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    Lucian's "True History". Its Credible Parts Interpreted
    Lucian's "True History". Its Credible Parts Interpreted
    Lucian's "True History". Its Credible Parts Interpreted
    Ebook89 pages1 hour

    Lucian's "True History". Its Credible Parts Interpreted

    By Dirk Bontes

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Lucianus of Samosata lived in the second century A.D. He wrote many texts in Greek, of which more than eighty are still extant. One of these texts is his "True History", his "monument of lies". In it he asserts: "One thing I confidently pronounce for a truth, that I lie". But does he lie? For if he does, his assertion must be a lie and consequently he must be telling the truth... "True history" consists of two books. This analysis of these books concludes that they describe a voyage made to the Moon and further into deep space in Far Antiquity. This voyage in the author's opinion is credible and his interpretation reveals quite a bit about the space technology, and extraterrestrial civilization of the pagan gods, an earlier human species.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDirk Bontes
    Release dateJul 5, 2015
    ISBN9781310660757
    Lucian's "True History". Its Credible Parts Interpreted
    Author

    Dirk Bontes

    Won some short story contests. Runs another. All Scifi / Fantasy / Horror. Has written some uncompleted science books. Has translated and interpreted Aeneid VI: Aeneid Liber Sextus.

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    • 3/5
      Prachtige staaltje van satire vol fantasie en absurde humor. Veronderstelde veel cultuurhistorische voorkennis. Al bij al toch smaakvol. Enorme nawerking : Moby Dick, Utopia, Gullivers Travels enzovoort.
    • 3/5
      Prachtige staaltje van satire vol fantasie en absurde humor. Veronderstelde veel cultuurhistorische voorkennis. Al bij al toch smaakvol. Enorme nawerking : Moby Dick, Utopia, Gullivers Travels enzovoort.

    Book preview

    Lucian's "True History". Its Credible Parts Interpreted - Dirk Bontes

    Lucian's True History

    Its Credible Parts Interpreted

    Cover: Anaïd Haen

    Published by Dirk Bontes at Smashwords

    Copyright 2015 Dirk Bontes

    Smashwords Edition, License Notes

    This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be sold or given away to other people. If you would like toshare this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.

    Contents

    1. Introduction

    2. The ascend to Heaven

    3. The crossing to the Moon

    4. The war between the Moon and the Sun

    5. The Moon's clones

    6. The departure from the Moon

    7. The rendezvous with the 'whale'

    8. The whale habitat's evacuation

    9. A huge fleet departs Earth's environs

    10. The departure from the whale habitat

    11. The isles of bulls and of – Heaven?

    12. The arrival at the Underworld

    13. Visiting Tisiphone and the Phlegethon

    14. The Isle of Dreams

    15. Visiting Heaven, a flashback

    16. The two comets, and a flashback: the Isle of Bulls

    17. Visiting Heaven, another flashback

    18. The voyage ends

    19. The Sinter Nuet

    20. Conclusion

    21. About the author

    22. Titles by Dirk Bontes

    23. Contact

    Chapter 1. Introduction

    Updates of this E-book can be downloaded for free by earlier buyers.

    This article is based upon the Project Gutenberg publication of the 1902 edition of Lucian's True History, as translated by Francis Hickes. https://goo.gl/F5AzbY

    Quotes are from that book, unless otherwise indicated.

    Lucianus' True History consists of two books. The first one in my opinion is mostly credible and will be quoted and discussed here. At first I considered the second book to be not credible, but later I revised that opinion, interpreted many of those parts that I had before considered to be not credible, and uploaded this new edition to Smashwords.

    The structure of this E-book is a quote from Lucian's True History, followed by my interpretation of that quote. Then the next quote.

    A lot of names are analyzed by means of their Aryan roots – which these days are called Indo-European roots and which are common to all Indo-European languages.

    Wikipedia: "Lucianus or Loukianos of Samosata (ca. 125 – ca. 180) was a Greek language writer from the Roman empire. He wrote more than eighty documents of varying length.

    Lucianus was born in Samosata in circa 125. Samosata was a town on the upper Euphrates and at the time was part of the Roman province Syria. His mother tongue was Syrian. He learned Greek at school".

    One of Lucianus' books was the Ἀληθης Ἱστορια (True History). In his introduction he writes that he is of the opinion that scholars, fatigued from their intensive serious study, ought to occasionally relax themselves with books that:

    not only yield a bare content by the pleasing and comely composure of them, but shall also give occasion of some learned speculation to the mind, which I suppose I have effected in these books of mine: wherein not only the novelty of the subject, nor the pleasingness of the project, may tickle the reader with delight, nor to hear so many notorious lies delivered persuasively and in the way of truth, but because everything here by me set down doth in a comical fashion glance at some or other of the old poets, historiographers, and philosophers, which in their writings have recorded many monstrous and intolerable untruths.

    He goes on to mention the lies of philosophical persons and that he desires to leave such a monument of lies by himself behind. Then he says:

    I turned my style to publish untruths, but with an honester mind than others have done: for this one thing I confidently pronounce for a truth, that I lie.

    Something strange is going on here. First he states that he is more honest than others, next he says that he lies. We are here confronted with the Liar Paradox, which is first known in philosophy from Epimenides (ca. 600 B.C.) From this we have to conclude that Lucianus, who must be assumed to be familiar with the Liar Paradox, is telling the truth as reported by the earlier authors whom he refers to in his above first quote.

    The following interpretation of Lucian's True History is made from the point of view that an earlier human species – that of the gods – attained an advanced level of science and technology that we modern humans often have not as yet equalled.

    Those pagan gods built a space elevator on top of which was a space habitat called Heaven. Diametrically opposite this space elevator, on the other side of the Earth, they built an enormous space habitat called the Orcus – the Underworld or Hell – where all of the 'dead' went or, if worthy, were reborn through cloning technology.

    The Underworld had a second space elevator attached to it, that transported people and goods up another 72 000 kilometers into space. At the end of this second space elevator was a small space habitat, the Tityos, which served as a passenger terminal where people and cargo were taken aboard spaceships that were called vultures.

    Chapter 2. The ascend to Heaven

    After his introduction Lucianus starts his story:

    Disanchoring on a time from the pillars of Hercules, the wind fitting me well for my purpose, I thrust into the West Ocean.

    Unfortunately Lucianus does not provide us with the longitude nor latitude coördinates, so we do not know where he set out from nor where the West Ocean is located. The West, though, where the Sun sets, is associated with death. People who die go to Heaven, so Lucianus may be suggesting that he set out for Heaven – which is on top of the space elevator Olympus / Yggdrasill. He is blown – propelled – to Heaven. This implies that the pillars of Hercules here were part of the space elevator and served to secure the elevator cabin to the ground. According to Greek mythology, Hercules once relieved Atlas from his duty to carry the weight of the sky. This implies that the space elevator's pillars of Hercules function as its supports. It may also imply that

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