Vorkosigan

...or paranoid.

andrewcriddle

Another issue is that some genuine Hindu narratives about Krishna are (in their present form at least) rather late, the possibliity of direct or indirect Christian influence on the bhakti traditions about Krishna which seem to develop in the late 1st millenium CE cannot be excluded.

(Several scholars have speculated for example that some of the late Hindu traditions about the birth of Krishna may show Christian influence.)

Andrew Criddle

GakuseiDon

Well, I'm hoping to show that if and when I finish my essay on Doherty and the 2nd C CE apologists. (Though I must admit that I've lost a bit of interest since actually reading Doherty's book).

Some examples of the research being incomplete: while Doherty concentrates on the apologetic letters written in the 2nd C, he doesn't give any other evidence on them outside the letters (in Irenaeus and Tertullian, for example). There is enough evidence to place Theophilus and Tatian in the HJ camp, despite their lack of use of "Jesus" and "Christ" in the letters. He ignores Tertullian's "Ad nationes" entirely, despite its apparent relationship with "the Octavius of Minucius Felix".

GakuseiDon

Well, I suppose he is either paranoid or correct. I'll let you decide. The subject is on why the mainstream is ignoring Doherty. Perhaps this might make a good topic in itself.

I post occasionally on "The Beast" forum boards as "A Christian". "The Beast" is an upcoming movie by Brian Flemming about a girl who finds out that there was no HJ, so the Vatican (which knows the truth) sets out to kill her. Flemming also made a documentary on a similar theme, interviewing Doherty, Carrier and others.

About 6 months ago, I responded to a post by Flemming with my concerns about Doherty, and to my surprise, Doherty himself responded:
http://www.community.thebeastmovie.c...e558cc726f3746

I had posted to Flemming (under the moniker "A Christian"):
Doherty replied (in part):
I replied:
I still don't believe in conspiracy theories. I was totally surprised by Doherty's "what are they afraid of?" comment.

Is it possible that mainstream scholarship is ignoring Doherty's book because they are afraid of it?

freigeister

The mainstream loves Doherty. They are hoping that they can continue to monopolize discussion about Christ, and Doherty helps them to do that by siphoning most thoughtful sceptics into the blind alley of the Jesus Myth. The endless discussion about Mithras, Osiris, etc. etc. keeps people from asking the really serious questions about who Christ was. If sceptics really started to apply legitimate scholarly criticism to understand the nature of Christ, it would pull down the whole rotten ecclesiastic system along with its academic henchmen. But I think most sceptics would rather buy into the system than tear it down. Hence they cry out for academic consideration and respectability.

Dharma

except for the similar name, there are absolutely NO parallels between Krishna and Christ. Krishna was NOT born December 25th.

There is however a distinct parallel between the Christ story and Buddha's story.

Dharma

The bhakti movement was more likely derived from Buddhists. We must remember that Buddhism is a far older "missionary" religion and were looking for easier methods to convert the masses -- and thus Mahayana was born...which means the "greater vehicle" or the vehicle for the masses.

Again there is NO reason that Jesus is associated with the Christ or why the Christ is more associated with sun worship. Judaism is not solar worship nor goddess worship, unless it openly claims to be a pagan tradition and that they worshipped this way at the time of Christianity.

How Christianity is practiced and it's monastic traditions and how it came about is a good question to ask considering Judaic tradition is so different from the manner in which Christianity is practiced.

Craigart14

I inadvertently took part in the annual parade celebrating the birth of Krishna while I was passing through Khiranjappoli, India in 1996. It was in July.

Craig

Dharma

yes, Krishna's birthday is held by lunar calendar and can fall anywhere in late summer, early fall depending on the year, however, for further amusement I present this information:

http://hnn.us/articles/printfriendly/1871.html
Yet he described the theory on show at the Glasgow Science Centre, using the Scottish Power Zeiss projector to recreate an exact replica of the night sky in the decade before Christ's birth, as "very interesting''. Based on a book by an American astronomer, John Mosley, it suggests that the Christmas "star" was caused by two consecutive conjunctions (two planets appearing to join as they pass one another). It involved the two brightest planets, Jupiter and Venus. This is the theory that places the birth of Christ on August 12, 3BC.

JoeWallack

JW:
As near as I can tell I Am currently the World's foremost authority on the subject. Here is a link to my related article on the subject:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...27#post1438327

indicating the above description is misleading and overstated. Here are my priMary conclusions:

"It would appear then that assertions in this area by Skeptics such as Sharpe, Massey and Acharya contain inadequate research and proof-texting by:

1) Only referring to four scenes when there are actually fifteen.

2) Claiming or implying that the queen was impregnated after the Annunciation by the holy spirit god Thoth when in fact the unmentioned scenes and related Inscriptions make clear that the queen was already impregnated by the Father god before the Annunciation and that the spirit god's Annunciation was only to announce impending birth and not impregnation (some of you may consider this redundant information but she was a virgin after all, at least as the story goes).

Skeptics therefore, should be hesitant to use the arguments of Sharpe, Massey and Acharya in this area."


Still, there are, to use the favorite word of Raymond Brown, "fantastic" parallels between the Luxor scenes and the Christian Infancy narratives. For starters, what provides a better parallel and therefore more likely source for the Original CIN (Christian Infancy Narratives), the Scenes at Luxor or Isaiah predicting that a young woman in his time would give birth to a son?

Of course just because El-Luxor has parallels to Original CIN doesn't prove that there was direct copying or even awareness of the Former by the Latter but similarities do provide evidence of the use of simiLiar themes Existing at the Time.

Amenhotep III actually largely copied the Scenes from an earlier female Pharoah (picture of Vinnie retreating from "Was Jesus Gay" thread to "Was Jesus Transvestite" with evidence of long hair and bathrobes) who created the Miraculous/Divine birth scenes to help legitimize her Kingship figuring that as a Female she was lacking Something. Here we have another nice parallel to Original CIN. In the Real World miraculous births are Impossible. If we step into the Christian World where the Impossible is Possible we still need to evaluate what is more likely, an Impossible historical birth, or a Possible Mythical birth. To the extent Observations and Evidence are consistent with and support a Possible Mythical Birth then this becomes the Likely Conclusion.

The problem that Amenhotep III and all the other Princes had regarding Divine birth was that while they were Princes there was already a/The Divine Incarnation, The King. This is exactly the same problem a historical Jesus would have had. There was already a God that he was subservient to. The Egyptian Princes/Usurpers always had to wait until after the King was dead before they could "create" their Divine birth. Similarly with Jesus, the Original CIN seems to be a second century thang. The related stories in 'Matthew" and "Luke" look like second century additions (a likely reason why extant manuscripts are generally post third century) and first century authors including Paul show no evidence of Original CIN. We have the parallel then between Luxor and Original CIN that the Divine Births were Created long after the related Subjects were created. If the earlier believers in Jesus show no evidence of believing in a Divine Birth than it's likely that later believers in Jesus Created a Divine Birth not primarily because of what they knew about Jesus but because of what they wanted to believe.

All consistent with a Possible Mythical birth.



Joseph

MYTHOLOGY, n.
The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.

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