Evidence of an Ancient Global Civilization, pt 5.

We now reach a topic on which tons of delusional literature has been printed. The pyramids. From there, we go on to the topic of pre-Columbian transatlantic contact and American civilization in general.

In studying the architectural remains of ancient civilizations, one category is particularly striking: The pyramid. As Keel says in Disneyland of the Gods: We know that pyramid building was once a universal practice throughout the world. Over six thousand years ago unknown peoples were assembling great pyramids in Mexico. Gigantic man-made mounds were constructed in China, Great Britain, North America, and on remote Pacific islands while the Egyptians were still living in mud huts along the Nile.[1, p. 398]

The pyramid is somewhat striking, but on the other hand it is also quite natural: hills and mountains are obviously somewhat impressive natural formations, and emulating those formations may be a fairly natural idea. Secondarily, pyramids are easier to build than many other shapes, simply due to physics.

As for the quip about the Egyptians still living in mud huts when mounds were being built elsewhere, it is helpful to note that most Egyptians probably did live in mud huts for quite a while even after the pyramids were built, on account of mud huts being quite an affordable and durable solution to housing in general in that area with the technology of the time. Essentially, her phrasing makes it sound like mound building elsewhere around the world predates Egyptian pyramid building by significant time spans, without her actually making that strong a statement. Mound building on remote Pacific islands definitely does not predate the earliest pyramids of Egypt, as they were only being settled at about the time the first pyramids were completed. Unless Murdock means something less than 'remote' by 'remote'. Other than that, the claim of mounds having been built about 6000 years ago seems somewhat more likely to be accurate (e.g. Watson Brake, 5,500 years ago in Louisiana, among other mounds both earlier and later in the Old World).

Which particular pyramids of Mexico are referred to as being 6000 years old would also be interesting - there are quite a few pyramids, so please don't leave us hanging. I find no pyramid supposed to predate the Pre-Classical period, which spanned roughly 2000BCE-200CE. Murdock not only wants us to think those earliest Pyramids were built at the onset of that period rather than the middle or later parts - she wants us to think they stem from 2000 years earlier.

Murdock goes on with this fantastic 'fact':

During World War II pilots flying “the hump” reported seeing one or more massive pyramids standing silently in isolated Himalaya valleys.[1, p. 398]

This indeed is what her source, John A. Keel reports, but he, in turn, gives no sources. For the record, it is worth mentioning that John A. Keel was a UFOlogist with no scientific credentials whatsoever. He seems to have been a contrarian with regard to science in general - if scientists believe a thing, they must be wrong.

Of the ubiquitousness and similarity of pyramids, David Hatcher Childress states:

Mayan pyramids are found from Central America to as far away as the Indonesian island of Java. The pyramid of Sukuh, on the slopes of Mount Lawu near Surakarta in central Java is an amazing temple with stone stelae and a step pyramid that would match any in the jungles of Central America. The pyramid is in fact virtually identical to the pyramids found at the ancient Mayan site at Uaxactun, near Tikal.[1, p. 398]

At this point, making statements like "that is like, ... just your ... opinion, man" starts almost having an academical tinge of respectability. The Sukuh pyramid was built well within historical times, by a literate, well-understood Asian society, there are no major mysteries to it. The similarities also appear to be rather superficial: Candi Sukuh has a clear huge doorway, and the external stairways do not extend to its top platform, whereas Uaxactun seems to have had a separate temple built on its top platform. In fact, the more I look at images of the two pyramids, the less similar they seem.

In speaking of the global civilization, Keel elucidates the weaknesses of the current archaeological paradigm:

All these things seem to be interrelated, as if they were once part of some great civilization—a common culture that spread throughout the world and then died. . . . We have a reasonably complete history of the past two thousand years, and a half- baked archaeological reconstruction of the past five thousand years. But there are so many gaps in our knowledge that most the popular archaeological theories really have very little merit. Indeed, we can’t even be sure that the Egyptians built the Great Pyramid . . . [1, p. 398]

Funnily, several of the given examples actually are from within the past two thousand years, which Keel admits to being fairly well understood; this includes Chichen Itza (up to 1700 years ago), Sukuh (about 500 years ago), Tiwanaku (up to 1300 years ago) and thus within the time span that Keel admits to being well understood. Besides, as a non-historian (and indeed with no formal education beyond high school) his opinion on the field of history is but that of a high school student.

In fact, the Great Pyramid is admittedly much more ancient than the Egyptians of history, as Hotema relates:

 When the most ancient Egyptians first saw the mysterious Sphinx and the great Pyramid of Gizeh, only their tops projected above the wind-blown sand of the desert. They knew no more about the purpose of these structures, their builders, or when they were built, than we do. . . . [The Great Pyramid] could not possibly have been the work of the Egyptian natives, nor has any one ever claimed that it was.[1, p. 398]

A primary source for this Egyptian 'admission' would be interesting. The source, Hotema, was an intriguing person. No biography is available online, but fans of his on various fringe fora seem to express a great admiration for his weird beliefs:

Who is Hilton Hotema & where did he learn all that stuff? This extensive book of Hotema published in 1963 is definitely one of the most drastic revelations of the 20th century. Among other fascinating concepts the author brings up is that humans evolved from a superior race of space aliens; that originally there was only one sex, that women still possesses latent the capacity for virgin birth. He became a prolific writer during the '50s and the '60s eventually publishing more 40 different books, and lessons. He is regarded as the greatest authority of the 20th century on human, mystical, and religious analysis and interpretation. Born in 1878 was a Clergyman, Naturopath, chiropractor, writer, Mason, musician, and manufacturer of violins, among other things. although I personally, in no way, a fanatic of traditional dogma, warn the reader regarding Hotema's opinions, assumptions and conclusions which are rather incompatible with the teachings of established religious doctrines (Meaning Christianity)The book is highly illustrated with unusual drawings on the occult, anatomy, physiology and archeology which makes it more interesting. In 1979 at the ripe age 92, Hilton Hotema finally advanced into higher planes of existence.  curezone.com/forums/am.asp?i=712592, but see also http://www.aberree.com/v09/n07p13.html

An admission from such a peculiar new age kook probably cannot be taken as serious evidence regarding anything.

In the word “pyramid,” Anderson has detected “pyr-a-met,” which he translates as “grand central fire.” The pyramid is the celestial “altar in the midst of Egypt.” The pyramid, thus, was a worldwide symbol of an altar, being an encoder of “sacred knowledge.” [1, p. 399]

Here, Murdock definitely is misrepresenting her source. I was inclined to think 'ah, but Anderson is but a 19th century kook', but in this case, Murdock's misrepresentation makes him appear all the kookier than he genuinely is. Looking up what he actually wrote gives this:

Its four angles on the due north and south, east and west points, its apex, crossed X and the sun when at its meridian height at the longest day resting in glory upon it, it is truly a pyr-a-met, or grand central fire, enlightening the south, east and west sides, and leaving the northern side in shade or darkness, for the sun in our hemisphere never goes to the north of the ecliptic. [2, p. 8]

Anderson seems rather to be making a pun than an actual claim there. His claim about the north side of the pyramid is also mistaken - it is in fact illuminated by the sun from sufficiently high an angle that the sun in fact shines on all four sides of it when at its zenith for a large part of the year.

So, a bogus etymology, not even presented as an etymology by its source - an astrologer of the 19th century - has some value in trying to figure out ancient symbolism on a global scale? There is too much iffy stuff about this particular bit of reasoning. Even further, how does 'grand central fire' translate into 'encoder of sacred knowledge'? Further, the term pyramid is a Greek word for what the Egyptians called something along the lines of mr (we don't know the vowels of Old Egyptian). Why would the Greek word for something the Greeks encountered in Egypt tell us anything about the pyramids' meanings in other parts of the world? Why is not the Egyptian term - or other terms used by regular pyramid builders discussed? Is it because to the conspiracy theorist, everything is connected?

Although such a date is not allowed by the current paradigm, which places all civilization after the time of the Sumero-Babylonian cultures, the pyramid at Cuicuilco, Mexico, is evidently at least 2,500 years older than the earliest known Sumerian finds, as the Mexican structure was apparently unearthed under a lava field created by a volcanic eruption 8,500 years ago. [1, p. 399]

Was it? Sources please? No reason to believe the lava field is 8,500 years old is provided. Is there laboratory work that demonstrates its age? Where can I find this? Sources? It is interesting that the most bold claims are given no backing evidence whatsoever, despite Murdock boasting how well-sourced her books are.

Apparently, there is an outdated scientific claim to this effect from before radiometric dating became commonplace. The method that reaches the date Murdock claims introduces a lot of uncertainty into the dating, but as she made no reference to the scholar whose estimate it was, the reader will not be aware of this. See http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/piramides/coppens_pyramids03.htm

Notice that this source - Philip Coppens - was somewhat of an alternative author. He seems to have been the only alternative author with a sense of scholarly caution I have yet come across, though, which in my eyes fully redeems him for having been a regular talking head on Ancient Aliens.

The city of Tiahuanaco on the shores of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia is one of the most enigmatic and stunning places on Earth. Lying in a desolate spot some 12,500 feet above sea level, Tiahuanaco has astounded and perplexed travelers for centuries. Although orthodox scholars deem this megalithic mystery an Inkan construction, the Inkas themselves insisted it existed long before their culture came into being. The city is dated by the orthodoxy to no earlier than the 5th century CE, but unorthodox scholars have opined that it may be as much as 15,000 years old. [1, p. 399]

Orthodox scholars do not deem Tiahuanoco an Incan construction - the dates would not add up if it were: the Incas started expanding in the 14th century according to orthodox dates, and Tiahuanoco is dated almost a millennium earlier and is outside of the Incan homelands. A remarkable claim like 15,000 years requires quite a bunch of backing data, none which is provided here. (Not even a reference!)

Murdock should have provided a more clear reference to some of these 'unorthodox' scholars. The main claimant seems to be Posnansky, whose claims have been thoroughly rejected by astronomers and historians alike, on account of resting on mistaken assumptions of what astronomical conclusions can be drawn from the existing evidence. [David H. Kelley, Eugene F. Milone Exploring Ancient Skies A Survey of Ancient and Cultural Astronomy, Second Edition 2011.pdf]

Now Murdock shifts the focus from the pyramids and the dating of ruins onto unusual objects from the past.

The Ashoka Pillar in India is an enormous lingam made of iron and “expertly welded.” Of the pillar, Jochmans says, “The mystery is that any equivalent mass of iron, subjected to the Indian monsoon rains, winds and temperatures for 1,600 years or more would have been reduced to rust long ago.” [1, p. 399] 

Firstly, a minor correction: the Ashoka Pillars are an entirely different thing. The thing Murdock speaks of is the iron pillar of Delhi. The reason it has not rusted seems understood today, but the fact that some ancient smiths knew how to achieve this effect (quite likely without understanding how it works), is impressive. Impressive is a different thing from mysterious, though. (Yes, there are mysteries to it, but these mysteries most likely have solutions that will fit the current consensus view of mainstream historical scholars).

From a shipwreck in Greece of the first century BCE comes a navigational device or “astrolabe,” which “calculated the annual movements of the sun and moon.” Miniature model airplanes have been found in both the “old” world and the “new,” and legends of diverse peoples speak of “flying machines.” [1, p. 399]

The antikythera mechanism is genuinely an interesting device, and it has indeed caused serious scholars to adjust their view on the sophistication of mechanical devices in antiquity. However, the technology needed for it was reachieved in medieval times. The antikythera mechanism is somewhat mysterious as well, but there is no need to posit the ancients were in possession of remarkable technology due to it: gears and arithmetic is roughly what you need to construct it, in addition to someone having a spark of genius. Also, Murdock should have provided more sources - she does not even provide us with the name of the device here.

As for the "miniature model airplanes" and "flying machines", those found in South America resemble fish, and were found among other things that resemble other kinds of animals. As Murdock does not tell us which finds she is referring to, the critical reader again is left to do all the scholarly work for her.

There are also the fabulous drawings at Nazca and elsewhere that can only be seen from above. [1, p. 399]

Indeed they can only be seen from above, but making them does not require seeing them - relatively straightforward geometry is all that is needed.

Also in Peru have been found 50,000 engraved stones that “show people, extant and extinct animals, star maps, the star ring of the zodiac, and maps of unidentified land areas. The people are shown hunting or struggling with a variety of monsters that resemble brontosaurs, triceratops, stegosaurs, and pterodactyls, which properly belong to the Mesozoic era [225-65 million BP]. Even more surprisingly, human beings are portrayed as having domesticated animals that appear to be dinosaurs and are using them for transportation and warfare. People are shown using telescopes, looking at the stars, and performing surgery.” Although these baffling stones have been attacked as modern frauds, which some admittedly are, mention was purportedly made of their existence by a 16th century Spanish priest who sent some of them to Spain. [1, p. 400]

Here, a reference to the priest in question would have fit well. As it stands, this claim is not verifiable. I have not been able to obtain Berlitz's Atlantis: The Eighth Continent, which is the source for the quoted segment. Its name does not inspire confidence, nor does Berlitz' name either - he was one of the main proponents of Atlantis for quite some time. These stones have a name, and I am left to wonder whether Murdock omitted mentioning them just to make it more difficult for the critical reader to find them! Their usual designation is 'the Ica stones'.

Of the allegedly 50,000 engraved stones few have ever been seen by anyone else than the main claimant. Here, we hear the hoax warning bell tolling if it ever did. For more on these Ica stones, see http://www.skepdic.com/icastones.html.

In addition, the oxidation of the engravings would appear to demonstrate that many of the stones are at least several centuries old, dating to a time when neither native Americans nor anyone else were supposed to know about such things. [1, p. 400]

Please give a reference already, Murdock. Where can I find a report on the lab work regarding that oxidation? It seems - as per the Skeptical Dictionary referred to previously - that exposing the stones in a chicken pen for a while is enough to provide a nicely oxidated surface.

In Central America, another technological anachronism appears in massive spheres almost perfectly round. [1, p. 400]

Counterpoint: http://web.archive.org/web/20130323062800/http://web.ku.edu/~hoopes/balls/errors.htm

Apparently, the claims to 'perfection' is a result of people misunderstanding the imprecision of the measuring method used by the only scholar to have carried out such measurements.

In another apparent anachronism, pictures of horses and asses are frequently found in Mexican hieroglyphs, even though the Americas were wiped clean of such fauna 12,000 ago. [1, p. 400]

Do we know for certain these hieroglyphs predate the Spanish invasion? Such an assumption would almost look like the expectation that all skills were lost as soon as transatlantic contact was made. Even the editor of Higgins' Anacalypsis figured the presence of the horse indicates more recent vintage for these pictures, which indeed is the natural assumption - any counterclaim needs backing evidence.

The Enigma of North America

In the analysis of the ancient advanced global civilization hypothesis, North America still seems to remain part of the old paradigm with few signs of any advanced culture or outside influence, other than in legends. However, this perception is incorrect, as, in reality, North America was inhabited by one or more advanced cultures who did indeed leave their traces, traces sometimes so obliterated that they are certainly of a very profound antiquity. In actuality, it will come as a shock to many that the United States has numerous ruins and earthworks so old that the natives encountered by Europeans had no idea who built them. As Keel relates:

[The experts] tell us that North America was uninhabited by anyone except Indians before the Europeans arrived. They overlook all the stone towers and structures found all over this continent (including miles of paved roads) when the Pilgrims arrived. 

[1, p. 400] 

Funny how Keel does not accept the idea that the Indians could have been clever enough to build paved roads, stone towers and other structures. The arguments presented in the sources basically assumes that the scientific consensus is very static about where native American tribes have been located, that a tribe has inhabited its area since basically the days of the Clovis culture - it is pretty clear now that some tribes did move around, and into places with clear traces of previous tribes. What is more, a lot of such migration seems to have occurred in the disease-induced collapse that occurred after Europeans reached the Americas.

Murdock would have benefited from reading up on recent developments in the archaeology of the Americas. Turns out the Indians indeed had quite large cultures, which alas were hit very hard by smallpox and other diseases that were brought to the new world by the Europeans. It would seem it is possible that a majority of the native American population perished in the decade after contact due to disease. Traditions and ways of life were lost, societies crumbled. I would recommend every reader of this blog, as well as Murdock herself, to read Mann's 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus. In fact, his overview of early scholars' hostility to the native Americans finds strong echoes among the sources Murdock quotes here - they just refuse to ascribe agency and any ability to innovate or to organize themselves to the native Americans.

A large part of this chapter originates with Charles Fort. Alas, no direct reference is made to where in his work these claims are made - neither in Murdock's sources nor in her own material. Thus tracing these claims to their original sources is essentially impossible, without reading the huge corpus of texts Fort left behind. Of course, reading his four published books would be a good start - but ... that should not be the responsibility of the critical scholar.

Fort catalogued all kinds of metal objects from swords and axes to coins that have been found and dated as pre-Columbian. Somebody was mining ore and coal in this country, and pumping oil in Pennsylvania before Columbus set sail. [1, p. 400]

Certainly a closer source for this statement would be more than justified, it is almost necessary. Further, Fort had no or nearly no interaction with academia, the chance that he got any of his coins or axes 'dated' by any credible method is pretty goddamn low. It would be interesting to know how far radiometric dating methods had been developed by the time of his death, but in light of his refusal to accept any validity of science whatsoever suggests to me he would not have used any scientifically accepted methods anyway.

Rather than tussle with the problem of identifying those mysterious North Americans, the archaeologists have chosen to ignore these artifacts. J. Churchward relates the writings of Kentucky historian George Ranck as saying that under the modern city of Lexington is the “dead metropolis of a lost race . . . that these remains of a great city and a mighty people did exist, there can be not the shadow of a doubt. . . . Here they erected their Cyclopean temples and cities, with no vision of the red men who would come after them, and chase the deer and the buffalo over their leveled and grass-covered walls. Here they lived, and labored, and died, before Columbus had planted the standard of old Spain upon the shores of a new world; while Gaul, and Britain, and Germany were occupied by roving tribes of barbarians, and, it may be, long before imperial Rome had reached the height of her glory and splendor.” [1, p. 401]

Spanish and French chroniclers who had travelled in North America do describe native American cities and mound-building. Anglophone chroniclers seem not to have been travelling far into America, thus not seeing what the Native Americans were up to, until centuries later when it was essentially too late, due to the disease-induced collapse of native American populations. At this point, credulous, racist idiots like Ranck and Churchward made up any amount of bullshit; to them, it was inconceivable that the native Americans could have done anything that required an ability to organize or indeed anything that required intelligence. I do not doubt that Ranck further had such a disdain for the native Americans that he felt justified in making stuff up that would show the native Americans were not the first inhabitants of America - in many people's minds that is essentially the same as reducing their claim to legitimate claims on the land, which I do not doubt he thought he had achieved.

In addition to the stoneworks in North America were the astonishing earthworks, some a mile or more long, constituting geometrical images such as circles, ellipses, octagons, rectangles and squares, as well as serpents and other animals, some of which were purportedly extinct by the time of humans in America. [1, p. 401]

And as pointed out, Spanish and French chroniclers even witnessed some mound building, thus positing any excessive ancient age to them is not needed. Which particular ones depict extinct animals? SOURCES. PLEASE.

Like the Great Pyramid, various edifices of North and South America were not built by the later cultures but either acquired by force or inherited by default because the buildings had been abandoned by earlier cultures. [1, p. 401]

It is intriguing how the buildings that Murdock here refers to never are specified. Which particular buildings are those? How do we know that they were inherited or acquired by force? Is it because some 19th century racist posited it?

In fact, although Egypt is often given the honor of being the originator of much human culture, the Egyptians themselves recorded that they were the inheritors of a great civilization that came from elsewhere. Indeed, the Egyptian culture seemingly appeared out of nowhere at a high level of development, as did the Sumero-Mesopotamian and South American. This fact is explainable if the civilizers were advanced groups coming from elsewhere, from lands that had been destroyed by climatic change, war or other cataclysm. [1, p. 401]

Where did the Egyptians record such a tradition? SOURCES. PLEASE. Further, Murdock seems to be contradicting herself: "Indeed, the Egyptian culture seemingly appeared out of nowhere at a high level of development" vs. "Gigantic man-made mounds were constructed in China, Great Britain, North America, and on remote Pacific islands while the Egyptians were still living in mud huts along the Nile". Two statements that just do not add up.

We further have pretty clear evidence of a progression from less advanced to more advanced societies in the Middle East, Mesoamerica, the Inca homelands as well as elsewhere.

On to the sixth part.

[1] D.M. Murdock, The Christ Conspiracy, 1999. Adventures Unlimited ltd.

[2] Karl Andersson, Astrology of the Old Testament

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilton_Hotema

curezone.com/forums/am.asp?i=712592

 http://www.aberree.com/v09/n07p13.html

 http://www.skepdic.com/icastones.html .

 http://web.archive.org/web/20130323062800/http://web.ku.edu/~hoopes/balls/errors.htm

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/piramides/coppens_pyramids03.htm

http://www.skepdic.com/fortean.html

Evidence of an Ancient Global Civilization, pt 4

Murdock goes on, trying to find evidence for a global ancient civilization by pointing to alleged similarities between disparate cultures.

In addition, like the biblical tale of Cain and Abel, “Tonga tradition states that ‘the son of the first man killed his brother.’”[1, p. 394]

The claim that Tonga tradition contains such a narrative is given as source Churchward's Lost Continent of Mu. He in turn provides O'Brien's Mystic Isles of the South Seas as a source, and there the trace dries up. O'Brien makes no claims as to scholarliness, in fact quite the opposite. He starts his book with:

This is a simple record of my days and nights, my thoughts and dreams, in the mystic isles of the South Seas, written without authority of science or exactitude of knowledge. These are merely the vivid impressions of my life in Tahiti and Moorea, the merriest, most fascinating world of all the cosmos; of the songs I sang, the dances I danced, the men and women, white and tawny, with whom I was joyous or melancholy; the adventures at sea or on the reef, upon the sapphire lagoon, and on the silver beaches of the most beautiful of tropics. [2]

Thus, O'Brien did not even try to figure out whether the folk tales he reported were particularly old or if they were stories that had been influenced by Christian missionaries - which the colonizing west had brought in great numbers to all imperial nooks and crannies. Can we assume all religions around the world have conservatively protected their narratives from foreign influences? The answer seems to be a resounding no, and the evidence - lots of religions around the world incorporating and adapting Christian and Muslim narratives in their beliefs since the missionary activity of the age of exploration and later seems to bear this out.

Also, in Fiji “is still shown the site where a vast tower was built because the Fijians were curious and wanted to peep into the moon to discover if it was inhabited,” a story reminiscent of the biblical tale of the Tower of Babel. As Walker says, “The Babel myth is found all over the world, including India and Mexico.”[1, p. 394]

Again, O'Brien (by proxy of Churchward) is our source; the Fijian tower narrative's origins and so on would be easy to verify if he had told us a particular island, where the tower remains are, etc.

At least one group of South Sea islanders, the Melanesians, portrayed the sun as having 12 demi-gods or heroes, like the “helpers” and “disciples” of the Horus/Jesus myth.[1, p. 394]

No. source. given. Regarding Melanesian religion, G.W. Trompf has this to say:

Melanesia has been revealed as the home of about one-third of mankind's languages, and that means - considering how languages are so crucial in defining discrete cultures - just as many religions. It is now eminently clear that accurate generalizations about Melanesian traditional religions are very difficult to make; [3, p. 10]

As most other scholars currently in that field, Trompf includes Papua New Guinea in Melanesia. That is not a universal practice, however, and if Murdock only includes the smaller islands east of Papua New Guinea, the amount of tribes this claim can pertain to is significantly smaller, but still large. This demonstrates that for accountability, Murdock should have included which particular Melanesia she is speaking about - does it exclude or include Papua New Guinea? Even better, she should have mentioned which particular group among the Melanesians she is referring to (in which case specifying what she means by Melanesia would be superfluous). As for the claim's current form, the effort it would take to verify or reject it is excessive, and thus I would consider it functionally unfalsifiable.

A careful reading of Trompf's Melanesian Religion as well as his The Religions of Oceania all come up empty with regards to the claim that the sun had 12 demi-gods or heroes.

Thus, we see the mythos and ritual around the world. We also know that this knowledge constitutes not only religion but also science, representing detailed observations of the skies and their relationship to Earth, as well as natural forces upon the planet itself. In fact, in order for any civilization to have been global, it would have needed to possess the mythos, since such is in reality the story of astronomy.[1, p. 395]

"The mythos". Why would a global civilization have to possess this particular mythos? Is it not possible to construct multiple very different myths from the same sky and use different such myths for the purpose of organizing and studying it? Nevertheless, this is a good example of begging the question. Assuming that this "mythos" was as widely shared as she purports, she then argues that it in fact is a pre-requisite for an ancient world-wide culture. I would rest the case here, really - no such world-wide culture existed, thus there is no need for a world-wide ancient mythos.

The detailed knowledge of astronomy, along with that of ocean currents, weather patterns and migratory routes of birds and fish, allowed early peoples to navigate all over the globe. In fact, the so-called primitive peoples of Polynesia are considered the “greatest navigators in the history of mankind” and successfully colonized a number of Pacific islands as early as 30,000 years ago.[1, p. 395]

Source? Which islands were those? I have previously written about these Pacific claims. It seems that Melanesian contact with Polynesians is about three to four thousand years old, at most.

Such a feat required extensive knowledge of the stars, demonstrating that these peoples were master astronomers tens of thousands of years ago. This detailed knowledge is also exhibited in the celestial “computers” in stone the navigators left all over the world. [1, p. 395]

We do have a fair share of knowledge about Polynesian navigation. Indeed, the stars do figure, but we also know they used several other methods; knowledge about the stars does not particularly help in finding previously unknown islands, and it seems the Polynesians had knowledge that helped in discovering new land. This is based on an understanding of ocean currents, of the migrations of fish, and the use of captured birds that do not land on water. I recommend checking Polynesian stick charts out for reference. (I will not deny, however, that the Polynesians used astronomical methods in their navigation.)

The evidence of a global civilization is found in shared astronomical and astrological peculiarities, such as the reverence for the Pleiades, the Great Bear and the constellation of Scorpio or “scorpion stars,” a designation found from India to Greece and in Central America. Furthermore, as Walker states: Chaldeans believed the world would dissolve and return to its primordial elements when all the planets lined up in the constellation of the Crab. The same doctrine appeared in India, Egypt, Persia, China, northern Europe, and pre-Columbian central America. [1, p. 395]

This claim has taken a somewhat tortuous route: Murdock quotes Barbara Walker (notoriously bad scholar), who in turn quotes Joseph Campbell, who in turn quotes an article by Alfred Jeremias in an Encyclopedia of Religion [4]. Not one made sure to keep any additional information along the ride. Alas, A. Jeremias does not tell us where in Mexico or South America to find those ideas, nor does he provide any sources. Further, Walker has changed the content along the line - nowhere in Joseph Campbell's nor Alfred Jeremias' texts is northern Europe mentioned at all. Neither does Jeremias make it clear whether these ideas supposedly where there in pre-Columbian times, although such an interpretation is not impossible or even unreasonable, just not explicitly spelled out.

The antiquity of astrological/astronomical knowledge is in fact great. The zodiac in the temple of Denderah in Egypt begins with the sun in Leo, which would make it 10,000 years old, although the temple itself is evidently only a couple of thousand years old.[1, p. 395]

This claim is bullshit.

Dupuis traced the origins of the zodiac to north Africa 15,000 years ago, and Volney pushed it back to 17,000 years ago. It is reasoned that Egypt at the time had excellent soil and a clear sky, serving as the perfect place for devising such a complex system.[1, p. 395]

Most places - except those with excessively moist climates - can be said to have had 'clear skies' for most of imaginable history and pre-history. Further, excellent soil is maybe a prerequisite (although why would not excellent fishing waters suffice?). In what ways is the zodiac a 'complex' system? Sure, the astrological constellations are great in numbers - which requires some good method of maintaining traditions, but the names and imagery used seems to be the kind that would be rather easy to remember. Also, even if those qualities of a country are prerequisites for the zodiac being developed, the fact that some place had those prerequisites does not suffice as evidence that it indeed occurred there.

However, Murdock does not here provide the references to where Volney and Dupuis achieve these wild feats of .. well, something at least. My exposure to Volney's and Dupuis writings leave me far from convinced - to believe any conclusions they drew, I would want to see the evidence, and their reasoning. Their manner of thinking was far from scientific.

In addition, Massey stated that the astronomical mythology dates back 30,000 years at least. A. Churchward thrusts it back much further than that. [1, p. 395]

And not one among these were credible researchers either! Murdock's reference to Massey is mistaken, as she says this is on page 201 of Historical Jesus Mythical Christ, where no such claim is present. The most similar bit I find is the following, which appears far earlier in the book:

In the course of Precession, about 255 B.C., the vernal birthplace passed into the sign of the Fishes, and the Messiah who had been represented for 2155 years by the Ram or Lamb, and previously for other 2155 years by the Apis Bull, was now imaged as the Fish, or the "Fish-man," called Ichthys in Greek.  The original Fish-man—the An of Egypt, and the Oan of Chaldea—probably dates from the previous cycle of precession, or 26,000 years earlier; and about 255 B.C., the Messiah, as the Fish-man, was to come up once more as the Manifestor from the celestial waters.  The coming Messiah is called Dag, the Fish, in the Talmud; and the Jews at one time connected his coming with some conjunction, or occurrence, in the sign of the Fishes! [5]

First we may note that the reasoning for the claim that it goes back a further 26,000 years is curiously absent. Of course, the printed version of the lecture does state that the proper quotations of authorities are to be found in Massey's The Natural Genesis, but if so, proper referencing practice would be to quote The Natural Genesis rather than Historical Jesus and Mythical Christ. An electronically aided search through TNG indicates no such argument is found there - he does speak a fair bit about the time-span of a precessional cycle, something on the order of 25,800 years, which seems just close enough to the claimed span of time.

I have my suspicions regarding another claim the above quoted segment, but that is irrelevant for the discussion regarding The Christ Conspiracy.

As to the importance of linguistical evidence in detecting the origins of man, James Churchward says, “Language is admitted to be the most accurate guide in tracing the family relations of various peoples, even when inhabiting countries which are separated by vast expanses of water and extents of land.” [1, p. 396]

We do know this only is partially true - let us consider some counterexamples: Afroamericans do not, by and large, descend from Englishmen, and a significant number of white, native speakers of English descend from speakers of other European languages - Slavic, Romance, other Germanic, Greek, Uralic and so on, throughout Northern America. Meanwhile, we have the Finns in northern Europe who are genetically fairly Germanic-like, despite speaking a decidedly non-Germanic language. Many white Americans have some African ancestry, and parts of Germany definitely have a Slavic undercurrent. Generally though, there is some truth to what Churchward said, or rather, there was some truth to it in the 19th century. Today, we have DNA sequencing. Of course, DNA sequencing tells us nothing about the cultural transmission, whereas linguistics gets closer to actually telling us something about which culture has been dominant at the time a tribe has established itself. (Although nothing fully decisive.)

The linguistical/etymological evidence that connects the world is startling and has been demonstrated throughout this book. Mainly, however, our analysis has been confined to the “Old World.” We have already seen some dazzling examples of how the languages of both worlds are related. As a basic example, the word “Mama” and/or “Ma” meaning mother is found in numerous cultures around the globe. A more complex etymological similarity can been found in the Mexican name Mexitli or Mesitli, meaning “the Anointed One,” obviously related to the Egyptian Messu and the Hebrew Messiah. In Maya, “balaam” is a priest, while in Hebrew it is the name of a prophet.[1, p. 396]

No, in Maya, Balaam is a common surname signifying 'jaguar', whereas Chilam means priest. Keep up, Murdock. In the Hebrew Bible, Bileam is a peculiar prophet - not a Hebrew prophet, but a prophet among another people, who tries to prophesy against Israel but fails. His name means 'not of the people', which tells a bit about the conceptual role he plays in the narrative. Chilam Balaam was a legendary (probably non-existent) author who compiled the Books of Chilam Balaam.

Sitchin is the source for the Mexitli-claim, and he is not giving any sources either. Sitchin is also known for idiosyncratic (read: baseless) translations.

Mexitli apparently most likely means 'agave hare'. [For claims about words in Mexican languages, two dictionaries are linked after the other sources at the end of this essay.]

There are in fact numerous correlations between the ancient Mexican language and that of the Middle East, including the Sumerian. Indeed, the Mexican culture has close parallels in art, religion and language to Sumer as well.[1, p. 396]

Some. goddamn. sources. please. With claims as unspecific as these, Murdock is essentially only making airy-fairy claims that sound fascinating, but lack actual discernible content - showing her wrong is impossible even if she were wrong. Which I find it likely that she is.

Moreover, the Mayan creator god was called “Hurakan,” and the Caribbean storm god was “Hurukan,” both of which are nearly identical to the Tibetan wrathful deity, “Heruka,” which in turn is related to Herakles or Hercules. [1, p. 396]

The Tibetan Heruka are a category of Gods, including eight different gods, neither whom has a name very similar to the term itself. Since there are eight gods on that side to compare, the likelihood that at least one among them parallels any given feature of Hurakan/Hurukan (the two of which do probably share an origin in Carib mythology) is fairly high. A more detailed comparison would be required to establish any relatedness.

Many more examples of correspondences exist between “Old” and “New” World words. Charles Berlitz cites, for example, the similarity between “teocalli,” which means “house of the gods” in Aztec/Nahuatl, and “theou kalia,” meaning “God’s house” in Greek. The word for “river” in Greek is “potamos,” which is very close to the Potomac River in North America.[1, p. 396]

The Potomac river got its name from the Patawomeck tribe in a slightly anglicized form. The Patawomack name is clearly less similar to potamos. Further, random correspondences are random correspondences. A systematic correspondence would be significantly more valuable. Most suggested etymologies of Patawomeck seems to be based on the locality being a place whereto tribute was brought or trade was frequent, rather than anything to do with it being a river.

Further, do the maths.

In the South American language of Aymara, “malku” means “king,” as does “melek” and “melchi” in Semitic languages. In both the American tongue of Araucanian and the Egyptian language the word “anta” means “sun,” while a number of terms in Quechua are similar in form and meaning to Sumerian terms. The list goes on and includes cultures from the South Seas to North Europe as well. [1, p. 397]

As I have pointed out, random similarities between languages are to be expected. When you have two continents, both with several linguistic families, you are likely to run into a huge number of random similarities. A scattershot approach as the one given above - Inca:malku, Semitic:melek, Egyptian:anta,Araucanian:anta, ... you will unavoidably find correlates. (Finally, the Egyptian word is 'int' in modern notation, and signifies one of the boats of the sun god, and the Auracanian word antü also signifies 'day', 'season', 'weather', and 'time' in addition to the sun, so some etymological differences are definitely there. Of course, this would all have been easier to find out if Murdock had used some standard transliteration of Egyptian or actually checked an Auracanian dictionary before writing claims about the language. Precision helps verify claims. Please, please learn that one fact, Murdock.) A large systematic comparison would be called for. If Murdock were to find any remarkable comparisons, she would obviously face some opposition among historical linguists, but if her evidence were convincing enough, she would have made quite the name for herself. It is easier to whine about being passed over in academia, though, so I doubt she will actually do anything like this.

Archaeological Evidence

The global civilization and its mythos are reflected in the amazing physical remains around the world, which have never been fully explained or addressed by mainstream authorities. Nevertheless, from Giza and Baalbek to Stonehenge, Tiahuanaco, China and Pohnpei are ruins of unexplained origins and resemblance, prompting John Keel, for one, to exclaim, “There had to be a single worldwide culture at one point in ancient history. . . . Some thing or someone inspired the ancients to perform incredible feats of construction.” [1, p. 397]

John Keel believes is an 'ancient ufologist', and thus his credibility is perhaps not the best. Of course, Keel's exlamation does not commit to anything: someone or some thing? I guess the latter half of this paragraph is but a rhetorical point.

There is also a remarkable resemblance between Central/ South American structures and those found in India, as has been noted by Indian architect Sri V. Ganapati Sthapati, who demonstrated that residential layouts at Machu Picchu were identical to those of the Harappan civilization at the ruined city of Mohenjodaro in the Indus Valley.[1, p. 397]

This claim is presented in Hinduism Today. Looking closer at the claims Sthapati presents seem to suggest he is willingly distorting the measurements he took (as in rounding them off significantly to obtain the results he wants), and making claims that seem to exaggerate the precision present in certain of the comparisons. From a small sample of buildings he concludes that Incas followed the 'traditional Hindu' rule not to build residential houses more than twice as long as their width - from pictures of Ollantaytambo I think I've found evidence of residential buildings violating this claim.

In addition, some researchers are now declaring the mysterious Mohenjodaro to be much older than the orthodox opinion, possibly as much as 8,000 years old. Interestingly, Mohenjodaro has been determined to have been a cosmopolitan area, with skeletons found of the following types: “Mediterraneans, Caucasoids, Armenoids, Alpines, Australoids and Mongoloids.” [1, p. 397]

A source is given for the latter half of this statement - an article in Hinduism Today interviewing professor B.B. Lal. This particular article is in fact relatively nice by comparison to most stuff in Hinduism Today - the same edition contains HIV-AIDS denialism and the claim that herbal remedies and other alternative medicine approaches can heal AIDS, so the interview with professor Lal was a breath of fresh air in a putrid nest of superstition and credulity. However, not a single shred of support is offered by Murdock for the 8,000 year claim.

The age of Machu Picchu is likely thousands of years older than the orthodox date, as was asserted by its inheritors, the Inkas. The architect Sthapati has also determined that the Mayan temple at Chichen Itza was “built according to the same design principles found in India’s Hindu temples.” J. Churchward posits that the fabulous structures at Chichen Itza, attributed by the orthodoxy to “the Maya” of a mere 1500 years ago, are in fact at least 11,500 years old. These structures and others worldwide were taken over by subsequent cultures, demonstrated by the fact that some of them show not only ancient repair work but also “improvements” in the form of encasements over the original ruins. [1, p. 397]

Cultures do repair their own structures and improve them all of the time. There is no mystery here, and Murdock is clearly trying to pull a fast one. J. Churchward is definitely one of the kookier of her sources, and he is known to have fabricated evidence. Also, again, a considerable lack of sources for quite a remarkable claim indeed: Chichen Itza being 11,500 years is quite unlikely no matter how credulous you are.

On to the next part.

[1] D.M. Murdock, The Christ Conspiracy, 1999. Adventures unlimited.

[2] O'Brien, Mystic Isles of the South Sea , available at https://ia600508.us.archive.org/14/items/mysticislesofthe11400gut/11400-h/11400-h.html

[3] Trompf, G.W., Melanesian Religion, Cambridge University Press, 1991

[4] Alfred Jeremias, The Ages of the World (Babylonian), https://archive.org/details/encyclopaediaofr03hastuoft

[5] Massey, Historical Jesus Mythical Christ, http://gerald-massey.org.uk/massey/dpr_01_historical_jesus.htm

[6] Two easily available, but unfortunately short dictionaries of Mayan and Yucatec Mayan

http://www.mayas.uady.mx/diccionario/index.html

http://www.famsi.org/reports/96072/ch/chac_abal_chac_pupuk.htm

Evidence of an Ancient Global Civilization, pt 3

Murdock goes on to detail what she thinks is evidence for contact between on one side Africa and the middle East and on the other hand Mesoamerica, but suddenly changes gears and presents a game changer: evidence for contact between India and Mesoamerica.

The traces of this particular type of white race, as well as of a black one, are found in legends in Central America and in images on stelae, with the black race also immortalized in massive stone heads purportedly made by the Olmecs. In any case, the Mexicans are not colonies of the Semites in the Middle East, although it is probable there was ongoing contact and colonization by at least the time of the Phoenicians. Nevertheless, Mexican natives asserted their ancestors came over the ocean from the west, not the east. The Mexican civilization resembles not only the Semitic, which is one reason it is clearly not an outgrowth of it. The Maya have much in common with the Indians as well. As to the similarities between the Mayan and Hindu religion and language, Hinduism Today says, “Chacla in Mayan refers to force centers of the body similar to the chakras of Hinduism. K’ultanlilni in Mayan refers to the power of God within man which is controlled by the breath, similar in meaning to kundalini. Mayan chilambalam refers to a sacred space, as does Tamil Chidambaram. Yok’hah in Maya means ‘on top of truth,’ similar to yoga in Sanskrit.”[1, p. 393]

Yoga, as it happens, means yoke, whereas Yok'hah seems rather to mean 'on top of'. Chilam Balam, as it happens, means priest jaguar, Balam/jaguar being a common surname, also Chidambaram in Tamil rather seems to mean 'small hall/stage'. Chacla apparently is an inflected form of the word 'red', 'chak' - a Maya dictionary provides two particular words that are similar enough - chac la, a kind of nettle, and chac lah, red-faced. K'ultanlilni seems to be a word invented by westerners out of thin air, haphazardly sticking Mayan morphemes and words together to obtain a word that looks like kundalini - not a reasonable way of doing linguistics, may I add. In a long time of looking, I have failed to find a single source that quotes an actual Mayan text using the word. All of these claims are essentially groundless bullshit. The source, Hinduism Today, is mainly hindu propaganda - devotionals, apologetics, Hindu ethics, etc. Not exactly a scholarly news source. Needless to say, it very seldom provides verifiable sources.

The more general structure of the above argument, again, is rather quirky. First Murdock provides shoddy evidence that she argues links the Mesoamerican tribes to Semitic tribes, then she refuses to accept the conclusions her own evidence would suggest and instead provides an extra helping of equally shoddy evidence to argue against that conclusion and instead support another, equally untenable one. If neither option seems satisfactory, it might be because they both are wrong!

The Maya also had the same goddess Maya, mother of the gods and man, as in India.mlxvii Furthermore, the legendary founder of the Maya was the god Votan or Wotan, a name identical to the god of Teutonic tribes. There are many such correspondences between the Old and New Worlds.[1, p. 394]

But the founder God of the Maya is Itzamna! Votan/Wotan is the human founder of some kind of community.

Murdock goes on and presents her evidence that other parts of the world - in this case Polynesia - also had this global religion she believes existed in ancient times.

As James Churchward says:

Probably the most astounding of all is the fact that the Polynesians, who have been shut in from the rest of the world for over 12,000 years, should have among themselves traditions of the Creation identical with the Biblical account, such as the names of the first man and woman; and that the first woman was made out of the man’s bones; that man was a special creation of God. The Marquesans and other Polynesians could not possibly have got these traditions from the outside world. The traditions of the Polynesians start from 12,000 years back, and how much more no one can surmise. The Biblical tradition started with Moses some three thousand years ago, which proves that it was handed down to Moses in some form. The Naacal and Egyptian show us in what form it was handed down and from whom.[1, p. 394]

James Churchward is of course not a credible source. The most significant reason that he is not a  believable source is his insistence on using Naacals as a source. The Naacals are a delusion or a hoax - in Churchward's case I am kind of convinced he may have been delusional enough to believe they were real, but dishonest enough to fabricate evidence regarding them. For those readers who are happily ignorant of Churchward's Naacals, they were a supposedly ancient civilization - 50 thousand years old or older - who had inhabited the sunken continent of Mu, from which they had colonized the Americas and India among other places. Yes, this is Atlantis, but in the Pacific Ocean. And with even less evidence - it would seem Mu was by and large made up by delusional mystics.

 Whether the Polynesians have been wholly shut in from the outside world is also a separate question - they were indeed, as previously pointed out by Murdock herself, astonishing navigators, who are likely to have traded with mainlanders of eastern Asia, Indonesia, etc. We do know there was some regular contact between Borneo and Madagascar (both populated by Oceanian peoples) for at least several centuries around 700CE.

Of course, the claims made regarding the time the Polynesians have been somewhat isolated is also somewhat iffy - 12 000 years seems somewhat exaggerating the likely time of the Polynesian expansion. Further, since the age of exploration, all Polynesian tribes have been in contact with other people and their traditions - and we simply cannot discount the chance that some of these narratives, if indeed shared by the Polynesians, are the result of Christian evangelism.

The South Sea island of Java, site of human occupation beginning many tens of thousands of years ago, also produces a number of pertinent mysteries, including that the last avatar there was to come riding on a white horse, exactly like the solar heroes Krishna and Jesus. [1, p. 394]

By the time of Ibn Batuta (1304 – 1368 or 1369) , the horse had not been introduced to Java.[2, pp. 144-145] This by itself should properly debunk the idea that the myth of the Last Avatar arriving on a white horse goes back any significant stretch of time. Of course, Javanese religion has had great influences from India - both Hinduism and Buddhism have been important influences. Thus if a last avatar is just like Krishna, it may very well be because he indeed is a relatively recently adopted Krishna. The source given for the Javanese claim is Higgins, who indeed says:

Every Indian inquirer knows that the last Avatar was always expected by the people of Java to come mounted on a white horse. [3, p. 38]

No source whatsoever is provided by Higgins, though. At this point, it is worth keeping in mind that Indonesia has had a large population for a long time, and local traditions may have varied significantly as well, so his claim is essentially unfalsifiable. It would be good to provide some more specific claim - i.e. a more well-defined region within Java or even some other testable source.

The Australian aborigines have a similar mythology to the Egyptian, and several Australian terms are nearly identical in Egyptian. [1, p 394]

Here, Murdock must not have evaluated Massey's claims very closely. First we notice that the page given is wrong - the relevant discussion is roughly at page 150 of Massey's Egyptian Book of the Dead, whereas she refers to page 115. (We are using different editions, but hers is a facsimile reprint of the original edition, just as mine is.) Massey does not provide a comparison - he provides the Arunta terms, without saying anything about the Egyptian terms. Murdock's phrasing exaggerates Massey's claims significantly, and Massey's claims themselves are somewhat suspect. Alas, Massey did not provide very good or useful sources, so it is nearly impossible to further evaluate his work on this particular claim. Very little actual comparisons of Australian and Egyptian mythology are done in Massey's work.

On to the next part.

[1]. D.M. Murdock, The Christ Conspiracy, 1999, Adventures Unlimited

[2]  Ridgeway, William, The Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse, 1905; Gives further source Voyages d'Ibn Batoutah, vol IV p. 245, no mention of edition of that book though. The Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse is available at https://archive.org/details/origininfluenceo00ridgrich 

[3] Godfrey Higgins, Anacalypsis vol. II, 1836. Available from https://archive.org/details/anacalypsisanatt014474mbp

Evidence of an Ancient Global Civilization pt 2

On the very next page, we run into one paragraph that is so rife with errors and fabrications that it needs careful attention to figure out just how much flaws have been crammed in. The paragraph follows on Murdock's statement that contact between the Americas and the Old World had to have begun much earlier than conventionally accepted - this paragraph gives 'supporting evidence' for such a contention. The paragraph is as follows:

For example, in the Americas are found the Eden, flood and Jonah myths; the story of the sun standing still; the veneration of the serpent; the virgin birth; the crucifixon; the practice of circumcision; and ascetic monasteries and nunneries. As another example, natives of British Columbia called the sun/sky-god “Sin,” like the Old World god, and represented Sin’s mother as being married to a carpenter, who teaches his solar son his trade.* Furthermore, as Carpenter states: “The same legend of gods (or idols) being born in caves has, curiously enough, been reported from Mexico, Guatemala, the Antilles, and other places in Central America.”* Also, the natives of Florida at the time of the Christian invasion were allegedly discovered to chant “Hosanna.”* [1, p. 392 The text has been altered slightly - asterisks mark where references to sources were, the particular sources are not particular relevant for the first impression.]

I shall now investigate this paragraph almost sentence by sentence. We first notice the lack of sources for the statement that the entire series of Eden, flood, Jonah, the sun standing still, crucifixion, circumcision and monasteries are present in the Americas. I do not doubt the presence of circumcision there, but any single correspondence between two cultures does not make evidence of contact. If many of these happened to overlap, it would be more interesting, but we are given no such information to work with.

As another example, natives of British Columbia called the sun/sky-god “Sin,” like the Old World god, and represented Sin’s mother as being married to a carpenter, who teaches his solar son his trade. [1, p. 392]

Here, Murdock's obscurantism knows no bounds. The natives of British Columbia have more than two dozen languages today. Several languages of the area have probably also gone extinct. Obtaining dictionaries of these languages is difficult - might be reasonably doable if you live close to a university library in Vancouver (or maybe the other major cities of Canada). (For an overview of the languages, see this.) This makes verifying her claim way more difficult than it should be. This suggests to me that Murdock does not understand the idea of peer review or what it is for. If she has considered it at all, it seems she thinks it is a hurdle to be jumped - with , rather than a quality assurance device. The source she refers to - O'Hara's Sun Lore, does explicitly mention the name of the language - Haida. However, obtaining that source separately and then verifying the claim is more work than going directly for the source language. It turns out that in Haida, 'Sin' is rather a word meaning 'day' and the day sky, but also the name of the sun-god. However, this is distances away from any historically possibly relevant word - the Proto-Indo-Europeans called the sun by a word more along the lines of 'shuen' (pronouncing the s and h as separate sounds) and sohwl - shuen was basically the root for oblique forms, sohwl the nominative. Random similarities between languages do happen, though, so even then it is not  a significant piece of evidence.

(It came to my attention after posting this essay, that there was a Babylonian god by the name 'Sin'. He was a lunar god, however.)

In Haida Texts and Myths [2], a story that sounds like it might be the one O'Hara is referring to is given. It differs at key points from Murdock's report: Master Carpenter is the name of a particular supernatural being (who also goes to war against the south-east wind!), and this God nowhere teaches his 'solar son' any trade. Also, the boy is very clearly supposed to have become the sky in the narrative, which mainly seems to be a just-so story for the different colours and weathers the sky has, listing how the boy makes different clothing in different colours from a variety of pelts and furs.

Furthermore, as Carpenter states: “The same legend of gods (or idols) being born in caves has, curiously enough, been reported from Mexico, Guatemala, the Antilles, and other places in Central America.”  [1, p. 392]

Carpenter indeed states this, and provides for a source Carl Friedrich Phillip von  Martius'  Beiträge zur Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerika's zumal Brasiliens. I looked it up, and lo and behold,  Martius' statement is as follows, significantly different from Carpenter's deceptive restatement:

Wie in Mexico und Guatimala sind auch in Aiti Höhlen die mythischen Geburtstätten oder Ausgangsorte der Völker (so die Höhlen von Cazibaxagua und Amaiáuna (P. Martyr 103, 107); und Götzenbilder in die Wände der Grotte von Donden(????) eingegraben (Charlevoix Hist, de l'Isle Espagnole I. 78) bezeichneten sie als einen heiligen Ort.[3, p. 758]

My translation: As in Mexico and Guatemala, also in Aiti caves are the mythical birth-places or origins of the peoples (such as the Caves at Cazibaxagua and Amaiauna), and idols engraved in the walls of the Donden(?) grotto marks it as a holy place.

 These caves are birthplaces of the peoples, not of the gods. Carpenter misrepresents his source significantly:

This same legend of gods (or idols) being born in caves has, curiously enough, been reported from Mexico, Guatemala, the Antilles, and other places in Central America. See C. F. P. von Martius, Ethnographie Amerika, etc. (Leipzig, 1867), vol. i, p. 758 [4]

As a third really flawed claim in the same paragraph, we get this pearl:

Also, the natives of Florida at the time of the Christian invasion were allegedly discovered to chant “Hosanna.” [1, p. 392]

As for this claim, Murdock quotes Higgins, who quotes Kingsborough's Antiquities of Mexico. As luck would have it, the particular quote he refers to is available online (the five pages subsequent to it seem unavailable though):

It is a certain fact, that many Hebrew words are scattered through the American idioms. A respectable writer says, that the inhabitants of Florida made use, in their religious songs, of the exclamation Hosanna, and their priests were named Jouanas....  [5, p. 71]

"A respectable writer" is about as helpful as "I have it on good authority that ...", or "Ancient alien theorists contend that ...". We should here also be vary about claims made by Kingsborough: he was convinced that the natives of the Americas were the lost tribes of the Israelites. His interpretation of evidence is often fanciful and he seems not to have been skeptical about any evidence that would have favoured his theory. He is mainly respected today as a collector of facsimiles of native American works, not as an expert on native American history.

Note - the above are all errors found in one paragraph. I will not claim I have exhaustively mined that paragraph for errors, even - there may very well be more of them.

We go on to find more bullshit, again not made up by Murdock, but still clear fabrications that she either unsuspectingly (and if so, stupidly) or knowingly (and if so, deceptively) repeats.

Furthermore, the Adam tale is found in the Chimalpopoca manuscript of the Maya, which “states that the Creator produced his work in successive epochs, man being made from the dust of the earth on the seventh day.” So remarkable are the similarities between the Mexicans and the Semites that not a few scholars and researchers have wanted to call the Mesoamerican natives “Jews” and to find in them (and others) a “lost tribe” of Israel.[1, p. 393]

The first mistake is pretty significant here. Codex Chimalpopoca is an Aztec manuscript, not a Maya manuscript. From such a mistake onwards, is there any credibility whatsoever to what Murdock reports about this codex? This demonstrates what I have previously said that her attempts entirely rely on second-hand readings of sources. It further turns out this particular example is good evidence regarding the flaws of her method, as her source has misunderstood the codex or is just fabricating claims about it.

As a rather relevant point, the Codex[6] does not state that man was made from the dust of the earth on the seventh day - in fact, there's only five "suns" listed in it. The 'people' of each sun eventually go extinct - the first are eaten by jaguars, the second get blown away by the wind and turned into monkeys, the third had fire rain on them and turned into turkeys, the fourth were drowned by a flood and turned into fish . There is a narrative that looks a bit like the Noah story - Tata, and his wife Nene are told to hollow out a cypress and survive the flood in it. Once the flood is over, they offend the gods, who punish them by cutting their heads off, attaching the heads to their rumps and thereby making dogs out of them (!). The only notions this shares with the Biblical story is that of rain killing earth's inhabitants and only a few being rescued, Tata and Nene. The end of the story is likewise a motif entirely lacking in the Biblical narrative. That motif is rather significant as it turns the story into a just-so story for the existence of dogs, as well as reinforcing the notion that right conduct with regards to the gods is important.

Then mankind is created during the fifth sun. The creation of mankind is thus: six gods mourn over the earth not having any inhabitants. However, Quetzalcoatl went to the Lord of Death to obtain the bones  (of the previous inhabitants of the earth?) and does so after some trickery had ensued. The bones were ground up, all the gods mourned over the dust and one god bled his penis onto it. And the Gods conclude by saying that mankind has been born.

The first four suns all lasted for centuries - the first four were 676, 364, 312 and 676 years (with an additional flood of 52 years), and the fifth sun is the one under which the author thought he was living. The 52 year cycle was important to the Aztecs and many other Mesoamerican peoples, as 52 years is the time it takes for their 260-day and 365-day 'years' to complete a full round, i.e. 52*365 is the least common multiple of 260 and 365. Thus we see another pattern in this story related to Aztec culture: the belief that the end of the cycle had to be properly observed lest calamities and downright complete destruction would befall mankind. The observations were, of course, proper sacrifices.

However, as we have seen, according to the Samaritans there were no lost tribes, and, racially speaking that relationship is not indicated, at least not between the natives of the past few thousand years. [1, p. 393]

The way this argument is presented suggests it is used to establish that no American tribes are lost tribes of Israel. (The line of reasoning being that since no lost tribes ever existed, none of them can have reached America?) This seems to be a rather convoluted line of argument - better arguments for the non-existence of the lost tribes can be obtained from genuine archaeologists of the Middle East and even biblical scholars, and arguing against the claim that some Native American tribes are Lost Tribes is not really even required - no good evidence in favor of such a hypothesis has been presented by anyone, and the burden of proof is on those who hold such a theory. Murdock, of course, muddies the picture by believing in a lot of shoddy evidence that would support such a contention, yet does not believe in the contention itself and favours equally unlikely scenarios.

But, in more ancient times there was indeed in Mesoamerica a race very similar to that of the Semites, i.e., bearded white men, resembling Phoenicians. In fact, there are purportedly Phoenician artifacts found in the port of Rio de Janeiro and other Brazilian sites, suggesting that the Phoenicians, for one, did cross the Atlantic at least 1,000 years before the arrival of the Europeans. [1, p. 393]

No sources given - which artifacts does Murdock think are likely to be genuine out of place artifacts suggestive of transatlantic voyages? On which studies does she base her conclusion that these exist? Mere assertion does not cut it.

On to the next part.

[1] D.M. Murdock, The Christ Conspiracy, 1999. Adventures Unlimited.

[2] Swanton, John. Haida Texts and Myths, 1905.

[3] von Martius, Carl Friedrich Philipp.  Beiträge zur Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerika's zumal Brasiliens, volume I. 1867

http://ia600407.us.archive.org/31/items/martius_v1/martius_1867_beitrage_v1.pdf

[4] Carpenter, Edward. Pagan and Christian Creeds, 1920. Available at http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/pcc/

[5] Lord Kingsborough, Edward King. Antiquities of Mexico. Available at http://olivercowdery.com/texts/1831King.htm

[6] Codex Chimalpopoca in translation - http://books.google.com/books?id=xErlvmBuakoC&pg=PA142

The Christ Conspiracy: Evidence of an Ancient Global Civilization (pt 1)

Chapter 24 is maybe the crowning achievement of delusional thinking in The Christ Conspiracy. To some extent, it will be excluded from the second edition though, so there is apparently hope. (However, she apparently intends to publish a separate book that develops these hypotheses further.) This will be a thorough review of the chapter, leaving nearly no stone unturned. Because of the scope of such a review, it will be split into several posts.

The chapter starts out with a quote that should be pretty obviously wrong to any reader of sound mind:

Civilizations have been born and completed and then forgotten again and again. There is nothing new under the sun. What is, has been. All that we learn and discover has existed before; our inventions and discoveries are but reinventions, rediscoveries. 

Col. James Churchward [1, p 391]

James Churchward - whose books are referenced a dozen times in The Christ Conspiracy - was an occultist. He is mainly known for popularizing the fabled 'lost continent' of Mu - using no evidence that would pass scientific muster whatsoever, he wrote a whole bunch of books about it making all kinds of outlandish claims about its supposed (magical) inhabitants - the Naacals - and whatnot. An utter nutter, in other words. Churchward wrote his books around the onset of the 20th century, and was convinced that the ancients had even more advanced technology and science than his contemporary civilization. (By the time the above quote was published, quantum mechanics already had been developed to some extent. In other words, Churchward must have believed the Naacals had quantum mechanics or something even more impressive, if you want an idea of what scientific understanding had been attained when Churchward wrote this.)  

As has been seen, it is virtually impossible to determine which nation is the progenitor of western culture and, therefore, the Judeo-Christian tradition, and we are left to ponder the idea of another source, such as the Pygmies, who claim to have been a global culture many thousands of years ago.[1, p. 391]

This is a weird line of reasoning. If it is impossible to determine a single progenitor, maybe it is because several cultures have contributed? Maybe it is because some of the contributing cultures - northern and eastern European paganism, for instance - are not known in sufficient detail? Further, what questions are she even trying to answer here? What parts of western culture does she try to account for by finding a progenitor-culture? Why the pygmies, and which particular pygmies at that? Several groups that go under that designation exist, and many seem not to have any close genetic links - in fact, some Asian pygmies seem to have genetical components from the extinct Denisovan species of human, which places their divergence fairly early (20000 years ago at the very least). Further, those African pygmy groups that are related seem to have some very old divergences - they probably split dozens of millennia ago. The question she asks seems to be a loaded question with little actual use except to lead into cloudcuckoolander-worthy speculations.

The fact that the standardized mythos and ritual are found in detail around the world begs the explanation of at least one such global civilization long ago destroyed by cataclysms but preserved in both story and stone.[1, p 391]

The attempts to show that such a 'standardized mythos and ritual' are 'found in detail' around the world rely on sources that Murdock did not even read first-hand. A much closer evaluation of the sources is called for - and such an evaluation is almost certain to demonstrate a significant amount of problems in the sources. I will provide a few such examples below.

Indeed, attempts to trace this commonality to India and/or Egypt do not suffice to explain how the same tales and rites came to be known and practiced in Mexico and in such remote places as Polynesia.[1, p. 391]

In a previous chapter that I have not reviewed yet, Murdock tries determining whether European culture (and the Jewish and Christian religions) are ultimately Egyptian or Indian. The similarities to Polynesian culture are described later in the chapter, and turn out to be pretty weak.

Nor do they explain the enormous archaeological remains found around the globe, which serve as mysterious and inescapable reminders that at some ancient time so-called primitive men were able to do what, according to evolutionary and creationist theories alike, they were not supposed to be able to do.[1, p. 391]

This is a fascinating example of Murdock rejecting evolutionary science without making sure to know exactly what it says first. Evolutionary scientists place the main significant biological changes - i.e. the transition to 'modern humans' at several tens of thousand years ago. (If memory serves, anatomically modern humans appeared >150 000 years ago, whereas behavioral modernity varies; if we go by when language appeared, guesses vary from 100 000 to 50 000 years ago. As for the appearance of more general behavioral modernity (as opposed to just the appearance of language), a quick survey of unscholarly sources (wikipedia and the like) suggests a span of hypotheses ranging from before anatomical modernity to as recently as 40 000 years ago. Nevertheless, all of these predate the building of the pyramids by more than 30 000 years. Anyways, all these evolutionary theories agree: essentially, humans were supposed to be able to do exactly that which Murdock claims they could not. Murdock here engages in a fallacy known as strawmanning (with regards to evolutionary theory). Her fallacy is further propped up by a weird fallacy where she has to assume something along these lines: evolutionary theory* is wrong, because archaeologists are wrong, without ever establishing the latter claim. Thus far, she has demonstrated neither.

Such similarities between cultures around the planet can be found in religion and mythology, customs, rituals and symbols, language, astrological and astronomical knowledge, and archaeological/architectural remains. In investigating such cultural commonality, it would reasonable to conclude that our current global civilization is not the first. The further we delve back in time, naturally, the more difficult it is to discover solid ground and the more speculative is the discussion.[1, p. 391]

The last sentence here is a good point, and one you would hope Murdock herself would have understood to appreciate. She doesn't. Alas, the previous sentence is pure delusion and shows just how she disregards what she is about to say about the difficulty of finding solid ground.

* I do not get the impression that Murdock believes evolution not to be a fact, she rather seems to believe that our current understanding of when (and possibly how) mankind has evolved is significantly flawed.

On to the next part of this chapter.

[1] The Christ Conspiracy, D.M. Murdock, Adventures Unlimited, 1999

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