Deprogramed

A Response to Atheism: A History of God

2011-12-06T00:48:00.000-08:00

Quite some time ago a friend showed me a viral video promoting the Israelite evolution of God theory as it is related in Karen Armstrong's book (since blogger killed hyperlinks you can view it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlnnWbkMlbg). The below videos are my response:

-B

1) The phrase “formless and void” is a paronomasia in Hebrew. This doesn’t work in Old Babylonian therefore, the Hebrew is the obvious genesis of its ideation. I understand he may just be trying to describe the primordial chaos (an element contained in most creation cosmogonies as diverse as Thales because it makes perfect since) of the Enuma by imposing biblical language (like he does for “dry land”), but I don’t see this as the impression his viewers are getting.

2) Hasel’s paper “The Significance of the Cosmology in Genesis I in Relation to Ancient Near Eastern Parallels” is available online: http://www.michaelsheiser.com/TheNakedBible/HaselGen1ANE.pdf

3) On The Reliability of the Old Testament (2003), 424-5. Kitchen says in his footnotes, “Assyriologists generally reject any genetic relationship between Gen 1-2 and the Mesopotamian data because of the considerable differences.” He cites J. V. Kinnier Wilson, Documents from Old Testament Times, 14. W.G. Lambert, JTS, 16 (and in ISIF, 96-113). A. R. Millard, TynB 18, 3-4, 7, 16-18 (and in ISIF, 114-28); Jacobsen, in JBL 100 (1981): 513-29, also in ISIF, 129-42, 160-66.”

4) John Walton, Dictionary of the Old Testament Pentateuch. e.d. T. Desmond Alexander and David W. Baker (2003), s.v. “Creation”.

5) John H. Walton, Ancient Israelite Literature in its Cultural Context (1989), 34.

6) "I Studied Inscriptions from Before the Flood": Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis 1-11, e.d. Richard Hess and David Tsumura (1994), 126f.

7) Ibid. "I Studied Inscriptions from Before the Flood," 31ff.

8) Creation Accounts in the Ancient Near East and in the Bible (Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series) (1994), 138,140.

9) In the Shelter of Elyon: Essays on Palestinian Life and Literature (1984). e.d. Barrick and Spencer, 217.

10) I’m greatly indebted to Glenn M. Miller (christianthinktank.com) for compiling much of this material.

Richard S. Hess professor of Old Testament and Semitic languages states (Ibid. “I Studied Inscriptions,” 19f.):

“In few other passages of the Bible have so many facile comparisons been made with ancient Near Eastern myths and so many far-reaching conclusions posited.”

Shalom. M. Paul is Yehezkel Kaufman Professor Emeritus of Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and chair of the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation. He states (Ency. Judacia, s.v. "Creation):

"Nevertheless, the differences between the biblical and the Mesopotamian accounts are much more striking that their similarities; each of them embodies the world outlook of their respective civilizations. In Genesis there is a total rejection of all mythology...[Differences include:]...Cosmogony is not linked to theogony. The pre-existence of god is assumed--it is not linked to the genesis of the universe; there is no suggestion of any primordial battle or internecine ware which eventually led to the creation of the universe...The primeval water, earth, sky, and luminaries are not pictured as deities or as parts of disembodied deities, but are all parts of the manifold work of the Creator...The story in Genesis, moreover, is nonpolitical: unlike Enuma Elish, which is a monument to Marduk and to Babylon and its temple, Genesis makes no allusion to Israel, Jerusalem, or the temple."

Commentator and Jewish Publication Society translator Nahum Sarna states (JPS Torah Commentary, Genesis, .3, 18):

These mythical beings are variously designated Yam (Sea), Nahar (River), Leviathan (Coiled One), Rahab (Arrogant One), and Tannin (Dragon). There is no consensus in these fragments regarding the ultimate fate of these creatures. One version has them utterly destroyed by God; in another, the chaotic forces, personalized as monsters, are put under restraint by His power.

These myths about a cosmic battle at the beginning of time appear in the Bible in fragmentary form, and the several allusions have to be pieced together to produce some kind of coherent unit. Still, the fact that these myths appear in literary compositions in ancient Israel indicates clearly that they had achieved wide currency over a long period of time. They have survived in the Bible solely as obscure, picturesque metaphors and exclusively in the language of poetry. Never are these creatures accorded divine attributes, nor is there anywhere a suggestion that their struggle against God could in any way have posed a challenge to His sovereign rule.

Albert T. Clay, founder and curator of the Yale Babylonian Collection, after looking at the philological data stated (The Origin of Biblical Traditions: Hebrew Legends in Babylonia and Israel [2007], 74-75), “It should be stated here that the Babylonian story makes no reference to the creation of vegetation, birds and fishes; nor does it refer to beasts and reptiles, except those created to help Tiamat In her conflict.” Then continued to produce a summary parallel of the two stating why he finds the similarities mostly negligible.

11) Ibid., 425.

12) From Michael S. Heiser, http://www.michaelsheiser.com/akkadianilanu57.pdf

13) I use the names J, E, D, and P only for convenience of expression. Many of the issues I take with proposing these sources are expressed by Daune Garret from my seminary. (Rethinking Genesis: The Sources and Authorship of the Five Books of the Pentateuch [2000]).

14) Heiser has compiled an intro on the philology and use of elohim here: http://www.sitchiniswrong.com/Elohim/Elohim.htm

See also his short paper, "So what exactly is an elohim":http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/What%20is%20an%20Elohim.pdf
15) Ibid. On the Reliability, 246-6.
16) Ibid. On the Reliability, 247-8. Kitchen writes of this, "In the New Kingdom things changed. For over 350 years (ca. 1540-1170) kings brought back batches of prisoners regularly, sometimes in considerable numbers...[T]he new accessions of manpower were employed to cultivate land, and could be used in building projects. In brick making, the most famous example comes from a scene in the tomb chapel of the vizer Rekhmire of circa 1450. It shows mainly foreign slaves "making bricks for the workshop-storeplaces of the Temple of Amun at Karnak in Thebes" and for a building ramp. Here, labeled "captures brought-off by His Majesty for work at the Temple of [Amun]," hence serving as forced labor, Semites and Nubians fetch and mix mud and water, strike out bricks from brick molds, leaving them to dry and measuring off their amount. And all is done under the watchful eye of Egyptian overseers, each with his rod...Close account was kept of numbers of bricks produced, and targets were set, as in the Louvre leather scroll, Year 5 of Ramesses II, 1275. The forty "stablemasters" (junior officers) of this document had each a target of 2,000 bricks, clearly to be made by men under them with group foremen. These officers fulfill the role of the noges'im, "overseers," of Exodus. 5:6. One official smugly records: "Total, 12 building-jobs. Also, people are making bricks in their spells-of-duty(?)...They are making their quota of bricks daily"...In other building work we find other foreigners being exploited under Ramesses II...The Hebrews were not only to make bricks but to undergo "hard labor in all kinds of field-work" (Exod. 1:14). Others too suffered this. In one document, two agricultural workers fled from a stablemaster "because he beat them." In another, one a Syrian slave had been conscripted by an army officer from his service as a land worker...So, not least from the thirteenth and twelfth centuries, the Egyptian documentation portrays practical usages and an atmosphere very comparable to what we find in Ex. 1 and 5."
17) As will be apparent, I rely largely on Heiser's work from this point forward. He states, "Some scholars date the poetry of this psalm between the 12th and 10th centuries b.c.e." Citing F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (1973), 90--93. And David Noel Freedman, "Who is Like Thee Among the Gods?" in Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross. e.d. Patrick D. Miller Jr., Paul D. Hanson, and S. Dean McBride(1987), 317.
18) My content is here is developed from and quoted in Heiser's response to Thom Stark: http://www.michaelsheiser.com/TheNakedBible/HeiserReplyToStarkMostHeiser.pdf
19) Cited by Heiser, F. M. Cross and D. N. Freedman, Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (1975), 45, n. 59. Heiser states, "The idea that Yahweh's kingship over the gods and their nations is post-exilic—a notion crucial to any defense of an evolution toward monotheism—ignores evidence to the contrary in the Hebrew Bible."
20) Adapted from Heiser, http://michaelsheiser.com/PaleoBabble/2011/03/yahweh-and-asherah-more-archaeo-porn-for-the-masses/
21) My argumentation is indebted to Heiser's ETS paper "Does Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Bible Demonstrate an Evolution from Polytheism to Monotheism?": http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/ETSmonotheism.pdf
22) (The phrase "did they miss the memo" is not my own): http://michaelsheiser.com/TheNakedBible/2011/04/dan-mcclellan-on-what-is-deity-in-septuagint-deuteronomy/
23) See: http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/MonotheismProblem.pdf

The Race of the Ancient Egyptians

2011-06-30T20:21:00.000-07:00

Michael S. Heiser (who I quote to a disturbing degree in many of my posts) has compiled some academic material over at his PaleoBabble blog here debunking the notion that the ancient Egyptians were black. My foot is getting numb from all the dead horse kicking.

The Many Historical Blunders of Lew White’s Fossilized Customs

2011-06-20T21:45:00.001-07:00

I was recently given a book entitled Fossilized Customs: The Pagan Origins of Popular Customs (Seventh Edition) by a friend who asked my opinion of it. I certainly don't intend an exhaustive criticism of Mr. White's book here, but I have labored to refute those portions of his research which intersect with my own. The following should be enough to deflate his pretensions of credibility (which characterizes the messianic movement) for readers. Most of Mr. White's research is composed of pernicious internet staples, and if you are looking for sources you will find next to none in his book (what rare sources he does give are themselves mostly worthless)—pretty insulting to his readers considering the gravitas of his claims. It would be nice to see him at least correct these mentioned indictments in future editions, but I'm not holding my breath. White's many typographical mistakes have been preserved in this response.

Mithraism:

Lew flaunts an incessant barrage of claims with respect to Mithraism throughout his entire book. They are all based on an anachronistic assumption that the mystery religion existed in the West before the rise of Christianity: a position which is universally rejected by modern Mithraic and Hellenistic scholarship. Giving no sources, he states, "Mithraism was the primary religion of the Roman Empire from BCE 222 through the 4th century CE." (55, bold emphasis his) On the same page, Lew then goes on to claim that Christianity heavily borrowed pagan ideas from the religion.

Edwin M. Yamauchi, author of Persia and the Bible, is a primary authority in this field and is professor emeritus in ancient history at Miami University. In 1975 he was invited by the empress of Iran to deliver a paper at the Second International Congress of Mithraic Studies in Tehran. Yamauchi rejects the notion that Mithraism had expanded to Rome before the start of the first century, much less that it was "the primary religion of the Roman Empire" before Christ (as R.W. Glenn and others have noted, in the second-half of the second Temple period Ceaser veneration was actually the main religion, with most Roman citizens viewing the gods as antiquated myths). Yamauchi states:

The first public recognition of the Mithras in Rome was the state visit of Tiridates, the king of Armenia, in AD 66...The earliest Mithraic inscription in the West is a statue of a prefect under the emperor Trajan in AD 101...The earliest mithraea are dated to the early second century...That's basically what's wrong with the theories about Mithraism influencing the beginnings of Christianity.(1)

Richard Gordon, senior fellow at the University of East Anglia, states in his work that the religion did not exist in a developed sense until the mid-second century and places the establishment of the mysteries approximately between 117-161 AD.(2) As quoted by Yamauchi, Dr. Ronald Nash states, "The flowering of Mithraism occurred after the close of the New Testament canon, too late to have influenced the development of first century Christianity."(3)

So then, we have no evidence for Mithraism in Rome until decades after the establishment of Christianity, in fact, as Yamauchi notes, it is not until the middle of the second and third and fourth centuries that the religion became meaningfully established in the West (it's at this period that most mithraium and inscriptions appear with the earliest mithraium dating to the second century) much less was the religion "the primary religion" of the empire in 222 BC as White claims. As a mystery religion Mithraism was quite diminutive even at its height. Leif E. Vaage (B.A., M.Div., PhD) notes, "Unlike Isism or the cult of the Magna Mater, Mithraism had no public presence or persona, and appears rigorously to have denied itself all opportunities for self-promotion and display which might win it adherents or at least the acquaintance and passive admiration of the masses."(4)

As mentioned already, Lew goes on to state and highly emphasize in his book the following claim, "Other historians have put it this way: 'Christianity didn't conquer Mithraic Paganism. Mithraism blended in, and changed names.'" (55)

The only place I can find this quote is on internet sources leading back to White and he gives no source. In his book The Roman Cult of Mithras, Manfred Clauss, professor of ancient history at Free University in Berlin rejects Mithraism as a Christian "fore-runner."(5) Leonard Patterson in his book Mithraism and Christianity published by Cambridge states that there is "no direct connection between the two religions either in origin or development."(6) Yamauchi also lists Adolf von Harnak (University of Geissen), Arthur Darby Nock (University of Frothingham), S. G. F Bradon (University of Manchester), William R. Halliday and Ernst Benz (University of Marburg) as having come to the agreement that there is "little evidence to support claims of such influence and mutual borrowing" between the two religions.(7)

He also cites renowned Munich professor Gary Lease, who states:

After almost 100 years of unremitting labor, the conclusion appears inescapable that neither Mithraism nor Christianity proved to be an obvious and direct influence upon the other in the development and demise or survival of either religion. Their beliefs and practices are well accounted for by their most obvious origins and there is no need to explain one in terms of the other.(8)

On the same page White quotes another conveniently unnamed "historian" in another conveniently unnamed work: "The entire European continent and New World would be Mithraic today, if Christianity hadn't come along."(55)

He appears to be quoting a translation of Vie de Jesus by the anti-Catholic Frenchman Ernest Renan (or perhaps someone borrowing from Renan): "If Christianity had been checked...the world would have become Mithraic." Renan words are hot off the press—in 1863. Yamauchi calls him a "sensationalist" and notes that Albert Schweitzer criticized him in his famous work. He states, "Renan's work, published nearly 150 years ago, has no value as a source. He knew very little about Mithraism, and besides, we know a lot more about it today. Yet this is a quote that's commonly used by people who don't understand the context. It's simply far-fetched."(9)

It's common to find these types of inane claims in works related to the mystery religions dating before the second world war, but this is only because our understanding of the mystery religions at the time was extremely deficient. White's reoccurring claim that Mithraism was a large competing religion is unfounded speculation as we have previously charged through Leif E. Vaage.

In point ten of his list on the same page White claims an ancient pagan ritual called the taurobolium, in which a live bull is slaughtered above a grate-drenching an initiate in the pit bellow with the bull's blood--influenced the Christian practice of "Easter-time baptisms".

I'm not sure what White's views on baptism are or why he would feel the need to connect a practice commanded by Jesus in the earliest synoptic with paganism. The taurobolium itself is only reported in the second century and is only found in Mithraism in exceptional cases as it almost always associated with the separate cult of Attis. Quoting the Swiss scholar Günter Wagner (whose works are still a prized foundation in this area), Yamauchi again rebukes this claim as an obdurate anachronism. "Again, the dating of practices like this are the Achilles' heel of these comparative studies...there's no way this rite could have influenced Christianity's theology about redemption.(10) We are also told by White that "the center of the Mithraic sun-cult was at Rome." But, Mithraism is a Persian religion...which is why the name of the god is itself a Persian word.

Constintine:

White wants us to believe that Constantine was responsible for forcing Christianity on pagans through political means:

"Constantine made Christianity the Roman State religion, but its form was far from anything known to the first Nazarenes. Constantine had to MERGE the multitudes of Pagans—who were mostly his own soldiers—with the Nazarene faith, in order to control his vast empire. This…produced what we see today as "Christianity". The main issue at his Nicene Council in 325 CE centered on the date of "EASTER", again the most important point in the Pagan mind when the sun 'crossed' the Zodiac at Taurus."(11)

Let's take this one step at a time. Did Constantine "make Christianity" the "Roman state religion"? No. All the edict of Milan did was make Christianity legal. Did Constantine force Christianity on the pagan masses for political control? No. Dr. Chris Forbes from Macquarie University is a Senior Lecturer in Ancient History, and Deputy Chairman of the Society for the Study of Early Christianity. When he was presented with this idea in an interview he responded:

Constantine didn't use [Christianity] for social control. Constantine didn't make Christianity compulsory. All he did was make it legal whereas beforehand being a Christian had been an offense punishable by death. All Constantine had done was make it legal to be a Christian. He certainly never made it compulsory...Most people were [pagans]. Christians were still a minority under Constantine.(12)

As for the claim that "[t]he main issue at his Nicene Council in 325 CE centered on the date of 'EASTER'" and his other claim that this was all some conspiracy to introduce pagan astrology into Christianity: Nicaea was convened to deal foremost with the Arian heresy. That's church history 101. As for the pagan conspiracy, many of the members of Nicaea still bore the scars from the last Roman persecutions. Does White seriously want us to believe they would just hand over the religion they were recently being murdered for to be transmogrified into pagan sun worship? Diocletian had just issued an Empire-wide persecution attempting to wipe out Christianity for good. Why did Nicaea set the date of Easter on the Sunday following the paschal full moon? Because that was the date of Passover in the Jewish calendar. No pagan conspiracy needed.

Miracle Cancer Cure?

On pages 69-70 White has a commercial for a natural miracle cure for cancer he wants you to buy composed of Flore-Essence Tea, Cansema and black salve. "For some reason, the mutant cells respond to it, and the 'message' to self-destruct begins to work. Canerous tentacles recede, and the 'tumors' shrink away. Skin cancers fade away to nothing."

The above quote appears under the entry "Backpfeifengesicht" in the German dictionary.

Jesus means "hail Zuess"?

Here's a real knee-slapper. On pages 17-8 White has much to say about the "real pronunciation" of the name of Jesus. He says it is proper to pronounce it "Yahushua" and that the "esus" at the end of the name Jesus derives from the same root as that in the word Zeus. On page 145 he writes:

The fake name of the Mashiach, "JESUS", is a Greco-Romanism, and means absolutely nothing in Hebrew. If it were a "translation", then it could be "re-translated" back into Hebrew. When taken back into the Greek it means "hey-Zues", or "hail Zues". The closest word to sus in Hebrew is "soos", and means "horse." So "he-soos" means "the horse". Zeus is depicted as a Centaur…Sus in Latin means PIG.

The etymology of the word Jesus is quite innocent. In Aramaic his name was Yeshua (Yahusua is the longer form of the same name). The New Testament writers themselves amended Yeshua to Iesous as any of the 5,700 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament will relate then a "J" was exchanged for the "I" as it went through the German. It was not a pagan act. White has therefore succeeded in accusing the New Testament writers of calling Jesus Zeus and a pig because they were the ones who changed his name to Iesous. Why didn't the New Testament authors use the same Aramaic term Yeshua when they were composing their books of the Bible? Because there are no letters yod and shin in Greek and as a proper name the Greek grammar exchanges the ending of the word. This is an innocent process called transliteration; you take the alphabets of two different languages and try the best you can to make a word pronouncible in the other.

White commonly says that it is through the Hebrew name "Yahushua" alone that we are saved (hmmm…that's strange. White is quoting Acts 4:12 where Luke always uses the Greek Iesous and never the Aramaic Yeshua or Yahushua or anything like it)(13) We have no issue pronouncing Yeshua in English. But imagine if you were Roman and I demanded you start making sounds that don't exist in your language and that you neglect the necessity of your own grammar. White's teachings smack of ridiculous, superstition. As if "Yahusua" is some magical conglomeration of sounds that saves or sanctifies you rather than the meaning or person behind the word. It's hardly worth even having to point this out, but Acts isn't talking about a series of vocalizations that saves you (or else Luke wouldn't have transliterated Yeshua to Iesous). He is talking about the authority represented by the name.

What of all this Zeus business?

The Jewish-Christian scholar Dr. Michael Brown (who actually holds a PhD in Semitic languages) describes this popular internet claim as "bizarre," "amazing" "psuedo-scholarship" in the "fringe" and charitably describes it as harboring, "as much evidence as the latest Elvis sighting." He explains why Semitic linguist don't give it the light of day in his article in the Q and A on his website.(14)

Jack-o-Lanterns of Human Fat?

White regurgitates the whole "Druids used human fat to fuel Jack-o-lanterns" spiel that has been popularized by sensationalists like Scott A. Johnson and Jack Chick's popular Gospel tracks. His Halloween track entitled "The Trick" is a richly comedic spectacle:

It states, "They would leave a jack-o'-lantern with a lighted candle made of human fat to prevent those inside from being killed by demons in the night."

Lew, in his book states:

"The Pre-Christian Druids had the barbarians doing ghastly things…[They] chose certain children to be burned alive on "bone-fires", as offerings to the sun…The fat left over from the child was fashioned into a candle, and placed into a carved-out pumpkin, or a hollowed out vegetable with a "round" (sun-shaped) design. The victim was called Jack-of-the-lantern."(15)

The reasons why this is completely impossible pile up immediately, and for that reason Lew gives no source, and there exists no academic source which supports his claim. Consider as an example that pumpkins were only introduced to Europe 500 years ago. This is a big deal. Explorers to the New World like Jacques Cartier were the first to describe them and later led to their introduction to the Old World.(16) Besides those World of War Craft nerds that still like to flaunt their desperate insipidness at Stonehenge annually, the Druids ceased to enjoy any substantial existence nearly one thousand five hundred years prior due to persecution under such Roman emperors as Tiberius and Claudius. This renders Johnson, Chick, and Lew's claim--that in the Old World they were carving out fruits native only to the New World in the first century—-anachronistic. The practice of carving Jack-o'-Lanterns originates from the Middle Ages with the ancient Druids and their religion having little to do with the matter (besides on the sensationalist websites Lew is taking his information from). The tradition derives from an overtly Christian themed myth called Stingy Jack and the medieval practice of commemorating souls in purgatory with candles cradled in turnips.(17) 18th century Irish-American immigrants switched to pumpkins because they were far more practical.(18)

White's animadversion against the Trinity:

On page 104 it's claimed that the Christian Trinity is pagan (how original!). Some of his evidence being two images of the Egyptian gods Horus, Isis and Osiris (White misidentifies Horus as Ra. I have a copy of the same image and can verify that it is not Ra).

The doctrine of the Trinity is so inextricable with the gospel that the church has always historically recognized that a denial of the doctrine necessarily compromises the gospel (thus the Athenasian, Nicene, and Constantinopolitan creeds). White is unable to offer any exegesis in his denial of who the Bible teaches God is (for those looking for an exegetical defense of the doctrine I highly recommend James White's book The Forgotten Trinity). He simply spits out idiotic Jehovah's Witness party lines and speculatively asserts that the Trinity is a later pagan idea introduced by those naughty Romans and other exotic and absurdly geographically unrelated pagan cultures. (Those stupid early Christians--couldn't define or defend any of their own doctrines without their Arian nanny Constantine.....Errrr, never mind Tertullian).

He may get away with fooling many of his impressionable readers that the Trinity is not Jewish in its roots, but that sort of unfounded fantasizing doesn't fly in inter-testamental studies and is immediately dispelled by any brief study of the New Testament. The notion of a divine plurality in the Godhead is well documented in post-Christian second temple Judaism and served as the historical backdrop for the Christian doctrine; it was a mainstream Jewish view in the time period during and leading up to Jesus' ministry. The Jewish scholar Alan Segal and specialist Michael S. Heiser as two leading authorities demonstrate as much in their work.(19)

Like I said, White uses bad Jehovah's Witness arguments rather than giving any exegesis. Does he discuss the New Testament's emphatic claims to the unity and deity of Christ with the Father as in John 1:1, John 10, John 8:58, 2 Peter 1:1 or Titus 2:13?(20) Does he even try to explain why the Son in His high priestly prayer differentiates His own will from the Father? Does he deal with passages like John 14:26 which refers to the Holy Spirit in personal pronouns and distinguishes Him from the Son and Father or passages like the opening of Acts 5 which affirm Him to be God? What are we to make of the earliest synoptic material which records Jesus commanding to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as Warfield has so brilliantly detailed in his classic treatment? White has set to flight the Holy Spirit, indicted the Son as a maniacal schizophrenic and crucified the Father. He is, by all indications, a Sabellian heretic--confounding the Persons of God into one Person--a single person of God who obnoxiously enjoys dressing up as the Father, the Spirit and Jesus then confusing all of his doxa followers by praying to Himself with different wills and functions, referring to Himself in triads of personhood incessantly in personal and distinguished pronouns and while dressed up in His Jesus mask demands that men baptize in the name of the other two masks of Himself. Theeeeennnnn White's Sabellian version of god tells us whoppers like those found in John 16:7ff:

But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I
do not go away, the Helper [the Spirit] will not come to you; but if I go, I
will send Him to you. "And He, when He comes, will convict the world
concerning sin and righteousness and judgment...because I go to the Father
and you no longer see Me.

According to White we should understand this passage to mean:

But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do
not go away, I will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Myself to you.
And when Myself, comes, He [that is, Myself] will convict the world
concerning sin and righteousness and judgment...because I go to Myself and
you no longer see Me.

Or how about Jesus' dying words on the cross:

Myself, Myself, why have I forsaken Me? Myself, into you I commend
the spirit of Myself.

Then there's that perspicacious theological gem in John 5:30:

I can do nothing on my own…because I seek not my own will but the will of myself
who sent me.

Yep. The Jesus of Sabellianism is a babbling idiot...or He just enjoys deceiving all His followers with intractable anfractuosities that look an awful lot like historical Trinitarianism.

Lewis' classic apologetic falls upon White at this point: Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic, or His claims stand, and He is indeed distinct in person from the Father and Spirit. None were, but even if it be the case that every ancient pagan religion was Trinitarian, Christians would still be bound by scripture to believe the doctrine whether they like it or not.

In attempting to attribute the Jewish doctrine with paganism White flagrantly demonstrates that he either has 1) no idea what the doctrine of the Trinity teaches or 2) what pagan religions teach. On page 104 for example, he shows us two images of the Egyptian gods Horus, Isis and Osiris. The following abuse of Egyptian religion is indicative of his anachronistic and hysterical misuse of other religions like Zoroastrianism and Hinduism:
Did the Egyptians believe in a god, three in eternal, persons yet one in substance as the Christian doctrine of the Trinity teaches?

The Egyptians were, of course, polytheists. They believed the gods Nut and Geb sexually begat the twins Isis and Osiris as two separate, corporeal individuals who individually taught the Egyptian people various disciplines such as agriculture and art. Osiris has a brother named Seth who kills him and chops his body into fourteen pieces and scatters them across Egypt. Isis finds the pieces, reassembles them then has sex with his corpse in the form of a bird whereby she becomes pregnant with Horus. (Don't judge you Necrophobes! After all no one gets hurt right…) Horus then avenges Osiris by defeating Seth and taking back the throne. The three are often paired together as an archetypal representation of the family. They are not "one substance" as the Trinity teaches. Not one of them is eternal as the Bible teaches of the Trinity. Unlike the Trinity they represent a literal, corporal family (when Jesus uses the terms "Son" and "Father" in relation to the Christian Trinity He means them only in the Jewish sense for function and likeness of beingness. Not that He was begotten by the Father in His existence as such passages as John 1:1 deny.) All the aforementioned about the Osirian cycle is related in Plutarch.

Nephilim:

On pages 131 and 203, a common internet image of a "nephilim" from an "archeological dig" is shown. White also has a lot to say about the Nephilim on page 126.

First and foremost, for the doubters, I ran White's image through a program called JEPGsnoop(21) which identifies doctored photos and retrieves a wealth of information about a given image. The original was taken on a Sony Cybershot U camera. It is classified as a class one photograph-meaning it has been edited--parts of the image contain completely different compression signatures than the original image itself. Not only that, but the program reveals that the image has been run through and saved as a photoshop 7.0 file—the professional program we should expect to see if the image is a hoax. There are no reports of archeology digging up nine foot tall skeletons. It is for this reason that White wants to claim there is a massive conspiracy for archeologist to hide them when they "dig them up regularly." This is a case of White failing to do his homework.

For example, on pages 126 he claims that Josephus attests to the existence of "3-4m tall humans." First of all, Josephus was writing in the first century. There were no remaining Nephilim for him to attest to at that time on his own witness. Second, Josephus did not even place Goliath's height at 3-4 meters tall (9 to 13 feet). He tells us that Goliath was 6 ft 6 inch just like the Dead Sea Scrolls do and just like the Septuagint does.(22) White gets his notion that the Nephilim were nine feet tall on the basis nothing more than tradition since most Bibles are based on the later Masoretic reading of Samuel which has long been recognized to be nearly intractably corrupt at this point (that text family even leaves off an entire paragraph in chapter 10 of the first division of the book).

The average height in the ancient world was under five and a half feet. Anyone of Goliath's 6 and a half foot height would have been a giant in the most literal sense. The only other argument for giants the size White wants them refers to King Og of Bashan whose iron sarcophagus (and not him) is reported at thirteen feet long. As Michael Heiser has told me, this is a poor argument if one is familiar with the nesting style of Near Eastern royal coffins.

In connecting the Nephilim with alien appearances White elsewhere supports the idea that the Hebrew word Nephilim strictly means "fallen ones" rather than "giants" (it appears he wants to take the whole Sitchin route of relating them with aliens in this way.(23)

Heiser has proven by the necesity of the morphology of the term that it must mean "giants" and not "fallen ones." (There's a yod vocalization marker in the word that makes White's etymology impossible.)(24)

This current post is incomplete and will be added to then overhauled as a PDF as time continues.

1) Lee Strobel, The Case for the Real Jesus: A Journalist Investigates Current Attacks on the Identity of Christ 2007. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 169.
2) Edwin Yamauchi quotes this in Persia and the Bible (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baer, 1996), 510.
3) Ibid. 169.
4) Vaage, Leif E. (Editor). Religious Rivalries in the Early Roman Empire and the Rise of Christianity. Waterloo, ON, CAN: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006. 175.
5) (trans. Richard Gordon), New York: Routledge, 2000), 7.
6) Mithraism and Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1921), 94.
7) Ibid. Strobel, 170
8) Ibid.
9) Ibid.
10) Ibid. 174
11) Ibid. White, 56-7
12) Dr. Chris Forbes, Brief Historical Critique of Zeitgeist. 2009.
13) Ibid. White, 145.
14) Here.
15) Ibid. White, 47-8
16) See footnotes on page: James Phinney Baxter et tal. A Memoir of Jacques Cartier, Sieur De Limoilou (New York: Dodd Mead & Company, 1906), 178.
17) Nicholas Rogers, Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night. (USA: Oxford University Press, 2002),57.
18) Lesley Pratt Bannatyne, Holloween: An American History (Luisiana: Pelican Publishing company, 1990), x.
19) See Heiser's website and more recent posting on the subject.
20) See my paper The Deity of Christ in John 1:1, Titus 2:13 and John 20:28.
21) Using this original of the image as it is the first and only occurrence which displays on Google search using the keyword "nephilim". If White has another one he is free to offer it.
22) Quoted by Heiser.
23) Here.
24) Nephilim morphology PDF.

Isis-Ra-El Refuted

2011-02-25T15:40:00.000-08:00

Christopher Lord (CL from here on) recently directed two videos at me entitled “Ben Stanhope Gets Schooled.” He has a fair radio voice, pretends to have a knowledge of Semitic languages (as we will see he certainly does not) while making up authentic accents, and his video production seems as if it is posited with too much confidence to be speculation. Originally, when I saw his video I simply ignored it; CL is not a sane individual, and I do not mean this in any sense of exaggeration or pejorative. It's simply impossible for someone to make these types of statements soberly and not have serious issues with parsing reality. Since he has now called me out by name with the title of his video, and I have received a dozen or so emails asking for my response I've provided it here. The first of his videos below seems credible enough to anyone looking for an excuse to ignore Keith Thompson’s refutation (ok, at least the first ten minutes, after that he loses his ability to feign credibility) of 'ole Jordy's Isis-Ra-El claim in my documentary.

Dr. Michael S. Heiser, who has a PhD in Semitic languages and does translation work in Greek, Hebrew, Egyptian and others has directed me to a piece he posted online hooting richly at this entire claim that the goddess Isis could have any influence-linguistic or otherwise-on the name Israel and sardonically refuting most everything CL and Jordanus Maximus have to say. Heiser’s post is entitled “Syllabic Silliness with Jordan Maxwell” on his Paleo-Babble blog and can be read here. I won’t be getting into the deep treatment he gives.

We have a pretty good idea what the Hebrew etymology of Israel means because Genesis 32 emphatically tells us, something both Jordan-o and CL strangely shrink to address (notice the convenient omission of Keith’s words in CL's rebuttal where Keith gives the correct etymology). Further, anyone with a working knowledge of Egyptian (and Heiser gives the standard sources for those without) will immediately recognize that the first glyph in “Isis” corresponds with Gardner sign Q1. No source gives it the “is” sound as Keith has noted and CL's circumlocutions seek to instantiate in his video.

At 04:13 seconds CL states, “In the Egyptian language the ‘t’ is silent, especially when a word ends in a feminine suffix ending in ‘t’...and that’s why Egyptologists do not pronounce her name Eusat. They pronounce it without the ‘t.’”
Now, this is an amazing claim (I guess the Egyptian goddesses Baset, Ma’at, Nekhbet, Nut, Sekhmet, Selkhet, Taweret, Bat, Mafdet, Chensit, Hatmehit, Hedetet, Hemsut, Heqet, Pakhet, Unut and Tefnut all just happen to be freak exceptions to his rule to name a few). What reason then does he give to justify this silent “t” assertion in the case of Isis where it can be found nowhere else? He tries to parallel Ancient Egyptian with modern French whilst playing condescending laughing sound effects and making bad jokes about “getting laid.” As Heiser notes and mentioned to me in personal email, the “t” is not silent here (more on this below).

Anything else that could be mentioned would be ancillary at this point and a rich cord of irony suffuses everything else he has to say. At 02:34 we are told glyphs don’t exist on a wall when they do. He claims at 02:38 that, "no one knows the true Egyptian spoken language,” then proceeds to instruct us regarding the “true Egyptian spoken language.” He calls me and Keith “foolologists," claiming that Keith used Wikipedia as his source without giving meaningful evidence, “the ten minute researcher who thinks he’s a master. The fool who types in the word ‘Isis’ and presses search and clicks on Wikipedia where he thinks he finds the answer,” he says.

He himself plagiarized word-for-word from Wikipedia several times in his video whilst maintaining the idiosyncrasies (consider 04:54 and the following google search). Notice that if you actually read where he copies from Wiki he intentionally leaves out the qualifier which states the “t” was only dropped in “the last stages of the Egyptian language.” He also made particular use of abusing and twisting portions from this article which refutes his thesis if read in full context.

At 7:55 he shows us that he doesn’t know what the first day of the week is. All the Hebrew texts in his video that he didn’t mirror from mine are backwards (for example 6:19 and 9:03), and he places ostentatious emphasis on the Hebrew that anyone with a rudimentary understanding would recognize doesn’t exist (such as the distinction between the guttural Chet and the letter Hey). He believes the Jews had a working doctrine of the Trinity that the Egyptians were aware of as far back as the Exodus period. I could go on-and-on, but there is a point where it just becomes a waste of time.

-B

The Many Mistakes of James Cameron's "Lost Tomb of Jesus"

2011-02-11T23:38:00.000-08:00

This subject is quite old of course, but Keith Thompson has added my article criticizing the "Lost Tomb of Jesus” film on his Reformed Apologetics site here. For those unfamiliar with the film the brevity of the article may be of some use. Below is the document in the better formatting.
-B
Mistakes of the Lost Tomb of Jesus

Kersey Graves Debunked-The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors

2010-12-07T23:33:00.000-08:00

The following two study videos I recently completed briefly examine and refute the central ideas found in Graves' book:

Footnotes:

1) Carrier article on Graves:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/graves.html

2) http://www.kingdavid8.com/Copycat/JesusZulis.html

3) http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/crite.html

4) The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literature Volume 36, p 262

"The name S(S)iduri cannot be separated from Sirtur (Ze-ir-tu-ur, Sir-du), mother of Tammuz; the first r has been dropped by dissimilation. Unfortunately we know nothing directly about this divinity except her name."

5) http://www.gsbkerala.com/panduranga.htm

6) This gentleman (who is a pagan himself) has the most extensive and one of the only meritorious websites on the web that is devoted to this god. As such he has received emails asking about Esus being a prototype for Jesus and scoffs at such notions (he has a page refuting such pretentions):

http://www.chronarchy.com/esus/aboutesus.html

7) These come from the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pituras [post-conquest codex written in the 1530s] and Anal de Cuauahtitlan and leyenda de las soles. Etymology of xochiquetzal:

http://www.behindthename.com/name/xochiquetzal

8) Encyclopedia entry on Indra:

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/i/indra.html

9) http://www.reference.com/browse/Alcestis

10) Barry B. Powell Classical Myth, 247-248.

The birth from Zeus' semen is a less common version in most it is from Adgistis' semen and blood.

11) http://varnam.org/blog/2004/09/lord_krishna_lived_for_125_yea/

12) Tammuz is the Hebrew and Aramaic pronunciation that is popularized by it's use in the Old Testament where God is abhorred with his worship. Dummuzi is the (more) original Sumerian pronunciation of the god.

13) You can read an online translation of the courtship of Ianna and Dummuzi here: http://www.piney.com/BabCourship.html

14) Our earliest text on Esus is the post-Christian Lucan (Pharsalia I, 422-465). He talks about human sacrifices offered to the god in his Bellum civile

15) Hesiod, Theogony 507ff

16) http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/alcestis.html

17) Barry B. Powell Classical Myth, 247-248

18) Edwin M. Yamauchi, "Easter-Myth, Hallucination, or History? First of Two parts", 5

19) "Those who seek to adduce Mithra as a prototype of the risen Christ ignore the late date for the expansion of Mithraism to the west."

Yamauchi quoted by Lee Strobel, The Case for the Real Jesus,168-169

"We have almost no evidence of Mithraism in the sense of a mystery religion in the West until very late-too late to have influenced the beginnings of Christianity...The earliest Mithraea are dated to the early second century. There are a handful of inscriptions that date to the early second century, but the vast majority of texts date are dated after A.D. 140. Most of what we have as evidence of Mithraism comes in the second, third and fourth centuries A.D...That's... what's wrong with...theories about Mithraism influencing the beginnings of Christianity"

20) Ibid. Strobel, 169.

21) Encyclopedia of Religion, Second Edition, vol 9, Lindsay Jones Editor and Chief (2005 Thompson Gale), 6091.

22) Manfred Clauss, The Roman Cult of Mithras, 62-63.

23) Personal email correspondence that took place on 10/14/10.

24) Personal email correspondence that took place on 10/13/2010.

25) Article by Carrier: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/graves.html

26) Barry B. Powell, Classical Myth, 238-41

27) Ovid, Metamorphoses 10.708-39

28) Edwin M. Yamauchi, "Easter-Myth, Hallucination, or History". Christianity Today (March 15, 1974).,4

See also: http://jss.oxfordjournals.org/content/XI/1/10.extract

"In the case of the Mesopotamian Tammuz (Sumerian Dumuzi), his alleged resurrection by the goddess Inanna-Ishtar had been assumed even though the end of both the Sumerian and the Akkadian texts of the myth of "the Descent of Inanna (Ishtar)" had not been preserved. Professor S. N. Kramer in 1960 published a new poem, "The Death of Dumuzi," that proves conclusively that instead of rescuing Dumuzi from the Underworld, Inanna sent him there as her substitute." "This gives us the irrefutable evidence for the death of Tammuz and the necessity for him to remain dead"

"Tammuz was identified by later writers with the Phoenician Adonis, the beautiful youth beloved of Aphrodite...P. Lambrechts has shown that there is no trace of a resurrection in the early texts or pictorial representations of Adonis."

29) Quoted by Michael Licona in his article refuting Acharya S.: http://www.risenjesus.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14:a-refutation-of-acharya-ss-book-the-christ-conspiracy-&catid=4:articles&Itemid=19

30) Kersey Graves, The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors, 122

31) Ibid Powell, 625. See also Plutarch, Life of Numa Pompilius.

32) Ibid. Encyclopedia of religion, 7420

33) Play here: http://classics.uc.edu/~johnson/tragedy/summaries/alcestis.html

34) Reward at Kingdavid8.com under "Christ Myther Challenge" and Zeitgeistchallenge.com (totals as of now to 2000$).

35) Ibid., Powell, 247.

36) Ibid., Yamauchi "Easter",5.

37) Ibid., The Case for the Real Jesus, 169.

38) Richard Gordan, Greco-Roman World, (1996), 96.

Is God bound by the laws of logic?

2010-12-01T09:05:00.000-08:00

I wrote these proofs to settle a disagreement with my philosophy professor. He came to agree they were true. Since there is very little good information on this subject on the web and such a question is so vital to constructing a proper theology I have posted them here:

The Law of non-contradiction:
1) When one says “God is not bound to the laws of logic” they are stating that it is false to say that “God is bound to the laws of logic”.

2) The law of non-contradiction is a law of logic.

3) If God is “not bound to” the laws of logic then God is not “bound” to the law of non-contradiction (from 2).

4) The law of non-contradiction affirms that “something cannot be both true and false at the same time and in the same sense”.

5) If God is not bound by the law of non-contradiction (from 3) then it is possible for God to be bound by the laws of logic and not be bound by the laws logic at the same time and in the same sense (from 4).

6) The one who says “God is not bound by the laws of logic” is stating that it is false to say that “God is bound by the laws of logic.”(from 1)

7) Therefore, the one who says “God is not bound by laws of logic” assumes that God is bound by the law of non-contradiction in order for his statement to be true and the negating statement to be false (from 4 and 5).

8) Therefore, the one who says “God is not bound by the laws of logic” is assuming that God is bound by a law of logic (i.e. the law of non-contradiction).

The Law of Identity (a richly satisfying spectacle):
1) When one says “God is not bound by the laws of logic” they are assuming that God is God in order to say that He is not bound by the laws of logic (i.e. God is not my dog which is quite bound by the laws of logic).

2) The law of identity is a law of logic

3) If God is not bound by the laws of logic then God is not bound by the law of identity (from 2).

4) The law of identity states that “Everything is what it is and not another thing”.

5) If God is not bound by the law of identity (from 3) then God needn’t be God and can be “other things” (from 4).

6) When one says “God is not bound by the laws of logic” they are assuming that God is God and not other things in order to say that He is not bound by the laws of logic (from 1).

7) Therefore, the one who says “God is not bound by the laws of logic” assumes that God is bound by a law of logic (i.e. law of non-contradiction) in order to deny that he is bound by the laws of logic.

The Law of the excluded middle:
1) When one says “God is not bound by the laws of logic” they are assuming their statement is true.

2) The law of the excluded middle is a law of logic.

3) The law of the excluded middle states “a proposition is either true or false”.

4) If God is not bound by the laws of logic then God is not bound by the law of the excluded middle (from 2).

5) If God is not bound by the law of the excluded middle (from 2) then propositions about God can be neither true nor false.

6) The statement “God is not bound by the laws of logic” is a proposition which claims to be true (from 1).

7) Therefore, the person who says “God is not bound by the laws of logic” is assuming that God is bound by the law of the excluded middle (from 3 and 4) in order to claim their statement is true and/or that it’s negation is false

One might object by saying that God created the laws of logic and currently subjugates Himself under them, but this appears to be self-defeating as well:

-Who created the laws of logic? The person here assumes the law of identity before it was created. (For that matter why would God create the laws of logic if there were no laws of logic withholding the existence of the laws of logic?)

- When God was not subjugating Himself to logic is it true that He was not subjugating Himself to logic (excluded middle is presupposed).

- To say the laws of logic didn’t exist is to assume that the law of non-contradiction did; otherwise, the laws of logic would have existed and would have not existed at the same time.

You cannot refute logic without presupposing it.

Reply on the Osirian cycle.

2010-10-29T10:21:00.000-07:00

A youtube user under the name Etymologyking posted this video directed at me regarding the Osirian cycle:
(For those wondering about my youtube username, it is an esoteric joke referring to the pain and paper cuts card manipulators experience when practicing their trade. I used to work as a magician and had originally started the channel to network with other artists.)

Apart from his abundance of intractable mistakes, there seems to be a wide bridge of agreement between the two of us. I shall do everything within my power to minimize that bridge of agreement as much as possible.

We are told that we will be shown from the Egyptian primary texts that Osiris was resurrected. Of course, this never takes place, and I didn’t expect as much. Only a short and fanciful introductory piece by the century-past Wallace Budge is quoted (interesting that this gentleman who is sitting in front of the primary texts chooses not to quote them), who has been replaced by the tide of modern scholarship and more accurate translations. Although modern sensationalists continue to kindle their own desperate faith that they may be able to miraculously resurrect Budge’s dead words, the procession of modern scholarship freshly and distinctly recalls removing him from the cross of modern Egyptology, and the rotting corpse of Budge’s translations and work continues to nauseate the rest of us as a reminder. Nicholas Perrin, who has slaved over cleaning up much of Budge’s mistakes and exaggerations, has stated:

Now widely considered outdated and often inaccurate, Budge’s writings must be used with caution. His descriptions of Egyptian thought, because they are so indebted to modern, Western categories, should not then be used as a basis for reading Egyptian thought into writers like Paul, who so heavily influenced the genesis of those categories.(1)

Now, Etymologyking’s whole critique is directed at a quote used in my work by Günter Wagner; the German scholar states “Osiris knew no resurrection, but was resuscitated to be a ruler of the Netherworld” (a brief survey of my work reveals that I have never stepped outside of this statement).(2) Etymologyking is impotent to rebut this statement by Wagner in its context and misunderstands Egyptian religion frequently. “To Egyptians, a ‘resurrection’ merely meant the immortal soul returned to a mummified body; it is still bound to the grave. It received food in the tomb to which it had to return everyday.”(3) Etymologyking is deceptive when he fails to read on the very same page from which he quotes, where Budge himself recognizes this. Even Budge defines Egyptian resurrection in a non-physical context: “Furthermore, we find that the doctrine of eternal life and of resurrection of a Spirit-body based upon the ancient story of the resurrection of Osiris after a cruel death and horrible mutilation…”(4) We could end this paper here. The rest of Budge’s comments regarding the resurrection that he quotes are within the context of this qualifying passage.

I have challenged Etymologyking to offer one primary Egyptian text instantiating a bodily resurrection for Osiris to which he remains impotent (indeed, he largely admits this to be impossible when he reads from Budge “The story of Osiris is nowhere found…in Egyptian literature”). My position is, and remains in agreement with modern scholarship, that a “resurrection” can only be inferred beyond what the Egyptian texts themselves actually say (an inference he is quite happy to take but from which scholars demure). Let me be clear that I do not disagree that Osiris was rejuvenated, but (as will be demonstrated) we must not apply western thinking to Egyptian religion. This does not mean he returned to his previous mode of existence. The atheist classical historian Richard Carrier comments on this precise subject of Osirian resurrection by stating “I am an atheist and have also written an online essay on pagan parallels and ideas of resurrection…There is no certain answer known to us today regarding what anyone really believed about Osiris in the time of Christ.”(4-a) Further we are told by Powell “[N]owhere do the Egyptians themselves tell this story [of the murder and “resurrection” of Osiris]; we must depend on an account in Greek [that being the post-Christian and negligible Plutarch].”(5)

So then, is Etymologyking taking the primary texts (or shall we say, absence of primary texts) further than they warrant when he claims that Osiris was bodily resurrected to his original state, and are modern scholars that are familiar with the issue so quick to come to such conclusions? Bruce Metzger, Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary, in his survey concludes “Whether this can be rightly called a resurrection is questionable...”(6) J. Smith Ph.D. in his work Dying and Rising Gods comments:

The pieces of his body were recovered and rejoined, and the god was rejuvenated. However, he did not return to his former mode of existence but rather journeyed to the underworld, where he became the powerful lord of the dead. In no sense can Osiris be said to have ‘risen’ in the sense required by the dying and rising pattern...In no sense can the dramatic myth of his death and reanimation be harmonized to the pattern of dying and rising gods. (7)

Professor Ronald Nash Ph.D. agrees when he writes “some writers go much too far and refer to Osiris’s resurrection.”(8) Roland de Vaux, director of the Ecole Biblique, has stated:

What is meant of Osiris being 'raised to life'? Simply that, thanks to the ministrations of Isis, he is able to lead a life beyond the tomb which is an almost perfect replica of earthly existence [note: Please understand this former statement in the context of the Egyptian religions.]. But he will never again come among the living and will reign only over the dead...This revived god is in reality a 'mummy' god. (9)

Günter Wagner, as stated, has likewise agreed “Osiris knew no resurrection, but was resuscitated to be a ruler of the Netherworld.” And we are also told:

He is only a dead king, though one who in death continues to exist: he does not rise again to a new life in his former majesty, and this is obviously still understood by Plutarch. The idea of his being restored to or exhaled above his previous form is lacking. (10)

A secular online source likewise concludes:

“From about 2000 BC onward it was believed that every man, not just the deceased kings, became associated with Osiris at death. This identification with Osiris, however, did not imply resurrection, for even Osiris did not rise from the dead. Instead, it signified the renewal of life both in the next world and through one's descendants on Earth. In this universalized form Osiris' cult spread throughout Egypt.”(11)

Eric Snow concludes:

If “resurrection” is defined as the old physical body coming alive again on this earth, which is undeniably its meaning in the Hebrew scriptures (Eze. 37:1-14), then Osiris’s return to life in Hades (similar to Sheol) after various Egyptian gods magically revived his body isn’t a real “resurrection.” (12)

We can argue over the use of the word “resurrection” all day (to which Etymologyking must yield to the use of the word by Wagner, not as he would like to arbitrarily define it) but semantics aside, what are we really saying? The Osirian cycle and restoration of Osiris to animation in the underworld looks nothing like Jewish bodily resurrection. Etymologyking demonstrates that he is not familiar with Egyptian religion and imports western notions when he assumes that Osiris must have been bodily and spiritually raised to his former state because Isis impregnated herself with his corpse by use of her magic, and he bases his argument in asking how a dead god could impregnate Isis. The problem is, later on in the myth, the dead Osiris does just that. After the first impregnation of Isis, birth of “Horus the Hawk”, and battle with Seth, Osiris, this time agreeably dead, appears to Isis and impregnates her a second time with “Horus the Child”.(13)
These notions tend to proliferate his video (especially in regards to the incarnation of Horus and his quotation of Budge’s references to the sahu). I find it rather strange that those who confess the Egyptian religions the most, seem to be the most inoculated to their teachings. Etymologyking reads:

Furthermore, we find that the doctrine of eternal life and of the resurrection of a glorified or transformed body, based upon the ancient story of the resurrection of Osiris after a cruel death and horrible mutilation inflicted by the powers of evil was the same in all periods and the legends of the most ancient times, were excepted without material alteration or addition in the texts of later dynasties.

Nicolas Perrin has already made short work of all this in his scholarly paper endorsed by Michael Heiser.(14) And we should stress the non-physical context Budge is speaking in (which has been conveniently ignored). Budge also wrote:

But while we have this evidence of the Egyptian belief in eternal life, we are nowhere told that man's corruptible body will rise again; indeed, the following extracts show that the idea prevailed that the body lay in the earth while the soul or spirit lived in heaven.(15)

The Egyptians, of course, had absolutely no concept of a glorified body in any meaningful sense and Budge draws this claim by making false and misleading connections between the Egyptian sahu and Jewish “incorruptible body”. Perrin states that “Budge may be faulted for his unqualified use of Western anthropological categories in elucidating non-Western anthropological terms” and notes that if the sahu is to be held to the standard by which Budge parallels it with western thought then he must consistently conclude that all of Egyptian existence is therefore “spiritual” or (in our present case) glorified.(16) He continues:

The sharp spiritual-physical dichotomy, intrinsic to post-Cartesian Western thought, simply does not apply to Egyptian anthropology. Thus, the translation…is misleading inasmuch as it implies an extraordinary fusion or coalescing of ‘spirit’ and ‘body’, while in Egyptian thought these aspects of the human personality were never considered entirely separate in the first place. Secondly, Budge is again misleading when he describes the sahu as ‘henceforth lasting and incorruptible’. Of course, ancient Egyptian anthropology has been notoriously difficult to understand, much less describe, and the sahu, as one term among several signifying the human person, is no exception. Nonetheless, the difficulties do not altogether prevent our situating the sahu vis-à-vis Paul’s ‘spiritual body’. It is certainly clear, as even Budge’s own translation elsewhere shows, that the sahu is subject to various pains and tortures of the underworld judgment, and this places it at quite a remove from Paul’s ‘incorruptible body’…The dissimilarities between Paul’s incorruptible body’ and the sahu could hardly be greater.(17)

The aforementioned quote from Budge that Etymologyking has given us implies that Egyptians sought to obtain “the resurrection of a glorified or transformed body, based upon the ancient story of the resurrection of Osiris after [his] cruel death”. Of course, “resurrected” and “glorified or transformed” bodies don’t exist in Egyptian religion.(18) Further, as Perrin has elaborated Osiris was no friend to the dead, and Egyptians did not anticipate death as the early Christians did.(19) Much more could be stated here (and probably will be) but I must say that my main impetus for writing this response is only to defend my personal credibility in regards to my citation of Wagner. Quite frankly, I couldn’t care less as a Christian if Osiris had been bodily raised to life in the proper and full meaning of the phrase and consider this entire discussion, in principal, to be ancillary and inane. Exactly what impact could an Osirian resurrection have on first century Palestinian Jews? Carrier, who is sympathetic to the mythisist position scoffs “[t]his is easily the least persuasive parallel with Christianity among extant religions of the day.”(20) Why not appeal to Ianna or Baal, who are much closer parallels (though, not even close, but better than Osiris)? Further, Osiris worship was hardly widespread enough at the time to have influence on early Christians and this is a fact which should stop being ignored by Kemetic advocates.(21) Chuckling, Etymologyking reads us an excerpt from Budge’s intro on The Book of Respirations:

He is called “the soul that livith again”, “the being who becometh a child again”, the “first born son of unformed matter”, “the lord of multitudes of aspects and forms”, the “lord of time and bestower of years”, the “lord of life for all eternity”. He is the giver of life from the beginning. Life springs up to us from his destruction and the germ which proceeds from him engenders life in both the dead and the living.

“The soul that livith again” fits comfortably with all I have said. “The being who becometh a child again” is a reference to the incarnation of Horus and not a resurrection as we are lead to believe. The rest are references to the crop cycle and as we have shown Osiris wasn’t a benevolent bestower of life or comfort in the underworld, or anything of that sort. Etymologyking has stated that he should be paid the money being offered by the two websites I’m not affiliated with but cite often. He apparently has not examined these cash challenges or he would be aware that no such monetary offer for a death and resurrection of Osiris exists; only for Horus are the offers given, and I have never made any such claim that there is a monetary reward out regarding Osiris. Metzger concludes as we shall:

“’It was the pious desire of devotees to be buried in the same ground where, according to local tradition, the body of Osiris was still lying’…no fewer than twenty-three locations, identified by classical authors and Greek inscriptions, clamed to be the place where Osiris’s body lay. (22)

(1) Nicholas Perrin, “On Raising Osiris in 1 Corinthians 15”. PDF document through Dr. Heiser’s site: (http://michaelsheiser.com/PaleoBabble/2009/09/new-testament-resurrection-theology-based-on-ancient-egyptian-religion/) ,121
(2) Günter Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries, 261.
(3) Eric V. Snow, A Zeal for God Not According to Knowledge, 272
(4) E.A. Wallis Budge, Book of the Dead, 52-53 (I accessed the book online here).
(4-a) Read his article here: http://www.frontline-apologetics.com/Carrier_on_Osiris_.html
(5) Barry B. Powell, Classical Myth, (Sixth Edition. 2009), 63.
Richard Carrier himself largely dismisses Plutarch:
“This is most damning in the case of Plutarch, who was a rabid Platonist with an obvious and explicit disdain for popular religion. He is well known for rewriting and distorting facts to suit his genteel Greek sensibilities and his unabashedly Platonist dogmas, and he actually says many times that he has dismissed or omitted much out of disgust with popular notions…Thus, Plutarch's views could be worlds away from anything the Osiris worshippers, or the earliest would-be Christians, may have known or believed. This source problem only compounds what is already evident…”
(6) Bruce Metzger, Historical and Literary Studies: Pagan, Jewish, and Christian, 21. He also states (pg. 19)
“The various episodes of the legend are not attested in the same way and with the same frequency. The texts often speak of the battles of Horus and Seth for the heritage of Osiris, and often they mention the laments of Isis over her husband’s death. But with regard to the actual death and resurrection of Osiris they are always quite reticent and usually give us no more than brief allusions.”
(7) J. Smith, Dying and Rising Gods, pg. 524-525.
(8) Ronald Nash, The Gospel And The Greeks, 137.
(9) Roland de Vaux, The Bible and the Ancient Near East, 1971, 236.
(10) Ibid., 261.
(11) Encyclopedia Britannica article: Osiris. (http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/3/0,5716,58983+1+57544,00.html).
(12) Ibid., 295.
(13) Barry B. Powell, Classical Myth (Pearson Education 2009), 244.
“Although dead, Osiris appeared to Isis once more and begot another child on her, “Horus the Child”, a god represented as an infant sucking his own finger. The Egyptians were unclear whether Horus the Hawk and Horus the child were the same; in a way they were, in a way they were not. Much in this myth is etiological for features of Egyptian society and religion. It explains why there were so many temples to Osiris and why two gods with the same name-Horus- were represented differently.”
(14) See footnote (1).
(15) Inscriptions by Wallis Budge, Book of the Dead (The Papyrus of Ani) online: (http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/ebod/ebodintr.htm)., p. li
(16) Perrin, Ibid.,120
(10) Perrin, Ibid.,121
(18) Perrin, Ibid.,126
“Thus the hope of the deceased was not for a better state in the underworld, but for the continuation of earth-like existence in the chthonic realm. It was through their funerary preparations and rituals that the Egyptians sought to recover, maintain and perpetuate the comforts of earthly life.”
(19) Ibid. Perrin, 125-126
(20) Article: www.frontline-apologetics.com/Carrier_on_Osiris_.html
(21) Eric V. Snow, A Zeal for God Not According to Knowledge, 270
“The Osiris cult…didn’t become popular with the Roman Empire’s masses until the second and third centuries.” Perrin notes also (pgs. 127-28) that “Osiris worship was at its low point”.
(22) Quoted and cited in this article: http://www.frontline-apologetics.com/Resurrection_of_Osiris.html

Jordan Maxwell's "The Naked Truth" Refuted

2010-10-23T21:28:00.000-07:00

This is my documentary debunking Jordan Maxwell's 1991 film which has become popular on the internet and would later lay much of the ground work for the viral Zeitgeist movement. (My friend Keith Thompson has refuted the Zeitgeist movement here.) The "debunkumentary" refutes some of the earlier aspects of Zeitgeist, Kersey Graves, Blavatsky’s Gnostic esotericism which has become popular through Dowling's Aquarian Gospel book, and some of the non-sense from the Acharya S. camp (see the footnotes for further material on her).
-B

Note: The player above will play each part consecutively. Chris White of NowheretoRunRadio.com has kindly uploaded each part as one here for those who want to view it as a single version. It runs 1 hour and 19 minutes.

Footnotes:
Part 1
1) Here's a side-by-side Hebrew-English translation of Gen. 6:14 in all the major Hebrew texts. The Hebrew word used for ark in "Ark of the Covenant" isn't ark either; it's "aron":
http://biblos.com/genesis/6-14.htm
2) Just reading the Hebrew Old Testament is enough to see that Solomon isn't pronounced "Solomon" in the Hebrew. Here's the info on the Greek/Latin reconstruction and name meaning:
http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Solomon.html
3) David Noel Freedman, Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible, (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2000), 382.
Transliterated as "r'w"
4) Etymology of Jonah:
http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Jonah.html
5) Here's an example of "Shemesh" used in Hebrew scripture:
http://biblos.com/jonah/4-8.htm
6) Etymology online dictionary on Dalai:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Dalai+Lama
7) Ibid. for Lama
Part 2
1) Benjamin B. Warfield, Introduction to Textual Criticism of the New Testament (1907), 12-13
"If we compare the present state of the New Testament text with that of any other ancient writing, we must declare it to be marvelously correct...The New Testament [is] unrivaled among ancient writings in the purity of its text as actually transmitted and kept in use."
2) Lee Strobel, The Case for the Real Jesus (Zondervan, 2007), 82-83 quoting Dan Wallace. Wallace also states (on p 83):
"Yet remarkably, the additions to the text over fourteen centuries of copying amount to about 2 percent of the total. In other words the New Testament grew over time, but at less than 2 percent growth per millennium-so banking on its expansion would be a poor investment...The quality and quantity of the New Testament manuscripts are unequalled in the ancient Greco-Roman world."
3) Apologetics Study Bible, "Manuscript Authority of the New Testament Compared to other Classical Works" (Holman, 2006), in back chart section (no pagination).
4) Ibid. Strobel, The Case for Real Jesus, 83. Dan Wallace states:
"The average Greek author has less than twenty copies of his works still in existence, and they come no sooner than five hundred to a thousand years later. If you stacked up copies of his works...they would be about four feet tall. Stack up copies of the New Testament and they would reach more than a mile high-and, again that doesn't include quotations from the church fathers."
5) Stated by Dan Wallace in 4truth.net interview: "Audio interview with Daniel B. Wallace on Reliability of New Testament Text":
http://www.4truth.net/Search.aspx?searchtext=DanielWallace&searchfor=all&orderby=id&orderdirection=ascending
6) Ibid. 4truth.
7) Ibid. Apologetics Study Bible.
8) Stated by Gary Hambermas in lecture "The Veracity of the New Testament" mp3 audio here:
http://apologetics315.blogspot.com/2009/06/veracity-of-new-testament-mp3-audio-by.html
9) Ibid. 4truth interview. (Stated at 36:48-4)
10) Ibid. Strobel, The Case for the Real Jesus, 89.
11) Article: Egypt: The God Amun and Amun-Re: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/amun-re.htm
"In reality, the god did in fact threaten the monarchy, for the cult of Amun-Re became so powerful that its priesthood grew very large and influential, and at one point, priests of the deity actually came to rule Egypt (during the 21st Dynasty) At other times, Amun-Re created difficulties for the king, such as in the case of Akenaten, who sought to change the basic structure of Egyptian religion. In this instance, Amun-Re eventually proved more powerful then the king, for though Akhenaten desperately tried to change the nature of Egyptian religion, for such efforts he himself became the scorn of later pharaohs. After Akhenaten's reign, Egyptian religion almost immediately reverted back to its prior form and to the worship of Amun-Re." (emph. mine)
12) Article:
http://www.suite101.com/content/the-pharaoh-akhenaten-a102059
13) Tecktonics article:
http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/akhenaten.html
14) Donald B. Redford "The Monotheism of Akhenaten." in Aspects of Monotheism, 113
15) Donald B. Redford, Akhenaten the Heretic King, (Princeton University Press 1984), 232
16) In a personal email correspondence, astronomer Jay Pasachoff writes, "Many of the constellations were referred to in Homer in the 9th century BC. The Babylonians divided the zodiac into 12 constellations in the 5th c. BC."
17) Article:
http://www.touregypt.net/astro/
18) James Holden, A History of Horoscopic Astrology: From the Babylonian Period to the Modern Age (American Federation of Astrologers, 2nd edition, 1996), 8.
19) Nicholas Campion, "Babylonian Astrology: Its Origin and Legacy in Europe," (2000) 2.
20) Nicholas Campion, Introduction to the History of Astrology, chapter on "Egyptian Astrology," p. 1
21) This is explicitly stated in no uncertain terms in Exodus 16:2-5; 8; 12; 15.
22) One Omer:
Exodus 16:16; 22
This is what the LORD has commanded: 'Each one is to gather as much as he needs. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent.' " On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much—two omers for each person.
23) Gary R. Habermas, The Historical Jesus, (College Press, 2009), 46.
Part 3
1) Walter Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults Cambridge Mass, (Harvard University Press. 1987),101
2) Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ, 166
3) T. N. D. Mettinger, The Riddle of the Resurrection: "Dying and Rising Gods" in the Ancient Near East, 2001. p.4
"From the 1930s...a consensus has developed to the effect that the dying and rising gods' died but did not return or rise to live again... Those who still think differently are looked upon as residual members of an almost extinct species."
Ronand Nash, Gospel and the Greeks, 161-62; quoting Andre Boulanger, Orphee: Raports de l'orphisme et du christianisme (Paris, 1925), 102.
"Which mystery gods actually experienced a resurrection from the dead? Certainly no early texts refer to any resurrection of Attis. Attempts to link the worship of Adonis to a resurrection are equally weak. Nor is the case for a resurrection of Osiris any stronger....And of course no claim can be made that Mithras was a dying and rising god. French scholar Andre Boulanger concluded: 'the conception that the god dies and is resurrected in order to lead his faithful to eternal life is represented in no Hellenistic mystery religion.'"
Boyd/Eddy, The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition (Baker Academic, 2007),134,136.
"While the claim that aspects of the Christian view of Jesus parallel, even are indebted to, ancient pagan legends and myths has a long history, it gained prominence with the birth of the history of religions school (Religionsgeschichtliche Schule) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries....The history of religions school was extremely popular in academic circles for several decades, but owing to trenchant critiques by such scholars as Samuel Cheetham, H.A.A. Kennedy, J. Gresham Machen, A.D. Nock, Bruce Metzger, and Gunter Wagner, it eventually fell out of fashion."
4) Ibid. Strobel, 161 Summery of Mettinger's study and quotation from his work is given.
5) Both offer $1000 with the former having a more eclectic list of claims that the prize money is being offered for:
Kingdavid8.com
Zeitgeistchallenge.com
6) Egyptians washed dead bodies and Anubis was the god of embalming. Massey seems to be equating this with a Christian baptism which ironically symbolizes regeneration and new life. Regardless of the slew of Zeitgeist movie supporters and prize money being directly offered to Acharya S., no one has yet to see a primary text for this one.
7) Annu means pillar:
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/heliopolis.htm
As for "Annu" being a city with grain stores, this is rather nugatory being that it was a major city and we should expect as such. The Hebrew usage of the word translated "bread" in "Bethlehem" refers to food in general and there were several places called Bethlehem during the minor prophet period.
8) Ibid. footnote 5
9) Quoted from and cited here:
http://www.preventingtruthdecay.org/copycats.shtml
10) As noted before the twelve signs were divided by the Babylonians in the 6/5th century B.C.
11) Stated in this article:
http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/HORUS.htm
12) Stated here:
http://www.kingdavid8.com/Copycat/JesusHorus.html
13) Ibid. footnote (11).
14) The owner of Kingdavid8, who is offering money for this claim has his conversation with her posted online here: http://www.kingdavid8.com/Letters/LetterJesusHorus.html
15) Nicholas Perrin, "On Raising Osiris in 1 Corinthians 15", 126
16) Perrin article:
http://michaelsheiser.com/PaleoBabble/2009/09/new-testament-resurrection-theology-based-on-ancient-egyptian-religion/
17) Nicholas Perrin "On Raising Osiris in 1 Corinthians 15"
18) Ibid. quoted by Strobel, 181
19) Stated here:
http://www.kingdavid8.com/Copycat/JesusBuddha.html
20) Thomas Boslooper, The Virgin Birth (1962),135, quoted in Gromacki, Virgin Birth, 211.
21) Stated here:
http://www.kingdavid8.com/Copycat/JesusBuddha.html
and here:
http://www.thedevineevidence.com/jesus_similarities.html
22) Stated in this article by Yamauchi:
http://www.irr.org/yamauchi.html
Another source on his Cremation:
http://www.mahidol.ac.th/budsir/life_10.htm
23) Text which can be read here:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/btg/btg98.htm
24) This Buddhist website for example, puts it in no uncertain terms:
http://www.buddhist-temples.com/gautam-buddha.html
25) Quoted by Lee Strobel, The Case for the Real Jesus,182
26) Quoted by Keith Thompson who privately contacted her via Email. Keith later quoted her in his film here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPsUFiMXEoc&feature=related
27) Quoted in Mike Licona's article: "A Refutation of Acharya S's book, The Christ Conspiracy", which can be viewed online here: http://www.risenjesus.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14&Itemid=19
28) See Doug Powell article "Did Jesus Descend into Hell?" Can be read in PDF here:
http://www.vorthosforum.com/export/Articles/Did%20Jesus%20Descend%20Into%20Hell.pdf
29) Krishna: a sourcebook By Edwin Francis Bryant,148, 150. Quoting Sarala's Mahabharata.
30) Prize money here: http://kingdavid8.com/Copycat/Challenge.html
Start of Refutation of Kersey Graves:
1) Carrier article on Graves:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/graves.html
2) http://www.kingdavid8.com/Copycat/JesusZulis.html
3) http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/crite.html
4) The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literature Volume 36, p 262
"The name S(S)iduri cannot be separated from Sirtur (Ze-ir-tu-ur, Sir-du), mother of Tammuz; the first r has been dropped by dissimilation. Unfortunately we know nothing directly about this divinity except her name."
5) http://www.gsbkerala.com/panduranga.htm
6) This gentleman has the most extensive (and one of the only websites on the web that is devoted to this god. As such he has received emails asking about Esus being a prototype for Jesus and scoffs at such notions (he has a page refuting such pretentions):
http://www.chronarchy.com/esus/aboutesus.html
7) These come from the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pituras [post-conquest codex written in the 1530s] and Anal de Cuauahtitlan and leyenda de las soles. Etymology of xochiquetzal:
http://www.behindthename.com/name/xochiquetzal
8) Encyclopedia entry on Indra:
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/i/indra.html
9) http://www.reference.com/browse/Alcestis
10) Barry B. Powell, Classical Myth, 247-248.
The birth from Zeus' semen is a less common version in most it is from Adgistis' semen and blood.
11) http://varnam.org/blog/2004/09/lord_krishna_lived_for_125_yea/
12) Tammuz is the Hebrew and Aramaic pronunciation that is popularized by it's use in the Old Testament where God is abhorred with his worship. Dummuzi is the (more) original Sumerian pronunciation of the god.
13) You can read an online translation of the courtship of Ianna and Dummuzi here: http://www.piney.com/BabCourship.html
14) Our earliest text on Esus is the post-Christian Lucan (Pharsalia I, 422-465). He talks about human sacrifices offered to the god in his Bellum civile
15) Hesiod, Theogony 507ff
16) http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/alcestis.html
17) Barry B. Powell, Classical Myth, 247-248
18) Edwin M. Yamauchi, "Easter-Myth, Hallucination, or History? First of Two parts", 5
19) "Those who seek to adduce Mithra as a prototype of the risen Christ ignore the late date for the expansion of Mithraism to the west."
Yamauchi quoted by Lee Strobel, The Case for the Real Jesus,168-169
"We have almost no evidence of Mithraism in the sense of a mystery religion in the West until very late-too late to have influenced the beginnings of Christianity...The earliest Mithraea are dated to the early second century. There are a handful of inscriptions that date to the early second century, but the vast majority of texts date are dated after A.D. 140. Most of what we have as evidence of Mithraism comes in the second, third and fourth centuries A.D...That's... what's wrong with...theories about Mithraism influencing the beginnings of Christianity"
20) Ibid. Strobel, 169.
21) Encyclopedia of Religion, Second Edition, vol 9, Lindsay Jones Editor and Chief (2005 Thompson Gale), 6091.
22) Manfred Clauss, The Roman Cult of Mithras, 62-63.
23) Personal email correspondence that took place on 10/14/10.
24) Personal email correspondence that took place on 10/13/2010.
25) Article by Carrier: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/graves.html
26) Barry B. Powell, Classical Myth, 238-41
27) Ovid, Metamorphoses, 10.708-39
28) Edwin M. Yamauchi, "Easter-Myth, Hallucination, or History". Christianity Today (March 15, 1974).,4
See also: http://jss.oxfordjournals.org/content/XI/1/10.extract
"In the case of the Mesopotamian Tammuz (Sumerian Dumuzi), his alleged resurrection by the goddess Inanna-Ishtar had been assumed even though the end of both the Sumerian and the Akkadian texts of the myth of "the Descent of Inanna (Ishtar)" had not been preserved. Professor S. N. Kramer in 1960 published a new poem, "The Death of Dumuzi," that proves conclusively that instead of rescuing Dumuzi from the Underworld, Inanna sent him there as her substitute." "This gives us the irrefutable evidence for the death of Tammuz and the necessity for him to remain dead"
"Tammuz was identified by later writers with the Phoenician Adonis, the beautiful youth beloved of Aphrodite...P. Lambrechts has shown that there is no trace of a resurrection in the early texts or pictorial representations of Adonis."
29) Quoted by Michael Licona in his article refuting Acharya S: http://www.risenjesus.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14:a-refutation-of-acharya-ss-book-the-christ-conspiracy-&catid=4:articles&Itemid=19
30) Kersey Graves, The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors, 122
31) Ibid Powell, 625. See also Plutarch, Life of Numa Pompilius.
32) Ibid. Encyclopedia of Religion, 7420
33) Play here: http://classics.uc.edu/~johnson/tragedy/summaries/alcestis.html
34) Reward at Kingdavid8.com under "Christ Myther Challenge" and Zeitgeistchallenge.com (totals as of now to 2000$).
35) Ibid., Powell, 247.
36) Ibid., Yamauchi "Easter",5.
37) Ibid., The Case for the Real Jesus, 169.
38) Richard Gordan, Greco-Roman World, (1996), 96.
Part 4
1) The historian Dr. Chris Forbs has a great and enjoyable audio that covers this and other related issues with Zeitgeist here: http://apologetics315.blogspot.com/2009/04/brief-historical-critique-of-zeitgeist.html
2) Gary R. Habermas and Michael Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids MI : Kregel Publications, 2004) 128.

Study on Prophet Hosea

2010-09-04T13:51:00.000-07:00

Study for my Old Testament class.

Footnotes:
1) J. Leithart, A House for My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament, p.157, Canon Press, 2000.
2) Dr. Thomas L. Constable, Notes on Hosea, p.1, 2010 Edition. Dr. Constable's notes are available to be viewed as a free online PDF document here: http://www.soniclight.com/constable/notes/pdf/hosea.pdf
3) Apologetics Study Bible p.1294, 2007.
4) 2 Kings 14:25-28; 2 Chron. 26:2, 6-15.
5) 2 Kings 15:29
6) Ibid. Constable p.
7) 2 Kings 17:1-6; 18:10-12.
8) 2 Kings 16:5-10
9) The Apologetics Study Bible p.1295, 2007. Footnote 1:2 lists four primary competing theories and offers a brief critique of each.
10) We find that Hosea would seem to be the first to adopt this metaphorical type of husband-wife relationship between God's elektos and himself. That is later used by the other Minor Prophets and most notably by the early Christians. When read in light of Jesus' statement in Matthew 9:15 it becomes a bold reference to the deity of Christ.
11) Hosea 1:4
12) 2 Kings 10:11
13) The "House of Omri" is an Assyrian name for the Kingdom or house of Israel referring back to king Omri of Israel. The father of the northern king Ahab (whom Jehu killed and followed in ascendency after the Jezreel massacre).
14) E.M. Baiklock and R. K. Harrison, The New International dictionary of Biblical Archaeology (Grand Rapids Zondervan, 1983), 409. This obelisk was found in the biblical city of Calah and is widely held to be our earliest existing depiction of an Israelite.
15) Henry Jackson Flanders, Jr., Robert Wilson Crapps, David Anthony Smith. People of the Covenant: An Introduction to the Old Testament Third Edition p. 314. Oxford University Press 1988, New York Oxford.
16) Hosea 1:6
17) Apologetics Study Bible, p. 1295, Footnote c. 2007.
18) Although the exegesis in this context is quite clear Wesley's Notes on Hosea 1:9 are particularly useful.

Influence of Osiris Worship on Pauline Resurrection? A Scholarly Look

2010-07-16T19:38:00.000-07:00

This excellent article was recently posted on Dr. Michael Heiser's blog. It's an erudite academic work but should be accessible to most laypersons. It addresses "resurrection" and why sources like the century past Wallis Budge are rejected by modern scholarship. Followers of Ashra Kwesi and the like should avoid reading it if they wish to maintain respect for people like Hagins, Seti and Kwesi.
Here

The Many Blunders of Sara Suten Seti

2010-07-14T21:44:00.000-07:00

I recently finished the following critique of Sara Suten Seti. It is important to note that these responses document not only many of Seti’s mistakes but also Ray Hagins (for example, the claim that all our sources for Jesus are restricted to the Bible) whom I have attempted dialogue with in the past. Originally these two videos were intended to be only a 10 minute single part presentation so many of Seti’s gross historical errors didn’t make it into the video cut due to youtube time restrictions. Below I have documented several additional mistakes in Seti's work (and in some cases what would seem to be outright deception) which didn’t make the video format. I understand I'm probably "casting my pearls before swine" in even responding to this type of inane madness (one need only read through the youtube comment boxes), and this will probably be the last time. I'm doing it only because I've received a consistent number of requests to do so.

In the following presentation by Seti at 5:55:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfCqHJ4f3xQ

Seti shows an image of a piece of Mayan artwork from the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico. He states emphatically that “it is an elephant” and therefore argues that the African people either influenced or originated Mayan culture.

As laughable as this claim is, it is not unexpected from Seti. He also argues that the Meso-American Olmecs were African (A). The problem here is that this image is most certainly not of an elephant as Seti claims. It is a common Mayan depiction of the rain god Chaac. Chaac is often depicted with a pendulum shaped-elongated nose, a hominoid stature with reptilian skin, fangs and shell ornamented ears. Although architectural depictions of Chaac embellish his features to varying degrees we find more paradigmatic depictions of him within the Dresden codex. These Mayan depictions of the god rip through any lingering pretentions that his hooked nose may be mistaken for a pacadermic-inspired trunk.

In the following presentation by Seti at 4:13:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcIsIft_zyc&feature=related

Seti claims that the Hebrew name “Piniel” פְּנוּאֵל found in Genesis 32:30 is connected in etymology with the english word “Pineal” (as in "Pineal Gland"). He makes emphatic reference that Genesis 32:30 is really referring to the pineal gland which he says the ancient Egyptians recognized in their religion.

Hebrew students will instantly recognize that the Hebrew “Piniel” in Genesis comes from the roots “Panim” meaning face and “El” meaning God (B) (even Seti himself concedes this). In contrast to Seti however, the online etymology dictionary states in agreement with all sources that the English word “Pineal” from which we get the word "pineal gland" derives from the Latin root “Pinea” meaning “like a pine cone”(C). We find that the Pineal gland is indeed named such in English in reference to its cone shape (D). There can be no connection with the Hebrew roots Panim-El because the language families from which both roots derive are entirely separate.

At 7:09:

Seti claims that a portion of the Lord’s Prayer mentioning Heaven is stolen from Egyptian astrology.

As I documented in my article in response to Ashra Kwesi this is impossible because the Lord’s Prayer originates with Jesus in the first century (far too removed from the Jewish stay in Egypt). Not only this, but mosaic laws like those found in Deuteronomy Chapter 17 punish celestial worship with death and the Jews sardonicaly referred to the constellation of Osiris (which Seti is referencing) as “stupid and impious” (E)

At 9:53:

Seti claims that the Gnostic Gospels and Nag Hammadi Texts represent early Christianity. He claims that the Gospel of Judas dates back to 260 B.C.

The Gnostic texts are usually grossly historically inaccurate, distinctly Greek and highly embellished. They are not concerned with reporting an accurate history and were adamantly rebuked by the early church (for example Irenaeus in his work Against all Heresy warns us of many and sets about to refute them-including the Gospel of Judas). Judas is a second century A.D. Gnostic forgery composed by a religious group called the Cainites. It was never quoted as an authoritative text by the early Church. No source places it as a B.C. text and it is my inclination to believe that Seti made up this date of 260 B.C. (he has done similar things in his responses to me in the past-inserting text that don't exist into the Bible).

Stefan Lovgren of National Geographic states that the Gospel of Judas is a second to third century A.D. text (F). The New York Times say it was composed around 300 A.D.(G). Darrel Block states that it was composed in the second century A.D.(H) Craig A. Evens who was a memeber of the National Geographic team that worked on dating and examining the text says it was composed around 250 to 300 A.D(I).

Footnotes for videos:
(1) Personal email correspondence that took place on 7/7/10.
(2) Encyclopedia entry: http://i-cias.com/e.o/serapis.htm
(3) Seti is speaking here of the Greek featured reconstruction of Serapis that even Ray Hagins staunchly advertises was first commissioned by Ptolomy I (Hagins says this in his lectures on the Council of Nicaea which can be found on youtube.com). The Encyclopedia Britannica (as well as any other source) documents that this was the origin of the Greek reconstruction of the deity during the Hellenistic period: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/523970/Serapis.

In his article "On Raising Osiris in 1 Corinthians 15"(American Theological Association p.127) Nicholas Perrin P.h.D. documents that during the time of Paul "Osirian worship was at its low point." and "went into considerable decline. In the first century CE Mediterranean world."
(4) Most sources hold an eighth century authorship of the Iliad (although the narrative is much older, it was this time that writing returned to Greece in a more alphabetical form). The following internet article from HistoryWorld.net is sufficient:
http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=aa17
(5) Gary R. Habermas and Michael Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids MI : Kregel Publications, 2004) 128. (Tiberius's number reduces from ten to nine since Luke is a Christian source.)
(6) My correspondence with Ray Hagins: http://benstanhope.blogspot.com/2010/03/open-letter-to-ray-hagins.html
(7) Tectonics article addressing Serapis/Jesus theory: http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/serapis.html
(8) Different sources diverge but none I can find make Zarathustra as early as Seti wants him (during or after the reign of Ptolomy I). The Encyclopedia Britannica holds one of the earliest proposed dates at 628 B.C.- 551 B.C. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/658060/Zoroaster
(9) I have documented numerous scholarly sources stating this before (see my article under the heading "Osar got seventy two conspirators to crucify him?" and I have yet to see an Egyptian text that says or indicates that Osiris was ever liberated from death. F.F. Bruce, Gary Hambermas et al. do not recognize Osiris as a dying and rising god in their surveys because it is never stated that he did rise from the dead. The youtube user etymologyking in his video response to me here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-8lNNqvka4 never cites an Egyptian text to instantiate this claim. He only read a piece by the unrespected, century past sensationalist Wallace Budge and quoted Budge as saying that Osiris was called "The being that livith again". Apparently etymologyking was not aware that this title refers to the symbolic incarnation of the dead Osiris into his son Horus-this title for Osiris is thus an argument against a bodily resurrection for Osiris. Nicholas Perrin P.h.D., in his article "On Raising Osiris in 1 Corinthians 15" (p.121 American Theological Library Association) states that Budge's work is "...largely outdated and inaccurate,..."and "must be used with caution" and applies distinctly western and Cartesian notions not found in Egyptian religion. Mary Jo Sharp (M.A.) who created a scathing refutation of the internet film Zeitgeist part 1 has an excellent audio podcast addressing this subject here under the title "The Story of Christ and Pagan Mystery Stories" http://www.confidentchristianity.com/.
(10) Trinity article: http://www.keithtruth.com/an_ontological_defense_of_the_trinity.html
(11) Martin Hengel, "Judentum und Hellenismus," Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen sum Neuen Testament.
"The development of the apocalyptic resurrection-, immortality-, and judgment-doctrine in Jewish Palestine explains why-in contrast to Alexandrian Judaism- the Hellenistic mystery religions...could gain virtually no influence there."
(12) Reasonable Faith: Christian truth and apologetics (third edition). William Lane Craig. p.391
"Scholars came to realize that pagan mythology is simply the wrong interpretive context for understanding Jesus of Nazareth...Jesus and his disciples were first century Palestinian Jews, and it is against that background that they must be understood. The spuriousness of the alleged parallels is just one indication that pagan mythology is the wrong interpretive context for understanding the disciples' belief in Jesus' resurrection. [T]here is no causal connection between pagan myths and the origin of the disciples' belief in Jesus' resurrection. Jews were familiar with the seasonal deities and found them abhorrent."
(13) Stated towards the end of the article from the British museum published by the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/jun/17/british-museum-egyptian-afterlife-exhibition
(14) The Babylonian Talmud, transl. by I. Epstein (London: Soncino, 1935), vol. III, Sanhedrin 43a, 281, cited in Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 203.
(15) 1 Corinthians 15. 1 Corinthians 15 is considered by nearly all scholars to be among one of the earliest creedal traditions in Christianity. Gary Habermas in his work The Historical Jesus- Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ devotes most of Chapter 7 alone to surveying this passage and delineating why virtually all non-Christian scholarship considers it to date back to the original apostles. Ulrich Wilckens in his work Resurrection, p.2 states that this creed "inevitably goes back to the oldest phase of all in the history of primitive Christianity." Noted New Testament scholar Joachim Jeremias calls it "the earliest tradition of all" (Eucharistic Words, pp. 101-102). Dr. Habermas states "It is very popular to date this creed in the mid A.D. 30s. More specifically, numerous critical theologians date it from three to eight years after Jesus' crucifixion." (Ibid. 154) Dr. Habermas then gives about half a page worth of works and critics who date it as such. Among these are Hans Grass, Leonard Goppelt, Thomas Sheehan, Pannenburg and Gerald O'Collins.
(16) Gary R. Habermas and Michael Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids MI : Kregel Publications, 2004) 127.
(17) Bruce, F. F.. "The Last Thirty Years". Story of the Bible.
Throughout
(18) First paragraph: http://www.septuagint.net

Footnotes for written critiques:
(A) One example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX-NbuN9yF0&feature=related
(B) http://strongsnumbers.com/hebrew/6439.htm
(C) http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pineal
(D) http://anatomyalmanac.blogspot.com/2007/08/pineal-gland-also-called-pineal-body.html
(E) See my article: Ashra Kwesi Exposed:
Benstanhope.blogspot.com
(http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/0406_060406_judas.html)
(G) http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/06/science/06cnd-judas.html
(H) http://www.jesusanddavinci.com/theology/bock_interview.html
(I) P.2. http://www.craigaevans.com/Gospel%20of%20Judas.pdf

Brief Defense of the Trinity

2010-06-15T00:44:00.000-07:00

Response to CPXB (who's original video can be seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK8hG4Da70M )

Early church quotations about the Trinity before Nicaea (Article from Matt Slick of CARM): http://www.carm.org/early-trinitarian-quotes

Further study/sources:

Article by James White (B.A.,M.A.,Th.M.,Th.D,D.Min) "What really happened at Nicaea":
http://www.equip.org/articles/what-really-happened-at-nicea-

William Lane Craig Doctrine of the Trinity Lecture Part 3:
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/PageServer?pagename=podcasting_main

Writings of Arius:
http://www.fourthcentury.com/index.php/arius-chart

A Response to Sara Suten Seti on Ashra Kwesi's Fabrication of History

2010-04-19T16:02:00.000-07:00

Sara Suten Seti from the "Black Power Cartel" organization (and here I use the word organization loosely) posted a response to my documentary critiquing Ashra Kwesi on youtube.com. Below is my three part rebuttal to every one of Seti's points. Also of mention; I’ve been invited to write articles for Keith Thompson's new website www.keithtruth.com. The website is to serve as an extension of Keith's new film Aquarius: The Age of Evil. The film will be released free for viewing on youtube.com at youtube.com/KeithTruth starting on May 7th and will be an exposé and examination of the New Age movement from a Christian perspective. The trailer can be seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na1D93dwz74

(Follow the video links to youtube to read the footnotes).

Ray Hagins Refuted

2010-03-17T16:55:00.000-07:00

I recently had this conversation with Pastor Ray Hagins on Facebook. Needless to say he blocked me as a friend after failing to respond to a single objection.

Ben Stanhope, March 17 at 5:54 PM

Hello Mr. Hagins, I have anticipated conversing with you. In your lectures and on your website and facebook you make many claims about Jesus and ancient gods in antiquity which I have found to be untrue and my friend Chris White of zeitgeistchallange.com and the website Kingdavid8.com are now jointly offering you 1250$ if you can provide a single primary source before the first century for any of the following claims:
HORUS:
That he was born on December 25th
Born of the virgin
His birth was accompanied by a star in the east
Three kings followed to locate and adorn the new-born savior
At the age of 12, he was a prodigal child teacher
And at the age of 30, he was baptized and thus began his ministry
Horus had 12 disciples
Performed miracles such as healing the sick and walking on water
Horus was known by many gestural names such as The Truth, The Light, God's Anointed Son, The Good Shepherd, The Lamb of God, After being betrayed by Typhon,
Horus was crucified,
Buried for 3 days and
Thus, resurrected.
KRISHNA:
Born of the virgin
With a star in the east signaling his coming
Performed miracles with his disciples
And upon his death was resurrected.
(These are just several out of many. The rest can be found on the websites.)
I recently made a short video examining some of your more popular claims which can be viewed here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClDo8vVslAY
Are you aware that no pre-Christian Hindu text mentions a crucifixion of Krishna and he actually died after being shot in the foot by a hunter?
Are you aware that Devaki had seven children before Krishna?
Are you aware that we have four times the number of early sources for Jesus within 150 years of his life as we do for the Roman emperor contemporary with him?
Are you aware that December 25th never became associated with Jesus’ death until the middle of the fourth century to replace the Roman Saturnalia festival? The Bible emphatically indicates that Jesus wasn’t born on December 25th because Sheppards don’t tend their fields in Palestine during the winter. Also “Sun” and “Son” are only homophones in the English language and according to badastronomy.com the sun doesn’t emphatically set for three days at winter solstice rather it sets for an unspecified period of around 4 to 5 days.
Are you aware that the twelve disciples are reflective of the twelve tribes of Israel and that the zodiac wasn’t divided into the 12 constellations until the golden age by the Babylonians; therefore it cannot be of astrological significance?
I can find no mention in the Egyptian text that indicates that Isis was a virgin. In fact every legend I can find on the Osirian myths all overtly indicate sexual union (indeed some of the texts are on the level of soft core porn)! Will you please except the 1250 cash challenge and provide a primary text for this claim?
You quote the Serapis letter in regard to Emperor Hadrian. Are you aware of the egregious background of the letter and that it was written in the second century after Jesus when many of the pagan religions were borrowing from Christian eschatology? Have you read the entire letter because Hadrian goes on to say that these Serapis worshipers were not true Christians and were simply using the Christian name. Hadrian points out when he says that there is none of them "who is not either an astrologer, a soothsayer, or a minister to obscene pleasures". Why do you not quote this part of the letter in your lectures?
You teach that before the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. there was no Jesus (with the implication that Serapis was the Christ prototype). This is the most ridiculous assertion I’ve ever heard. Tacitus, perhaps the greatest Roman historian, wrote in 113 A.D.:
“Christus, from whom [Christianity] had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea but also in Rome.”
Celsus, in the 2nd century in his attempted refutation of Christianity, (which Origen later rebutted) writes: “Jesus had come from a village in Judea, and was the son of a poor Jewess… [and] gave himself out to be a god.”
Lucian in the 2nd century criticized Christianity when he wrote: “they (the Christians) still worship, the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult to the world. Their first lawgiver persuaded them that they are all brothers...after they have thrown over and denied the gods of Greece and have done reverence to that crucified sophist himself and live according to his laws."
Sir, I can assure you Sarepis was not a Jew born in Palestine, nor was he crucified under Pontius Pilate, nor did Serapis worship reject “all worship of pagan gods” and I have countless other sources before the fourth century and Nicaea that give extremely detailed accounts of Jesus as well. The distinguished historian Michael Licona states “I’m not aware of a single widely-respected scholar in the world who holds the position that Jesus never existed.”
You stated in your Serapis lecture that Origin said nothing about Jesus. You haven’t read any of his writings. As I stated Origin wrote a classic apologetic against Celsus’ allegations that Jesus was born a bastard and that he studied sorcery in order to convince his followers that he was a god.
You later went on to grossly misrepresent the Niceane Creed:
“And those who say ‘there once was when he was not,’ and before he was begotten he was not,’ and that he came to be from things that were not, or from another hypostasis or substance, affirming that the Son of God is subjected to change or alteration these Catholic and Apostolic church anathematizes.”
The purpose of the Council of Nicaea was to formally establish whether or not Jesus and God the Father are equal (the deity of Christ had already been settled and was agreed on by all). A vote was held to settle the issue and only 3 out of 300 in the council voted that Jesus was not equal with God. This quote you mention has nothing to do with Serapis or the man Jesus being a mythological construct. It is an official Catholic codification of the agreed upon doctrine that Jesus is inextricable with God the Father and has always existed. Note the overtly ontological references in the creed; “and that he came to be from things that were not, or from another hypostasis or substance.”
You then demonstrate ignorance of the heretic Arius. Where are you getting such egregious sources? Arius never once argued that Jesus and Serapis were one and I should much like to press you for any primary substantiation on this (I have read every document to and from Arius and not one mentions Serapis. On the contrary; Arius was a heretical Christian who sought to be made a bishop. He affirms the historicity of Christ in his writings both before and after Nicaea.). Arianism argues that Jesus was created from God the Father and thus had not eternally existed with God the Father. His arguments were in opposition to trinitarianism. You state that your evidence for this claim was burned by Constantine. If this is true then you can’t argue it as I’m sure both of us will agree. However, you are arguing it so what is your evidence?
I have many other problems with your work and I’m asking all this of you because you advised me in your tape to “do my own research and verify what you are telling me.” I hope you have the respect to reply to this letter. I recently wrote a twenty page article and produced an hour long documentary responding to Ashra Kwesi and he would never respond to any of my letters or articles even when I offered to pay him. I strongly feel that if you are willing to converse with me and look at the evidence you will come back to Christ and produce great fruit when/if you apologize for all these mistakes you have been teaching. Even if you don’t return to Christ is it not proper to publically admit and correct those mistakes which are evident (especially about various ancient gods) in your work? I eagerly await your sincere response.

-Benjamin Stanhope

Ray Hagins March 17 at 6:17pm Report

Do you need to believe what you do? If so, then so be it! Horus never historically existed either! The story of Horus being the first virgin born Christ is still allegorical. What I am saying is that ALL of the other religions COPIED their version from the first story (which comes from Egypt).

If you REALLY want to know what I know then come and go with me to Egypt and do your own field research as I have. I don't want your friend's money. Tell them to invest it in their learning and go to Egypt. That's why I do the tours every year. So that people can go and see the undeniable evidence themselves.

Until you do objective field research, it is inappropriate to determine the authenticity of someone's claims based on biased literature that you have (or have not) read. Until you do that, the ONLY thing that you can say is, "I have read that..." or "I was taught that..." But you CANNOT say "I KNOW..."

Italians and Spaniards say, write and teach that Christopher Columbus discovered America. That's THEIR perspective! The Native Americans (and those who know better) would say he invaded America.

Please don't insult me with YOUR love for what you have been taught to call "Jesus Christ." You don't know what I know! I DO know what you know. I preached it for 25 years.

Ben Stanhope March 17 at 6:36pm

So you’re a liar and can’t respond to a single objection I raised. I've been in contact with Edwin Yamauchi who has studied Egypt much longer than you and is one of the highest credentialed scholars in the nation. He thinks your claims are nutty.
What of the Hindu texts? What of the Council of Nicaea? I don't have to go to Egypt to study these. What is your documentation for your claims regarding them? I have every bit the access to them as you.
Reference me any Egyptian text that indicates a virgin birth for Horus. Show me one depiction or image and I will have the atheist historian Richard Carrier examine it. There is nothing in Egypt that shows what you state. I refuted all of Kwesi's Egyptian tour videos in my documentary. You didn't learn your claims from Egyptian study. You learned them from the likes of Freke, Gandy, and Massey. I know you did because you quote them verbatim. Please don’t insult me by bragging about how smart and initiated you are as a smokescreen for objectively answering my objections. If you truly are as intelligent as you say then it should be a piece of cake to claim the money and answer me.

Ray Hagins March 17 at 6:53pm Report

Why? Your intent was to defy...not learn! Good bye!

Ben Stanhope March 17 at 7:08pm

I want to learn, why do you think I contacted you? Please teach me and stop trying to hide from my questions and the 1250$ cash prize. Are you not quoted constantly in telling your followers to do their own research instead of blindly accepting what you say? What have I done against you that you haven’t asked of me to do? Why won’t you answer a single one of my objections? Can you or can you not produce a single primary source that indicates Krishna was born of a virgin, yes or no? If no then make a public apology to your thousands of mini-masons who are walking around regurgitating this theosophical nonsense.

Ray Hagins March 17 at 7:22pm Report

I have given you the courtesy of a response. I just noticed your YouTube video. I am amazed. I didn't know that I was making such an impact for someone to go through all that ofr the purpose of discrediting what I have said. WOW! What amazes me even more is how many non-African people keep trying to tell Africans about our past (as though you really know)! WOW!

Ray Hagins March 17 at 7:22pm Report

No more responses...I have already given you more time than I meant to.

Ben Stanhope March 17 at 7:34pm

Do you have a single primary text that indicates that Krishna was born of a virgin? Yes or no.

Ben Stanhope March 17 at 7:39pm

Do you have a single primary text that indicates that Krishna was born of a virgin?
I would advise that you answer because this conversation is going straight to the web.

Footnotes for video:
Documentary refuting Ray Hagins by Keith Thompson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKlWWEViURo

Articles:
1)http://www.thedevineevidence.com/jesus_similarities.html
2) http://www.alwaysbeready.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=124&Itemid=107

Historicity of Jesus:
http://nowheretorun.podomatic.com/entry/2008-06-21T11_32_44-07_00

Footnotes:
1) See Gary Habermas book The Verdict of History. Its central objective is the delineation and extrapolation of these sources. Gary Habermas and Michael Licona's book The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus is the most extensive publication on the historicity of the resurrection to date, on page p. 233 they document 42 separate sources (Christian and non) within 150 years of Jesus' death.

(1-A) Krishna: a sourcebook By Edwin Francis Bryant p. 148 Quoting Sarala's Mahabharata "'[Jara] tageted them (Krishna's feet) with his bow and discharged an arrow. Lo it peirced the left foot of sleeping Shri Krishna, who started up, saw blood oozing out from his foot and felt a sharp pain. 'Who' he wondered 'could inflict such pain on me?' "Jara came close and recognised Shri Krishna..."
p. 150 "Jara removed the arrow from Shri Krishna's foot. Shri Krishna collapsed the gandiva with his right hand and looked at Arjuna. His spirit left his body".

2) Gary R. Habermas and Michael Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids MI : Kregel Publications, 2004) 128.
"...Let's look at an even better example, a contemporary of Jesus. Tiberius Caesar was the Roman emperor at the time of Jesus' ministry and execution. Tiberius is mentioned by ten sources within 150 years of his death: Tacitus, Suetonius, Velleius Paterculus, Plutarch, Pliny the Elder, Strabo, Seneca, Valerius Maximus, Josephus, and Luke. Compare that to Jesus' forty-two total sources in the same length of time. That's more than four times the number of total sources who mention the Roman emperor during roughly the same period. If we only considered the number of secular non-Christian sources who mention Jesus and Tiberius within 150 years of their lives, we arrive at a tie of nine each."

"What we have concerning Jesus actually is impressive. We can start with approximately nine traditional authors of the New Testament. If we consider the critical thesis that other authors wrote the pastoral letters and such letters as Ephesians and 2 Thessalonians, we'd have an even larger number. Another twenty early Christian authors and four heretical writings mention Jesus within 150 years of his death on the cross. Moreover, nine secular, non-Christian sources mention Jesus within the 150 years: Josephus, the Jewish historian; Tacitus, the Roman historian; Pliny the Younger, a politician of Rome; Phlegon, a freed slave who wrote histories; Lucian, the Greek satirist; Celsus, a Roman philosopher; and probably the historians Suetonius and Thallus, as well as the prisoner Mara Bar-Serapion. In all, at least forty-two authors, nine of them secular, mention Jesus within 150 years of his death."

3) Ibid footnote(2).

4) Lee Strobel, The Case For The Real Jesus, 177

5) The Christian Combat Manual: Helps for Defending your Faith: A Handbook for Practical Apologetics, 2007, p. 206.

Ray Hagins Debunked

2010-03-16T08:35:00.000-07:00

A short video refuting Pastor Ray Hagins:

Documentary refuting Ray Hagins by Keith Thompson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKlWWEViURo

Prize money:
Zeitgeistchallenge.com
http://www.kingdavid8.com/Copycat/Challenge.html

Articles:
1) http://www.thedevineevidence.com/jesus_similarities.html
2) http://www.alwaysbeready.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=124&Itemid=107

Ashra Kwesi Refuted article/documentary:
Benstanhope.blogspot.com

Historicity of Jesus:
http://nowheretorun.podomatic.com/entry/2008-06-21T11_32_44-07_00

Footnotes:
1) See Gary Habermas book The Verdict of History. Its central objective is the delineation and extrapolation of these sources. Gary Habermas and Michael Licona's book The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus is the most extensive publication on the historicity of the resurrection to date, on page p. 233 they document 42 separate sources (Christian and non) within 150 years of Jesus' death.
(1-A) Krishna: a sourcebook By Edwin Francis Bryant p. 148 Quoting Sarala's Mahabharata "'[Jara] tageted them (Krishna's feet) with his bow and discharged an arrow. Lo it peirced the left foot of sleeping Shri Krishna, who started up, saw blood oozing out from his foot and felt a sharp pain. 'Who' he wondered 'could inflict such pain on me?' "Jara came close and recognised Shri Krishna..."
p. 150 "Jara removed the arrow from Shri Krishna's foot. Shri Krishna collapsed the gandiva with his right hand and looked at Arjuna. His spirit left his body".
2) Gary R. Habermas and Michael Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids MI : Kregel Publications, 2004) 128.
"...Let's look at an even better example, a contemporary of Jesus. Tiberius Caesar was the Roman emperor at the time of Jesus' ministry and execution. Tiberius is mentioned by ten sources within 150 years of his death: Tacitus, Suetonius, Velleius Paterculus, Plutarch, Pliny the Elder, Strabo, Seneca, Valerius Maximus, Josephus, and Luke. Compare that to Jesus' forty-two total sources in the same length of time. That's more than four times the number of total sources who mention the Roman emperor during roughly the same period. If we only considered the number of secular non-Christian sources who mention Jesus and Tiberius within 150 years of their lives, we arrive at a tie of nine each."

"What we have concerning Jesus actually is impressive. We can start with approximately nine traditional authors of the New Testament. If we consider the critical thesis that other authors wrote the pastoral letters and such letters as Ephesians and 2 Thessalonians, we'd have an even larger number. Another twenty early Christian authors and four heretical writings mention Jesus within 150 years of his death on the cross. Moreover, nine secular, non-Christian sources mention Jesus within the 150 years: Josephus, the Jewish historian; Tacitus, the Roman historian; Pliny the Younger, a politician of Rome; Phlegon, a freed slave who wrote histories; Lucian, the Greek satirist; Celsus, a Roman philosopher; and probably the historians Suetonius and Thallus, as well as the prisoner Mara Bar-Serapion. In all, at least forty-two authors, nine of them secular, mention Jesus within 150 years of his death."
3) Ibid footnote(2).
4) Lee Strobel, The Case For The Real Jesus, 177
5) The Christian Combat Manual: Helps for Defending your Faith: A Handbook for Practical Apologetics, 2007, p. 206

Ashra Kwesi Refuted

2009-12-28T02:59:00.001-08:00

Here I will be clarifying the necessary information of which the uninformed reader should be cognizant in advance to investigating the refutations that follow. At the conclusion of this article you will find my open letter to Ashra Kwesi I sent back in 2009 (he refuses to respond to me). The examinations will encompass several of Kwesi’s own youtube videos and evaluate each of his central Christological assertions point-for-point. Kwesi markets his personal veracity as the progeny commensurate with his decades of experience and field research and his countless supporters have graciously vitalized his business in his DVDs, books, CDs, tours, and lectures. Save from insulating himself from public exposure of the promulgation of obvious historical bluders I can derive no conclusion as to why Kwesi remains silent to my honest questions. After all, he himself has stated:

“Put this in your own mental court of law. Lets see all the evidence…and once all the evidence is presented we can see were the European western version of Christianity copied from [Ancient Egypt]…and judge for yourself…We want to hear the TRUTH, the WHOLE TRUTH and nothing but the TRUTH"(1).

I’m merely comporting with Kwesi’s plead, to “see all the evidence”, and I’ve found Kwesi to be appallingly erroneous in many of his Christological and Egyptological assertions and silent to my implorations for critical substantiation.

Forward
Before delving into Kwesi’s videos it's imperative for the reader to understand that The Roman Catholic Church--its doctrines, its teachings, its art, and its eschatological traditions--do not usually reflect that of the early Christians. The early Christians were a diminutive exile minority victimized on and off by the Roman government and the adjoining Jewish community out of which it was immediately breathe. Their history is well documented by their oppressors. The Roman government continued this genocidal regimentation against the early Christians for the first three centuries of the faith, largely because they refused to worship the emperor or the Roman gods and were therefore considered a recalcitrant and virulent atheistic cult, becoming the scapegoat the polis.

This is why the Roman Tacitus stated:

“Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians…Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly candles. Hence… there arose a feeling of compassion [from the public]; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed.” – (The Annals, book XV, chapter 44).

The apace dissemination of early Christianity in Rome was largely corollary with the desire of the early Christians to recursively volunteer themselves under the unequivocal apotheosis in their minds of martyrdom (at the following footnote I’ve included 10 early supplementary sources which document this[2]).

Pliny the younger in his letter to Trajan imparts that true Christians could not be disequilibrated into worshiping Caesar or denying Christ and were promptly executed for intractably refusing to do so. The Roman citizens were so impressed and provoked by the unwarranted martyrdom of the Christians that mass conversions to Christianity followed in many instances in which Christians were publicly martyred. This why Tertullian wrote to the rulers of the Roman Empire stating, "The more often we [Christians] are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed(3).” Eventually they became such a large collection that it was wholly unpractical to seek them out for sentence. Around 250-300 years they became the majority and gained protection under Constantine in 313(4). Although, the religion was not declared here as the offical state religion, nor was Christianity the majority at the time. Much of the development of the Roman Catholic Church would take place far after all of this.

Why so much Paganism in the Roman Catholic Church?
The astute reader will perceive that most of Kwesi’s claims are contingent upon attempting to show earmarks of Egyptian weltanschauung, symbology and art amoung the early Christians (which were born out of the pious Jewish milieu of classical Palestine!). Instead of appropriately referring to the early Christians in his arguments he continually strawmans the pagan cultural pedigree evident within the Roman Catholic Church (which was largely respectively birthed centuries later out of the geopolitical context of classical pagan Rome). Any evenhanded student of history will appreciate that it was only fairly after the Edict of Milan in 313 and following that much of this religious syncretism begins to even immerge and any meaningful similarities between Paganism and Christianity truly start to transpire.

(This is when you start see paintings of Jesus with halos behind him in pagan stylism, Mary veneration and images of the virgin and child, steeples, crosses with circles, pagan Easter, Christmas, Valentines symbolism, etc. [as the Christian church began replacing the traditional pagan holidays with more Christinized themes].)

Were the Ancient Egyptians black?
I contacted the eminent gentleman scholar Edwin Yamauchi who holds a doctorate in Mediterranean studies from Brandeis University and has taught at Miami University of Ohio for over thirty five years. He has studied twenty two languages (including Egyptian, Akkadian, Coptic, and Ugaritic), received eight fellowships from Brandeis, Rutgers, and elsewhere, published two hundred articles and reviews in professional journals; lectured at more than a hundred colleges and universities, participated in archaeological expeditions throughout the middle east and has written seventeen books encompassing the ancient mystery religions and Africa including Africa and the Bible(5). In his works he has often exposed Eurocentric interpretation and censorship and has adamantly defended the gravity of African importance in the Bible and ancient history. The award-winning historian Paul Maier has stated of Yamauchi:

“No one in the academic world today can better sniff out sensationalism in place of sense, excesses beyond evidence, and speculation instead of scholarship… [O]ne brilliant article by Yamauchi supplies the evidence to skewer any bloated pretensions against the cause of truth.(6)”

Following are several excerpts of Yamauchi’s article “Afrocentric Biblical Interpretation” which he mailed to me upon request:

“There is clear evidence of Eurocentric bias in certain interpretations that exalt whites and denigrate blacks…But Afrocentric scholars as they have pushed their thesis to extreme conclusions have undermined their credibility by claiming one and all as 'black' and therefore staking the claim of blacks to every imaginable cultural and intellectual achievement…

As to the question of whether the Egyptians were black, the answer is not so simple as Afrocentrists would assert. As Frank J. Yurco points out, the ancient Egyptians would not have thought in terms of a dichotomy:

‘The ancient Egyptians, like their modern descendants, were of varying complexions of color, from the light Mediterranean type (like Neferiti), to the darkest shade around Aswan and the First Cataract region, where even today the population shifts to Nubian.(7)’

Frank M. Snowden, Jr., a distinguished African-American classics scholar who rejects the identification of Egyptians as blacks, points out that the Greeks and Romans were well acquainted in art and text with blacks from the area especially Meroe:

‘This group possesses. Among others, these characteristics: color varying from reddish-brown to deep brownish-black; tightly curled and wiry hair described as woolly, frizzy or kinky; a broad, flattened nose; thick lips usually puffy and everted; prognathism, often marked in the sub-nasal region.(8)’

Egpytians were in contact with darker Nubians of the First and Second Cataracts already in the Old Kingdom period.(9) An increasing number of individuals, including some introduced into the royal harems, came from this region in the Middle Kingdom. The Egyptians made contact with negroid tribes of central Africa in the New Kingdom.(10) These contacts are reflected in the clear depiction of black-complexioned and negroid types in Egyptian art. Snowden concludes:

‘though not very numerous, the realistic portrayals of blacks in early Egyptian art are sufficient to illustrate the types of Kushites known prior to the New Kingdom and to show that Nehesyu, a word used of southerners as early as 2300 B.C., included peoples with Negroid features.(11)

The Egyptians accurately depicted their enemies and their allies. They made a clear colour distinction between themselves and the black Nubians, whom they rhetorically denounced with insulting epithets. Though the use of reddish-brown for men and yellow for women was conventional, one cannot simply dismiss this as a ceremonial color for blacks….(12)”

My Challenge to Kwesi
For Kwesi’s contentions to be relevant it is indispensable that he posit contentions that extend into the early centuries and are of relevance to the roots of Christianity. If he is going to promote himself as a scholar it is important that he afford us the substantiation and discourse that is axiomatic of genuine scholarship.
Showing late Roman paintings, sculptures, and Catholic architecture is inconsequential slighting.

This of course begs a question: If Christianity is entrenched in the Ancient Egyptian religions then why don’t we have any ancient texts that argue it as progeny of Egypt?
Christianity was certainly subject to superfluous criticism since the nadir of its inception by both the most erudite Jewish thinkers and Roman alike. Lucian of Samosta and Celsius, two particularly shrewd early examples, attempted to refute Christianity in their works so why did they neglect to make mention of its allegedly pagan origins when they had every motive to do so and were certainly within the position to discern (After all in Paul’s own words Christianity has always been axiomatically contingent upon the historicity of its central monolith which was being argued since its inception[13])? In addition we would most expect the Delphinine Apolloic Priest Plutarch (who is the standard ancient source on Egyptology in the second century and was well acquainted with Christianity) to have addressed this in his works. One may contend that the Christians somehow sought out and destroyed these early texts but such an immature argument is appropriately extirpated by the reality that the early Christians had no such power or positional authority to possibly carry out the censoring of any documents.

Video Refutations

Ashra Kwesi - Excerpts from the African Origin of Christianity

This is a refutation of Kwesi’s video which can be seen here (he has disabled embedding):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZvb2sWPUqs

1:46 Kwesi states “Osar (“Osirus”) got seventy two conspirators to crucify him.”
Jesus’ crucifixion is one of the most preeminently attested events in ancient history and Pontus Pilate’s reign has been confirmed through the “Pilate Stone” found in Caesarea Maritima and the historical accounts of Philo and Josephus. There are over two-dozen non-biblical sources within 150 year of Jesus’ life that mention his existence and allude to or explicitly document his crucifixion(14) therefore it cannot be attributed to later legend. The document sources for Jesus outweigh that of the Roman emperor contemporary with him(15). Among the extra-biblical early sources that allude to Jesus’ crucifixion are the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, the satirists Celsius and Lucian, The Roman Cornelius Tacitus, the distinguished Suetoniuos, and the pagan Mara Bar Serapion. All of these sources are early and written by adamant enemies of Christianity (a full analyses on the non-biblical early accounts of Jesus can be viewed in the following documentary by Chris White[a1]). No ancient source attempts to argue that Jesus was never crucified, none (I challenge Kwesi to provide one). Arguing that Jesus’ Crucifixion is derived from legend is historically naïve and intellectually irresponsible at best. Even John D. Crossan of the Jesus Seminar has stated “That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be.”(16)

I’ve read the Osirian myths (I’ve compiled a list of the primary Egyptian texts for the Osirian myths in the footnotes section[17]), and I can find absolutely no version of the myth in which Osiris is crucified or in anyway nailed or hanged from a tree. The Egyptians did in fact utilize a method of execution wherein the victim was hanged from a tree (this is mentioned in the Qu'ran), but crucifixion in the proper Greek since (the one used in the New Testament) is exclusive of roman invention (hence the prefix cruci meaning "cross or crux", and fixio meaning "fix or bind"[18]).
I contacted Mr. Yamauchi about the claim of a crucifixion for Osiris to which he emphatically replied:

“Osiris was not crucified. He was dismembered by his brother Seth, as any reference work on Egyptian mythology will relate.”(19)

I contacted Kwesi challenging him to provide primary documentation for a crucifixion of Osiris and as of this date I've received no response. It should be noted here that in these videos Kwesi often attempts to portray Osiris as also being “the first resurrection story(20).” In response to this Yamauchi remarks:

“It’s misleading…to equate the Egyptian concept of the afterlife with a resurrection in the Christian tradition. The Egyptians believed that to attain immortality, the body has to be mummified, nourishment had to be provided, and magical spells had to be used. The Egyptian concept didn’t entail rising from the dead; instead, separate entities of the individual’s personality-called the Ba and Ka – hover around his body.”(21)

Gunter Wagner in his thorough study concurs “Osiris knew no resurrection, but was resuscitated to be ruler of the Netherworld”(22).

Dr. Gary Habermas (professor of apologetics/philosophy at Liberty University, and has documented the consensus of modern authorship on the pre-Christian obituary myths in regards to historical Jesus studies[23]) and Dr. J.P. Moreland (Biola University) conclude in their research; "Not one clear case of any alleged resurrection teaching appears in any pagan text before the late second century A.D., almost one hundred years after the New Testament was written."(24)

2:23 Kwesi states “But Djehuti, corresponding to Gabriel announces to the goddess Aset that she give a divine immaculate conception and virgin birth." Thoth (Kwesi uses the original Egyptian Djehuti) didn’t correspond to Gabriel in any meaningful since, nor did he come to Isis ("Aset") and announce that she would give a virgin birth(25). In the Osirian myth Isis recollects the many severed pieces of Osiris’s body and pieces them back together. In most versions she fails to find Osiris’ phallus because it has been eaten by fish so she then fashions one. In some versions Thoth’s role is satisfied in giving her the magic words to bring Osiris back to life. Isis and Osiris then have intercourse and give birth to Horus. There is no proclamation by Thoth of a virgin birth anywhere in the myth. The myth emphasizes that Isis had to substitute Osiris’ phallus and that Isis had intercourse in order to impregnate herself. Again there is no sign of a virginal birth in any variation of the myth (I refer to the previous footnote for a short overview of the myth and strongly encourage the reader to read the eight central primary Egyptian texts that deal with the birth of Horus which are listed at the following footnote[17]). If Kwesi has any primary documentation for a virgin birth of Horus then this is his opportunity to cash in and make a handsome profit. The following two websites will pay (now) 2,000 dollars to anyone who can show an ancient text that indicates that Horus was born of a virgin (I will deal more with the alleged virgin birth of Horus later in this article):
http://www.kingdavid8.com/Copycat/Challenge.html
zeitgeistchallenge.com

3:41 Kwesi says “They [white Europeans] think that their whole Christian concept started with them.”
I want to straighten one thing out for Kwesi’s followers. Christianity is not a white man’s religion and never has been. Church historians don't suppress this. It was founded by a Palestinian Jew and if pure numbers alone were to decide it is currently an Asian religion. The western world represents a small sliver of Christianity (for demo-graphical explications of this contention please refer to the following footnote[26]). If we are to arbitrate by means of its early adherents and most influential leaders (such as Origen, or Athanasius) it would have to be African considering that African Christians had much greater protection than did Roman Christians.
4:06 Kwesi states “This Chapel is were Haru (“Horus”) was born…in a manger.”
If Kwesi had truly read the Egyptian myths he would know Horus was born in the Marshes of Chemmis(27)(28). Absolutely nowhere is Horus ever mentioned as being born in a manger. If Ashra has any evidence of any version of the Egyptian text that states he was born in a cave/manger then he can go to http://www.kingdavid8.com/Copycat/Challenge.html and submit his claim to receive his 1,000 dollar reward.

4:09 Kwesi states Horus was born “on December 25th

Horus was born on the last day of the Egyptian month Khoaik which is November 15th, not December the 25th. Again, if Kwesi has any documentation that shows a date of December 25th for Horus then he can submit it to the two websites I mentioned earlier and claim his 2,000 dollar reward. It should also be mentioned here that even if Horus was born on December 25th it wouldn’t matter being that the Bible indicates that Jesus was most likely born around the late spring (the texts doesn’t give a date.) The early Christians didn’t celebrate Jesus’ birth. It wasn’t until the middle of the forth century that Julius and the Roman Catholic Church created Christmas to coincide with the Pagan Saturnalia Festival and the winter solstice.

At 4:49 Kwesi refutes himself and confirms what I stated above when he reads that Horus’ birth “came at the close of the Egyptian year”. The close of the Egyptian year is November, not December like on our modern Gregorian calendars.

4:58 Kwesi reads from a Mormon pamphlet which begs a resemblance to the birth of Horus and the Christmas holiday.
There are several things to mention here. First, as stated, the early Christians didn’t celebrate Jesus’ birth. Christmas was created 350 years later by the Roman Catholic Church with the intention of synchronizing the Pagan Saturnalia Festival with Catholicism to make transitioning from Paganism to Catholicism more appealing and comfortable.

This is the exact reason why some early Christians were cautious of and detested Christmas when Rome invoked its establishment. Later after the Protestant reformation, for example, many of the Protestants even outlaw the celebration of the holiday in England and in early America declaring it "trappings of popery" and "rags of the Beast.[29]"
Last, the Mormon cult is the most egregious possible source one could invoke in the prospect of archeology and history (read the book of Mormon and you’ll know what I’m talking about). If they’re expending money to print and disseminate literature for public consumption you had better believe they are doing so with the intention of expanding their membership. Here they are transparently attempting to find justification in discussing the Christmas celebration in order to introduce and invoke interest in the reader (nearly all of which in Egypt are Muslim) to Mormonism. You will notice however that both the pamphlet and Kwesi fail to offer us a single meaningful similarity between Christianity and the Egyptian religions throughout this video’s entirety.

5:23 Kwesi claims that the “cow” often shown in depictions of Jesus’ birth represents the Egyptian goddess Hathor.

The Bible makes no mention of a cow at Jesus’ birth.

8:29 “This [Horus, Isis, and Osirus] is where we get The Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost from."

This chimerical claim is anachronistic for evident reason. The Christian Trinity can’t be attributed to ancient Egypt because it was completed by the existence and claims of an historical man born in first century Palestine. No tradition of a Trinity existed previously in Judaism and still doesn’t among the Jews today. There can be no causality.

9:03 “Horus was called the King of Kings… the Son of God."

Horus had many names and titles, it is conceivable that he could have been titled in a since as the “son of god” (being that he was the son of Osiris and Isis), but to my knowledge there is no ancient Egyptian text in existence that states that Horus was called the “King of Kings.” I challenge Kwesi to provide primary documentation for this claim.

9:21-9:32 Isis was called “Meri” or Isis-meri which was changed to Mary.

Kwesi is not the first person to claim that Isis’ name contained the word Meri, I suspect he is most likely relying on Achayra S (or her Druidic source Massy) who also made the claim in her work and attempted to circuitously substantiate it after failing to do so in her original book The Christ Conspiracy. Her attempted documentation however is wholly unconvincing as demonstrated by Chris White at the following footnote(30).
According to Acharya every Egyptian god and pharaoh was referred to as “meri” or “beloved.” In addition however, we have plenty of documentation that Jesus’ mother Mary was an historical person, including the writings from her son (Jesus’ half brother) James in the biblical Book of James, Paul (who states that he met with her in Galatians), and the Jewish historian Josephus who was an enemy of Christianity and had direct access to the information he was documenting(31). Gary Habermas states; "'Mary' [was] the most common female name in the ancient Jewish world... studies have shown that 'Mary,' or a derivative of that name, may have been used by one-quarter of Jewish women at [the] time!.”(32)

Therefore it is the most likely name one would expect for Jesus’ mother as well as many other women in the New Testament. A passage of nearly a thousand years and thousands of Jewish women named Mary occurred before Mary, the mother of Jesus, was born.

Ashra Kwesi Explains the Origin of the Immaculate Conception story - Abdu Kemet (Abydos, Egypt)

This is a refutation of Kwesi’s video which can be seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk7PadRh_rs

Immaculate Conception means clean?

We must clarify between the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception (which refers to the birth of Mary) and the classical doctrine of the virgin birth (which refers to the birth of Jesus) because they are not one in the same as Kwesi often posits. Kwesi gives us a patently false definition at 1:28.
The Immaculate Conception is a late Roman Catholic tradition that developed through the centuries. The doctrine states that Mary was entirely without sin when she gave birth to Jesus (not that she had “known no other man”). Protestants largely reject the Immaculate Conception for very good reason. It can be found nowhere in the Bible and (I would contend) is even refuted by the biblical text (Mark 10:18, Luke 18:9, Luke 1:46-47). It cannot be found among the ante-Nicaean fathers. This is why The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1907 concedes “No direct or categorical and stringent proof of the dogma [of the Immaculate Conception] can be brought forward from Scripture.”

The virgin birth, however, is found in several of the gospels as well as the earlier writings of Paul and the early writings of the church fathers. It is therefore, properly considered axiomatic in biblical Christology. It’s impossible for it to have been added later for these reasons.

It should be noted here that a virgin birth narrative is found absolutely nowhere in any Egyptian text, and certainly not with Isis. The Egyptian myths all explicitly state and even emphasize that Isis and Osiris had sexual intercourse before giving birth to Horus. The astute will notice that Kwesi admits this in this video but in his other video The African Origins of Christianity he claims that Horus was born of a virgin, thus he contradicts himself.

1:48 Kwesi states “The only person who mentions the Immaculate Conception is Luke."

Luke doesn’t mention the Immaculate Conception and nor does anyone else. Again I quote from The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1907. “No direct or categorical and stringent proof of the dogma [of the Immaculate Conception] can be brought forward from Scripture.” It is a tradition that admittedly violates Sola Scriptura.
Luke refutes the Immaculate Conception in 1:46-47

As stated earlier however, the virgin birth is mentioned in Luke, Mathew, and Paul’s writings. (John and Mark don’t mention it because they start their Gospels at Jesus’ adulthood).

1:55 Kwesi states “Luke mentions it [the Immaculate Conception] only in terms of being clean. It literally means that only one man has entered her body."

This is patently false. Luke 1:30-35 explicitly tells us that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus and that no man had ever entered her body:

30But the angel said to her…31”You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus."… 34"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" 35The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.

The Atheist historian Richard Carrier (B.A., M.A., Ph.D, and M.Phil) concurs:

“An ‘immaculate conception’ could not have appeared in any Egyptian myth anyway, since that phrase refers to the fact that Mary was, unlike all other human beings, and hence by divine miracle, born without sin and kept clean of all sin, at least until she gave birth to Jesus, and this is a bizarre idea that entails a view of sin, history, and human nature utterly alien to Egyptian religion. The Luxor inscription also does not depict impregnation by a spirit, but involves very real sex.”(33)

3:00 The walls of the Ptah Soker Shrine were chiseled out by Rome to censor information.

Kwesi is inaugurating his assertion that the walls of the Soker Shrine were censored during the Roman epoch by officials like Theodosius (346- 395 A.D.) and Justinian (527-565 A.D.). The obvious question of course is how does he happen to be the only one who is cognizant of what the original depictions were if they were removed several thousand years ago? I’m challenging him to back up his claims with an ancient source or at least an explanation. His reason for not having evidence is that the evidence was destroyed. What then is the evidence that what was destroyed was evidence?

3:29 Catholic Ossuaries have similarities with the Soker relief.

Rome utilizes Egyptian symbolism and artwork heavily and flagrantly as a part of its cultural-pagan history. The Vatican courtyard also features a large Osirian obelisk in the center and founded the Gregorian Egyptian museum. This doesn’t indicate that Christianity was based on the Egyptian religions. Only that the Vatican, founded in 1929 by Mussolini and Pope Pius XI, utilizes the historic art of its geography.

4:47 Kwesi states “Here we see the earliest concept of a virgin birth story.”

In the technocratic, Marxian film Zeitgeist part 1 and her book The Christ Conspiracy Acharya S., in her paradigmatic Religionsgeschichtliche Schule incompetence, attempted to circuitously demonstrate a virgin birth for Horus. Upon further inquiry however she finally admitted in her response to Chris White of ZeitgeistChallenge.com that a Christological virgin birth for Horus cannot possibly be demonstrated or inferred from any Egyptian text(34). Indeed, Spell 366 of The Pyramid Texts explicitly references to the insemenisation of Isis by Osiris; “Isis comes to you [Osiris], rejoicing for love of you, that her seed might issue into her.”

The Coffin Texts (Spell 148) concurs; "O you gods, I am Isis… Osiris who judged the slaughterings of the Two Lands. His seed is within my womb… I am Isis, one more spirit-like and august than the gods; the god (horus) is within this womb of mine and he is the seed of Osiris."

Again, quoting Carrier; “The Luxor inscription…does not depict impregnation by a spirit, but involves very real sex.”

5:06 Kwesi states “Now we see where the story came from- the earliest Immaculate Conception and resurrection story."

Kwesi gave us a patently false definition of the Immaculate Conception and as substantiated by modern comparative scholarship no ancient resurrection narrative predates Christianity(35)(36). Nor did the Jews even have any type of eschatology involving a bodily resurrection in the Christian since save for on the last day at the finial judgement(37) so it cannot be the product of any form of tradition nor mythology. (38)(39)

5:11 Kwesi points to an unintelligibly weathered and seemingly blank stone wall and states “Unfortunately you can’t see her [Isis] on the donkey. It was too obvious right here."

Again, how is it that he contends to know what was inscribed on the wall 1,600 years ago? He doesn’t give us any suggestion of an explanation, he just expects us to believe him like good little masons. I would encourage Kwesi to actually read the Bible because nowhere within its texts is Mary ever depicted riding on a donkey.

Ashra Kwesi Speaks at Horemakhet (Sphinx) in Kemet (Egypt)-

This video is inconsequential to my purposes and makes no mention of Christianity but I wanted to correct two propagandistic inaccuracies promulgated within, particularly with that of the illuminati. It can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM9z8gY1HL8

Was the sphinx’s nose destroyed by Napoleon for racist reasons?

This started out as a myth on the bases that Napoleon had an obtuse nose like the sphinx so he blew it off out of self-contempt. Later it was taken up by afrocentrists on the chimerical impetus that Napoleon was a white supremacist and wished to defile the statue in disdain for its alleged negroid features. None of this is true. It can be proven that Napoleon had nothing to do with the missing nose on the Sphinx because we actually have sketches of the sphinx by Frederick Lewis Norden that were done in 1737, thirty-two years before Napoleon was even born. The sketches clearly show that the nose was already missing(40).

John Lloyd states;

“Over the years, many armies and individuals have been accused of blowing it of for various reasons, but Napoleon generally gets the blame. Almost none of these accusations are true. In fact the only person we can definitely say damaged it at all was an Islamic cleric named Sa’im al-dahr, who was lynched for vandalism in 1378. The most likely reason for the missing organ is the action of six thousand years of wind and weather on the soft limestone(40).”

At :32 Kwesi claims that the likeness of the great sphinx built at the Luxor hotel in L.A. California was created with white skin and blue eyes due to a white supremacy bias.

The Luxor sphinx is created to resemble the iconic mask of Pharaoh Tukenkhamen. It has nothing to do with white racism.

At 1:43 Kwesi states “George Washington… was part of the illuminati.”

Being that he’s the principal white American-male emblem of western history it's not much surprise Ashra is attempting to vilify George Washington (he conveniently fails to mention the nefarious actions and slavery enforced by most African tribes and the ancient Egyptian rulers but I digress). This accusation is so outlandish and demonstrates such historical incompetence on Kwesi’s behalf that it hardly warrants a grave response.

I contacted the scholar of suppressed history Terry Melanson. Mr. Melanson founded the online Illuminati Conspiracy Archive and recently released his new book Perfectibilists: the 18th Century Bavarian Order of the Illuminati, which is perhaps the best scholarly study on the Illuminati ever to be published in the English language. He states:

“More than 1,500 members of the Bavarian Illuminati - out of an estimated 2,000 or so - have been identified. Washington is definitely not on the lists. In fact, no American is. Although Weishaupt et al. might have wished that the Order extend its reach into the broader international stage, this however did not occur. The Bavarian Illuminati was a central European phenomenon, operating throughout the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. - Germany, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Silesia, with small colonies in Paris, Italy and Russia. They never established a foothold across the channel into England nor did they cross the Atlantic. If anything, America (and its revolution) influenced the beliefs and longing of the Illuminati - not the other way around….”(emphasis added)(41)

The nefarious Bavarian order of the illuminati to which Ashra refers was much too late in its exposition to have possibly inducted Washington. (Weishaupt’s "Order of Perfectibilists" was created in 1776).
Ironically, George Washington is one of the more preeminent late expositors of the illuminati. He was overtly critical of the organization and highly opposed (both practically and verbally) to the reprehensible principals of Jacobinism, which are central to illuministic externalization and hegemony as categorized by Weishaupt himself in his works.

John Robison, who was a professor at the Edinburgh University in Scotland, had been asked to join the Illuminati. He declined and in 1798 he published his work Proofs of a Conspiracy in which he stated of the organization: "An association has been formed for the express purposes of rooting out all the religious establishments and overturning all existing governments... the leaders would rule the World with uncontrollable power, while all the rest would be employed as tools of the ambition of their unknown superiors.(42)" This book was sent to George Washington, who replied in a letter:

“The idea that I meant to convey, was, that I did not believe that the Lodges of Free Masons in this Country had, as Societies, endeavored to propagate the diabolical tenets of the [illuminati], or pernicious principles of [Jacobinism] (if they are susceptible of separation). That individuals of them may have done it, or that the founder, or instrument employed to found, the Democratic Societies in the United States, may have had these objects; and actually had a separation of the People from their Government in view, is too evident to be questioned.”

Ashra Kwesi Explains the Star System Orion & the Connection Between Heaven and Earth

In reference to the god Osiris, who the Egyptians related with the constellation of Orion, Kwesi states “The Bible says seeketh him that is of the seven stars of Orion.”

He’s misquoting Amos on several points to fit his agenda, the original text doesn’t allow for such a connection. The verse really states:

“Seek him that makes the seven stars and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night: that calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the face of the earth: YHWH is his name.”
(Due to texts formatting restrictions I refer the reader to my film for an analyses of this verse in the original Hebrew)

Notice the use of the word asah, which means Yahweh is making these constellations. Not that he is “of” the constellation. Further, notice that the verse isn’t specifically talking about “seven stars of Orion.” Rather the word Kiyma refers to Pleiades, or simply a constellation of seven stars, which would have been singled out as a representation of the goddess Neith to the Egyptians, not Osiris. Then the verse goes on to separately expound a different constellation that the Hebrew refers to as a “stupid and impious”(43)-through the use of the word kciyl. The Jews called Orion stupid and impious in response to the Greek myths of Orion. They certainly didn’t hold the pagan constellation with any reverence. Indeed, we find in Deuteronomy Chapter 17 that anyone convicted of celestial worship in Israel was to be taken to the city gate and stoned to death so as to “purge the evil” from among the people.

At 4:50 Kwesi states “The Ptolemys got the Jews to write the Bible and the first European Bible was written right here in Egypt. And it was Ptolemy Philadelphus who got them to write it for them… they copied it from the pyramid texts.”

Kwesi recursively makes it evident that he’s insufferably ignorant of textual criticism and the history of the biblical manuscripts. He’s talking about the translation of the Hebrew Tanakh into the Septuagint in Koine Greek, which took place several hundred years before the New Testament was written. I contacted the textual critique and Koine Greek expert Daniel B. Wallace. Mr. Wallace’s Greek grammar textbooks are used by two thirds of schools that teach the subject and he founded the Center for the Study of the New Testament Manuscripts. He stated that he had never heard such a bizarre claim(44). If the Septuagint copied from the pyramid texts then it would be significantly different from the other Hebraic texts, it’s not different in any meaningful manner from the other Hebraic families like he would need, and therefore the Septuagint doesn’t copy from the pyramid texts.

As for the claim that the Septuagint was a "European Bible." It was actually intended for hellinized JEws who were losing their ability to read Hebrew and needed a version of their scriptures in their first language of Greek. The Jews were not "evangelistic" at the time, nor was the Septuagint intended for non-Jews.

To name another anachronism, you will notice that Kwesi’s “proof and validation” of his claim is to try to perpetrate that the first verse of The Lord’s Prayer originates from this borrowing of the Septuagint from the Egyptian texts, but this is impossible since The Lord’s Prayer didn’t exist in the Tanakh, Septuagint, or Judaism. It originated from the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament which would have been far too divorced from Egypt to have been borrowed.

Ashra Kwesi Explains the African Origin of Noah's Ark and Other Biblical Stories - Kemet (Egypt)

This is a response to this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYpFgRmZK1g
Ashra claims that the Story of Noah’s ark was stolen from the Funerary Boat of Cheops.

The other claims made in this particular video are rather spurious, inconsequential and incomplete so I will deal only with the central claim it propounds.

The Bible actually gives a very thorough description of the dimensional specifications of the ark. One will notice that Kewsi exploits puerile depictions of the ark that better resemble the Khufu boat rather than utilizing scholastic renderings likely because such jejune imagery harbors his theory. However, when one objectively examines the dimensions of the Solar boat of Khufu it is demonstrably incompatible in every possible aspect. The Solar boat is bow shaped and meant to be steered while the ark was a simple elongated box and substantially larger, having a door in the side and a lower, middle, and upper deck (Genesis 6:13-16). Also the Khufu boat is designed to ambulate with numerous pairs of long oars while the ark has none and there’s no Egyptian narrative with Khufu’s boat that involves animals or a family being taken aboard, nor a deluge. The Nile floods annually and is anticipated by local farmers so it wouldn’t be an incongruous event and none of the soteriological connotations ascribed with Khufu’s boat are found in the Genesis narrative either.
Ashra’s assertion appears to be nothing more than novel speculation, if he had any meaningful argument to support this claim we would much expect to hear it advanced.

Kwesi’s claim that the ancient flood narratives originate from the Kufu boat is grossly inadequate and far outweighed by other theories.

Take for example the Samarian Epic of Gilgamesh; which is considered the oldest legend on earth. Here we have a story that involves a great inundation caused by the gods, an ark is built, it is loaded with animals and a small group of people, birds are sent out to find dry land, the ark lands on a mountain a sacrifice is offered and this all takes place roughly within the same region as the Genesis narrative. Yet this story was recorded about 4,000 years before Kufu ever existed so it could not have been borrowed from the Kufu boat. The most reasonable conclusion accepted by most atheist and Christian scholars alike is that a massive flood did in fact occur within the vicinity of Ur due to the flooding of several rivers intersecting that region and that the multiple traditions of an ark with humans and animals taken aboard are ultimately based on an historical event. Whether or not the Genesis account can be trusted above all the other accounts as an accurate portrayal of the historical event is addressed by Chris White in his study..

Ashra Kwesi Explains the Origin of Adam & Eve Story at the Ramesseum in Kemet (Egypt)

Kwesi states that the Adam and Eve narrative is a transmogrification of an earlier Egyptian myth.

Being that this is Kwesi’s most popular video, I really wanted to address this clip. The problem is that there is no information on it. I’ve looked everywhere and I can’t possibly find any myth involving a tree or any such fruit besides the instance in which an acacia tree encloses Osiris’ coffin. Frustrated, I emailed Kwesi several months removed from my original email under a different email address, somewhat disguising myself as one of Kwesi’s supporters (47). My email was very earnest and kind and I simply asked if he would point me in the direction as to where I could find or further study this connection. He won’t respond to me and my reasonable inclination is to believe that no such myth exists or that Kwesi is unwarrantedly twisting it to fit with the Genesis narrative. If anyone has any information on this myth Ashra is referring to please email me and I will review it in this article.

Conclusion
Most of what Ashra Kwesi says is emphatically false and he refuses to respond in any manner to honest questioning even when offered large monetary rewards or addressed favorably by supporters. He claims to oppose racism yet he himself is unmistakably guilty of exciting racism, contempt, and cultural separation from whites in his obsessive attempts to demonstrate whites as inherent enemies of blacks and his “Grand Master Teacher” whom he himself flagrantly advertises as his primary source of mentorship and education is the black supremacist Yosef ben Jochannan, whose bizarre claims about the biological supremacy of blacks are addressed in the following article(48). As one opposed to racism this author finds Kwesi’s message and puerile thinking particularly troubling for it is in reality no solution at all. He speaks with authority and conviction on subjects of which he clearly has no formal (or in most cases even amateur) training. He claims to oppose Illuminism yet he promotes Freemasonry (this is explicated in part 5 of my documentary).

We would all do well to heed the words of Paul in Galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

A polite email can be sent to Mr. Kwesi at: kemetnu@sbcglobal.net

Footno
tes:
a1) http://nowheretorun.podomatic.com/entry/2008-06-21T11_32_44-07_00
1) Ashra Kwesi- African Origins of Christianity youtube video viewable here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZvb2sWPUqs
2)
- Shepherd of Hermas (Parable 9, section 28 [or ch 105]; Vision 3,
section 1, verse 9-2:1 [or ch 9:9-10:1]; 5:2 [or ch 13:2])
- Melito of Sardis (cited by Eusebius, Ecc His, 4:26:3)
- Dionysius of Corinth (cited by Eusebius, Ecc His, 2:25:8)
- Hegesippus (cited by Eusebius, 3:32:3; 2:23:18; 4:22:4)
- Eusebius (Ecc His, 5:2:2-3; 1:26, 48; 2:25)
- Polycrates of Ephesus (Bishop of Ephesus) in his letter to Victor
of Rome
- Josephus (Ant 20:200)
- Stephen (Acts 7:59-60)
- James (Acts 12:2)
- Antipas (Revelation 2:13)
3) Tertullian. Part First, Apology, chapter 50.
4) This is said in reference to the Edict of Milan which abolished Christian Martyrdom.
5) Lee Strobel The Case For The Real Jesus, 164-165
6) Wineland, Light of Discovery, xi.
7) F.J, Yurco, “Were the Ancient Egyptians Black or White?” “On average, between the Delta in northern Egypt and the Sudd of the Upper Nile, skin color tends to darken from light brown to what appears to the eye as bluish black, hair changes from wavey-straight to curly or kinky, noses become flatter and broader, lips become thicker and more everted.”
8) F. M. Snowden, Jr., Blacks in Antiquity (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1970) 8.
9) R. A. Bennett, Jr., “Africa and the Biblical period,” HTR 64 (1971) 492: “In terms of physical racial characteristics the Egyptians of the ancient Near East were a brown-skinned people with long hair, whose history is the story of their contact and intercourse with darker, curly-haired peoples up the Nile in Nubia.”
10) H. Junker, “The first Appearance of the Negroes in History,” (1921) 121-132.
11) F.M. Snowden, Jr., Before Color Prejudice (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1983) 11-12.
12) J. Brunson, “Ancient Egyptians: ‘The Dark Red Race Myth,’” Egypt Revisited 53-54.

13) I cite Paul’s writings in 1 Corinthians 15:14-20
“14 And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless. 15 And we apostles would all be lying about God—for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave. But that can’t be true if there is no resurrection of the dead. 16 And if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins. 18 In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost! 19 And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world.”

14) See Gary Habermas’ book The Verdict of History. Its central objective is the delineation and extrapolation of these sources. Gary Habermas and Michael Licona's book The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus is the most extensive publication on the historicity of the resurrection to date, on page p. 233 they document 42 separate sources (Christian and non) within 150 years of Jesus' death.
15) We have the same number of early documents recording Jesus’ existence as we do the emperor- this is confirmed by a quote from eminent historian Michael Licona in part one of Keith Thompson’s documentary Zeitgeist Part 1 Debunked which can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKlWWEViURo.
I state that the documentation for Jesus is more reliable than the emperor because a large amount of the early historians that record Jesus’ life and crucifixion were enemies of Christianity therefore their texts hold further authority.
16) John Domonic Crossan Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, 145.
17)
-the Memphite Theology or Shabaqo Stone (generally dated as late as the New Kingdom, c. 1540-1070 BC);
- the Mystery Play of the Succession;
-the Pyramid Texts (from the late Old Kingdom, c. 2575-2150 BC);
- the Coffin Texts, especially Spell 148;
-the Great Osiris hymn in the Louvre;
- the Late Egyptian Contendings of Horus and Seth;
-the Metternich Stela and other cippus texts;
- the Ptolemaic Myth of Horus at Edfu (also known as the Triumph of Horus)
In addition I include the greek work:
-Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride
18) "Online Etymology Dictionary". Etymonline.com. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=crucify.
19) Personal email correspondence that took place on 1/18/10
20) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk7PadRh_rs Ashra Kwesi Explains the Origin of the Immaculate Conception story- :50 seconds.
21) Lee Strobel, The Case For The Real Jesus, 177
22) Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries, 261.
23) This is stated in a video interview with Habermas viewable at 1:35 seconds in Keith Thompson’s film here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKlWWEViURo.
24) The Christian Combat Manual: Helps for Defending your Faith: A Handbook for Practical Apologetics, 2007, p. 206.
25) I refer the unfamiliar reader to the following article as a primary depiction of the Osirian myth as depicted largely by the pyramid texts:
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Osiris.
26) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB81POoshEo
27) http://www.kingdavid8.com/Copycat/Challenge.html
28) See Birth and Flight of Horus: http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/HORUS.htm
29) Durston, Chris, "Lords of Misrule: The Puritan War on Christmas 1642–60", History Today, December 1985, pp. 7 – 14.
30) See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry0hXK-IbEU (starts at 2:25).

31) Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews Book 20: chapter 9
32) First part of the quote is stated in the sidebar, the second part is quoted lower in the article: http://www.garyhabermas.com/articles/The_Lost_Tomb_of_Jesus/losttombofjesus_response.htm
33) Article http://www.frontline-apologetics.com/Luxor_Inscription.html
34) Audio starts in part 5 of this series: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6Kyxy0_hGg
35) Michael Licona, demonstrates this in part 1 of Keith Thompson’s film here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKlWWEViURo.
36) T. N. D. Mettinger, The Riddle of the Resurrection: “Dying and Rising Gods” in the Ancient Near East, 2001. p.4
“From the 1930s…a consensus has developed to the effect that the dying and rising gods’ died but did not return or rise to live again… Those who still think differently are looked upon as residual members of an almost extinct species.”
37) Joachim Jeremias. ‘Die alteste Schicht der osteruberlieferung.” In Resurrexit, 1974. Translated to English;
“Ancient Judaism did not know of an anticipated resurrection as an event of history. Nowhere does on find in the literature anything comparable to the resurrection of Jesus. Certainly resurrections of the dead were known, but these always concerned resuscitations, the return to the earthly life. In no place in the late Judaic literature does it concern a resurrection to doxa [glory] as an event of history.”
38) Reasonable Faith: Christian truth and apologetics (third edition). William Lane Craig. p.391
“Scholars came to realize that pagan mythology is simply the wrong interpretive context for understanding Jesus of Nazareth…Jesus and his disciples were first century Palestinian Jews, and it is against that background that the must be understood. The spuriousness of the alleged parallels is just one indication that pagan mythology is the wrong interpretive context for understanding the disciples’ belief in Jesus’ resurrection. [T]here is no causal connection between pagan myths and the orgin of the disciples’ belief in Jesus’ resurrection. Jews were familiar with the seasonal deities and found them abhorrent.”
39) Martin Hengel, “Judentum und Hellenismus,” Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen sum Neuen Testament.
“The development of the apocalyptic resurrection-, immortality-, and judgment-doctrine in Jewish Palestine explains why-in contrast to Alexandrian Judaism- the Hellenistic mystery religions...could gain virtually no influence there.”
40) The Book of General Ignorance, John Lloyd. p.73
41) Personal Email correspondence on February 17, 2010
42) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminati
43) Strong’s concordance renders the word “stupid”, “foolish”, or “burly”. The Catholic Encyclopedia under “Astronomy”- Kimah and Kesil renders the word “impious”:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02029a.htm
Proverbs 29:11 uses this same word for foolish as Amos uses for Orion:
“A fool uttereth all his mind: but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards.”
44) Personal email correspondence which took place on Jan 28, 2010
45) The statements made are taken from and are further extrapolated in The Science of God by Gerald Schroeder, p. 213 under Appendix: The Flood and Time of Noah.
46) M. Dewsnap, “Uncovering the Deluge,” Biblical Archeological Review 22(4):56, July/August 1996
47) My email (sent on 2/25/10) stated:
“Hello Mr. Kwesi, I noticed one of your online videos about how the story of Adam and Eve was stolen from an earlier Egyptian legend. I want to study more about this Egyptian legend of the tree of life and how it was corrupted into the Adam and Eve story but I can't find any information on it. I was hoping you could tell me were to look to find it.
Thank you for your time and help!”
48) http://www.tektonics.org/af/drben01.html

My Open Letter to Ashra Kwesi

2009-12-24T12:40:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Kwesi,

I'm writing this letter to you because I have discovered many of your teachings to be factually wrong and historically anachronistic. I have begun writing a number of critiques to your online videos at benstanhope.blogspot.com and I was hoping you would give an explanation or provide the appropriate primary documentation necessary to support many of your claims.

For example you claimed in your online video "The African Origins of Christianity" that Isis was a virgin when giving birth to Horus. Mr. Kwesi I have read the Egyptian myths and I have never come across a version in which Horus is born virginally.
My friend Chris White of zeitgeistchallenge.com is offering a 250 dollar reward to anyone who can substantiate a version of the Osirian myth which includes a virginal birth and the sister website at the below link is offering a 1000 dollar reward to anyone who can substantiate a virgin birth for Horus.
http://www.kingdavid8.com/Copycat/Challenge.html
Will you please provide primary documentation for your claim?

You claimed that Horus was born in a manger. Mr. Kwesi, are you aware that the myths actually state that he was born in a swamp? The previous website I mentioned above is offering a large monetary reward to anyone who can demonstrate a manger narrative for Horus in an ancient text. Will you please provide primary documentation that Horus was born in a manger?

You claimed that Horus was born on December 25th. Are you aware that Horus was actually born on November 15th and that December 25th only became associated with Christ's birth in the fourth century? Again the two websites I referenced above are offering large cash rewards to anyone who can demonstrate a December 25th birth for Horus.

You stated “Osar got seventy two conspirators to crucify him". Sir, I understand that forms of crucifixion and hanging were utilized by the ancient Egyptians, but I can find no reference in ancient history that depicts a crucifixion version of the Osirian myth. May I ask that you provide me the primary documentation as to where you obtained this information.

In your "Origins of the Immaculate Conception" video you stated that the walls of the Ptah Soker Shrine were censored by Rome, but you then went on to tell your group what had originally been depicted on the walls. May I ask that you explain how you know what was originally depicted on the walls if they were censored in Roman times.

You said one relief depicted Isis riding a donkey then stated that this is a parallel with The Biblical Mary. Are you aware that Mary is never depicted riding a donkey in the Biblical texts?

At 1:55 seconds in your video you stated “Luke mentions it [the Immaculate Conception] only in terms of being clean. It literally means that only one man has entered her body.”

Are you aware that Luke 1:30-35 explicitly states that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus and that no man at all had ever entered into her body?...

I would respectfully appreciate your response and explanation to these questions and others. If you do not respond I will appropriately arrive at the conclusion that you are being intellectually dishonest and that you are purposely making claims for which you do not have the necessary evidence or documentation.
As of this date Ashra has not responded.