Rick Sumner

Oooh. Meretricious. That's a good word. Of course, a good word doesn't make it accurate.

Suggesting a scholar wrote his thesis for profit or other motives? Yeah, that might constitute libel. Suggesting they wrote a book for profit? Probably not. Lots of people said it about James Tabor.

Suggesting someone--scholar or otherwise--wrote a favorable review for profit? No, I'm afraid that's not libel at all. Ranging from video game or movie reviews to all the way up to peer-reviewed appraisals of pharmaceuticals, it is just a reality of a capitalist world. It happens. It happens a lot. Even by scholars.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Toto

Uh, no. If you pay scholar X under the table to say that Jesus existed (or didn't exist), the scholar's opinion is made worthless and his or her reputation for objective scholarship is gone. Some values are not supposed to be for sale, even in a fundamentalist free market system.

This is getting off topic. I'm not even sure that you saw the original text.

Rick Sumner

I sure did. Been posting on the thread all day Price's review, and the motivations for it, are the topic of the thread. So discussing whether or not a given suggestion is valid or "libelous" is certainly within that framework. Though, as an aside, I thought the point of having several moderators was, in part, to avoid moderating your own discussion?

Whether they're supposed to be for sale or not, it is a fact that they are (really neat paper on psychopharmaceuticals, journals, and the DSM a few years ago). And the fact that they are for sale means that suggesting it is not implausible, and consequently not slanderous to raise the possibility.

When you put an opinion out there, the reader is certainly allowed to speculate on what motivates that opinion. Even if you find it offensive.

Saying something wildly or flagrantly untrue--calling Price a <edit for Godwin's law>, for example--now that would be libelous.

Toto

This is bizarre reasoning, as well as being off topic. If you have comments on moderation, those are also off topic.

The reader is not allowed to publish unfounded speculations about corrupt motives.

I would classify this as wildly and flagrantly untrue, unless there is some smidgeon of evidence.

GakuseiDon

For myself, I'm not so much interested in Dr Price's motives as to whether he has now placed himself way out on the fringe of modern scholarship. His statements in the OP show that he has firmly come down in support of (what seems to me) some kooky ideas. He isn't saying "this is interesting" but "this is convincing":

First, I find it undeniable that... many, many of the epic heroes and ancient patriarchs and matriarchs of the Old Testament were personified stars, planets, and constellations... I find the evidence overwhelming.

Not just "one or two OT characters" but "many, many". And:

Jesus sacramentally offers bread as his body, wine as his blood, just as Osiris offered his blood in the form of beer, his flesh as bread. Judas is Set, who betrays him.

and

But I am pretty much ready to go the whole way and suggest that Jesus is simply Osiris going under a new name

and

I find myself in full agreement with Acharya S/D.M. Murdock: “we assert that Christianity constitutes Gnosticism historicized and Judaized, likewise representing a synthesis of Egyptian, Jewish and Greek religion and mythology, among others [including Buddhism, via King Asoka’s missionaries] from around the ‘known world’”

Is there support -- even if not consensus -- in academia for any of the above ideas?

Toto

Perhaps it would help if you said why you think these ideas are "kooky" and what difference that would make.

After all, some of the posters here think that the Christian narrative is pretty kooky. About half of the atheists think that the other half have some kooky ideas. Do you want to discuss comparative kookiness? Let's get back to discussing the ideas.

GakuseiDon

In brief: "Does modern scholarship support Dr Price's positions?" To paraphrase him:

1. The evidence is overwhelming that many, many of the epic heroes and ancient patriarchs and matriarchs of the Old Testament were personified stars, planets, and constellations.

2. The tale of Joseph and his brethren is transparently a retelling of Osiris and Set. The New Testament Lazarus story is another (Mary and Martha playing Isis and Nephthys).

3. Christianity constitutes Gnosticism historicized and Judaized, likewise representing a synthesis of Egyptian, Jewish and Greek religion and mythology, including Buddhism. Dr Price suggests that Jesus is simply Osiris going under a new name, Jesus,” Savior,” hitherto an epithet, but made into a name on Jewish soil.

How much support do any of those positions have in modern scholarship? Would these be regarded as quite supported, little supported, not supported at all and probably the evidence is against them?

maryhelena

Well now, if approval of 'modern scholarship' is to be the criterion by which to judge the writings/position of a modern day thinker - how about using this same standard and apply it to Jesus of Nazareth? How about putting the purported sayings, and actions, of the carpenter from Nazareth, up against the relevant scholarship of his day - the priestly class, the teachers of the Law. These learned men condemned him. Blasphemy, political intrigue - whatever - the bottom line is that they wanted his 'voice' shut down.

Its very easy to condemn ideas that one does not like, understand or just thinks are weird. Its also very easy, and comfortable, to just go with the flow - to hold on to what mental world one lives in. But that has never been the way forward. Thinking the unthinkable, challenging popular ideas - more difficult but ultimately the only avenue for intellectual evolution.

And as for the Jesus myth theory - in whatever variation - its an idea that is just not going to go away...however much 'modern scholarship' likes to ignore it. Sure, its perhaps not the whole story - but it is very much a very big part of that story.

GakuseiDon

Well, of course it should be. Isn't that what peer-review is all about?

I like this quote:

"All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; and Third, it is accepted as self-evident."

Dr Price isn't just suggesting new ideas for our consideration; he is saying that the evidence is overwhelming that many of the characters in the OT were "were personified stars, planets, and constellations". The tale of Joseph and his brethren is transparently a retelling of Osiris and Set. He is ready to go the whole way and suggest that Jesus is "simply Osiris going under a new name".

I'm very, very surprised at his level of confidence. Knowing something about this topic (though as an amateur only), I had thought that those 19th C ideas had been dropped long ago.

maryhelena

Yes, and the result of the peer-review of the work/career of Jesus of Nazareth? Crucify him........So, peer-review, in itself, is no guarantee of the 'truth', accuracy of an idea. Very often scholars have more on their plate than simply a pursuit of 'truth' - careers, reputations and family responsibilities.... And of course, new ideas do not often arrive in some nicely defined logical manner. Thinking outside the box, thinking outside the confines of accepted scholarship, should be encouraged. "There is no such thing", says Karl Popper, "of having a logical method of having new ideas, or a logical reconstruction of this process. Every great discovery contains an irrational element or a creative intuition".


I've never read any of the books by Acharya S/D Murdock. That Robert Price finds some value in her work is his prerogative. As an atheist it does not bother me at all re what astrotheology, or mythology for that matter, comes up with. That there is a link - a long historical line of humans turning to such methods in search of meaning in their lives - I don't think anyone is going to dispute. That the Christian story, the gospel story, is part of this human endeavor to create a spiritual component to human lives - well that is something that might not go down well with some Christians - but that is their problem. It is not a problem for those who are engaged in a historical reconstruction of how humans have created their spiritual identities.

I've no real interest in astrotheology or mythology - interpretation is anyone's game. What such and such an interpretation meant 2000 years ago or 4000 years - so what? Nothing more than parlor games.