<!--QuoteBegin-dhu+Jul 31 2007, 09:10 AM-->QUOTE(dhu @ Jul 31 2007, 09:10 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->The following is probably one of the most important quotes ever in jeebus studies; it was made by Acharya S., who has carried forward the work of Lindtner and Thundy into the political dimension.Â
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->thruthbeknown: Acharya S.
[...]
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'><b>(Contrary to deliberately contrived public misconception, Jews were highly involved in "pagan" religions of every stripe.) </b></span><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
[...]At the time of The Second temple destruction, Asherah was besides Yahweh's side.[right][snapback]71728[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->What 'Acharya S' says is not her original idea, it's apparently been part of widely accepted scholarship for quite some time (christians never mind investigating/picking holes/microscoping others' religions, but won't do it to christianity).
Some of it is discussed here - I may have posted this link some time back already:
http://www.medmalexperts.com/POCM/triumph_...ic_judaism.html
It suggests some books too:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The evidence of the similarities between Canaanite and Israelite societies has led to a major change in the general understanding of the relationship between these two societies. Rather than viewing them as two separate cultures, some scholars define Israelite culture as a subset of Canaanite culture.
[Smith, Mark S. The Early History of God; Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel (2d edition) (2002), pg. 25]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Acharya S (that's not an Indian, it's the pseudonym of some American person) is not really uniformly reliable. Whereas she may(?) be able to summarise parts of the histories of Greek, Roman and perhaps even Hebrew literature, she goes into the realms of simple waffling when it comes to Indian and even Persian ones.
I don't know how capable she is in Latin, Greek and Hebrew (as she claims) but her claim for knowing Samskritam doesn't hold up.
<b>CORRECTION:</b> She didn't make the mistake in translating Mahatma as great mother instead of great soul, it's someone she quotes. However, she doesn't correct that person, in spite of claiming that she knows Samskritam. See her page on islam ( www. truthbeknown. com/ islam.htm ). Mahatma derives from Maha+atma and is not the same as Mahamata, so don't know why she doesn't correct this most basic error of the person she is quoting unless she doesn't know Samskritam after all.
And her knowledge of eastern religions is very very slight and third (and even fourth and fifth) hand. She cites sources such as Louis Jacolliot - who was so impressed and infatuated, he saw an Indian origin in everything. Even in the cases where there simply was no Indian origin.
AS' quest to derive every deity as a Sun God is too strained and far fetched.
Whereas Rama who does not get mentioned in her work is solar dynasty; I thought Krishna (her example) was lunar dynasty (correct me if I am wrong). Just because many of our heroes and Gods wear solar helmets doesn't mean they are all of solar descent.
And she also has to forcefit every God into her 'December 25 birthday', including Buddha and Krishna, saying that (like indologists are known to say): 'the Buddhists are wrong; and the Hindus are wrong when celebrating Gokulashtami; the real date is Dec 25'. Yeah, of course I believe her. Just like I believe her assenting to "Mahatma meant great mother"! What do Hindus know about their own religion, when one can get third hand info from some new agey writer/fantasist of the 18th/19th century.
And according to her idea, since jesus is the son of the god and simultaneously *is* the father/god she has to prove this for Krishna in the most roundabout way.
"Krishna's dad is called Vasudeva and Krishna is called Vasudeva. Hence," argues Acharya S who is treading ground she does not know or comprehend, "Krishna is the son of himself (just like jesus is the son of gawd/himself)". But there's a flaw in making <i>this</i> argument in the Indian case, as I argued elsewhere: Besides Vasudeva being pronounced differently for Krishna and his dad; his dad - like most other Hindus - was named after a deity. It's wasn't meant to be clever or cryptic or be a piece of some mythic puzzle/motif. My sister, me, other relatives, parents, grandparents, most Hindu friends are all named after Gods. Wooooo.
Then she has to strain the narratives of Buddha's birth and that of Krishna's to get the jesus story. Yes, a lot of Buddhist, Hindu and Zoroastrian patterns can be found back in the jesus fable, but that's to be expected. Many of these same patterns can just as well be traced from jesus back to original Greek incidences too.
That's because of what she does not understand or merely overlooked: in the Indian and Greek and even South American cases, the sign of Godhood is a divine origin. And a Goddess mother/special woman and Divine Father and/or special conception is *always* the case. Zeus and Danae, Zeus and so many another, parentage of many Greek heroes; Hanuman, the Pandavas, Rama and his brothers, Sita, Buddha, everyone who is Godly or part-Godly (like Pandavas) in Dharmic literature has a supernatural or otherwise super birth. But you can find this also in Korea, Africa, the list is endless.
That is a sign of divinity, all old cultures marked it.
There are many parts of Buddha's life that coincide uncoincidentally with the later story of jesus. But there's no need to forcefit the other parts of Buddha's life (or Krishna's or Mithra's or anyone else's) that are not known to match.
<b>EDITED:</b>
That is, her thesis - also not original, since it was already held by others before her, including the guy who wrote the 'Xteen Crucified Saviours' - is that all those Gods she lists as solar Gods share <i>every</i> feature she wants them to exhibit (including that they are Sun Gods, son = father/God, birthdate is 25 December). And she argues that jesus is another Sun God who fits this pattern. But that thesis is quite shaky as not all the real Gods she lists actually fit all of that pattern themselves.
The more likely explanation, and the one which other writers and scholars have advanced, is where jesus is merely a conglomeration of various Gods and Old Religions: 25 Dec, three Magis and other things from Mithra, lots of stuff from Buddha, lots of stuff from various Greek Gods, Kamsa's tyranny from Krishna's childhood turned into the Herod ordeal (and there's evidence that it could never have taken place in jesus' case), resurrection pattern from various Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern Gods, utterings of various philosophers and Buddha.... There's more examples I read, but can't remember.
http://freetruth.50webs.org/B1a.htm has even more incidences of what's been cut-and-pasted into christianity. But doing a Find on either 'Krishna' or 'Kamsa' doesn't come up with anything <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo--> How could anyone miss that.
As a final criticism, for a published writer, all she does is regurgitate other's conclusions and books. She puts their conclusions together and writes around it - anyone can do that, but that wouldn't make me a professional writer; it's what makes one a summarizer. Else we should all get published. Even me! (Scary thought.)
And why is she quoting everyone from the time of Jacolliot (when the world was still a complete mystery to the west); to the indologists times' when India, Egypt and elsewhere were all too 'exotic' to bother accurately documenting facts about them, and thus fantasy and western misinterpretations were rife then; down to ridiculous word games like along the lines of "Brahma and Saraswati = Abraham and Sarah." More proofs are needed to come to such a drastic and grand conclusion than mere word derivations.
But such unscholarly tactics is what new age authors do. They will use every source to make their point, including trite ones. They especially refer to obscure writers for evidence. For instance like someone who once wrote that they saw 'Indians who were dark as Ethiopians' and hence conclude that they must therefore be Ethiopians. Oh please, that's not evidence.
Whatever Acharya S's knowledge of the Greco-Roman and Judaic scene may be (let's hope it's not as unreliable as her knowledge on eastern religions/cultures), her endeavours to bring the east into the exact same orbit are too forced. There are undeniably influences to christianism that can be directly traced back to Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Hinduism - but in her work there's also a heck of a lot of far-fetched speculation with only new agey guess-work as support.
My point: there are more reliable sources to cite from for documenting the position of 'paganism among early Jewish people'.
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->thruthbeknown: Acharya S.
[...]
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'><b>(Contrary to deliberately contrived public misconception, Jews were highly involved in "pagan" religions of every stripe.) </b></span><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
[...]At the time of The Second temple destruction, Asherah was besides Yahweh's side.[right][snapback]71728[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->What 'Acharya S' says is not her original idea, it's apparently been part of widely accepted scholarship for quite some time (christians never mind investigating/picking holes/microscoping others' religions, but won't do it to christianity).
Some of it is discussed here - I may have posted this link some time back already:
http://www.medmalexperts.com/POCM/triumph_...ic_judaism.html
It suggests some books too:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The evidence of the similarities between Canaanite and Israelite societies has led to a major change in the general understanding of the relationship between these two societies. Rather than viewing them as two separate cultures, some scholars define Israelite culture as a subset of Canaanite culture.
[Smith, Mark S. The Early History of God; Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel (2d edition) (2002), pg. 25]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Acharya S (that's not an Indian, it's the pseudonym of some American person) is not really uniformly reliable. Whereas she may(?) be able to summarise parts of the histories of Greek, Roman and perhaps even Hebrew literature, she goes into the realms of simple waffling when it comes to Indian and even Persian ones.
I don't know how capable she is in Latin, Greek and Hebrew (as she claims) but her claim for knowing Samskritam doesn't hold up.
<b>CORRECTION:</b> She didn't make the mistake in translating Mahatma as great mother instead of great soul, it's someone she quotes. However, she doesn't correct that person, in spite of claiming that she knows Samskritam. See her page on islam ( www. truthbeknown. com/ islam.htm ). Mahatma derives from Maha+atma and is not the same as Mahamata, so don't know why she doesn't correct this most basic error of the person she is quoting unless she doesn't know Samskritam after all.
And her knowledge of eastern religions is very very slight and third (and even fourth and fifth) hand. She cites sources such as Louis Jacolliot - who was so impressed and infatuated, he saw an Indian origin in everything. Even in the cases where there simply was no Indian origin.
AS' quest to derive every deity as a Sun God is too strained and far fetched.
Whereas Rama who does not get mentioned in her work is solar dynasty; I thought Krishna (her example) was lunar dynasty (correct me if I am wrong). Just because many of our heroes and Gods wear solar helmets doesn't mean they are all of solar descent.
And she also has to forcefit every God into her 'December 25 birthday', including Buddha and Krishna, saying that (like indologists are known to say): 'the Buddhists are wrong; and the Hindus are wrong when celebrating Gokulashtami; the real date is Dec 25'. Yeah, of course I believe her. Just like I believe her assenting to "Mahatma meant great mother"! What do Hindus know about their own religion, when one can get third hand info from some new agey writer/fantasist of the 18th/19th century.
And according to her idea, since jesus is the son of the god and simultaneously *is* the father/god she has to prove this for Krishna in the most roundabout way.
"Krishna's dad is called Vasudeva and Krishna is called Vasudeva. Hence," argues Acharya S who is treading ground she does not know or comprehend, "Krishna is the son of himself (just like jesus is the son of gawd/himself)". But there's a flaw in making <i>this</i> argument in the Indian case, as I argued elsewhere: Besides Vasudeva being pronounced differently for Krishna and his dad; his dad - like most other Hindus - was named after a deity. It's wasn't meant to be clever or cryptic or be a piece of some mythic puzzle/motif. My sister, me, other relatives, parents, grandparents, most Hindu friends are all named after Gods. Wooooo.
Then she has to strain the narratives of Buddha's birth and that of Krishna's to get the jesus story. Yes, a lot of Buddhist, Hindu and Zoroastrian patterns can be found back in the jesus fable, but that's to be expected. Many of these same patterns can just as well be traced from jesus back to original Greek incidences too.
That's because of what she does not understand or merely overlooked: in the Indian and Greek and even South American cases, the sign of Godhood is a divine origin. And a Goddess mother/special woman and Divine Father and/or special conception is *always* the case. Zeus and Danae, Zeus and so many another, parentage of many Greek heroes; Hanuman, the Pandavas, Rama and his brothers, Sita, Buddha, everyone who is Godly or part-Godly (like Pandavas) in Dharmic literature has a supernatural or otherwise super birth. But you can find this also in Korea, Africa, the list is endless.
That is a sign of divinity, all old cultures marked it.
There are many parts of Buddha's life that coincide uncoincidentally with the later story of jesus. But there's no need to forcefit the other parts of Buddha's life (or Krishna's or Mithra's or anyone else's) that are not known to match.
<b>EDITED:</b>
That is, her thesis - also not original, since it was already held by others before her, including the guy who wrote the 'Xteen Crucified Saviours' - is that all those Gods she lists as solar Gods share <i>every</i> feature she wants them to exhibit (including that they are Sun Gods, son = father/God, birthdate is 25 December). And she argues that jesus is another Sun God who fits this pattern. But that thesis is quite shaky as not all the real Gods she lists actually fit all of that pattern themselves.
The more likely explanation, and the one which other writers and scholars have advanced, is where jesus is merely a conglomeration of various Gods and Old Religions: 25 Dec, three Magis and other things from Mithra, lots of stuff from Buddha, lots of stuff from various Greek Gods, Kamsa's tyranny from Krishna's childhood turned into the Herod ordeal (and there's evidence that it could never have taken place in jesus' case), resurrection pattern from various Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern Gods, utterings of various philosophers and Buddha.... There's more examples I read, but can't remember.
http://freetruth.50webs.org/B1a.htm has even more incidences of what's been cut-and-pasted into christianity. But doing a Find on either 'Krishna' or 'Kamsa' doesn't come up with anything <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo--> How could anyone miss that.
As a final criticism, for a published writer, all she does is regurgitate other's conclusions and books. She puts their conclusions together and writes around it - anyone can do that, but that wouldn't make me a professional writer; it's what makes one a summarizer. Else we should all get published. Even me! (Scary thought.)
And why is she quoting everyone from the time of Jacolliot (when the world was still a complete mystery to the west); to the indologists times' when India, Egypt and elsewhere were all too 'exotic' to bother accurately documenting facts about them, and thus fantasy and western misinterpretations were rife then; down to ridiculous word games like along the lines of "Brahma and Saraswati = Abraham and Sarah." More proofs are needed to come to such a drastic and grand conclusion than mere word derivations.
But such unscholarly tactics is what new age authors do. They will use every source to make their point, including trite ones. They especially refer to obscure writers for evidence. For instance like someone who once wrote that they saw 'Indians who were dark as Ethiopians' and hence conclude that they must therefore be Ethiopians. Oh please, that's not evidence.
Whatever Acharya S's knowledge of the Greco-Roman and Judaic scene may be (let's hope it's not as unreliable as her knowledge on eastern religions/cultures), her endeavours to bring the east into the exact same orbit are too forced. There are undeniably influences to christianism that can be directly traced back to Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Hinduism - but in her work there's also a heck of a lot of far-fetched speculation with only new agey guess-work as support.
My point: there are more reliable sources to cite from for documenting the position of 'paganism among early Jewish people'.