The Mythicist Position

[Maximos]

Major mythicists like Richard Carrier, Doherty and Wells don't include astrotheology in their mythicist views.

Richard Carrier maintains that ancient astrology was so inconsistent that one can't demonstrate any conclusions about astrotheology

Astrotheology is simply not their area of expertise. They are not even looking into astrotheology at all. So, just because they don't discuss it doesn't mean astrotheology doesn't deserve a plank in mythicism. Leaving out astrotheology would be against non-believers best interests anyway since it's an Occam's razor explanation for the origins and evolution of religious concepts.

Richard Carrier has been especially poisonous towards Acharya and astrotheology for 10 years now without ever having actually read a single book of Acharya's or studying astrotheology. So, Carrier is simply not a reliable or trusted source of information regarding Acharya or astrotheology.

Stumping for Utter Ignorance

Acharya's other responses to Carrier

"I find it undeniable that many of the epic heroes and ancient patriarchs and matriarchs of the Old Testament were personified stars, planets, and constellations ... I find myself in full agreement with Acharya S/D.M. Murdock"
- Dr. Robert Price
http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/ ... _egypt.htm

[hjalti]

I'd like to see an objective discussion of the mythicist position. I'm currently appreciating Acharya's mythicist position due to it's comprehensive approach instead of just "Jesus mythicism."

Acharya S writes here:
http://www.stellarhousepublishing.com/mythicist.html

One of the major planks of mythicism is recognizing the ancient astrotheology and nature worship engaged in by the cultures of antiquity whose religions and myths contributed to the formation of the Bible-based, Abrahamic faiths such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam in particular, but other religions as well. This astrotheology can be summed up in a nutshell as the reverence for and personification of the sun, moon, earth, planets, stars and constellations, as well as other celestial bodies and natural phenomena.

I'm not sure what the stats of beliefs amongst mythicists would show, but I don't think it would support having astrotheology a "major plank" of mythicism. Major mythicists like Richard Carrier, Doherty and Wells don't include astrotheology in their mythicist views. I'm not aware of any mythicist that pushes it, with the possible exception of Dr Robert Price and early mythicists from around 100 years or more ago.

Are there any modern-day mythicists who actually support astrotheology as a major plank in their mythicism?

IIRC Price only thinks that some of the OT characters were originally some kind of personifications of celestial bodies (e.g. Samson the sun). He doesn't think that Jesus was really the sun or anything like that, so it really doesn't play into his mythicism, I think.

[Maximos]

IIRC Price only thinks that some of the OT characters were originally some kind of personifications of celestial bodies (e.g. Samson the sun). He doesn't think that Jesus was really the sun or anything like that, so it really doesn't play into his mythicism, I think.

"...It is almost as important in Christ in Egypt to argue for an astro-religious origin for the mythemes, and there, too, I agree with the learned author. Let me outline the main argument that persuades me, some of it learned here, some already assimilated and facilitating my acceptance of much that Acharya offers.

First, I find it undeniable that, as Ignaz Goldziher (Mythology among the Hebrews) argued, following the lead of “solar mythologist” Max Müller (yes, the great historian of comparative religion and world scripture), many, many of the epic heroes and ancient patriarchs and matriarchs of the Old Testament were personified stars, planets, and constellations. This theory is now ignored in favor of others more easily made into theology and sermons, but it has never been refuted, and I find the evidence overwhelming. And once you recognize these patterns in the Old Testament, you start noticing them, albeit to a lesser degree (?), in the New. Hercules’ twelve labors surely mark his progress, as the sun, through the houses of the Zodiac; why do Jesus circumambient twelve disciples not mean the same thing? And so on..."

- Dr. Robert Price
http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/ ... _egypt.htm

[GakuseiDon]

Astrotheology is simply not their area of expertise. They are not even looking into astrotheology at all. So, just because they don't discuss it doesn't mean astrotheology doesn't deserve a plank in mythicism. Leaving out astrotheology would be against non-believers best interests anyway since it's an Occam's razor explanation for the origins and evolution of religious concepts.

Whether mythicists should have astrotheology as a major plank in their mythicist position or not isn't the question. Do any other modern mythicists (other than possibly Dr Price) have astrotheology as a major plank of their mythicist position?

"I find it undeniable that many of the epic heroes and ancient patriarchs and matriarchs of the Old Testament were personified stars, planets, and constellations ... I find myself in full agreement with Acharya S/D.M. Murdock"
- Dr. Robert Price
http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/ ... _egypt.htm

Yes, granted. But are there other mythicists who have astrotheology as a major plank in their mythicist position?

[Maximos]

Whether mythicists should have astrotheology as a major plank in their mythicist position or not isn't the question. Do any other modern mythicists (other than possibly Dr Price) have astrotheology as a major plank of their mythicist position?

I'm not sure if they would label themselves "mythicists" or not but, there are others who do write about the astrotheological connection to religious concepts.

Previously, I was responding to your comment: "mythicists like Richard Carrier, Doherty and Wells don't include astrotheology in their mythicist views."

Astrotheology is simply not their area of expertise. They are not even looking into astrotheology at all. Carrier, for example, has made it well known that he is biased against it even though he has never really studied it. So, I would never consider him any sort of go to guy on the subject of astrotheology.

Frank Zindler is certainly well aware of the astrotheological underpinnings of religious concepts as well as many others cited throughout Acharya's bibliographies of her books but, none have ever written out a specific position like Acharya has done, however, their writings appear to support it. Earl Doherty even deferred to Acharya on Astrotheology in his 2nd edition on page 153:

"A heavenly location for the actions of the savior gods, including the death of Christ, would also have been influenced by most religions' ultimate derivation from astrotheology, as in the worship of the sun and moon. For this dimension of more remote Christian roots, see the books of Acharya S, especially 'Suns of God."

- Earl Doherty

Sir Dr. Norman Lockyer: Father of Archaeoastronomy

List of 180+ mythicists

A Mythicist Timeline

Read, "Yahweh and the Sun: Biblical and Archaeological Evidence for Sun Worship in Ancient Israel" by well-known Biblical Scholar Rev. Dr. J. Glen Taylor

National Geographic's "Ancient Astronomers"

The Solstice Project - Sun Dagger

National Geographic's "Nebra Sky Disc"

There appear to be some evangelical Christian astrotheologists too:

Jesus's Return, Blood Red Moons and the Bootes Constellation

"At Stonehenge in England and Carnac in France, in Egypt and Yucatan, across the whole face of the earth are found mysterious ruins of ancient monuments, monuments with astronomical significants. These relics of other times are as accessible as the American Midwest and as remote as the jungles of Guatemala. Some of them were built according to celestial alignments; others were actually precision astronomical observatories ... Careful observation of the celestial rhythms was compellingly important to early peoples, and their expertise, in some respects, was not equaled in Europe until three thousand years later."

- Dr. Edwin Krupp, astronomer and director at Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angeles

"The ancient Egyptian religion is a sun-based religion and the yearly cycle of the stars was very important for them to calculate their calender. It would be surprising if there was no an alignment with certain celestial phenomena. However, archaeoastronomy is not an established science working hand in hand with archaeology in much of Mespotamia and Egypt. There are several reasons for this:

"The problem is that until recently hardly any research was done in that area: Egyptologists are no astronomers, and calculations in that field are extremely complex. This was taken for granted, but not a field of research. So nothing to much 'scientific' can be said, simply because of lack of data. That is something else than saying Egyptologists dismiss celestial alignments: they simply never looked into it. That is the disadvantage of a rich culture like that of the Egyptians: one can't do everything."

- Paul Haanen, Archaeologist in Egypt

There are plenty of Archaeoastronomers who understand the cultural significance of astrotheology:

Conference on Archaeoastronomy of the American Southwest

We really need a Mythicist Project.

[GakuseiDon]

"The ancient Egyptian religion is a sun-based religion and the yearly cycle of the stars was very important for them to calculate their calender. It would be surprising if there was no an alignment with certain celestial phenomena. However, archaeoastronomy is not an established science working hand in hand with archaeology in much of Mespotamia and Egypt. There are several reasons for this:

"The problem is that until recently hardly any research was done in that area: Egyptologists are no astronomers, and calculations in that field are extremely complex. This was taken for granted, but not a field of research. So nothing to much 'scientific' can be said, simply because of lack of data. That is something else than saying Egyptologists dismiss celestial alignments: they simply never looked into it. That is the disadvantage of a rich culture like that of the Egyptians: one can't do everything."

- Paul Haanen, Archaeologist in Egypt

There are plenty of Archaeoastronomers who understand the cultural significance of astrotheology:

Conference on Archaeoastronomy of the American Southwest

Thanks for the links on archaeoastronomy, that was very interesting indeed. "Archaeoastronomy" is defined here.

• Archaeoastronomy (also spelled archeoastronomy) is the study of how people in the past "have understood the phenomena in the sky, how they used phenomena in the sky, and what role the sky played in their cultures."... It is often twinned with ethnoastronomy, the anthropological study of skywatching in contemporary societies. Archaeoastronomy is also closely associated with historical astronomy, the use of historical records of heavenly events to answer astronomical problems and the history of astronomy, which uses written records to evaluate past astronomical practice.

Archaeoastronomy does seem different to astrotheology, though. There's a bit on-line about archaeoastronomy, from what I can see, with people at university level studying it. But there doesn't appear to be much about astrotheology, apart from Acharya S's work and recognition of it by Price, Doherty and Zindler. Do you see astrotheology and archaeoastronomy as being pretty much the same, or overlapping, or relatively separate?

We really need a Mythicist Project.

Yes, agreed. (I'm not a mythicist by any means, as I believe the evidence is strong for a historical Jesus, even if we can say nothing for certain about him, to the point he might as well have not existed. But there is a lot of nonsense out there that really mythicists themselves should be addressing, since the mainstream is generally considered biased. So who better to do the evaluation than other mythicists?)

I believe Rene Salm has been trying to get the leading mythicists together, for something like a Mythicist Project. He has a website and blog where he has been gathering material, both old and new, on alternate views of the origin of Christianity: http://www.mythicistpapers.com/

Salm defines "Mythicism" here: http://www.mythicistpapers.com/2012/11/ ... mythicism/ He writes:

• A mythicist is one who concludes that Jesus of Nazareth never existed and also that no human prophet lay at the origin of Christianity.

Salm describes himself as a "semi-mythicist", because he "embrace only the first part [of the definition] but not the second".

[ficino]

I'm not a mythicist by any means, as I believe the evidence is strong for a historical Jesus, even if we can say nothing for certain about him, to the point he might as well have not existed. [italics added by Ficino]

Hello GakuseiDon, I'm intrigued by the part of your post that I snipped above, two clauses of which I italicized. Would you care to expand, either here or in another thread, on your position? I don't understand how your position coheres. Or if you've already set forth elsewhere how "evidence is strong" is compatible with the minimalism of the end of the sentence, I'll be grateful if you can supply a link or citation.

Best, Ficino

[Maximos]

GakuseiDon,

Sadly, in my opinion, that Wikipedia article on Archaeoastronomy is not well written or explained. People would be confused if that is all they had to go on. A more accurate definition of Archaeoastronomy would be more about ancient observatories, megaliths and other ritual structures with religious and celestial significance and it all fits under the umbrella of astrotheology.

Take note that nearly everything mentioned in the Wiki article on Archaeoastronomy is also discussed throughout Acharya's work on astrotheology. I would certainly say that there's definite overlap as "Archaeo" means ancient so, all Archaeoastronomy is, is "ancient astronomy."

Here are what I would consider more accurate definitions:

Archaeoastronomy: "The branch of archaeology that deals with the apparent use by prehistoric civilizations of astronomical techniques to establish the seasons or the cycle of the year, esp. as evidenced in the construction of megaliths and other ritual structures."

"The study of the knowledge, interpretations, and practices of ancient cultures regarding celestial objects or phenomena. The branch of archaeology that deals with the apparent use by prehistoric civilizations of astronomical techniques to establish the seasons or the cycle of the year, esp. as evidenced in the construction of megaliths and other ritual structures."

Astrotheology: "Theology founded on observation or knowledge of the celestial bodies" ... such as the sun, moon, planets, stars, constellations and milky way etc.

From here
http:/ / ww w. fre ethough tnati on. co m/forums/viewtopic.php?p=14420#p14420

I have never heard of any valid evidence for a historical Jesus.

"The only definite account of his life and teachings is contained in the four Gospels of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. All other historical records of the time are silent about him. The brief mentions of Jesus in the writings of Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius have been generally regarded as not genuine and as Christian interpolations; in Jewish writings there is no report about Jesus that has historical value. Some scholars have even gone so far as to hold that the entire Jesus story is a myth…"

- The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia

"...Christian scholars over the centuries have admitted that ... "there are parallels between the Mysteries and Christianity"1 and that "the miracle stories of the Gospels do in fact parallel literary forms found in pagan and Jewish miracle stories,"2 "...According to Form Criticism the Gospels are more like folklore and myth than historical fact."3

1. Metzger, HLS, 8.
2. Meier, II, 536.
3. Geisler, CA, 320.

- Who Was Jesus? 259

Rene Salm seems confused on several things and he is a Euhemerist/Evemerist not a mythicist as he himself admits:

"I am a euhemerist"
- Rene Salm

Salm believes Jesus really existed.

Rene Salm is not a mythicist

Rene Salm seemed like a Richard Carrier fanboy until Carrier dissed Salm's part in the book:

Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth: An Evaluation of Ehrman s Did Jesus Exist?
http://www.amazon.com/Ehrman-Quest-Hist ... 1578840198

The Salm-Carrier exchange
http://www.mythicistpapers.com/2013/05/ ... -1-2-2013/

Rene Salm is just not the go to guy on mythicism or astrotheology. His thing seems to be Nazareth.

[GakuseiDon]

I'm not a mythicist by any means, as I believe the evidence is strong for a historical Jesus, even if we can say nothing for certain about him, to the point he might as well have not existed. [italics added by Ficino]

Hello GakuseiDon, I'm intrigued by the part of your post that I snipped above, two clauses of which I italicized. Would you care to expand, either here or in another thread, on your position? I don't understand how your position coheres. Or if you've already set forth elsewhere how "evidence is strong" is compatible with the minimalism of the end of the sentence, I'll be grateful if you can supply a link or citation.

I distinguish between 2 things: historicity of Jesus, and reconstruction of what that Jesus said or did. In brief:
(1) I think the best explanation for the existence of the Gospels and letters of Paul is that there was a Galilean called Jesus who was crucified in Jerusalem, and whom through visions after his death, was thought to have been taken to Heaven, which is the origin of what we came to know as "Christianity".
(2) The letters of Paul tell us little about that Jesus, and the material in the Gospels went through many hands, so that we can know little with confidence about what that Jesus said or did. So any reconstruction is just a guess.

Outside of Christianity itself, what good is a guesstimate Jesus? We can still examine the influence of Jesus, as he was thought to have existed by early Christians, on the development of Christianity and its place in the ancient world. But at that point, it doesn't matter whether he originally existed or not.

[ficino]

Thanks for the explanation. I'm fascinated by this problem: if we admit that the portrait of Jesus in the gospels is heavily fictionalized, how many attributes are we justified in attributing to a hypothetical, "real Jesus," about whose factual existence we can carry on an inquiry? We can't ask, was there a real person ________________ and assign NO properties other than "person," for then we're not formulating any proposition, about the truth of which to ask questions. So we have to start listing attributes in order to flesh out an identity of the hypothetical guy, whose purported real existence prompts the inquiry. "A Jewish guy who lived in Palestine during the time of Tiberius and was named Jesus," even "and who came from Galilee," would not be a specific enough description; who knows how many hundreds of hypothetical Jesuses would meet it.

But once you try to set out a longer list of attributes, which would be specific enough to distinguish our hypothetical Jewish guy, so that an inquiry can get started -- e.g. add "came from Nazareth, wandered around preaching, gathered disciples, was believed to work miracles, got into trouble with the authorities, was executed..." -- you're already fairly far into the literary representation. How can you then say you're detaching nuggets of fact from the system of mimetic discourse, from the fiction, of which they are constituent materials? Each "fact" is already part of the tissue of representation/interpretation that makes up the fictionalized portrayals we are discussing. There are no brute facts about Jesus in the gospels.

If you try to skip the gospels altogether precisely because you've decided they are literary creations, then what - rely on Paul? If we try the same "nuggets of fact" approach and strip off the miraculous and the theological, we won't get a list of attributes specific enough to get an inquiry going: maybe "born of woman, born under the Law, died, was buried..." (then follow claims about resurrection)? Can't really get anywhere with this as historians.

So how will the inquiry into the "historical Jesus" get off the ground? If we take the shortest list of attributes sufficient to distinguish our quarry so as to form the object of historical inquiry, what grounds do we have that are not question-begging for accepting that list?

We could take another approach: e.g. we believe the tradition that has been handed down to us in the Church from the holy fathers, who received it from the apostles, and its truth has been confirmed by countless miracles and in the lives of the saints through centuries, as well as in our experience.... This of course is not to "do history."

Head asplode.

edited to add: I guess one just has to hypothesize the factuality of various things and try to test the hypothesis. Still, applying the usual internal Criteria (e.g. Embarrassment, etc.) to the texts seems to run into the problem, how to select one's test sample without begging the question.