Toto

Actually, I don't recall anyone here taking the time to review her book.

Robert Price's review in which he compares her to Josh McDowell is not online.

Acharya's response to Robert Price's review is here where she justifies quoting Sitchin.

There are two reviews here on e-pinions, one more favorable than the other.

fta

Earl Doherty (author of The Jesus Puzzle) has given The Christ Conspiracy a fairly favorable review:

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/BkrvTCC.htm

Toto

Earl Doherty does not speak ill of a fellow mythicist.

Perhaps I should ask him about this.

Toto

From Doherty's review:

Unfortunately, Acharya's style has only prompted more circling of the wagons, as those who want scholarly credibility run from the label of conspiracy theorist.

jesusisalie

I've read the book. My impression: rather transparent in it's virulently anti-christian tone, but highly provocative nonetheless. It also supplies good fodder for anti-christian discussion/arguments.

ichabod crane

Just thought I'd throw in my two cents worth regarding the Hebrew controversy - I know Biblical Hebrew well. Firstly, Elohim certainly is not necessarily a plural. It can be either singular or plural. We know this, among other reasons, because when it is the subject of a verb, the verb will often be singular, and a basic rule of Hebrew grammar is that the number of the subject has to correspond with the number of the verb. For example, in Genesis 1:1 the verb bara' is Qal perfect 3rd masculine singular, and hence has to mean "he created", not "they created". Hence Elohim, which is the subject of the verb, has to be a singular noun.

Secondly, as has been pointed out, not all nouns that have the plural ending -im in Hebrew are actually plural. For instance, shamayim (sky) and mayim (water) are both plural in form but may be either singular or plural in meaning.

Thirdly, technically Eloah is the singular form of Elohim. However, according to Princeton Abridged BDB, it is archaic, used in early poems, and as an archaic form in later poetry. El is often used of God or a god, but the plural form Elim only occurs five times in the entire OT (Ex. 15:11, Job 41:17, Ps. 29:1, Ps. 89:7, and Dan. 11:36).

Given that Elohim, although often a singular noun, is used as a plural noun for "gods" much more than Elim, and given that Eloah is an archaism, it is somewhat inaccurate, but in general true in practice, to say that the plural of "gods" is Elohim and the singular "god" is Elohim or El. So the original statement is not so wrong as to prove anything about whether or not the author understands Hebrew.

mightyjoemoon

Wow! Thanks for the detailed and balanced analysis. It's appreciated.

funinspace

The Hebrew canon is available in Hebrew within the Dead Sea scrolls. And some of the texts dates to the third century BCE. If the Romans were plotting, they did a damn good job, and managed data over 300-600 years.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/...y/deadsea.html

mightyjoemoon

Cool! Thanks for the link. Her argument is that the New Testament canon is the result of the plot, though. Specifically, that there was no historical Jesus but rather many previous myths were combined under the syncretistic banner of Christianity which was co-opted and wrapped around a fraudulent first century Jew named "Jesus." And it's a bit more complicated than the book jacket suggests, in that it's not just some Romans in a room that cooked it all up. She actually uses the Dead Sea Scrolls in her argument that "christian" teachings were really pre-christian, etc. The question about the Hebrew Bible was a somewhat unrelated question on my part, I guess. I guess I'm TOO much of a skeptic, because I even question the validity of the dead sea scrolls. :huh:

Notsri

Hey, mightyjoe. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so dismissive of Acharya's linguistic abilities without elaborating a bit more. I thought I'd do that now.

On p. 91 of Christ Conspiracy, she says:
Now, in light of the above, we can say either that Acharya doesn't know Hebrew (well, at least), or she does, and is deliberatly lying to her readers here. Ichabod crane has shown very articulately why Elohim is often properly rendered "God," and thus it is not falsely translated, as Acharya suggests. And what I meant in my first post, though stated rather infelicitously, is that El is not the singular form for Elohim (even though both can be singular in meaning, as Ichabod stated).

On p. 113 the author seems to suggest that the Hebrew almah means "moon-woman." The proper translation of almah has always been a point of contention between Jewish and Christian scholars - can it be translated "virgin," or does it always mean roughly "young woman"? In any event, there is no etymological connection that I'm aware of between almah and the supposed Persian Al-Mah, allegedly the Moon goddess; it's correspondence is merely phonetic, and therefore there would be no justification for translating almah to "moon-woman."

Perhaps one of my favorites is when she mentions on p. 114 the Egyptian "nefer nefer land," the abode of the dead - apparently drawing from the story of Peter Pan now.

Acharya mentions in a number of places - e.g., p. 114 - that the word Krishna (a Hindu deity) translates to the Greek Christos, which, of course, is where we get "Christ." But the Sanskrit Krishna simply means black, while Christos means anointed, or anointed one. Krishna would not translate to Christ, then.

On p. 131-2 we read the following: But the word in question in Greek is pneumatikos (cognate to pneuma, meaning wind, breath, or spirit), and it is properly translated as "spiritually" in Rev. 11:8. (Cf. Gal. 4:24, where Paul does speak of allegory, and uses the Greek allegoroumena.)

So at any rate, these are just a few examples, and hopefully they show why I find her philological credentials to be rather suspect.