In his new book Did Jesus Exist?, Bart Ehrman singles me out for especial berating, suggesting repeatedly that I am "making things up" and placing me in a category of mythicists whose writings constitute "sensationalist claims that are so extravagant, so wrongheaded, and so poorly substantiated that it is no wonder that scholars do not take them seriously." According to Ehrman, our books - including Freke and Gandy's Jesus Mysteries - represent "inaccurate and poorly researched publications."
It is with unfortunate irony that we realize Ehrman himself - whom conservative Christian critics have styled "Error-man" - has been accused of much the same calumny for his own works, which have served to throw serious skepticism upon the gospel story and early Christian history. Apparently, taking Ehrman's own skepticism to its logical conclusion warrants receiving a similar abusive tirade of mischaracterizations and accusations passed down the line. Since Ehrman himself knows what it is like to challenge the academic status quo - termed "career suicide" or "occupational suicide" - is it really surprising to him that few scholars will publicly admit to enjoying the forbidden mythicist works?
One-size-fits-all critique
In Did Jesus Exist?, Ehrman claims my book The Christ Conspiracy is "filled with so many factual errors and outlandish assertions that it is hard to believe that the author is serious." It should be noted that Bart says pretty much the same thing about Earl Doherty's book, so I'm in good company here. Again, Ehrman's Christian critics have likewise enunciated similar sentiments about his work. He also goes through a list of "howlers" that I have contended for in my book, stating: "Just to give a sense of the level of scholarship in this sensationalist tome, I list a few of the howlers one encounters en route, in the order in which I found them." As we shall see here and in my entire forthcoming rebuttal of DJE, that unflattering categorization may be turned on Ehrman's book as well.
At one point regarding a major theme in my book that concerns the solar nature of "Jesus Christ" as depicted in the New Testament and extrabiblical Christian literature - a characteristic I and others have described as "the son of God is the sun of God" - Ehrman remarks:
He was not originally a sun-god (as if that equals Son-God!); in fact, in the earliest traditions we have about him, he was not known as a divine being at all. He was understood to be a Jewish prophet and messiah. There are no astrological phenomena associated with Jesus in any of our earliest traditions.
Here Ehrman espouses the typical evemerist position, a view my book is designed to address throughout - Bart gives many such indications he did not read my entire book but simply skimmed through it, without studying the substantiation for my claims.
The Son-Sun pun
While ignoring the significant body of literature demonstrating Christ's solar nature, including the styling in the Old Testament book of Malachi (4:2) of the coming messiah as the "Sun of Righteousness," Ehrman falls back on mocking the "Son of God is the Sun of God" English play on words, as if it possesses any merit in this mythicist argument. Over the years since the publication of The Christ Conspiracy in 1999, I have repeatedly addressed the son-sun pun issue waved about by those who do not know its long and celebrated usage by numerous renowned English poets. In using this convenient and clever English figure of speech, I am simply following these poets' logical and playful suit, not employing the pun to prove a point. Such "howlers" as this false insinuation and strawman by Ehrman give a sense of the level of scholarship in his "poorly researched" and "sensationalist tome."
In this instance, it would have benefited Bart to research my work a bit more, as he would have found the following response to Australian Christian historian Dr. Chris Forbes, regarding him bringing up this son-sun non-issue as well (adapted for this present rebuttal):
This entire discussion is a strawman argument raised in order to knock it down easily. Nowhere do I claim that the English words "son" and "sun" are cognates and that this pun extends to antiquity. I and many others over the centuries have merely used existing language in order to describe a real phenomenon, mythologically speaking. This son-sun pun obviously does not occur in any ancient or non-Germanic language, and no one is making that absurd claim.
In the meantime, we are hardly the first to utilize this son-sun pun in relation to Jesus Christ in particular, as its use has a long and venerable tradition that a scholar of history might wish to know about. As I say in my ebook Jesus as the Sun throughout History, this sun-son word play has been noted many times previously in history by a variety of individuals, including English priest and poet Robert Southwell in the 16th century and English poet Richard Crashaw in the 17th century. (Davies, 165) English poet and preacher John Donne (1572-1631) and Welsh poet and priest George Herbert (1593-1633) likewise engaged in the son/sun pun as applied to Christ. (Foxell, 8; Wilcox, 306) In discussing Donne, Dr. Arthur L. Clements, a professor at Binghamton University, remarks that the "Son-sun pun" is "familiar enough." (Clements, 71) Comparing Christ to the "day star," famous English poet John Milton (1608-1674) was aware of the "sun/son of God" analogy and "revel[ed] in the sun-son pun." (Miller, D.M., 32) In his book about English poet Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), Dr. Nigel Smith, a professor at Princeton University, comments that "Jesus was also thought to have been referred to in Mal. 4:2 (thereby involving a pun on Sun/Son of God)..." (Smith, N., 42) Puritan minister Edward Taylor (1642-1729) engaged in the same punning by describing Christ as "the onely [sic] begotten Sun that is in the bosom of the Father..." (Miller, D.G., 90)
"Famous English poet John Milton was aware of the 'sun/son of God' analogy and revelled in the sun-son pun."
Furthermore, in describing the actions of the Church fathers in adapting sun myths to Christianity, Thomas Ellwood Longshore declared in 1881: "They merely changed the visible 'Sun of God' for the invisible 'Son of God,' or for this personage they called the 'Son of God'..." (Longshore, 103) While addressing the Shakespearean character Petruccio's "arrogation of the son/sun pun" in "The Taming of the Shrew," Dr. Peter Holland, a professor of Shakespearean History at Notre Dame University, says that this play on words is "normally used to glorify Christ..." (Holland, 91) In An Introduction to English Grammar, Dr. Sidney Greenbaum, a professor of English at University College London, comments, "Religious poetry traditionally puns Sun with Son, Christ the son of God..." (Greenbaum, 182) Dr. Stephen C. Behrendt, a professor of English at the University of Nebraska, called the pun "longstanding." (Behrendt, 153) The sun-son play on words as applicable to Christ has also been deemed so "common" as to represent a "devotional pun." (See, e.g., Rowe, 252; Oberhaus, 79.) (For the bibliography of the sources cited here, see my ebook Jesus as the Sun throughout History.)
Obviously, this "devotional pun" was widely recognized centuries ago by the English-speaking intelligentsia and educated elite; thus, those who use it are in eloquent company. Therefore, shallow criticisms of the statement that the son of God is the sun of God represent illogical strawmen reflective of ignorance of these facts, and should be dismissed as such.
The Sun as the Son of God
Regardless of the son-sun pun in English, the concept of the sun being the Son of God is pre-Christian, as elucidated in numerous myths, such as the Greek and Egyptian, as well as by philosophers such as Socrates and Plato. As related in The Book of the Sun (1494) by Neoplatonic-Christian philosopher Marsillio Ficino concerning Socrates:
According to Plato [Republic, VI, 508c (Ferrari, 215)], he called the Sun not God himself, but the son of God. And I say not the first son of God, but a second, and moreover visible son. For the first son of God is not this visible Sun, but another far superior intellect, namely the first one which only the intellect can contemplate. Therefore Socrates, having been awakened by the celestial Sun, surmised a super celestial Sun, and he contemplated attentively its majesty, and inspired, would admire the incomprehensible bounty of the Father. (Voss, 211)
"According to Plato, Socrates called the Sun not God himself but the son of God..."
As Pico della Mirandola (163) says: "...when Plato in the Republic calls the sun the visible son of God, why may we not understand it as the image of the invisible Son?"
As we can see, there is much more to this subject than meets the eye, a vast body of literature, in fact, that cannot be swatted away with a few recycled insults and hand-waving dismissals.
Further Reading
The Son of God is the Sun of God
Rebuttal to Dr. Chris Forbes regarding 'Zeitgeist, Part 1'
Jesus as the Sun throughout History
The phallic 'Savior of the World' in the Vatican
Bart Ehrman: 'Mythicists' arguments are fairly plausible'
Did Jesus Exist? forum thread
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|2012-04-06 01:47:34 DSimone - where's the moon?Everytime I read your rebuttals against these buttheads of academic-trained religious "scholars", I am amazed at how easily you destroy their superiority complexes. That's why they go ballistic at you.
If I were to use symbols to define you versus Ehrman, you would be a Blue Lotus and he would be a Cactus.
Challenge him to prove Christ's existence WITHOUT using the only book he's studied his entire life and ultimately trashed: the New Testament.
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|2012-04-06 05:57:51 Robert Tulip - Hail Thou Sun of RighteousnessHi Acharya
The Malachi line 'sun of righteousness' is used in the well loved Christmas carol O Come All Ye Faithful. Mark 16:2 "they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun" is a reference to the resurrection of Christ linked to the sunrise. Even if the pun did not occur in the Greek, the allegory certainly did.
Jesus and the twelve apostles represent the sun and the twelve months of the year. This astrotheological motif is the basis of the Christian imagery.
Ehrman is conducting a futile rearguard action to justify the traditional supernatural fantasy of Christian orthodoxy that presents the sun myth of Christ as literal history. He attacks you because you are the most coherent, rigorous and detailed explainer of the real message presented in the Gospels, a message of reconciliation with nature that has been suppressed through twenty centuries of stony sleep.
Robert
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|2012-04-06 08:42:32 Balu - re:Pastor Pete wrote:Thanks for spelling that out, Acharya. I enjoyed the response linked above to your FAQ too:
English: sun son
Old English: sunne sunnu
Afrikaans: son seun
Dutch: zon zoon
German: Sonne Sohn
Slovenian: sonce sin
http://freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=4835#p4835
It's sad to see Bart Errorman attack your work while knowing almost nothing about it. He obviously just skimmed it looking around for whatever knee-jerk reaction he could have. He has ruined his reliability and credibility with his recent book full of sloppy and egregious errors. As other scholars are now saying, it's a "hack job."
All these words originate from the Sanskrit word "soonu" meaning the result of what is sown, the offspring
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|2012-04-06 10:04:26 Michael - I Know As Little As Anyone Else!MMM Acharya humans perceptive capacity is always personal. I could give quite a few examples of this but why would I? Lets face it, we humans create our perception with a balance of our "mental" perceptions and our "physical" perceptions. Depending on how you personally perceive reality you will create a conscious physical and mental perception, usually on your left side body with a subconscious mental and physical perception usually on your right side body, a conscious mental and physical perception usually on your right side body with a subconscious physical and mental perception usually on your left side body and sometimes an interactive mental and physical perception on your left side body, your right side body or both sides of your person at the same time. However depending who you perceive yourself to be and what you perceive yourself as doing in your own life will determine which side is conscious, which side is subconscious and if at any time at all both the left and right sides of your body are conscious at the same time. Just to add confusion to this description, if you have learnt this knowledge in what the ancient Vikings named either the Loki or the Odin way, then it is also possible that you could be a quite mature adult before this perceptive understanding was completely assembled. Establishing your personal perception of who you are, what you do and how much perceptive capacity you have is always a personal choice. This is why all ancient texts never described the technique mentioned as how could an initiator of any type tell if you were being truthful at your own initiation if you also knew what to answer at your initiation?
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|2012-04-06 18:34:18 Pray Hard - And, Lord, help us ...Easter Bunnies too!
And in art ...
I mean, reeeeaaaallllllllyyyyy, how could anyone perceive Jesus as a Sun God?!
https://www.kimbellart.org/Collections/Collections-Detail.aspx?prov=fa lse&cons=false&cid=8502
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|2012-04-06 19:42:31 Pray Hard - ProjectionI find it odd that we, as humans, push awe away from us. I mean, the "first" awakened intellect, when looking at the sun, must have been awestruck. The sun itelf, the dome of the sky, the plants and animals and the joy of being alive for a short while, must have been enough for this species for a very long time. Then we get a little brainier and begin to push it away, invent other unseen things that must be THE deity. And we've not stopped pushing and layering ever since. We stopped looking at what is as the numinous and end up personifying our awe and attributing human characteristics to it and inventing circular arguments, get it all mixed up, forget the roots of it all, the powerful usurp it and we sit here bickering like a bunch of chimps who have lost their alpha male.
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|2012-04-07 00:50:28 JH Chrestos - Lazy EhrmanI am profoundly disappointed in Ehrman. Not only for attacking Acharya's well documented work but perhaps more for his intellectual hypocrisy. He was able to demonstrate that the Bible is nonsensical in all of its contradiction as well as the many geological and anachronistic errors, and yet he still can't let go of the defensiveness. His scholarship is very weak to say the least. Unfortunately there will be many lazy people that will accept his lazy-ass criticism and not research it for their lazy-ass selves.
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|2012-04-14 22:47:54 Pennsylvania Non-Believer - There may be a sun refererence in the quote from JI have read that the New Testament quote, "He Must Increase, But I Must Decrease," which is attributed to John the Baptist, is rooted in solar/astronomical-based mythology. Jesus is said to have been born on December 25, the approximate point in the year when the length of daily daylight begins to increase. John the Baptist is said to have been born on June 25, the approximate point in the year when the length of daily daylight begins to decrease. I think that this solar symmetry corresponding to the purported birth dates of these two figures lends support to the theory that the Biblical accounts are rooted in mythology.
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|2012-04-15 00:51:32 Acharya SYes, that is precisely correct, as concerns the astrotheological interpretation of these biblical concepts.
See my article:
Christmas and the ancient winter-solstice festivals of light around...
And our forum thread:
John the Baptist and Jesus' Birthdays
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|2012-04-26 23:10:25 Bob Wahler - increase, decreasePenn. NB,
The increase/decrease comment by John is regarding the predecessor Master (John) wanting to aggrandize the successor (Jesus) so that his followers will follow the new Master. See www.RSSB.org for more (about living Mastership)
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|2012-04-28 20:19:57 Pennsylvania Non-Believer - On its face, "increase . . . decrease" is the lessOf course, in the context of the narrative, the "increase . . . decrease" statement by John the Baptist refers the diminution of the last prophet upon the savior's emergence. However, skeptics who doubt that either figure ever existed point to what appears to be the gimmickry of church tradition which holds that the last prophet was born at the summer solstice and the savior was born at the winter solstice. Why would the supreme being care about such niceties?
Also, I read an essay of a skeptic who believes that John the Baptist indeed existed and was executed at the order of the king, but that the reason was insurrection, not female duplicity, which makes for a more interesting story.
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|2012-04-15 13:48:17 LucyWhooops, so Ehrman (aka Errorman) didn't even read the books he was criticizing as Ehrman's grad student assistant admits that, "Ehrman did not even read the Mythicist books but farmed them o...
English: sun son
Old English: sunne sunnu
Afrikaans: son seun
Dutch: zon zoon
German: Sonne Sohn
Slovenian: sonce sin
http://freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=4835#p4835
It's sad to see Bart Errorman attack your work while knowing almost nothing about it. He obviously just skimmed it looking around for whatever knee-jerk reaction he could have. He has ruined his reliability and credibility with his recent book full of sloppy and egregious errors. As other scholars are now saying, it's a "hack job."