Freethought & Rationalism Archive

mikem · 04-21-2006, 10:47 AM

A member of another Jesus and history type discussion board sent me a message a few days back, to say that Dr James Tabor of "Jesus Dynasty" fame, was going to be answering questions on his book, and asked if I might pass the message along. I'm sure some of you are already familiar with the site. It is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Jesusmysteries

Toto · 04-21-2006, 11:30 AM

Tabor has made an appearance, and is waiting for people to read his book and post questions before he starts to answer.

But he has already invoked Edgar Cayce in support of his theories, since Cayce predicted that Mary and Joseph were Essenes. (Is there any hard substance to NT scholarship?)

Cayce on Mary, the Mother of Jesus & Essene Preparation

Before I completely dismiss Cayce

Quote:

The system of metaphysical thought which emerges from the Cayce material can be described as a "Christianized" version of the mystery religions of ancient Egypt, Chaldea, Persia, India, and Greece. It fits Christ into the mystical tradition of one God for all people, and places Christ in his proper place, at the apex of the philosophical structure - the capstone of the pyramid.

Cayce was a fundamentalist Christian who was raised in strict nineteenth century Bible tradition. When he discovered that his subconscious information declared the ancient mystic religions to be true and acclaimed Jesus as their crowning glory, he suffered the greatest mental and emotional shock of his life. Cayce had only a seventh grade education and consciously knew nothing of what he said while in a deep trance-like state. He was only versed in the Bible and had no high school or college background of any kind. Up until his revelations, Cayce had never heard of the mystery religions. Yet the Cayce material agrees with everything about them that is known to be authentic. He spoke at length on Christian Gnosticism well before the Gnostic writings were discovered after his death. Cayce affirmed that Christian Gnosticism is the type of Christianity that was taught by Jesus. Much of the information from Cayce has solved some of the greatest mysteries of humanity, some of which were later validated after the discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the early Christian writings discovered in Egypt.

I wonder if anyone has traced an actual source for Cayce's allegedly channelled psychic information?

Julian · 04-21-2006, 11:41 AM

I fint it hard to believe that someone who presumably wants to be taken seriously would ever utter Cayce's name: http://www.genpaku.org/skepticj/cayce.html

Quote:

Edgar Cayce is known as one of America's greatest psychics. His followers maintain that Cayce was able to tap into some sort of higher consciousness, such as God or the Akashic record, to get his "psychic knowledge." He used this "knowledge" to predict that California will slide into the ocean and that New York City will be destroyed in some sort of cataclysm. He predicted that in 1958 the U.S. would discover some sort of death ray used on Atlantis. Cayce is one of the main people responsible for some of the sillier notions about Atlantis, including the idea that the Atlantaeans had some sort of Great Crystal. Cayce called the Great Crystal the Tuaoi Stone and said it was a huge cylindrical prism that was used to gather and focus "energy," allowing the Atlanteans to do all kinds of fantastic things. But they got greedy and stupid, tuned up their Crystal to too high a frequency and set off volcanic disturbances that led to the destruction of that ancient world. He made other predictions concerning such things as the Great Depression (that 1933 would be a good year) and the Lindbergh kidnapping (most of it wrong, all of it useless), and that China would be converted to Christianity by 1968. He also claimed to be able see and read auras, but this power was never tested under controlled conditions. However, Edgar Cayce is best known for being a psychic medical diagnostician and psychic reader of past lives.

Julian

Toto · 04-21-2006, 12:31 PM

The Wikipedia entry on Cayce is pretty good, and contains links to skeptics sites. And it seems to clarify how this Christian fundamentalist got all those gnostic ideas - he worked in an occult bookstore! And his predictions were not all that accurate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Cayce

Quote:

Sources of Cayce's Beliefs

Hopper's Bookstore in Hopkinsville where Cayce worked for many years as a young man specialized in occult and osteopathic works and he may have consciously or otherwise absorbed much of this material. However, knowledge of this material cannot account for most of Cayce's specific diagnoses, such as directing that osteopathic adjustments be given to a developmentally-delayed and seizure-ridden child named Aime Dietrich. She was restored to normal health by Cayce-directed treatments after conventional doctors had pronounced her case hopeless.

Books such as Frederick Oliver's Atlantean fantasy A Dweller On Two Planets and Marie Corelli's novels were probably accessible to Cayce at his bookstore. Corelli's writings in particular seek to reconcile mystical beliefs such as reincarnation with Christianity, and Cayce may have been subconsciously trying to accept this idea. ...

Regardless of the accuracy of the information Cayce provided, those who accept that Cayce was unconscious during his "trance" state generally agree that Cayce was not likely to have been an intentional fraud.

Also Straight Dope:

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mcayce.html

iguana · 04-22-2006, 09:46 AM

Toto

Actually, Dr Tabor was not involved in the exchange about Cayce on Jesus Mysteries - Cayce was introduced by another poster in message 24943.

Regards

John

Toto · 04-22-2006, 12:42 PM

Sorry, my mistake. Another poster who is a Dr. James in a thread entitled "from the author."

That's a relief. But it's bad enough that he sticks up for the James Ossuary.

Phlox Pyros · 04-22-2006, 12:54 PM

I am in the middle of Tabor's book right now. It sounded interesting. It is speculative musing based on facts, but I find it very good. I appreciate his acknowledgement of his own biases in the book and his honest attempt to evaluate the evidence. He seems to believe a lot more history is contained in the New Testament accounts of Jesus than most scholars who are not Christian, but he effectively explains why he believes. There are some fascinating insights in the book for everyone. I found the sections on the names of Jesus' brothers very interesting and remeniscent of parts of Eisenmann's "James the brother of Jesus", though I think Tabor makes his points much more concisely and eloquently.

Tabor also seems to think that Jesus knew of the Jewish prophecies of a messiah in Daniel, the psalms, etc., and that he felt they were coming to fulfillment in his time and that he should play a major role and did.

There's much more to his reconstruction of the historical Jesus, but I'm only about halfway through the book. Though I don't agree with all of his points, the book is well-written and a good read.

mikem · 04-22-2006, 01:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phlox Pyros

I am in the middle of Tabor's book right now. It sounded interesting. It is speculative musing based on facts, but I find it very good. I appreciate his acknowledgement of his own biases in the book and his honest attempt to evaluate the evidence. He seems to believe a lot more history is contained in the New Testament accounts of Jesus than most scholars who are not Christian, but he effectively explains why he believes. There are some fascinating insights in the book for everyone. I found the sections on the names of Jesus' brothers very interesting and remeniscent of parts of Eisenmann's "James the brother of Jesus", though I think Tabor makes his points much more concisely and eloquently.

Tabor also seems to think that Jesus knew of the Jewish prophecies of a messiah in Daniel, the psalms, etc., and that he felt they were coming to fulfillment in his time and that he should play a major role and did.

There's much more to his reconstruction of the historical Jesus, but I'm only about halfway through the book. Though I don't agree with all of his points, the book is well-written and a good read.

I am about two thirds the way through. Actually having started reading the book as as a historicist in regard to Jesus, I'm actually less sure now! There are a great many caveats and "if this happened, then maybe that happened" passages in the book. It's not that Tabor says anything that I didn't already know, but I can't help thinking that if this is the fruit of a lifetime's research and study, one would have hoped for something more substantial. Actually, we've had at least a hundred years of intensive gospel study, and as far as I can see, very little in the way of firm conclusions to show for it. Christian apologists are proud of the fact that we have a wealth of manuscripts, (plus writings from the early church), far more than for Alexander the Great, say, or Julius Caesar, and yet it seems to me that we know more about Alexander and Julius than we do about Jesus! Isn't that a strange state of affairs? The gospels seem to require a great deal of reconstructive scaffolding in order to provide whatever is of historical value, and what little of that there is is highly dubious. On the other hand, the idea that a historical Jesus was created by a proto-orthodox group appears even less well supported. The third option - that Jesus existed, but we cannot say anything about him with any certainty only raises the question, "how then can we be certain then that he even existed?" Perhaps after 30 years of being a believer, I'm just not prepared for anything as radical as a non historical Jesus just yet. Does anyone else have this problem or is it just me?

04-21-2006, 10:47 AM	#1
mikem Regular Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: UK Posts: 278	Dr James Tabor on discussion forum A member of another Jesus and history type discussion board sent me a message a few days back, to say that Dr James Tabor of "Jesus Dynasty" fame, was going to be answering questions on his book, and asked if I might pass the message along. I'm sure some of you are already familiar with the site. It is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Jesusmysteries

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04-22-2006, 09:46 AM	#5
iguana New Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Essex England Posts: 1	Toto Actually, Dr Tabor was not involved in the exchange about Cayce on Jesus Mysteries - Cayce was introduced by another poster in message 24943. Regards John

04-22-2006, 12:42 PM	#6
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	Sorry, my mistake. Another poster who is a Dr. James in a thread entitled "from the author." That's a relief. But it's bad enough that he sticks up for the James Ossuary.

04-22-2006, 12:54 PM	#7
Phlox Pyros Banned Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: 7th Heaven Posts: 406	I am in the middle of Tabor's book right now. It sounded interesting. It is speculative musing based on facts, but I find it very good. I appreciate his acknowledgement of his own biases in the book and his honest attempt to evaluate the evidence. He seems to believe a lot more history is contained in the New Testament accounts of Jesus than most scholars who are not Christian, but he effectively explains why he believes. There are some fascinating insights in the book for everyone. I found the sections on the names of Jesus' brothers very interesting and remeniscent of parts of Eisenmann's "James the brother of Jesus", though I think Tabor makes his points much more concisely and eloquently. Tabor also seems to think that Jesus knew of the Jewish prophecies of a messiah in Daniel, the psalms, etc., and that he felt they were coming to fulfillment in his time and that he should play a major role and did. There's much more to his reconstruction of the historical Jesus, but I'm only about halfway through the book. Though I don't agree with all of his points, the book is well-written and a good read.

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