> Even the early medieval period has a lot of blanks. Did you know a homossexual bishop called "Flora" lived in first millennium France?
I did not, but like all the facts you mentioned so far, this is not a surprise at all for me (if that was the intention), since it does not contradict any belief I had about first millenium france. It is an interesting fact, though!
> Anyway, you don't seem to be taking me seriously
That's not the case, and I am sorry if I came over as such; I would not have tried to argue my points if I would not have taken you seriously. English is also not my native language, which might contribute to more subtle points being missed/misscommunicated.
> to be reading as a confrontational argument something that I meant as a friendly and helpful nudge towards digging deeper instead of making assumptions
You see, that's the issue; your nudge would only be helpful if I indeed did not dig appropriately deep yet already; which may or may not be, but instead of verifying it first, you told me things that I either knew already, or that did not address my point at all, which was irritating. I am all for infodumps, everytime, everywhere, love 'em. What I took issue with was that you seemed to assume a lack of knowledge, and decided to nudge, seemingly not considering the possibility that you might have completely missed my point.
Which is, succinctly stated: "Surely we should be able and are able to make educated assumptions about all aspects about anytime anywhere of human history; with the strong assumption that we do not have time machines and are therefore are limitited to guessing (or theorising, if one wants to use the fancy word), not measuring or anything or anything of that sort. It is perfectly understood that it's all guesswork, that might be mightly off regarding how it really was - and if we are lucky, the theory is not totally off".
You seemed to take this as a much stronger claim, as is evidenced by you bringing up exceptions to the "rule" more than once; that would only make sense if you literaly believe that statements such as "most of the books in the old testament were written for with an audience in mind that mostly viewed being the first born son a special, higher social condition" was meant in its absolutes (or with absolute certainty), which it was not. Anectodes, counterexamples and so on are meaningless when it comes to statements of bigger trends. They would only be relevant if they would turn out to be a common occurance, or when the source mentions the homosexuality of a monk in passing, without making a big fuzz about it for example - a possible indication that non-hidden homosexuality amongst monks might have been at least tolerated, and maybe even not-rare in first millenium france in at least that monstery. Or was not an issue to the person who reported that. Or it was a smear campain (not all sources are reliable). And so on and so on... (Note: I don't doubt that a homosexual monk named Flora existed back than, it might be well established that he did. I am just using that fact as an example)
---
To wrap up: Infodumps/facts? Heck yeah! Exchange? Yes please. The two of us talking past each other? That's not an exchange, yes. Simply assuming I do not know something instead of verifying it? Heck no, I firmly reject that. If you would have shown me where I was wrong, a nudge would have been appreciated, but as I read it, even now, you simply misunderstood my claims - then, the nudge was missplaced, and came over as patronizing to me.
I think I understood now where it went wrong and what you tried to bring across. Appreciate the facts you droped; I am more the top-down than bottom-up type, but facts like those are interesting to me nonetheless.
I will also stop this thread; in case it helps resolving open ends: "most of the books in the old testament were written/edited/composed for with an audience in mind that mostly viewed being the first born son a special, higher social condition" was and is my intended claim; independent of who the individuals where that wrote these books, of periods where social hierarchies within the intended audiences at time of writting/editing/composition changed, and so on and so for. Yes, that audience encompasses a bit amount of time and space. Still, people who are paid to think and write about this seem to majorily agree with "most of the books in the old testament were written for with an audience in mind that mostly viewed being the first born son a special, higher social condition", if I did not wildly misread the current consensus of academic research. Again, this is a big picture claim; no singular counterexamples or short time periods can change the assumed validity of that statement, only once new sources or new interpretations of old sources indicate a different quantitative historic reality than previously assumed.
---
All the best & happy nerding!