GakuseiDon

Fair enough, but I think we need to get the data first before deciding on what are memes and what are unconscious symbolism. If the data is wrong, then interpretation is pointless.

Jeffrey Gibson

Is Dionysus ever described as "ever-dying, ever-living" in the primary sources?

Jeffrey

mountainman

Yes, you are forgetting to open the eyes
to the possibility of any other explanation.

There is of course no non-textual evidence
for this "Judaic conjecture" - it relies upon
the layer after layer of sedimentary opinions
on the quite obvious link between the NT
and the Judaic LXX, set in place by the lavish
publication of at least 50 copies c.331 CE in
the Greek language by the despot and christian
King Constantine, of the "Constantine Bible".

Ever since Constantine "borrowed" the LXX,
every man and his dog conjecture that every
little issue in antiquity has been "borrowed"
from Judaism.


Best wishes,


Pete Brown

MarmINFP

I agree that your conclusion makes sense when considering that Zeus takes the form of a snake in both. Based on that, it seems that Acharya was confusing the name of one mythological figure for another from a similar myth.

MarmINFP

The data is important. The problem being with focusing on the data is that I presently lack it and am not feeling inspired to search it out. LOL

If anyone has some further data about the Sol Invictus, I'd be glad to discuss it. Or maybe I'll feel inspired to research it some in a bit. I just got home from work and its late.

Clivedurdle

http://space.newscientist.com/articl...t-counts-.html

What exactly is the problem with astrotheology?

jjramsey

You'd know better than I would. :huh: I was just quoting Campbell to point out Acharya S' misquote. I've seen before that he tries to say that the rock birth of Mithras is a sort of "virgin birth" by appealing to Jungian archetypes, which is rather a stretch, and based on that and what I've seen in the secondary sources, I would not assume that the "ever-dying, ever-living" bit is reliable.

(BTW, I do not have Campbell on my bookshelf. Last times I saw his work were in a library book and in the pages that Amazon made available online.)

Toto

Searching The Masks of God (or via: amazon.co.uk) online, it appears that this is a favorite poetic phrase of Campbells, which he applies to Dionysus, the lunar bull, and Jesus. He also refers to the waters in the Garden of Eden, a branch of the great Tree of Life, and the Goddess earth as "ever-living". The phrase is never presented as a quote from primary sources.

Do you think it is inaccurate?

Casper

Oh i didn't mean the histories themselves weren't largely the "stuff of legend", I was referring to knowledge of astronomical cycles being used to contrive a timeline, and within that timeline it is implied that this knowledge of said cycles is older than it really is.

In other words just because a myth is "timelined" on astronomical knowledge of the writer, and pseudo-historic events are tied to those cycles to the extent of having the main characters acknowledge the passing of a certain milestone, it does not mean that the inhabitants of the time of that myth were actually aware of such cycles even though the cycles undoubtedly extend into the past as well as the future. The myth would have one believe that the knowledge used to comprise it was known at the time designated in the myth, falsely giving rise to assumptions that the knowledge is older than the myth.

Forcing an analogy, it is kind of like the joke about the armchair archeaologist who finds a coin stamped "344 BC" and assumes it is legitimate.

Maybe not the best analogy.

Jeffrey Gibson

Insofar as it was something that the ancients confessed Dionysus as being, was ever one of the epithets that his cult members gave him, or was thought by them or anyone else in the Greco-Roman world to be one of his actual characteristics, yes.

No do if find it being used of Dionysus by any other modern mythographer. Do you?

Jeffrey