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Tuesday, August 04, 2009

What is a mythicist?

I have created two new articles:

What is a Mythicist?

The History of Mythicism

These articles deal with the third option in the believing versus non-believing debate as concerns various religious traditions, specifically Christianity and bibliolatry in this case.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, thanks for writing those explanations of what mythicism is! I had no idea. When I first saw the link I thought, "what the hell is this" and then, I couldn't stop reading. The information about the history and the mythicist position is absolutely fantastic! I'd never heard any of this before.

I am now taking on the mythicist position as my own to go beyond the endless theist vs. atheist arguments. I like your definition of the mythicist position because it is evidence based and includes all other religious beliefs rather than just being about Jesus:

"The Definition and Value of Mythicism

The term "mythicism" as it has come to be developed in the present day may be defined as I have done in my book Christ in Egypt (12):

"Mythicism represents the perspective that many gods, goddesses and other heroes and legendary figures said to possess extraordinary and/or supernatural attributes are not "real people" but are in fact mythological characters. Along with this view comes the recognition that many of these figures personify or symbolize natural phenomena, such as the sun, moon, stars, planets, constellations, etc., constituting what is called "astromythology" or "astrotheology." As a major example of the mythicist position, it is determined that various biblical characters such as Adam and Eve, Satan, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, King David, Solomon and Jesus Christ, among other entities, in reality represent mythological figures along the same lines as the Egyptian, Sumerian, Phoenician, Indian, Greek, Roman and other godmen, who are all presently accepted as myths, rather than historical figures."

That just makes sooooooo much sense and simplifies everything without being anti-religion or a believer. I am shocked to find out that after all this time there really wasn't any well defined position where people could learn about it from dictionaries or encyclopedias. Well, I hope that people submit your mythicist position to both dictionaries and encyclopedias.

I love these quotes:

"Now when the ancient Egyptians, awestruck and wondering, turned their eyes to the heavens, they concluded that two gods, the sun and the moon, were primeval and eternal; and they called the former Osiris, the latter Isis..."
- Diodorus Siculus (c. 90-21 BCE)

""all the gods of the Greek and Roman mythology represent the attributes of the one supreme divine power—the sun."
- Macrobious

"At Stonehenge in England and Carnac in France, in Egypt and Yucatan, across the whole face of the earth are found mysterious ruins of ancient monuments, monuments with astronomical significance. These relics of other times are as accessible as the American Midwest and as remote as the jungles of Guatemala. Some of them were built according to celestial alignments; others were actually precision astronomical observatories... Careful observation of the celestial rhythms was compellingly important to early peoples, and their expertise, in some respects, was not equaled in Europe until three thousand years later."
- Dr. Edwin C. Krupp, astronomer

The mythicist position and astrotheology go together like a hand in a glove and the evidence supporting them is undeniably vast. It's embarrassing for academia how they dismiss it out of hand. All of this information about astrotheology is precisely what's missing from the discussion. There's a monumental vacuum and astrotheology fills it in perfectly. It seems so blatantly obvious now.

p.s. I love the links at the bottom of the articles too! Your work is fantastic and exposes academia for what it really is nowadays.

Marmalade said...

I appreciate those articles. A major problem of discussions is that many people don't even know basic definitions.

There is only one issue I'd like to see clarified further. As I see it, theories about myth and theories about history inform eachother but aren't dependent on eachother. They should be discussed separately rather than conflated.

In terms of Jesus mythicism, I think it's irrelevant whether an actual person existed because we can never know. Mythicism definitely undermines historical claims, but it doesn't entirely disprove the possibility. Even though I think the evidence is extremely weak to say the least, there are rational arguments for a historical Jesus because it always depends on how the evidence is interpreted.

The problem with conflating theories about mythology and history is that it creates an all-or-nothing polarization. This just leads to heated debate that too often lacks nuanced understanding.

I for example am strongly in support of mythicism but mostly indifferent of whether or not Jesus is historical. To feel strongly about one doesn't necessitate I feel strongly about the other. Even if Jesus were somehow proven to have actually lived, it wouldn't change my mind about mythicism as the stories about Jesus would still only have a loose connection to any supposed history.

A person could simultaneously think that there was both a historical Jesus and a mythical Jesus. They could do this by accepting that there is a distinction between the Jesus of scholarship and the Jesus of faith. Maybe the two understandings of Jesus simply have nothing to do with eachother. I was raised in New Thought Christianity and I can tell you many of the Christians I grew up around didn't have a faith in Christ that was dependent on history.

Anonymous said...

Marmalade "As I see it, theories about myth and theories about history inform eachother but aren't dependent on eachother. They should be discussed separately rather than conflated."

Well, like it or lump it mythology and history are conflated. It's a good idea to sift through to find out what is myth and what is history, but that's not always easy without diligent work. After reading the following quote from Gerald Massey, I really got the point:

"The lost language of celestial allegory can now be restored, chiefly through the resurrection of ancient Egypt; the scriptures can be read as they were originally written, according to the secret wisdom, and we now know how history was first written as mythology."

- Gerald Massey, "Natural Genesis," II, 378.

Acharya's work demonstrates much of this mythology to be based on astrotheology or natural phenomena - and that is extremely important, the precise reason why we need actually to understand what the ancients were up to, rather than just leaving it up in the air with an "agnostic" declaration.

Marmalade "In terms of Jesus mythicism, I think it's irrelevant whether an actual person existed because we can never know."

Read the above - it certainly IS relevant to many scholars and lay people alike, both theist and atheist. And, we still have no credible evidence for a historical Jesus. If you understood Acharya's work really well, you'd see that there's plenty of evidence pointing to Jesus being as mythical as Hercules. As she says, when the mythological layers are removed, there's no core to the onion.

Marmalade "The problem with conflating theories about mythology and history is that it creates an all-or-nothing polarization. This just leads to heated debate that too often lacks nuanced understanding."

It sounds like you're confusing mythology with theism and atheism. It just sounds like you didn't even read the articles, which specifically addressed that point:

"Mythicism has much to offer to those who find it difficult to believe in the gospel story as "history" but who wish to know the deeper meaning behind the story. Indeed, the mythicist position importantly serves as a bridge between theism and atheism, as it does not seek to discount or denigrate the long and exalted history of thought concerning religion and mythology, dating back many thousands of years, as manifested in the religious and spiritual practices of man beginning millennia ago and continuing since then."

Your last two paragraphs sounds like you are leaning towards evemerism, which is also spelled out in the article. Acharya's books show that there really is no solid basis to evemerism. There's really nothing difficult to understand in saying that the priesthood, which was known for making up gods in many cultures, simply made up one more, for the same reasons they had made them up in the past. By being wishy washy in understanding this idea, we aren't accomplishing anything. In fact, we're ignoring the evidence and all the great creation of the ancient world in favor of intellectual fence-sitting that prevents us from comprehending what really happened.

22

Marmalade said...

Anonymous - Let me be clear that my disagreement is friendly. I have no antagonism towards Acharya. In fact, she is one of my favorite writers. I greatly respect and appreciate her scholarship. I agree with her general view on Christianity.

I've read these articles and her many other articles, I've read all of her books, and I've participated on her forum and in many other discussions around the web. I know her ideas as well as is possible without climbing inside her head. :)

"Well, like it or lump it mythology and history are conflated."

They are somewhat intermixed but they're not entirely conflated. That is why I said they inform eachother. it's the role of scholarship to make distinctions.

"Acharya's work demonstrates much of this mythology to be based on astrotheology or natural phenomena"

Her work is just one perspective among a thousand others. There are many ways of interpreting myths. My agnosticism simply means that I'm intellectually curious and open-minded. I don't doubt Acharya's explanation, but astrotheology is just a contributing factor. Humans and human society are complex. No single theory will ever fully explain anything.

"it certainly IS relevant to many scholars and lay people alike, both theist and atheist."

Sure. It's personally relevant to many people. But mythicism as a theory doesn't stand or fall based on history. It doesn't matter (except to believers and those arguing against believers) whether there was a historical person made into a myth or a myth made into a historical figure.

I've often thought it's possibly a combination of both. The mythological origins are obvious, but there are also various historical figures that may have been models that the myths were formed around. There may be no single historical Jesus and instead many historical figures that influenced Christianity even though maybe none of them were specifically named Jesus. There are any number of possibilities and I feel no need to choose only one of them.

"It sounds like you're confusing mythology with theism and atheism. It just sounds like you didn't even read the articles"

I must not be communicating well. I have no idea how this relates to what I was writing about. I was trying to avoid confusion/conflation and instead make distinctions. Like history, theism/atheism is only indirectly related to mythology in that neither position is dependent on mythology.

"Your last two paragraphs sounds like you are leaning towards evemerism"

Nope. I was just speculating about the different possible perspectives.

"By being wishy washy in understanding this idea, we aren't accomplishing anything."

I wasn't being wishy washy. I wasn't dismissing Acharya's distinctions. I was trying to take her distinctions and add further clarification.

"In fact, we're ignoring the evidence and all the great creation of the ancient world in favor of intellectual fence-sitting that prevents us from comprehending what really happened."

Who is this hypothetical "we". I can tell you that I'm not ignoring any evidence. I've read so many scholarly books on this subject that my head could explode. If we knew what really happened, then there wouldn't be so much discussion about it. My point is that we know so little about the history and so it simply isn't an issue unless concrete evidence is discovered.

Anonymous said...

Marmalade "Let me be clear that my disagreement is friendly. I have no antagonism towards Acharya. In fact, she is one of my favorite writers. I greatly respect and appreciate her scholarship. I agree with her general view on Christianity."

You certainly have an odd way of showing your appreciation for such a fine and important article explaining mythicism.

M "Her work is just one perspective among a thousand others...No single theory will ever fully explain anything."

LOL, I'm sorry that's just a stupid thing to say for someone who claims to know Acharya's work. She certainly explains the foundational origins of religion to be based on natural phenomena and demonstrates that with credible evidence.

M "My agnosticism simply means that I'm intellectually curious and open-minded."

The best, most accurate definition of agnostic is simply, "noncommittal."

M "But mythicism as a theory doesn't stand or fall based on history."

LOL, you should just stop attempting to be some sort of intellectual genius, you're not.

M "It doesn't matter (except to believers and those arguing against believers) whether there was a historical person made into a myth or a myth made into a historical figure....I've often thought it's possibly a combination of both."

Again, that would be the evemerist position which Acharya's works show that there really is no solid basis.

M "Like history, theism/atheism is only indirectly related to mythology in that neither position is dependent on mythology."

You need to put down the pipe. Did you not learn anything from Massey's quote?

"The lost language of celestial allegory can now be restored, chiefly through the resurrection of ancient Egypt; the scriptures can be read as they were originally written, according to the secret wisdom, and we now know how history was first written as mythology."

- Gerald Massey, "Natural Genesis," II, 378.

<<"Your last two paragraphs sounds like you are leaning towards evemerism">>

M "Nope. I was just speculating about the different possible perspectives...I wasn't being wishy washy. I wasn't dismissing Acharya's distinctions. I was trying to take her distinctions and add further clarification."

I think Acharya's article was quite clear. I don't think you're in any position to further clarify anything here on these issues. You haven't clarified a single thing - in fact, you've done quite the opposite.

Why don't you consider coming out of the closet with your evemerism?

22

Marmalade said...

I'm going to ignore Anonymous. A person who likes to argue and has an inability to think for themselves... a very bad combination.

Part of why I was making the distinction between history and mythology is in response to another blogger. April DeConick wrote the following post which I responded to. DeConick is a scholar who disagrees with the mythicist position because she thinks it's dependent on denying the possibility of a historical Jesus.

http://forbiddengospels.blogspot.com/2009/02/i-told-you-that-you-wouldnt-like-it.html

"Rather it is how the first Christians were remembering him early in the transmission of the traditions."

As others have noted, the use of the concept of 'memory' is misleading. It suggests that there was something historically real that was being remembered. To clarify, this seems based in the author's own beliefs as she stated in a previous blog.

'My decision about the Jesus Project': "In fact, I think that Jesus did historically exist, although I cannot prove this anymore than the mythers can prove he didn't."

Since we can't know about the historical Jesus, why not leave that issue out of the discussion. There is no advantage to referring to the memory of Jesus.

Furthermore, the author is missing an important point. The mythicist position is a separate issue from the historical debate (even if the two get intertwined). Mythicism isn't dependent on disproving a historical Jesus. It simply is irrelevant. Mythicism is primarily about the story and not the person the story is about.

To be fair, some mythicist scholars seem to intentionally conflate these two aspects. I assume they do so in order to create a stronger argument by combining them together. But that is unnecessary and it confuses the discussion.

Acharya S said...

Marmalade, I frankly do not understand what point you are trying to get across. You seem not to have read the original articles or the other comments on this post, which are substantially correct, especially the idea that if we do not comprehend the mythical root of this matter we are missing out on the true origins of much religious ideology. I believe that I have demonstrated this contention quite abundantly in my writings, which you say you have read in depth. Perhaps I was not clear enough in those thousands of pages.

I tend not to pay much attention to individuals whose opinions indicate that they clearly have not studied mythicism in depth, regardless of their other credentials. This field is very specialized and does not simply rest on the negation of a "historical" Jesus or the dismissal of information - an utterly erroneous perception that is born out of ignorance of the subject matter.

Mythicism is based on an enormous body of knowledge that has been lost and suppressed: To wit, the ancient astrotheological origins and meanings of religion. Those who have not studied this massive body of data cannot be considered experts in this field by any means. Without this body of knowledge, their assessment of the origins of Christianity is extremely incomplete.

So, it is a question not of simply dismissing information but of factoring in a huge amount of information that is highly overlooked.

As someone who has studied mythology for decades, I maintain that when the mythological layers are removed, there remains no core to the onion, and that Jesus Christ is as mythical as Hercules. No scholar today of whom I am aware maintains that somewhere under all the mythological layers there was "some guy there" named Hercules. However, in ancient times there were many rational people who very much took the evemerist position when it came to the Greek son of God, and they could provide much the same "proofs" for him as do the apologists and others today as concerns Christ. As was pointed out in ancient times by the Roman historian Varro, there were dozens of "Herculii" in Greek myth and history, many of them confounded - which was the "real one?"

To paraphrase Gerald Massey, a composite of 20 people is no one.

The preponderance of evidence indicates that the "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a mythical compilation of characters created and promulgated largely at Alexandria.

Whatever "historical" Jesuses people are coming up with appear to be figments of their own imaginations and desires. As professor of Judaic and Religion Studies at Brown University Dr. Shaye Cohen remarks, "Modern scholars have routinely reinvented Jesus or have routinely rediscovered in Jesus that which they want to find..." ("From Jesus to Christ")

While they squabble over this phantasm, they are missing out on the real inspiration behind the astonishing culture of Egypt, for example, or the glory that was Greece, of both of which the philosophy, religion and mythology were highly influential upon Christianity.

Theofilia said...

Acharya, if you wish to see "proof" that the living, breathing Jesus (Enlightened) person who was after his so-called 'death' -- (so-called "death" bec. his Merkabah body, his Light body/Soul/Light of the World, didn't die), --
pls. google "Dr durbin Jesus photo found" , then click on the one with date Sep. 9/97'.