Robert Tulip

Yes.

Thanks Stephan, that is a good definition of scientific naturalism. It makes the key point that exclusion of the supernatural is core to scientific method.

Yes, Acharya studies astrotheology as a natural science in order to develop an evidence based understanding of the evolution of myth. She describes her approach as scientific analysis of the data. I share this interest.

mountainman

Thanks Robert.

My point is that this consequential use is not being taken into account by your detractors in this thread.

There can be little dispute that Isis and other female divinities were being worshipped by people in the Roman Empire at the time the NT was authored and even when the NT was raised by Constantine to the official status of a holy writ for the Roman Empire.

The way I see it right now (subject to revision) is that there are two logicial possibilities.

(1) That the authors of the NT intentionally subverted all male pagan divinities to Jesus and all female pagan divinities to his Ma, or

(2) They had no such specific intention.

The OP is discussing whether Christianity is a Warmed up Egyptian Religion (with a specific emphasis on Isis and Mary) with an unspoken agenda to continue the attack on Acharya's scholarship and ideas.

In either event (1) or (2) above, we seem to agree that when the NT was raised to the status of a holy writ, there may have been a co-opting of the Isis cults to change their superficial "Mission Statements" to make mention of Mary instead of Isis.

Returning to the two logical possibilities above, we might see that option (1) actually includes the subversion of Isis to Mary, and <NAME YOUR PAGAN GOD> to Jesus as subsets.

Therefore although the gospel writers had no specific agenda against Isis, they certainly had a general agenda which included the warming up of Isis to become the read hot Christian goddess Mary, while also confusing her with a couple of other Mary's.

I dont trust the textual critics of the bible unless they are able to deal with actual history. In the later 4th century the cult of Mary appears along with trade in the relics and bones of saints and martyrs, with crosses, and bible codices, and an explosion of many forms of historical evidence.

Your main detractors are textual critics who have not demonstrated any bridges between their reading of the NT and their knowledge concerning the ancient historical evidence underpinning the centuries in antiquity during which their hypothetical "Early Christian History" was being enacted.







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