Acharya S and the real Christ Conspiracy

[beowulf]

Scientific Astrotheology?

Astrotheology is a purely scientific approach to religious studies, looking at the abundant presence of cosmology in ancient myth and investigating how the thought patterns (memes) evolved into Christian doctrine. The challenge is to show how and why the astral memes were suppressed and forgotten. Abundant scientific/historical evidence may be found to support this investigation, and the resulting hypothesis that Christianity emerged from astrally oriented origins, as documented in Murdock's book The Christ Conspiracy.

Science is not an ethical value, it has never been an ethical value; science is only a useful understanding of the physical world.

Of course science is an ethical value. Scientific values are all about basing decisions and opinions on evidence and logic rather than on tradition and authority. The emergence of the ethic of scientific knowledge is the decisive historical trait of modernisation, as a force for prosperity, knowledge and progress. People who place low value on evidence and logic are corrupt and evil. This is a basic political reality seen in global movements to promote transparencey and accountability.

My earlier comment that science is an ideology was not meant in a disparaging sense, but rather to say scientific knowledge provides the basis for true ideology. I would though disparage the ideology that holds we cannot know anything, which it seems Roger Pearse has supported by falsely claiming that "scientists have no opinion on whether anything is "impossible"".

The fascinating thing here is that the vast power of the Big Lie of historical Christianity has corrupted the debate so badly that many scholars are incapable of reasoned dialogue about hypotheses that challenge their emotional assumptions. That problem of paradigm shift in religious studies is not to suggest a conspiracy, any more than geocentrism was a conspiracy at the time of Galileo. The central point is that Christ did not exist, so he had to be invented. That is what happened, using the astral framework of precession. Voltaire's observation about God extends to the entirety of Christian faith.

Science is not an ethical value. It is what men and women do with their knowledge that is good or bad. Your religion is based on misunderstanding
In this post you are again preaching your religion of astrology and flogging merchandise,

You are scientifically repugnant

[neilgodfrey]

I do not disguise astrology as science. That question just reflects that you do not understand my views.

Or maybe we do understand but you do not agree with our criticism of them. I still sense word-games here, Robert. Yes, we understand by now that you do not practice or view astrology in the same way as it is understood in popular culture; yes, we understand you do not believe your are trying to disguise astrology as science because in your view science means something different from what it means to most of us here and in your mind the question of "disguising as science" does not arise.

I once drew the comparison of Murdock's followers with cult-like mentalities which you and others found very offensive. Unfortunately, one of the characteristics of cult-think is that they live in their own world of redefined words. The meanings of words are changed from the sense they have for most others. This is what lies behind their "inability to be understood" by the "outsiders".

And that leads to notions of persecution, victimhood, and accusations that others are "refusing" to understand, or "too fearful" to face the truth. All this is a cultish outlook.

And yes, you do come across as zealous to appeal to names in science and the philosophy of science to give your interpretations a cloak of "truth". But I do not believe that many of the philosophers or scientists you have referred to would think you have properly interpreted or understood them. You mentioned Dawkins recently in the context of a need for reverence for the natural world. Do you really believe he means that in the same sense, with all the same connotations, as you are using it? I am reminded of fundamentalists who like to quote Einstein to "prove" somehow that God exists or that even the greatest minds supposedly believe in God. Metaphors are confused with reality.

But the fact that you must so zealously argue this way only underscores how out of touch you have become with the normative meanings of words. Yes, science is value based. But to suggest that it is a guide for ethics or is an ideology is mistaken. Values create and guide the scientific method, not the other way around.

[Robert Tulip]

2.3.14

the origins of the gospel stories are addressed in the literature.

If there are these supposed “alternative scholarly explanations” you could help by pointing them out. One interesting commentary is Robert Price’s work on the midrash links to the story of Elisha multiplying the twenty barley loaves for a hundred men in 2 Kings 4:42-44 and to Homer. But Price only addresses the structure of the myth, not its intent.

Nothing I have seen has anything like the explanatory power to show the centrality and purpose of this loaves and fishes story compared to the explanation that it is allegory for the observed shift of the heavens marking the new age at the time of Christ. That explanation links directly to the Easter story, with the observed shift of the sun to Pisces and the full moon to Virgo at the Passover, due to precession. The exclusion of actual observation of the sky from conventional readings makes them superficial.

Readings have to be assessed against their explanatory power. Just saying, as Garon has done, that the story is a parable about sharing, does not engage with how it meshes within the cosmology of the authors as a primary statement of intent.

Your use of "meme" also worries me.

Meme is a philosophical term describing the process of cultural evolution of ideas. Ideas build on precedent through cumulative adaptation in an evolutionary process whose inherent logic is strongly comparable to genetic evolution, grounded in natural selection of random mutations. Ideas that are picked up by the zeitgeist prove more fecund, stable and durable. So it is a simple shorthand to say the meme of the historical Christ proved adaptive in Christendom.

In responding to the critical question you begin and end with enthusiastic assertions of the explanatory power of your own thesis. But that is what we are trying to establish through the tests of the method you say it must pass. You do not appear to have read into the origins -- theological and literary-critical -- of the gospel narratives. You never refer to any of the dozens of relevant authors or works.

Neil, as you well know, scholarship on Christianity is highly contested. I have in fact read widely. But I have not seen any sensible discussion of the origins of Christianity that conflict with my own views. We are in a situation where the bottom has fallen out of the historicist Christ meme, and an entirely open critical debate is emerging, under heavy fire from the old paradigm ridiculers such as Ehrman. I broadly support Earl Doherty’s work, including his endorsement of Acharya S, in terms of the central role of a hidden cosmology in the origins of Christianity. If you think there are better ideas, by all means share them.

caricature of alternatives: Conventional faith deserves its contemptible reputation . . . Hey Rocky . . . evolved from meaningful stories into supernatural fantasy . . . .

Conventional faith deserves ridicule. People who think that God breaks the laws of physics are stupid. I am perfectly happy to engage respectfully with sensible commentary, but not with people who claim that God breaks the laws of physics. Miracles are impossible. Recall, the Christian church is in a state of collapse in many places due to its corrupt support of child rape. That is contemptible, but pedophilia is an attitude grounded in the theological problem identified by Voltaire, that believing absurdities permits atrocities.

No-one who seriously addresses the question of origins of these miracle stories doubts they had a "meaningful origin". But your use of the term is question-begging, yes -- as if there are no alternatives. You come across as having only looked positively on your own side of the argument and your only acquaintance with the other side is a jaundiced look at only a smattering of "internet hits" and a reading of one work by Crossan that was not addressing the question.

Who are a few of these “serious” people? Brodie, Price, Doherty, Wells, earlier writers such as Dupuis and Drews. Earl Doherty wrote that Acharya had written "A nicely compact and efficient mini-book demonstrating how little we can trust the Gospels to provide us with an historical picture of Christian beginnings, let alone a reliable biography of its reputed founder. The clear contradictions between the Gospels, the wholesale changes and editorializing performed by later evangelists (each one following his own theology and interests) in reworking earlier ones, the pervasive use of the Old Testament to construct the Gospel story, all of it renders the foundations of Christianity a thing of smoke and quicksand. Together with her recent tour de force, 'Suns of God,' Acharya S has joined the growing number of pallbearers to the Historical Jesus, providing a few more nails in the coffin."

I am not going to class Bultmann, Brunner and Barth as serious, since their historicism is mired in smoke and quicksand.

Crossan’s book that I mentioned “The Birth of Christianity” is supposedly about discovering what happened in the years immediately after the execution of Jesus. While I have respect for Crossan, his assumption of the historicist paradigm cripples his work, and his failure to discuss the problem of miracles is indicative of how honest Christians are terminally confused by the origin problem.

I am not trying to be abusive or insulting.

I appreciate your mostly constructive tone Neil, but as I have said, you have not provided any evidence that suggests the hypothesis of Jesus as the Sun is wrong. Vaguely alluding to such evidence is entirely different from producing it.

Clearly nothing is known about this miracle, by any sensible standard. I have just got out my copy of The Birth of Christianity, by John Dominic Crossan, an esteemed leftist theologian. . . . . It appears the attitude is to ignore it as unfit for discussion, even though it is the most prominent miracle in the Gospels. It seems the only way we can try to explain how the loaves and fishes miracle has such a prominent position in the Jesus story is through conjecture and speculation, . . . Perhaps it is just too confronting for Crossan, suggesting an abyss of meaningless collapse of identity, to explore the idea that maybe this miraculous parable illustrates that the original Jesus story was primarily mythical and cosmic, and the fictional Nazareth story was only added later for purposes of political protection and popularisation.

This is not a scholarly approach, Robert. It is ad hominem. It is sarcastic. And it is blaming Crossan for not addressing a point that he did not see relevant to the theme of his work.

Again, it seems extraordinary that such a central Gospel story could be deemed “not relevant” to the birth of Christianity. But that status illustrates the contested and shifting views on this material. I did not make any ad hominem comments. It is a fact that Crossan is on the left of the church, and I meant no disparagement by saying that, as naturally my opinion of the right wing of the church is far worse. Sarcasm is reasonable in this context, where debate is prevented by censorship in universities and the media. Believers go into emotional meltdown when their faith that Jesus existed is challenged. It is not a normal scholarly topic.

And because you don't see an alternative explanation in one book you assume that any explanation offered in the literature is "conjecture and speculation"?

No, I am saying that my hypothesis is conjecture and speculation. It is important in scientific enquiry, where the facts are unknown, to begin with conjecture about what may be possible. Rival conjectures can then be assessed against their explanatory power. I say my conjecture fits an elegant new paradigm for Christian origins, and I am keen to debate the details.

You even suggest Crossan is "too fearful" to face the truth. What sort of academic argument is this? It is conspiracy theory you are presenting here, not scholarly argument.

You should not use quotation marks incorrectly. I said “Perhaps it is just too confronting for Crossan”. I am not presenting a conspiracy theory. I am pointing out that belief in Jesus is at the centre of western civilization, and that anyone who suggests the story is fiction will be ignored and ridiculed, despised and rejected.

I see theological categories such as fall and redemption as epistemically valuable. But to discuss them we need first, as Wittgenstein put it, to clear the underbrush away before we can analyse the presuppositions that surround such complex ideas. That means establishing a plausible argument for how the Christ Meme evolved, as Murdock has begun to do.

other scholarly explanations of which you are clearly unaware.

Such as?

Many different hypotheses could predict abundance of solar imagery. ("Coherence" is an interpretation -- that remains to be tested.) We see many instances where 12 of anything can be interpreted astrologically by the astrologically minded.

And Murdock’s interest is to look at these “different hypotheses” and analyse them. The point about the leader and twelve followers archetype is that the two great lights of the sky, the sun and moon, stand in a one to twelve ratio in terms of their orbital cycles, a fact that was central to ancient calendars stretching back into prehistory with the measuring of months as moons. So we have the universal structure of time in the one and the twelve, and it is hardly surprising this structure, grounded in the sun as the true source of light and life, should find its way into mythology. The absence of Christ and the disciples from real history indicates they were an enfleshed account of an astral myth.

The 5 planets and the moon and even the sun were broken up into tiny shards, by means of a prayer, and those shards were carried by 12 months (presumably the disciples are also months because they are 12?) to far more men grouped by 100s and by 50s (what do those numbers "clearly" represent?) than there are visible stars. What does the green grass represent here? What is green in astrological symbolism? And why are only "men" counted in the total number? Why are these numbers said to be "lost without a shepherd"? And why are the months only making an appearance as baskets after the disintegration of the planetary bodies? And how can the months be understood as containing countless fragments of all the planetary bodies after the substance of those planetary bodies have been consumed by all the visible stars?

The point of the Gospels was to present a story that illiterate people would find plausible, indicating why Jesus is God. But behind this political agenda the Gospels also sought to provide a deeper true explanation for initiates. This is a heuristic that the Professor of Religion at Princeton University, Dr Elaine Pagels, has explored in depth for the Epistles. So the astral mystery has to be told in a way that is concealed to the ignorant but provides hooks which the Gnostics can use to teach initiates.

On your specific questions, there are 6000 visible stars, less as we go away from the equator. Perhaps 5000 versus 4000 reflects the count at different latitudes? The ‘lost sheep without a shepherd’ line is from Matthew 9, not from this miracle. Beyond that, the threshold simple question of the movement of the equinoxes has not been understood here, even though it should be obvious.

When the Bible describes Jesus Christ as the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, the first and last, this matches directly to the Easter story of the position of the sun at the spring equinox, moving from the last season, winter, to the first season, spring. The ancients could see the star positions at easter were shifting, and they used this observation to construct their myth of a new age with a King of Ages, Jesus Christ.

I have read far simpler explanations in the scholarly literature that do not present us with such conundrums.

Such as?

piling up mountains upon mountains of corroborating data (while not even being aware of the alternative scholarly explanations) proves nothing. Conspiracy theorists pile up mountains of data to "prove" their arguments but they remain ignorant of or contemptuous of any other explanation.

Well maybe if you or anyone could point to any data that is not compatible with what I have said we could make progress. But you have not done that. I don’t think you can. I am neither ignorant nor contemptuous towards scholarship. I do hold contempt for views that are clearly wrong, such as the traditional claim that God miraculously intervened on our planet and proved his presence by breaking the laws of physics. My own hypothesis is an effort to provide a more persuasive and compelling explanation for how the texts evolved. Falsification of my hypothesis would require demonstration of its incompatibility with existing knowledge, and demonstration that some other reading makes more sense.

Acharya gives a clear simple explanation in The Christ Conspiracy: “The fish is in fact representative of the astrological age of Pisces. (p79) … Jesus refers to different ‘ages’ which are in fact the divisions that constitute the precession of the equinoxes. As Moses was created to usher in the Age of Aries, so was Jesus to serve as the Avatar of the Age of Pisces, which is evident from the abundant fish imagery used throughout the gospel tale. (p146)… As the solar hero of the Piscean Age, Jesus is made to say ‘I am with you always until the close of the age’. It is now the close of the Age of Pisces and the sun is moving into the Age of Aquarius, a ‘second coming’ that signifies the changing of the guard. (p164)… Jesus feeds the 5000 with five loaves and two fishes. The two fishes are in reality the zodiacal sign of Pisces. The five loaves have been said to represent the five smaller planets. These would be the same five loaves requested of the priests by David at 1 Samuel 21:3. Later in the gospel myth, the number of the loaves is seven, representing the seven ‘planets’ used to name the days of the week. ‘Jesus’, the sun, ‘breaks up’ the multiplied loaves into the 12 ‘baskets’ or constellations, symbolising the creation of the countless stars and the placement of them in the heavens. (p197) ”

[neilgodfrey]

2.3.14

the origins of the gospel stories are addressed in the literature.

If there are these supposed “alternative scholarly explanations” you could help by pointing them out. One interesting commentary is Robert Price’s work on the midrash links to the story of Elisha multiplying the twenty barley loaves for a hundred men in 2 Kings 4:42-44 and to Homer. But Price only addresses the structure of the myth, not its intent.

How can one know "intent", the mind, of an author apart from a discussion that is limited to structure and comparison with similar or other literary structures -- that is, by means of literary criticism? Your scenario bounces way beyond the evidence.

Readings have to be assessed against their explanatory power. Just saying, as Garon has done, that the story is a parable about sharing, does not engage with how it meshes within the cosmology of the authors as a primary statement of intent.

This is question begging. You are presuming the answer is in your analysis of the evidence. What this is communicating to me is that any explanation that does not mesh with cosmology is wrong or inadequate. That's confirmation bias for starters.

Your use of "meme" also worries me.

Meme is a philosophical term describing the process of cultural evolution of ideas. . . . .

Why not just use "concept", "idea", image? Or mytheme -- something that is part of the acknowledged literature on the way myths are transmitted?

In responding to the critical question you begin and end with enthusiastic assertions of the explanatory power of your own thesis. But that is what we are trying to establish through the tests of the method you say it must pass. You do not appear to have read into the origins -- theological and literary-critical -- of the gospel narratives. You never refer to any of the dozens of relevant authors or works.

Neil, as you well know, scholarship on Christianity is highly contested. I have in fact read widely. But I have not seen any sensible discussion of the origins of Christianity that conflict with my own views. . . . If you think there are better ideas, by all means share them.

I have learned a whole way of reading the gospels through Wrede, Fowler, Tolbert, Shiner, Vines, Kelber, Camery-Hoggart, Watts (Rikki, not Joel), Hock, Goulder, Nickelsburg, Brant, Bultmann (you scoff at Bultmann -- Price, whom you cite approvingly, certainly does not.)

caricature of alternatives: Conventional faith deserves its contemptible reputation . . . Hey Rocky . . . evolved from meaningful stories into supernatural fantasy . . . .

Conventional faith deserves ridicule.

Not in an academic or scholarly discussion it doesn't. We can hold back our farts for the right place and time.

People who think that God breaks the laws of physics are stupid.

What are you trying to prove by talking like this? I know lots of very intelligent people who have beliefs I do not agree with; I think they are irrational beliefs; but at the same time I understand why they hold those beliefs. I don't have to think they are "stupid". Do you really look so condescendingly upon all those people?

but pedophilia is an attitude grounded in the theological problem identified by Voltaire, that believing absurdities permits atrocities.

Are you seriously saying that pedophilia is some sort of indirect product of faith in miracles? This is a scientifically confirmed assertion?

No-one who seriously addresses the question of origins of these miracle stories doubts they had a "meaningful origin". But your use of the term is question-begging, yes -- as if there are no alternatives. You come across as having only looked positively on your own side of the argument and your only acquaintance with the other side is a jaundiced look at only a smattering of "internet hits" and a reading of one work by Crossan that was not addressing the question.

Who are a few of these “serious” people? Brodie, Price, Doherty, Wells, earlier writers such as Dupuis and Drews. Earl Doherty wrote that Acharya had written "A nicely compact and efficient mini-book demonstrating how little we can trust the Gospels to provide us with an historical picture of Christian beginnings, let alone a reliable biography of its reputed founder. The clear contradictions between the Gospels, the wholesale changes and editorializing performed by later evangelists (each one following his own theology and interests) in reworking earlier ones, the pervasive use of the Old Testament to construct the Gospel story, all of it renders the foundations of Christianity a thing of smoke and quicksand. Together with her recent tour de force, 'Suns of God,' Acharya S has joined the growing number of pallbearers to the Historical Jesus, providing a few more nails in the coffin."

I listed the names of scholars I read above. I have only read a snippet of mythicist works by comparison. Unfortunately I think Earl Doherty has done the mythicism and mythicists a disservice by his approval of Murdock's work. I don't think he fully appreciated what lay behind it. And your quote here is really a non sequitur to this discussion anyway.

I am not going to class Bultmann, Brunner and Barth as serious, since their historicism is mired in smoke and quicksand.

You can demonstrate that without smoke and mirrors of your own? Bultmann? What smoke and mirrors do you see in Bultmann's work? Historicism? Again, you use terms that don't have the standard meanings I think you seem to think they do.

Crossan’s book that I mentioned “The Birth of Christianity” is supposedly about discovering what happened in the years immediately after the execution of Jesus. While I have respect for Crossan, his assumption of the historicist paradigm cripples his work, and his failure to discuss the problem of miracles is indicative of how honest Christians are terminally confused by the origin problem.

So if an author does not address a point from your perspective they are "terminally confused"? This smacks just a little of arrogance. Why not be able to accept different perspectives for what they are without presuming that anyone who does not see what you see is "confused" or worse.

I am not trying to be abusive or insulting.

I appreciate your mostly constructive tone Neil, but as I have said, you have not provided any evidence that suggests the hypothesis of Jesus as the Sun is wrong. Vaguely alluding to such evidence is entirely different from producing it.

I have listed several names of books I have read on my shelf, not counting many more who authored journal articles. If you have read any of those but dismiss them because they do not arrive at your own conclusions or starting assumptions then what is the point of sharing any different point of view with you at all? You seem to have made up your mind that anything that does not draw your conclusions is ignoring the evidence. I believe the scholarly arguments about theological and literary criticism produce much more coherent explanations that are testable.

Clearly nothing is known about this miracle, by any sensible standard. I have just got out my copy of The Birth of Christianity, by John Dominic Crossan, an esteemed leftist theologian. . . . .

This is not a scholarly approach, Robert. It is ad hominem. It is sarcastic. And it is blaming Crossan for not addressing a point that he did not see relevant to the theme of his work.

Again, it seems extraordinary that such a central Gospel story could be deemed “not relevant” to the birth of Christianity. But that status illustrates the contested and shifting views on this material. I did not make any ad hominem comments. It is a fact that Crossan is on the left of the church, and I meant no disparagement by saying that, as naturally my opinion of the right wing of the church is far worse. Sarcasm is reasonable in this context, where debate is prevented by censorship in universities and the media. Believers go into emotional meltdown when their faith that Jesus existed is challenged. It is not a normal scholarly topic.

This is nothing but justification of ad hominem and conspiracy theory.

And because you don't see an alternative explanation in one book you assume that any explanation offered in the literature is "conjecture and speculation"?

No, I am saying that my hypothesis is conjecture and speculation. It is important in scientific enquiry, where the facts are unknown, to begin with conjecture about what may be possible. Rival conjectures can then be assessed against their explanatory power. I say my conjecture fits an elegant new paradigm for Christian origins, and I am keen to debate the details.

You've just floored me here. You sure do get very aggressive to push a mere "conjecture and speculation"! Keen to debate the details? But if we don't agree with you you simply say we don't understand, or are fearful to face the evidence, or are talking rubbish . . . .

. . . . I am pointing out that belief in Jesus is at the centre of western civilization, and that anyone who suggests the story is fiction will be ignored and ridiculed, despised and rejected.

Nonsense. Persecution syndrome at work here. If I walk into a fundy church I would expect to be ridiculed for my beliefs. But that's not quite what you are saying here.

I see theological categories such as fall and redemption as epistemically valuable. But to discuss them we need first, as Wittgenstein put it, to clear the underbrush away before we can analyse the presuppositions that surround such complex ideas. That means establishing a plausible argument for how the Christ Meme evolved, as Murdock has begun to do.

And any other explanation is dismissed out of hand because it does not conform to your cosmology explanation.

other scholarly explanations of which you are clearly unaware.

Such as?

Authors given above.

Many different hypotheses could predict abundance of solar imagery. ("Coherence" is an interpretation -- that remains to be tested.) We see many instances where 12 of anything can be interpreted astrologically by the astrologically minded.

And Murdock’s interest is to look at these “different hypotheses” and analyse them. The point about the leader and twelve followers archetype is that the two great lights of the sky, the sun and moon, stand in a one to twelve ratio in terms of their orbital cycles, a fact that was central to ancient calendars stretching back into prehistory with the measuring of months as moons. So we have the universal structure of time in the one and the twelve, and it is hardly surprising this structure, grounded in the sun as the true source of light and life, should find its way into mythology. The absence of Christ and the disciples from real history indicates they were an enfleshed account of an astral myth.

The 5 planets and the moon and even the sun were broken up into tiny shards, by means of a prayer, and those shards were carried by 12 months (presumably the disciples are also months because they are 12?) to far more men grouped by 100s and by 50s (what do those numbers "clearly" represent?) than there are visible stars. What does the green grass represent here? What is green in astrological symbolism? And why are only "men" counted in the total number? Why are these numbers said to be "lost without a shepherd"? And why are the months only making an appearance as baskets after the disintegration of the planetary bodies? And how can the months be understood as containing countless fragments of all the planetary bodies after the substance of those planetary bodies have been consumed by all the visible stars?

The point of the Gospels was to present a story that illiterate people would find plausible, indicating why Jesus is God. But behind this political agenda the Gospels also sought to provide a deeper true explanation for initiates. This is a heuristic that the Professor of Religion at Princeton University, Dr Elaine Pagels, has explored in depth for the Epistles. So the astral mystery has to be told in a way that is concealed to the ignorant but provides hooks which the Gnostics can use to teach initiates.

On your specific questions, there are 6000 visible stars, less as we go away from the equator. Perhaps 5000 versus 4000 reflects the count at different latitudes? The ‘lost sheep without a shepherd’ line is from Matthew 9, not from this miracle. Beyond that, the threshold simple question of the movement of the equinoxes has not been understood here, even though it should be obvious.

When the Bible describes Jesus Christ as the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, the first and last, this matches directly to the Easter story of the position of the sun at the spring equinox, moving from the last season, winter, to the first season, spring. The ancients could see the star positions at easter were shifting, and they used this observation to construct their myth of a new age with a King of Ages, Jesus Christ.

So whatever does not fit the paradigm can be explained away as padding to make the message palatable to the ignorant. This is not a testable hypothesis. It is unfalsifiable. I can say the same ad hoc excuse about any hypothesis -- oh, that's all extra padding so the ignorant can understand it all.

piling up mountains upon mountains of corroborating data (while not even being aware of the alternative scholarly explanations) proves nothing. Conspiracy theorists pile up mountains of data to "prove" their arguments but they remain ignorant of or contemptuous of any other explanation.

Well maybe if you or anyone could point to any data that is not compatible with what I have said we could make progress. But you have not done that. I don’t think you can. I am neither ignorant nor contemptuous towards scholarship.

That's not the way you have expressed yourself vis a vis Bultmann and Crossan.

[neilgodfrey]

An alternative explanation for the miracle of the feeding of the 5000:

First, here 'tis from Mark 6:

34 And Jesus, when He came out, saw many people and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd; and He began to teach them many things.

35 And when the day was now far spent, His disciples came unto Him and said, “This is a desert place, and now the day is far spent.

36 Send them away, that they may go into the country round about and into the villages and buy themselves bread, for they have nothing to eat.”

37 He answered and said unto them, “Give ye them to eat.” And they said to Him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread and give them to eat?”

38 He said unto them, “How many loaves have ye? Go and see.” And when they knew, they said, “Five, and two fishes.”

39 And He commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass.

40 And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds and by fifties.

41 And when He had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, He looked up to Heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and He divided the two fishes among them all.

42 And they all ate and were filled.

43 And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments and of the fishes.

44 And those who ate of the loaves were about five thousand men.

Moved with compassion, sheep without a shepherd = image of God caring for the people in the wilderness, and the famous Psalm of comfort

Began to teach many things = This follows the long set of images up to this point where Jesus is depicted as an antitype of Moses, the teacher/lawgiver.

In a desert place = again, the setting reminiscent of Israel in the wilderness, both first and second (Isaianic).

Let them buy bread etc = the test is set up, as per the standard style in the Pentateuch

Loaves and fish = the food of the early eucharist, the antitype of the shewbread

five and two and 5000 = a greater miracle than that of Elisha who used 20 loaves among 100 (4 and 50 times greater)

Sit down in companies/by ranks etc = organized like military bands just like the original Israel type in the wilderness

upon the green grass = again recalls the famous Psalm with which we began, "the lord is my shepherd"

broke and gave the food to his disciples = as per the eucharist, and to the disciples who represent the tribes of israel. They are now the leaders feeding the flock. This is the new Israel being formed in figure.

were filled = the psalm again, 'they shall not want'

twelve baskets of fragments of the food = food that represents the body of Christ shared among the whole of Israel, symbolized by the twelve tribes -- the miracle points to much greater conversions after all of this.

As for the numbers 5 and 2? We cannot be sure. But we do know that Jesus equated food with his body. Mark is all about joining Jews and Gentiles. Five is a symbolic number common throughout the OT. Perhaps MacDonald is also on to something. Anyone who learned to read and write Greek knew Homer.

I suggest that the above points to the miracle being a midrash on various OT passages (Psalms, Exodus, 2 Kings) demonstrating the superiority of Jesus to the prophets and the superiority of the new Israel to the old.

It has the advantage of conforming to the way we know gospel narratives were written vis a vis the OT, and vis a vis other literature (emulation, etc.)

It explains far more than the astrotheology hypothesis that simply relegates most of the details to fictional padding to make the story more palatable to ignorant folk.

[Andrew]

To add to Neil's interpretation of the details, the overall story could simply have been intended to teach early Christians that the size of their contributions didn't matter since Jesus could turn whatever was given him into something great. An "every little bit counts" type of story.

[Garon]

To add to Neil's interpretation of the details, the overall story could simply have been intended to teach early Christians that the size of their contributions didn't matter since Jesus could turn whatever was given him into something great. An "every little bit counts" type of story.

Wow!! I gave an explanation that people cant deal with? It's a STORY. No miracle needed.

[bcedaifu]

To add to Neil's interpretation of the details, the overall story could simply have been intended to teach early Christians that the size of their contributions didn't matter since Jesus could turn whatever was given him into something great. An "every little bit counts" type of story.

A bit of a stretch, in my view, Andrew. Neil is arguing that Robert errs in thinking that the "story" -- or "miracle" of the fishes and bread in Mark is based on ancient cosmological data. Neil appears, to my reckoning, to seek to emphasize, as a different explanation for the focus of the myth, a continuation, or extension of pre-existing stories from the traditional Jewish literature (LXX, probably well known throughout the Roman Empire, because of the translation from Hebrew, into Greek, the lingua franca of the era), as the fundamental inspiration for this particular anecdote in Mark's gospel. In essence, if we remove the twenty pages of fluff, exchanged between Robert and Neal, what remains is one guy arguing for a pagan impetus as the foundation of Christianity, while the other argues contrarily, for the ancient Jewish tradition serving as pedestal for the religion.

In the concept of Jesus as representation, originally, as the sun, rather than the son, Robert invokes stellar constellation patterns from 2000 years ago, and in claiming a heritage of early Christianity from ancient Judaism, rather than Greek paganism, Neil argues that the cosmological data of that era were insignificant factors, influencing the authors of Mark's gospel. Of course we have no idea whatsoever, of what actually prompted the authors of Mark to create their story, which clearly had been drawn from a wide variety of earlier traditions, certainly involving practices from Egypt, India, Persia, and all regions of the empire. I would not be surprised to learn of some ancient Druids' practices incorporated in some fashion into the gospels. Were the authors of Mark aware of the zodiac? Certainly. Is the Lunar calendar embedded in the expressions of the text? Yes. Does one read of light versus darkness--i.e. Zoroastrianism? Yes. And so on, and so on....

Were Neil fundamentally correct, (Mark's gospel as extensions of, and based upon, the stories from LXX), then this story of the fishes and loaves, ought to have reflected, rather, the ancient Jewish practice of tithing, in other words, simple sharing 10% of one's own food, to support those without funds and with hunger. Instead, there are no references to this contemporary (and ancient) practice of giving 10% of one's wealth to charity. What we read here in this chapter of Mark, is "primitive communism", because Jesus provides an equal portion to all, irrespective of one's ability to pay. It is not, as Andrew suggested, "every little bit helps". Nope. Jesus demanded zero, nothing, nada--not even a "little bit". Just faith in his divinity, that's all he demanded. In this parable, one had been obliged to donate not so much as a centime, not a farthing, not even a bread crumb, to the gathering of the troops.

I would not be looking to cosmological data to explain the significance of this profound "miracle". I thank Robert for drawing our attention to the importance of this "miracle", and the fact that so little "scholarship" has been devoted to analyzing it. I disagree with Andrew and Neal, in thinking that this particular myth represents an extension of ancient Judaism, for in my opinion, this little parable, found as Robert explained, in all four gospels, contravenes most Jewish tradition, which does not, in my view, support such an example of primitive communism.

Jews do not believe in such concepts. They are "God's chosen people", meaning, literally, the folks on the planet who should be wealthier than the rest of us, because they are superior to us lesser folk. They rightfully, i.e. lawfully, by divine right, should be more prosperous, more fecund, owning the best land, with the best water, and controlling the other land's resources, to their own advantage. Jews believe in none of this equality nonsense, as portrayed in this parable from Mark's gospel.

Christianity, and this parable in particular, repudiates this elitist notion of Jewish superiority, claiming equality for all, before Jesus. Christianity, especially this particular parable, argues dramatically, that Jews are not superior to "gentiles". The very idea, that 5000 people could show up at a gathering and expect to be fed by somebody else, is horribly wrong from the ancient Jewish idea, that one had better put the shovel in the wagon and get started on the day's chores, if one hope to have food to eat, tomorrow. Judaism works, and works well, because it emphasizes the exact opposite implication of this story: there is no miracle going to rescue you. In Judaism, one must work, and work strenuously, tending the flocks, and weeding the garden, to survive. Depending on some external force to come along, rescue you, and feed you, as in this story from Mark's gospel, isn't going to work in Judaism. The concept does work in Christianity, because they have abandoned, in theory, the need for any material possessions on this planet, anticipating that in the next locus, "heaven", they will live in wealth beyond imagination.

[neilgodfrey]

I don't know if I was assuming too much in my analysis of the miracle as related in Mark's Gospel. To be clear, I was attempting to demonstrate the sources of Mark's account. This sort of "intertextuality", alluding to images and concepts from several master-texts well known to the readers and weaving from these allusions a new account, was part of the literary culture of the day. It's how we know authors often wrote and how they used earlier texts.

What the author of the miracle here appears to be doing is following the literary traditions of earlier Jewish literature or even Scriptures. The Scriptures are a collation of reiterations of a constant theme -- the failure of the "old" Israel as a warning to the "new". The new is, of course, the readership being addressed by each new narrative.

We have reasonable grounds for dating Mark to the wake of the destruction of 70 CE. Such a historical context would have produced strong demands for an explanation of the loss of the old and above all for a new and restored identity that enabled survival in the new social/cultural context after the loss of the Temple.

The miracle story answers to that, as do most other passages in Mark that we can see are stitched together from allusions to the Scriptures. The miracle is part of a package that assures readers they are part of a new Israel, one at a higher plateau than the old one where Moses was central. The miracle was deliberately repeated (the second occasion begins knowingly with the word for "again" to stress it is a repetition) -- and a number of scholars have observed that the second one occurs in apparently gentile territory. Presumably it is yet one more instance of Mark's theme of uniting Jews and Gentiles in the one experience and body in Christ.

Such an explanation is consistent with Jewish writings and experiences before Christianity; and it also explains what follows in the history of Christianity. We do not need to assume attempts by later powers to cover up and destroy evidence that it meant something else.

[Robert Tulip]

What this is communicating to me is that any explanation that does not mesh with cosmology is wrong or inadequate.

Yes, that is what I think. any explanation that does not mesh with cosmology is wrong or inadequate. I agree with the broad idea presented by Joseph Campbell in his theory of the four functions of myth, which may be summarised as saying myth promotes awe, reason, law and identity. One way of putting it is that religion has four 'R's: reverence, reason, ritual and role.

Within the second function, the role of myth in rationalising our place in reality, cosmology is absolutely central. As Campbell puts it in Occidental Mythology (1964): “a cosmological dimension deals with the image of the world that is the focus of science. This function shows the shape of the universe, but in such a way that the mystery still comes through. The cosmology should correspond to the actual experience, knowledge, and mentality of the culture. This interpretive function changes radically over time. It presents a map or picture of the order of the cosmos and our relationship to it.”

The idea that we can theorise about the emergence of Christianity while ignoring cosmology will hardly lead to accurate conclusions. The ‘map’ that Christian founders had of what Campbell calls ‘the order of the cosmos and our relationship to it’ is central to what they considered important.

I appreciate that Neil knows more about religious cults than I do. But I suspect he may be imagining cultic trends where none exist. The idea of exploring what the ancients actually thought about cosmology in order to analyse the evolution of their religious ideas does not mean that we today should accept their irrational beliefs, whether in astrology or creationism. Ignoring that whole cosmic dimension because it reminds us of a cult is hardly a helpful method.