Egypt’s pyramids were built by the biblical Joseph to store grain and were not, as archaeologists believe, tombs for pharaohs, Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson has said.
The retired neurosurgeon, who is seeking his party’s nomination for the White House, made these remarks in a 1998 address at Andrews University, a Michigan school associated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, to which he belongs, in a video posted on Buzzfeed on Wednesday.
The church is a conservative evangelical Christian one.
“My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain,” Carson – who last week overtook Republican rival Donald Trump for the first time in a national poll – told graduates in his address.
“Now all the archeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs’ graves. But, you know, it would have to be something awfully big if you stop and think about it.
“And I don’t think it’d just disappear over the course of time to store that much grain.”
Asked on Wednesday if he still held these views, Carson told CBS News: “It’s still my belief, yes.”
Speaking to MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Thursday, rival Republican Trump said: “He’s informed me about the pyramids. I think I’ll have to put that in my repertoire about Ben. That was a strange deal.”
In his 1998 address, Carson said: “And when you look at the way that the pyramids are made, with many chambers that are hermetically sealed, they’d have to be that way for various reasons.
“And various of scientists have said, ‘Well, you know there were alien beings that came down and they have special knowledge and that’s how, you know, it doesn’t require an alien being when God is with you’.”
In the old testament book of Genesis, Joseph, one of the 12 sons of Jacob, was said to have “stored up grain in great abundance like the sand of the sea, until he stopped measuring it, for it was beyond measure”.
After seven years of plenty, the story in Genesis says, Egypt suffered seven years of famine, during which Joseph was able to feed the people with the grain he had stored.
Carson has spoken often about his faith, saying recently of his critics: “They say, ‘Carson, you know, how can you be a surgeon, a neurosurgeon, and believe that God created the Earth, and not believe in evolution, which is the basis of all knowledge and all science?’ …
“But I do believe God created us, and I did just fine … And in fact, the more you know about God, and the deeper your relationship with God, I think the more intricate becomes your knowledge of the way things work, including the human body.”
Originally Posted by Sully:
hamstrung by a very modern conception of birds?
Well he probably isn't wrong about that statement in and of itself given the general ignorance to any and almost everything by our American Idol society, [Reply]
Originally Posted by petegz28:
Well he probably isn't wrong about that statement in and of itself given the general ignorance to any and almost everything by our American Idol society,
Originally Posted by Sully:
What are you talking about?
That people are hamstrung specifically about their understanding of birds in the modern day compared to 1,000's of years ago. Whether that is actually applicable to the Carson statement is highly debatable. [Reply]
Yeah it's a shame Ben Carson doesn't say more stuff like this that would increase our admiration and would make us want to look up to him....
“I had learned not to care. I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years. Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though. …” — Barack Obama
“Junkie. Pothead. That’s where I’d been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man. Except the highs hadn’t been about that, me trying to prove what a down brother I was. Not by then, anyway. I got high for just the opposite effect, something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory. I had discovered that it didn’t make any difference whether you smoked reefer in the white classmate’s sparkling new van, or in the dorm room of some brother you’d met down at the gym, or on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids who had dropped out of school and now spent most of their time looking for an excuse to brawl. …You might just be bored, or alone. Everybody was welcome into the club of disaffection.” — Barack Obama
“…I inhaled frequently. That was the point.” — Barack Obama [Reply]
Originally Posted by Andoverer:
Yeah it's a shame Ben Carson doesn't say more stuff like this that would increase our admiration and would make us want to look up to him....
“I had learned not to care. I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years. Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though. …” — Barack Obama
“Junkie. Pothead. That’s where I’d been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man. Except the highs hadn’t been about that, me trying to prove what a down brother I was. Not by then, anyway. I got high for just the opposite effect, something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory. I had discovered that it didn’t make any difference whether you smoked reefer in the white classmate’s sparkling new van, or in the dorm room of some brother you’d met down at the gym, or on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids who had dropped out of school and now spent most of their time looking for an excuse to brawl. …You might just be bored, or alone. Everybody was welcome into the club of disaffection.” — Barack Obama
“…I inhaled frequently. That was the point.” — Barack Obama
This is the thing that's going to be most interesting to me over the next year-5 years.
Even though every politician since forever has done it, there has been a wailing from the right during the President Obama years about never taking responsibility, and always pivoting back to "Bush did it..."
My theory is that we will see this just as much or more (since it's simply normal politics) where everything will pivot to Obama (or Hillary) rather than those who have been crying about it, actually taking their own advice. [Reply]
Originally Posted by NinerDoug:
Neither was William Jennings Bryan. But he still took the stand in the Scopes Monkey Trial and testified that the Earth is only 6,000 years old.
So what did that make him? A nut, I guess? So Carson is a nut. Either way, utterly unqualified for the office to which he aspires.
William Jennings Bryan? What the hell are you talking about? Did he have an opinion on the purpose of the Pyramids? [Reply]
Originally Posted by alpha_omega:
William Jennings Bryan? What the hell are you talking about? Did he have an opinion on the purpose of the Pyramids?
Probably. But that's not the point. He publicly exposed himself as a nut, as Carson has done on a number of occasions now. But somehow Carson seems to be immune to the effects of publically exposing oneself as a nut. [Reply]
Originally Posted by petegz28:
That people are hamstrung specifically about their understanding of birds in the modern day compared to 1,000's of years ago. Whether that is actually applicable to the Carson statement is highly debatable.
Wait. Are you saying the birds EVOLVED? Doesn't that contradict Ben Carson's beliefs?
I can't help but think Ben Carson is on Trump's payroll. He is such a ****ing lunatic that he makes Trump look good by comparison. [Reply]
Originally Posted by NinerDoug:
..... But somehow Carson seems to be immune to the effects of publically exposing oneself as a nut.
I would hypothesize that what you are talking about really has more to do with the complete dissatisfaction with the current administration/establishment than it does with Carson's nuttiness. [Reply]
