to take a writing course. Your comment is one long, incoherent sentence, with misspelling (sixtys), should be sixties. Also sentences start with capitals (need) should be Need. You write like you are about twelve.
DaveR
11/16/2015 09:27:30 am
Matt, the milk carton you're referencing was not based on a pyramid design, it was a tetrahedron. Also this design was not based upon the alleged "pyramid power" that kept milk fresh longer, it was a simple matter of economics. This design used the least amount of material for the storage of milk.
Joe
12/21/2015 09:55:13 pm
I think it's very justifiable. Think about it. When you dump particles of sand, dirt, grain, etc from above, it forms a pile that has a large base and comes to an apex. It would make sense to build storehouses in this same shape because, as DaveR said below, it's economical. You get probably almost 100% capacity for the volume. That's efficient. Look at the buildings they use for storing road salt. Sure, you'll find rectangular ones, but they are inefficient, you can't use a plow to push/scoop the salt from the side and hope to get the salt all the way to the top. There's lots of dead space left above. Many salt storehouses use conical-type shapes because they give you the most bang for your buck, while also keeping moisture levels very low, which is important not only for salt, but for grain obviously. It's extremely plausible. It doesn't mean that ALL storehouses for grain would have to be conical/pyramid shaped, who knows, they may've reused other buildings in Egypt's smaller cities to store grain there. What's most cost and time effective makes the most sense. Building these tremendous structures for burying only dead people would be dumb, but I can see them using it for that after the grain was used up. The pyramids would be symbolic of preserving life, which would coincide with burying people there, figuring their souls may also get saved if buried there, superstitious as many of them were in those days.
Pam
11/6/2015 01:13:01 pm
I appreciate your literary detective abilities, Jason. I suppose the mining of literary resources of the medieval period will at least be a change from the usual 19th century sources.
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Ethan X
11/9/2015 07:32:34 pm
Here is my take on the situation, and it is (in my humble opinion) the most important, and the most damaging to Dr. Carson.
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I agree that Carson is not fit, but let me add no one is fit, in my view, to rule others. Sure, overall, he might be among the worst to want that position, but let's not praise any of them or pretend we should bow before them simply because they haven't made ridic comments about the pyramids.
Patrick
11/10/2015 04:55:49 pm
Except that the use of pyramid structures for food storage can't be unequivocally dismissed! Keep in mind that the indisputable data hasn't changed for 4000+ year old structures significantly. The biggest pyramids at Giza, while not geometrically ideal for wheat storage, still would have been able to hold a substantial portion. It's not unbelievable, or even improbable, that the men tasked with building burial chambers for a pharaoh might have sold the king on the multiple use of the pyramids other than a resting place for a few bodies. Undeniable periods of famine were definitely a contingency that would have been an interest to the Egyptian rulers.
Bob Jase
11/10/2015 05:00:25 pm
For Patrick - Perhaps the pyramids were also used to store water in case of drought? Just cover them with rubber sealant to make them waterproof and fill them up. Large rubber stoppers can be used to close them.
Judas Priest
11/10/2015 10:56:49 pm
Patrick:
DaveR
11/12/2015 08:18:25 am
Patrick, there is zero evidence supporting the pyramid grainery claim, therefor the claim can, and is unequivocally dismissed.
Pam
11/6/2015 01:36:44 pm
"I do not know of any fundamentalist groups that officially teach this view, but it would not surprise me if Carson is not alone in mistaking medieval Christian legend for evidence of Biblical truths."
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Nobody Knows
11/6/2015 02:10:52 pm
Yes, it's funny how continuing generations of people accept the irrational Bible and keep Christianity going - it's as palpable as any of Scott Wolter's claims.
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Pam
11/6/2015 02:52:23 pm
Nobody Knows :
Couscous
11/6/2015 04:17:53 pm
Could be more of a thing in some Seventh Day Adventist circles. The PR people for the church have stated they don't believe in it and that it is Carson's own personal belief instead of the Church's belief, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was more common lower down the chain. A lot of denominations have congregations where some odd beliefs are pretty common despite the leaders being embarrassed by them.
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Mike M
11/11/2015 09:16:36 am
As an SDA preacher's kid, I can tell you it certainly wasn't something I was taught at any point. But yeah, there are some folks in the church with some seriously odd ideas, so it wouldn't surprise me that there are some who do believe it.
busterggi (Bob Jase)
11/6/2015 02:48:27 pm
Nonsense about the pyramids being grain storage facilities - that was what Stonehenge was for, built by the REAL Hebrews living in England rather than those fake Hebrews in the Middle-East.
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Pam
11/6/2015 02:55:30 pm
Maybe Trump believes that one. :)
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Tony
11/7/2015 01:04:02 pm
Trump responds: "The pyramids were originally casinos. Yuuuuge casinos!"
Joe Scales
11/6/2015 02:59:51 pm
Although this sort of lunacy will only endear him more to his base, now that he's been exposed for claiming he was accepted at West Point when they have no record of him applying, his 15 minutes are up.
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Pam
11/6/2015 03:09:35 pm
Sad when the truth (if it is the truth )of the alternative explanation would have served him as well.
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Bob Jase
11/6/2015 04:30:24 pm
Exposed lies only help fundiepublicans as they are sources for crocodile tears & phoney redemption that the sheeple lap up.
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Uncle Ron
11/6/2015 10:23:06 pm
t didn't take much more than a couple hours for the real truth to come out: that Politico, which published the false story of Carson supposedly claiming to have been accepted at West Point, made THAT story up. How easily so many jump on a bandwagon to discredit a Republican but are willing to ignore so much subterfuge from the other side.
Pam
11/6/2015 11:29:43 pm
Uncle Ron :
tm
11/7/2015 05:06:58 am
After living through birtherism and the Benghazi hearings I don't think it's accurate to suggest more people are willing to jump to conclusions about Republicans.
Joe Scales
11/7/2015 11:48:18 am
" How easily so many jump on a bandwagon to discredit a Republican but are willing to ignore so much subterfuge from the other side."
Tony
11/7/2015 01:28:51 pm
Just an observation: In his autobiography and in several speeches he's given over the years, Carson has claimed that he was offered a scholarship to West Point. What cracks me up is that "the Home of the Mules" doesn't offer scholarships. Attendance is free, contingent upon the cadet serving a period of years as an Army officer.
Uncle Ron
11/8/2015 08:04:54 pm
Tony-
Joe Scales
11/8/2015 10:54:15 pm
Uncle Ron, ignorant exaggerations in regard to potential military service don't play well with a rather large portion of the electorate for commander in chief. How a similar flub would affect someone in the opposing party is apples and oranges. I really do think this will be the beginning of the end for Carson.
Scott Hamilton
11/6/2015 03:26:55 pm
Googling around, I did find that certain Biblical literalists have written books arguing that Joseph was Imhotep, and that not the Great Pyramids but some complexes around other, earlier pyramids were Joseph's granaries. I wonder if Carson, with his incurious nature, may have heard about some of these theories second hand and back-formed the medieval version of the belief by misremembering it.
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Pam
11/6/2015 03:48:47 pm
Yes, but he'd have to ignore the current Egyptian chronology (which he may have done) to match Joseph to Imhotep.
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Scott Hamilton
11/6/2015 05:04:48 pm
I think it goes without saying that Carson doesn't care about any real historical chronology. I'm saying that he heard about these people saying "Joseph was Imhotep, that proves the Bible is literally true, and these pyramids (but not the famous ones) were the granaries of the Years of Plenty," and he misunderstood that to mean the famous pyramids were the granaries. And it's obvious from reading about Carson's beliefs and how he came to them that he never, ever, seeks out any information on his own, especially if it challenges his beliefs.
Pam
11/6/2015 05:17:11 pm
Sorry, Scott. I just got hung up on the Imhotep part . :)
DaveR
11/6/2015 03:37:11 pm
If he thinks personal beliefs should be immune from criticism he might not want to continue pursuing political office.
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Graham
11/6/2015 06:44:11 pm
Somewhere in my collection of 'Alternative Interpretations of History' books is one claiming that the Pyramids were built as atomic bomb shelters....
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This reminds of what someone once pointed out regarding Stanislaw's novel Solaris. He said the "Solariana" section contained all the plots that might be done with the mystery planet in a science fiction novel. Maybe we should similarly just brainstorm all the possibilities, disseminate them, and note how long they take before they end up not just in alternative histories but also in presidential campaigns.
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ChrisK
11/7/2015 11:20:58 am
Well, it might seem ridiculous to use the pyramids as granaries. But the argument "they are not hollow" does not really debunk the theory. Dr. Carson himself refers to the rooms inside the pyramid, so he is well aware of it that there are rooms inside the pyramids. The fact that these rooms are small, is also not an argument against the granary theory. You can of course store grain in small rooms. It might not be very practical, but hey: the conventional theory that they are graves also doesn't sound very logic, does it? For a grave you just need to dig a hole. If you accept that people build gigantic graves because of religious reasons, then you shouldn't find it too absurd to think that people store grain in small rooms. In fact, in Eastern Asia I have seen granaries on temple areas which were very small. I don't think the granaries theory is correct. But this is due to the timing issue - it takes so long to build them, Joseph can hardly finish those before the seven years of famine. They might have been there already and reused as granaries for the famine. The pyramid writings however seem to indicate they are graves. Dr. Carson maybe believes that God helped the people building them in short time. That is then not convincing for others, as scientific evidence should be (intersubjective verifiability). On the other hand, Dr. Carson never tried to convince others of his personal belief how fast the Pyramids were created. I wouldn't so easily say that believing pyramids are ridiculous granaries is neglecting science, effectively extrapolating this statement on a unimportant issue to science in general. Particularly when the alternative version is, that pyramids were ridiculous graves. Sure, screening the evidence reveals that the latter is by far the most likely outcome, but according to scientific theory (Karl Popper), science cannot prove that something is true but just prove that something cannot be rejected. And obviously the ridiculous grave theory is not fully intersubjectively verifiable. Dr. Carson might weigh the evidence in another way as the scientific mainstream, and that is his personal opinion on a very unimportant issue. I wonder how many non-scientific conclusions Clinton etc have made but keep them secret. I would find a totally ration human somewhat scary, also because you do not have the time to go into an issue of little importance and form an opinion made on incomplete information (it seems Dr. Carson has made some serious thoughts about the pyramids, though). The thing is that politicians keep an eye on that their crazy conclusions don't become public, while Dr. Carson is unskilled with the media and tends to talk a bit too much when asked irrelevant or hypothetical questions.
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Not the Comte de Saint Germain
11/7/2015 03:51:31 pm
The problem is Carson's lack of intellectual curiosity—or, to put it more bluntly, his willful ignorance. The evidence that the pyramids were tombs (hint: a lot of them contain sarcophagi, and several of them contain inscriptions that talk endlessly about the afterlife) can be found in just about every popular introductory book on ancient Egypt. Carson has had his granary theory for at least 17 years, and it's apparently important enough to him that he brought it up in a public address, yet he never bothered to look at any of the evidence? Moreover, he's so clueless about the scientific and scholarly communities that he confuses the "aliens built them" crowd with scientists.
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Quembe Walkingstick
11/7/2015 09:00:10 pm
A lot of Christians believe in the rapture, and there is no proof.
Only Me
11/8/2015 03:39:13 am
I'm curious, "Quembe". Did you ask the real Quembe Walkingstick for permission to use her name for your comments? You know, Quembe Mary Lou Walkingstick, who has her own Facebook page?
Andrew M
11/9/2015 12:45:20 pm
Carson isn't trying to prove his theory or profit from it so why should he be spending his time researching it. lots of people are going to have odd theories but they may not have have the desire or time to go find more evidence.
Not the Comte de Saint Germain
11/10/2015 07:14:23 pm
If he had ever cracked an introductory book on ancient Egypt (or at least one not written by extreme biblical literalists), he would have some idea of why the granary notion is unlikely. I don't think that quite rises to the level of "research." Moreover, he apparently glommed on to the granary claim because of his biblical literalism, which also leads him to deny evolution and the Big Bang. In my book, anyone who denies science to that extent is unfit for federal office. And if that doesn't have direct enough bearing on the presidency for you, Carson doesn't know the difference between the debt ceiling and the budget, which any president certainly should know.
Tony
11/8/2015 12:03:13 pm
Book proposal: "Ben Carson and the Chamber of Lies"
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V
11/8/2015 08:31:27 pm
Actually, ChrisK, it IS possible to say scientifically that the size of the rooms in the pyramids prohibits their being granaries. We have an estimate of the population of Egypt at the time from Egyptian records, and we have some idea of how much grain it would take to feed those people for a year.
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Heidel
11/9/2015 08:12:43 pm
So how much grain can you store in a double-wide mobile home? Because that's about the total volume of those rooms. Enough to feed a nation for seven years? Given the labor involved, do you really think this is cost-effective? Because for the amount of time, labor and materials that went into any of the great pyramids, they could have built a couple dozen really fancy and durable granaries.
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11/8/2015 07:24:27 am
Crackpot archaeologist Ron Wyatt (who, like Carson, was a Seventh-Day Adventist) didn't propose the Great Pyramid was a hollow grain storehouse, but he did propose that the Step Pyramid was used for grain storage and distribution. He also thought Joseph and Imhotep were the same person. I wonder if Carson has absorbed his theories?
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Tom Cruser
11/8/2015 08:08:02 am
I'll just leave this here:
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Benny Gesarett
11/9/2015 08:08:24 pm
Yup; amusing reading but about as scientifically accurate as moon landing hoaxers.
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Brian M
11/8/2015 02:07:45 pm
"...it’s disturbing that Carson feels that he can use “belief” as a magic wand to avoid having to support his feelings with facts."
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I think there's always been a "fast food answers to gourmet questions" with regard to things like how and why the pyramids were built. I'm not sure there was a prior era when folks were generally interested in serious answers that might involve some thought -- as in expenditure of intellectual effort -- and might be provisional at that.
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james bowley
11/9/2015 12:19:02 pm
thanks for the historical review. most useful.
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Bruce
11/9/2015 01:18:48 pm
This is terrific background. That fundamentalists haven't perpetuated the pyramid/grainery story is interesting ... I assumed it was an assertion by fundamentalists, along with Ark stuff, to counteract the absolute absence of archaeological evidence for most of the events reported by the OT prior to the destruction of the first Temple. I might have to look into this more among the fundamentalists I've tracked.
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Tonya
11/9/2015 04:25:49 pm
While I do not subscribe to Dr. Carson's belief about the pyramids, I will say if a person does not believe the Bible is the infallible word of God, well they are not really a Christian and should not call them selves as such. I am a Christian and take the Bible literally.
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Mort Diaz
11/10/2015 01:14:22 pm
Good for you! Just don't let the nitpicky details get in the way of the more important Truth. Bending over backwards to try and defend some bit of dodgy math or whatever is a pointless distraction from the Word. Sure, even the excellent NIV is still a translation by men, made from other translations, but that does not change the Truth. Keep that Truth in your heart.
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Judas Priest
11/9/2015 08:06:48 pm
Sooooo...
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davidhouston
11/9/2015 08:34:31 pm
I personally don't give a rat's *ss what Carson's beliefs were years ago. But I find it strange that he is held to account on the pyramid thing when clearly some granaries were built in the shape of pyramids and some historians believed that Joseph built pyramid granaries in Egypt. Do you have to prove those historians were wrong so therefore Carson for believing them is therefore disingenuous. That is along way to go to skin a cat.
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It does us a chance to set the record straight on the pyramids. I don't think anyone here is claiming Carson made it all up. In fact, Jason traced the history of the idea. It apparently has staying power. No doubt, years from now, some folks will be citing the idea approvingly because they hadn't heard of it until Carson mentioned it.
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History geek
11/10/2015 01:33:58 pm
Yah really!!! Everybody knows they were huge freakin docking bases for UFO's, didnt he ever watch Stargate!!!
Ken
11/9/2015 09:29:27 pm
Conventional beliefs are not a prerequisite for the White House. Reagan was a big ufo believer. Carter to a lesser extent.
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I believe those here who feel that candidate X believing Y disqualifies one for the White House are more that no one should vote for or otherwise support X. And the reasoning seems to be more than just that the belief Y is unconventional, but that it tells us something about X's thought processes.
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Putney
11/9/2015 11:27:30 pm
They were hollow until subsequent rulers of Egypt order that the granaries of Joseph be dismantled and shipped to the Valley of the Kings and stored inside the biggest granaries
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Judas Priest
11/10/2015 09:53:06 am
Please tell me you're joking. The way the pyramids are constructed, they could never have been hollow. Also... Valley of the Kings? You mean the late-kingdom necropolis, filled with tombs, funerary architecture, and nothing but? Where nothing even remotely resembling a granary has ever been found?
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Carol
11/10/2015 12:10:44 am
If Carson can believe the pyramids are granaries, then I can believe hearts don't have chambers and valves but are instead shaped the way Hallmark makes them, and can collapse completely if a person gets just too sad. And that black people are inferior to whites, way too stupid to hold office, and should all be shipped back to Africa to live among the apes--I can use Carson as an example of the stupidity 'fact.' The difference is that I'm not running for president--and know the difference between beliefs and facts--and the appropriate situation for each, which apparently Carson does not. I believe he proves it's time we changed the Constitution to require both intelligence and knowledge tests for those who want to run for Congress or President.
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Jonathan
11/10/2015 05:12:49 am
It seems that the name Joseph comes from Djosser and that at Djossers pyramid at Saqquara there is a huge complex which originally covered the entire area. The walls surrounding this complex were very high, there were columns depicting wheat. There was a very tight entrance to allow perhaps just a person with their grain allowance. There are gigantic pits there which have been well documented to have contained grain.
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Judas Priest
11/10/2015 10:12:09 am
Leaving offerings of grain is kiiiiiiiiinda not the same thing at all as storing massive quantities of grain that would later be distibuted.
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History geek
11/10/2015 01:31:14 pm
Dude, the names are not related at all.
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putney
11/11/2015 11:48:01 am
The grain was stored in the pyramids so the pharaohs would have something to snack on in the afterlife.
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Scott Creighton
11/11/2015 02:01:28 pm
JC: "...we see a portrait of a man who seems to view knowledge as a series of competing belief systems rather than an attempt to approximate reality through observation and conclusions drawn from observations."
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Not the Comte de Saint Germain
11/12/2015 04:03:50 pm
Are you aware that Jason has traced the origin of the Arab "pyramid-as-ark" tradition? This blog entry is one of many on the topic:
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Scott Creighton
11/12/2015 04:17:37 pm
Yes, indeed I am aware of this. I am also aware that myths do not arise in a vacuum and that in many myths there is many a grain (pun intended) of truth.
Lou Marie
12/20/2015 08:08:18 am
But what if they were used to store grain initially and after they were empty were known as such glorious spaces and in return were used to bury the most important/sacred. Then filled with cement after the hall/mazes and burial area was reserved for those buried???
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John Anthony Butler
1/20/2016 01:53:18 pm
Well, one doesn't have to support belief with facts. If fact supported belief, then belief would become fact. Unfortunately, people who can't separate the two end up at an impasse; all the facts in the world won't convince Carson that the pyramids were not Joseph's granaries, just as trying to prove Santa Claus doesn't exist is wasted on a five year old. People often believe nonsense and falsehoods, and it seems that education doesn't effect it, as Carson appears to be well-educated. I'm just glad I am not American and don't have to think about the remote possibility that someone like Carson or Trump will lead my country. Please get rid of these idiots!
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Franklin Reid
5/13/2016 12:07:46 pm
We need to keep in mind Carson's actual statement which was, "My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain,"
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Bob Jase
5/13/2016 01:43:35 pm
All of them and the ones in Mexico and Central America too. Joseph was a grain-storing machine.
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kodrati
6/5/2016 03:20:36 am
<a href="http://whistory.org" >I liked your blog, Take the time to visit the me and say that the change in design and meniu?</a>
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Joe Schmoe
9/14/2019 11:46:44 am
Did the Great Pyramid's Sarcophagus Hold the Ark of the Covenant?
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AuthorI am an author and researcher focusing on pop culture, science, and history. Bylines: New Republic, Esquire, Slate, etc. There's more about me in the About Jason tab. Newsletters
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