The Christ Conspiracy, chapter 17: The Meaning of Revelation pt 2

The more general discussion Murdock presents regarding Revelation is very unclear. She identifies a lot of motifs in the book - there is no discussion of the use of these motifs. Murdock generally seems content to identify motifs and stop there - throughout the book, there is very little in ways of analysis of the actual use of motifs. Let us compare this with the following excerpt from E.P. Sanders' Paul and Palestinian Judaism:

The case is not quite so clear when one considers the comparison of individual motifs. The notion that a religion is the sum of its parts is not a ridiculous one, and therefore the comparison of numerous parts is not so obviously inadequate as the comparison of reduced essences. Nevertheless, it is inadequate for the true comparison of religions, for two reasons. In the first place, it is usually the motifs of one of the religions which are compared with elements in the second religion in order to identify their origin. The two religions are not treated in the same way. The history of the comparison of Paul and Judaism shows this clearly. One starts with Pauline motifs and looks for their origins in Judaism, but the various elements of Judaism are not taken up for their own sake. It follows that there is no true comparison of the two religions. In the second place, motif research often overlooks the context and significance of a given motif in one (or sometimes both) of the religions. It is conceivable for precisely the same motif to appear in two different religions but to have a different significance. One may consider the analogy of two buildings. Bricks which are identical in shape, colour and weight could well be used to construct two different buildings which are totally unlike each other. One could knock down a building and build another, unlike the first, from the same bricks. In motif research, one must consider function and context before coming to an overall conclusion as to similarity or dissimilarity. [3, p. 13]

Sanders' piece of reasoning here is something Murdock would do well to consider. However, that would require her to acknowledge that the lack of any method (and consequently, lack of discussion of advantages and disadvantages of the method) to her research is a problem. That lack of method is painfully visible in this chapter, where assertions are made without hesitation, and few or no attempts to establish any facts are made, and any attempt whatsoever to create a coherent picture of the assertions is curiously absent. As an instance of such assertions we have the following:

In fact, Revelation records the mythos of the precession of the equinoxes, or the

“Great Year,” and was apparently originally written to usher in the Age of Aries,

which began around 4,400 years ago.[1, p. 267]

This is a fairly remarkable claim - one that really requires significantly more elaboration and, indeed, evidence. Nothing in the chapter connects the various motifs to particular things relevant to that particular time. An astronomical investigation regarding what particular things happened in the skies at about the time the Age of Aries was entered, in combination with star-related imagery from Revelation could demontstrate a connection. No such comparison is made, she just points to star-related imagery again and again, asserting that these somehow demonstrate her point. She never demonstrates that these things are connected in the way she asserts they are.

There further is a bunch of rather weird claims that have little or nothing to do with astrotheology, yet contain shoddy sources and claims that would require quite a bit more in ways of support:

As noted concerning the same cherubim in Ezekiel, these four animals represent

the four cardinal points of the zodiac. The throne is the sun, and the multitudinous

“eyes front and behind” are the infinite stars. The three pairs of wings of each beast

represent the three signs of each of the four zodiacal quadrants. These “living

creatures” were also found in Egypt. As Walker says, “Spirits of the four points of the

year were sometimes called Sons of Horus.” [1, p. 268]

It is worth noting that Walker indeed says this, but does not provide any further references, thus - as so frustratingly often - making it difficult to verify. Further, she is willing to ascribe fairly modern ideas to the authors of Revelation, courtesy of John G. Jackson:

Jackson relates that the four beasts also represent Noah and his three sons, i.e., the various races. In this scenario, the lion is the lion of Judah, or Shem, “father” of the Semites; the bull symbolizes the Hamites of Egypt; the eagle is Japheth, progenitor of the Aryans; and the man is Noah, who is of the “Adamic” or “Atlantean” race.[1, p. 268]

The kind of obsession with an Atlantean race that she here infers that the author of Revelation shares with various modern theosophists and other people seems quite badly justified. Even though she does provide a source - Jackson - from what I know of this author I have a hard time imagining there to be anything of any value to it. Why would the four beasts represent these groups? What makes this statement in any way meaningful or verifiable? Do any early Christian writers understand it in such a manner?

One particular bit in Revelation that clearly has astrological origins (but the use of which, as a motif, is not necessarily entirely pro-astrology in Revelation*) is discussed, in its own subchapter:

The “woman clothed with the sun” is both the moon, which reflects or “wears” the sun, and the constellation of the Virgin, who has the moon under her feet and the stars above her head.  [...] At the Temple of Isis at Denderah was an image of a woman “seated at the center of a blazing sun crowned by twelve stars and with her feet resting on the moon. The woman was the symbol of Mother Nature; the sun represented creative strength; the twelve stars stood for the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and the Moon signified Matter and its domination by Spirit.” Walker relates the eastern custom regarding the woman:  According to Tantric tradition, the Goddess concealed herself behind the sun’s brightness; it was “the mayik vesture of Her who is clothed with the sun.” This image reappeared in the New Testament as “the woman clothed with the sun.” (Revelation 12:1).[1, p. 269-270]

The temple of Isis at Denderah makes a new appearance in Suns of God, but the same mistaken claim appears in this volume as well:

As to the antiquity of this motif, it should be noted that the temple at Denderah has been averred to be possibly 10,000 years old, based on the astrology it depicts.[1, p. 270]

No serious archaeologists claim that the Denderah temple is 10,000 years old. There is pretty clear evidence that it stems from the time of Cleopatra. I have previously discussed this particular topic.[4 also provides a more direct source regarding Denderah.]

The much ballyhooed number, 666, mentioned in Revelation as the “mark of the

Beast,” was in fact held sacred in the goddess-worshipping cultures as representative

of female genitalia.[1, p. 271]

Which cultures exactly? Murdock does not tell. Nor give any kind of source.

 When the Goddess was vilified by the patriarchy, she became the

“Beast” and her sacred number the “mark.” The number 666 was not held to be evil

or a bad omen in Judaism, as is evidenced by the biblical story of Solomon

possessing 666 talents of gold. In fact, it is a sacred number. [1, p. 271]

I have not, in years of studying Judaism, come across any statement to the effect that 666 is particularly sacred in Judaism.[3 provides one particular statement to the effect that it is not.] Certainly, there is a significant amount of numerology in kabbalah, and 666 appearing somewhere in there is entirely possible. If such a number can be found, showing that it indeed is an old tradition would be pretty important in order to make that particular claim - providing a medieval kabbalistic work does not suffice. The further analysis of the number is fraught with unbridled speculation taken as fact:

As Higgins says:

The Hexad or number six is considered by the Pythagoreans a perfect and sacred number; among many other reasons, because it divides the universe into equal parts. It is called Venus or the mother. It is also perfect, because it is the only number under X, ten, which is whole and equal in its parts. In Hebrew Vau is six. Is vau mother Eva or Eve?

In addition, Anderson points out that “666” also corresponds to the sun rising at 6:00 a.m., reaching its height six hours later, and setting at 6:00 p.m. [1, p. 271]

Of course, the earliest manuscript we have has the number 616 there. The early manuscript evidence is rather firmly divided on those two. Any theory that purports to explain it should also explain this discrepancy. Higgins' speculation is as usual fairly amusing. Six apparently divides the universe into equal parts. Tell me which number does not! Where is six called 'the mother' or Venus?

Higgins' understanding of the notion of perfect numbers is finally lacking - perfect numbers were among the first classifications of numbers in number theory after the rather fundamental classes of odds, evens, primes and composite numbers. A perfect number is a composite number whose positive divisors (excluding itself) add up to itself - 6 is perfect because it is divisible by 3,2 and 1, which added together equal 6. 10 is not, since 5, 2 and 1 add up to 8. The next perfect number is 28 - divisible by 1,2,4,7,14, which as we can easily see add up to 28. (1+2+4=7, 7+7 = 14, 14 + 14 = 28). I guess 'whole and equal in its parts' may signify something like that, but it's far from clear. Since Higgins clearly was no mathematician, it is possible he was just imperfectly parroting a definition he had heard and misunderstood. Alternatively, he was using some obsolete way of talking about arithmetics, but I can find no other source using similar wording to describe perfect numbers. Ultimately, of course, he is correct in saying that it is a perfect number - but even then that says nothing about 666 - which is not written as three sixes in neither Greek, Latin or Hebrew. (χξς in Greek, DCLXVI in Latin, ת״רסו or somesuch in Hebrew.) Parsing the number does seem easily to lead into pareidolia and too many assumptions. Numerology makes it way too easy to find false positives.

As for Eva/Eve, one would think the other letters in the name would also have contributed to the gematria - the sum of her Hebrew name's letters, after all, is 21 - thus connecting it to 666 also seems weak.

Its true meaning, of course, has been lost to the masses, as they have been told that astrology is “evil,” a deliberate device to prevent them from studying it, because, with such astrological knowledge, they would understand clues such as in Revelation (22:16), where the true nature of Jesus is clearly identified when he is called the “morning star,” i.e., the sun, which is the real “revelation.” [1, p. 272]

I suggest Murdock study the concept of metaphor, which she claims the Bible is full of. I would suggest reading the above as a metaphor - i.e. conveying something that is not its literal meaning. The entire book of Revelation is full of such metaphor, and I am surprised to see Murdock repeatedly call for a literal reading of it in the name of reading it metaphorically.

[1] D.M. Murdock, The Christ Conspiracy

[2] E.P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism

[3] http://www.jewfaq.org/alephbet.htm

[4] http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2010/07/decoding-the-ancient-egyptians-stone-sky-map.html

The Christ Conspiracy, Ch 19: Essenes, Zealots and Zadokites, pt 1

It is useful for the next several installments of the review of The Christ Conspiracy to consider the more general structure of the book. With the exception of a few chapters, most chapters fit into a rather simple partitioning into a few overarching themes or functions - which of those words to pick for describing it depends a bit on whether we look at the claims, which tend to be similar in each partition, or whether we look at the basic questions the chapters investigate. The first few chapters establish that early Christianity did have a significant amount of fabrication going on. The second part consists of several chapters trying to establish the meaning of the Christian mythos.

This chapter is the first in the final section of the book. These chapters attempt to identify the participants in the machinations behind Christianity, the deep roots of Christianity, or something along those lines, and in extension the deep roots of western culture. The questions these chapters try to answer are not very clearly stated, and the answers given seem to be a bit all over the place.

Chapter 19 presents an overview of the relationship of early Christianity to the Jewish movements of the time. The focus is mainly on the Essenes. The chapter's structure, as far as the Essenes go, roughly follows this outline: She states that some scholars have sought the origins of Christianity in Essenism, and in Jesus as a traveling Essene teacher of mysteries. She points out that lack of such evidence is pretty damning for the whole notion that Jesus was such a teacher. Christianity is stated to have spread too quickly for there to have been any truth to the origin story given in the NT - a rag-tag group of fishermen and other unassorted Jewish peasants could not have organized the early church in the short time span during which the church came about - thus scholars have seen the Essenes as a possible solution to that problem, what with the Essenes already having such an organization in place. She notes that this theory does not agree with fundamentalist Christian notions of Christian history.


The chapter starts out with a question, an answer to which is not really convincingly provided in the entire chapter:

The question remains as to how the Christian myths was created and by whom. In looking for the originators of Christianity, many people have pointed to the Essenes, the third Jewish sect besides the Pharisees and Sadducees in Jerusalem.[1, p. 296]

Murdock seems to be a bit inconsistent in whether she is arguing against Essenes-as-a-source-for-Christianity or Jesus-as-an-Essene.

 Like the mythicists' arguments, the Essene theory of Christian origins is repugnant to fundamentalists, because it posits the pre-existence of the Church, which would mean that Jesus was not its founder. The Church, according to such Christians, was not already established at the time of Christ's alleged advent but, under Christ's supernatural power and inspiration, miraculously caught ire and was empowered beyond all expectations, to spring out of nowhere into a full-fledged movement, with extraordinary influence and, apparently, a good deal of wealth. In swallowing this yarn, then, we are supposed to accept that, within a number of years of Jesus's purported death, a ragtag band of illiterate fishermen and semiliterate peasants questionable in their faith in Jesus was able to establish a full-blown church, with bishops, deacons, parishes and rituals. [1, p. 297]

Indeed, fundamentalist Christians believe things that clearly are mistaken. In other news, water is wet.

In spite of this fervent belief, there remains no evidence for such a  miraculous genesis, so scholars have been compelled to turn to the white-robed Essenes as the wellspring of Christianity. Within this theory, early Christianity was "pure" and "untainted" by corruption, which came only after it was institutionalized as the Catholic Church. [1, p. 297]

This is a very clear-cut case of strawmanning. Scholars who posit that Christianity grew out of Essenism do by and large not posit that early Christianity was "pure" and ""untainted" by corruption". Most such scholars nowadays generally admit quite clearly that religions and religious sects are human constructs, where all kinds of human behaviors exist. The Catholic Encyclopedia states that 19th century freemasons often sought an untainted Christianity in Essenism, but rebuttal of the problematic aspects of a 19th century hypothesis does not suffice to likewise reject a more modern view that has amended those very flaws. For examples of the kinds of views modern scholars have, Gabriele Boccaccini has several books and articles on the Essene-Christianity connection.

Thus this is a fairly terrible misrepresentation of the theory genuine scholars are working with. A scholar is supposed to keep up with what scholars are actually saying - not use strawman arguments. The alternative is that she is ignorant about what scholars actually are thinking. Both options are rather damning, and I do not see a third option. Certainly the kind of notion she decries - that early Christianity was 'pure' and unsullied - does exist, and is held by many protestants. Likewise, there are new religious movements on the fringes of Christianity that do think the Essenes were pure, and claim to be their spiritual descendants. However, these are not exactly scholars, and rejecting them - although relevant in a work for the deconversion of that kind of audience - is entirely irrelevant in a scholarly work.

She further dismisses the idea that Christianity has anything to do with Essenism by these statements:

In reality, the so-called pure Christianity would have been abhorrent to the followers of a simply morality such as the Essenes. For example, in addition to the squabbling, threats and apparent murders of converts such as in Acts, where Peter is virtually depicted as having caused the deaths of a husband and wife over money, this "pure" Christianity included the exhortation of slaves to remain slaves, such as at ... [1, p. ]

Not all religions live up to their reputations. Are we to expect the Essenes to be any better?

In order to compare Christianity and the Essenes, we need to have an idea regarding what beliefs and practices characterized Essenism - what distinguished it from the Pharisees and the Sadducees? What doctrines distinguish early Christianity from all three of them? Due to Murdock's rejection of the notion that the Dead Sea Scrolls contain any significant portion of Essene material, she has very few sources about their beliefs with which to work. Nevertheless, she does seem to think she knows a fair deal about their beliefs, as is evident from these statements:

The zealous Jesus's rash and brusk behavior is, in fact, contrary to the restraint and discipline of the peaceful Essenes. ... In addition, the Essenes were not followers of the Hebrew Bible, or its prophets, nor did they subscribe to the concept of the original fall that required a savior. They did not believe in physical resurrection or a carnalized messiah. ... [1, p. 299] 

Of course, the notion of the 'original fall' is understood very differently in Rabbinic Judaism than it is in Christianity, to the extent that it does not really have any clear connection to the savior whatsoever - the fall and the savior seem not to be connected together in a systematic way in Judaism. Thus, the lack of a fall does not have to indicate the lack of a messiah (and even vice versa). Further, we do not know that the Essenes rejected the Hebrew Bible, and some evidence seems to indicate they at the very least incorporated it in some way into their scripture.

Neither does Rabbinic Judaism subscribe to the kind of notion of a fall that Christianity does, yet Rabbinic Judaism too expects a savior. Since Murdock in addition rejects the idea that there is any substantial corpus of Essene material in the DSS, she is left with nearly no evidence as to what the exact beliefs of the Essenes were - yet dares to make sweeping statements about their beliefs! What this lack of any substantiation whatsoever outside of the reports of three ancient historians and the works of Philo should lead to is scholarly carefulness. Murdock instead takes this lack as license to speculate wildly. As for such wild speculation, the claim that the Essenes were not followers of the Hebrew Bible also seems somewhat suspect - or at least in need of some source backing it up.

There are indeed some reasonable points in this chapter - points she returns to in a much more focused way in Who was Jesus - Footprints of the Christ. The reasonable points are used, however, to reject points against which they are not sufficient or even helpful arguments. The argument is very unfocused - is she arguing against Christianity as an offshoot of Essenism? Is she arguing against Jesus as an Essene? Arguments that would support one of these is used to debunk the other and vice versa, and even then, those arguments are not particularly good. She seems to subscribe to a very idealized notion about the Essenes, and therefore has a hard time reconciling them with Christianity.

... The real Essenes, as described by Josephus, abhorred falsehood, and unlike the Christian fathers, would not have mindlessly believed the unbelievable. [1, p. 299]

Woah, wait, what? A religion in antiquity whose members would not have mindlessly believed the unbelievable? This sounds pretty credulous. It is clear the Essenes did in fact mindlessly believe the unbelievable, just like members of most religions ever.

 In reality, the so-called pure Christianity would have been abhorrent to the followers of a simply morality such as the Essenes. For example, in addition to the squabbling, threats and apparent murders of converts such as in Acts, where Peter is virtually depicted as having caused the deaths of a husband and wife over money, this "pure" Christianity included the exhortation of slaves to remain slaves, such as at ... 1 Timothy, Colossians 3, Titus 2

As for peacefulness, one of the ancient Essenes we know by name - John the Essene - was a general in the Jewish war[n]. I find it unlikely he was the only Essene to fight in that war.
Finally,

However, the Jewish aspects of the Christ character  are mainly Pharisaic, not Essenic.[1, p. 300]

Which particular aspects, pray tell, are those? Is it his wearing black rather than white? Without any explanation of this claim, we cannot evaluate it. Jesus deviates a lot from Pharisaism as well as Sadduceanism - belief in Satan as a fallen angel and various other aspects of his teachings seem to point to a non-Pharisaic ideological background.

In conclusion, the above quotes indicate that Murdock is even ready to interpolate a lot from the very little evidence we have (according to her) about Essene beliefs. The conclusion of the chapter does connect Christianity a bit more closely to Essenism, but along the way to that conclusion she goes through a lot of bullshit.

[1] D.M. Murdock, The Christ Conspiracy, 1999
[n] see http://lexundria.com/j_bj/2.556-2.584/wst, http://lexundria.com/j_bj/3.9-3.34/wst

The Christ Conspiracy: Ch 16: Etymology Tells the Story

This chapter reaches some of the lowest depths this far in scholarly quality throughout the book. Murdock - who claims to be a linguist[1] - showcases her utter lack of care or understanding for linguistic methodology (for the relevant subfields of linguistics, obviously, as e.g. generative linguistics is of no or little relevance to her thesis). Few of the etymological claims she makes in it are built on any foundation whatsoever, and the few that stumble close to realistic guesses are interpreted in ways that derive too much mileage out of them.

Throughout this book has been a recurring theme that essentially weaves a tapestry of human unity not widely perceived. In order to appreciate further this unity, we can turn ot etymology, or the study of the origin and development of words, to demonstrate how closely cultures are related and how there has been basically one mythos and creed with many different forms. We will also discover, therefore, further evidence of what has been demonstrated herein concerning the Christ conspiracy.[2, p. 255]

Commendable as it is to claim human unity for the sake of peace, I think the unity she claims indeed is false. What is superior - to be peaceful due to a history of unity, or to be peaceful in spite of a history of conflict? It is better to learn from history (and not redo the mistakes of the past) than it is to learn from fabrication.

Many people believe that the concept of God as Father originated with Christianity, but this assumption is erroneous, as numerous pre-Christian cultures had their God the Father as well. [...]In the Greek mythology, the sky-god father-figure, aka "Zeus Pateras," who is a myth and not a historical figure, takes his name from the Indian version, "Dyaus Pitar." Dyaus Pitar in turn is related to the Egyptian "Ptah," and from Pitar and Ptah comes the word "pater," or "father." "Zeus" equals "Dyaus," which became "Deos," "Deus" and "Dios"--"God."[2, p. 255]

Although she indeed is correct that the idea of a fatherly God indeed predates Christianity and can be found throughout the early civilized world, and right in connecting Dyaus Pitar (द्यौष्पितृ), Jupiter and Ζεῦ πάτερ, she has the order of the connection down wrong - Jupiter, द्यौष्पितृ and Ζεῦ πάτερ all three derive from a common source, Proto-Indo-European *Dyēus ph_₂ter. I have earlier documented this in a blog post about general abuse of linguistics.

Although most people think the name Jesus originated with the Christian godman, it was in fact quite common, particularly in Israel, where it was Joshua. As such the name appears in the Old Testament over 200 times. As demonstrated, the name Jesus also comes from the monogram of Dionysus, "IES," "Yes" or "Jes," among others. Jacolliot elaborates on these widespread names:

As we have seen, all these names of Jesus, Jeosuah, Josias, Josue derive from two Sanscrit words Zeus and Jezeus, which signify, one, the Supreme Being, and the other, the Divine Essence. These names, moreover, were common not only amongst the Jews, but throughout the East. 

[2, p. 256. 3, p. 301; the surrounding text does not contain any justification for the claim.]

Indeed, Jesus was a common name in Roman-ruled Israel, and may very well have been common before the Roman conquest too. Every serious scholar of early Christian history knows this, and it is also widely repeated in newspaper articles on findings that in some way or other have been interpreted as pertaining to Jesus of Nazareth, such as the (fabricated) James ossuary. I seriously doubt the claim that most people think that the name Jesus originated with Jesus of Nazareth - certainly I have run into the occasional ignoramus who genuinely believed something along those lines, but except for pre-sunday school kids, very few seem to hold such a notion. Obviously, there does not appear to be any need to debunk this particular mistaken belief. Murdock may want to be thorough, but if so I think that effort should have been invested elsewhere.

Jacolliot just makes an assertion without anything to back it up, no philological reasoning or anything, and Murdock quotes this wholesale in support of her position. Something more substantial is required.

As we can see, the source Murdock refers to does not establish the relevant correspondence by argument. If such an argument exists, it is somewhere else in that book - which the phrasing kind of suggests ("as we have seen" - where? It is not in the same chapter). For clarity and ease of following the argument, Murdock should have referred to wherever Jacolliot actually shows this correspondence. She does not. Furthermore, Jacolliot 's life span does not significantly overlap with the neogrammarian school of linguistics, and thus every etymology he suggested is suspect until shown to be in agreement with more methodological linguistics.

In other words, anyone anointed would be called "Christ" by the Greek-speaking inhabitants of the Roman Empire, who were many, since Greek was the lingua franca for centuries. As noted, in Greek Krishna is also Christos, and the word "Christ" also comes from the Hindi word "Kris" , which is a name for the sun, as is evidently "Krishna" in ancient Irish.[2, p. 256]

The claim that Krishna is ancient Irish for sun has been debunked previously in this blog. It would be good if she would specify which version of Greek Krishna is Christos in - in modern Greek, at least, I have found Κρίσνα, but then again my Greek is almost non-existent and it is possible there are texts where Χριστός does refer to Κρίσνα. I find it unlikely, though. The "As noted" part seems to be a kind of trick - nowhere is this noted elsewhere in the book, so I guess she thinks she can get away with not showing it if she indicates she has indeed shown it already. Perseus.tufts.edu does almost exclusively find Χριστός in works related to Christianity, but does not find Κρίσνα or potentially different variants at all - seems as though its corpus of Greek texts either use a different name altogether, or are not interested in him whatsoever. It is of course possible that I just did not happen upon the name ancient Greeks used for him, or that their corpus is too small or that Krishna is not much discussed in the entire corpus of Greek texts of antiquity (although I found a suggestion that he is referred to as 'Herakles' by Megasthenes).

 Satan is an adaptation of the Persian representative of evil "Ahriman," the twin brother of "God," the same as the Egyptian Set, Horus's twin and principal enemy, also known as "Sata," whence comes "Satan." Horus struggles with Set in the exact manner that Jesus battles with Satan, with 40 days in the wilderness, among other similarities, such as the revealing from the mount "all the kingdoms of Earth." This myth represents the triumph of light over dark, or the sun's return to relieve the terror of the night. Horus/Set was the god of the two horizons; hence, Horus was the rising sun, and Set the time of the Sun-SET.[2, p. 257]

Satan, properly speaking, comes from the Hebrew verb שָׂטַן - to oppose, withstand, to be an opponent. There is of course no etymological connection between Set the Egyptian God and sunset. Whether Set and שָׂטַן are etymologically connected is less trivial to answer, as both Hebrew and Egyptian have several consonants that somewhat inconsistently are transcribed by s, and the same holds for t as well, and the Egyptian and Hebrew consonant systems were somewhat different. The Egyptian Seth apparently may have been pronounced something like Sutah originally, which doesn't really make it any more similar to Satan.  Set/Seth is a short word - which is rather significant as it increases the chance of random similarities. Finally, functionally Seth seems to occupy a rather different role in the Egyptian religion than Satan occupies in different Abrahamic traditions. To show that they somehow have the same origin, Murdock has to present some reasonable manner in which the two have diverged to reach their known forms from a common source. She does not do so, and is content with making just another assertion. 

In Hebrew, the name "Satan" or "Shaitan" merely means "adversary," not absolute evil being. The title of Satan as the "adversary," also at 1 Peter 5:8, refers to the sun as "Lord of the Opposite, which means a sign or constellation opposite to the sun at any given point." [2, p. 258]

As a source for this claim, she gives Kersey Graves' The Biography of Satan. He does indeed say the exact same thing, but provides no further source. Murdock, in a defensive rant about the quality of Graves' works, says she has researched his sources and found his claims justified. Why does she not then give a reference to the relevant source, instead of the un-verifiable Graves? I have attempted to find astronomical/astrological uses of adversarius and ἀντίδικος on perseus.tufts.edu, but to no avail (duly note my Greek and Latin are weak, and it takes me quite some time to work through the relevant texts). Some attestation of an astronomical use of either of these words - but preferrable the greek one - would be good. I doubt there is one, though. If someone knows of such a use, I would be happy to admit to this being a reasonable claim!

As for the defense of Graves' quality, I would suggest Murdock produces an annotated and referenced edition of his books, if she really thinks his value has been as underrated as she seems to think. In this case, Graves, as is his wont, omits to provide any source for his claim, so tracing it down is well-nigh impossible.

The origin of the "devil" also can be uncovered through etymology, in that the word comes from the Sanskrit term "deva" or the Persian "daeva" both of which originally referred to angelic entities, usually female, who were demonized by Christian propagandists. In actuality, "devil" shares the same root as "divine." In addition, the word "demon" is a Christian vilification of the Greek word "daemon," which likewise referred to a divine spirit. [2, p. 258; ]

Devil is not derived from Deva. Looking at the path the word has taken, it is pretty clear it is the result of several layers of sound changes on top of several layers of borrowing - it comes from Latin diabolus, from a Greek word of similar form, Διάβολος. Other languages throughout Europe have forms that have gone through fewer or different sound changes, and when we try and reconstruct what the ancestor of Swedish djävul, Dutch duivel, German Teufel, Russian дьявол, Spanish diablo, Irish diabhal, Italian diavolo, etc, we are led to conclude that the scholarly consensus on this particular word is pretty solid. Again, Murdock is misled by accidental similarity between English and "eastern" languages. It is not clear, by the way, that the devas primarily were feminine. In fact, there is a separate Sanskrit word for feminine beings of the same kind, viz. devi. Divine and devil do not share a root - divine comes from divus (whence also deus), devil ultimately from Greek διαβάλλω, to slander. The daevas were already considered evil by the Zoroastrians, so any Christian demonization of them does not have to be posited. An old Zoroastrian creed states "I declare myself a Mazdah-worshipper, a Zoroastrian, an enemy of the Daevas, holding Ahura's law"[4, p. 125, see also 137-138.]. Ultimately, the amount of confusion present in Murdock's claim here is staggering.

Of course, the English word 'devil' and deva/devi/daeva do look (and sound) similar, but a linguist would realize this kind of coincidence does happen. Murdock further focuses too much on English - as though English reliably contains hints as to secrets about religion and history that other languages do not. She claims to know Spanish, French and German - why does she never use hints hidden in these languages to support her case, or is English somehow special in retaining them? Is the Volksgeist of the anglosaxons especially well suited to be consciously deceived (explaining why so many of them do believe in the existence of the devil as the main opponent of God) but unconsciously somehow retain an unusual number of hints towards the truth in the shape of their words? Magic thinking is magic. 

As Hazelrigg says: The "Holy City" is likewise a term essentially solar, being the same as the Phoenician word hely, and having its root in the Greek helios, Sun; whence Heliopolis, the city of the Sun.[2, p. 259]

Except, in the Bible it was עִיר קֹדֶשׁ, ʿi:r qodeš. Greek helios and Germanic holy have no connection, and it is worth noting that holy, heilig, helig, etc were not used in Christianity until Germanic tribes were converted. In Greek, holy was hieros, in Semitic languages it was derived from qodeš and in Latin, obviously, sanctus. Hazelrigg tries to deduce the origins of a concept through looking at a linguistic coincidence in a language spoken over a millennium later. Hazelrigg was an astrologer, and not a linguist. His understanding of the world lacked all scientific rigor. 

"Bethany", site of the famous multiplying of the loaves, means "House of God," and is allegory for the "multiplication of the many out of the One." [2, p. 259]

Except "Bethany" does not mean "House of God". There has been some debate as to its meaning, with suggested translations being house of dates, house of misery and a few others. The claim that it is allegory for the "multiplication of the many out of the One" should be given some kind of supporting argument - assertion does not quite cut it.

The "great" king Solomon, so-called wisest man in the world, with his 1,000 wives and concubines, should today be considered an immoral criminal, were the story true. obviously, this absurd tale is not historical. In fact, "Sol-om-on" refers to the sun in three languages: "Sol" is Latin, "om" is Eastern, and "on" is Egyptian. "On" means both "sun" and "lord," reflecting an association found in countless cultures. Solomon can also be  traced to the same root as "Salvation," which is related to "Salivahana," the Indian savior-god. [2, p. 260]

 Again, as said elsewhere, Solomon does not come from Sol-om-on - in fact, in the Hebrew language his name was (and still is) Šəlomo, a transparently semitic name, with the -n on the end in European renditions of the name stemming from a Greek grammatical addition, much like how Philo was rendered Philon in Greek. "Om" or "on" signifying sun in the relevant languages needs some back up as well, and there are of course more than one Eastern language. Her source for this claim claims that On is Ethiopian, rather than Egyptian, so she is at the very least misreading or misrepresenting her source on a tiny detail there as well (although I cannot find such a word in either). As for Salvation, it derives from Indo-European *solo, which meant whole, and by Latin had changed meaning towards safe. Salvation, thus, is making safe, as in saving. As for Salivahana, the provided source is Higgins, whose credibility should by now be recognized as worthless. All other sources I have found on Salivahana seem to indicate his life-span was significantly later, and the similarity may very well be entirely random. Few sources I have been able to obtain say much about him, though. India has had a significant amount of royalty (of which Salivahana was a member), deities and royal deities, and finding one whose name is superficially similar to someone else cannot be particularly challenging.

I have previously pointed out fabricated words in her works - including the claim that Scandinavians call the sun "John" and that Persians call it "Jawnah" [2, p 262]. There is further rather tendentious interpretation of Jesus' mentioning the sign of Jonah at Matthew 16:4, as in that sign being the sun. The very same gospel makes it clear what the sign of Jonah is supposed to be, though: "For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Yes, an astrotheological interpretation is still possible, but Murdock's interpretation skips over the important bit of actually explaining what the sign of Jonah is supposed to be, and hurries along to a JESUS = SUN conclusion a bit too carelessly.

Towards the end of the chapter, she goes on with some made up words, such as old Irish "budh" for the sun (which I previously have written about), conflating "Bull" and "Baal", and so on.

Like all other sciences, etymology is not exact or perfect, and etymological speculation at times may be faulty. Nevertheless, the theme demonstrated is too overwhelming to be dismissed.[2, p. 263]

Etymology is especially far from exact or perfect when no attempts to separate the wheat from the chaff are made, when unbridled speculation is the order of the day, and when it is driven by ideology rather than genuine scientific curiosity tempered by rational skepticism. Murdock's attempt showcases all these problems The theme she tries demonstrating is far from overwhelming, and in fact is easily dismissed - and on good grounds even then. However, the theme I have been trying to demonstrate - her credulity, unscientific mindset and lack of scientific rigor - is indeed too overwhelming to be dismissed. Indeed, there are more problematic claims in this chapter - some, I have decided not to include because obtaining sources gets tedious at some point, some I have decided not to include because they are similar to other problematic claims that I did include, and so on.

As a final comment, the chapter does not produce a coherent argument, just showcasing a bunch of supposed connections between religious ideas in disparate places. The linguistic evidence presented is too often English-centered (for regions where no Germanic languages ever have been widely spoken) or just pure speculation (often even demonstrably mistaken speculation). Together, these two problems combine to make the chapter lack direction, coherence or even a proper point. Meanwhile, easily impressed ignoramuses will be convinced and the arguments presented will be repeated on every religion-oriented forum ever as undeniable truths, and people will be mislead into thinking that this is genuinely how linguistics is done.

[1] D.M. Murdock, http://www.truthbeknown.com/licona.htm, on her website she also has a repost of a third-party blurb for or review of her book The Christ Conspiracy where she is called a linguist, http://www.truthbeknown.com/christ.htm. The first link contains this explicit statement: "Again, I am not a "skeptic" with some passing interest in mythology. I am what I say I am: an archaeologist, historian, mythologist and linguist."
[2] D.M. Murdock, The Christ Conspiracy
[3] Jacolliot, Bible in India
[4] James Hope Moulton, Early Zoroastrism, 1926. Hartz, O'Brien and Palmer also concur in their Zoroastrism, 2010 (pages 91 and 140).

Barbara Walker: Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, "Kingship"

On page 506, in the article on kingship, Walker says:

The Roman word for a king, rex or reg, descended from Sanskrit raj, as did the Celtic rig.[1]

As a source for this particular statement, she provides Dumezil's  Archaic Roman Religion. Which actually says that rex, raj and rig descend from Proto-Indo-European (admittedly, I only obtained the French version):

 il est remarquable que, comme celui de la société védique (raj(an)), comme celui de toutes les sociétés celtiques anciennes (rig-), le chef de la société romaine primitive porte le vieux nom indo-européen *reg-. Ce seul fait assure que les habitants des cabanes des montes tibérins n'étaient pas des groupes de familles inorganiques, qui au bout d'un certain temps, se seraient associées en créant des institutions nouvelles, mais que, au contraire, ils étaient arrivés aves une structure suprafamiliale, politique traditionelle : comment supposer en effet que ces hommes qui, d'un lointain passé, avaient hérité, aves le mot, la notion de rex, l'avaient d'abord laissée péricliter pour la réactiver ensuite, sous le même nom?

Or, si nous ne connaissons pas directement le rex latin, la comparaison du rí irlandais et du rãj(an) védique permet de concevoir avec quelque couleur ce qu'était le *reg- indo-européen, duquel ils sont dérivés.[2] [my bolding, any omitted accents are solely my responsibility.]

Can we trust a source that seems not to understand what her sources say? How many such mistakes does it take until the book's credibility should be  considered entirely debunked?

This is not just for the pleasure of debunking or tearing down someone's credibility - this is a serious question to any fans of Murdock's (or to herself, even) - if an author repeatedly proves themselves incapable of getting right the very things they quote from another author, how credible are their claims?

[1] Barbara Walker, The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets
[2] Dumezil, George: La religion romaine archaique, avec un appendice sur la religion des Etrusques Bibliotheque historique, 1974

On Acharya S

[The review of The Christ Conspiracy has now been completed. There is a summary, as well as a two-part synopsis (part 1, part 2)]

I have been reading a lot by D.M. Murdock recently. Her books moved me to start this blog.

I do hope many of her fans will read my posts on her books - the first series of posts I have planned out is basically an in-depth review of her books The Christ Conspiracy, Christ in Egypt and The Suns of God.

I am not the first to do this, but I have found a bit of an omission in the reviews and criticisms I've read: most are written by theologians. This, per se, is not really a problem, but it has some effects that may be problematic:

• Her fans may see theology and especially academical theology and its representatives as a conservative, hostile bunch of ivory-tower residents that want to keep outsiders out, and who often are inclined to side with Christian orthodoxy. To some extent, this is even an accurate objection.
• Murdock makes several claims that are not of a theological nature. She especially likes to use claims that are of a linguistic nature (see chapter 16) (but also, consider the quality of the linguistics in her sources, e.g. Barbara Walker, Drummond). I do not expect theologians to know when her use of linguistics is shoddy or misleading. Considering she claims to be a Greek scholar, it is interesting how ignorant she is of linguistic methodology and of how language actually works. It seems she subscribes to some kind of very anglo-centric view where English names of things convey something essential about the thing (see "God's spell" as an informative example). As if English were a magic lens into the essence of every concept, and that other languages somehow imperfectly reflect these.
• Her reasoning often fails at being logical. Now, as a computer science student, logic is a central tool I use quite regularly, and I understand a fair bit of it. Some of her flawed reasoning may not be as readily obvious to someone more into subjects such as theology. I am not saying that theologians are necessarily illogical, but some illogical things may pass them by (and sometimes members of their ranks concoct fairly illogical reasoning as well). In the interest of completeness, I have decided to point out flawed reasoning wherever I see it, even though others have pointed out the same flawed reasoning.
• My interest in pragmatics and linguistics in general has made me aware of how she phrases things. She casts aspersions both left and right frequently, and at times she includes statements that do not really support her specific thesis, but to the credulous reader are further proof of a conspiracy to hide the facts.

Now, as a non-theologian, I am not very well-versed on Church history, and it is in fact a topic I don't care that much about. To some extent, I will check sources regarding her claims, especially whenever the claims are so egregious that even I can spot them. Chances are, though, that I will fail to spot some of her mistakes.

I will criticize her sources' quality as well, as her writing uses such considerable amounts of long quotations that it at times reads like a "best of" record of secondary and tertiary sources. She seldom actually engages with the texts, never pointing out flaws or mistakes in them. This far, in my reading, I've only come across one instance of engaging with a text instead of accepting it at face value: she pointed out that the author of the relevant source was a believing Christian, and therefore possibly a bit too uncritical (irony of ironies). Other than that instance, she never questions a source - not really a thing one can do in  books she wants to claim to be comparable to PhD theses:  "as concerns my credentials and continuing education, I would like to consider my books Suns of God and Christ in Egypt in particular a PhD thesis in the subjects of comparative religion and astrotheology."[1]

Sources are not taken to task for bad methodology or tendentious claims, and for that reason I will investigate some of her sources with a skeptical mindset as well. On the other hand, she also uses the time-tested method of quote-mining, which means some of her sources only say what she claims once the context has been removed. Since I have not been able to get my hands on all her sources, and time, alas, is a finite resource, I have not been able to check every quote for quote-mining. Archive.org helps a bit - many of her sources are public domain now, and some have been scanned by Google, Microsoft and so on, and are available there. 

She generally prefers old sources - a thing I do understand, given what she wants to say, but not given that she wants to be scholarly. She has to realize that methodology has developed since the time when these sources were written, that old claims have been debunked, that what scholars in the 1880s to 1930s thought is not current - several of her sources predate that time as well, especially Higgins who is a prominent source throughout The Christ Conspiracy. Sources from those times subscribed to ideas of how religion evolved that misconstrued evidence to show how Christianity was the apex of religious evolution. Her sources by and large did not buy into that model, but built their own opposite model that had just as mistaken assumptions - they posited religion as an increasingly corrupted version of an ancient perfect lore. Both models misunderstand evolution, and both are basically terribly unimaginative approaches - the devolutionary model basically turns the evolutionary model on its head, instead of coming up with a tenable explanation. Her sources were seldom peer-reviewed in their time, either, and thus are rife with speculation and bad reasoning. (For an example of such sources Godfrey Higgins comes to mind. An in-depth, but still incomplete look at his works, see 1, 2, 3. Another example of rather shoddy sources she uses is Karl Anderson, a 19th century astrologer. A third and fourth example are the brothers Churchward.)

A more modern source whose reliability is questionable, but whose work is referred to throughout The Christ Conspiracy is Barbara Walker, who often misunderstands what her sources claim, and uses similarly unreliable sources for her research.

As academia has worked on these things methodology has been refined and mistaken interpretations of old evidence have been debunked. Alas, Murdock does not care to keep up with sound methodology.

There is one type of fallacious claim she likes making again and again, even in contexts where they are red herrings. These are fallacies of an etymological nature, and therefore, I've decided to gather an overview of the types of mistakes she makes in one separate post. There also is one chapter brim-ful with this kind of mistake. I fear many readers of her books may be very confused as to how etymology works, what it means for a word to have a certain etymology, or how etymologies are researched. I will go into some detail on that particular topic in separate posts. 

Alas, her sources too tend to make the same kind of mistakes, and thus, I will deal with mistaken claims in the quoted works simultaneously with mistakes in her own book. In fact, it seems she has been rather clever when it comes to this: very seldom she makes a factual claim that is (verifiably) wrong. Very often, she lets others make them for her!

Although I do not subscribe entirely to the sentiment she quotes from Wheless, it bears repeating:
"... If the Gospel tales were true, why should God need pious lies to give them credit? Lies and forgeries are only needed to bolster up falsehood: "Nothing stands in need of lying but a lie"". [2, 3]
The amount of falsehoods used to prop up her claims should be taken as an indication as to the veracity of her claims. Alternatively, we realize that the number of falsehoods used to prop up something does not necessarily make it false - it is trivial to make up a falsehood with which to prop up a truth.

Now, I am no Christian. Nor have I been for over ten years. I dislike many - possibly even most - explicitly Christian beliefs. However, I do not believe fabrication is a thing we should take to when trying to debunk Christianity. This, alas, is what D.M Murdock participates in - intentionally or not. As a person with some kind of integrity, I feel I have to point out and debunk the false claims made in her books, and make Christianity's opponents less likely to be misled by her. Just because an argument against something sounds persuasive, the argument is not necessarily correct. Christianity can be wrong without her arguments. In fact, I am convinced Christianity is wrong yet  believe in very few of Murdock's claims. I am certain that we can argue against Christianity from a stronger position if we refrain from using her false claims, as well as other false claims.

I write this, in part, because I know how frustrating it is to face someone whose view of the world is - to say it kindly - fanciful, in part because with sources like her, atheists arguing against Christians will deservedly lose whatever debates they get themselves into if their Christian opponents are even reasonably well educated. 

When some claim of hers almost gets it right and can be corrected - and in its corrected form can be used against Christianity (or is a reasonable fact for other reasons), I will point this out. I will also point out what bits she does get right in fields about which I dare to make such comments.

POSTSCRIPT: On December 26, 2015, D.M. Murdock passed away after having battled cancer for a while. Although I have written critically of her works and claims, I held no grudge against her as a person, and am saddened that she had to face such a terrible and early end. Her works improved throughout her career, and had she seen a full lifespan, she could even have produced works of lasting value.

[1] D.M. Murdock, http://www.truthbeknown.com/credentials.html (retrieved 9.20.2012)
[2] D.M Murdock, The Christ Conspiracy The Greatest Story Every Sold, chapter 3. The Holy Forgery Mill
[3] Wheless, Forgery in Christianity, p. 109