Acharya S and the real Christ Conspiracy

[Roger Pearse]

A comment on Mithras cranks by Mithras scholar Maarten Vermaseren came to my attention at the weekend:

" 4. This is the dreadful title of a book by Mrs Wynne-Tyson published in 1972. The Times Literary Supplement said of this work : “The argument of this book, showing that the facts about Mithras reveal the basic pattern of Western civilisation and throw light into many of the darker comers of history, points disturbing conclusions for Christian orthodoxy”.

" But reading the astonishing lines “To the Christian and others outside the Mithraic fold, Mithraism, with its bull-slaying God who was also identifiable as the Bull, in whose regenerative blood the Faithful bathed; with its animal masks of Lion and Bull, Horse, Eagle and Gryphon, and its eschatological teachings of metempsychosis, evidently seemed to be the worship of the Beast, even as Pure Christianity has always been the worship of the Perfect Man” etc., one would be tempted to think that Franz Cumont and his successors had all written in vain. I wonder what Stevie Smith in the Observer really meant when writing about this book “Most fascinating and apt to our times.”

" Mithraism as the introduction to the anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner is preached by Alfred Schütze, Mithras, Mysterien und Urchristentum, Stuttgart 1972(2). The petitio principii already is wrong.

" The wildest opinions as well as unadulterated twaddle about the revealing excavations in the Mithraeum of Sa Prisca (M. J. Vermaseren – C. C. van Essen, The Excavations in the Mithraeum of the Church of Santa Prisca in Rome, Leiden 1965) can be found in the book by Father Geremia Sangiorgi O.S.A., S. Prisca e it suo Mitreo (Le Chiese di Roma illustrate 101), Roma 1968, which is now the official guide for visitors!

" It becomes each year more necessary for scholars to waste their precious time in refuting the many pseudo-scholars = anti- scholars: read, for example, the exemplary review by Theodor Klauser in JAC 11/12, 1968/1969, 215-224 who rightly emphasizes:

" “Wer die Wissenschaft wirklich fördern will, darf sich nicht damit begnügen, Einfälle und Lesefrüchte unkontrolliert zu einer verführerischen Synthese zu vereinigen und diese in gefälliger Form vorzutragen, die leiseste kritische Berührung bringt solche Konstruktionen zum Einsturz. Die bewährten Regeln der wissenschaftlichen Methode lassen sich nicht ungestraft ignorieren; auch der Begabteste kann langwierige Arbeitsprozesse, wenn sie nötig sind, nicht nach Belieben überspringen”.

A rough translation of Klauser’s words:

“Anyone who really wants to promote scholarship may not content themselves with uniting uncontrolled ideas and research into a seductive synthesis, written in an attractive form, for the slightest critical touch causes such constructs to collapse. The established rules of scholarly method cannot be ignored with impunity; even the most gifted may not skip over the necessarily lengthy process.”

http://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2014 ... as-cranks/

[Robert Tulip]

Roger, why did you re-post this Mithras comment in this thread? Are you using it to criticise Murdock for her repetition of claims that the twelve zodiac figures in the tauroctony bear comparison to similar portrayals of Christ surrounded by zodiac figures?

I don't understand your assertion that the cap reference is about Augustine. The tauroctony pre-dates Augustine and shows Mithras wearing a cap, as does the Arch of Constantine.

A fascinating documentary on Constantine points out that his Triumphal Arch beside the Coliseum has eight columns each topped by a figure claimed to be a priest wearing a Mithraic cap.

It is surprising that this grand arch erected to celebrate the victory of the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312 AD has Mithraic imagery but no Christian imagery whatsoever, a fact impossible to square with the claim that Constantine converted to Christianity to win this famous battle. The documentary suggests the Christian conversion claim was retrojected by Eusebius after Nicaea. Rather than asperting about such matters it is more constructive to have a polite conversation to try to get to the facts.

[neilgodfrey]

The prediction is that the New Testament can accurately be understood against the hypothesis that its original unifying authorial intent was to describe nature through allegory. This method of scientific interpretation applies comprehensively to the parable of Christ as the Sun, from birth to miracles, mission, cross, resurrection and return.

That's not an unfalsifiable prediction. It's a confession of rationalization. You can't "predict" that you will be able to find a way to explain your theory no matter what you read -- anyone can do that with any hypothesis. I can say the same about my literary-theological hypothesis. That's not a helpful prediction at all.

What can your hypothesis predict that cannot be replicated by any other hypothesis?

[neilgodfrey]

Compare the prediction that my literary-theological hypothesis made on the miracle of the loaves. Your prediction is vague and patchy and no different from the potential ability of almost any other hypothesis one could think of.

Thanks Neil for offering such a vigorous skeptical contest. But your argument is a bit like saying modern astronomy is vague and patchy. My hypothesis says the Bible is based on actual reality. Any other hypothesis would differ from what we can actually see and know, to use the terms Christ employs to explain this miracle of the loaves and fishes.

No need to be sarcastic, especially if you really want a genuine discussion. My hypothesis can predict that the structure of the miracle of the loaves and fishes will be matched by the structure of the Moses/manna narrative in Exodus and that the images and phrases will be matched by the same Greek words and images in the LXX of the Jewish Bible --- in particular where those Biblical passages are known from other related Christian literature to represent types of the Church and its activities.

Now that is a specific prediction that expects to find matching literary structures and theological images and metaphors in specific sources and that explains nearly the entirety of the miracle episode -- nearly every word and passage.

I can make the same prediction for most other miracle passages in the Gospels. That is predictions re specific sources and the extent of what will be explained (nearly every word and phrase and the overall structure as well).

Your prediction has only said it will be able to explain a few words in the story and relegate the rest to padding to make the "real story" palatable or easy to teach. I suggest that almost any hypothesis can predict that much -- to be able to explain a few word and dump whatever is left over into padding for teaching purposes.

The miracle is very easily explained and well understood by my hypothesis. It is not the mystery you appear to insist it is. There are mysterious aspects to Mark's miracles and those are also very cogently explained by the methods of literary-historical analysis as they have been done.

The point of prediction is to explain something otherwise not understood very well at all. On that basis your hypothesis has no predictive value at all. It is unfalsifiable.

With abundant respect, that is a remarkable comment. Of course the Gospel miracles are not well understood. A large number of Christians think they are evidence that God breaks the laws of physics. Atheists think they are evidence the Bible is talking through its butt. I say they encode accurate visions of reality. The test of falsification in this case is coherence. Against both the modern posterior derivation theory of Biblical meaning and the traditional Bullwinkle's hat version, the power, durability and stability of Biblical influence are far better explained by exploring for a concealed natural meaning that accords with scientific knowledge.

Cut your saracasm, Robert. The miracles are very well and cogently explained in the literature. I don't know why you haven't read those explanations. I don't care what most people who haven't studied the question think or don't understand. That's beside the point. Your explanation can only account for a few words or images here and there; other explanations have accounted for just about every word. I prefer the explanation that has the greater explanatory power.

[neilgodfrey]

Here's a classic illustration of a hypothesis making a prediction. It's on page 333 of Karel Hanhart's The Open Tomb:

Hypothesis: That Mark wrote a post-70 midrash on LXX Isaiah 22:16 and LXX Isiaah 33:16.

Prediction: "Each word and phrase ought to correspond with the new message he wanted to convey."

That is, an exegesis will be able to show one to one correpondence between each word and phrase in Mark's ending and the two LXX passges in Isaiah.

That is very similar to the same sort of prediction/evidence that supports the sort of interpretation of miracles that I showed earlier. The same can be done for not only the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 but for other miracles, too.

The astrotheology hypothesis can make no comparable prediction that demonstrates it is the key to explaining the Gospel literature.

[Robert Tulip]

You do not appear to have read into the origins -- theological and literary-critical -- of the gospel narratives. You never refer to any of the dozens of relevant authors or works. I have learned a whole way of reading the gospels through Wrede, Fowler, Tolbert, Shiner, Vines, Kelber, Camery-Hoggart, Watts (Rikki, not Joel), Hock, Goulder, Nickelsburg, Brant, Bultmann (you scoff at Bultmann -- Price, whom you cite approvingly, certainly does not.)

How would you know what I have read? I am a constant reader. None of these theologians you mention seem to question whether Jesus actually existed. This to my reading is the decisive heuristic turn seen in writers such as Earl Doherty. Questioning the assumption of a historical Jesus should be a starting point for critical scholarship on the Gospels.

I just looked at one essay on the Messianic Secret, and it says Wrede assumed there must be some historical kernel to the gospel. To my reading, this leaves Wrede as rather like Ptolemy, fascinating but obsolete. Mythicism opens up a whole coherent horizon for Biblical hermeneutics in terms of scholarly method, and explains why Earl Doherty expresses respect for Acharya, who also has it correct on this foundational question.

Conventional faith deserves ridicule.

Not in an academic or scholarly discussion it doesn't.

But that is the exact point: if people come here and promote young earth creationism, a conventional faith believed by about 40% of Americans, they will be ridiculed, politely I hope, but nonetheless it will be impossible to establish dialogue with them regarding evidence for truth since their premises are so wildly wrong. Jesus Historicism is just as baseless as Young Earth Creationism, grounded in desire and social function rather than in evidence.

People who think that God breaks the laws of physics are stupid.

What are you trying to prove by talking like this? I know lots of very intelligent people who have beliefs I do not agree with; I think they are irrational beliefs; but at the same time I understand why they hold those beliefs. I don't have to think they are "stupid". Do you really look so condescendingly upon all those people?

I see respect for physics as a threshold moral question. We should build our ethics upon a logical framework of systematic understanding of reality. Science is coherent, consistent and compelling. Science excludes miracles. But if we use the sandy foundation of fantasy, pandering to belief in miracles, we cannot hope for any clarity or accuracy in our ethical judgments. Belief in miracles is like belief that the Titanic was too big to be sunk by an iceberg - stupid.

but pedophilia is an attitude grounded in the theological problem identified by Voltaire, that believing absurdities permits atrocities.

Are you seriously saying that pedophilia is some sort of indirect product of faith in miracles? This is a scientifically confirmed assertion?

Belief in the virgin birth produces damaging psychological effects. It creates an image of female sexuality as evil, and iconifies an imaginary false ideal of the virgin mother.

The Catholic requirement for priestly celibacy is closely associated with the miraculous cult of Mariolatry, as a way of providing emotional comfort through sublimation of sexual desire into a spiritual myth. Unfortunately, this anti-natural dogmatic framework has perverse outcomes, seen in the lack of respect that predator priests have for innocent children, and the ability of perverts to exploit the gullibility and trust of the institution, which has created its own fantasy world.

Voltaire’s dictum seems to me a deeply accurate critique: if you accept claims that are known to be false, like Orwell’s 2+2=5, you enter a warped world where values are severed from evidence, and good and evil can easily be inverted in the mind of the functionaries of the institution.

That is simply my personal opinion about the depravity of the Roman Catholic Church, and the deep doctrinal causes of its extensive documented pathological support for child rapists around the world.

Earl Doherty has done the mythicism and mythicists a disservice by his approval of Murdock's work. I don't think he fully appreciated what lay behind it.

With your earlier citation of Jesus believers as credible, this gives me the impression you do not understand Earl’s work very well.

[bcedaifu]

I have learned a whole way of reading the gospels through Wrede, Fowler, Tolbert, Shiner, Vines, Kelber, Camery-Hoggart, Watts (Rikki, not Joel), Hock, Goulder, Nickelsburg, Brant, Bultmann (you scoff at Bultmann -- Price, whom you cite approvingly, certainly does not.)

Earl Doherty has done the mythicism and mythicists a disservice by his approval of Murdock's work. I don't think he fully appreciated what lay behind it.

These are two highly attenuated quotes, apologies for their slender size, it was not my intention to imply excessive terseness, by their author.

Personally, I am disinterested in what other forum members have or have not read. I am interested in data, and I don't find any data here.

Further, I find no analysis of existing data.

To explain how Earl Doherty has "done...a disservice by his approval of Murdock's work", one needs two, (equally terse works well) summaries, of three or four lines of text, each:

one for Murdoch.

one for Doherty.

Then we can judge for ourselves, just what this "disservice" consists of. Otherwise, it comes off as just another attack on those who criticise the prevailing dogma that Jesus of Capernaum was an historic figure.

This is a thread devoted to Acharya S and the real Christ Conspiracy. So, what, in three or four lines, has she written, that is so wrong, and what has Earl written, supporting her conclusions, that was so wrong?

I just looked at one essay on the Messianic Secret, and it says Wrede assumed there must be some historical kernel to the gospel.

Is this a problem for you, Neil? Is it a fact that neither Murdoch nor Doherty respect this concept of at least "some historical kernel to the" Jesus stories in the gospels? If so, does that fact, if true, leave you with a feeling that their scholarly inquiries are substandard in some fashion? Is one obliged, prior to undertaking a critical assessment of the evidence, to express faith in the idea that at least some part of the Jesus narrative in the gospels must be true? Was that your motivation, in submitting that laundry list of authors whose works you had digested--to demonstrate to the faithful, that you are aware of the "scholarly" consensus? How does your submission of a long list of "experts", whose works you have read, provide one iota of clarity vis a vis the historical foundations of the origins of Christianity? Had Martin Luther quoted Origen, Clement, Eusebius, Aristotle and Plato, would it have made his conclusion about the fact of geocentrism more believable?

The starting point for this forum to generate novel, or at least, interesting hypotheses, is to reject the status quo, and endeavor to critically examine proper evidence, rather than simply promote rumor and gossip and offer a list of names of famous authors, to support such hypotheses.

[Andrew]

The Catholic requirement for priestly celibacy is closely associated with the miraculous cult of Mariolatry, as a way of providing emotional comfort through sublimation of sexual desire into a spiritual myth. Unfortunately, this anti-natural dogmatic framework has perverse outcomes, seen in the lack of respect that predator priests have for innocent children, and the ability of perverts to exploit the gullibility and trust of the institution, which has created its own fantasy world.

More accurately, most rites of the Catholic Church impose the discipline of celibacy, but some rites (e.g. the Ukranian Catholic Rite) allow married men to be ordained, just not marry after they are ordained. There are exceptions in other rites too. Some married Protestant clergymen who have converted to Catholicism have been ordained as priests.

That is simply my personal opinion about the depravity of the Roman Catholic Church, and the deep doctrinal causes of its extensive documented pathological support for child rapists around the world.

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/re ... -sex-abuse

I am aware that that is a Catholic source, but from what I've seen elsewhere, this seems to be correct. About 4% of Catholic priests are sexual abusers, but similar numbers and percentages can be found in other groups. The problem is not a problem with the Catholic Church, it is a societal problem, IMO. A quick Google search should be able to confirm what I just said.

Apologies for the off-topic post, but I've seen a lot of this recently and the misrepresentation of the Catholic Church by the media is irritating, to say the least. I will not follow it up if you reply, but please try to get your facts straight, Robert.

[neilgodfrey]

You do not appear to have read into the origins -- theological and literary-critical -- of the gospel narratives. You never refer to any of the dozens of relevant authors or works. I have learned a whole way of reading the gospels through Wrede, Fowler, Tolbert, Shiner, Vines, Kelber, Camery-Hoggart, Watts (Rikki, not Joel), Hock, Goulder, Nickelsburg, Brant, Bultmann (you scoff at Bultmann -- Price, whom you cite approvingly, certainly does not.)

How would you know what I have read? I am a constant reader. None of these theologians you mention seem to question whether Jesus actually existed. This to my reading is the decisive heuristic turn seen in writers such as Earl Doherty. Questioning the assumption of a historical Jesus should be a starting point for critical scholarship on the Gospels.

I don't know what you've read and I did not say I did. Again you don't seem to read very carefully. But whatever you have read you do not "appear to have read" certain works, and I base this on what you have said by way of dismissing certain works earlier and your followup remarks here that very often indicate ignorance of their arguments and explanations for the Gospels and miracle stories -- and their prediction-based and falsifiable hypotheses. You appear to begin with the position that anything that does not question the HJ has nothing or very little to teach you. That's a shame. Surely the most important question for history is to understand how and why Christianity emerged. I have learned much from HJ and mythicist-based literature and from everything in between -- that is, where the discussion is irrelevant to whether there was an HJ or not.

I just looked at one essay on the Messianic Secret, and it says Wrede assumed there must be some historical kernel to the gospel. To my reading, this leaves Wrede as rather like Ptolemy, fascinating but obsolete. Mythicism opens up a whole coherent horizon for Biblical hermeneutics in terms of scholarly method, and explains why Earl Doherty expresses respect for Acharya, who also has it correct on this foundational question.

You are closing your mind to lots of insights into how the Gospels were written and what lay behind Christian beginnings. Wrede's thesis of the Messianic Secret does not depend on their being an HJ. Yes he believed there was an HJ, but that's his perspective and one soon sees his main argument would stand even without an HJ.

Conventional faith deserves ridicule.

Not in an academic or scholarly discussion it doesn't.

But that is the exact point: if people come here and promote young earth creationism, a conventional faith believed by about 40% of Americans, they will be ridiculed, politely I hope, but nonetheless it will be impossible to establish dialogue with them regarding evidence for truth since their premises are so wildly wrong. Jesus Historicism is just as baseless as Young Earth Creationism, grounded in desire and social function rather than in evidence.

If you came here to promote YEC you'd be in the wrong forum and thus excluded. You cannot compare HJ with YEC at all. The former is a cultural assumption -- the bane of many a hypothesis that has taken a long time to dislodge; the latter is an ideological position -- like astrotheology, I personally think. Evidence is made to fit the assumption -- it is confirmation bias and unfalsifiable through and through.

but pedophilia is an attitude grounded in the theological problem identified by Voltaire, that believing absurdities permits atrocities.

Are you seriously saying that pedophilia is some sort of indirect product of faith in miracles? This is a scientifically confirmed assertion?

Belief in the virgin birth produces damaging psychological effects. It creates an image of female sexuality as evil, and iconifies an imaginary false ideal of the virgin mother.

So it is not a scientifically confirmed assertion. It is just crazy bar-talk.

[Robert Tulip]

The problem is not a problem with the Catholic Church, it is a societal problem, IMO. A quick Google search should be able to confirm what I just said. Apologies for the off-topic post, but I've seen a lot of this recently and the misrepresentation of the Catholic Church by the media is irritating, to say the least. I will not follow it up if you reply, but please try to get your facts straight, Robert.

In fact it is on topic, since the original conspiratorial culture of the Roman Church criticised by Acharya has led to its current situation.

As Andrew recommends, a quick google search is worthwhile. For a pro-Catholic view, pleading for why the systemic institutional abuse facilitated by Christian organisations is no worse than the rest of society, see http://www.catholiceducation.org/articl ... m0011.html

For an analysis of the institutional factors behind the culture of abuse, https://theconversation.com/rogue-pries ... urch-10700 discusses the situation in Australia. This article notes that sexually abusive Catholic priests have been concentrated in particular dioceses, investigations appear to have been stymied by both the church and the police, organisational culture is a key reason the Catholic Church has a problem with the sexual abuse of children, the general mindset and power structure of the Church is feudal in origin and nature, figures of authority expect absolute deference from subordinates, institutional authorities silence children who complain of abuse while protecting abusers, and Institutional sexual abuse may occur due to disorganised rather than organised abuse: a lack of basic safeguards, protections or care that leave children vulnerable.

This problem of clerical human rights abuse has helped to empty churches in some countries. Honest and open discussion of the doctrinal factors in why the church is so sick is justified. The link between what people believe and what they do is more than what Neil Godfrey summarily and airily dismisses as "crazy bar talk". Neil if you think there is not a systemic ethical problem in Catholic dogma I am again surprised.