Dr. Shades wrote:
First, as for the parallels to Horus, I don't have enough knowledge of Egyptian mythology to comment, but it seems that the parallels your author draws are just too good, too precise. If the parallels were that tight and that striking, wouldn't this knowledge be quite common in Western Society?
Shades, I do think the parallels are too tight, and I mentioned this earlier on. I think Achy has taken some liberties here, but as I go through the book I'll find out more. To the second part of your comment, not necessarily, if by Western Society you mean the general population. Do you think any church would take this seriously?
Achy writes:
Despite all of this literature continuously being cranked out and the significance of the issue, in the public at large there is a serious lack of formal and broad education regarding religion and mythology, and most individuals are highly uninformed in this area. Concerning the issue of Christianity, for example, the majority of people are taught in most schools and churches that Jesus Christ was an actual historical figure and that the only controversy regarding him is that some people accept him as the Son of God and the Messiah, while others do not. However, whereas this is the raging debate most evident in this field today, it is not the most important. Shocking as it may seem to the general populace, the most enduring and profound controversy in this subject is whether or not a person named Jesus Christ ever really existed.
Although this debate may not be evident from publications readily found in popular bookstores1, when one examines this issue closely, one will find a tremendous volume of literature that demonstrates, logically and intelligently, time and again that Jesus Christ is a mythological character along the same lines as the Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Sumerian, Phoenician, Indian or other godmen, who are all presently accepted as myths rather than historical figures2.
http://www.truthbeknown.com/origins.htmThe following is quite a startling claim, which I have not checked from other sources:
This controversy has existed from the very beginning, and the writings of the "Church Fathers" themselves reveal that they were constantly forced by the pagan intelligentsia to defend what the non-Christians and other Christians ("heretics")4 alike saw as a preposterous and fabricated yarn with absolutely no evidence of it ever having taken place in history. As Rev. Robert Taylor says, "And from the apostolic age downwards, in a never interrupted succession, but never so strongly and emphatically as in the most primitive times, was the existence of Christ as a man most strenuously denied."5 Emperor Julian, who, coming after the reign of the fanatical and murderous "good Christian" Constantine, returned rights to pagan worshippers, stated, "If anyone should wish to know the truth with respect to you Christians, he will find your impiety to be made up partly of the Jewish audacity, and partly of the indifference and confusion of the Gentiles, and that you have put together not the best, but the worst characteristics of them both."6 According to these learned dissenters, the New Testament could rightly be called, "Gospel Fictions."7
A century ago, mythicist Albert Churchward said, "The canonical gospels can be shown to be a collection of sayings from the Egyptian Mythos and Eschatology."8 In Forgery in Christianity, Joseph Wheless states, "The gospels are all priestly forgeries over a century after their pretended dates."9 Those who concocted some of the hundreds of "alternative" gospels and epistles that were being kicked about during the first several centuries C.E. have even admitted that they had forged the documents.10 Forgery during the first centuries of the Church's existence was admittedly rampant, so common in fact that a new phrase was coined to describe it: "pious fraud."11 Such prevarication is confessed to repeatedly in the Catholic Encyclopedia.12 Some of the "great" church fathers, such as Eusebius13, were determined by their own peers to be unbelievable liars who regularly wrote their own fictions of what "the Lord" said and did during "his" alleged sojourn upon the earth.14
Footnote 10 reads:
Wheless quotes the Catholic Encyclopedia: "Enterprising spirits responded to this natural craving by pretended gospels full of romantic fables, and fantastic and striking details; their fabrications were eagerly read and accepted as true by common folk who were devoid of any critical faculty and who were predisposed to believe what so luxuriously fed their pious curiosity. Both Catholics and Gnostics were concerned in writing these fictions. The former had no motive other than that of a PIOUS FRAUD." (NB: "C.E." denotes "Common Era" and is equivalent to "A.D.," whereas "B.C.E." denotes "Before the Common Era" and is equivalent to "B.C." )
The words "pious fraud" conjure up what Dan Vogel wrote, and he did say that he was not the first to use it. I pasted this link for Dan on FAIR when we were discussing pious fraud, and whether the use of this word was appropriate in the context of Joseph Smith. I also used some examples from the Old Testament, where Jacob deceived Isaac to obtain the birthright. Both he and his mother, the plot was instigated by his mother, coldly deceived Isaac. So there are prerequisites in scripture to use fraud "to obtain good ends".
Achy also commented:
In fact, Pope Leo X, privy to the truth because of his high rank, made this curious declaration, "What profit has not that fable of Christ brought us!"15 (Emphasis added.) As Wheless says, "The proofs of my indictment are marvellously easy."
Biblical Sources
It is very telling that the earliest Christian documents, the Epistles attributed to "Paul," never discuss a historical background of Jesus but deal exclusively with a spiritual being who was known to all gnostic sects for hundreds to thousands of years. The few "historical" references to an actual life of Jesus cited in the Epistles are demonstrably interpolations and forgeries, as are, according to Wheless, the Epistles themselves, as they were not written by "Paul."17 Aside from the brief reference to Pontius Pilate at 1 Timothy 6:13, an epistle dated ben Yehoshua to 144 CE and thus not written by Paul, the Pauline literature (as pointed out by Edouard Dujardin) "does not refer to Pilate18, or the Romans, or Caiaphas, or the Sanhedrin, or Herod19, or Judas, or the holy women, or any person in the gospel account of the Passion, and that it also never makes any allusion to them; lastly, that it mentions absolutely none of the events of the Passion, either directly or by way of allusion."20 Dujardin additionally relates that other early "Christian" writings such as Revelation do not mention any historical details or drama.21 Mangasarian notes that Paul also never quotes from Jesus's purported sermons and speeches, parables and prayers, nor does he mention Jesus's supernatural birth or any of his alleged wonders and miracles, all which one would presume would be very important to his followers, had such exploits and sayings been known prior to "Paul."22
She gives information that would be disputed by some biblical scholars, especially regarding dates, but I've been checking some of her sources, and the problem is I would have to check the source of the sources themselves as well. Then there's the question of just how much scholarship can tell us, as you know dates are always disputed. Peter Carsten Thiede, for example, dates the gospels closer to Christ, but other scholars hotly dispute his dating. You can read more about Thiede here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 53,00.htmlSecond, the parallels to other mythological narratives and mythological figures from various traditions make me wonder: Although some of the gospels are mentioned by the early church fathers, perhaps we don't know if they existed at the time of mention in their current form (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Is it possible that, in his effort to create a pan-Roman, all-encompassing religion, Constantine purposefully redacted the Jesus accounts to incorporate the mythological stories of Dionysus, Tammuz, Attis, etc.?
Richard answered that question. I don't believe either that Constantine was responsible for this.
Not historical, but perhaps archaeological. Although Nazareth didn't exist at the time of Jesus (references in the Gospels actually referring to his status as a "Nazorite"), the ancient Galilean city of Gamla, mentioned by Josephus as a hotbed of anti-Roman revolutionary fervor, was rediscovered after lo these many centuries during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. It had the right topographical features to qualify as Jesus birthplace, according to internal evidence given in the Gospels. It was a relatively short walk from the sea of Galilee, it was near the bluff of a high cliff a very short distance from the local synagogue (off of which the locals tried to throw Jesus), the local industry was olive cultivation, etc. I used to have a fantastic site full of pictures linked from my homepage, but said site has since gone defunct.
I'm not aware of the story behind Gamla.
No. Unlike the Tanners, most of us apply the same standards to Christianity, too. Notice that most exMormons are atheists, agnostics, etc.
I don't know if most ex-Mormons are atheist or agnostic, many turn back to basic Christianity, just like the Tanners did, but I don't view Christianity as having a much more stable history than Mormonism. At least with Christianity we have something to go on, dates, places, events, but even with all this making sense of it 2,000 years on is still some task, and apart from faith, there are many disputes about origns. G.A. Wells started out believing that Jesus never existed, but many years and books later he has apparently accepted some rudimentary facts surround the mythology.
G.A. Wells:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... ndex.shtmlFrom Wiki:
Wells argues that the earliest extant Christian documents from the first century, most notably Paul's epistles, show no familiarity with the Gospel tradition of Jesus as a preacher and miracle-worker who lived and died in the recent decades. Rather, they present him as a mysterious figure that lived an obscure life in some indeterminate past. Wells believes that the Jesus of these earliest Christians is not based on a historical character, but a pure myth, derived from the mystical speculations based on the Jewish Wisdom tradition. According to Wells, the Gospel tradition was a later stage of the development of the Jesus myth, which was given a concrete historical setting and subsequently embellished with more and more details.
In his last works, Wells has somewhat moderated his views, allowing for the possibility that certain elements of the Gospel traditions might be based on a historical figure from the first-century Palestine. However, Wells insists that this line of first-century traditions is separate from the sacrificial Christ myth of Paul's epistles and other early documents, and that these two traditions have different origins. Wells concludes that the reconstruction of this historical figure from the extant literature would be a hopeless task.
Wells claim of a mythical Jesus has received support from Earl Doherty and a few other scholars, even though it is still a minority position among Western historians and theologians. One must note, however, that this position was much more prevalent in the Eastern block countries during the Cold War, where despite its atheistic bias, the historical research was known for scholarly rigor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.A._Wells