Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Jeffrey Gibson · 01-22-2008, 10:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by schilling.klaus

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

The order matters. If the visit from the god happens after the pregnancy has already occurred, then there is, like, not nearly the parallel that Acharya S claims. If Acharya S claims an order of events in Egyptian mythology, and the facts do not check out, then we need an explanation.

no, it does not matter, as the changed order is the fraudulent work
of the churchfathers who needed to force Jesus to look like the Messiah
of the Tanakh (in their narrow understanding of it)
by copycatting birth annunciations from the Old Testament
on top of an old pagan myth.

Klaus Schilling

Why should anyone accept anything you claim?

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson · 01-22-2008, 10:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solitary Man

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amaleq13

No, but you might want to get your sarcasm meter checked.

This is my opinion, but I think Jeffrey was referring to Ted Hoffman's own theories which he holds on to...but I could be wrong.

The irony is that we have received an admonition to be "nice" from someone who, when discussing the views of others he disagrees with, almost never is.

Jeffrey

Casper · 01-22-2008, 10:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malachi151

Quote:

Originally posted by Casper

Star of Bethlehem?

I think a better explanation is:

Quote:

Numbers 24:
17 I will point to him, and not now;
I deem him happy, but he is not at hand.
A star shall rise out of Jakob,
and a person shall rise up out of Israel,
and he shall crush the chiefs of Moab,

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/edition/04-num-nets.pdf

This is especially pertinent because the one giving the prophecy in Numbers is not a Jew, nor are the Magi, and also since just about every other line in this section of Matthew is a quote or allusion to a Jewish scripture.

Well yeah, mine was almost rhetorical, and my point was it is easy to see things through our own biases, but (as is pointed out) it is almost pure scpeculation to try and prove or disprove them. Pariedolia.

Jeffrey Gibson · 01-22-2008, 10:33 AM

AS has noted:

Quote:

Carrier's declaration that the phrase "immaculate conception" refers only to the Christian Virgin Mary is a matter of debate, since what Massey, I and many others are claiming is that the concept occurs in the Egyptian religion as well and that the Virgin Mary is the goddess Isis-Meri, who was depicted as a virgin, despite the fact that she is represented in some traditions - but not all - as having been fecundated with Osiris's phallus.

The Immaculate Conception is a doctrine promulgated in 1854 by Pius IX in his Ineffabilis Deus that states that Mary was conceived without the stain of original sin on her soul. It has nothing to do with her status as a virgin, let alone a virgin at the time of the conception of Jesus.

To my knowledge, such a "concept" appears nowhere in Egyptian mythology/religion, let alone in Egyptian stories told about Isis-Meri. But I'd be very grateful to be informed otherwise -- but only by being pointed to primary source material in which it is set out.

With thanks in advance, AS, for your doing so.

Jeffrey

schilling.klaus · 01-22-2008, 10:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Why should anyone accept anything you claim?

Jeffrey

positivists and euhemerist are of course not expected to accept anything truthful that requires the ability to think metaphysically

Klaus Schilling

Jeffrey Gibson · 01-22-2008, 10:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by schilling.klaus

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Why should anyone accept anything you claim?

Jeffrey

positivists and euhemerist are of course not expected to accept anything truthful that requires the ability to think metaphysically

Klaus Schilling

And why should anyone accept this claim as true?

Jeffrey

ApostateAbe · 01-22-2008, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by schilling.klaus

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

The order matters. If the visit from the god happens after the pregnancy has already occurred, then there is, like, not nearly the parallel that Acharya S claims. If Acharya S claims an order of events in Egyptian mythology, and the facts do not check out, then we need an explanation.

no, it does not matter, as the changed order is the fraudulent work
of the churchfathers who needed to force Jesus to look like the Messiah
of the Tanakh (in their narrow understanding of it)
by copycatting birth annunciations from the Old Testament
on top of an old pagan myth.

Klaus Schilling

Schilling, that is the hypothesis. That is where you begin. The evidence is what Acharya S meant to show, and the attempt apparently failed, because the "parallel" actually looks like a trivial similarity. A king is conceived by a woman and a god. That seems to be the only "parallel" we are left with once the primary sources are investigated. Acharya S presented the claim like so:

Furthermore, inscribed about 3,500 years ago on the walls of the Temple at Luxor were images of the Annunciation, Immaculate Conception, Birth and Adoration of Horus, with Thoth announcing to the Virgin Isis that she will conceive Horus; with Kneph, the "Holy Ghost," impregnating the virgin; and with the infant being attended by three kings, or magi, bearing gifts.

If the events were actually presented by Egyptian hieroglyphics in that order, then Achrarya S would have a case. But her assertions were wrong. According to the primary source via JoeWallack, Thoth did NOT announce that Isis would conceive Horus. The visit from Thoth occurred after the pregnancy had already taken place. Because Acharya S put her trust in a secondary source (Sharpe), she got a distorted picture of the myth.

Carrier pointed out that Acharya S mistook the Catholic doctrine of "immaculate conception." That would be forgivable if Acharya S was passing herself off as only some lay moron writing on the Internet like me. I get the doctrine mixed up, too. She defended herself because, well, because her source, Sharpe, said so. Sharpe was clearly an idiot who wrote bad religious tracts, and that is one of the main sources that Acharya S depends on.

Ben C Smith · 01-22-2008, 10:53 AM

I might add that, while the virgin birth is about the birth of Jesus and the immaculate conception is about the conception of Mary, the

immaculate reception is about the conception of the Steelers dynasty of the seventies, and so is probably unrelated.

Ben.

Dave31 · 01-22-2008, 11:35 AM

Earl Doherty's thoughts on the nativity scene -
http://home.ca.inter.net/~oblio/supp13D.htm

Quote:

"Yet all this is nothing to merit celebration by Christian apologists, nor does it undercut the principle of borrowing from pagan parallels. The very universality of such conception and birth stories, containing such similar elements, demonstrates the basic non-originality of the Christian one—or ones, since as Carrier observes, the versions by Matthew and Luke are almost entirely different. But in sum, merged together (which Christians themselves do all the time), they contain all the fundamental elements in common with Luxor and Hellenistic royal legends. The specific distinctions do not disprove the principle, and are inevitably determined by differences in cultural setting and other contemporary factors. If we can point to a dozen "annunciation" traditions or "virgin birth" legends, Luke's Annunciation and Matthew's Virgin Mary has to be invention. By the same token, so too the visit of three magi bearing gifts, the slaughter of the innocents, the flight into Egypt. We don't have to know whether Matthew and Luke were familiar with the traditional Egyptian myth of kingly birth (certainly not impossible), or had been to Luxor (certainly not likely); and perhaps it is crossing the line for Massey to present it as a conscious copying of specifically Egyptian mythemes on the part of the evangelists. On the other hand, if Egypt's legendary traditions influenced the development of Hellenistic ones, and the latter in turn influenced the Christian ones, then Luxor is the ancestor to Matthew and Luke, and the parallel principle is intact."

:huh:

ApostateAbe · 01-22-2008, 11:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave31

Earl Doherty's thoughts on the nativity scene -
http://home.ca.inter.net/~oblio/supp13D.htm

Quote:

"Yet all this is nothing to merit celebration by Christian apologists, nor does it undercut the principle of borrowing from pagan parallels. The very universality of such conception and birth stories, containing such similar elements, demonstrates the basic non-originality of the Christian one—or ones, since as Carrier observes, the versions by Matthew and Luke are almost entirely different. But in sum, merged together (which Christians themselves do all the time), they contain all the fundamental elements in common with Luxor and Hellenistic royal legends. The specific distinctions do not disprove the principle, and are inevitably determined by differences in cultural setting and other contemporary factors. If we can point to a dozen "annunciation" traditions or "virgin birth" legends, Luke's Annunciation and Matthew's Virgin Mary has to be invention. By the same token, so too the visit of three magi bearing gifts, the slaughter of the innocents, the flight into Egypt. We don't have to know whether Matthew and Luke were familiar with the traditional Egyptian myth of kingly birth (certainly not impossible), or had been to Luxor (certainly not likely); and perhaps it is crossing the line for Massey to present it as a conscious copying of specifically Egyptian mythemes on the part of the evangelists. On the other hand, if Egypt's legendary traditions influenced the development of Hellenistic ones, and the latter in turn influenced the Christian ones, then Luxor is the ancestor to Matthew and Luke, and the parallel principle is intact."

:huh:

Dave31, if Earl Doherty agrees with Acharya S, then Earl Dogerty also needs to make his case by looking at the primary sources and presenting them accurately. It is not enough to say, "Look here, Earl Doherty agrees. See?" Arguments from authority are bad, especially when your authorities have poor credentials and they make claims that contradict authorities with good credentials. But credentials don't matter if we are investigating this stuff seriously. Go to the source, Dave. What do the Luxor hieroglyphics actually say?

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

01-22-2008, 10:53 AM	#418
Ben C Smith Veteran Member Join Date: May 2005 Location: Midwest Posts: 4,787	I might add that, while the virgin birth is about the birth of Jesus and the immaculate conception is about the conception of Mary, the immaculate reception is about the conception of the Steelers dynasty of the seventies, and so is probably unrelated. Ben.

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.