Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

stephan happy huller wrote:^I don't know how many more times to explain this. It's not that we deny that she is a nice person. We don't know either way. But when you develop a theory solely from second and third hand sources - or even partly from second and third hand sources - it all comes down to the accuracy of those developing summaries. Why on earth isn't a theory about antiquity solely or mostly developed from first hand sources? Why doesn't it trouble you that with all this second and third hand reporting we aren't getting a picture that if further and further removed from the original thing being studied? This is what I find baffling. Why is it better to use the opinions of people removed by centuries from the beginnings of Christianity rather than the original sources themselves? Just answer this question.

"Why is it better to use the opinions of people removed by centuries from the beginnings of Christianity rather than the original sources themselves?"

• Is that the case?

"when you develop a theory solely from second and third hand sources - or even partly from second and third hand sources - it all comes down to the accuracy of those developing summaries."

• Is that the case? If it is 'partly from 2nd- and 3rd hand- sources', what other sources were used?

I agree that 'a theory about antiquity' ought to be "solely or mostly developed from first hand sources" (with reference to how others have subsequently viewed similar theories AND those sources).

Disclaimer: I am happy to entertain the idea astrology has shaped theologies and their evolution: I have not engaged deeply in this area, however.

I don't know where you have been during the discussion but no one from team Acharya seems to want to actually examine the material from the first - third centuries. They aren't interested in how the names Osiris and Lazarus appear in Aramaic. They aren't interested in discussing the cult of Mithras in antiquity from the actual sources. What we have instead is 'what a nineteenth century writer' or 'twentieth century writer' says about 'the evidence' as the launching pads for these ideas. Very strange.

Let me ask you MrMacson as someone I know from outside this latest assault on our forum - what convinces you about these ideas? I am not talking about thinking 'maybe' feeling there is something to this or that pagan parallel and this or that aspect of later Christianity but 'yes it's fucking true' Christianity was from the very beginning developed as a conscious imitation of paganism. What convinces you so strongly that contemporary academia's ignoring - and even ridiculing - the ideas associated with Dorothy Murdock's brand of 'mythicism' is a travesty?

Robert Tulip wrote:

neilgodfrey wrote:you might like to attempt to present calmly an evidence based argument to refute what I say.

Having already done so, by pointing out a number of blatant self-contradictions within Neil's comments, it is useful to explore further how Neil gets the analysis of astrology so very wrong.

A rant is not an evidence based argument for your case. I told you why I refuse to even read that comment past the first few lines.

Robert Tulip wrote:A main focus of Acharya's work is to explain religion in natural terms, removing all vestiges of supernatural belief and explaining myth in scientific evolutionary terms.

Thank you for taking the trouble to try to explain. I appreciate this. My rejoinder is that I don't see how any modern scholar approaches the question any differently. Claude Levi-Strauss also sought to explain myth in scientific evolutionary terms, for example. I don't know of any serious critical scholar who believes real spiritual phenomena explain religious beliefs in societies.

Robert Tulip wrote:A big part of this method is analysis of how the ancients incorporated their observations of the sun, moon, planets and stars into their belief systems, presenting the lights of heaven as Gods. Such analysis includes recognition that mythical beliefs contained a large measure of what we can call 'folk magic'. For example, if a Christian believes that Jesus Christ miraculously multiplied loaves and fishes, a scientist will naturally see this belief as an example of folk magic, because the literal claim is not physically possible. Similarly if an astrologer believes that Mercury retrograde causes electronic equipment to fail, absent any statistical evidence, we have an example of folk magic.

This is where I have a problem. It appears you are saying what I myself have discerned in Murdock's argument. She is beginning with a proposed answer and then looking for evidence to back it up. Ever since Popper it has been well understood that that is not the way to do science or approach any investigation scientifically.

Such a method will nearly always produce what the investigator wants to see.

That's not an attack on Murdock or you. I am trying to explain what the works on scientific method themselves explain.

There are other fallacies in here as well. I don't think the evidence supports the idea that the miracle of the loaves and fishes was sourced from a belief in folk magic. There may have been community beliefs in folk magic that made such an account credible, but that's not explaining the origin of the story. Moreover, there is evidence that some Christians did not believe this story was literal at all but figurative. A parable.

The argument you present is an either-or one, allowing only two possible answers, it seems. That comes across to me as a classic false dilemma. I'm not accusing you when I say that. I'm telling you how it comes across, so if I am mistaken you can explain.

Robert Tulip wrote:The scientific question is what actually happened to give rise to the false belief. This is the sort of question answered by Acharya's focus on Christ as allegory for the sun. In the loaves and fishes example, we find allegory for the movement of the sun into the constellation of Pisces at the spring point at the time of Christ, a movement that Acharya correctly describes as seeing Christ as avatar of the Age of Pisces. I appreciate that ignorant idiots cannot understand the science here, but that common ignorance does not detract from the objective facts.

Again, it appears you are allowing only one possible answer to your scientific question. You seem to be saying it really happened as the believer thinks or it happened as a product of astro-beliefs and practices.

Thanks for calling me and others "ignorant idiots". That really helps improve the tone of the discussion. It's the sort of language one expects from religious fundamentalists (according to research!) when they feel frustrated and they are not persuading others.

Robert Tulip wrote:Neil leapt on Acharya's mention of astrology, explicitly ignoring the context of her remarks, to falsely imply she holds astrological beliefs. Since the entire point of her work is a scientific analysis of the nature of religious belief, such magical commitments would be entirely inconsistent with her methods and goals.

No, Neil did not ignore the context. It was the context that led to his question -- as he explained quite explicitly.

No, Neil did not falsely imply she holds astrological beliefs. He was genuinely perplexed and that's why he asked if he was reading or interpreting the passage correctly. All he got was abuse -- which did make him suspect he hit a raw nerve and perhaps his suspicions were grounded after all. He then finally summed up what seems to have been the correct understanding after GDon stepped in and pointed out that Murdock does not seem to believe in astrology -- at least as that is so crudely expressed.

No, Neil did not say or even imply that Murdock was using "magical commitments" to guide her studies. That never crossed Neil's mind. Again, are her supporters protesting too much? Are they worried some questions cut too close to what they don't want made explicit? The hostile response does make me suspicious. But Neil only ever has faulted Murdock for her unscientific methodology as explained above -- the fallacy of starting with the answer and then looking for all the evidence to support it (a method that can be found to justify many different and contradictory hypotheses); and the false dilemmas.

perseusomega9 wrote:Would be pretty awesome if all the Acharya S.tuff could be contained to just one thread.

The Institute for Cultural Research
http://www.i-c-r.org.uk/publications/mo ... rchive.php
List of Monographs


Monographs 38 and 39 are interesting as short summaries of the similarity between pagan mystery cults and the Christian mystery cult.

beowulf wrote:The Institute for Cultural Research
http://www.i-c-r.org.uk/publications/mo ... rchive.php
List of Monographs

Monographs 38 and 39 are interesting as short summaries of the similarity between pagan mystery cults and the Christian mystery cult.

I looked at the first one. It references Wheless as a source, and makes a variety of claims based on low-grade modern writings.

Not based on data, so not worth anyone's time, I'm afraid. Anonymously written too, and with footnotes carefully positioned at the end to make fact checking harder.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

stephanhuller wrote: I don't know where you have been during the discussion but no one from team Acharya seems to want to actually examine the material from the first - third centuries. They aren't interested in how the names Osiris and Lazarus appear in Aramaic. They aren't interested in discussing the cult of Mithras in antiquity from the actual sources. What we have instead is 'what a nineteenth century writer' or 'twentieth century writer' says about 'the evidence' as the launching pads for these ideas. Very strange.

Point by point rebuttal:
“team Acharya” I am unaffiliated with any group. I am wholly ignorant of Acharya's texts. I have visited her web site, a few times.
“actually examine” Where have you, or anyone else on this forum done that? Where is your SOURCE document/stone/coin or whatever from the “first-third centuries”. What a farce. You should understand that the “first-third centuries” is at least three centuries too late, for drawing inferences regarding Egyptian deities. When have you, mr. huller, “actually examined” any Egyptian hieroglyphics?
“They aren't interested”. How do we know their interests?

How the names Osiris and Lazarus appear in Aramaic, hmm. One could devote an entire essay dismissing this one point. Summarize: please read again, my long winded explanation a few days ago, explaining patiently, to you mr huller, the distinction between the phonemic (sound) representation of a name, and the ideographic representation of the name. In the case of the new testament, one has usurped traditions from earlier religions, particularly from Egypt, (stones written in hieroglyphs) without acknowledging the origin of the idea.
But, of even greater significance, why would one seek to know the name of any figure from the new testament in any language other than Greek? None of the African languages, including Berber, Coptic, Hebrew, Aramaic, or Arabic, have any relation to the exposition of the gospels, which were all written, in Greek, not Aramaic, Coptic, Hebrew or any other African language.

To me, reading your text on this thread, is akin to learning from you, that I must study Yiddish in order to comprehend Mahler's 8th symphony. You perhaps are one of those who conflate the Dives and Lazarus story, set to music, by Ralph Vaughan Williams, with the Lazarus of this thread. You will note, in view of your keen appreciation of languages, that while “Vaughan” conveys a less confrontational tone, for native English speakers, than “von”, which invariably denotes patriarchal lineage of nobility, the name is actually coming not from German, but from Welsh, and means “small”. One suspects, here, that in the case of Λάζαρος , it is rather facile to assume correspondence with the Hebrew Elazar, Strong's 499. I do not know, or pretend to know, how any of the names found in the gospels, got there. Since the gospel writers knew Hebrew, it would not surprise me to learn of some word association. However, it is all conjecture, not fact. There is therefore, little reason to castigate those who introduce “ nineteenth or twentieth century authors' opinions.

“Cult of Mithras in antiquity”, about which you know zip, and so does the rest of the world. The original sources for Mithras are found in Turkey and Persia, and we haven't got much in the way of monuments, coins, or other artifacts to help us out. I disagree with Roger Pearse's contention that Mithra and Mithras are two different traditions, and the cult of Mithras originates in Rome. I have no evidence to support my conviction. The few pictures I have seen of Mithraic temples include men dressed in costumes characteristic of a cultural tradition that is much more like Armenia, Turkey, Persia, Uzbekistan, than Rome. That of course, is the region, renowned for adherence to ideas of Zoroastrianism (1800 BCE), a tradition embracing Mithra. Have you, Mr. Huller, read the Gathas?

Gathas is composed in Avestan, not Aramaic, and is apparently more than 3000 years old. Surely, if one seeks to know the relationship between the Mithraic practices in the region controlled, briefly, by the Roman Empire, on the border with Mesopotamia (Roman garrisons excavated along the Euphrates river) and the surviving temples and other artifacts left behind by Roman troops in Spain, France and England, then one should study, not Aramaic, but Avestan, an Indo-European language, formerly called old Bactrian.

bcedaifu wrote: “Cult of Mithras in antiquity”, about which you know zip, and so does the rest of the world.

If you include yourself in this "rest of the world", then isn't it rather odd for you to make claims about the cult of Mithras? If you tell me you are ignorant, then what is your opinion worth? I don't mean to be rude, but there is a fundamental problem here.

The original sources for Mithras are found in Turkey and Persia, and we haven't got much in the way of monuments, coins, or other artifacts to help us out.

I'm afraid that you are quite mistaken here in this extremely certain-sounding statement of yours. Mithras is a Latin cult. There is no evidence of Mithras in Persia *at all*. As for "Turkey", there is a little. But the centre of Mithras is Rome. You could look at the CIMRM, if you don't want to take my word for it.

We have enormous quantities of archaeology for Mithras. We have very little for Persian Mitra, who is known to us best from sources preserved in India by the Parsees.

I disagree with Roger Pearse's contention that Mithra and Mithras are two different traditions, and the cult of Mithras originates in Rome. I have no evidence to support my conviction.

The reason why scholars treat the two as distinct is that Mithras is known to us from archaeology, and this archaeology is very distinctive. For instance the subterranean temples; or the depiction, found in every one of them, of Mithras killing the bull. Yet there are NO temples of Mithras outside the Roman empire. No depictions of Mithras killing the bull are known from Persia. No Mithraic archaeology is known in Persia (and very little in Greece, interestingly). The reason that scholars treat the cult of Mithras as originating in Rome is that the earliest materials seem to come from there. The points of contact between the two are REALLY small!

The main reason anyone thought the two were the same in the first place is that the words are similar, and the Romans called Mithras the "Persian god". The great Franz Cumont accordingly identified the two. But this led to very muddy scholarship, mingling together stuff not otherwise obviously at all the same. Mithraic studies got a whole lot clearer and better once the two were treated as separate.

Of course some kind of knowledge of the existence of the ancient Persian cult of Mithra may have influenced the unknown individual who devised the cult of Mithras, directly or indirectly. It's more than likely. But it isn't evidenced.

I don't honestly see why people get hung up on this. Why does it matter, except to ancient history fans like myself?

The few pictures I have seen of Mithraic temples include men dressed in costumes characteristic of a cultural tradition that is much more like Armenia, Turkey, Persia, Uzbekistan, than Rome.

The figures are dressed in what is considered in iconography to be Persian dress. Mithras is referred to as the "Persian god". In the Mithraeum at Dura Europos, on the Persian border, there are depictions of men in contemporary Persian dress.

That of course, is the region, renowned for adherence to ideas of Zoroastrianism (1800 BCE), a tradition embracing Mithra.

Certainly. One might evidence the semi-Persian kings named Mithridates; or the syncretistic temple at Nemrud Dagh, which erected huge stone heads with two sets of names on each, one Greek and one Persian.

Have you, Mr. Huller, read the Gathas?

They are online. But one thing that is found nowhere, anywhere in the corpus of Roman material about Mithras is the standard description of Mithra, as "Lord of wide pastures". Mithras is the sun that shines underground, not the lord of wide pastures.

Gathas is composed in Avestan, not Aramaic, and is apparently more than 3000 years old.

Probably; but all Avestan literature was only written down in the 4th century AD, and the transmission of it has been pretty hazardous.

Surely, if one seeks to know the relationship between the Mithraic practices in the region controlled, briefly, by the Roman Empire, on the border with Mesopotamia (Roman garrisons excavated along the Euphrates river) and the surviving temples and other artifacts left behind by Roman troops in Spain, France and England, then one should study, not Aramaic, but Avestan, an Indo-European language, formerly called old Bactrian.

Fortunately for us all, there are very nice English translations online. A reading of them may well be in order. The material not extensive, and references to Mithras killing the bull are NOT found in them.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

What was Mithraism? It was the inspiration of philosophers. And it also was a cult of Persian ‘origin’.


“The most complex case, however, is that of Mithras. In the midst of the second century AD two philosophers Numenius and Cronius, drawing upon earlier treatises of the cult, discussed Mithraism in the context of their own (Platonic and Pythagorean) philosophical views. These discussions have not survived; but they were used by the later philosopher Porphyry and are known to us through him. Porphyry advanced arguments in favour of both vegetarianism and of a particular allegorical reading of a passage of Homer’s Odyssey on the basis of these Mithraic texts. The imagery of the cult of Mithras was evidentially extremely suggestive to these philosophers, who deployed it for their own arguments and purposes. ..


The complex evocations of foreign places are well illustrated in the cult of Mithras which claimed Persia as its source of wisdom. The Persian sage Zoroaster was said to have founded the cult in the distant past, and numerous aspects of the cult alluded to its Persian origins. Two religious terms used in the rituals ( nama-‘hail’ and nabarzes –‘victorious’)are of Persian origin- one certainly so, the other probably; and Persian was the title of one of the grades of initiation. The design of Mithraic sanctuaries also evoked a cave in Persia, where-as an act of primordial sacrifice- the god Mithras himself was said to have slain a bull."


Religions of Rome: Volume 1, A History.
Mary Beard , John North , Simon Price
Paperback: 476 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press; New Ed edition (9 July 1998)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0521316820
ISBN-13: 978-0521316828

Pages 277-80

What was Mithraism? Part 2 (continued)


“The Persian ‘origins’ of Mithras cannot, however, be take at face value: the picture is much more complicated than a simple diffusion of the cult from a Persian homeland to Rome .Mithras was an ancient Persian deity known to the Greeks from at least the fifth century BC; and this cult may indeed have become better known in Asia Minor from the first centuries BC and AD through the Persian settlements there. However, the form of the cult most familiar to us, the initiatory cult, does not seem to derive from Persia at all. ...”

Roger Pearse wrote:If you include yourself in this "rest of the world", then isn't it rather odd for you to make claims about the cult of Mithras? If you tell me you are ignorant, then what is your opinion worth? I don't mean to be rude, but there is a fundamental problem here.

Thanks Roger, I don't interpret your comment as rudeness.

My opinion is worth less than nothing. You are correct. My submission on this thread, despite abject poverty of knowledge on the subject matter, was intended only to counter stephan huller's arrogance and oblivion.

I do not view your submissions in the same light, and I wish that I could persuade you, Roger, to adopt a slightly more flexible tone, regarding both Robert Tulip and Acharya S. They are both decent, honest folk, in my view, (as are you, Roger, in my opinion).

I acknowledge that I may be in error about Mithraism based on Mithra versus Mithras. I write not as savant, but as one impressed by the (meagre) evidence excavated in Syria and Turkey, at former Roman Garrison sites, and I draw from the photos I have seen of those sites of excavation, that the Roman army brought back to Rome, with them, the "worship" of Mithras, and as with most religious traditions, their summary was muddled, compared with the orthodox presentation.

We need only think of the distinction between the Catholic and Protestant view of "holy" communion, to recognize that over time, change occurs, and some of the "original" tradition is preserved, and other parts modified. I would argue, in that vein, that if one examines Mark 14:24, one observes, in the "original" text, i.e. Codex Sinaiticus, only the Greek word for "pledge", aka "covenant". There is no Greek word in that passage, in that version of Mark's gospel, for "new". Yet, if one looks at almost any English translation, one reads "New Covenant".

Changes happen over time, and some of the traditions and customs of the Roman Army's practice of Mithraism may well be QUITE different from those of the orthodox practice and belief as Zoroastrianism evolved in India, Afghanistan, and Persia. But the question is, WHERE did the Roman Army come up with this crazy idea about Bulls and so on....

I argue, without evidence, and as noted above, without knowledge, that they picked it up, during the several hundred years of skirmishes/battles, with the army of the Persian Empire. I interpret Roman Mithraism as being a different variant of Zoroastrianism, just as some folks interpret Islam as a different kind of Judaism--though, if one watches on youtube, the training ("brainwashing" in the vernacular) of young boys in Tel Aviv or Khandahar, reciting prayers while bobbing and weaving, those two religions are identical, but for the color of their yarmulkas.