Thorburn, The Mythical Interp of the Gospels

[Blood]

Ah, another refutation!

[Robert Tulip]

Dupuis's "method led him to the conclusion that the constellations must have been devised when the sun was in the constellation Aries at the autumnal equinox, i.e., about 13000 B.C. The evidence afforded by the unmapped space round the south pole proves that he was ten or eleven thousand years wrong; in other words, nearly as wrong as he could be"!xiv.n2 Any system which is based upon such a huge and primary error as this stands self-condemned at the outset.

Is Thorburn here asserting that Aries was not at the autumn equinox around 13000 BC? In fact it was.

Leaving aside whether Dupuis had grounds for asserting such antiquity of astronomical observation, it is Thorburn who stands self-condemned in this asinine comment. There is no "huge and primary error" in this accurate astronomical statement by Dupuis of when Aries stood at the autumn equinox. The unmapped space around the south pole is not relevant to zodiacal positions. It appears, like Ehrman, that Thorburn has allowed visceral loathing to intercede between his mind and the evidence. It shows that Thorburn does not have a clue about astronomy, and about how Dupuis explored the astronomical content in ancient religion.

Thorburn applies a familiar apologetic method, constructing a mythicist straw man and then trying to apply a nuclear explosion to it, while actually shooting himself in the foot.

[andrewcriddle]

Dupuis's "method led him to the conclusion that the constellations must have been devised when the sun was in the constellation Aries at the autumnal equinox, i.e., about 13000 B.C. The evidence afforded by the unmapped space round the south pole proves that he was ten or eleven thousand years wrong; in other words, nearly as wrong as he could be"!xiv.n2 Any system which is based upon such a huge and primary error as this stands self-condemned at the outset.

Is Thorburn here asserting that Aries was not at the autumn equinox around 13000 BC? In fact it was.

Leaving aside whether Dupuis had grounds for asserting such antiquity of astronomical observation, it is Thorburn who stands self-condemned in this asinine comment. There is no "huge and primary error" in this accurate astronomical statement by Dupuis of when Aries stood at the autumn equinox. The unmapped space around the south pole is not relevant to zodiacal positions. It appears, like Ehrman, that Thorburn has allowed visceral loathing to intercede between his mind and the evidence. It shows that Thorburn does not have a clue about astronomy, and about how Dupuis explored the astronomical content in ancient religion.

Thorburn applies a familiar apologetic method, constructing a mythicist straw man and then trying to apply a nuclear explosion to it, while actually shooting himself in the foot.

Thorburn is paraphrasing a communication by the astronomer Maunder. The full quote goes

Regarding this book, it will suffice
here to say that a distinguished modern astronomer 1 has
(March 20, 19 14) informed the present writer that Du-
puis's "method led him to the conclusion that the con-
stellations must have been devised when the sun was in
the constellation Aries at the autumnal equinox, i. e.,
about 13000 B. C. The evidence afforded by the un-
mapped space round the south pole proves that he was
ten or eleven thousand years wrong; in other words,
nearly as wrong as he could be"! 2 Any system which
is based upon such a huge and primary error as this
stands self-condemned at the outset.

with the distinguished modern astronomer identified as Maunder in a foot-note.
Maunder's argument is found in Astronomy of the Bible Maunder is saying that the constellations were devised 2,000-3,000 BCE and hence long after 13000 BCE when the sun was in Aries at the autumnal equinox. According to Maunder, if the constellations had been devised at a much earlier date they would have included stars around the south pole that are in fact unmapped/ignored.

Andrew Criddle

[Robert Tulip]

Maunder's argument is found in Astronomy of the Bible Maunder is saying that the constellations were devised 2,000-3,000 BCE and hence long after 13000 BCE when the sun was in Aries at the autumnal equinox. According to Maunder, if the constellations had been devised at a much earlier date they would have included stars around the south pole that are in fact unmapped/ignored.

Andrew Criddle

Thorburn's statement was ambiguous as to whether he thought Dupuis' error was in the dating of the precession or the devising of the constellations. Either way, Thorburn is over the top in his criticism. Ancient star maps do include the Southern Cross, which used to be much further away from the pole and therefore visible from northern latitudes. In any case, it is easy to consider that constellations seen in 13,000 BC would have been forgotten and not included in star maps made in Babylon more recently.

My analysis of the constellation Argo indicates this is what happened as the ship of the sky gradually sank from view in the north due to precession. The loss of the prow ornament of the Argo recounted in the Argonautica correlates to the invisibility from Greece of Argo's bright star Canopus.

There is a typical conventional haughtiness in Thorburn's dismissal of Dupuis, even though close analysis indicates that the grounds for Thorburn's attack are flimsy. In calling for Dupuis to be ignored, Thorburn uses the common apologist strategem of using a straw man argument to malign scholarship that presents coherent alternative interpretations.

An excellent article on visibility of southern stars and precession at http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0407/0407108.pdf summarises how temples were aligned to constellations, and were rebuilt every few centuries to maintain this alignment as the stars shifted: "The whole visible sky in a given point at a given time depends on the “precessional moment”. As an example, one can consider the constellation of the group of stars Crux-Centaurus at the latitudes of the Mediterranean sea (the “South Cross” constellation was “isolated” as a standing constellation only the 16 century AD). This asterism was quite important for people living at that latitudes in very ancient times, as the research by Michael Hoskin and collaborators on megalithic structures in the Baleary Islands and in Malta has shown."