{"id":26669,"date":"2015-11-06T09:01:50","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T17:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/experts-dismiss-carsons-belief-pyramids-used-to-store-grain\/"},"modified":"2015-11-06T09:01:50","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T17:01:50","slug":"experts-dismiss-carsons-belief-pyramids-used-to-store-grain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/experts-dismiss-carsons-belief-pyramids-used-to-store-grain\/","title":{"rendered":"Experts dismiss Carson’s belief pyramids used to store grain"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIAMI<\/strong> \u2014 Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson on Thursday stood by his belief that Egypt\u2019s great pyramids were built by the biblical figure Joseph to store grain, an assertion dismissed by experts who say it\u2019s accepted science they were tombs for pharaohs.<\/p>\n

Video posted online Wednesday by Alpha XR News shows Carson explaining his theory 17 years ago at a Michigan college affiliated with his Seventh-day Adventist Church.<\/p>\n

In the video, Carson says: \u201cMy own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids in order to store grain.\u201d He was referring to the Old Testament story of Joseph predicting famine and advising the pharaoh to store surplus food.<\/p>\n

Carson said that\u2019s more likely than the accepted archaeological conclusion that the massive structures were built as tombs for pharaohs.<\/p>\n

At a book signing Thursday in Florida, Carson stood by his statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people believe in the Bible like I do and don\u2019t find that to be silly at all, and believe that God created the Earth and don\u2019t find that to be silly at all,\u201d Carson said. \u201cThe secular progressives try to ridicule it every time it comes up and they\u2019re welcome to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither Carson\u2019s church nor any other major Jewish or Christian sect shares his belief about the pyramids\u2019 origins. Jodi Magness, a specialist in biblical archaeology at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, said she knows of no scholar or archaeologist who questions that the pyramids were used as royal tombs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not an academic topic of debate,\u201d Magness said in an email. \u201cThe use of the pyramids as tombs is verified by both written (literary) sources and archaeological evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pyramids were built with narrow, secret passages intended to foil grave-robbers, making the structures unsuitable for grain storage, Magness said. And the design of the pyramids, with associated temples, \u201creflects the ancient Egyptian concept of the cosmos, according to which the king or pharaoh was at the center of a unified kingdom, serving as a god, a political ruler and a divine mediator.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daniel Weber, a spokesman for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, said Carson\u2019s belief about the pyramids are \u201chis own interpretation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, we believe in the biblical account of Joseph and the famine,\u201d Weber said. \u201cBut I\u2019ve never heard the idea that pyramids were storehouses of grain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carson acknowledged in his 1998 speech that \u201call the archaeologists\u201d say the structures were built as tombs, but he argued that the \u201chermetically sealed\u201d chambers found in the pyramids \u201cwould have to be that way\u201d to store grain.<\/p>\n

Carson speaks often about his faith and has written extensively about his beliefs in his books. His popularity among evangelical Christian voters has helped fuel his rise in the Republican primary.<\/p>\n

He has garnered attention previously for stating that, despite his scientific training as a neurosurgeon, he rejects evolutionary biology.<\/p>\n

Another top contender for the GOP nomination, businessman Donald Trump, has suggested that Carson\u2019s religious beliefs put him outside mainstream American Christianity. At one October rally in Florida, Trump called his own Presbyterian church \u201cmiddle of the road\u201d before adding, \u201cI mean, Seventh-day Adventist, I don\u2019t know about.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview with The Associated Press, conducted after Trump\u2019s remarks, Carson said he expects in politics to have his religious affiliation questioned, but he defended his faith and his church.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of people who have a close relationship with God, and you can generally tell who they are by the way they act, the way they treat other people,\u201d he told the AP. \u201cThe reason that there are like 4,000 denominations is that people have looked at this and said, \u2018Let\u2019s interpret it this way. Let\u2019s interpret it this way.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes they get caught up in that and forget about the real purpose of Christian faith,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n

A first-time political candidate, Carson has a penchant for headline-grabbing statements beyond matters of faith. He has equated abortion and the Affordable Care Act to slavery, compared the zeal of Islamic State militants to that of American Revolution patriots and suggested that the Holocaust may not have occurred had European Jews been better armed against the Nazis.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Barrow reported from Atlanta. AP Religion Writer Rachel Zoll in New York contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow Jesse J. Holland and Bill Barrow on Twitter at https:\/\/twitter.com\/jessejholland and https:\/\/twitter.com\/BillBarrowAP .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MIAMI \u2014 Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson on Thursday stood by his belief that Egypt\u2019s great pyramids were built by the biblical figure Joseph to store grain, an assertion dismissed by experts who say it\u2019s accepted science they were tombs for pharaohs. Video posted online Wednesday by Alpha XR News<\/a> shows Carson explaining his theory 17 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":26670,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-26669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26669"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=26669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}