John Brown's Effect on World History

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Since the publication of John Brown's article in 1798, we have learned an enormous about ancient Egyptian history. Some of what we have learned (certainly not all) includes (1) the English alphabet can be translated into hieroglyphics, therefore a new era of Egyptology started and lead to wonderful discoveries, such as Tut's tomb, and the hieroglyphic burial content that surround sarcophagi and tomb walls are readable, as is the Book of the Dead and hieroglyphic writings such as autobiographies and chronologies; (2) the dates of the Pharaonic Dynasties and kingdoms (i.e., Old, Middle, and New) which are now much more firmly established; (3) that the ability to interpret he historical inscriptions on great monuments (e.g., Thutmose III defeating his enemies as depicted on the Temple of Amun-Re at Karnak)-- most surviving records come from the New Kingdom, and many "historical" inscriptions on stela, walls, and columns were determined to be propaganda, not objective history; (4) the ability to read and administrative Documents, which shed light on priestly duties and temple management, trials of grave robbers, medical & veterinary treatment, wills & other legal documents, and narratives of great construction and social order; and (5) the ability to decipher expedition records, wisdom & philosophic literature, stories & Egyptian legends so that a wide range of ancient Egyptian cultural experiences are now accessible to us. There were two key events the lead to the acquisition of this knowledge; these were (1) the discovery of, and then (2) the transliteration of the Rosetta stone into contemporary linguistic equivalents (e.g. English, French, and German). The Rosetta stone was found in 1799 near the town of Rosetta by French Eng... ... middle of paper ... ...to accommodate the flood into his timeframe, might John Brown have simply been trying to squeeze known dynastic history into a Biblical chronologist's framework, or is his a reasonable contemporary strategy for thinking about how similar dynasties can fit into a 2000-year period? John Brown argues that it was simultaneous dynasties ruling when there was no evidence to back it up and he only said that because of his religious views and he had to fit it in 2000 years to make it agree with creationism. John Brown was certainly a creationist; mathematical evidence from within his own document demonstrates this to be the case (3672 AM + 332, the year that objective history tells us that Alexander the Great conquered Greece= 4004.) So what we find is a marvelous example of 18th century revisionism that is made even more stunning in light of 21st century knowledge.

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