Robert Tulip wrote:Peter Kirby really does need to invest in some asbestos underpants
While the question of whether I was sloppy or not in attributing sloppiness to a sloppy reference to ancient writers made through mention of an encyclopedia article is surely a riveting and important one (to which the answer might be that you are sloppy in claiming that I'm sloppy in claiming that the third party is sloppy... what fun), I am left wondering if you might return to these questions and help the "defence of astrotheology" along a bit more directly.Robert Tulip wrote:This claim of weak sourcing is itself sloppy
Does "Hipparchus’ observation of precession" imply that people were, in a religious sense, "refashioning their beliefs according to their observations of the changing night sky"? If so, how? If not, does anything else imply it?
And there was something said about 1 Corinthians, Romans, Hebrews, and the Gospel of Mark. Very little, actually, but the intention was to write more.
Unfortunately, there has been tangent, after tangent, after tangent. Apparently the various claims regarding "astrotheology" are too obvious to bother proving for some, and too unproven to bother with at all for others, leading to a rapid deterioration of the exchange.The Crow wrote:Man! This thread still going? When is the trial? I think the inquest has lasted long enough.
Robert Tulip wrote:This context is the rise of Hellenistic science. The refashioning of beliefs in the Common Era involved the development of modus vivendi, ways of living together, where formerly separate mythologies were put together.Peter Kirby wrote: Just a few questions at this time:
(1) Outside of Christianity, what do we know regarding people in the general period of 200 BC to 300 CE, the period of the origins of Christianity, who are supposed to have been refashioning their beliefs according to their observations of the changing night sky? What is the milieu of this type of organization? Who were they, where were they, and why were they doing what they were doing? What sources do we have?
The invention of Serapis is a primary example in this period of how beliefs were deliberately refashioned, and we know that Serapis was routinely depicted as surrounded by the twelve signs of the zodiac. I find the stories of the Greek thinkers Euclid and Hipparchus instructive in terms of defining the cultural mileau that placed precession at the secret centre of a logical worldview, with Hipparchus’ observation of precession a key to “refashioning their beliefs according to their observations of the changing night sky.”
Ancient religions which were based on pure traditional fantasy could no longer be literally believed by well informed people, as Socrates found to his cost with his execution for impiety. Rational veneration of the role of Socrates in promoting the shift from mythos to logos as the basis of understanding is behind the rise of western science. In this context, Euclid’s geometry and Hipparchus’ astronomy brought new logical understanding of reality which could not be ignored by serious thinkers.
It makes sense to explore Christianity as a serious scientific cosmology, emerging from the synthesis of Jewish myth and Greek logic upon a broad Eastern cultural framework, with the popular myths of Jesus serving as introduction to deeper teachings. The coherent framework of these deeper teachings, especially within the Gnostic Hermetic milieu of Alexandria that produced the Gospels of Mark and John and the imagery of the Apocalypse, was alas largely lost in the turmoil of the mass appeal of the popular story. We can now work to continue the reconstruction of these deeper teachings, seeing further by standing on the shoulders of neglected giants such as Charles Dupuis and Alvin Boyd Kuhn.A lot. I will come back later to discuss Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 15 and Hebrews 1 as embedding important elements of solar myth.Peter Kirby wrote: (2) The earliest theological accounts of Jesus Christ are considered to be letters such as Romans, 1 Corinthians, and Hebrews. How much of it can be found in them, I wonder?I presented detailed analysis of the solar tropes in Mark’s two accounts of the loaves and fishes miracle. The link between the empty tomb and the sunrise is a key to how the deep teachings behind the Gospel of Mark are solar in essence, with Jesus Christ as allegory for the sun.Peter Kirby wrote: (3) The earliest narrative account of the life of Jesus Christ is widely regarded as the Gospel of Mark. How much of it can be found in the Gospel of Mark, I wonder?