Peter Kirby

I've seen plenty of stuff that rubbishes the pseudonymous author, and nothing with any credibility to salvage it, that at this point the only question on my mind is: Can anyone put forward an argument, while standing on one foot (time is a factor), that would show quite clearly that she is worth giving any additional attention as a purveyor of research? If no, then no more attention will be given.

GakuseiDon

Hi Dave, welcome aboard! I'm very interested in tracking down the sources of these statements, back to the original source (rather than from the Catholic Encyclopedia, for example). That's probably the best approach when examining someone's claim about what people believed in those days. In this case, I'm not sure where the original to the paraphrase from Tertullian is taken from. The closest I can find is in "Ad Nationes", Chap 13:

CHAP. XIII.--THE CHARGE OF WORSHIPPING THE SUN MET BY A RETORT.

Others, with greater regard to good manners, it must be confessed, suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians, because it is a well-known fact that we pray towards the east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity. What then? Do you do less than this?

He seems to be saying that people mistakenly believe that Christians worship the sun.

Can you go into more depth why you believe that "Tertullian ironically admits the true origin of the Christ story", please? If you can provide references to where it comes from, that would be useful.

Interesting! Can you give me the reference for this? Is this a paraphrase also? I'm wondering about the context of a passage by a 4th C non-Christian Roman talking about "Greek and Roman mythology". (I suspect it would be like a Christian of that time talking about "Christian mythology", so I'm interested in tracking the source of his statement.)

Malachi151

Agreed. I mean seriously, anyone who puts an image of a Medieval Irish figure of Jesus being crucified in their book and calls it an "Irish Budha or Krishna crucifix", and then proceeds to tell us that its not an image of Jesus because he's not wearing a crown of thorns, instead he's wearing a royal crown, thus its not Jesus, simply isn't even in any reasonable realm of scholarship at all.

A blind squirrel gets a nut every now and then. Perhaps a few things of value happen to randomly fall into her writing, despite her best efforts, but 9 out of 10 statements made are wholly uncredible.

I have yet to find any original ideas or analysis in The Suns of God anyway. The book should really be called, "a compilation of old and discredited 18th-19th century works." Every argument made is just a repetition of arguments made by others. Its a matter of taking a bunch of different claims made by people in the past and lumping them all together, without any critical assessment of any of the ideas.

Her treatment of the dating of the Gospels and the Testimonium Flavianum is a perfect example. She just repeats bogus arguments about the Gospels being very late, written in the late 2nd century - 3rd century, and repeats arguments about the TF having been the product of a conspiracy by Eusebius.

There is nothing at all new in these arguments, and actually they undermine the case against historicity anyway. There is nothing cohesive or coherent in this book, its just throwing mud at all a wall to see what sticks.

The Suns of God, and all of her works as far as I can see, are a step backwards for critical scholarship and mostly serve to remind us just how bad much of the 18th-19th criticism of Christianity was. Mostly her works just undermine the field of religious criticism, they do nothing to bolster it.

dog-on

Ah, but Malachi, do you have any solid evidence to support the existance of the Gospels much before, say, Irenaeus?

As to Astrotheology:

Do you think that there is any solar imagery used in Christianity?

How about imagery based on the seasons?

Thanks.
...

GakuseiDon

There is -- but is it because of astrotheology, or because sun imagery was a ubiquitous and obvious choice? Sometimes a banana is just a banana, as Freud was supposed to have said.

Origen uses sun imagery here:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...n-matthew.html

"But when He is transfigured, His face also shines as the sun, that He may be manifested to the children of light, who have put off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light, and are no longer the children of darkness or night, but have become the sons of day, and walk honestly as in the day; and being manifested, He will shine unto them not simply as the sun, but as demonstrated to be the sun of righteousness."

IMO I don't see this as astrotheology, but rather using "sun" as an obvious metaphor to contrast darkness from light.

dog-on

Did the Romans, pre-christianity (at least :angel: ), happen, by chance, to worship the sun???

Julian

I am not sure if this is a serious question, but in case that it is, the quick answer is that was a lot of sun worship going around. From Greek we have Helios and later Apollo. We also see Sol Invictus and the earlier Sol Indiges. Sun worship can be traced back to before the invention of writing, and it still exists today. Hell, even George Carlin, the greatest philosopher of our time, has hit upon the idea:
From here.



More on the sun gods:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_invictus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_worship
and many, many more...


Julian

dog-on

Thanks, Julian...

So it seems to be the case that the Romans did, indeed, worship the sun from time to time.

Do you think any of the customs/traditions associated with such practices where later infused into what became Roman Catholicism?

The dying and rising kind of god?

ApostateAbe

Dave31, thanks for making the effort, and I appreciate it. The first and third quote could be accurate, but I am more interested in Acharya S's claims about the origin of the Jesus character. The middle quote seems to contain something relevant. When primary sources are needed, it is not acceptable to quote Acharya S who quotes an encyclopedia from 1913 who paraphrases Tertullian. Actual evidence would be a direct citation of the actual scholarly name of the document written by Tertullian with a reliable modern English translation of the quote. You see, I found that Catholic Encyclopedia on Google Books. The encyclopedia referenced Tertullian's "Ad Nationes" which I found printed online. But I can't find the part where the encyclopedia paraphrased "so do you." I am asking for primary-source evidence. That may mean forgetting about Acharya S's citations which rely on second-hand and third-hand testimony.

EDIT: This section of Tertullian's "Ad Nationes" contains this:

Chapter 13.—The Charge of Worshipping the Sun Met by a Retort.

Others, with greater regard to good manners, it must be confessed, suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians, because it is a well-known fact that we pray towards the east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity. What then? Do you do less than this? Do not many among you, with an affectation of sometimes worshipping the heavenly bodies likewise, move your lips in the direction of the sunrise? It is you, at all events, who have even admitted the sun into the calendar of the week; and you have selected its day, in preference to the preceding day as the most suitable in the week for either an entire abstinence from the bath, or for its postponement until the evening, or for taking rest and for banqueting. By resorting to these customs, you deliberately deviate from your own religious rites to those of strangers. For the Jewish feasts on the Sabbath and "the Purification," and Jewish also are the ceremonies of the lamps, and the fasts of unleavened bread, and the "littoral prayers," all which institutions and practices are of course foreign from your gods. Wherefore, that I may return from this digression, you who reproach us with the sun and Sunday should consider your proximity to us. We are not far off from your Saturn and your days of rest.

Acharya S's paraphrase would imply that Tertullian thought that Christians worshiped the Sun. This passage directly and completely translated shows that Tertullian did NOT necessarily think that Christians worshiped the Sun--only that Christians have festivals similar to the Romans. I was taught in high school not to cite encyclopedias for an assignment. Why did Acharya S choose to cite a paraphrase from an encyclopedia from 1913 when she could have quoted Tertullian directly? My guess is that the direct quotation wouldn't prove her point.

Julian

The catholic church is a carbon copy, more or less, of the roman administrative hierarchy, even down to many of the titles of offices. It is inevitable that many roman traditions would find their way into catholicism. While I do not see any obvious roman influence upon the gospel material and christianity (other than what have filtered in from common sources), I see lots of influence in catholic dogma. This dogma must be kept separate from the NT material, however, and cannot be used as evidence of influence. Despite this, I do believe that there is much in common in most religious traditions. Christianity wasn't born in a vacuum and traditions are clearly shared. Once we separate the ideas from the discrete and contextualized environments we see obvious correlation. This is not surprising since all was ultimately created by humans partaking in a continuous cultural evolution. I guess I just don't see the big deal here. My irritation is with the pertinaceous adherence to the idea of intent and perpetration.

Julian