Your Last Supper - who would you invite & why?

[Handley_Page]

I would also like to have Zarathustra there as the first founder of a monotheistic religious movement, and who was the first man to express the doctrine of human free will.

Eleanor of Aquitaine for the 'wow' factor.

Please forgive my ignorance, but brief enquiries indicate that Zoroaster (aka Zarathustra) was about 600BC.
This puts him a long time after Pharaoh Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV, about 1330 BC), who insisted on a monotheistic religion based upon Aten, as represented by the Sun.
It has to be admitted that records are somewhat scarce, but it is 'rumoured' that his Mother, Queen Tiye, was influenced by the teachings of the peoples who became what we call the Jews who'd had a monotheistic religion for a good while before.

But; after you with Eleanor of Acquitaine.
How about Cleopatra ?

 

[Exquisition]

Please forgive my ignorance, but brief enquiries indicate that Zoroaster (aka Zarathustra) was about 600BC.
This puts him a long time after Pharaoh Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV, about 1330 BC), who insisted on a monotheistic religion based upon Aten, as represented by the Sun.
It has to be admitted that records are somewhat scarce, but it is 'rumoured' that his Mother, Queen Tiye, was influenced by the teachings of the peoples who became what we call the Jews who'd had a monotheistic religion for a good while before.

But; after you with Eleanor of Acquitaine.
How about Cleopatra ?

Hi handley - not sure about the Zoroatrianism vs Akhenaten debate tbh. Some sources go with Akhenaten and others with Zoro. One thing for sure, Akhenaten's 'Sun God' or 'Spirit God' that he founded his new faith and capital city on was v. short lived. Zoroastrianism def. the grandaddy of true monotheism (in my book at least).

Eleanor of A - interesting - why her?
Cleopatra for sure & for many reasons

 

[Exquisition]

I think you'd have a hard time conversing with a bag of bone dust.

Or, if she was alive, would you speak her language?

Or if you COULD communicate, would she spend the entire hour or so just gasping at the technology and calling you a witch?

"blast! What are these infernal sun-orbs!"

Think wisely about your guests my friend.

You;re just too cruel....indulge a little, any era is fine. Bone dust conversations permitted.

 

[topace]

Since the OP said just one person from any era, I'll go with Jesus Christ. I'd like to ask him what he was feeling and thinking the night of his famous 'Last Supper'.

[off-topic]
Plenty of tests have indicated that the Shroud of Turin is the real burial cloth of Jesus Christ. In fact, it has been proven that you would needed to paint it from 15 feet away, and that it is a negative image - which means da Vinci (or whoever you claimed 'painted' it) would have to have come up with the idea of photography ~300 years before it was actually invented!
[/off-topic]

 

[Exquisition]

Since the OP said just one person from any era, I'll go with Jesus Christ. I'd like to ask him what he was feeling and thinking the night of his famous 'Last Supper'.

[off-topic]
Plenty of tests have indicated that the Shroud of Turin is the real burial cloth of Jesus Christ. In fact, it has been proven that you would needed to paint it from 15 feet away, and that it is a negative image - which means da Vinci (or whoever you claimed 'painted' it) would have to have come up with the idea of photography ~300 years before it was actually invented!
[/off-topic]

Top - there's a lot of v. convincing circumstantial evidence that photography was around a lot earlier - or at least the knowledge of how to burn a negative image onto a treated white linen sheet using the sun.

Da vinci even wrote about the camera obscura. Wouldn't be so quick to write the possibility off. All he needed was a fixative to fix the image. Common fixative substances were readily available. Given Da vinci's insatiable appetite for knowledge, testing etc. across multiple fields it really is plausible he could have been the perpetrator.

Add in the fact the shroud doesn't appear in the historical record until the 1400s and the carbon dating as well as the fact there is a remarkable resemblance to the shroud face and Da Vinci's own portrait and it's def. not something to be dimissed out of hand imo.

 

[ishtat]

Please forgive my ignorance, but brief enquiries indicate that Zoroaster (aka Zarathustra) was about 600BC.
This puts him a long time after Pharaoh Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV, about 1330 BC), who insisted on a monotheistic religion based upon Aten, as represented by the Sun.
It has to be admitted that records are somewhat scarce, but it is 'rumoured' that his Mother, Queen Tiye, was influenced by the teachings of the peoples who became what we call the Jews who'd had a monotheistic religion for a good while before.

But; after you with Eleanor of Acquitaine.
How about Cleopatra ?

It is true that some ancient writers put Zarathustra (Z) before Alexander, in fact 258 years before, circa 600 BC, the 'traditional' Date. However, a number of the Greeks recorded that the Maji (Persian wise men from whom the Greeks pinched many of their 'original' ideas) claimed their religion was much older. Not however, as old as Plutarch suggested, 6,000 BC.

Dating Z is tricky but the most reliable method is by calculating the rate of linguistic divergence which is quite well established for many languages.

The Gathas, the oldest of the Z religious writings are in the extinct language Old Avestan . This language is closely related to the Sanskrit of the Rig Vedas, knowledge of the latter enabling the former to be translated. Avestan was also the predecessor of Old Persian which enabled confirmation of much translation

The peoples who wrote the Rig Vedas and the Gathas both migrated South from Western Central Asia probably towards the end of the third or beginning of the second millenium BC. One group went south to India and founded Hinduism the other turned west to the Iranian plateau and became the followers of Z. The linguistic divergence between their writings suggests they were separated by between 300 and 700 years. Academics are necessarily cautious about picking a particular date but generally place Z somewhere between 1,800 and 1,200 BC, with a tendency to prefer a date around 1,350 to 1500 BC.

Most modern scholars no longer accept that Akhenaton was monotheistic , indeed he did not even establish a monolatrous state. He did eliminate the names of many of the Egyptian minor gods, but by no means all. More importantly Akhenaton only reformed ritual, he established no new theology other than to recognize the supremacy of the sun god (in Egypt alone).

Can you imagine for example that an Egyptian pharoah would invent the concept of individual freewill as Z did - it would be unthinkable. Not surprisingly Akhenatons reforms were promptly reversed after his death so the extent to which he established anything is dubious.

Your statement about the Jews having a monotheistic religion at an early date is incorrect and the main source to confirm that is the Bible. David for example can be proved as a late tenth century BC king Archaelogical evidence). Yet he incurred the wrath of God by worshiping foreign idols. Elijah, early 9th century killed the Canaanites priests of Baal, but he didn't deny Baal's existence as a legitimate god, just not for the jews.

In 628 BC in the reign of Josiah, Deutreronomy was found in the Temple. Many passages in it show that it was a contemporaneous document and at that date it is a litany of complaint that the Jews are still worshiping other Gods. Asherah, Gods female counterpart was particularly popular and her tokens have been excavated at Elephantine and dated to about 550 BC.

Jeremiah complained bitterly that the Jews continued to worship other gods and the worship of Tammuz ( Dumuzzi) and the Queen of heaven (for whom cakes were baked at gates of the temple) was a particular issue. When the Jews were exiled to Babylon in 586 BC it was generally conceded in the OT that this was a punishment for worshiping other Gods, and even when the Jews returned 50 years later (437 to 400 BC), Ezra and Nehemiah still had problems with their Jewish people worshiping other gods - it's all in the Bible.

There are a couple of decent wiki articles on these issues if you are interested.

Apologies for going so far off topic.

 

[FallingToFly]

It wouldn't be a dinner party. It would be drinks, dancing and snacks.

And I'd have my best friends, my husband, and my kids. They'd get to drink sodas all night, eat yummy snacks, and I'd force them to swing dance with me one last time. In public. Oh, the horror!

Honestly, there aren't many people, famous or not, living or dead, that I would want to have with me at the end. The ones I love- that's always been enough for me.

 

[Exquisition]

It wouldn't be a dinner party. It would be drinks, dancing and snacks.

And I'd have my best friends, my husband, and my kids. They'd get to drink sodas all night, eat yummy snacks, and I'd force them to swing dance with me one last time. In public. Oh, the horror!

Honestly, there aren't many people, famous or not, living or dead, that I would want to have with me at the end. The ones I love- that's always been enough for me.

Amen to that.

Welcome to the thread.

 

[topace]

Top - there's a lot of v. convincing circumstantial evidence that photography was around a lot earlier - or at least the knowledge of how to burn a negative image onto a treated white linen sheet using the sun.

Da vinci even wrote about the camera obscura. Wouldn't be so quick to write the possibility off. All he needed was a fixative to fix the image. Common fixative substances were readily available. Given Da vinci's insatiable appetite for knowledge, testing etc. across multiple fields it really is plausible he could have been the perpetrator.

Add in the fact the shroud doesn't appear in the historical record until the 1400s and the carbon dating as well as the fact there is a remarkable resemblance to the shroud face and Da Vinci's own portrait and it's def. not something to be dimissed out of hand imo.

Actually, it's documented in the Bible that Peter found the empty shroud in the tomb, and that it healed Simon the Leper, a king, of his disease around 200 AD. It was later moved to Edesa around 300 AD and then to Constantinople, where the 4th Crusaders found it and took it to Italy by one of Knights Templar.

There are pigments on the shroud because artists touched their brushes to it to 'sanctify' their works, and the image on it is why the depictions of Jesus changed from like a Greek God to the image we associate with Jesus Christ today.

But let's get back on topic and not derail this thread, okay?

 

[Exquisition]

Actually, it's documented in the Bible that Peter found the empty shroud in the tomb, and that it healed Simon the Leper, a king, of his disease around 200 AD. It was later moved to Edesa around 300 AD and then to Constantinople, where the 4th Crusaders found it and took it to Italy by one of Knights Templar.

There are pigments on the shroud because artists touched their brushes to it to 'sanctify' their works, and the image on it is why the depictions of Jesus changed from like a Greek God to the image we associate with Jesus Christ today.

But let's get back on topic and not derail this thread, okay?

Hey, there's no derailment unless it's in your mind

Just positing possible alternatives to corroborate carbon dating evidence that it's a 13th-14th century fake.....

 

[King_of_Fulfolk]

Out of the four that sprang to mind I think it would be Hunter S. Thompson. He may lose it and shoot me a little before my planned time but I could imagine it'd be one hell of a riot.

 

[colddiesel]

Actually, it's documented in the Bible that Peter found the empty shroud in the tomb, and that it healed Simon the Leper, a king, of his disease around 200 AD. It was later moved to Edesa around 300 AD and then to Constantinople, where the 4th Crusaders found it and took it to Italy by one of Knights Templar.

There are pigments on the shroud because artists touched their brushes to it to 'sanctify' their works, and the image on it is why the depictions of Jesus changed from like a Greek God to the image we associate with Jesus Christ today.

Bollocks! Total, unmitigated, superstitious bollocks.

 

[Exquisition]

Stalin & Hitler. They never met although it's pretty widely accepted that Hitler had a grudging respect for Stalin. Would be interesting to have them sit next to each other to chew the fat.

 

[Cruel2BKind]

Stalin & Hitler. They never met although it's pretty widely accepted that Hitler had a grudging respect for Stalin. Would be interesting to have them sit next to each other to chew the fat.

Invite Mao as well.

http://www.lolwtfcomics.com/upload/uploads/1343830020.jpg

And god

 

[Exquisition]

Invite Mao as well.

http://www.lolwtfcomics.com/upload/uploads/1343830020.jpg

And god

but they didn't listen to what the mosquito had to say.

 

[TE999]

If I had one person to invite, it would be James Thurber. With his offbeat imagination and droll wit he'd be huge fun to converse with.

If I could bring others, it would be the occupants of the Algonquin Round Table; Robert Benchley, Ring Lardner, Jr., Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woolcott, Franklin P. Adams (FPA), George S. Kaufman, Harold Ross, Robert E. Sherwood, Edna Ferber, Harpo Marx and others.

Nothing like going out laughing.

 

[topace]

Hey, there's no derailment unless it's in your mind

Just positing possible alternatives to corroborate carbon dating evidence that it's a 13th-14th century fake.....

That can be argued that the carbon dating is false due to a fire the Shroud was in. Plus these facts about carbon dating:

Live Mollusks have be dated dead for 3000 years. Bull Mummy linen (known age) was dated incorrectly by the labs that did the carbon-14 dating of the shroud.

 

[Exquisition]

That can be argued that the carbon dating is false due to a fire the Shroud was in. Plus these facts about carbon dating:

Live Mollusks have be dated dead for 3000 years. Bull Mummy linen (known age) was dated incorrectly by the labs that did the carbon-14 dating of the shroud.

Top - are you in danger of derailing the thread? You said 'let's not derail the thread' so I went with you on that and deliberately didn't post a long winded response rebutting (at least in my mind) each of your arguments.

But now you seem to want to carry on the discourse.

Happy to do so but that's more for PM country no?

 

[MatthewVett]

That can be argued that the carbon dating is false due to a fire the Shroud was in. Plus these facts about carbon dating:

Live Mollusks have be dated dead for 3000 years. Bull Mummy linen (known age) was dated incorrectly by the labs that did the carbon-14 dating of the shroud.

Question! Even if there's no evidence that it's NOT a relatively recent forgery, what evidence is there that the Shroud of Turin is Jesus, specifically? Did he sign it? Does it have a little certificate of authenticity? You're tossing out a lot of evidence for a position with zero evidence. Jesus had hair, no one doubts that, but if I offered to sell you a bag of his hair, I expect you'd want me to verify its provenance before giving me money for it, right?

 

[MatthewVett]

As for my answer to this, Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island. I'd like to talk to him, face to face.

 

[Mandyxxx42]

Easy answer, Spike Milligan I wanna die laughing.

 

[TinyBeth]

Easy answer, Spike Milligan I wanna die laughing.

Good one-and there couldn't be a better reason.

 

[Exquisition]

Easy answer, Spike Milligan I wanna die laughing.

Nice 1 Mandy Def. on the guest list.

Welcome to the thread...

 

[lovecraft68]

Hmmm, if I'm going to go maybe Dr. Phil. I'd like to screw with his head for awhile.

If I had to go with someone that I would really like to talk to, there is a guy named John Douglas who wrote a book called Mindhunter.

Douglas was the originator of the FBI profilers as we know them now. Guy got into the head of some of the biggest serial killers of our time and had them pegged down to a T. Also suffered a nervous breakdown from getting too far into too many of their heads.

Fun dinner conversation I'm sure.

 

[R. Richard]

As for my answer to this, Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island. I'd like to talk to him, face to face.

Actually, Roger Williams founded a settlement he called Providence (Providence Plantations.) Aquidneck Island was later purchased from the Narragansett amerinds by William Coddington and others. Later the inhabitants renamed Aquidneck Island to Rhode Island. Roger Williams was then instrumental in joining together several settlements in what is properly called Providence Plantations and Rhode Island. However, Roger Williams did not found Rhode Island.