Freethought Nation

I think that is actually a good objection, and it deserves thought. I think Christianity may be at least somewhat unique with respect to the fact that it seemingly went from one culture to another: from the Jews to the Greeks. Not only that, but it crossed languages: from Aramaic to Greek. And, its fame magnified the most among the Greeks, not the Jews. The gospels were written in Greek for Greeks, with the exception of the gospel of Matthew, which was apparently written in Greek for Jews of the Greek-speaking Hellenistic-diaspora who didn't live in Israel. Among all Christian communities of the gospels, their knowledge of Israeli culture comes to them only through spoken myth and second-hand information at best. And, they apparently got things wrong, because (1) they were wishful thinkers, and (2) they just didn't know.

For example, Luke claimed that there was a synagogue in Jesus' hometown of Nazareth, where Jesus read a passage from a scroll of Isaiah (actually misquoting it), convincing everyone in the synagogue that he is the messiah. A native Jew would be, at best, surprised to learn that there was a synagogue in Nazareth, because synagogues existed only in larger cities, and Nazareth was very small and out of the way. The Greek myth-tellers had freedom to speculate about what existed in Nazareth, because they wanted to believe certain things about Nazareth, they actually didn't know anything about Nazareth, and there was no one to tell them wrong.

Likewise, they had freedom to speculate about the popularity of Jesus among the Jews of Israel, a culture that was perfectly foreign. They didn't live in Israel, and they wanted to believe that Jesus was popular, being followed everywhere by thousands of people for Jesus' wise teachings. There was nobody to tell those Greek-speakers wrong, so they told it among themselves and believed it.

That is the basic idea of myth-telling: believe and tell what you want and expect, as long as it is not obviously wrong. A lot more claims may be obviously wrong about what is popular in your own culture. If someone were to tell you that Acharya S is a very popular author in your own country, then you may know that is not true, even though you may want it to be true, and you would not pass along that obviously-false claim. But, if someone were to tell you that they have it on good authority that Acharya S is a very popular author in Egypt, then you may be inclined to believe it and tell it again to someone else, if it helps reinforce a point that you want other people to understand. Unless you are a friend with someone from Egypt, you wouldn't know the reality of what is popular in Egypt. That is just an example--not that you would really do such a thing.


Good to hear. Unfortunately, I was talking with STF in another thread, and he relayed to me a quote from Christ in Egypt that seems to only follow the same old pattern of Christ Conspiracy--quoting and citing modern opinions about the ancient sources rather than quoting and citing the ancient sources directly. That was with respect to Acharya S's claim that Horus had the title, "Lamb of God." It is something I would expect to be a title for Jesus and absolutely nobody else in myth, because Jesus had a special reason for it--reputedly, Jesus was killed at the Jewish Passover, Jesus would seem unique in that respect, and the gospel of John portrayed Jesus as a sacrificed Passover lamb to atone for the sins of the world (and John was seemingly the only gospel that did so). If I could find that thing about Horus being called "Lamb of God" in the ancient sources rather than just the modern echo chamber, that would be a very big step forward for me.

Above is a run down as what CiE is. There's a wealth of relevant information and anyone seeking to theorize on Christian origins has ought to at least be familiar with all of this. What about all of the Pyramid Texts? What about the Book of the Dead? What about the Coffin texts? What about every primary source that is cited at the bottom of each page? You wouldn't know anything about these primary sources because simply haven't bothered to look into any of it. Why wouldn't you search through all of these sources checking to see what seems solid and what seems speculative?

It seems to me that the only reason is because you've grown attached to the doomsday cult leader and don't wish to look too deeply into anything that might contradict or oppose that conclusion. I don't have the book in front of me but I'll look into all the info available on the one issue of Horus as "The Lamb of God" and see how much of it STF gave you or whether there's much more to it.

_________________
The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZzbNmH3xb4

I think this one might be the video you're speaking of. It's where I go over basically 3 models.

Side note: Early on, most of my videos were highly speculative. If there's anything anyone thinks should be dropped from the channel, I'm all ears. Many videos no longer reflect my current view. I've tried to weed out the big ones, some of the others are partially accurate, so I hesitate to pull them. Though, perhaps I should not hesitate at all.

Cool, thanks, Tat Tvam Asi. I actually challenged my opponent on Debate.org to quote and specifically cite a passage from those three sources: Pyramid Texts, Book of the Dead, and Coffin texts. All three of those sources are translated and published online in full, so I thought it should be easy to quote and cite the evidence.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/pyt/index.htm (Pyramid Texts)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffin_Tex ... rnal_links (Coffin Texts, Parts I, II and III)
http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/ebod/ (Book of the Dead)

I said that he should be able to provide a quote from one of these translated ancient sources, I should be able to do a Control-F to find the words of the quote, and the quote would lead a reasonable person to suspect that Horus was crucified or called "Lamb of God." But, no, he said, "It's ridiculous that he DEMAND that I read three ancient books, in full, to prove my claims. He's clearly just trying to waste my time." And he repeated the same claims, this time sourcing from a thread in the forum of David Icke. There seem to be thousands of people online who repeat those claims, and they do it in books, blogs, forums and YouTube video, but none of them seem able to find the original quotes, just deferrals to more modern people who repeat the claims. That is what I mean by "echo chamber." It is always a frustrating experience, and I think maybe it is not actually my fault.

CiE is on google books BTW, and starting at p.332-333 citations for the claim are given:
CiE preview
It's where the scholars in question are translating Egyptian texts that refer to Horus as a lamb, son of a lamb, and such. The conclusion is drawn from Horus being God's son, and a God, who is called a lamb in various ways. The point is that there existed such a concept of a God-Man in Egypt who was associated with the symbolism of a lamb and the reason is likely addressed to the transition of the age of Taurus to the age of Aries where previous Bull symbolism gave way to Lamb references.

_________________
The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

Thanks, Tat Tvam Asi. I downloaded the texts of all three of those sources onto my hard drive so I could do easy word searches in Windows 7, and I think I finally found the most relevant texts. Here it is:

7. THE DECEASED KING ARRIVES IN HEAVEN WHERE HE IS ESTABLISHED, UTTERANCES 244-259

Utterance 244.

249a. To say: O Osiris N., this here is the [hard] eye of Horus.

249b. Take it to thee that thou mayest be strong, (and) that he (Set) may fear thee.

Rubric. Breaking of two red jars.

Utterance 245.

250a. This N. comes to thee Nut; this N. comes to thee Nut.

250b. He has thrown his father to the ground; he has left Horus behind him.

250c. His two wings are grown as (those of) a falcon; (his) two feathers as (those of) a gmḥśw-falcon.

250d. His ba has brought him (here); his magic power has equipped him.

251a. Thou openest thy place in heaven, among the stars of heaven;

251b. thou art the only star, the companion of Ḥw; thou lookest down on Osiris,

251c. as he commands the spirits. Thou standest there far from him.

251d. Thou are not of them; thou shalt not be of them.

Utterance 246.

252a. See, how N. stands there among (you), the two horns on him (like) two wild-bulls,

252b. for thou art the black ram, son of a black sheep.

252c. born of a white sheep, nursed by four sheep.

253a. The blue-eyed Horus comes against you; guard yourselves against the red-eyed Horus,

253b. furious in wrath, whose might no one withstands.

253c. His messengers go; his runner hastens.

253d. They announce to him who lifts up his arm in the East

254a. that this One passes in thee of whom Dwn-‘n.wi said: "He shall command my (?) fathers, the gods."

254b. The gods are silent before thee; the Ennead lay their hands upon their mouth,

So, that is supposed to be like a parallel between Horus and Jesus, and we infer from this evidence that Horus had the title, "Lamb of God."

I will talk more about this later. Right now, I have some place to be. Thanks.

The reference is to the citations on page 332 which tail end previous discussion of Massey's analysis:

It doesn't look like you've found what they were translating.

_________________
The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

OK, I was about to analyze it, but it is good that you nipped that in the bud. I downloaded all of the text onto my hard drive, and I did a search in Windows Explorer for all instances of "lamb" and "sheep." That passage I put in bold is the closest I could find. So, I am still in the dark. Do you think I should check out that issue of Bulletin Archeologique from 1855? What I really need is the relevant passage in the translated ancient evidence. I am losing hope, because that passage seemed to be it, but you say it isn't it, and it is all I got.

I thought this sounded too good to be true, and sure enough, it was. I've scoured the web for a year looking for an electronic version of Faulkner's translation of the Coffin Texts, but to no avail. I have the complete paperback version here in my hands, and whatever is on that link, is NOT the Coffin Texts. Looks like transliterated snippets.

The REAL text is three volumes long, nearly 1200 spells.

And don't get me wrong, this isn't directed at you, Abe, it's more a rant against whoever linked that bull at Wikipedia. Just one more piece of evidence that shows that website has to be taken with a grain of salt.

As for the Pyramid Texts and Book of the Dead, do be aware that there are three main English translations of each, so a word search in one translation might not necessarily produce the same results in another, so just bear that in mind.

And wouldn't you know it, those two translations linked in your post are the two most out-dated ones- Mercer's PT & Budge's BOTD.

I know James P. Allen's translation can be found for free online in PDF, and is the most current, although I prefer Faulkner's translation myself, which can be previewed on Google Books.
Faulkner's layout reads more like one consistent narrative, whereas Allen goes king by king. Allen also doesn't translate certain key words, but then does translate other key words that normally aren't, for instance, he uses the word "sun" instead of "Ra", so if you search for a text specifically concerning Ra, you won't find it in his version.

As for the BOTD, Faulkner has a translation of that too, although I've seen Egyptologists such as Edmund S. Meltzer recommend T.G. Allen's version over Faulkner's. Both works were done at around the same time, so neither is more current than the other. Allen's can be found for free online in PDF as well, and Faulkner's can be previewed on Google. Ironically though, the physical copy of T.G. Allen's is rather expensive, while Faulner's comes pretty cheap. Amazon sells it for like 9 or 10 bucks.
Allen's is much more thorough and includes spells that are not in Faulkner's, so there's another bonus as well.

But personally, I think you'd have more success noticing similarities by reading the text cover to cover rather than trying key word searches, because you never really quite know what to look for. Something that is noticeably similar might not be phrased the same way, if you know what I mean.

I think you are right, and I really do appreciate your help in this. I wish there was someone with the time and money to access this stuff and is willing to do the scholarly work to prove the claims of Acharya S. I don't like depending on reputed opinions from the 19th century for such extraordinary claims.

I just went through the whole text that you've posted Abe, and that does appear to be what the french were translating as "son of a sheep." I thought that there may be more instances but that's seems to be the utterences in question. Unless there's more in other texts too.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/pyt/pyt10.htm

And that's basically all that is meant by the claim as far as I can tell. The claim used in the CC and ZG part 1 is merely that Horus was a God associated with the symbolism of a Lamb in pre-Christian times, something that was available for reference, or simply yet another aspect of the Horus myth.

_________________
The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

LOL, that's precisely what Acharya did with her book Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection and the rest, Abe. It's unfortunate that you are so biased against her and refuse to study it. (FYI, she doesn't like you being here at all considering all the malicious lies you've spread over the last several years. If you're going to be here it's wise to be on your best behavior at all times. I've already requested we give you a 2nd chance here after that crap you pulled in that other recent thread. Don't make me regret it.)

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

Thanks, Tat Tvam Asi, I appreciate that you are walking through this with me. The claim within The Christ Conspiracy seemed more specific, though maybe Acharya S didn't mean it that way. On page 115:

He [Horus] was also the “Way, the Truth, the Light,” “Messiah,” “God’s Anointed Son,” the “Son of Man,” the “Good Shepherd,” the “Lamb of God,” the “Word made flesh,” the “Word of Truth,” etc.

What we found is better than nothing. At least there is some kind of mythical connection between Horus and sheep.

Maybe, sometime in the future, believers in Acharya S can hunt down all of the ancient evidence and build the case purely on the ancient evidence, complete with quotes from the ancient sources and nowhere else. I would say that would be a wonderful project if the supporters of Acharya S want to be more convincing, because the primary criticism of the literature of Acharya S seems to be that the ancient evidence just isn't there. If the ancient evidence is not specified in the literature, such a criticism seems legitimate to outside observers, and, if Acharya S is right, I think that is a shame.

Thank you for giving me another chance, Freethinkaluva22. I don't want to blow it.

We're obviously not dealing in terms of MP religious beliefs, written by Acharya S, which are to be held as sacred and infallible.

We're dealing with a scientific investigation oriented study on comparative mythology and world religion from the perspective of scholarship and academia. If somethings wrong then it's wrong. And if some piece of data is wrong then we must look into the implications and see whether or not one particular piece of data changes the entire hypothesis or whether it doesn't effect very much at all.

Let's take the "Lamb of God" for instance. If we couldn't find any reference like that, would that in turn destroy the Alexandrian Hypothesis, for instance? It's actually of small concern considering the mountain of evidence in favor of the Alexandrian Hypothesis. But in this case, just as the other claims and assertions, the scholars were not merely making stuff up out of thin air, the scholars in question were in fact trying to interpret and decode ancient texts.

Well, in this case you highly doubted that there was any evidence at all, as if the assertion was grounded in thin air and then echo chambering around from a completely invalid foundation. But by taking the citation given in CiE and following it through it seems that there was in fact a basis from which these 19th century scholars were working. As sensational as some of these claims sound on the surface, they generally trace back to something. And that's what happens when Christian apologists or skeptical Atheists start trying to pick apart Murdock's work. It boils down to the same thing every time that I've witnessed the back and forth. Hater's will hate, that's all there is to it. And from what I gather you've been hating on Murdock for quite some time now. I don't know the specific details of how this started, but it's clear enough that it currently has a basis in rival theorizing between your evemerist doomsday Jesus project and the MP...

_________________
The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?