Library of Alexandria

[Jitendra Hydonus]

The Burning of the Library of Alexandria

So who did burn the Library of Alexandria? Unfortunately most of the writers from Plutarch (who apparently blamed Caesar) to Edward Gibbons (a staunch atheist or deist who liked very much to blame Christians and blamed Theophilus) to Bishop Gregory (who was particularly anti-Moslem, blamed Omar) all had an axe to grind and consequently must be seen as biased. Probably everyone mentioned above had some hand in destroying some part of the Library's holdings. The collection may have ebbed and flowed as some documents were destroyed and others were added. For instance, Mark Antony was supposed to have given Cleopatra over 200,000 scrolls for the Library long after Julius Caesar is accused of burning it.

It is also quite likely that even if the Museum was destroyed with the main library the outlying "daughter" library at the Temple of Serapis continued on. Many writers seem to equate the Library of Alexandria with the Library of Serapis although technically they were in two different parts of the city.

The real tragedy of course is not the uncertainty of knowing who to blame for the Library's destruction but that so much of ancient history, literature and learning was lost forever.

https://ehistory.osu.edu/articles/burning-library-alexandria

[Jitendra Hydonus]

If we had all the information in that library now it may well prove there was an Atlantis, Lemuria and many other higher civilizations like the Mahabharata tells us and other cultures including affirming Yogananda’s, Sri Yukteswar’s views, Philip Sclater, Helena Blavatsky, Elizabeth Haich, Laurie Pratt and Plato’s accounts.

[JoySmith]

Yes indeed. What a loss ...
It would be interesting to know what texts did survive.
I guess anything that we know of from before that date would be in that category.

Thanks for posting that, Steve : )
Beach conversations can yield new knowledge!

[Jitendra Hydonus]

Yes indeed. What a loss ...
It would be interesting to know what texts did survive.
I guess anything that we know of from before that date would be in that category.

Thanks for posting that, Steve : )
Beach conversations can yield new knowledge!

This may interest you Joy;

Description
In 1940 America's famous Sleeping Prophet Edgar Cayce predicted that a portion of Atlantis would be found in 1968 and 1969 near the Bahamas island of Bimini. Many people have cited the discovery of the underwater stone formation known as the Bimini Road as confirmation of Cayce's prophecy. In this intriguing documentary, Drs. Greg & Lora Little explore Bimini, Andros, and the Great Bahama Bank in search of Cayce's Atlantis, which he related was partly in the area of Bimini. The Littles found several ancient harbors, the remains of a marble temple, crashed planes, and manmade stone walls all underwater in the area. One of the planes was verified as disappearing into the Bermuda Triangle. The film contains historically accurate recreations of several of Cayce's most famous psychic readings about Atlantis.

https://www.edgarcayce.org/the-readings/ancient-mysteries/atlantis/

[mccoy]

Interesting topic. The burning of the library of Alexandria reminds us that all the literary material arrived to us is probably but a small amount of what has been written in history. The survival of a book up to  recent times was not a frequent occurrence. Some atheists like to argue that Jesus did not exist because there are no reports of him from historians. The answer is simple: first, I would be surprised if there were many reports of the facts occurred in a backwater region of the Roman empire, involving an unknown figure who claimed to be a king and a saviour. Besides, even if there existed a single scroll with historical references to the figure of Jesus (different from the gospels of religious nature), such a scroll would have had a very low degree of probability of survival. Bottom line, the lack of historical material on Jesus should not be a surprise to us.