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Pygmies in The Christ Conspiracy

In my book The Christ Conspiracy, in the chapter entitled, "Evidence of an Ancient Global Civilization," I included as part of the evidence of various pre-Christian themes a brief discussion of the African people who have been deemed "Pygmies." My concluding the book with the earliest rudiments of humanity's religious ideas was the logical thing to do, as should be evident, in consideration of the fact that I deliberately set out to trace these sacred concepts as far back as I could. The book's theme is to demonstrate that various cherished religious ideas within Christianity could be found in pre-Christian religion and mythology in many cultures around the globe dating back to the earliest times.

Therefore, I made my way backward in time to show what these religious rudiments were and where they could be discovered. Obviously, if I am going to look for the earliest rudiments of various religious ideas, and if I accept that the theory of evolution is accurate and that there was in Africa a "Genetic Eve" from whom most of humanity descends, I'm going to look for the origins of these religious beliefs in Africa. Fortunately, I was not disappointed, as I found the work of Dr. Jean-Pierre Hallet concerning his beloved Efe Pygmies. But I did not discover this research on my own: In his book Christianity Before Christ, Dr. John G. Jackson pointed the way there, in his likewise logical progression tracing the history of "Christian" religious ideas.

Dr. Jackson is a black scholar who was one of the "pioneering" mythicists of the modern era. To me, it was blatantly obvious why Jackson included this information concerning the Pygmies in his book designed to show that what we call "Christianity" existed long before the purported advent of Jesus Christ.

To do so, Jackson provided a wealth of information that included the fascinating research by Belgian anthropologist Dr. Jean-Pierre Hallet, who lived with various groups of Pygmies in Africa for some 20 years. Dr. Hallet's Pygmy friends told him some basic stories that may well date back many thousands of years and that resembled closely certain biblical tales, including a basic summary of the gospel story.

In Christianity Before Christ (175), Jackson summarizes:


From this one quote, it should be quite obvious why I would include this research in my book, which, like Jackson's, seeks to demonstrate that the story in the New Testament is unhistorical and can be found as myth and tradition in other cultures long before Christ allegedly walked the earth. The facts recited by Jackson here alone should suffice in demonstrating that the gospel tale is a fictional rehash of an old mythical theme that can be found even in the most primitive cultures, evidently dating back thousands of years.

In his book Pygmy Kitabu (27), Hallet states:


The value of this astonishing passage should be obvious, as it basically recounts a number of Bible tales, which supposedly only occurred in the Middle East somewhere and were recorded only by the chosen people in God's Word. If the Pygmies had this story and it could not have been borrowed by any outside source, then it is patently unoriginal to the Bible - and it could hardly reflect "history." It is an obvious myth that dates back to long before Israel was ever heard of.

Jackson continues (175):


In addition to these fascinating claims, the Pygmies are enigmatic evidently for another reason, which I briefly discussed in Christ Con (389): The question of race. While we see the Pygmies as black Africans, it has also been claimed they are a "caucasoid people." In passing along that contention, I have tried to make sense of it all, although I did not set out to write a tome on anthropology. I made the suggestion that the Pygmies were a sort of racial "missing link" in this regard.

The Bible is neither original nor historical

As it obviously was in Jackson's book, the point of the Pygmy bit in my book The Christ Conspiracy was to show that basic "Bible" stories - held up to be "God's Word" - can be found in primitive cultures apparently unaffected by the Bible or any of the other cultures therein. The presence of these stories in isolated primitive cultures demonstrate that they have nothing to do with certain "chosen people" thousands of miles away who presented themselves as direct pipelines to God.

Rather than mocking or ridiculing these ideas, a scientific person may wish to do some actual research on these fascinating subjects.

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

"So this early artwork is said to be more than 70 000 years old. The name of the cave is Rhino cave and it is located in the Tsodilo Hills in Botswana."
http://www.allempires.net/forum/adams-c ... 24707.html

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2013 Astrotheology Calendar
The Mythicist Position
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
Stellar House Publishing at Youtube

Interesting. Someone at Facebook just made this comment in response to my post about the Pygmies there:

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Pygmy Kitabu by Jean-Pierre Hallet

In preparation for the forthcoming revision of Christ Con, I am reading the book Pygmy Kitabu by Belgian sociologist Dr. Jean-Pierre Hallet, who lived off and on for some 60 years among the Efe Pygmies of the Ituri Forest in the Congo.

Dr. Hallet was a sober and well-educated scientist who spent considerable time studying every aspect of the Efe people, including their religion, myths and spiritual notions. I briefly wrote about the Pygmies as part of the last chapter in Christ Con, entitled "Evidence of a Global Civilization." Naturally, bibliolaters, apologists and others who never bothered to read Hallet's account have made ignorant and untoward comments about the Belgian anthropologist because he describes a number of Pygmy religious and spiritual ideas as the older and primordial source of much Judeo-Christian ideology. His commonsensical observations based on a knowledge of pre-Christian and pre-Judaic religious concepts have caused apoplexy in certain quarters, with vitriol and calumny tossed his way, such as the offensive libel that he did not know his subject matter and that he ignored possible influences from missionaries and other sources.

In Pygmy Kitabu, Hallet analyzes his subject matter very well, including whether or not Judeo-Christianity could have influenced the Pygmies. Hence, in reading the book I wondered whether or not his critics had themselves even read it before they presented themselves as "experts" on his work. From their remarks, it seems impossible that they could have read the book. Instead, it appears they read a summary and then assumed Hallet had ignored the possible influence of Christians in the area, when in fact he addresses the subject quite thoroughly, even describing his ongoing battles with them in their attempts at "Christianizing" the Pygmies, essentially bringing the latter numerous problems, including ill health because of efforts at forcing suffocating Western clothing on them in the rainforest.

In his decades of observation of the Pygmies, Hallet had plenty of time to sort out what was original to Pygmy tradition and what may have been external influences. He is also certain that the Pygmies rejected the efforts of the missionaries, as they claimed they already possessed many of the germane "Judeo-Christian" or "Abrahamic" concepts but that they actually lived them and had done so for eons, long before the "First Contact" of 1870 by German explorer Georg Schweinfurth (Halley, 13)

As Hallet explains, up to that point, the Congolese Pygmies had been isolated from any external contact since the time of the Egyptian prince Herkhuf's expedition to their territory, some 4,000 years ago. He insists that, since that time, the Pygmies remained uninfluenced by the outside world, even expressing contempt for many of the "superior" ideas foreigners to their lands attempted to foist upon them. For example, they resisted various forms of technology, such as ways to make fire, even so primitively as rubbing sticks together. (Hallet, 4) Under such circumstances, it seems impossible that the Pygmies would simply throw off whatever religious, spiritual and mythical traditions they had possessed for thousands of years in order to adopt Christianity. Moreover, the fact is that little of what the Pygmies contend to be their native religious traditions dating back many thousands of years, long before the Bible was ever written, is difficult to believe as part of primary and obvious human philosophical perceptions.

Interestingly, Hallet wrote Pygmy Kitabu in significant part to demonstrate these contentions of "biblical" religious concepts being an indigenous part of one of the world's oldest cultures. The book is some 416 pages of proofs of this contention, the subtitle being, "A revealing account of the origin and legends of the African Pygmies." In demonstrating this thesis of "biblical" religious ideas originating in primordial times with the Pygmies, eons before Judaism and Christianity were created, Hallet begins with an analysis of the Pygmies as an archetypal humanity, one of the oldest races on Earth and a sort of "missing link" between earlier hominids and taller homo sapiens. In this regard, he says (4):


In determining the value of Pygmy legend, therefore, Hallet remarks:


So determined to remain with their old ways were the Pygmies that, again, they viewed the use of "friction firesticks as a newfangled, rather blasphemous invention."

After proceeding through a mindboggling discussion of skin color, race and facial features, revealing that the Pygmies are very Caucasian in some aspects (5ff), Hallet continues with his analysis of the religious traditions of the Efe people. In this regard, he describes the Pygmy god as "a very tall, elderly and sternly dignified white man with a long wavy beard" (Hallet, 8 ), a strange description for a native people, as most often, it seems, native peoples will envision gods that look like themselves. Of course, they will also perceive anthropomorphized forces of many shapes, colors, forms and both genders, and, while the Pygmies may have had a tall white man as a main god, the Egyptians placed the Pygmy at times as the top god (as evidenced by the Metternich stela, discussed below). This Efe god figure, obviously, does sound very Judeo-Christian, which is one of the points of Hallet's present work, to demonstrate that these are not in fact Judeo-Christian concepts but, rather, long predate the alleged appearances of Abraham, Moses and Jesus.

In presenting Pygmy beliefs, Hallet also discusses the famous explorer Henry Morton Stanley, the originator of the famous query, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Says Hallet (12):


Interestingly, DNA studies have demonstrated a "Genetic Eve" from which much of humanity can trace descent, from a tribe located in Southeastern Africa, not very far from where the Pygmies have thrived for thousands of years.

Over and over again, we hear about the great character of these little people, and, again, it would seem to be calumny of the highest order to suggest that they were lying about their religious and mythical traditions, as it would be likewise in making the same pronouncement of "deceit" or "naivete" concerning Dr. Hallet.

Regarding the Pygmies' religion, Hallet states (13):


As we can see, there is much "Christian" doctrine in the pre-Christian Egyptian and Greek religion/mythology, which may logically also be found in the Pygmy religion, as an even earlier and more primordial expression.

Speaking of the time between the expedition of Prince Herkhuf and that of Georg Schweinfurth, Hallet remarks (13):


Having studied many of the world's religions dating back thousands of years, including the complex theology and mythology of Egypt, I can verify that numerous "Judeo-Christian" concepts precede their purported origin as "divine revelation" to Hebrew, Israelite and Jewish prophets and son of God. Since the virgin mother concept, for one, unquestionably predates the Christian era by many thousands of years, there exists little reason to suppose this "oldest of races" adopted this belief from Christianity, rather than being one of its earliest founts. The same can be said for the concept of an original couple, such as "Adam" and "Eve," which is quite logical for anyone who has observed reproduction and wondered about the origins of humanity.

There is nothing remarkable about a giant male deity somewhere "out there" either, as the same can be found in Egyptian religion. Indeed, it would make sense if the Egyptians themselves were reflecting these older African traditions, especially since DNA studies evidently reveal a common human ancestor not far from where these myths are claimed to originate. The notion of the Pygmy religion - or its apparent and more complex offshoot in Egypt - being "monotheistic" seems paradoxical; however, many theologies, including the Christian and Muslim, perceive a single divinity as the source of all of creation, with numerous expressions, such as gods, goddesses or angels.

There is much more to this fascinating subject, including that while he has been disparaged, seemingly by individuals who have not even read his work, Hallet has extraordinary credentials and a truly exemplary career in which he sacrificed much for his passion. In this regard, he remarks:


I see nothing outrageous, illogical or irrational about what Dr.Hallet has claimed regarding primitive religious ideas dating back thousands of years and originating significantly with one of the world's oldest races, the Pygmies. Indeed, I am quite certain that these ideas do indeed predate Judeo-Christianity by thousands of years, having their origin in observations of the natural world. Hallet's extraordinary career and dedication to humanity are highly respectable and his claims very plausible.

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

They're little like I am, except I'm not Black. I assume the short stature that is common in my relatives, at least on my mother's side is due to the Pixs (spelling?) in our ancestry, but I am not certain because I know little about them. I am almost certain most every continent had to have had little people who were genetically like that and not a genetic deformative, otherwise (theoretically) there would not be people who are naturally under 5' tall. If the Pygmy deity was a horrid old man, then what was the Pix's deity?

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Mriana

Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man. ~ Gandhi

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. ~ Thomas A. Edison

Fascinating material Acharya. It shows that the symbols of Christianity have deep psychological roots in religious explanation of reality. The observation that these symbols are also found in Pygmy myth, independently of their Abrahamic context, shows how they resonate with other efforts to provide a satisfying story, touching on archetypal images of fall and redemption.

You are completely correct to condemn apologists who attack these findings about Pygmy religion. One issue that arises here is how it is more productive in discussing this material to use it to develop a positive story about the inner meaning of religion, rather than as a way to just attack religion. There are a lot of people, especially in atheist circles, who jump at any chance to belittle religion as a whole as stupid and fraudulent. However, if we can say the similarity between Christianity and completely unconnected traditions shows how Christianity meets real emotional needs, it offers a path to say that Christianity has a positive message in a hidden inner story that has been concealed by the rubble of the popular literal historical orthodoxy. The hidden message is what we can call esoteric, while the popular message is the dumbed-down exoteric version. The problem in Christianity is that esoteric understanding has been so savagely suppressed that people cannot even imagine it exists.

So, it makes me wonder what language is most useful in encouraging people to engage with the message contained here. When you say "the gospel tale is a fictional rehash of an old mythical theme", what you say is literally true. Some readers might consider that it puts the Christian story overall in an unduly purely negative light. How I see Christian origins is that the Gospels were written on the model of the work of King Josiah in "finding" the book of Deuteronomy in the seventh century. This is a theme flagged by Israel Finkelstein in his book The Bible Unearthed. What it suggests is the intent of the gospels was to support the political agenda of demolishing the moral foundations of the Roman Empire.

We can point to the Dark Ages as evidence that this Christian project of presenting a fictional universal faith was misconceived, leading to a hostility to reason, but I suspect that such a reading imputes the errors of later Christians to the Gospels themselves. If the Gospels were actually written with an intent to have a dual story, an exoteric popular version for mass consumption concealing an esoteric hidden version, then attacking the gospel as just fiction, and using the pejorative term 'rehash', runs the risk of suggesting there is no redeeming content within the gospel. By bringing all the Gods together into a unified incarnate figure as a moral basis for religious sentiment in the common era, Christianity did provide something new, even as it concealed its tracks as it found the popular lie overwhelmed the esoteric meaning.

Adam's Calendar youtube video


Astronomical Alignment
http://www.makomati.org/pages/adams-calendar.php

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2013 Astrotheology Calendar
The Mythicist Position
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
Stellar House Publishing at Youtube

More on Pygmy Kitabu by Jean-Pierre Hallet

I can't tell you how much I am enjoying this book! This is one of the best books I've ever read. It's so packed full of fascinating information that, even though I'm only 93 pages in, my copy is full of sticky tabs, probably averaging three per page. I'd love to republish this incredibly important book.

It's a thick book and, again, it's practically all about the Pygmy religion, myths and other oral traditions. As I stated in my earlier post, Hallet goes into the anthropology of the region, the various Pygmy groups in particular, and even though he wrote decades before DNA studies began seriously unraveling genetic migrations and relationships - the book was published in 1973 - he got it substantially correct, based on types, languages, traditions and other anthropological and cultural aspects.

Hallet posits that the "Caucasoid" race arose in the same general area as the Pygmies, which just happens to be one of the sources of the White Nile. He cites much Egyptian mythology and tradition to validate his case, including that the Egyptians themselves revered the Pygmies as their primal ancestors and divinities. Hallet shows how Egyptian mythology points to the very region of Africa for the origins of the Egyptians' ethnicity. Both the Egyptians and the Pygmies place this original "Garden of Eden" in the "Mountains of the Moon" or Rwenzori Mountains on the border of Uganda and the Congo, again one of the White Nile sources.

This region just happens to be fairly near Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, where famed anthropologist Dr. Louis Leakey and his family spent decades excavating some of the oldest hominid remains ever found, such as "Lucy." The Pygmies, as we know, are one of the oldest races on the planet, and it is hypothesized that they evolved from Homo erectus before other races. DNA studies also point to the general region as being the place of the "Genetic Eve." Thus, in the Pygmies we find a very old race that has remained largely untouched until the last few decades, although they've been in contact with black Africans whom Hallet, using the jargon of the day, calls "Negros."

Nevertheless, the Pygmies retained their culture relatively intact, again, as Hallet demonstrates on page after page of Pygmy Kitabu, the latter word meaning "book." To reiterate, contrary to the erroneous impression given by his critics, many of whom appear to be Christians and bibliolaters, Hallet repeatedly addresses the idea that the Pygmies could have been influenced by outsiders, including and especially Christian missionaries, such that their traditions were "tainted" with biblical influence. However, other than the fact that so many of their manners, rituals and legends are similar to biblical traditions, there is no evidence whatsoever that the Pygmy religion and mythology were influenced by Judaism, Christianity or Islam. Hallet gives many reasons for this contention, including analysis of the history of the region, the Pygmy languages and various other disciplines.

Following are more excerpts to this effect, fetched from the hundreds of sections marked by sticky tabs in my book. In proving his contentions, Hallet draws upon the research of other anthropologists as well, including a Catholic priest named Schebesta, who, in an admission against interest, likewise asserted that the Pygmies were not influenced by outsiders in their legends, which are clearly proto-biblical. Hallet also includes in his discussion the local missionary group the "Little Sisters," whom he discovered had virtually no impact or influence on the Pygmies, other than getting them addicted to cigarettes and sugar so they had to keep coming back for more.


Hallet also relates that the Pygmies did not make their language easy to learn, and few outsiders knew much of it at all. If the Pygmies had learned their "biblical" tales from outsiders, it is obvious they would have foreign intrusions into their languages, such as "Abraham," "Moses" and "Jesus," which they didn't. There simply is no evidence whatsoever of external influences on their religious traditions and myths.

Hallet further states (19):


Hallet also shows how the Egyptians likely derived some of their important myths from the Pygmies, whom the former viewed as their ancestors. He recounts the following:


Here we see that the relevant Pygmy "biblical" motifs need not have come from the Judeo-Christian tradition at all, as they could have come from the Egyptian religion - or vice versa, as Hallet would suggest. However, I do see a problem with the mention of iron in the Pygmy legend that needs further research - did the Pygmies have iron? When? How do they know of it?

Anyway, there is much, much more to this amazing book and tale, and I highly recommend everyone interested plow through this 400+page book. It's actually not a chore for me, since I can't wait to keep reading it!

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Incidentally, even in Hindi, Kitab means a book!

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Janani Janmabhoomishcha Swargadapi Gareeyasi - Being near to your mother in your motherland is better than being in paradise

Ekavarnam yatha dugdham binnavarnasu dhenushu | tataiva dharmavaichitryam tatvam ekam param smritam ||
Just as milk is of only one colour though obtained from cows of different colours so also the peculiarities of different religious thoughts lead to the same one ultimate truth - Mahabharatha

I wanted to post the relevant parts from the inside flap of the jacket cover to Pygmy Kitabu:

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2013 Astrotheology Calendar
The Mythicist Position
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
Stellar House Publishing at Youtube

Freethought Nation Blog:

Garden of Eden originally a Pygmy myth?

_________________
2013 Astrotheology Calendar
The Mythicist Position
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
Stellar House Publishing at Youtube

Okay, here's the skinny on this subject: I've had to remove this entire chapter, because of space considerations. Along the same lines, I've had to remove the "Out of Egypt or India?" chapter as well. The book is leaning towards 700 pages as it is already without those chapters.

This fascinating material will be saved for a book on the "lost religion."

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it: