Solo

I did not say Robert was totally negative at the outset. The striking difference here is between his sharp comments in 2000 and his dropping all pretense of critical review in 2009. I always liked Price's wit, sharp but good natured ribbing, and his uncompromising (until late) attitude to foolishness and bloated egos. I thought he had Acharya S down pat in 2000. She is a diligent bee to be sure but an intellectual lightweight, no matter what Price may say now.

Acharya's writing also has a characteristically nasty animus which she has trouble keeping at bay. Look at the last paragraph in page four of Christ in Egypt google books excerpt. Read and marvel : The call for primary sources serves to remind us that Christians went on a censorship rampage and destroyed as much evidence as they could in the name of "piety", ravaging Pagan temples, murdering their priests and torturing and slaughtering non-believers
nonbelievers and believers by the millions. There is an odious je-ne-sais-quoi, a collapse of intellectuality in such a blanket, unqualified accusation, and it is brought about by what ? Well, certainly not by the need to be more discerning, objective and spook-free.

I don't bitch, Toto. I can handle it myself (with a little help from my friends).

I am not accusing Price of being on Acharya's payroll. I am saying his abrupt change of stance provokes such suspicions and he knows that.



You and Dave31 have missed my drift. She is a <sexist comment self-censored>. Yes, I can well see where his attraction to Acharya is not necessarily monetary.


Jiri

gurugeorge

What's the problem? At one time, Price had the usual dismissive view of that class of 19th century scholarship, now he's changed his mind about it, and sees more value in it - or rather, to be more precise, what he is saying is something like "they made a start, and showed there's something to it, but it needs to be investigated more rigorously".

spamandham

I think it'd be important to address the evidence he's referring to to see if we agree it's overwhelming or not. I don't personally hold lack of consensus against anyone in this field where apologetics and wild eyed speculation regularly pass for scholarship.

Is the idea that many OT characters have their root in astrotheology really so far fetched? How much evidence is required to come to the conclusion that the ancient Jews were similar to other cults in the region? How many tribes of Israel were there?

Rick Sumner

I'm still waiting for a primary source that puts the zodiac before other uses of the number 12. Could be it's owed to the zodiac. But the fact that they both employ the number 12 is not proof of causality. That we go their immediately probably says more about the prevalence of the Zodiac now than anything else.

Solo

No, I think you missed the "jumping the shark" part of GDon's OP. Price says he is ready to go the whole nine yards (evidently on Acharya's "evidence" in Christ in Egypt) and suggest that Jesus is simply Osiris going under a new name, Jesus,” Savior,” hitherto an epithet, but made into a name on Jewish soil.

No concern for rigour. Acharya claims she consulted 900 titles. I believe her. The problem is that after consuming all that 'scholarship' she e.g. sees fit to dismiss all Paulines as spurious on grounds they have been tampered with and asks (in a fashion so reminiscent of some posters here) for a proof positive they have not been 'altered, mutilated or interpolated'. She remains a dilettante who unfortunately sees the issue of not being taken seriously as stemming from her lack of academic credentials. She tries to compensate for it by absorbing tons of material. It won't work and Robert Price certainly has the means to show her why it won't work.


Jiri

dog-on

Oh no, not Paul!!!111!!!

spamandham

To say that characters were based on the stars, does not require the existence of the zodiac. If all we had was the number 12, then sure, that's squat. But it's more than that. We find the following numbers repeated over and over:

12; The number of lunar cycles in a year
7; The number of eye visible non-fixed celestial objects (sun, moon, mercury, venus, mars, saturn, jupiter)
3; moon, sun, and earth

Yes, it's possible this could all be coincidence, but that seems a more complex position to take.

The following Sumerian quote dates to about 2300 BCE (source) :

"If Venus appears in the East in the month Airu and the Great and Small Twins surround her, all four of them, and she is dark, then will the King of Elam fall sick and not remain alive."

So clearly, people in the region were anthropomorphizing the stars a good 1500 or more years earlier than the OT, whether we call that a zodiac or not isn't very important.

That said, the following may be the earliest known formalized zodiac, dating from around 1000 BCE.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/membe...20020122a7.htm

Rick Sumner

I'm actually looking specifically at your wondering "how many tribes were there."

Well. . .sort of. An extra month (or two) is occasionally added, pretty well across the board. It seems to have been recognized both early and widely that there weren't 12 lunar months. But it really doesn't matter, if you'd look at what I've taken issue with, you'd note that I actually suggested the lunar calendar as a more likely source for 12 tribes than the Zodiac. We can even fudge it a little and get those pesky half tribes in there.

And father Abraham had seven sons, and seven sons had father Abraham.

I'm afraid I'm not taking this one without a source, a line of transmission, and a solid argument that the use of the number in a given (or in many given) passages has that in mind.

Eyes, nose, mouth. Three shall be the number of the counting, and the number of the counting shall be three.

This is getting silly. Come up with an argument and some evidence, or all you're doing is giving a list of numbers. There's also 52 cards in a deck. A picture is worth a thousand words. We can go all day.

I beg to differ. Without outlining clear lines of transmission, it's silly to suggest causality. For the same reason I don't suggest that everybody with 7 candles in their house bought one for each letter of my name.

Well, first of all this isn't a primary source, because it doesn't give a cite for the quote. Equally importantly, you're misrepresenting it. "May date to about," says your source, "dates to," says you. And nobody wants to tell me where I can find the quote.

I'm afraid it is. You might want to review the thread, and more specifically, review what I've taken issue with. The question I've been asking has always applied to Toto's suggestion that we equate 12 tribes with the Zodiac.

Fantastic. It's actually 2 centuries younger than I said. You'd have had a better case if you'd taken my date.

spamandham

I'm not trying to establish that any particular usage of the number 7 is an allegory to the 7 eye visible celestial objects, but instead, am trying to establish the influence of astrotheology on Judaism, which can be done by noting that the holy numbers of Judaism are the same holy numbers repeated in religions worldwide, which originate in the stars.

Establishing astrotheological influence is step 1.

We do not understand the line of transmission that results in quantum entanglement. Yet, most of us are willing to conclude a causal relationship based on the observation of the effect itself. It's true that correlation does not necessitate causality, but that doesn't mean that we can never declare causality without understanding the line of transmission.

If we establish that astrotheology preceded Judaism (which I did in the previous post), and we establish that it existed in the same region as Judaism (which I also did in the previous post), that is sufficient to conclude that there probably was influence on Judaism, because the opposite premise - that Judaism was not influenced by pre-existing religions of the region - is a more complex premise.

I don't see a big difference between "may date to about" vs "dates to about", but if that causes you angst, then fine, I formally retract "dates to about" and substitute in it's place "may date to about". 2300 is the best guess of modern scholars, but sure, they could wrong.

And it's true that I did not give you a primary source. The primary source is purported (Science awakening II: the birth of astronomy By Bartel Leendert Waerden, Peter Huber) to be from the "Enuma Anu Enlil" tablets, which have only been partly translated to English, and which are not online as far as I can tell. This portion is claimed to have been translated by F. X. Kugler (German historian). Kugler's work is referenced by other reputable sources, which doesn't mean much except that he was considered mainstream by his peers. So sure, it's not a primary source, but I don't see any reason to believe the authors are lying about their reference.

For more on the tablets

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enuma_anu_enlil

I certainly can't read cuniform even if I had access to the tablets. Can you?

If the zodiac is the litmus test, then I don't have much to offer on that. I'm more interested in the original discussion regarding astrotheological influence in general, and not so much the zodiac specifically.

Clivedurdle

Is the Library at Ninevah old enough?

http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=243744