Peeranormal 14: The Piri Reis Map

Peeranormal
Peeranormal
Peeranormal 14: The Piri Reis Map
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Discovered in 1929, the Piri Reis map, dated to 1513, was virtually unknown except by those who may have seen it displayed in its current home, the Topkapi Palace Museum in Instanbul. That all changed when Erich von Däniken made it part of his ancient astronaut theory in the 1960s. Other ancient aliens theorists have followed suit, as well as alternative historians such as Graham Hancock who, following the work of Charles Hapgood (Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings, 1966), theorized the map provided evidence of a long-lost advanced civilization. 

In this episode of PEERANORMAL our hosts discuss the scholarly study of the Piri Reis map, which is well known to experts in cartography and 16th century seafaring. Is it evidence of lost knowledge from a forgotten civilization? Ancient aliens?

Resources:

Gregory C. McIntosh, The Piri Reis Map of 1513 (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2000)

Gregory C. McIntosh, “The Tale of Two Admirals: Columbus and the Piri Reis Map of 1513,” Academia.edu, online document accessed January 20, 2018

Thomas D. Goodrich, Review of The Piri Reis Map of 1513 by Gregory C. McIntosh (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2000), Imago Mundi, Vol. 53 (2001): 150-151

P. D. A. Harvey, Review of The Piri Reis Map of 1513 by Gregory C. McIntosh (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2000), The International History Review 23:4 (Dec., 2001): 894-896

Svat Soucek, “Piri Reis and Ottoman Discovery of the Great Discoveries,” Studia Islamica 79 (1994): 121-142

N. Akmal Ayyubi, “The Contribution of Piri Reis to Cartography,” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 50, Golden Jubilee Session (1989): 737-740

Diego Cuoghi, “The Mysteries of the Piri Reis Map,” (accessed 2/6/2018) – an excellent resource for map visualizations

Peeranormal 13: Bible Codes

Peeranormal
Peeranormal
Peeranormal 13: Bible Codes
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Back in mid-nineties a peer-reviewed article was published that sought to legitimize the idea that the Hebrew text of Genesis encrypted meaningful information about modern persons and events. Their method for detecting the presumed encrypted knowledge was known as equidistant letter sequencing (ELS).This article (Witztum, Rips, and Rosenberg) became a reference point for journalist Michael Drosnin, who wrote the bestselling book, The Bible Code, shortly thereafter. Subsequent to the success of Drosnin’s book, Bible-code research expanded to the full Torah and beyond, to the rest of the Hebrew Bible. In this episode we ask whether there is such a thing as ELS Bible codes. Have other statisticians and biblical scholars agreed with Witztum, Rips, and Rosenberg, or are there serious problems with the method and its assumptions?

Articles

Witztum, Doron, Eliyahu Rips, and Yoav Rosenberg, “Equidistant letter sequences in the Book of Genesis,” Statistical Science 9.3 (1994): 429-438

McKay, Brendan, Dror Bar-Natan, Maya Bar-Hillel, and Gil Kalai, “Solving the Bible Code puzzle,” Statistical Science (1999): 150-173.

Richard A. Taylor, “The Bible Code: ‘Teaching them [wrong] things,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 43, no. 4 (2000): 619-636

Paul J. Tanner. “Decoding the Bible Code,” Bibliotheca Sacra 157 (2000): 141-159.

Link to Naked Bible Podcast Episode 104: How we got the Old Testament

Peeranormal 12: Zombies

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Peeranormal
Peeranormal 12: Zombies
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Are zombies real or just something Hollywood is into nowadays? If you’ve ever seen the movie The Serpent and the Rainbow, you know the question is legitimate. That movie was based on a book by Wade Davis, who earned his PhD in part on the basis of his research into “zombification” in Haiti. Davis and others theorize that zombies are real, and that they are the result of specific drugs given to individuals against their will that produce zombie-like states and behavior. The modern drug Flakka is a current, frightening example. Other researchers disagree, noting that zombie lore is very old and encompasses notions that sound a lot like demonization and possession. This episode of PEERANORMAL explores the topic just in time for Halloween.

Readings:

Ackermann, Hans-W & Gauthier, Jeanine, “The Ways and Nature of the Zombi,” The Journal of American Folklore 104:414 (1991): 466-494

Murtaugh, Constructing the Haitian Zombie: An Anthropological Study Beyond Madness

William Booth, Voodoo Science,” Science new series, 240:4850 (April 15, 1988): 274-277

Neurophilosophy (Science Blogs), “The ethnobiology of voodoo zombification,” Sept 13, 2007

Wade Davis, Zombification,” Science new series, 240: 4860 (June 1988): 1715-1716

Natalina, Indonesian Zombie Photo: Real, Fake, or Misunderstood?” Extraordinary Intelligence blog, Sept 20, 2010

YouTube: Zombie Drug BRAZIL ‘Cloud Nine (2017)