Acharya S Watch: Josue V. Harari and the “Castrated and Crucified Attis”

I really enjoy finding when the astro-theologist Acharya S. tries to push her pseudo scholarship off as facts. I found this article about what this "scholar' who also goes by the name D.M. Murdock where she is using a Yates poem as proof of the crucified Attis to prove her point of the Messiah theme being crucified long before Yeshua of Nazareth and the founding of Christianity.

Acharya S Watch: Josue V. Harari and the “Castrated and Crucified Attis” On occasion in this series, I will focus upon a graphic that has been used by Murdock to defend her claims in the source guide she wrote with Peter Joseph for Part 1 of Zeitgeist. Displayed below, the graphic has the claims of the film, followed by criticisms that she labels pseudoscholarship, and then her own responses that she claims is “the facts.” As we shall see, the pseudoscholarship is every column but in the one she labeled as such.

So let us begin with one of her “facts” dealing with the supposed crucifixion of Attis. In the graphic, she claims that Dr. Josue V. Harari called Attis “the castrated and crucified Attis.” She has used the same source on numerous other occasions, including here,here, here, and in the source guide she wrote with Peter Joseph for Part 1 of Zeitgeist. In each case, she identified Dr. Harari as the source, assumed he was a qualified authority on the subject, and, by her use of it as evidence, indicated this had something to do with ancient beliefs about Attis. But is any of it true?

Let us first consider the question of Dr. Harari. He is a professor at Emory University in French and Italian. I am sure he is eminently qualified in the areas of French and Italian literature but this does not make him an authority on the history of religion. This is something one finds again and again with Murdock: she identifies someone as a scholar but does not give any indication where their expertise lies. If the best she could come up with for the crucifixion of Attis is a professor of French and Italian, that alone speaks volumes.

But it gets worse. Despite her continually ascribing this claim to Dr. Harari, he was not the author. The book cited is Textual Strategies. Perspectives in Post-Structuralist Criticism and it turns out that Dr. Harari is the editor but not the author of the relevant text. The book contained numerous articles in the field of literary criticism (where Dr. Harari is eminently qualified) from different scholars and Dr. Harari served as editor for the volume. The relevant article is by Paul de Man and is titled Seminology and Rhetoric. As with Harari, de Man’s field was also literary criticism (his expertise was deconstructionist literary theory) and nothing to do with the history of religion.

source

Yate's poem Vacillation second stanza

A tree there is that from its topmost bough
Is half all glittering flame and half all green
Abounding foliage moistened with the dew;
And half is half and yet is all the scene;
And half and half consume what they renew,
And he that Attis’ image hangs between
That staring fury and the blind lush leaf
May know not what he knows, but knows not grief

If you have been fooled by this pseudo scholar Acharya S. / D.M. Murdock then this should really help put things into their proper place.

I know many have doubts about the bible and whether or not it's been changed. That is really not the purpose of this thread. The reason I am posting this, is there is a constant drum beat from these sorts of "scholars" to put forth falsehoods to tear down the idea of the crucified Messiah actually being fulfilled in the life, death, and resurrection of Yeshua.

There are many other examples she uses to push her theory which Zeitgeist used to sow doubt among the biblically illiterate Christians. The facts are they have no sources prior to 150 A.D. and now it appears Yates is a new source!

I'm sorry but debate about faith vs proof needs to be an open discussion until GOD says otherwise.

D.M. Murdoch is a charlatan and anyone who believes anything that she says about anything is a moron. She's made a career out of promoting theories that have utterly no evidence for them and selling books to idiots who will buy anything if it has an anti-Christian bent to it.

So it comes as no surprise that she's been proven a fraud, yet again, and it should come as no surprise that such a revelation will have no impact on her book sales.

Not everything she says is true.

But the basic things she is saying is.


Jesus is a copy of Horus. Almost everything about Horus was stolen to create the story of Jesus, including the names of "The Word", "The Lamb of God", etc.

Others Scholars looked at these facts and the only things they disagree with in regard to The Horus and Jesus connection is that there is no evidence that Horus had 12 disciples and a few other things...

but most of the things about Horus was copied and used for "Jesus" ...

Originally posted by arpgme
Not everything she says is true.

But the basic things she is saying is.


Jesus is a copy of Horus. Almost everything about Horus was stolen to create the story of Jesus, including the names of "The Word", "The Lamb of God", etc.

Others Scholars looked at these facts and the only things they disagree with in regard to The Horus and Jesus connection is that there is no evidence that Horus had 12 disciples and a few other things...

but most of the things about Horus was copied and used for "Jesus" ...

... and your academic source for this is?

reply to post by adjensen


Here is one:

andrew.cmu.edu

Reactions of Egyptologists:
Ward Gasque, a volunteer book reviewer for Amazon.com surveyed twenty contemporary Egyptologists. He asked
them about the origins of Jesus' name, the relationship between Horus and Jesus, whether both experienced a
virgin birth, and whether the Egyptian religion considered Hourus to be an incarnation of God.

Ten responded, They agreed:

Jesus' name is a Greek form of a very common Semitic name Jeshu'a, which is normally translated into
English as Joshua.

There is no evidence that Horus was born of a virgin, that he had twelve disciples, or that he was
considered incarnation of God.

Besides a few things, most of the information about Jesus and Horus is true...

reply to post by arpgme


Um...

That is an atheist book which is hosted on some student's web site, it is not an "academic source".

Know how I know it isn't an academic source? It cites Gerald Massey, who is universally dismissed as a fraud -- he was an 19th Century anti-Christian who just made things up in an effort to discredit Christianity. Anytime you see Gerald Massey or Kersey Graves in conjunction with mythicist claims about Jesus, you can be pretty well assured of the fact that the exact opposite of what is being claimed is what is really true.

Acharya S. is just selling a book and in order for her to sell it and make money, she has to make it controversial and make it seem "scholarly". When you check the background info on what she claim as facts, it's all made up, post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

reply to post by adjensen


Did you read the part where they got confirmation from the people who would actually know best about this stuff ( Egyptologists)?

I really enjoy finding when the astro-theologist Acharya S. tries to push her pseudo scholarship off as facts.

I was flabbergasted seeing you use this as your OP opening line.

reply to post by arpgme


What few Egyptologists they got to respond said "this is ridiculous", yes, I saw that.

Trust me, I've spent far too much time digging into the history of these claims, because they are at the core of part one of the communist film "Zeitgeist: the Movie", and they are all absolute rubbish.

Here's a thread I did on it two years ago: Zeitgeist as a propaganda tool for a New World Order

reply to post by adjensen


The motives of the movie "Zeitgeist" are irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that the information about Horus is true, and with a few exceptions, it is.

Originally posted by arpgme
reply to post by adjensen

 

The only thing that matters is that the information about Horus is true, and with a few exceptions, it is.

No, it is not. The claims of Horus/Jesus do not come from anything Egyptian, they come from these two hoaxers from the 19th Century, Graves and Massey. Even atheists like Richard Carrier dismiss their claims.

W. Ward Gasque, a Ph.D from Harvard and Manchester University conducted an international poll of twenty Egyptologists - including Professor Kenneth Kitchen of the University of Liverpool and Ron Leprohan, Professor of Egyptology at the University of Toronto - in Canada, US, UK, Australia, Germany, and Austria to verify academic support for these claims. The scholars were unanimous in dismissing the claims. (Source)

reply to post by adjensen


Just because some "scholars" dismissed their claims, it doesn't mean it isn't true. We have the internet. You are free to do your own research to see if information is true or not instead of just believing others.

Horus does indeed have many parallels to Jesus, and I've already gave links to these parallels.

Instead of posting links saying so and so disagrees, why not actually debunk the information I presented? Besides the few things I've already admitted was inaccurate, can you prove that all of the other parallels are false?

Originally posted by arpgme
Instead of posting links saying so and so disagrees, why not actually debunk the information I presented? Besides the few things I've already admitted was inaccurate, can you prove that all of the other parallels are false?

That isn't the way it works.

You haven't proven anything -- you cited a non-academic text, which uses a known fraud as its source for what it claims. I can't debunk anything, because you haven't provided any valid claims regarding Horus and Jesus.

That's one of the main problems with people today -- they find something on the Internet, and all of the sudden they think that they have proof of something, just because it's on the Internet. But just because something is on a web site doesn't mean it's credible evidence of anything, unless it cites actual valid sources, and what you posted does not, instead it cites a fraudulent source.

reply to post by adjensen


Well, can you prove the claims are untrue? And I'm not talking about just linking to a scholar who disagrees. I'm talking about actually debunking it, or linking to a scholar that debunks it instead of simply "disagreeing"...

Sure, I already admitted that SOME of the claims weren't true, like the 12 disciple thing for a second, but that doesn't change the fact that


Was Horus "Crucified" to a cross? Here is Acharya's response to the so-called "debunkers".

here is one interesting quote about the "celestial cross":

"...Adapting an old Pythagorean notion, Plato had written in the Timaeus of the world soul revealed in the celestial X; to the early Christian this was a pagan imitation of the world-building crucified Logos who encompasses the cosmos and causes it to revolve around the mystery of the Cross." (Campbell, 372)

- Link

Originally posted by arpgme
Was Horus "Crucified" to a cross?

A) Crucifixion was a Roman punishment, Horus pre-dates Rome by several thousand years
B) There is no indication that Horus ever died (he was torn to pieces once, but put back together)

So, no, I think it safe to say that Horus was never crucified on a cross.

Seriously, go read this: Ending the Myth of Horus, written by a guy who has every reason to want to believe that Jesus is a myth.

reply to post by adjensen


Acharya S already said on that website that when she said "crucified" she wasn't talking about Horus being nailed down to a piece of wood like Jesus Christ. If you would have read the site instead of assuming that you know everything, you would have read that.

It's a bit hypocritical to not read the websites I send you but to expect me to read yours.

reply to post by arpgme


I've spent no small amount of time looking into D.M. Murdoch, her credentials and her basis for making the claims that she does, as in the Zeitgeist movie. She does not have a background in history (she has an Associates or Bachelors degree in "Greek studies" or something like that) and she is a supporter of Gerald Massey and Kersey Graves, whom every historian, atheist or not, dismisses as a fraud. After said research into D.M. Murdoch, I have concluded that she is a fraud and only interested in selling her "Christ as Myth" books.

If you have complete faith in her, and she's the sole basis of the claims that you're making, there is no point in continuing this conversation.

reply to post by adjensen


More assumptions, I never said I believed in everything she said - or that I have "complete faith" in her. I only used her as a reference and I only believe in some of the things she says like the few things I've mentioned earlier - which you still haven't debunked by the way.

The earlier link I gave you with the ".edu" site, 10 Egyptologist confirmed that almost all of the parallels mentioned there were true. I don't have complete blind faith in anyone.