For general amusement – and some reflections – I offer the following:
An inquiry at the forum at Ancient / Classical History at about.com about a book called The Parthenon Code: Mankind's History in Marble, by Robert Bowie Johnson Jr. , led me to some – blessedly brief – googling, which got me to theparthenoncode.com. Johnson's astonishing premise is that the Parthenon metopes represent the story of Genesis (sample chapters) …
The author has also written Athena and Kain [sic]: The True Meaning of Greek Myth (reviewed at BMCR) and Athena and Eden: The Hidden Meaning of the Parthenon's East Façade.
As fellow blogger Dorothy King and author of The Elgin Marbles has aptly remarked, “Although a new book by Robert Bowie Johnson, Jr. claims that the Parthenon depicts the book of Genesis, including Noah and his flood, this theory has not been widely accepted, and the Israeli government have not used it as the basis to claim the Parthenon for the State of Israel.”
This all would be truly funny and shades of von Däniken, if it there weren't a very serious component to this.
The author is obviously a creationist, and in this country, where a significant number of people accept creationism as a fact, the books may have well reached a gullible audience and are further contributing to the dumbing down of society. In fact, the sample chapters do have some class-room look. BMCR talks about “a silly book with a pernicious message. It seeks to rob the ancient Greeks of their uniqueness, to taint their contribution to the formation of western culture, and to replace both with a fundamentalist cant that does no service to Genesis.”
Mr. Johnson is also an ardent foe of the late Joseph Campbell –
whatever one may think of the latter – and calls Bill Moyers, who
produced the well known PBS series The Power of Myth, a Christian Atheist.
I will not promote Mr. Johnson's books via Amazon.com here: the proceeds go
to my local historical society which certainly would not like to profit
from this, sorely though they need the money. Instead, I offer The Elgin Marbles by Dorothy King, which provides an excellent and in depth history of the Parthenon. For UKans, her book can be got here.
… and David Meadows may be pleased to learn that Mr. Johnson promotes his blog on his site.
