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Christ in Egypt: The Mythicist Position

#98: Aug. - Sept. 2011 (Non-Fiction)
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Robert Tulip

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Re: Christ in Egypt: The Mythicist Position

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Flann 5 wrote:
FTL99 wrote:Flann5's post had absolutely nothing to do with this thread as he admits
If you think "The Christ Conspiracy" book has nothing to do with "The Mythicist Position" I find that very strange.
Flann, it is understandable when you make comments such as this that people may think you are slightly stupid or intentionally deceptive. This is a blatant example on your part of what is known as the ad hominem fallacy, something that is a stock in trade for fundamentalist attacks on astrotheology. The ad hominem method attacks the person not the content. You have trolled through Acharya’s writings to find some material from a book from last millennium that is not relevant to this thread except as a tangent. This thread is about the book Christ in Egypt, which you ignore and have not read. Instead you use the malicious tactic of trying to censor and demean Murdock by retelling tired and fallacious attacks on a pioneering book that provides excellent introductory material, albeit with some issues in presentation which fundies latch onto as fervent excuses to deflect attention from her main arguments.
Flann 5 wrote:
FTL99 wrote:Flann5 is definitely a prime example of a troll here at least in this case as another red flag is the fact that he never deals with any of the facts brought forth throughout this thread for discussion - he omits them to post more misinformation instead of addressing the issue or facts at hand.
I would have thought "the issue or facts at hands" are the published views of D.M.Murdock who you constantly cite and provide links to.
FTL99’s analysis in this case is correct. While there may be other threads where Flann does engage with the content of what others write, he appears to have a blind spot when it comes to Murdock and has just behaved as a troll in this thread. What is relevant to this thread is direct analysis of the book Christ in Egypt. Malicious fundamentalist misinterpretations of other books are not relevant, and as FTL99 says, are a simple exercise of trolling, with a clear inability and refusal to engage on content.
Flann 5 wrote: I don't think it is misinformation at all but a critique of mythicism and particularly astrotheology which you promote.
The comments from Flann on mythicism and astrotheology rest on his bizarre magical theory of an interventionist personal God who supposedly created the universe and then came to earth in the material person of Jesus Christ. That is junk science. Murdock’s liberating critique of this fundamentalist nonsense provides a coherent rational analysis of how God evolved as a symbolic way of explaining reality by myth. The critique of fundamentalist theology is an institutional threat to Flann’s way of thinking, which is why he is here on behalf of the traditional churches to deflect, deny and deride Murdock’s new rigorous scholarship.
Flann 5 wrote: 1 The mythicist position as presented in Murdock's works are that of claimed parallels between pagan deities and the life of Christ as portrayed in the gospels.
2 The claim that Christ in the gospels is actually an anthropomorphized allegory of the sun with particular emphasis on Horus as a pagan parallel example of this.
3 An astrotheological interpretation of the gospel accounts based on 1 and 2.
That is a correct summary.
Flann 5 wrote: This is generally presented as for example, Horus supposedly being born of a virgin on December 25th,having twelve disciples and being crucified and resurrected among other alleged parallels.
That is a false summary. The parallels between Christ and Horus are numerous and obvious, for example in the Temptation in the Wilderness and in the raising of Lazarus, illustrating that the Christ Myth evolved from syncretism between the Horus character and other messianic Gods, but not through such crude literal reading back of the exact Gospel myth into Egyptian myth. That is a crass distortion of what Murdock actually says, and partly reflects that Zeitgeist was a simplification for a popular conspiracy-minded audience, whereas the detailed scholarship in Christ in Egypt provides a far more nuanced explanation.
Flann 5 wrote: Tim O' Neill who happens to be an atheist and no "moronic fundie troll"
Can’t agree there Flann. O’Neill asserts that he is an atheist, but my impression is that this assertion is just tactical cover for a fundamentalist religious perspective, since his methods of argument exhibit total hostility towards evidence and logic. I have read some of his work and find Tim O'Neill to be among the most abusive religious commentators I have encountered. His essay on Rene Salm and The Myth of Nazareth is a textbook example of fundamentalist ad hominem fallacy.
Last edited by Robert Tulip on Sun Aug 28, 2016 6:33 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Christ in Egypt: The Mythicist Position

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Flann wrote:The mythicist and astrotheological view is largely fueled through the internet and not by scholarly sources qualified in the requisite disciplines.
yeah, you keep telling yourself that Flann, wont make it true but it will deepen that hole of ignorance you are hiding in :-D
Flann wrote:Nothing it seems will shake the convictions of stalwart mythicists,but it's worth throwing out a caveat emptor to the unwary.
oh the irony, nothing it seems will shake the convictions of stalwart faithers, but it's worth throwing out a caveat emptor to the unwary. which is exactly what mythicists do.
Flann wrote:her writings are particularly poor from a factual and scholarly perspective,to say nothing of common sense,I'm sorry to have say.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: then cites Burke and Holding :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Flann wrote:As far as innerancy is concerned I point to prophecy and fulfillment as evidence.
"Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."

:lol:
Flann wrote:If God exists as I believe he does then supernatural intervention is reasonable at times
Cambodia?

sends bears on cheeky punks that mock prophet but stands back and watches Cambodia?
Flann wrote:No one who is co-equal in power and being could be coerced to do anything they were not willing to do. So it's just simplistic then to say that God murdered his son.
yes, and exponentially more simplistic to say that Jesus is real mmmkay :-D
Flann wrote:I don't say there aren't difficulties as when the Israelites are told not to spare the children in some cases. Still even this has to be viewed in an eternal context which is alien to atheist thought, but an integral part of the biblical view.
:lol:

However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.

behold the depths of ridiculousness necessary to justify the God who literally meant that.

i have been to all the cities the Lord has given me and not left alive anything that breathes, metaphorically.
So if God is the giver of all life who is to say he can not take that life
i am :-D or are you justifying infanticide to keep your infantile faith? :-D
Flann wrote:God is so evil he "murdered his own son.
This man was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.

look Flann, it's all a metaphor, it is mythology, stop letting yourself be dumbed out of your birthright.
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Re: Christ in Egypt: The Mythicist Position

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Robert Tulip wrote: This is a blatant example on your part of what is known as the ad hominem fallacy, something that is a stock in trade for fundamentalist attacks on astrotheology. The ad hominem method attacks the person not the content. You have trolled through Acharya’s writings to find some material from a book from last millennium that is not relevant to this thread except as a tangent. This thread is about the book Christ in Egypt, which you ignore and have not read. Instead you use the malicious tactic of trying to censor and demean Murdock by retelling tired and fallacious attacks on a pioneering book that provides excellent introductory material, albeit with some issues in presentation which fundies latch onto as fervent excuses to deflect attention from her main arguments.
It's not an ad hominem Robert. For example, I've provided reasons for why the parallel claims for Horus and Christ are false based on the primary sources for the Horus myth.

You try to make it seem like it's just presentation problems, but the claims are for parallels such as that Horus was born on Dec.25th, was conceived non sexually to a virgin,had twelve disciples,walked on water,was crucified,buried for three days and physically resurrected. You tack on to this that Horus raised Lazarus from the dead and had a temptation in the wilderness paralleling Christ's temptations.
All I want from you then is evidence from primary sources for all these claims.

D.M.Murdock did make these claims and so do a lot of mythicists. http://www.truthbeknown.com/origins4.htm#foot40c
Robert Tulip wrote:The comments from Flann on mythicism and astrotheology rest on his bizarre magical theory of an interventionist personal God who supposedly created the universe and then came to earth in the material person of Jesus Christ. That is junk science.
I'm still waiting for your explanation for the origin of the universe and the laws of nature.You think the laws of nature did everything but where did they and the universe originate?
Robert Tulip wrote:Flann 5 wrote:
Tim O' Neill who happens to be an atheist and no "moronic fundie troll"


Can’t agree there Flann. O’Neill asserts that he is an atheist, but my impression is that this assertion is just tactical cover for a fundamentalist religious perspective, since his methods of argument exhibit total hostility towards evidence and logic. I have read some of his work and find Tim O'Neill to be among the most abusive religious commentators I have encountered.
Mythicists have a conspiracy theory for everything it seems. He has excellent arguments against the standard mythicist arguments but it's quite obvious to me that he's no Christian apologist.

For example he downplays messianic prophecy of a suffering messiah who dies an atoning death. He says the early Christians were scrambling for strained prophecies to explain the fact that their messiah had been crucified and died. He also says they never mention in the N.T. the part where it says "he will see his seed and prolong his days."

He adds to this, there are contradictions in the accounts of Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist in three of the gospel accounts and of where Jesus was born and lived in two gospels.
But he's wrong. Isaiah 53 is most definitely a prophecy of the messiah suffering for the sins of others and who dies and is buried. God says because he has done this he will divide him a portion with the great and that he will divide him a portion with the strong.
http://biblehub.com/nasb/isaiah/53.htm

This is exactly what Peter and Paul preached about his resurrection and exaltation. That's why they point to the Psalm about his body not seeing corruption and his inheriting the throne of David eternally.
And that's what Paul says of his humiliation and exaltation in Phillipians 2.

So they do mention his days being prolonged and his seed are those spiritually born of the Spirit of God.They are not desperately scrambling to find prophecies but these are central to their preaching especially to the Jews whose scriptures these are.

O' Neill is also incorrect in his analysis of the Baptism accounts.

Mark makes it immediately clear in his opening, that Jesus is the pre-existent Lord of the O.T. who's way is prepared by John. So he's not saying something dramatically different from John's opening description. The Nazareth/Bethlehem question has been well answered by Christian commentators.

All this to say that he's no Christian fundamentalist and most likely really is an atheist, as he says.

The arguments in relation to Tacitus and Joseph made by the mythicists are widely rejected by scholars and historians, and O' Neill shows what the scholarly consensus is, and the good reasons they give for this in their analysis of these texts.

Incidentally the letters of Paul are not parables or parabolic in any shape or form. When understood as obviously meant the mythicists smile indulgently, as if we are the idiots and they have the golden key of parabolic hidden meaning which is astrotheology.

Even the interpretations given of Jesus parables can't be the real meaning because they are not about the signs of the zodiac and the sun ,but these interpretations too must have an astrotheological message hidden in them.

But in the end people will believe what they want to, and no amount of argument and evidence will change that.

,
Last edited by Flann 5 on Sun Aug 28, 2016 8:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Christ in Egypt: The Mythicist Position

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So there you go, guys, the same old tired arguments offered up once again. I think--and maybe I'm wrong here--but I think that was what FTL99 has been saying. When the same arguments--long ago shot to pieces--keep getting offered over and over again demanding yet another refutation of them, THAT is trolling. Maybe you see it as someone merely exercising a differing view but that makes me wonder about what is wrong with you. In a REAL argument, each side offers their evidence and reasons and when one side rebuts the other's arguments, that side MUST respond to the rebuttal by proving it is wrong or admitting defeat. Instead, the rebuttal is TOTALLY IGNORED for a week, two weeks, a month, and then offered up again on another thread as though no rebuttal had been given. That is a troll, gentlemen.

As an analogy, say you set a table for dinner and somebody replaces the glasses with mugs. You collect up the mugs and put the glasses back out telling this person the mugs have no place on the table and to leave them in the cupboard. Instead of arguing why the mugs are more appropriate than the glasses, you come back an hour later to simply find the mugs have been put back on the table. You correct the situation again and tell the person to leave the mugs alone. Instead of getting an answer, he says nothing. You come back 15 minutes later and there are the mugs again. Now would you just shrug and say, "Well, I guess he has a difference of opinion and I can respect that." Or would threaten to kick his goddamn ass if you come back and find the mugs on the table again. You know very well that it's going to be the latter.

I wouldn't let him post a goddamn thing until he addresses each and every rebuttal point by point with real evidence. Case in point, on the Richard Carrier book review, I brought up the Rank-Raglan scale that points out that no historical person can score as high on it as Jesus. If they do, they cannot be historical. He very haughtily implied I am a brainless idiot for asserting this with yet another bad bit of pseudo-evidence. Instead of ignoring it and continuing on about Rank-Raglan, I found some very nice rebuttals to his evidence and posted them. What has he offered since? NOTHING! Because he has nothing else to offer. But let someone else bring up Rank-Raglan and he will post that same lame-ass crap that he tried to hand me as though I had never thoroughly demolished it. THAT, folks, is a troll.
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Re: Christ in Egypt: The Mythicist Position

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Flann wrote:But in the end people will believe what they want to, and no amount of argument and evidence will change that.
well i used to be a fundy idiot but the evidence and material put forward by a host of clear thinkers rescued me from my literalist idiocy :-D

their arguments and evidence changed me so your point seems a little defeatist :hmm:
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Re: Christ in Egypt: The Mythicist Position

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DB Roy wrote:So there you go, guys, the same old tired arguments offered up once again. I think--and maybe I'm wrong here--but I think that was what FTL99 has been saying. When the same arguments--long ago shot to pieces--keep getting offered over and over again demanding yet another refutation of them,
Neither you or any of the mythicists have provided a refutation or rebuttal of the arguments from the primary sources for the Horus myth, that the claimed parallels are not found in these sources.

In fact they are not but they are contradicted by these sources. All I get are charges of trolling and ad hominems. It's not good enough to just quote Gerald Massey or Godfrey Higgins and other mythicists who never give any primary sources for their assertions but just vaguely claim there is a document somewhere that supports various assertions.

Can you provide evidence from primary sources for the claimed Horus/ Jesus parallels,D.B.Roy? Is so then do so and don't just claim you have refuted the claim that these are bogus and not corroborated in the primary sources for the Horus myth.

I won't be holding my breath though waiting for you to provide actual evidence from these primary sources. So stop saying you have refuted these arguments until you actually do address them.
Horus was not conceived sexually and was born of a virgin on December 25th, are you kidding me? Provide the evidence from the primary sources D.B.
It'would be laughable if it wasn't taken seriously by you and others. So go ahead with your ad hominems against J.P.Holding but you won't be refuting his arguments any day soon.
http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/osy.php
DB Roy wrote: Case in point, on the Richard Carrier book review, I brought up the Rank-Raglan scale that points out that no historical person can score as high on it as Jesus. If they do, they cannot be historical.
There's a kind of circular reasoning here. If Jesus actually was a virgin born son of God who performed miracles he would automatically score high on a scale such as this.
It's just begging the question whether he actually was or not. I point to the fulfillment of prophecies as one evidence for the veracity of the Christian claims.
The apostles claim to have been eye witnesses of the physically resurrected Christ and Paul talks of his being seen by over 500 people at one time.
You may find Carrier's thesis convincing but it has no end of problems.
Last edited by Flann 5 on Mon Aug 29, 2016 7:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Christ in Egypt: The Mythicist Position

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Flann 5 wrote:There's a kind of circular reasoning here. If Jesus actually was a virgin born son of God who performed miracles he would automatically score high on a scale such as this.
It's just begging the question whether he actually was or not. I point to the fulfillment of prophecies as one evidence for the veracity of the Christian claims.
The apostles claim to have been eye witnesses of the physically resurrected Christ and Paul talks of his being seen by over 500 people at one time.
You may find Carrier's thesis convincing but it has no end of problems.
The Rank-Raglan scale is useful from the standpoint of of determining the probability of a figure being mythical or historical, not divine. I think that’s what Flann is missing here is that Jesus-as-supernatural-entity is another argument entirely, and not addressed by scholars or mythicists. As such, the mythicist argument is at least grounded in reality. You're not even in the ballpark, Flann. By your reckoning, Santa Claus renders the Rank-Raglan scale useless simply because you believe in him.

I don't believe the point of this thread is to argue about whether Jesus is God (which is what Flann believes), but whether Jesus was a historical or mythical figure. This is a legitimate debate. And in that respect, Flann, your starting assumptions make you forever hostile to these ideas and why you are also missing the point as to the usefulness of the Rank-Raglan scale. And why you are perceived as a troll.
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Re: Christ in Egypt: The Mythicist Position

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It is definitely a legitimate debate.
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Re: Christ in Egypt: The Mythicist Position

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geo wrote:The Rank-Raglan scale is useful from the standpoint of of determining the probability of a figure being mythical or historical, not divine. I think that’s what Flann is missing here is that Jesus-as-supernatural-entity is another argument entirely, and not addressed by scholars or mythicists. As such, the mythicist argument is at least grounded in reality. You're not even in the ballpark, Flann. By your reckoning, Santa Claus renders the Rank-Raglan scale useless simply because you believe in him.
There are a number of problems here Geo,which I'll provide links for going into the details. There's the question of how useful or valid the scale actually is, since many unquestionably historical people also score high on it. Harry Potter only scores eight making him most likely historical, while J.F.K. would score way higher,(making him a mythical hero) but don't get conspiracy theorists started on him!
Secondly there is the question of how Carrier actually applies the scale to Jesus and whether he is justified in particular instances.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rank-Raglan_mythotype

http://www.christthetao.blogspot.ie/201 ... or-is.html

Of course there are pagan gods and myths but my point is that if Jesus actually was the divine son of God,performing miracles etc he would automatically score high on the scale relative to mythical gods and heroes being part of the benchmark.

Besides, Carrier has to contend with real documents recognized by historians and scholars in the relevant fields to be authentic.
Josephus,Tacitus, and Paul's references to Christ and James his brother being obvious examples.

The interpolation in part of one Josephus passage is recognized while not considered fatal and the other is not seriously contested by scholars apart from Carrier, who performs Houdini-esque contortions to extricate himself from the dilemma for him in the passage.

So the usual interpolations mantra is frequently invoked failing all else. He invents an entire unknown sect called "The Brothers of the Lord" to 'explain' Paul's reference to James the brother of the Lord in Galatians, never mind that Josephus also refers to him in a very similar way.

So this is just mythicist nonsense where the facts are explained away or some conspiracy (interpolations) is invoked to get rid of the awkward evidence.
He thinks he can just ignore Acts and the gospels based on his categorizing them as myths.
There's a real problem here for Carrier and the liberal scholars who try to date Acts as late as possible to fit their naturalistic philosophy.
http://www.reknew.org/2007/12/is-the-bo ... -reliable/

It's my contention that anyone who actually had any real objectivity would conclude that a date after AD 70 is most unlikely based on the the external and internal evidences.

Most likely around 62 AD but certainly not second century as some liberals seem to think. It can't be determined with absolute certainty but the indicators are strongly in favour of the earlier date in my opinion.

The argument that miracles make it myth not history is just an assertion of a naturalistic philosophical worldview. Both atheistic and theistic worldviews need to be justified, not assumed.
Last edited by Flann 5 on Mon Aug 29, 2016 11:32 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Christ in Egypt: The Mythicist Position

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Wouldn't it be exciting to have indisputable proof that Jesus was a myth? Obviously, I'm not referring to the pain that believers would undoubtedly suffer at such a discovery. I couldn't take pleasure in another man's pain. But academically speaking it would be a really big deal to suddenly realize that what billions of people have believed for thousands of years is simply not true.
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