Dear Commons Community,

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) can put young math prodigies to shame. Large language models (LLMs) such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT are now acing nearly every math test they encounter. And yet AI has hardly touched frontier research in math, an indication that its test-taking prowess does not reflect real mathematical skill.  As reported by Science this morning.

In a preprint posted last month, a tech research institute called Epoch AI rounded up 60 expert mathematicians to raise the bar with the most challenging math test they could muster. Leading models correctly answered fewer than 2% of the questions, showing just how far they are from disrupting the field. Still, experts think AI models will catch up to the new benchmark sooner or later—whether mathematicians like it or not.

“The dent that [AI] has made in the math community is small, but people can see there’s potential,” says Kevin Buzzard, a mathematician at Imperial College London. “If you have a system that can ace that database, then it’s game over for mathematicians.”

Trained on immense amounts of human-generated text from the internet and other sources, LLMs identify patterns to predict the most likely sequence of words, numbers, or symbols in response to prompts. That allows them to answer questions, craft stories—or solve math problems. Lately, in the arena of math, leading models have jumped impressively high hurdles. OpenAI’s o1 model, released in September, can now score above 90% on most previous AI math benchmarks. And in July, a math-focused AI model from Google DeepMind performed at a silver medal standard on problems from the International Mathematical Olympiad, the world’s premier competition for high school math.

But experts caution that these results leave an inflated perception of the models’ mathematical reasoning skills. For one thing, current math benchmarks are mostly pitched to high school or undergraduate level math—a far cry from research-level math, which often tackles notorious problems unsolved for centuries, such as the distribution of prime numbers.

Additionally, the models have an unfair advantage. Because they are trained on huge swaths of the internet, they often get to peek at solutions to similar questions, a problem known as data contamination. “They are cheating,” says Cheng Xu, a Ph.D. student at University of College Dublin who led a recent survey of data contamination in AI benchmarks.

Epoch AI, a California-based nonprofit that tracks trends in AI, set out to address both issues. Rather than recycling standardized test questions, organizers paid leading math experts a few hundred dollars to concoct fiendishly difficult, original problems across a broad range of fields. They asked contributors to “use every dirty trick you know to make your problems as brutal as possible,” says Elliot Glazer, a mathematician at Epoch AI who led the benchmark study. Some problems would take human experts multiple days to answer, he says.

To protect against data contamination, the test writers discussed their problems only over encrypted Signal servers and refrained from using online text editors, where an AI might glimpse their plans.

The Epoch AI team tested six top LLMs, including the latest versions from OpenAI and DeepMind, on about 150 questions. The programs were given between 20 seconds and 1 minute to solve each question. The researchers encouraged the struggling machines to persevere, feeding prompts such as “keep working” and “don’t be afraid to execute your code.” Despite the exhortations, no model scored above 2% on the test. Rather than admitting defeat, the models often provided wrong answers, reflecting their usual misguided confidence.

“In my opinion, currently, AI is a long way away from being able to do those questions … but I’ve been wrong before,” Buzzard says. He believes the models need a better sense of useful mathematical maneuvers, so he’s focused on translating researchers’ proofs into machine-readable language that could be used as training data. Glazer, for one, expects the machines to conquer his test within his lifetime. “The only assurance it gives me is at least we have some objective test to [gauge] predictions regarding mathematicians becoming obsolete,” he says.

Some are optimistic that AI will be more of a companion than a competitor. “I still see AI as a tool … that just opens up our capacity to ask even harder questions,” says Jeremy Avigad, a mathematician and philosopher at Carnegie Mellon University. Even if AI gets to the point where it can write proofs beyond the reach of human experts, mathematicians will still play a vital role in making sense of those answers.

But Maia Fraser, a mathematician and computer scientist at the University of Ottawa, worries about the social impacts of AI in math, and how it could lead to an exclusive ecosystem where only elite institutions with access to the best models can contribute to research. Before AI begins to outclass human experts, she argues, mathematicians must reckon with questions about who has access to the tools, how much energy it’s worth to train them, and what we really want them to do. “It’s actually not that far off … which means now is the chance we have to intervene.”

Tony

Chelsea Manning joins other trans rights activists in a protest outside of Speaker Mike Johnson’s office over the GOP’s anti-trans policies. Photo:  Jen Bendery.

Dear Commons Community,

More than a dozen transgender rights activists were arrested yesterday after staging a protest in a women’s bathroom right next to the office of Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who recently imposed a ban on transgender and nonbinary people using bathrooms in the House that align with their gender identity.

Chelsea Manning, the trans activist and former U.S. military intelligence analyst imprisoned for seven years for disclosing classified information to the public, was among the people who quietly gathered in a bathroom on the fifth floor of the Cannon building, which is part of the House complex.

Their surprise demonstration was in response to Johnson’s new House policy, but also aimed at Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who has introduced at least two bills in recent weeks at pushing transgender people out of public spaces.  As reported by The Huffington Post.

Mace admitted the first of her bills, which would bar House lawmakers and employees from using House bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity, is “100%” targeted at one person: transgender Rep.-elect Sarah McBride (D-Del.). Her second bill is aimed at barring bathroom access for transgender people in all federal buildings, including public schools and universities, national parks and even airports, train stations and bus terminals.

For about 20 minutes, Manning and others took over the public bathroom by Johnson’s office and led chants while holding up a banner that read, “FLUSH BATHROOM BIGOTRY.” Outside in the hall, right in front of Johnson’s office door, more activists shouted chants and held a massive sign that read, “CONGRESS STOP PISSING ON OUR RIGHTS.”

“Speaker Johnson! Nancy Mace! Our bodies are no debate!” chanted the group. They took aim at Democratic lawmakers, too, for not doing more to protect trans rights, which Republicans have been aggressively attacking for months.

“Democrats, grow a spine!” chanted the activists. “Trans lives are on the line!”

Capitol Police eventually showed up and arrested 15 of them. The group behind the protest, Gender Liberation Movement, was prepared for the arrests.

“Everyone deserves to use the restroom without fear of discrimination or violence. Trans folks are no different. We deserve dignity and respect and we will fight until we get it,” Raquel Willis, the group’s co-founder, said in a statement.

“In the 2024 election, trans folks were left to fend for ourselves after nearly $200 million of attack ads were disseminated across the United States,” she said. “Now, as Republican politicians try to remove us from public life, Democratic leaders are silent as hell.”

Manning, whose prison sentence was commuted in 2017 by former President Barack Obama, said she was participating in the protest because “every person deserves dignity and respect, both in daily life and in more symbolic places” like the U.S. Capitol building.

“As someone who has fought against similar rules, I know what it’s like to feel pushed aside and erased,” she said in a statement. “But I also know the incredible power and resilience our community has. I’m not here as a leader or a spokesperson but simply as another member of my community who shows up unconditionally to support my siblings in this fight. I will stand beside them no matter what. We didn’t start this fight, but we are together now.”

Johnson’s bathroom ban is broader than people may realize: It prohibits any transgender or nonbinary House lawmaker, staff member, intern or even visitors from the public from using a bathroom in the House complex — that includes the House side of the Capitol building and all House buildings — that corresponds with their gender identity.

It’s not clear at all how the speaker plans to enforce this.

Tony

Photo courtesy of Reuters.

Dear Commons Community,

France’s far-right and left-wing lawmakers joined together yesterday in a historic no-confidence vote prompted by budget disputes that forces Prime Minister Michel Barnier and his Cabinet members to resign, a first since 1962.

The National Assembly approved the motion by 331 votes. A minimum of 288 were needed.  As reported by The Associated Press.

President Emmanuel Macron insisted he will serve the rest of his term until 2027. However, he will need to appoint a new prime minister for the second time after July’s legislative elections led to a deeply divided parliament.

Barnier, a conservative appointed in September, will become the shortest-serving prime minister in France’s modern Republic.

“As this mission may soon come to an end, I can tell you that it will remain an honor for me to have served France and the French with dignity,” Barnier said in his final speech before the vote.

“This no-confidence motion… will make everything more serious and more difficult. That’s what I’m sure of,” he said.

Wednesday’s crucial vote rose from fierce opposition to Barnier’s proposed budget.

The National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament, is deeply fractured, with no single party holding a majority. It comprises three major blocs: Macron’s centrist allies, the left-wing coalition New Popular Front, and the far-right National Rally. Both opposition blocs, typically at odds, are uniting against Barnier, accusing him of imposing austerity measures and failing to address citizens’ needs.

Speaking at the National Assembly ahead of the vote, National Rally leader Marine Le Pen, whose party’s goodwill was crucial to keeping Barnier in power, said “we’ve reached the moment of truth, a parliamentary moment unseen since 1962.”

“Stop pretending the lights will go out,” hard-left lawmaker Eric Coquerel said, noting the possibility of an emergency law to levy taxes from Jan. 1, based on this year’s rules. “The special law will prevent a shutdown. It will allow us to get through the end of the year by delaying the budget by a few weeks.”

Macron must appoint a new prime minister, but the fragmented parliament remains unchanged. No new legislative elections can be held until at least July, creating a potential stalemate for policymakers.

Macron said discussions about him potentially resigning were “make-believe politics” during a trip to Saudi Arabia earlier this week, according to French media reports.

“I’m here because I’ve been elected twice by the French people,” Macron said. He was also reported as saying: “We must not scare people with such things. We have a strong economy.”

While France is not at risk of a U.S.-style government shutdown, political instability could spook financial markets.

France is under pressure from the European Union to reduce its colossal debt. The country’s deficit is estimated to reach 6% of gross domestic product this year and analysts say it could rise to 7% next year without drastic adjustments. The political instability could push up French interest rates, digging the debt even further.

Big doings in France!

Tony

 (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Dear Commons Community,

Fifty-thousand multi-colored lights were illuminated on Rockefeller Center’s iconic Christmas tree last night to cheers from the crowds gathered to witness the annual New York City tradition (see video below).

The giant Norway spruce, which this year hails from a tiny Massachusetts town, is also topped with a Swarovski star crown featuring 3 million crystals.

The 74-foot-high (23-meter-high) tree was cut down last month in West Stockbridge and trucked to Rockefeller Plaza. Wednesday night’s ceremony marked the culmination of the tree’s long journey to New York, which began in 2020 when the center’s head gardener spotted the tree and asked its owners if they’d consider donating it.

The famous holiday attraction, located above the Rockefeller Center ice skating rink, will be on view through mid-January. On Christmas Day, the tree will be lit for 24 hours.

Once the holiday season is over, the tree will be used for lumber for Habitat for Humanity.

Christmas has arrived in New York City!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

I have just finished reading Slavery Unseen:  Sex, Power, and Violence in Brazilian History by Lamonte Aidoo, the Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor of Romance Studies at Duke University.  It was recommended to me by a colleague when I  mentioned to him that I wanted to know more about the nature of slavery in Brazil. I am well-familiar with the slavery story in the United States but I knew very little about Brazil other than it had the largest population of slaves in the Americas.  For example, Brazil imported close to 4 million slaves during the colonial period while it is estimated that the United States and British colonies imported about 500,000. Brazil abolished slavery in 1888 while the United States abolished it in 1865. However, the real story in this book is the cruelty with which slaves were treated in Brazil.  Aidoo is graphic in his depiction of violence, sexual exploitation, and class dominance.  However, Aidoo’s main aim in writing this book is to upend the idea that Brazil operated as a racial democracy. To the contrary, he provides example after example of how Brazil’s white elite did all it could to keep slaves in check.

Below is a review published by the Duke University Press.

Tony

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Duke University Press

Slavery Unseen:  Sex, Power, and Violence in Brazilian History

Published: April 2018

Author: Lamonte Aidoo

In Slavery Unseen, Lamonte Aidoo upends the narrative of Brazil as a racial democracy, showing how the myth of racial democracy elides the history of sexual violence, patriarchal terror, and exploitation of slaves. Drawing on sources ranging from inquisition trial documents to travel accounts and literature, Aidoo demonstrates how interracial and same-sex sexual violence operated as a key mechanism of the production and perpetuation of slavery as well as racial and gender inequality. The myth of racial democracy, Aidoo contends, does not stem from or reflect racial progress; rather, it is an antiblack apparatus that upholds and protects the heteronormative white patriarchy throughout Brazil’s past and on into the present.

Praise

“Revealing how Brazil’s myth of racial democracy obscures the sexual exploitation and racialized violence of enslaved blacks by white, mixed, and even free black Brazilians, Lamonte Aidoo offers a groundbreaking and heartbreaking critique of how Brazilian racial fluidity originated in a system of white supremacy that dominates much of contemporary Brazilian life today. A daring and tremendously illuminating work.” – Salamishah Tillet, author of Sites of Slavery: Citizenship and Racial Democracy in the Post-Civil Rights Imagination

“Lamonte Aidoo’s brilliant and original account of how notions of masculinity, gender, and sexuality in Brazilian literature are shaped by the legacy of slavery is compelling and leads to questions about how very much such submerged images form our own Anglophone worldview. An important book not only because it illuminates the impact of race in a lesser known literary culture but because it highlights many of our North American fantasies about race and sexual identity.” – Sander L. Gilman, coauthor of Are Racists Crazy? How Prejudice, Racism, and Antisemitism Became Markers of Insanity

“Slavery Unseen offers a sophisticated interpretation of slavery and its legacy in Brazil in relation to sexual violence, racial terror, and antiblack social prejudice. Lamonte Aidoo engages a wide range of literary texts and other cultural artifacts in showing the central role of sexual violence—and the obscuring of this violence—in Brazil’s racial formation. Along the way, he offers a magnificent rereading of the nineteenth-century Brazilian literary canon.” – Christopher Dunn, Tulane University

“An eloquent interpretation of many insidious aspects of slavery that [goes] beyond the legal relationship between ‘slave’ and ‘free.'” – Elizabeth Anne Kuznesof, EIAL

“Slavery Unseen is an interesting effort to present a little-known side of Brazilian slavery. The book is a good reading both for specialists and for members of the broader public who want to understand the roots of racism and violence that characterize Brazilian society up to the present day.” – Ynaê Lopes dos Santos, Labor

“Slavery Unseen goes beyond typical studies of power and sexual violence by moving away from the quintessential master and enslaved female dialectic. . . . Aidoo has crafted a brilliant and engaging piece of research that will pave the way for future studies of sexuality, power, and violence across the transatlantic world.” – Rachael Pasierowska, H-Net Reviews

“Slavery Unseen is revelatory and will change the field of Brazilian history. . . . [Aidoo] has managed to condense an enormous amount of archival information into a compelling text with major implications for history, literature, gender studies, critical race studies, and Luso-Brazilian studies.” – Gregory Mitchell, European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies

“Originally conceived, meticulously researched, and well written and argued, [Aidoo’s] book is an intellectually sophisticated interdisciplinary study that examines the race relations and interracial sexual violence that are embedded in Brazilian slavery. . . . Slavery Unseen will certainly leave its vital mark in the fields of Luso-Brazilian studies and Afro-Diaspora studies for years to come.” – Emanuelle K. F. Oliveira-Monte, Revista Hispánica Moderna

President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea declaring emergency martial law on Tuesday evening. Credit…Ahn Young-Joon/Associated Press

Dear Commons Community,

President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea declared emergency martial law on Tuesday night, then reversed himself hours later as thousands of protesters flooded the streets, capping an extraordinary night of tumult in the deeply divided country.  As reported by The New York Times.

The threat of military rule had brought political chaos to one of America’s closest allies in Asia and carried echoes of South Korea’s postwar years of military rule and political violence.

But Mr. Yoon’s gambit appeared to quickly backfire, leaving his political future uncertain and the opposition baying for his impeachment.

His announcement imposing martial law, at 10:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday, had immediately raised questions over whether the president could commandeer such a highly developed industrialized democracy.

Before dawn on Wednesday, those questions appeared to be answered.

The National Assembly quickly passed a resolution demanding an end to martial law, and Mr. Yoon backed down, saying he would lift his emergency declaration just five and a half hours after he had issued it.

Martial law was formally lifted at a Cabinet meeting early Wednesday.

President Yoon did not immediately comment on his political future, only reiterating his demand that the opposition stop using its parliamentary majority to “paralyze” his government.

But opposition lawmakers demanded that he step down, calling his martial law “unconstitutional” and a “failed coup.”

The National Assembly can impeach the president if more than two-thirds of the Assembly vote for it. Mr. Yoon’s party controls just 108 seats in the 300-member legislature. Thousands of people have held weekend rallies in downtown Seoul in recent months, calling for Mr. Yoon’s impeachment, accusing him of incompetence, corruption and abuse of power

The martial law declaration on Tuesday night had sent thousands of protesters into the frigid night, gathering at the National Assembly building and chanting for the president’s arrest and removal. Chaotic scenes captured on video showed military vehicles thronged by protesters and South Korean troops climbing through windows to enter the National Assembly where opposition politicians were gathering.

This is not a good situation for South Korea nor for stability in the Far East!

Tony

(Photo: India Today)

Dear Commons Community,

Many of us have felt it, and now it’s official: “Brain rot” is the Oxford dictionaries’ word of the year.

Oxford University Press announced yesterday that the evocative phrase “gained new prominence in 2024,” with its frequency of use increasing 230% from the year before.

Oxford defines brain rot as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.”

The word of the year is intended to be “a word or expression that reflects a defining theme from the past 12 months.”

“Brain rot” was chosen by a combination of public vote and language analysis by Oxford lexicographers. It beat five other finalists: demure, slop, dynamic pricing, romantasy and lore.

While it may seem a modern phenomenon, the first recorded use of “brain rot” was by Henry David Thoreau in his 1854 ode to the natural world, “Walden.”

Oxford Languages President Casper Grathwohl said that in its modern sense, “’brain rot’ speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life, and how we are using our free time.”

“It feels like a rightful next chapter in the cultural conversation about humanity and technology. It’s not surprising that so many voters embraced the term, endorsing it as our choice this year,” he said.

Most appropriate selection!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Binyamin Appelbaum, an opinion writer and member of the editorial board of The New York Times, had an essay on Sunday entitled, “Note to Democrats: It’s Time to Take Up Your Hammers”.  It was a plea to state and local Democrats to make affordable housing their number one priority. Here is his introduction:

“I would prefer to live in a world where the recent news that more than 146,000 New York City schoolchildren experienced homelessness during the last school year was regarded as a crisis demanding immediate changes in public policy. But if helping children isn’t enough to move New York’s political leaders to action — and, by all indications, it most certainly is not — they might consider doing it for the sake of the Democratic Party.

There is a straight line from homeless schoolchildren to Donald Trump’s election victory.

Homelessness is the most extreme manifestation of the nation’s housing crisis. America simply isn’t building enough housing, which has driven up prices, which has made it difficult for millions of households to keep up with monthly rent or mortgage payments. Every year, some of those people suffer at least a brief period of homelessness.”

Amen!

Appelbaum’s entire essay appears below.

Tony

The New York Times

Note to Democrats: It’s Time to Take Up Your Hammers

Nov. 30, 2024

By Binyamin Appelbaum

Opinion Writer

I would prefer to live in a world where the recent news that more than 146,000 New York City schoolchildren experienced homelessness during the last school year was regarded as a crisis demanding immediate changes in public policy. But if helping children isn’t enough to move New York’s political leaders to action — and, by all indications, it most certainly is not — they might consider doing it for the sake of the Democratic Party.

There is a straight line from homeless schoolchildren to Donald Trump’s election victory.

Homelessness is the most extreme manifestation of the nation’s housing crisis. America simply isn’t building enough housing, which has driven up prices, which has made it difficult for millions of households to keep up with monthly rent or mortgage payments. Every year, some of those people suffer at least a brief period of homelessness.

Popular anger about the high cost of housing, which is by far the largest expense for most American households, helped to fuel Mr. Trump’s comeback. He recorded his strongest gains compared with the 2020 election in the areas where living costs are highest, according to an analysis by the Economic Innovation Group, a nonpartisan think tank.

The results are more than a backlash against the party that happened to be in power. The animating principle of the Democratic Party is that government can improve the lives of the American people. The housing crisis is manifest proof that government is failing to do so. And it surely has not escaped the attention of the electorate that the crisis is most acute in New York City, Los Angeles and other places long governed by Democrats.

Republicans promise to cut taxes and they cut taxes. Democrats promise to use tax dollars to solve problems and one in eight public school students in New York experienced homelessness last year. It is the ninth straight year the number of homeless schoolchildren in New York topped 100,000.

The good news is that Democrats still have the power to do better. While the party will soon be sidelined in Washington, it is primarily local and state laws that impede home building, including zoning laws that limit development, building codes that raise costs and local control measures that give existing residents the power to prevent growth.

The most basic reason for Democrats to focus on removing those barriers is that their communities desperately need more housing. The high cost of housing in New York forces many people to leave the city, and it constrains those who remain. The federal government estimates that 30 percent of income is the most a household can comfortably spend on rent. In New York, more than half of tenants spend a larger share than that.

And, for a growing number of New Yorkers, a place to call home is simply beyond reach. The number of New York schoolchildren who experienced homelessness in the 2023-24 school year was up 23 percent over the previous year. Even brief periods of homelessness can be intensely disruptive, making it harder to stay healthy, to keep a job, to maintain relationships. Studies show children who experience homelessness become less likely to graduate from high school and more likely to fall back into homelessness as adults.

A focus on housing is a chance for Democrats to rebuild public confidence in the party’s ability to deliver on its promises. And housing could be a particularly fruitful issue because it will require the party to work through some of its fissures and hypocrisies.

The only way to address the housing crisis in places like New York is to build housing in communities where people — potential Democratic voters — absolutely do not want it. This is a microcosm of the party’s broader issues. To build support for its economic agenda, the party needs to convince voters that lifting up everyone ultimately benefits everyone. Democrats need to revive a sense of shared responsibility for societal problems. They need to persuade the comfortable and complacent that homelessness is their problem, too.

One challenge is that Republicans are only too eager to portray themselves as defenders of the single-family house. Last year, when Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York put forward a plan to allow apartment buildings around commuter railroad stations, Long Island Republican leaders responded as if she had proposed to build skyscrapers on their front lawns, denouncing what they described as an effort to create a “sixth borough.”

But Ms. Hochul’s plan didn’t fail because of a lack of Republican support; the State Legislature could have approved the reforms without a single Republican vote. It failed because of a lack of support among Democrats. And if some were afraid that voters would turn on the party, plenty of other New York Democrats are simply opposed to more housing.

That’s true in the city, too. New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, is backing a package of legal reforms to allow a little more housing construction, a set of small ideas with the big name “City of Yes.” The plan is expected to pass early in December, but it has already been whittled down by City Council members determined to protect their neighborhoods.

Democrats struggling to understand why voters turned away from their party might consider this gap between their language of inclusion and their politics of exclusion.

Building a consensus in favor of building won’t be easy, but it is necessary.

In this bleak moment, Democrats might take a note from President Jimmy Carter about how to behave after losing an election: Grab a hammer and start making houses.

Dear Commons Community,

I read the book, Christianity: An Ancient Egyptian Religion by Ahmed Osman over the summer but was tardy in posting about it on this blog.  It is a provocative book first published in 1998,  that argues that many foundational elements of Christianity are deeply rooted in ancient Egyptian religious traditions rather than exclusively emerging from Judaea. Osman draws comparisons between Old Testament narratives and Egyptian history, suggesting that prominent biblical figures like Moses and Joshua correspond to Egyptian historical personas. He further claims that key Christian doctrines—including monotheism, the Trinity, the virgin birth, and concepts of life after death—are Egyptian in origin.

The book also contends that early Christianity functioned as an Egyptian mystery religion until its suppression by Roman authorities in the 4th century. Osman highlights how the Roman destruction of the Alexandrian library in 391 AD erased much evidence of Christianity’s Egyptian foundations, as part of the Roman effort to recast Christianity as a Judaean religion to consolidate political power​.

Osman’s work has been criticized by some and praised by others. I found some of Osman’s explanations a stretch.

Below is a review by Colin O’Shea that appeared in goodreads and a response from a reader.

Tony

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goodreads

Colin O’Shea

March 25, 2021

Christianity: An Ancient Egyptian Religion by Ahmed Osman Contends that the roots of Christian belief come not from Judaea but from Egypt.

• Shows that the Romans fabricated their own version of Christianity and burned the Alexandrian library as a way of maintaining political power

• Builds on the arguments of the author’s previous books The Hebrew Pharaohs of Egypt, Moses and Akhenaten, and Jesus in the House of the Pharaohs

In An Ancient Egyptian Religion author Ahmed Osman contends that the roots of Christian belief spring not from Judaea but from Egypt. He compares the chronology of the Old Testament and its factual content with ancient Egyptian records to show that the major characters of the Hebrew scriptures–including Solomon, David, Moses, and Joshua–are based on Egyptian historical figures. He further suggests that not only were these personalities and the stories associated with them cultivated on the banks of the Nile, but the major tenets of Christian belief–the One God, the Trinity, the hierarchy of heaven, life after death, and the virgin birth–are all Egyptian in origin. He likewise provides a convincing argument that Jesus himself came out of Egypt.

With the help of modern archaeological findings, Osman shows that Christianity survived as an Egyptian mystery cult until the fourth century A.D., when the Romans embarked on a mission of suppression and persecution. In A.D. 391 the Roman-appointed Bishop Theophilus led a mob into the Serapeum quarter of Alexandria and burned the Alexandrian library, destroying all records of the true Egyptian roots of Christianity. The Romans’ version of Christianity, manufactured to maintain political power, claimed that Christianity originated in Judaea. In An Ancient Egyptian Religion Osman restores Egypt to its rightful place in the history of Christianity.

—————————————————————–

Here are comments from one of the readers of the goodreads review.

This book was elucidating on some aspects of the historicity of biblical stories and characters, and offers an engaging well-researched opinion on the significance of the Egyptian Amarna Dynasty and its theological reformation in shaping the early religious beliefs and writings of the Israelites who absconded from Egypt, and subsequently the New Testament Gospels (they being, its claimed, a reiteration of an ancient tradition). This last point undermines the idea of a 1st century historical Jesus figure being responsible for the Christian religion and basically shifts the onus to another time and place entirely, that is Egypt of the fourteenth millennium BC. It also suggests a deep connection between that period’s ruling dynasty and the Isrealites, that ended shortly after the death of Tutankhamun with a military coup and the ascension of a new dynasty, eviscerating the spiritual legacy of the previous dynastic mono-theist “heretics”. I’m fairly obsessed with learning about the roots of Christianity and religion in general, as well as all things ancient Egyptian, and this book didn’t disappoint.

Next on my list in this regard is a book which also pertains to the nonfactual historicity of the Jesus story, and actually provides evidence that the New testament was a codification and reiteration of a Messianic tradition in writing by a Roman elite who wished to quell and satiate a Jewish revolt in the 1st century by proffering them a peaceful “turn the other cheek” type savior, thus saving themselves the hassle of constant uprisings, and providing them with a mechanism of control that ended up being much more powerful than violent force. It’s called “Caesar’s Messiah – Joseph Atwill”. If true, that would have to be an example of the most effective propaganda ever created.

And of course, an historical Jesus isn’t really required for the validity of a positive spiritual message, as Osman’s book also contends; that there is a spiritual aspect of Christ that is distinct from any historical claims to truth, this being the underlying spiritual teaching passed down for centuries before being co-opted (and possibly partly created) by the Roman empire. In this regards, I suggest investigation of the Gnostic christian tradition, which provides a literature apparently untouched by ancient authoritarian influence due to being hidden when the authorities were systematically destroying the physical vestiges of rival ideologies, as all authoritarian states/ideologies have done and do. I’m referring to the Nag Hammadi texts, and the Judeo-Christian Essenes’ Dead Sea Scrolls.

John McWhorter

Dear Commons Community,

John McWhorter, a linguistics professor at Columbia University, and an opinion writer for The New York Times had an essay yesterday entitled, “Cleopatra Is Not Our Mother”. His theme is that Black Americans need to let go of the myth that we have a common Egyptian heritage.  Here  is an excerpt:

“I have always found something problematic about this focus on ancient Egypt as a historical precursor to American Blackness. I’m going to step aside from the controversies over just what color the ancient Egyptians were. The simple fact is that Black Americans are not on the whole their descendants. They are the descendants of all of Africa, a vast and endlessly varied continent. Its peoples have warred with and until not so very long ago even enslaved one another, as rampantly as humans worldwide always have. It is home to over 2,000 languages — almost every third language in the world. Preferring and massaging the single halcyon dream of ancient Egypt misses all of that rich diversity, misreading the historical record and depriving us of the true breadth of our heritage.

Most likely not a single enslaved Black person was brought to America from Cairo or Alexandria. They were brought to America from the West African coast, from what is now Senegal down to Angola. Senegal alone is over 3,000 miles across a desert to the southwest of Cairo as the crow flies — about as far as New York City is from Anchorage or Dublin. Black America tracing itself to Egypt makes as much historical sense as would Czechs deciding to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, seek out first editions of James Joyce and favor tartans as an expression of being European.”

McWhorten makes a good argument. 

His entire essay can be read below.

Tony

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The New York Times

Cleopatra is not our mother!

By John McWhorter

Opinion Writer

Since the 19th century, a strain in Black American culture has claimed ancient Egypt as ancestor and inspiration. A fascination with that long-ago land has permeated Black art deeply enough to seem like one of its very foundations. In the early 20th century, the emblem of the N.A.A.C.P. house organ, “The Crisis,” looked like a sphinx, and many covers featured beautiful Egyptian motifs. In the 1990s, many thinkers warmly embraced the book “Black Athena” by the historian Martin Bernal, which made the claim — since rather roundly debunked — that the ancient Greeks had stolen much of the glory of their culture from “Black” Egypt. So strong has this current of thought been that it fills an exhibition currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art titled “Flight Into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876-Now.”

Beautiful work, make no mistake. But I have always found something problematic about this focus on ancient Egypt as a historical precursor to American Blackness. I’m going to step aside from the controversies over just what color the ancient Egyptians were. The simple fact is that Black Americans are not on the whole their descendants. They are the descendants of all of Africa, a vast and endlessly varied continent. Its peoples have warred with and until not so very long ago even enslaved one another, as rampantly as humans worldwide always have. It is home to over 2,000 languages — almost every third language in the world. Preferring and massaging the single halcyon dream of ancient Egypt misses all of that rich diversity, misreading the historical record and depriving us of the true breadth of our heritage.

Most likely not a single enslaved Black person was brought to America from Cairo or Alexandria. They were brought to America from the West African coast, from what is now Senegal down to Angola. Senegal alone is over 3,000 miles across a desert to the southwest of Cairo as the crow flies — about as far as New York City is from Anchorage or Dublin. Black America tracing itself to Egypt makes as much historical sense as would Czechs deciding to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, seek out first editions of James Joyce and favor tartans as an expression of being European.

Sure, all cultures mythologize their past to an extent. Ta-Nehisi Coates in his new book, “The Message,” argues that as Black people, “we have a right to imagine ourselves as pharoahs.” But we also have a right to imagine ourselves as sultans, maharajahs or New Guinea hunter-gatherers. What was wrong with what we actually were?

This question is especially urgent as the abiding fondness for the Egypt idea tends to sideline the astonishing history of the empires that enslaved Americans actually emerged from and amid. In the 13th century, the Mali Empire produced a kind of Magna Carta called the Kouroukan Fouga. It was mindful of the rights of women to a degree surprising for any document before, roughly, Ms. magazine, counseling respect for “women, our mothers.” It stipulated that a man’s insanity or impotence was justification for a woman to seek divorce. European history teaches us to associate ancient empires with the ambition of overseas exploration, and the Mali Empire was no exception. Musa, the grandson of the empire’s founder, Sundiata Keita, sent out hundreds of ships to explore the great beyond.

South of Mali in what is today Angola was the kingdom of the Kongo, which was ruled in the mid-17th century by Manikongo Garcia II. The historian Simon Sebag Montefiore has described him as holding “court amid Flemish tapestries, wearing Indian linens, eating with cutlery of American silver in the company of titled Kongo nobles and bishops in red sashes, while secretaries took dictation.” His rival was the queen of the neighboring Ndongo kingdom, Nzinga Mbande. She dressed in men’s clothes and excelled as a warrior; in off hours she enjoyed male concubines. Surely a ripe source for creative imagination.

In what we now call Benin once stood the Dahomey kingdom. Its capital could boast 12 palaces, festooned with bas-relief carvings depicting the history of the kingdom, every bit as impressive as what visitors see at the Met’s Egyptian rooms. King Houegbadja, who ruled in the 17th century, went about with an entourage of female soldiers. All of this is grounds for celebration and creativity that does not require drawing an imaginary line from King Tut to Will Smith.

I suspect that one reason Black Americans are drawn to ancient Egypt is that it may seem grander, more advanced than the West African empires. But that impression is based partly on how well Egypt’s monuments have survived in desert conditions. Monuments of the West African empires, hewed from forested regions and long since grown over, can be harder to reconstruct.

The history of ancient Egypt, too, is preserved in more detail than that of most West African empires because Egypt had a writing system. But that doesn’t mean that the society was more sophisticated. Enormously complex societies thrived in antiquity without writing, such as the Catalhoyuk in Turkey and the Cahokia in Illinois.

Of course, Black Americans aren’t the only ones who fetishize ancient Egypt. In the 18th and 19th centuries, many European and American thinkers participated in an Egyptology craze. It elevated ancient Egypt, with its Rosetta Stone, Cleopatra and such as “civilized” while casting sub-Saharan Africans as dismissible primitives. The philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, for example, was renowned for his contemptuous take on the sub-Saharan region he called “Africa proper” — in effect, the real Africa. For him, this region was “unhistorical” with an “undeveloped spirit.”

That attitude lingered. When I was a young language-loving kid, I got a coloring book about the celebration of Christmas in 19 countries. I enjoyed it so much that I still have it. Each entry describes the customs in both English and the country’s official language. There was a serious flub, though: The description of Ethiopia’s customs was rendered in Swahili, which is not spoken in Ethiopia; its national language is Amharic, a relative of Hebrew and Arabic. By the standards of 1972 when the book was written, including an African country at all was ahead of the curve, but it seems that a residual sense of overgeneralization was still at play. I can’t see them as having described Denmark’s Christmas traditions in German.

The beauty of modern American Blackness is not a function of sphinxes, Nefertiti and hanging out with ancient Greeks. When creating and burnishing our stories, our myths, our art, we should remember where we really came from. The evidence is all around us. In the 1930s, the pioneering Black linguist Lorenzo Dow Turner found speakers of the Gullah Creole language on the coast of South Carolina and Georgia who could still sing songs in the Mende language of Sierra Leone. The reason peanuts are called goobers in the South (and in the candy that’s popular at movie theater concession stands) is that they were called nguba in the Kikongo language of Angola and other countries.

Kunta Kinte, in the book and later two miniseries of “Roots,” spoke the Mandinka language of the Mali Empire. Mythology is relevant here. Alex Haley, who wrote the novel, claimed that “Roots” was based on historical sources, but it has since become clear that he largely concocted the story of his ancestors, expanding shreds of fact into fiction he later called “faction.” OK, “Roots” is legend rather than scholarship. But at least it depicts one of Black Americans’ true places of origin.

I wish we could let go of the idea that ancient Egypt is Black Americans’ common heritage. My cheek swab traces me to Senegal and Angola. Preferences will differ on this, but as for me, I get ancestral pride from my relatives here in America, such as the fierce great-aunt I knew as T.I., who could sprint up subway steps without missing a beat at 92, or Mom Springer, who was a more or less out lesbian and jazz saxophonist in the 1920s. If I need some Africa in the mix, the enlightenment of Kouroukan Fouga and the fierceness of Nzinga Mbande do me just fine.