who are the greatest men and women that ever lived ? and why ? tell us about them ! (29)

I was in a Library some time back and one Lady Librarian was very helpful to me getting and ordering different Bibles for me. After about three months she said " You don't believe any of it, do you?"

I asked her how she knew that and she told me that she had worked in the Library for almost 20 yrs and that every person who read more than two or three bibles stopped believing altogether. I asked her had she read many and she smiled and said no, she wanted to keep her beliefs intact.

no offence to gilly but this has veered onto something more interesting so i'm joining in.

i'm with patrick, a chap called jesus hailing from nazarus did certainly stroll about palestine at the time in question but it was a very common name (still is in south america), as was preaching, ditto getting crucified. new testament of course a highly edited selection of many texts compiled two generations or more later and subsequently altered dramatically, for instance declaring women to be second class citizens.

for my money spartacus was a much more inspiring figure, fought the roman imperialists to a standstill and must have given hope to the oppressed of the roman empire everywhere.

well patrick welcome back my man
havent seen u i a wyle

Thanks, snowed under with work and a flu as well to really make life interesting good to see you



Somehow he has not been spin-doctored to the same extent, guess he did not do the water into wine thing

Hiya Kiero..... howye??

I know this is slightly off tangent here, but I was trying to find info on Queen Scotia whose grave is in a wooded hill just outside Tralee town. I found very little on her save that she was originally an Egyptian princess who had to flee Egypt with a few followers and she married a King in Spain.
He was of a group called the Milesians, and they were the tail end of the Celts who'd made all of Europe their home for about 1,000 yrs til they were beaten back by the Romans c. 300 BC and they retreated into splinter groups.
He had 8 sons and it seems he made a few 'trips' to Ireland (then known as Scota) and 3 of his sons settled here, one in Kerry and 2 split the North and Northwest between them. Another son, called Ir was killed in battle and his children were given the Northeast. As the King was elderly, the Queen came over to avenge her son's death & I'm guessing that's how she ended up being buried in Kerry.
And apparently the name 'Scota' petered out as the land of Ir (or Ireland) was used more.
Intertwined through the above were accounts of the Tuatha de Danann and the Fir Bolg and the reigning High Kings. The story goes that one of those High Kings, Conn, had a stone implanted in his skull for many years after a battle with the Fir Bolg. He was told the story of the healing man who was king of his people and had been crucified for it and became so upset by the story that the stone emerged from his skull and he dropped dead.
I know that these stories were handed down from one generation to the next by word of mouth and some story tellers probably took artistic licence for entertainment purposes. But the fact that the story of Jesus became an integral part of the life (& death)of Conn struck a chord with me. The old 'no smoke without fire' type of thing.
Apart from all that, I have to say I found the story of the Celts fascinating.
In case ye hadn't guessed !!

This is excellent imfo, I have done a special study of the pre-celtic era

indeed. some historians question whether the irish are of celtic origin at all. i do know, however, that the greeks knew the people of ireland as the ir long before 300 bc so if the story is true the dates need adjusting.

I will check my notes again Emigre, it's a while since I read all that. But the 300 BC I was pretty sure was accurate from my memory. I do remember reading that in that 1,000 BC period, the Celts had invaded Rome on 2 occasions. But the native people in Germany took the opportunity to attack the Celts from behind on that occasion in 300BC and that's how they were eventually beaten.