Anthony G Williams
Greybeard
Re: Film: 2012
There are ways of producing smoke without a fire...
Yes, it has value in illuminating what people believed, or were trying to achieve, when it was written. However, modern archaeological research has revealed that even the "historical" biblical story of the early history of Israel has been grossly distorted, probably for political reasons.However even though a large part of the bible can be considered invention no one can discard that it also has some historical value (distorted no doubt).
I think this would be very difficult, since there was no dividing line between religious and "scientific" beliefs such as we have today: the view of the world held by early cultures like the Maya was all bound up in their religious mythologies. I am not aware of any such ancient mythologies (and there are many different, conflicting ones) which contain any factual truths about the creation and fate of the universe. They're no more accurate than Pratchett's 'Discworld', being carried on the back of a giant turtle.I don't say we should take the mayan profecies by face value alone but we should consider that after filtering the religious nonsense some true essence of fact can be found.
There are ways of producing smoke without a fire...