02-05-2008, 03:23 AM
There are at least 4 theories as to how/when the Library burned. As far as I can tell, there is not clear consensus which is correct. It seems to me that the ashes ought to be found in a stratum that would make it fairly easy to determine at least the century, but I'm not a historian or an archeologist.
My personal opinion, not thoroughly researched, is that the first library burned during J.Caesar's war against Ptolemy, and was probably an accident. It's reported that Mark Anthony took scrolls by the hundred from Pergamum and had a library rebuilt using those "books" as a gift to Cleopatra, but many of the original volumes were lost irrecovacably. If this is true, the library was burned about a century before Jesus was crucified, and at least a three centuries before the church was an entity capable of ordering anything. Again, I apologize to the real historians, and am willing to be shown wrong in these statements.
My personal opinion, not thoroughly researched, is that the first library burned during J.Caesar's war against Ptolemy, and was probably an accident. It's reported that Mark Anthony took scrolls by the hundred from Pergamum and had a library rebuilt using those "books" as a gift to Cleopatra, but many of the original volumes were lost irrecovacably. If this is true, the library was burned about a century before Jesus was crucified, and at least a three centuries before the church was an entity capable of ordering anything. Again, I apologize to the real historians, and am willing to be shown wrong in these statements.
M. Demetrius Abicio
(David Wills)
Saepe veritas est dura.
(David Wills)
Saepe veritas est dura.
