Ted Hoffman

I would like to know whether anyone here is familiar with Alan Alfords When The Gods Came Down and what their impressions are about the ideas Alford puts forth in his book.
I think his approach, which reveals the catastrophic roots of religion, answers a lot of questions, especially concerning Exodus, the creation account in Genesis, The Virgin Mary - the meaning of virgin birth, Jesus - the meaning and source of the passion narrative, The Word that was with God as John puts it, Pontius Pilate, why the evangelists had to create a census to move Mary and Joseph to bear Jesus in Bethlehem before Jesus returned to Galilee, why Nazareth etc.

And it also addresses "mysteries" of birth and resurrection in the ancient religions (largely Egyptian, Roman, sumerian, hebrew and greco-roman ones) and he harnesses almost all ancient texts like Enuma Elish, the Ethiopian Kabra Nagast, Egyptian Pyramid Texts, Papyrus of Ani, Coffin Texts, The book of Gates, The Book of the Dead, Orphiz Mysteries, Astra Hasis, The Epic of Gilgamesh etc.

I think he has a very new paradigm of examining the gospels and I would like to discuss it here. It would be nice to know whether there are people who are familiar with his hypothesis.

[ August 16, 2002: Message edited by: Intensity ]</p>

godfry n. glad

_When the Gods Came Down_?

Is that the one where he postulates that mankind is a hybrid offspring of an alien race, designed as slaves nearly 170,000 years ago?

Or, is it after he denied the ancient astronaut theory and settled upon the "exploded planet cult" hypothesis?

godfry n. glad

Ted Hoffman

That was Gods of The New Millenium
<strong> That is the one.

Ether

The Papyrus of Ani and the Book of the Dead are the same book. Also I don't see any relation between The Enuma Elish and Jesus, virgin birth and/or resurrection.

What are your conclusions after reading his works?

Good Day
Ether

Ted Hoffman

I was reading his book about a year ago then I stopped when I saw no answers forthcoming (I naively thought the book would give me a clue concerning from whence we came). Now, a year later after reading Wells, Doherty etc, I have picked up the book, and man, its a great book.
So I havent made my conclusions so far, but my impressions are that because he harnesses almost all ancient myths/ religions to support his exploded-planet hypothesis, and because I know now that Xianity is based on a number of syncretized myths/ religions, I find Alford's theory capable of competently answering many questions that trouble biblical sholars today.

Ether

I think you may find Zecharia Sitchin's Books interesting. They deal with the formation of planet earth and the origin of man an civilization.

[ August 17, 2002: Message edited by: Ether ]</p>

Vorkosigan

<a href="http://www.eridu.co.uk/Author/author.html" target="_blank">Alford's website is here.</a>

Alford is a clearly a crank, Intensity. Why waste your time?

<a href="http://www.eridu.co.uk/Author/Ancient_Astronauts/ancient_astronauts.html" target="_blank">Alford thinks Sitchin is wrong, wrong, wrong</a>

BTW, <a href="http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/FDoernenburg/mainpyr.htm" target="_blank">Sitchin is a crank too</a>

<a href="http://www.crank.net/mythology.html" target="_blank">A fun site for finding cranks on the net</a>

Vorkosigan

[ August 17, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]

[ August 17, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]</p>

Ted Hoffman

Vork, I know you mean well, but until you can provide evidence for his crankiness, you have absolutely NO BASIS for asserting he is a crank. You should know better than invoke ad hominems in trying to discredit someone elses ideas. This is someone who can admit his previous theory (based on 10 years of reseasrch) was incorrect. How many people can do that?
Give me a link that debunks his theories or alternatively, you can do so yourself (though I highly doubt that you have read any of his books). Otherwise, you can be candid and tell me that what you are telling me are merely rumours you have heard elsewhere. Alford, unlike Sitchin, has done his homework in astronomy and worked closely with Dr. Ton Van Flandern:
<a href="http://www.eridu.co.uk/Author/Exploded_Planets/EPH_Intro2/TVF_EPH/tvf_eph.html" target="_blank">chech for details on Tom Van Flandern here</a> and <a href="http://www.eridu.co.uk/Author/Exploded_Planets/EPH_Intro2/TVF_EPH/Other_Planets/TVF_cv/tvf_cv.html" target="_blank">Here if Tom Van Flanderns CV</a>

If opinions matter, Alford has Alan Alford’s EPH has won support ‘in principle’ from two highly respected English academics, Michael Rice and Christopher Gill:
I guess they must be cranks too.

[ August 17, 2002: Message edited by: Intensity ]</p>

Vorkosigan

My conclusions were as follows. Firstly, the Sphinx was probably ‘adopted’ by the 4th dynasty king Khafre, having been built by an earlier, pre-dynastic culture. Secondly, the two giant Pyramids at Giza were probably ‘adopted’ by the kings Khufu and Khafre, having been built by a pre-dynastic culture at some time during the 6th-4th millennia BC. Thirdly, the ‘quarry marks’ in the Great Pyramid (incorporating Khufu’s name) were probably forged by the English explorer Colonel Howard Vyse.

Intensity, all of these ideas are crank. Doernenburg's site deals with Vyse above.

For example, if you want to know how real archaeologists deal with the "problem," of radiocarbon dating, read:

<a href="http://www.archaeology.org/9909/abstracts/pyramids.html" target="_blank">This abstract</a>

I am not going to replicate the entirety of mainstream Egyptology for you.<a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/egypt/class/02pyramid.html" target="_blank">The PBS site has a good mix of stuff for starters</a>

From his Intro:
Alford identifies the spiritual ‘truth’ of the exploded planet religion, and suggests that this truth – of the soul and its immortality – can easily be accommodated by 21st century science (exploded planet or not). The result is a 21st-century Platonic mysticism which, in Alford’s view, offers the soul of man a genuine path to eternal life in the ‘other world’.

If this is not crank, what is?

Vorkosigan

[ August 17, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]</p>

Ted Hoffman

Vork,
You havent provided any evidence that this guy is a crank so far he, by the way, does NOT set out to determine the age of the pyramids, his books' main agenda is to decode the meaning of the word god(s) using ancient texts these same same gods who Erick Von Daniken (king of cranks, I bet), called the "ancient astronauts" - from Ezekiels famous verses.

I know he is an agnostic, but since none of the arguments he puts forth in his book entail the existence of a soul, I still dont see the crankiness; in any case I really wouldnt care if he is a crank (an ad hominem), what I am interested in are his ideas, which you don't seem aware of.

[ August 17, 2002: Message edited by: Intensity ]</p>