Acharya S and the real Christ Conspiracy

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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spin
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Re: Acharya S and the real Christ Conspiracy

Post by spin »

ghost wrote:What's worse about Acharyanism than astrotheology is the gynocentrism/feminism. It's sexual manipulation.
That is an incredibly silly analysis.
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bcedaifu
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Re: Acharya S and the real Christ Conspiracy

Post by bcedaifu »

Roger Pearse wrote:In which case, friend, you would mark yourself instantly as a crank. I suggest that you think very carefully here, because I can see that a classic obscurantist argument is appealing to you, with its siren call.

The obscurantist says to himself, "If I can debunk all of the evidence that shows my theory is wrong, by pretending there is none, or whatever, then I can put forward my own claim as being just as likely."

But intelligent people laugh at that kind of manipulation. Manufacturing an absence of evidence and then arguing from absence of evidence is a game for children. If there is no evidence, then all theories are off the table.

All the best,
One of my favorite, all time favorite, restaurants in London, had been called "Cranks". It would be an honor, to be regarded on this forum, as an eccentric crank, rather than simply as an uninformed dolt.

You called for ancient references, Roger, and my error, I now understand, was to imagine that "ancient" meant sometime before fourth century, a date, after which, evidence suggests widespread forgery, e.g. Mark 1:1 Codex Sinaiticus, versus later editions of same passage, all containing the addition of "son of god", not found in that oldest version of Mark's gospel.

It is difficult for me to understand why someone seeking a reference, (I am not suggesting, here, Roger, that you sought to challenge the assertion) of Justin Martyr's birthplace, presumably in the second century CE, would seek as legitimate evidence of that birth date, an article or book, created out of thin air, a millennium after his life ended. If not "thin air", then where are the "ancient" documents employed by those who wrote books/articles on his birth date in the 14th century?

I deny having "manufactured absence of evidence". I sought to accurately portray the dates associated with our oldest extant copies of the original Greek manuscripts.

If the dates of publication, which I have offered, are incorrect, then I will certainly welcome your challenging those dates with a link to a more reliable source of information. I don't know where "pretend there is none" is coming from. I don't know of any evidence of the earliest Christian communities, do you? For example, where is the evidence of a "large" congregation of believers in Corinth, in the mid second century, when Paul's epistles had supposedly been sent to them? I know of zero findings from archaeological inquiries there, during the past two centuries. There certainly have been many artifacts, compatible with Christianity, recovered from excavations in Corinth, but all of them, without exception, date from after the fourth century CE, so far as I am aware.

I seek a credible reference to Justin Martyr's existence, created before Constantine/Nicea/Eusebius. That's what I would call "ancient". 14th century is, to my way of thinking, medieval, not ancient. Maybe that is an error on my part. Please correct my mistake, if so. Even cranks can make mistakes.
ghost
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Re: Acharya S and the real Christ Conspiracy

Post by ghost »

Robert Tulip wrote:Gynocentrism is a valid perspective that provides a useful balance to the crazy androcentrism that has actually dominated and destroyed the world for several thousand years.
That's not true of at least the last thousand, because of feudal romance.

http://gynocentrism.com

In the OT men are killed and mistreated.
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Re: Acharya S and the real Christ Conspiracy

Post by Roger Pearse »

bcedaifu wrote: You called for ancient references, Roger, and my error, I now understand, was to imagine that "ancient" meant sometime before fourth century, a date, after which, evidence suggests widespread forgery...

It is difficult for me to understand why someone seeking a reference, ... of Justin Martyr's birthplace, presumably in the second century CE, would seek as legitimate evidence of that birth date, an article or book, created out of thin air, a millennium after his life ended. If not "thin air", then where are the "ancient" documents employed by those who wrote books/articles on his birth date in the 14th century?
I think perhaps there is some confusion here, and I am not confident that I understand you.

Firstly, this seems to suggest that texts must be dated from the earliest copy that now survives. I'm afraid such a demand, if followed, would deprive us of almost all ancient literature other than the New Testament. A gap of a thousand years between composition and our earliest copy is nothing. Of Greek classical literature, composed in the 5th century BC, a gap of 2,000 years is quite normal.

Have a skim through this list. I compiled it from the prefaces of the Loeb editions. It's very basic, but will give you the idea:

http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/manus ... assics.htm

Nearly all ancient literature was transmitted to us by copying. The copies were written on papyrus, parchment, and then paper, and, inevitably, were perishable. The collapse of Roman civilisation resulted in immense losses - something like 99% of all ancient literature is lost. The remaining literature was generally copied in the 9th century, as the world started to recover from the Dark Ages, from copies surviving from the 5-6th centuries; and our earliest copy of them tends to be later still. In Syriac literature a 20th century copy is often the earliest. In Greek literature many texts survive only in 15-16 century copies, written after the collapse of the Byzantine empire. In Latin - there are 6 times as many Latin mss surviving as Greek - it tends to be 12th-15th.

This is how we get the classics. It is not an argument against the text, that it only just survives. On the contrary: we are rather grateful for those, like Macarius Magnes, that survived when the odds were incredibly against them.

Likewise if a later author happens to quote a now vanished author, we don't complain. We're glad!
I don't know of any evidence of the earliest Christian communities, do you? For example, where is the evidence of a "large" congregation of believers in Corinth, in the mid second century, when Paul's epistles had supposedly been sent to them? I know of zero findings from archaeological inquiries there, during the past two centuries. There certainly have been many artifacts, compatible with Christianity, recovered from excavations in Corinth, but all of them, without exception, date from after the fourth century CE, so far as I am aware.
This appears to be a demand that only archaeological evidence should be considered as evidence. But in fact our best evidence about ancient society is not archaeological. We learn infinitely more about Roman society from the letters of Cicero or Pliny the Younger than archaeology can tell us. You may verify this easily enough, by looking at the early volumes of the Cambridge Ancient History, for places such as Mari which are only to us only from archaeology. The data contained in those pages, valuable as it is, tells us so little about what it was like to live there, what the people did, and thought, and what they had to say.

The modern world begins, not with people digging up ancient stones, but with the discovery of classical literature, long forgotten in monasteries or chapter houses, by the humanists (NB: not like modern humanists; these were Christians). Petrarch was so excited by finding a new collection of Cicero's letters that he sat down and wrote a letter to Cicero, telling him how much it had meant to him. The picture of antiquity, of what it had been, contained in the classical texts, and especially in Cicero, made such an impression that the Renaissance came into being. The manuscripts in which the humanists discovered these texts, note, were mostly late and often corrupt. But it didn't matter: it still catalysed the emergence of the modern world.

I hope that helps. People just don't know this stuff, I find. The standard textbook is Reynolds and Wilson, "Scribes and Scholars".

All the best,

Roger Pearse
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stephan happy huller
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Re: Acharya S and the real Christ Conspiracy

Post by stephan happy huller »

Roger, you realize I hope that this person you are engaging is hopeless avi from the other forum (also called 'tanya' for awhile and other pseudonyms) Apparently the only thing avi is capable of doing is shedding new skin; the same stupid mass of ignorance and half-baked ideas remains beneath the superficial transformation unfortunately.
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Roger Pearse
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Re: Acharya S and the real Christ Conspiracy

Post by Roger Pearse »

neilgodfrey wrote:
Roger Pearse wrote:
neilgodfrey wrote:My only point -- it obviously was not made emphatically enough -- was to draw people's attention to the simple fact that Ulansey's thesis is not a "done deal". It is still under debate and faces serious objections. I am myself quite open to Ulansey's hypothesis being correct but this question has not yet been settled.
Ulansey's theory has been pretty soundly rejected. But the general idea that the tauroctony represents a star chart is very fashionable at the moment. Unfortunately Roger Beck has pretty much admitted that it's all speculation.
Not doubting, but can you lead me to something to verify it has been pretty soundly rejected? Thanks.
I don't have it to hand, and never compiled a bibliography - sorry. I know that Richard Gordon has something to say on this, but for some reason can't find his site this evening!

All the best,

Roger Pearse

UPDATE: Found it!

http://www.uhu.es/ejms/faq.htm

"David Ulansey is a case in point: a fantastic tower of nonsense, speculation piled on speculation, unremittingly promulgated on the inter-net and sold as ‘the truth about the cult of Mithras’.You would do well to take everything you read with a large pinch of salt."
bcedaifu
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Re: Acharya S and the real Christ Conspiracy

Post by bcedaifu »

Roger Pearse wrote:This appears to be a demand that only archaeological evidence should be considered as evidence. But in fact our best evidence about ancient society is not archaeological.
Apologies, Roger, I do not wish to offer such a suggestion. I simply assert, that in the case of Corinth, the earliest evidence from excavations is dated after the fourth century CE.

Do we possess some written text, other than Paul's epistles, documenting the existence of a Christian community in Corinth, before the fourth century?

There are societies in the world, for example in Central Asia, where petroglyphs are all that remain of ancient civilizations. Most of what little we know about ancient Mesopotamia is due to excavated clay tablets, not papyrus, so far as I am aware. I view archaeological evidence as the gold standard, maybe that is incorrect.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Acharya S and the real Christ Conspiracy

Post by neilgodfrey »

Robert Tulip wrote:As I said before, I will respond to Mr Godfrey's views if others can put them in sensible form. I prefer that this thread stick to sensible and courteous analysis of evidence.
The problem, Robert, is that you are not advancing any evidence based argument. You are spilling out nothing but fantastical eisegesis. So you have nothing to say about my points on logical valid processes and methods. You consider it discourteous to raise such fundamentals.

I understand perfectly. The only discussion with which you will engage is one where you do not feel that your foundations will be threatened. Anyone coming from that angle is a wilfully evil sod.

You do your condescending armchair psychoanalysis of me and consider it discourteous when I demonstrate from the works of others that my comparison of your entire approach and belief-system fitting so neatly into standard cultish phenomena does indeed hit home.

I point out where you do indeed skip steps in your touted hypothetico-deductive method and you turn away as if you cannot hear. People are allowed to make logical mistakes but when you get agro and go into avoidance when confronted with the analysis you simply lose all credibility as a serious player.
Last edited by neilgodfrey on Mon Mar 31, 2014 1:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Acharya S and the real Christ Conspiracy

Post by neilgodfrey »

Roger Pearse wrote: I don't have it to hand, and never compiled a bibliography - sorry. I know that Richard Gordon has something to say on this, but for some reason can't find his site this evening!

All the best,

Roger Pearse

UPDATE: Found it!

http://www.uhu.es/ejms/faq.htm

"David Ulansey is a case in point: a fantastic tower of nonsense, speculation piled on speculation, unremittingly promulgated on the inter-net and sold as ‘the truth about the cult of Mithras’.You would do well to take everything you read with a large pinch of salt."
Thanks. That's a much harsher tone than some other reviews I have read. Now, who is this Dr Richard Gordon -- always one more burrow to check out before I can think about heading for home. ;)
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Robert Tulip
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Re: Acharya S and the real Christ Conspiracy

Post by Robert Tulip »

neilgodfrey wrote:...you do not feel that your foundations will be threatened. Anyone coming from that angle is a wilfully evil sod.
I am perfectly happy to have my foundations threatened as long as the discussion is logical and courteous.

I have not seen the slightest evidence that you have the capacity to engage in such a discussion.

The foundations I present are grounded in empirical astronomy and analysis of ancient culture. It is certainly flamboyant and entertaining, if inaccurate, to call that willfully evil sodomy.
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