Freethought Nation

I knew that this thread was going to be opened one way or another, but I would like to ask, any idea when the new version is going to be released?

She's still working on it but keeps getting distracted with other important things that must be dealt with. I would guess (hope) the 2nd edition to Christ Conspiracy would be out by summer next year (2012) but, even that is no guaranty because it will depend on how much she gets distracted with other important things between now and then. She certainly has been able to respond to the criticism of that 1st book by substantiating claims with primary sources and scholar commentary on them.

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

Ah ok, well I ask mainly cause I was thinking about waiting to do my analysis of the zeitgeist debunkers until her other book comes out but if its going to be a year then I won't wait that long.

Yeah, I don't think I'd wait if I were you.

The good news is that most everything in the book has been confirmed since the book first came out in 1999. She has loads of 'the best of the best' sources with highly respected and credentialed scholars from a wide variety of disciplines and backgrounds from the best academic university presses substantiating her book. She will essentially do with CC what she did with the new Zeitgeist Part 1 Sourcebook (2010) as spelled out in the preface. The 2nd edition will most likely be peer reviewed as well.

In the Dr. Price interview with Acharya, she says that Christ Conspiracy was never intended to be a scholarly treatise written for scholars but, rather, for the general public. The new 2nd edition will be academically sound.

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

I thought I'd keep you abreast of how the revision is going. It's going! And going, and going...

There is SO much material that the original book of some 450 pages has ballooned up to over 550 pages, and that's with three of the original chapters already cut out!

With an eye to including them in my "lost religion" book, I have removed the chapters "Out of Egypt or India?" and "Evidence of an Ancient Global Civilization." There is much new material in those chapters as well, but it will have to wait. I have also removed "The Bible, Sex and Drugs."

One of the reasons I didn't write much on, say, the nonbiblical sources for Christ was because the scholars and researchers I'd read were mostly of one mind and reflective of the debate of the time, which was that Josephus was a forgery in toto and that the value of the others was "problematic and scanty," to quote a contemporary Bible scholar.

This time around, I have expanded those sections to include an extensive analysis of each supposed source, e.g., Josephus, Pliny, Suetonius, Tacitus, the Talmud, Thallus, Phlegon, Mara bar-Serapion, etc. - the usual suspects. That 550-page figure above doesn't even include my Josephus section, which currently is a 100-page draft that will also be turned into a book and summarized in CC.

I have not only expanded those sections, but I have drilled down the sources previously cited - sometimes secondhand, because I didn't have access to all these texts now available through the miracle of being online - frequently including the text in its original language, such as Greek or Latin. Obviously, these annotations are taking up a great deal of space!

So the front of the book is becoming very "top heavy" on the analysis of the historical record, not only as concerns these various supposed "sources" for "Jesus of Nazareth," but also "fleshing out," so to speak, the sections on the Gnostics, especially the Docetic strain, who denied "Christ come in the flesh." It seems absurd that, knowing what the Docetists were truly saying - as admitted against interest by a number of early Church fathers, such as Irenaeus - anyone would claim that only in the past few centuries has it been asserted Christ never walked the earth. That contention is the very essence of Docetism.

The meaning of "Doceticism" is clearly skewed to make it appear as if there was some historical Jesus who truly had exploits in Judea during the reign of Pontius Pilate. However, the Docetics described their "gospel story" as taking place in the "heavenly pleroma," an etheric level above the material world, which they deemed as evil. Since the pleroma represents all that it is divine, it was impossible for the Gnostic Christ to take incarnation in this lower world - that is what the Docetists insist.

Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines one meaning of "historical" as:


From this definition, it is evident the Docetic Christ was not historical!

The above represents some of the material I've been including in the revision. As I say, there is so much, I'm overwhelmed!

I've also been developing the whole Christos-Chrestos area of research, which I mentioned in the original CC and in Suns of God. With the fantastic access of texts available through the net, I can really get into the nitty-gritty of this issue, which turns out to be one of the most paramount, a real "smoking gun" of sorts.

In any event, with all this added material, I'm hard-pressed to cut out more. I'm expecting that the draft will balloon up to at least 700 or 800 pages, before I'm done with the first edit. It's very difficult to exclude any of it. And I haven't even gotten to most of the finds and forgeries reported in the past decade, such as Gospel of Judas, James Ossuary, Jesus Family Tomb and the rest!

Phew. So, we may be looking at a second volume, but I'm lost at this point about what to remove.

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

Okay, here's another update, based on the following question from a friend on Google+/Facebook, Kevin Casey:


Oh, they're major revisions all right! Phew! I've added hundreds of pages of material that supports most of my major and many of my minor contentions. I've had to remove several chapters in order to fit it all in. The gist will be the same, but I've expanded certain sections that were of the most interest to people over the past 12 years since Christ Con was first published.

For example, I've done an extensive analysis of the Josephus material, with the most modern research and arguments (such as Alice Whealey). I've got 100+ pages of draft on that one alone, but I'm going to have to cut it down drastically, obviously.

I'm also expanding the "Characters" chapter, not only giving it a facelift a la my original "Origins of Christianity" article, which I revised a couple of years ago, but also including more characters. Christian apologists especially like this chapter, so I thought I'd give them more food for thought - there's a veritable banquet of it.

All nicely cited, of course, using primary sources and the works of credentialed authorities in relevant fields, from antiquity to the most modern. I'm also including a slew of Hebrew analysis throughout that is quite eye-opening. Ditto with the Greek. Absolutely fascinating.

The past decade has brought a huge influx of information available at our fingertips. I am now able to use the greatest concentration of data in history, at the click of a mouse. I can search in multiple languages over millions of volumes, including original texts now electronically provided, such as the Codex Sinaiticus, the earliest extant copy of the Bible. Talk about eye-opening! Mind-boggling!

Never before has anyone done what I'm doing - they couldn't have without this technology, and many still can't, because I'm searching in original languages dating back thousands of years. The old schoolers who know languages often don't have the tech skills to do what I'm doing. It's a rare combination. It's incredibly exciting, in fact, to unravel these gnarly knots, exposing these treasures that have been buried so long, to surface here and there, and be forgotten.

Over the many years I've been doing this work, it's been like putting together a 1-million-piece puzzle of polar bears sleeping in the snow. With this new technology, the puzzle pieces are now being found, turned and plopped into place more smoothly than ever.

Wait and see...

There's a reason my nursery/pre-school teacher put me in charge of putting together the puzzles at the end of the day...

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

So Acharya, Its safe to say you are an atheist... Correct? I read part of the Suns of God, and I've been going over your sight. I'm interested in reading the remainder of The Suns of God, as well as your other books. The fact is you make a lot of good points, and you can tell you've done your homework. I'm also fascinated with mythology, theology, astro theology, or anything else that has to do with world belief systems and religion. I also don't believe in the mainstream views on these subjects. The point where we differ are your extreme opinions and arguements regarding God, or a higher being. You posses a great deal of knowledge, and I find your conclusions (the conclusions I've gone over) a bit disturbing. I'm not here to criticize you, rather come to a better understanding of the message you are trying to convey. I will finish reading your work, for the answer to my question may exist in your writings. I just figured I would just simply ask, to see what response I would provoke. I am also writing a book called The Big Picture Theory on Religion. While we express some of the same ideas on the bondage religion creates. I focus more on the misunderstanding of Holy txt, and how they are tied together to give a greater msg than any one religion or prophet of any time or era. I hope I'm not offending you with this post, I'm just curious to understand... What is your overall msg you want to convey?

I am almost finished with the book. Loved it but still not certain on the myth aspect. Looking forward to the second edition and more data. I am also a fan of Bart Ehrmans books. He is coming out with a new book on the historicity of Jesus. I look forward to comparing his and your data. Just a story about me. I come from the Born Again Christian background. I had a born again experience when I was 12 years old. It was only in the last 4 years that I had an awakening and started to have my eyes opened. I am still spiritual but have let go of the baggage. I am 43 now so it was a long haul with a lot of baggage. Please let me know if you ever come to New York City for any book signings etc. Would love to talk to you about your research.
John

Welcome to the party John.

Many of us here were former religious devotees of various sorts such as Seventh-day Adventists and many others. I was a saved, baptized evangelical for around 20 years.

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

wow! would love to hear your story. Thanks for the welcome. I hope the second book makes an even bigger splash. There should be meet ups for recovering evangelical folks.

Re Did Jesus Exist? by Bart Ehrman, the book sounds entirely forgettable, but it's sure to stir things up. I know he contacted Bob Price for this one, but he did not contact me, of course. The fact that he came out with this ebook so quickly, along with his conclusion, indicates that he has not studied this particular subject in any real depth and is therefore not an expert on it. I would bet that most if not all of his arguments have already been addressed by one or more of us mythicists, from Doherty to Price to Humphreys, Lindtner and yours truly. Should be interesting - especially in light of the Christ Con revision I'm currently working on.

"...yes, Jesus did actually exist" - AGREED! As a MYTHICAL FIGURE.

This should be very amusing. It's likely he'll trot out Josephus, Pliny, Suetonius and Tacitus, since those are the bedrock apologies for the "historical" Jesus. Doubtful he will put much weight on Phlegon, Thallus and Mara bar-Serapion, however. And I'll bet he didn't deal with much comparative religion and mythology at all, since from his writings he does not seem to know very much about the subject. That's not something you can learn in a year or two: I've been studying these specific subjects vis-a-vis the Christ myth - in multiple languages from materials dating back thousands of years to the earliest times - for over 20 years.

I should add that I have REAMS more material - it's pouring in every day - to PROVE essentially the contention that Christ is a mythical figure. There is a mountain of it, and dollars to donuts Ehrman didn't scratch the surface. It's fantastic that Ehrman has had to write this book, admitting that there's a vast number of people asking the question of whether or not Jesus existed. That's quite an improvement from yesteryear, when people merely believed based on fiat/decree from perceived experts like Ehrman. Such as:


I see, so Ehrman is putting his foot down now, and he is the Almighty Authority to be believed, simply by wave of his hand and public decree, since it is more than likely he's not come up with any new, scientific evidence to prove this contention, and his arguments are likely to be the same hackneyed ones we've already addressed repeatedly for decades and centuries.

Thus, Acharya has decided it's time to put the issue to rest. Yes, the "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a mythical figure.

Ehrman's framed the argument incorrectly. We mythicists are not out to "disprove the existence of Jesus of Nazareth" or any other Jesus for that matter. We are showing - using an abundance of evidence that never quits coming - that the figure of "Jesus Christ" in the New Testament is a fictional composite, i.e., a literary or mythical character. It's really that simple, logical, rational and scientific.

Showing the void in the historical record for any such figure is merely the beginning, which Ehrman seems to think is the end. Like I say, he's no expert in comparative mythology, and he probably doesn't realize how much of the gospel story is patently from Pagan religions. Nor does he realize that the rest of the tale is basically copied from the Septuagint or Greek Old Testament, as well as Josephus and other texts, such as I explained in The Christ Conspiracy. The so-called "messianic prophecies" were used in order to create this composite figure, merging it with the attributes and tales of Pagan gods. When these factors are removed, there is little to nothing left that is "historical." This fact of there remaining little to nothing "historical" when the gospel story is dissected I demonstrated in my book Christ Con over a decade ago, and if Ehrman hasn't read it, again, he's not well enough informed about mythicist arguments to be writing this book.

Like I say, it's not difficult to understand or demonstrate in this day and age. How someone could sift through this massive material demonstrating this logical contention and come away with another viewpoint is curious, to say the least, except I'm wagering that he did NOT sift through it to any depth, and I'll also be blunt in asserting that his a priori assumption that Christ is a historical figure, albeit evemerized, is a reflection of uncritical conditioning, not scientific analysis.

When the mythical layers are removed, there is no core to the onion. A composite of 20 people, whether mythical or historical, is no one.

What Ehrman and other evemerists fail to grasp is that an evemerized "Jesus of Nazareth" - a "historical" figure to whom numerous attributes and sayings that were not originally his but came from others - is still a composite, i.e., a literary or fictional character! Is there a "historical" Gulliver? Some of his adventurers took place in real locations, such as England. Somebody said the things he said - do these facts mean that somewhere under the fictional attributes and borrowed commentary there's a "real" Gulliver of any significance?

By the way, here's one of the latest great mythicist texts:

Buddhism's Relation to Christianity
by Dr. Michael Lockwood

Lockwood's got the goods here on the Buddhist influence on Christian formation, using ancient texts, imagery and other primary sources, as well as intelligent and scientific arguments, including reproducing some of Lindtner's work in English. He includes Bob Price's review of my book Christ in Egypt. Ehrman's going to have his hands full if he's on a mission to refute the entire mythicist field, such as books like this one.


Made you look!

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

I didn't even know he had it out as an e book already. Everything you wrote above may be so but i will read it myself and decide which is what I did with your book. The strongest arguments for me were the beliefs of the gnostics and how they did not accept the historicity of Jesus. They were a large segment for many years and would have seen evidence for a real Jesus better than us 2000 years later. Here is my question for you. On Paul. I now that there are atheists, liberal scholars (erhman is both) that all say that though there are indeed forged letters of paul in the new testament ( 1 tim etc) It seems to be the consensus that 1 corinthinas is a genuine letter from paul and the earliest book in the new testament. I didn't feel the arguments; for paul being a mythical figure or that his talk about the resurrection were added later were very strong. Is there other books , sites that delve into this further?

I also wanted to say that I LOVED the "myth of hebrew monotheism" chapter. Very eye opening and very well done!

The Ehrman e-book won't actually be available until 11/22/2011 for $5.99. It doesn't say how many pages it will be.

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