Posted by: "John F. Felix DIAGroup" jffelix61@
Date: Thu Jun 25, 2009 8:57 am ((PDT))
Dispraxis writes:
I hate when my e-mail address is in the subject line! Anyway...
Unfortunately (?) I don't subscribe to the Skeptic mag, only the e-newsletter. Back when Acharya posted a link to the original Callahan article (http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic09-02-25#feature), her rebuttal (http://stellarhousepublishing.com/skeptic-zeitgeist.html) and Callahan's re-rebut here: (http://www.runboard.combiblicalprophesyandmythology.f22.t91), I was assaulted by such statements from Callahan as:
'Of course I avoid the "Testimonium Flavianum," bacause I know it's a forgery. You're faulting me for this?
As far as I know, there is no reason to see the James passage as a forgery, while there is every reason to see the so-called "Testimonial" as a forgery.'
Would you trust a document with an admitted forgery in one place, in any other place? And there *is* "reason to see the James passage as a forgery," from two other source besides me, but I won't bore the group with my own theories, yet Earl Doherty thought of it as a possibility (see also Suns of God), because in the very same section of Josephus, the (ex) high priest Jesus is mentioned, so either "the one called Christ" is an interpolation, or it is a reference not to any Messiah, but to Jesus the high priest who was removed from office, and who could be seen as the one "annointed," or the true high priest, in contrast to the new one seen as an illegitimate pretender. Or maybe Christians have been unknowingly worshipping Jesus the ex-high priest for two millenia!
And after seeing Tim debate Christians on video, I'd say that his problem, IMO, with Acharya is that he is not knowlegable enough to debate such issues as the dying-resurrecting god motif with a Christian scholar, and she no doubt in my mind is, so she is perhaps seen both a rival and as an object of envy. since he's promulgating basically the same ideas, but lacks the in-depth knowledge to present a coherent and evidence-based case. One point he was asked to provide scholarly-accepted evidence for Dionysus' resurrection pre-dating Christianity. I thought I could almost tell he wanted to quote sources that probably Acharya is the only one ever to cite, but he just couldn't do it. :)
After listening to Acharya speak and reading a great deal of her books and posts, I know that she can get worked up, but Callahan accuses her of savagely attacking people who don't agree with her, but I can honestly say, this is a misinterpretation. What irks her, I believe, is how people seem to hold on to a belief or opinion or factual interpretation in the face of such overwhelming evidence in support of the mythicist position, not even mentioning the prominence of astrotheological sources at the basis of all religions. So, to me, it seems more frustration than anything else, especially when I can clearly detect from her many posts how tiring it must become to possess such erudation and have to argue against the same uninformed attacks everyday.
Now, concerning the Jesus Project, of which I knew nothing about, I read on their website that they expanded their focus into Quranic studies, and since I don't know all the details of the unfortunate abduction of your kid, I was thinking that their move was motivated because of your apparent anti-Islamic public positions, i.e., for political rather than any other stated "official" reasons they may have offered, but I'm speculating.
John F. Felix
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Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
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