GakuseiDon

I hope Dave31 can join in here. Acharya S writes in "The Christ Conspiracy" (or via: amazon.co.uk) that the Catholic Church is behind the surpression of mythicism, and scholars have gone to immense lengths to hide the mythological nature of the Bible! My emphasis below:

Page 348:

Unbeknownst to the masses, the pope is the Grand Master-Mason of the Masonic branches of the world.

and Page 376:

It is clear that scholars have known about the mythological nature of the Bible, yet they have gone to immense lengths to hide it, including using sophisticated language, like the priestly counterparts who have utilized the dead language Latin to go over the heads of the uneducated masses. It is possible that any number of these scholars are also Masons or members of some such secret brotherhood who are under the blood oath.

Or they may merely be products of their occupation, in that many universities and colleges are under the dominion of the fraternities and the grand master, the Pope, i.e., the Catholic Church.

In any case, they have been pawns, unwitting or otherwise, in the Christ conspiracy, which has obscured ancient knowledge and wisdom under a false front of historicity, by the most thorough of methods, including secrecy, forgery, force and destruction.

Dave31 or any other mythicist, is it possible that Ehrman is a Mason or member of some such secret brotherhood under a blood oath, and under the influence of the Pope? Or is that unlikely?

hjalti

What's her source for that? The eminent theologian Jack T. Chick?

GakuseiDon

She doesn't give a source. Maybe the Simpsons? "Who keeps Atlantis off the maps, who keeps the Martians under wraps? We do! We do!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcV-SC6ha2I

badger3k

Is it possible? Sure, and it's possible he's a 27th level wizard from Greyhawk plane shifted to this world, or that he's a reptiloid and part of the conspiracy to control the Earth for the space aliens.

Is it probable? Doubt it.

It's things like this that cause most people (I would believe and hope), both historicist and mythicist alike (along with the agnostic and apathetic) to dismiss her as a crackpot. She may or may not have some good points, but when you hear things like this, I know I just throw her work on the back burner, to be read when I get to my David Icke (i.e., for lulz when I'm really bored and have nothing worthwhile to read or do).

Of course, if I was working on a book about it, I'd have to read it myself.

DrJim

For a minute there I thought you were going to betray our mission, but you recovered great in the end.

Toto

The roolz here discourage calling out another poster in the title of a thread.

I'm not sure if this is a serious question or merely part of GDon's campaign to smear mythicisim with guilt by association with Acharya S. I'm inclined to put this thread in E.

GakuseiDon

Toto, I have been saying for years that there is very little evidence for a historical Jesus and that questioning his historicity is, in my view, a valid line of enquiry. Last year Doherty even said I was a "99% mythicist" (though mystifyingly on his website, on the exact same points I suddenly became an "Internet apologist"). He welcomed me to the mythicist club! But as I responded, I've already been there a long time. There is very little evidence for a historical Jesus, our sources contain very little verifiable evidence for what he said and did, so any reconstruction is built on probabilities, most of them low. It's just that in my view: (a) a historical Jesus as the origin for Christianity is the best explanation for the evidence we do have, and (b) the arguments of Acharya S and Doherty are crap and misinform people about the worldviews of pagans and early Christians. (a) and (b) are separate items, and can be argued separately. The crap claims of Acharya S are not a reflection on the claims of Doherty. (Though why Doherty gave her "The Christ Conspiracy" five stars out of five and such lavious praise is beyond me.)

Certainly Carrier would like the claims of Acharya S soundly debunked. It's just that he doesn't have the time, and so he was hoping that Ehrman would do the job so that Carrier just needed to direct people to Ehrman's book whenever the topic of Acharya S came up. As Carrier writes here:

I have also had mythers’ unfriendly paranoia cited at me by professors in the field, forcing me to also prove I don’t act like that–I had dismissed that claim about Murdock in the past, but now seeing it flung at me, evidently the scholars who mentioned it to me were correct about it; this is not doing her or mythicism any good, it makes them both look like tinfoil hat.

If you don't think Acharya S's claims have anything to do with "Biblical Criticism and History" and shouldn't be examined and exposed for the nonsense they are, then by all means move it to E. I think you are doing the wrong thing by mythicism generally, but your call.

But give it a few more days if you could. I'm genuinely interested if any Acharya S supporter will respond. Surely even for them there comes a time when they will throw up their hands and say "C'mon Acharya S, that claim is nuttier than a chestnut tree in a peanut factory!" If none respond within the next few days, then no worries if you move it.

Toto

GDon: the Amazon preview and Google books show this sentence with a footnote, but the footnote is not available on the preview. If you have the book, what is at footnote 24?

Of course it is possible. And it is also unlikely. The Masons were a secret brotherhood - many of the American founding fathers were Masons. There are a lot of crazy Masonic conspiracy theories, but there are actual Masons.

I understand that Acharya S is rewriting the Christ Conspiracy to clean up some "difficulties." Perhaps she will make the book more acceptable for a non-conspiracist, or perhaps she will double down. (This was one of her earliest books, and it appears to have been written for an audience that was open to conspiracy theories)

After all, consider what she says:

It is clear that scholars have known about the mythological nature of the Bible, yet they have gone to immense lengths to hide it, including using sophisticated language, like the priestly counterparts who have utilized the dead language Latin to go over the heads of the uneducated masses.

This pretty much describes the situation in American seminaries during the last generation, when seminarians learned that the gospels were not literally true, but then went out to pastor churches and found that their parishioners would hear nothing of it, and needed to be told that everything happened exactly like the gospels said it did.

Of course it is possible. Not likely, but possible.

A lot of universities are in fact under the dominion of the Catholic Church.

Dan Brown made a lot of money by describing a similar conspiracy. You can see the superior money making aspects of historicist conspiracy theories.

Toto

We seem to have cross posted.

There are no identifiable Acharya S supporters among the regulars here except for Dave31, and he has declined to participate.

I think you are trying to poison the well by continually bringing up Acharya S's nuttier theories and tying them to Doherty. If you want to discuss Doherty, make a clean thread and leave Acharya S out of it. Doherty does not engage in conspiracy theories or cite outdated history of religion theories.

outhouse

No, the evidence does that all in its own right