Thursday, July 25, 2013

Jesus "Myther" Use of the Southern Cross

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I came across a video on you tube[1] which was attempt to use the Acharya S thing about son to imply copy cat savior thing. pun on 'sun' and 'son.' Acharya S. She was a Jesus myther who believed that little gray aliens commissioned her to destroy Christianity. She is well known as a crap pot who says outrageious things. Consider her answer to a critic who calims Jesus myth theory was new:

Truth be known
"This thinking," i.e, that Jesus Christ is a mythical character, is not at all a "new fad." It has been around since the very beginning, because the intelligentsia of the ancient world knew that what the early Church fathers were palming off was mummified mythology. 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 strenously denied.
Indeed, the first and second epistles of John were written principally to combat such deniers of the historical Christ. (1 Jn. 4:2-3; 2 Jn. 7) The denial of "Christ come in the flesh" is an early "heresy" called "Docetism," whose proponents not only abounded during the first centuries of the Christian era but were the original "Christians," i.e., Gnostics.[2]


 Here she pulls a bait and switch talking about Jesus divine nature as something that had been argued for and therefore opposed, but not his existence in history. That's a constant game the mythers play to talk about the existence of the man as though it disproves the divine nature and the divine nature as though ti disproves the existence of the man. The original argument was the idea that Jesus did not exist as a man or any kind of entity in history (flesh and blood) is new. That she does not answer.

Quoting the gnostic is a trick becuase their assertion that Christ did not come in the flesh is not be understood as denial that was a man called Jesus of Nazareth. They claim he was illusory and not flesh and blood but to all appearances seemed to be a  man in history. They don't deny the place holder "Jesus of Nazareth" thought to be a flesh and blood man by those who saw him. They impose their doctrine on him they don't deny his existence. She would have believe that the "Christ come in the flesh" issue dines there was such a man which is highly dishonest. That's a sample of her dishonesty.

This video follows suit form her example which argues that designation of Jesus as "son" of God was either a ply on words or a degeneration from the worship of the sun in pagan culture. The problem is the Greek word for "son" and the English word for sun sound nothing alike. So the pun can't be name thus the connection is not there in history. Another dishonesty. Greek word for son is υἱός (hyiús, hyiós), while the Greek word for sun is Ἥλιος (Helios). They are pronounced in very different ways. "wee-os" vs Hel-i-os.

dying rising savior god stuff. new cast of characters.

I notice they have changed the characters (on the video) as to who the dying rising savior Gods' were. That's becuase we stomped all over their original set. NO pun (Egyptian god "Set").  First they talked about Horus, we kicked the crap out of that then they switched to Osiris. Then we kicked the crap out of that, now they use gods so obscure I've never heard of them. the proof is clear. when we look at the real myth books, real scholars writing about myth not trying to destroy Christianity we find the similarities all go away. See my Copy cat savior page on Doxa.
still have the anchor cross.

sacred day of worship for mithra was "sunday"

That BS again! they still haven't learned. There is no proof that anywhere. The fact about mithrism is we have no writings about the cult but what was said by chruch fathers. They were highly secretive. We can't know that Sunday was sacred to them. What if it was? It was probably sacred to a lot of groups that doesn't prove that Christians shifting to Sunday means Jesus was copied after pagan myth.

from the copy savior page: Almost no Textual evidence exists for Mithraism

Most of the texts that do exist are from outsiders who were speculating about the cult. We have no information form inside the cult.

Cosmic Mysteries of Mythras (website--visted July 1, 2006)

David Ulansey (the Major scholar of Mithraism in world)
Owing to the cult's secrecy, we possess almost no literary evidence about the beliefs of Mithraism. The few texts that do refer to the cult come not from Mithraic devotees themselves, but rather from outsiders such as early Church fathers, who mentioned Mithraism in order to attack it, and Platonic philosophers, who attempted to find support in Mithraic symbolism for their own philosophical ideas.
"At present our knowledge of both general and local cult practice in respect of rites of passage, ceremonial feats and even underlying ideology is based more on conjecture than fact." (Mithraic Studies: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies. Manchester U. Press, 1975. ,437)

And Cumont himself observed, in the 50s

"The sacred books which contain the prayers recited or chanted during the [Mithraic] survives, the ritual on the initiates, and the ceremonials of the feasts, have vanished and left scarce a trace behind...[we] know the esoteric disciplines of the Mysteries only from a few indiscretions." (Cumont, Franz. The Mysteries of Mithra. New York: Dover, 1950.152)
 






(b) Roman Cult began after Jesus life
Our earliest evidence for the Mithraic mysteries places their appearance in the middle of the first century B.C.: the historian Plutarch says that in 67 B.C. a large band of pirates based in Cilicia (a province on the southeastern coast of Asia Minor) were practicing "secret rites" of Mithras. The earliest physical remains of the cult date from around the end of the first century A.D., and Mithraism reached its height of popularity in the third century. (Ulansey, David. Cosmoic Mysteries of Mithras (website)
(c) No Continuity between Ancient Persian past and Roman Cult

Throughout most of the twentieth century Franz Cumont so influenced scholarship that the entire discipline followed in the wake of his assumption that the Roman cult was spread by the Persian cult. In the early 70's David Ulansey did for Mithric scholarship what Noan Chomsky did for linguistics, he totally redefined the coordinates by which the discipline moved. Ulansey showed that the Roman cult was not the continuance of the Persian cult, that there was no real evidence of a Persian cult. He showed that the killing of the great comic bull which latter became the major event in Mithraism, and the parallel from which Jesus Mythers get the shedding of blood and sacrifice, was not known in the Persian era. This was be like showing that the story of the Cross was not known to Christians in the first century. The major likeness to Christianity and the central point of the cult of Mithraism was not known in the time of Christ, in the time Paul, or for at least two centuries after:
"There were, however, a number of serious problems with Cumont's assumption that the Mithraic mysteries derived from ancient Iranian religion. Most significant among these is that there is no parallel in ancient Iran to the iconography which is the primary fact of the Roman Mithraic cult. For example, as already mentioned, by far the most important icon in the Roman cult was the tauroctony. This scene shows Mithras in the act of killing a bull, accompanied by a dog, a snake, a raven, and a scorpion; the scene is depicted as taking place inside a cave like the mithraeum itself. This icon was located in the most important place in every mithraeum, and therefore must have been an expression of the central myth of the Roman cult. Thus, if the god Mithras of the Roman religion was actually the Iranian god Mithra, we should expect to find in Iranian mythology a story in which Mithra kills a bull. However, the fact is that no such Iranian myth exists: in no known Iranian text does Mithra have anything to do with killing a bull." (David Ulansey Mithras Mysteries).[3]
(5) Mithraism Emerged in the west only after Jesus' day.
Mithraism could not have become an influence upon the origins of the first century, for the simple reason that Mithraism did not emerge from its pastoral setting in rural Persia until after the close of the New Testament canon. (Franz Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra (Chicago: Open Court, 1903), 87ff.)


use the southern cross 

Come to the video the funniest thing about it is that they try to use the southern cross, constellation in the southern hemisphere, as proof that the Christian cross comes form pagan sources. They are tyring to say it was based upon astrological symbol. The problem is the souther cross, while visible form north wasn't seen as a cross and wasn't called cross until several centuries after Bible times when explorers when down the coast of Africa.



Universe Today
Southern Cross Constollation




The first recorded example of Crux’s discovery was around 1000 BC during the time of the Ancient Greeks. At the latitude of Athens, Crux was clearly visible, though low in the night sky. At the time, the Greeks identified it as being part of the constellation Centaurus. However, the precession of the equinoxes gradually lowered its stars below the European horizon, and they were eventually forgotten by the inhabitants of northern latitudes. Crux fell into anonymity for northerners until the Age of Discovery (from the early 15th to early 17th centuries) when it was rediscovered by Europeans. The first to do so were the Portuguese, who mapped it for navigation uses while rounding the southern tip of Africa. During this time, Crux was also separated from Centaurus, though it is not altogether clear who was responsible. Some attribute it to the French astronomer Augustin Royer who did it in 1679 while others believe it was Dutch astronomer PetrusPlancius who did the deed in 1613. Regardless, it is believed to have taken place in the 17th century, placing it within the context of European expansion and the revolution that was taking place in the sciences at the time.
 

Read more:  southern cross.


 That doesn't give me a lot of confidence in their research. Another aspect of their failed research is the use of the anchor Cross. It's an amulet of Orpheus who is tired to an anchor but it makes a cross. This has been exposed as a fake. James Hannam has has a detailed critique of it.[4] Richard Carrier tries to defend it. His major argument is that it's not a cross but just an anchor. If that's the case then it loses it's connection to Jesus.[5] The point of it is, as used by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy to imply that the cross comes to Christianity from pagan sources becuase there was no Jesus thus no Jesus' death on cross. To say it's just a picture or Orpheus tied to an anchor may save the mythers from the specter of forgery but at the price of losing their Jesus myth connection. These two articles are actually much more complex than surface report I'm giving. I urge the reader to look at both. It think this really underscores the untrustworthy nature of Jesus myth research. Most of it is rehashed bad research that's been debuncked in the past and they really depend upon the reader not to be conversant.




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 Sources:

(1) Real Proof that Jesus was not Real: youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljRKhZ81aqY accessed 7/25/13

(2) Acharya S. Acharya S's Truth be Known, Website, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljRKhZ81aqY access 7/25/13

(3) David Ulansey, Mythrism The Cosmic Mysteries of Mythras, Website, http://www.mysterium.com/mithras.html accessed 7/25/13
 Visiting Professor of Religious Studies at U.C. Berkeley, and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Religion at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is the leading scholar in the field of the study of Mirthrism.

(4) James Hannam, "The Orpheus Amulet From the Cover of the Jesus Mysteries."Bede's Library, On line source: http://www.bede.org.uk/orpheus.htm  Accessed 7/25/13
Hannam is a Cambridge Trained historian

(5) Richar Carrier, "Jesus myth on  CNN.com" Richard Carrier Blogs. blog. http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/889Accessed 7/25/13
Carrier has a Ph.D. in ancient history form Columbia University.








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