2012-02-20 That Luxor Thing (Richardcarrier - Info)

That Luxor Thing
BY R ICH AR D CAR R IER / ON FEBRUARY 20, 2012 / 74 COMMENTS
Parallelomania is the particular disease of Jesus myth advocates who see

“parallels” everywhere between early Christianity and all manner of pagan
religions. Many of those parallels are real; don’t get me wrong. Some are even
causal (Christianity really is a syncretism of Judaism and paganism, which point I
will soundly prove in my coming book On the Historicity of Jesus Christ). But
most parallels are not real, or are not causally related (remember that basic rule in
science: correlation is not causation). Some don’t even exist (and here bad
scholarship becomes the disease: see my cautionary review of Kersey Graves’
Sixteen Crucified Saviors).
One important example of a “non-parallel” is the

Egyptian nativity narrative at Luxor. I reviewed this
claim years ago (Brunner’s Gottkoenigs & the
Nativity of Jesus: A Brief Communication).
Acharya S (aka D.M. Murdock)responded to that
by claiming I was reading the wrong text (and also
not reading it right), but she’s mistaken. She also
claimed that the meaning of “immaculate conception”
is up for debate; it is not. She simply cites other
people making the same mistake she did, as if a
mistake many people make ceases to be a mistake,
which is a non sequitur. It would have been better if
she had not doubled down on her error and just
corrected herself. But that’s her own look out. What
concerns me more is her poor treatment of the details
of Egyptian history and the texts in the Luxor case.
I just pulled this blog topic out of my random collection of things to do when I
found time, so here goes. On the matter of the translation, she’s just wrong.
There is sex in the scene and plenty of lurid details, pillow talk, and everything
I say, couched in the coy terms of ancient writers (this isn’t Vivid Video). Of
course one should not obsess on whether Egyptian iconography depicts beds
the way you see them at a Sears showroom, or whether pillow talk actually
involves pillows. That’s just silly. It’s the words that describe what is going
on. And the words say in effect just what I said they do. That I relate them into modern analogs is besides the point.
Anyone who reads German and wants to check this for themselves, email me and I’ll send you scans of the key texts
(although it should be enough to note that Brunner himself agrees with me in concluding that the narrative depicts sex, and
he’s an actual Egyptologist and a leading expert on the Luxor inscriptions).
More important is that Acharya/Murdock says the bulk of my details come

from the “D” text and not the one at Luxor. The D text she refers to is the
narrative accompanying the panels at the Deir el-Bahri Temple Complex
built by Queen Hatshepsut in the 15th century BC. When I originally posted
this blog, I reported that the Luxor Temple was built at the same time by the
same queen, but that is incorrect, the Luxor inscription was commissioned
almost a century later by another pharaoh, and Murdock’s argument is that
he stripped all the sex out of it and made it into a virginal conception. That
does not follow, but I was wrong on the original point (on other points she
raised, see That Luxor Thing Again). The visual panels at Deir el-Bahri are still in essentials identical to those at Luxor
(with a few minor variances Murdock speculates from). But it still appears to me that the D text simply expands the
abbreviated text at Luxor. To claim that the shorter text at Luxor doesn’t simply abbreviate the full narrative provided at
Deir el-Bahri is perhaps not nonsense as I had thought, but it is speculation. I do not see sufficient evidence that the two
stories are intended to be completely different.
As Brunner himself concluded, the myth being depicted at both temples is the
exact same myth understood the exact same way. Thus the full narrative at
Deir el-Bahri does indeed describe what is going on in the Luxor scenes. I
doubt Acharya/Murdock can find any living Egyptologist who would say
otherwise, or indeed endorse any of her convoluted efforts to reinterpret the
text to say the opposite of what it says and what the accompanying images
show. The Luxor text even borrows verbatim phrases from the Deir el-Bahri
text, e.g. the god “did everything he wanted with her,” which if you wonder
what that means, the expanded text at Deir el-Bahri tells you, in some sexy detail. Likewise, even the Luxor text says (for
panel 4; Brunner, p. 45):
“
“She awoke because of the god smell and laughed at its majesty. He went to her immediately, he was
inflamed in love for her. He let her see his god-shape, after he had come before her, so that she rejoiced
at the sight of his perfection, and his love went into her body. The palace was then flooded with god
smell, and everything smelled like the land of Punt.” … “The queen said to him, ‘My, how large your
power is! … Your smell is gorgeous in every way!’ Then the majesty of this God did everything it wanted
with her.”
The expanded text at Deir el-Bahri elaborates on what these coy phrases
mean, very clearly explaining that giant god penises are going into the female
places they were intended to and the queen enjoys the hell out of it and is
especially impressed by how big his member is (ah, I can see the Onion’s
headlines now, “Queen Hatshepsut: First Woman Eroticist Carves Her Sexual
Preferences in Stone; Rules Empire”). That, plus the other details, rule out any
meaningful parallels between Luxor cult and Christianity. The only parallels
that remain are paralleled in all Ancient Near Eastern religions of the time and Roman and Hellenistic religions afterward,
and thus are not uniquely Egyptian at all.
This is a common mistake too many make. They get stuck on one way of seeing the evidence that fits their preconceptions,
then they go “Aha!” and claim causal influence (Why, surely the Christians just borrowed the nativity scene of Horus from
Luxor!). But when their interpretation of the evidence is shown to be wholly wrong, they don’t abandon the idea but double
down and refuse to let go of what they felt was so attractive that it “must” be true. But more importantly, they don’t try to
figure out what the causal channel was or to find evidence of causal relation (because correlation is not enough, even when
there is correlation). If they did, they would find that there is often no direct connection at all with what they were
obsessing over originally; or that we must be agnostic about it, and not tout it as established.
The nativity stories in Matthew and Luke look like a combination of Jewish nativity
apocrypha (e.g., extant and lost Moses haggadot in Matthew; and Isaac haggadot
in Luke) and Hellenistic king nativities and their influence on Roman imperial
nativities (e.g., tales told of the births of Alexander the Great, the Ptolemies and
Seleucids, the Roman Emperors), structured in specific ways unique to Christian
needs. For example, there are magi in Matthew’s story because Matthew is
deliberately reversing the Daniel narrative of the Jewish exile among the Magi
(Daniel being the only book in the Bible that mentions magi). In fact, Matthew
doesn’t just ape Daniel at the beginning, he also apes him at the end, turning the
empty tomb story into an update of Daniel in the Lion’s Den (as I show inThe
Empty Tomb, pp. 360-64, and Proving History, pp. 199-204). Thus, Matthew
is not copying Egyptian religion, much less the story at Luxor, where there are in
fact no magi … which is not an irrelevant point, since we have to explain why magi
are in Matthew’s story, and “he copied Luxor” simply doesn’t explain that, whereas “he is constructing a midrashic
haggadah on Daniel” does (magi being specifically Persian priests, not Egyptian).
In the Daniel narrative, kings are troubled by omens and summon their wise men to explain them, including the magi and a
foreigner, a Jew named Daniel (whom Christians regarded as among their principal prophets, having predicted the messiah
would die to atone for the sins of Israel in Dan. 9:24-26; see my discussion of the Dying Messiah). In Matthew, a king is
again troubled by an omen and summons his wise men to explain it, including the magi, who this time are the foreigners,
and (in reversal of type) are the ones who get the omen right, and have come, in obedience to the decree of their ancestral
king (Darius the Great, or so we’re to believe), to worship the one true God, as all nations ought, thus fulfilling Daniel’s
message in Dan. 6:25-28, thus confirming Jesus is the Son of God, the very same God who rescued Daniel from the lions
(and who will thus rescue Jesus).
Other elements of the story are just commonplaces in divine king nativities (even in real
life, not just stories), and thus do not connect directly to Egyptian mythology at all. By
analogy, the elements of the nativity of Moses that Matthew borrowed also match
elements of the Akkadian Sargon narratives, but Matthew is not borrowing from the
Akkadian myths (he probably had never even heard of them), he is borrowing from the
Jewish myths. That those myths just happen to be adaptations of earlier Akkadian myths is
something we now know, but is not likely anything the early Christians knew. Likewise,
possibly Egyptian god-king nativities influenced Hellenistic god-king nativity stories (or
possibly they were both separately influenced by earlier Babylonian and Sumerian god-
king nativities, or by actual royal ceremonies common to all kingdoms of the time), but it
was the Hellenistic stories and practices that most likely influenced Matthew and Luke, not the earlier Egyptian material.
They probably never heard the story told at Luxor, and would have been repulsed by it if they had. (See Not the
Impossible Faith, pp. 76-78.)
More importantly than all this is the fact that the nativity stories of Jesus are later add ons. They
were not part of the origin of the religion. Thus you cannot explain the origins of Christianity by
saying they just revamped a godking narrative about Horus-Osiris (which was really a narrative
applied to the Pharaohs). The godking narratives of the Gospels were never a part of
Christianity until the Gospels were formed many decades later. There may have been an original
nativity story, but we don’t know what it said, so we can’t make claims about what its
influences were (although see Not the Impossible Faith, pp. 247-57). The earliest version we
have is Matthew’s, and we can see he invented it to suit his own literary aims; Luke’s version is
(in my opinion) a deliberate rewrite of Matthew (what we call a redaction); in fact Luke is really
trying to argue against Matthew, by changing every key element of his narrative (which reflects
how these kinds of religious narratives get written: they are propaganda built to the occasion; although I did not make this
argument there, I did list some of the evidence from which one can construct that argument in my work on the Date of
Christ’s Birth; as for Luke being a rewrite of Matthew, and not writing independently of him, see The Case Against Q).
Egyptian religion is wholly irrelevant to all of this.
The fact is, we can fully explain every element of the Gospel nativities by appealing to (1) their Jewish background (thus
Christians, “pesher style,” constructed a narrative out of various Old Testament passages, such as reinterpreting a
prophecy in Isaiah as being about a virgin born messiah; although most Jews disagreed with them, we know fringe groups
of Jews treated scripture the same bizarre way Christians often did, so their doing such a thing in this case is not
contextually implausible, even if it was linguistically specious: see The Problem with the Virgin Birth Prophecy); (2) their
Hellenistic background (conceptions of sons of gods being announced by omens and prophecies, and achieved by spiritual
rather than sexual means, were all common ideas in Greco-Roman religion, and virgin born gods were a known fad at the
time; and all this could be made to agree with popular Jewish theology regarding the capabilities of the Holy Spirit); and (3)
their immediate inter-community context (the Gentile Luke arguing against the Judaizer Matthew arguing against the
adoptionist Mark). That leaves nothing for Luxor to explain, nor any evidence of any knowledge of the specific narrative
we now find there.
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74 comments
P TER Y X X • F EBR UAR Y 20, 201 2, 7:03 P M
…I really don’t know much about history, but I’m always up for some ancient erotica! Thanks.
R E P LY
JER TH EBA R BA R I A N • F EBR UAR Y 21, 2012, 6 :21 AM
Likewise, possibly Egyptian god-king nativities influenced Hellenistic god-king nativity stories … but it
was the Hellenistic stories and practices that most likely influenced Matthew and Luke, not the earlier
Egyptian material.
As a complete layman who is just interested in this stuff, this is where it seems to me at least that a lot of these
kinds of theories seem to go wrong. People looking for single root causes and a single mastermind or trigger
event behind some phenomenon, when it’s just as easily (or most often even more easily) explained by multiple
threads coming together, with multiple influences. It shows up in a lot of “conspiracy theories” as well, which is
what many of these kinds of origins of Christianity seem to boil down to. Some small group of people get
together to fabricate a religion for some purpose, and they pull together material from a lot of different sources to
do it.
It just seems much more compatible with the way human beings behave to see this kind of “borrowing” as a
slow process, where people pull things in from their neighbors and incorporate it into their worldview. People
clearly did it with technology, and with “social technology” like the organization of states and economic systems.
The idea that this kind of borrowing wouldn’t go on in religions, and that a new religion would need to form fully-
formed as some kind of conspiracy, seems to run counter to how humans act.
R E P LY
F • F EBR UAR Y 21, 2012, 9 :07 AM
Now that is entertainment. I didn’t even know this purported parallel was a thing.
R E P LY
F LOYD • F EBR UAR Y 21, 2012, 10:10 AM
Well, here’s the response I see so far:
“Parallelophobia is the particular disease of people who haven’t been paying close attention. Richard’s blog is
just another attack on Acharya S (without ever having actually read a single book by her) for his fanboys who
consider him their “hero” (rook hawkins/tom verena). Of course, he brings up Kersey Graves who has nothing
to do with it at all.
http://www.freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=4770#p4770
Carrier is maintaining the panels are “in all essentials identical” – they are not, as she demonstrated in her book,
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection

http://www.stellarhousepublishing.com/luxor.html
, which Carrier has obviously never read. And the details are important. Apparently, Carrier skimmed Acharya’s
response (which includes highly respected Egyptologists) about as well as he skimmed through Brunner’s book:
“…However, in “skimming” Brunner’s text, as he puts it, Carrier has mistakenly dealt with the substantially
different Hatshepsut text (Brunner’s “IV D”), demonstrating an egregious error in garbling the cycles, when in
fact we are specifically interested in the Luxor narrative (IV L)…”
http://www.stellarhousepublishing.com/luxor.html
Carrier needs to find something else to do rather than to attack fellow mythicists, especially those who prove him
wrong – is that really the most constructive thing Carrier can do with his time?
Here’s a review of Christ in Egypt by Dr. Robert Price:

http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/reviews/murdock_christ_egypt.htm
From: http://www.freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=24905#p24905
R E P LY
R IC H AR D C AR R IER • F EBR UAR Y 21, 2012, 6 :50 P M
Floyd: All those attacks on me are just handwaving. And easily disproved, if anyone wants
to receive scans of the relevant texts. Just let me know. Nothing I actually said in my blog is
incorrect. How they describe what I said, however, is.
R E P LY
MA R K U S • JAN UAR Y 22, 2020, 4:03 P M
LOL, not buying Richard … you have a bad habit of not telling the truth
about the works by Acharya since 2004. Your biases is blatantly obvious
and you’ve admitted on video in public that you have no intention of
looking into astrotheology because you said you find it “dull.” Nobody
should trust you on astrotheology or Acharya’s work as you have zero
credibility on both. You actually make things far worse for mythicists and
are in fact a terrible representative of mythicism.
R E P LY
RICHARD CARRIER • JAN UAR Y
23, 2020, 12:31 PM
Give me one example of any falsehood I have stated

about Acharya or her work that wasn’t already
corrected. And explain how I can be biased against
her when I supported her personally (example,
example).
STEVE • F EBR UAR Y 21, 2012, 10:59 AM
Wow, that is really great information clarifying some of my misconceptions I had after reading Acharya’s info.
THANKS!
R E P LY
IBIS 3, D EN IZEN OF A S P ITEF UL GH ETTO• F EBR UAR Y 21 , 201 2, 1 :26 P M
Thanks. As someone with a BA in History and an MA in Medieval Studies, I find the amateur revisionist history
some people pull out of their crevices to be rather annoying. It’s like it’s not good enough that we can trace
mythic elements of the biblical texts to real sources–that’s just not extreme enough. Jesus must not have existed
at all* and it’s all just a rehash of Horus, evidence to the contrary be damned.
You know, it reminds me of the revisionists of neo-Paganism. It’s not enough to say, “We want a new religion
which draws on some elements of pre-Christian religions, such as thinking that divinity doesn’t always have to be
thought of as male and that nature can be viewed as holy or sacred.” Oh no, we have to say that people were
practising Wicca in secret all these centuries and Gardner just brought it back out in the open.
*I see that you argue that he “probably never existed” in your new book, but I’m not sure if you mean “there
never was a preacher of some sort around the beginning of the first century around whom a bunch of stories and
propaganda got built up” or “there probably was such a figure but most of what’s reported about him and
attributed to him is made up, so there’s hardly a point in calling that person ‘the historical Jesus'”. I think you’d
have a difficult time of convincing me of the former.
R E P LY
Ibis3: I find the amateur revisionist history some people pull out of their crevices to be
rather annoying.
It’s doubly annoying for me, because it slimes over the genuine parallels and influences: the
more the bad parallels get argued, the more scholars reject all parallels as being more of the
same, and in consequence they don’t even read legitimate work that truly does establish
parallels. Bad myth arguments thus prevent scholars from ever reading good myth arguments,
making my job ten times harder. It’s why the position is often deemed lunatic fringe: people
simply associate it with the flood of nonsense, and don’t know there is a small cadre of good
work in the midst of it.
One example I still have to constantly rebut (it even gets repeated by secular scholars who
ought to know better) is that the “dying and rising god” mytheme was post-Christian; we can
conclusively prove it was not. But when people go around claiming Mithras was resurrected
(there is zero evidence of this; the Mithras passion narrative clearly involved some other
struggle), scholars know this is bullshit, and so they dismiss all resurrected god claims as
bullshit. That’s a baby-with-the-bathwater fallacy. But the “risen Mithras” nonsense is so
ubiquitous it literally drowns out the real examples (like Inanna, Zalmoxis, and Romulus;
whom most people had never heard of and who rarely ended up on the commonplace dying-
and-rising god lists, at least until I started popularizing these cases a few years ago as being in
fact among the most important; in the meantime Mettinger and a few other scholars have
been rehabilitating other examples, like Baal and Marduk).
A second problem is that bad arguments make my job harder even when they’re right. For
example, you get folks like Freke & Gandy arguing tons of things in their books, half of which
is false or incorrectly presented, and the other half is true, but they almost never cite evidence
and their citation of scholarship is for shit. No serious scholar wants to waste his time reading
something that’s full of claims he can’t even check because they won’t even properly source
them. Again, scholars will assume from the sloppy citation that the scholarship is unreliable,
therefore the claims are bogus. So when those claims are not bogus, they’ve done damage
again to good myth scholarship, by essentially making all the good stuff seem bad.
It’s frustrating.
*I see that you argue that he “probably never existed” in your new book, but I’m not
sure if you mean “there never was a preacher of some sort around the beginning of the
first century around whom a bunch of stories and propaganda got built up” or “there
probably was such a figure but most of what’s reported about him and attributed to
him is made up, so there’s hardly a point in calling that person ‘the historical Jesus’”. I
think you’d have a difficult time of convincing me of the former.
I can make a strong case that the first “preacher” was Peter, and the only Jesus then known
was a celestial being seen and heard only in revelations. There was no Jesus at all. The
Gospels are complete fiction, representing allegorically the message of the church in the
character of Jesus, much like biographies of Romulus and Osiris, which place them in history,
even though in fact they were originally celestial deities. The Christians of the second century
whose texts were predominately preserved by medieval scribes had bought the Gospels
gullibly as being historical accounts (mostly; they still clung to a lot of it being allegory,
depending on how conservative they were). But we can’t show that all Christians even in the
second century thought that way, and even if they did, that was an evolution from first century
thinking as we find in Paul.
Anyway, that’s the theory. How to prove it (or, that is, prove it’s at least somewhat
probable) is a whole other ball of wax, and requires understanding a tremendous amount of
background knowledge. Which my book will provide (not Proving History, but the next
one, which doesn’t have a release date yet)
R E P LY
STEVE • F EBR UAR Y 21, 2012, 1:32 P M
I always cringe when I see the “Jesus is just Horus sans falcon head” meme that shows up all over the place,
such as in Bill Maher’s film “Religulous.”
What about iconography, though? Would you grant that Christians consciously adopted images of Isis suckling
Horus as a model for Mary holding the baby Jesus, or do you see that as simply an outcome of the fact that
there are only so many ways to depict any mother holding any infant?
R E P LY
Steve: What about iconography, though? Would you grant that Christians consciously
adopted images of Isis suckling Horus as a model for Mary holding the baby Jesus, or
do you see that as simply an outcome of the fact that there are only so many ways to
depict any mother holding any infant?
If you read my original article (my assessment of the Brunner book, linked in the post) you’ll
know the answer is yes; that is, later in Christian history, not just pagan iconography, but the
actual statues themselves were coopted (some Jesus and Mary statues are in fact Isis and
Horus statues, just relabeled), just as Mithras’ birthday (25 December) was coopted, and a
great deal else (even the Pope’s hat is a pagan rip off, as is the concept of the nun, which
simply revamps the Vestal Virgin). But none of that has anything to do with the origins of
Christianity. That all occurred centuries later.
It’s important to keep these chronological issues distinct. Jesus was never born on December
25 until centuries after the religion began; so no theory based on his birthday being December
25 can explain the origin of Christianity. Just for example.
R E P LY
IBIS 3, D EN IZEN OF A S P ITEF UL GH ETTO• F EBR UAR Y 21,

2012, 6 :40 PM
In one of my graduate Christian art history classes there was a whole section on the co-
opting of Roman Imperial iconography (which itself used religious imagery of the cult of Sol
Invictus and previously popular solar gods) in depictions of Christ. Very fascinating stuff (and
centuries after the origin too–I believe the focus was on 4th to 7th centuries).
R E P LY
SI LI • F EBR UAR Y 21, 2012, 2:53 P M
“
The nativity stories in Matthew and Luke look like a combination of Jewish nativity apocrypha
(e.g., extant and lost Moses haggadot in Matthew; and Isaac haggadot in Luke)
Could you expand a bit on what this means?
I’ve read your thesis that Luke is taking his style from Josephus, and it would seem that his primary source is
Matthew. And I’ve just finished MacDonald’s book about how Homer seems to have delivered most of the
structure of Mark.
So that leaves Matthew. Does The Case Against Q(which I’ve just ordered) suggest a source for Matthew in
place of Q? An inspiration for the structure in the manner of Homer and Jospehus, I mean.
R E P LY
Sili: [That “The nativity stories in Matthew and Luke look like a combination of Jewish
nativity apocrypha”] Could you expand a bit on what this means?
The nativity stories are (in part) constructed out of Old Testament passages and apocryphal
material about Moses (in Matthew’s case) and Isaac (in Luke’s case), among other biblical
and post-biblical elements. See, for example, the analysis in Raymond Brown, Birth of the
Messiah.
I’ve read your thesis that Luke is taking his style from Josephus, and it would seem
that his primary source is Matthew. And I’ve just finished MacDonald’s book about
how Homer seems to have delivered most of the structure of Mark.
All true. And more. This is an example of what I mean by combining Jewish elements (from
OT and other Judaica) and Gentile elements (such as, but not only, Homer).
So that leaves Matthew. Does The Case Against Q (which I’ve just ordered) suggest a
source for Matthew in place of Q? An inspiration for the structure in the manner of
Homer and Jospehus, I mean.
There are too many possibilities to rule any in or out conclusively enough (this is one of the
last things I’m trying to sort out for On the Historicity of Jesus Christ). Lots of interesting
theories in print, and others on the way–such as Dennis MacDonald’s theory that Matthew
and Mark are both working from a previous Deuteronomy Gospel, which essentially just
rewrote Deuteronomy and cast Jesus in the role of Moses. I’ve seen MacDonald’s structural
argument (he still hasn’t published to my knowledge, but he lays out a skeleton of it in
Sources of the Jesus Tradition) and I suspect he might be right; indeed, even if Matthew is
inventing all his additions, it could still be that Matthew is getting his structure ultimately from
Deutronomy, and its content from disparate Christian morals tradition. But all that’s still not
nailed down yet. Later apocryphal Gospels and church authors constantly assume Jesus was
born in a cave, for example, so one wonders if in fact there was an even earlier nativity
Gospel that Matthew is redacting. Who knows.
R E P LY
C . J. • F EBR UAR Y 22, 2012, 5:37 AM
I’ve often wondered about the parallel between the story of Moses parting the sea and the Egyptian tale where
the woman drops her amulet in the lake, a man folds the water so that the amulet is retrieved, then folds the
water back. It’s one of the stories found on the Westcar Papyrus.
R E P LY
ELLE • F EBR UAR Y 22, 201 2, 7:04 AM
“the actual statues themselves were coopted (some Jesus and Mary statues are in fact Isis and Horus statues,
just relabeled), just as Mithras’ birthday (25 December) was coopted”
Are you talking about the syncretic Mithra-Helios cult which was transformed into the figure Mithras during the
2nd century BC and then taken to Rome around the 1st century BC? I’ve always thought that was a kind of
“parallelomania”, but I could be simply uninformed.
One of the most known parallels is the connection between the birth of Jesus and the Roman festival of Dies
Natalis Solis Invicti (which, if I’m not mistaken, is connected with the Mithras cult, and this could be why you
cite the birth of said god being on the 25th of December?)
The point is, as far as I know we can’t be sure the Sol Invictus
festival was celebrated on the day Christianity acknowledges as the birth of Christ (even though I believe that
Jesus, if he existed at all, was most certainly not born on that fourth century established date).
See what you think: http://judithweingarten.blogspot.com/2011/12/whose-christmas-is-it-anyway.html?

utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FlMnZ+%28Ze
nobia%3A+Empress+of+the+East%29
P.S. Excuse me for my probably bad English, I’m Italian.
R E P LY
R IC H AR D C AR R IER • F EBR UAR Y 22, 2012, 11:23 AM
Elle: Don’t get too bogged down as to which festival was being coopted (particularly as
Christianity was merging them; Christmas is as much Saturnalia revamped, too). The birthday
of the sun and all solar deities (like Mithras) was December 25 in the Roman (Julian)
calendar (that calendar tracks off of the solar stations by a few minutes every year, so by the
time of the Gregorian reform the Solstice got locked in at December 21, where it is now).
There is no doubt that (a) December 25 (or even Winter) was never imagined as the birthday
of Jesus before the 3rd century and (b) December 25 was the public birthday of several solar
deities and had been since even before the Christian era and (c) in the 4th century suddenly
Jesus’ birthday is being talked about as December 25 (although hints of placing it in Winter
can be found already in the 3rd century, but not that specific day). That Constantine (the first
Christian emperor) was a devotee of both solar cult and Christianity (he had both Christian
and Mithraist entourages) may have had something to do with it. But at any rate, Christians
did steal this from pagans; but only long after Christianity began.
R E P LY
ER I C SWEEN EY • F EBR UAR Y 22, 2012, 8:06 AM
Glad to see the expose of Acharya S and Graves. Strangely, Robert Price seems to support her; of course some
of his recent stuff has gone off the deep end.
R E P LY
Eric Sweeney: Glad to see the expose of Acharya S and Graves. Strangely, Robert
Price seems to support her; of course some of his recent stuff has gone off the deep
end.
You seem to be prone to the fallacy of false generalization. Just becomes someone is
sometimes wrong, doesn’t mean they are always wrong. And just because Price might agree
with Murdock on one thing, doesn’t mean he agrees with her on everything (or that he
“supports her,” whatever that means).
And the fallacy of conflation. Murdock is not Graves.
R E P LY
LP ETR I C H • F EBR UAR Y 22, 2012, 10:42 AM
That’s something that I like about Lord Raglan’s Mythic-Hero profile and similar efforts. They do not demand
exact identity but broad similarity.
To see how this works, consider that Lord Raglan’s profile includes the mytheme of someone who tries to kill
the baby hero. But the would-be hero killer varies:
Father: Kronos vs. Zeus, Tantalus vs. Pelops, King Laius vs. Oedipus
Father’s wife: Hera vs. Hercules, Dionysus, Apollo
Father’s mother’s son: Pelias vs. Jason
Mother’s brother: King Kamsa vs. Krishna
Mother’s father: King Acrisius vs. Perseus
Mother’s father’s brother: King Amulius vs. Romulus
Unrelated king: Pharaoh vs. Moses, King Herod vs. Jesus Christ
R E P LY
MA N OJ JOSEP H • F EBR UAR Y 22, 2012, 1:03 P M
Carrier said:One example I still have to constantly rebut (it even gets repeated by secular scholars who
ought to know better) is that the “dying and rising god” mytheme was post-Christian; we can
conclusively prove it was not.
Richard, could you provide references to the “dying and rising god” mytheme? I know Earl Doherty talks about
this. Could you cite some authoritative references?
R E P LY
R IC H AR D C AR R IER • F EBR UAR Y 24, 2012, 12:11 P M
Manoj Joseph: Richard, could you provide references to the “dying and rising god”
mytheme? I know Earl Doherty talks about this. Could you cite some authoritative
references?
See my discussion (with sources in the endnotes) in Not the Impossible Faith, chapter 3.
R E P LY
R O O B O O K A R O O • M A R C H 1 7, 2 0 1 2 , 3 : 2 0 P M
The concept of “dying-and-rising” gods was first developed by James Frazer in “The Golden
Bough” (1890, 1922), and later amplified in the case of Christianity by John MacKinnon
Robertson in “Christianity and Mythology” (1900). Good reviews in Wikipedia.
R E P LY
RICHARD CARRIER • MARCH 18, 2012, 12:32
PM
Roo Bookaroo: Note that it is not important who first came up with the
concept (technically, that was Sumerians 3000 years ago, not Frazer, but
I assume you mean the scholarly proposal of a common trope; whether
Frazer was in fact the first to suggest this might be questionable, but I
haven’t looked into it, since I’m not concerned about the history of the
idea). And in fact, works that old should be regarded as unreliable–even
when they get things right, they often don’t do so correctly, and often mix
in things that are wrong. See History before 1950.
R E P LY
MATTH EW • F EBR UAR Y 22, 201 2, 5:26 P M
Richard,
After publishing On The Historicity of Jesus Christ, might you be interested in another volume, say, on the
historicity of St. Paul? I’d be interested in knowing what your opinion of St. Paul is, what you believe he was,
and what his beliefs were. I’d also be interested in knowing your opinion of, say, the “New Perspective” on St.
Paul. Is this something you might be interested in if you received enough support for your research?
R E P LY
Matthew: After publishing On The Historicity of Jesus Christ, might you be interested
in another volume, say, on the historicity of St. Paul?
There’s no evidence to support that. It’s an analytical speculation only. Which is boring to
write about. So, no. I have more important books to tackle.
I’d be interested in knowing what your opinion of who St. Paul is, what you believe he
was, and what his beliefs were. I’d also be interested in knowing your opinion of, say,
the “New Perspective” on St. Paul.
My opinion is that the “New Perspective” is correct. As to the rest, I’m sorry to say that’s
too boring for me. I don’t really want to become a “Paul specialist.” I have other things I
want to do. I only deal with Paul when I am analyzing a specific issue that does interest me
(like what the original Christian resurrection belief was, or what epistemology was considered
normative to Paul and his congregations), and that already takes a lot of work. Doingevery
issue about Paul would require a whole dedicated lifetime.
So you’ll have to settle for what I’ve already done: in The Empty Tomb, my chapter on the
“Spiritual Body of Christ” extensively discusses what I think Paul’s actual afterlife beliefs
were and why; and in chapter 17 of Not the Impossible Faith I discuss his (and his
community’s) epistemological views.
R E P LY
JA C K SON • F EBR UAR Y 23, 2012, 10:47 AM
Richard Carrier, I’m curious to find out what books by Acharya S/Murdock have you actually read?Did you
actually read her book Christ in Egypt or no?
R E P LY
Jackson: I’m curious to find out what books by Acharya S/Murdock have you actually
read? Did you actually read her book Christ in Egypt or no?
I have read her section on Luxor there, yes (which, BTW, does not say some of the things
her defenders claim it says, so they are doing her no favors by misrepresenting her claims and
arguments). Note that I am reporting what Brunner says (an actual Egyptologist), and
choosing my words carefully. Make sure you actually have right what I have in fact said,
before comparing it to what she said (and not just what you think she said).
But if you are reading her book, then take note of how my blog post is designed to expose
her tortuous logic there. For example, note that she agrees Amun appears to the queen in the
disguise of her husband at Luxor; but doesn’t explain why that makes sense unless he
planned to have sex with her. Otherwise, why pretend to be her husband? Likewise, both
temples were constructed by the same person and thus cannot plausibly be telling two
completely different religious stories, yet one of them (the longer redaction) is sexual, as even
Murdock admits. So she has to hope you don’t notice that, in effect, the same author told
two radically different versions of the same story at the same time for no reason. And so on.
So it’s important to notice what she avoids talking about, as much as what she attempts to
argue.
R E P LY
MA R ELLA • F EBR UAR Y 23, 2012, 11:38 P M
I hate to open another can of worms, but what about John the Baptist, did he exist at all do you think?
R E P LY
R IC H AR D C AR R IER • F EBR UAR Y 24, 2012, 9 :30 AM
Marella: I hate to open another can of worms, but what about John the Baptist, did he
exist at all do you think?
Probably. The reference to him in Josephus is certainly authentic (it contains a Christian
interpolation that attempts to “correct” something Josephus said, which proves he said it; it’s
also in his style and fits in his narrative perfectly and is just the sort of story he tells; and
finally, it proves John was a major player involved at the highest levels of Jewish politics,
explaining why Josephus took notice of him).
R E P LY
ELLE • F EBR UAR Y 24, 2012, 12:39 P M
“The reference to him in Josephus is certainly authentic (it contains a Christian interpolation that attempts to
“correct” something Josephus said, which proves he said it; it’s also in his style and fits in his narrative perfectly
and is just the sort of story he tells; and finally, it proves John was a major player involved at the highest levels of
Jewish politics, explaining why Josephus took notice of him).”
Speaking of Josephus, what about the Testimonium Flavianum? I’ve heard the most common interpretation is
that it is only partially (although quite heavily) interpolated, so the same could basically be said about Jesus, I
presume.
R E P LY
R IC H AR D C AR R IER • F EBR UAR Y 24, 2012, 12:53 P M
Elle: Speaking of Josephus, what about the Testimonium Flavianum?
I have an article coming out this year in an academic journal that answers that. I’ll blog it
when it’s available. Basically, the TF is not analogous to the passage about J the B, because
the former differs in exactly all the ways that argue the latter is (in bulk) authentic.
R E P LY
DEVA N EVA N S • F EBR UAR Y 24, 2012, 3:05 P M
Very interesting peace of work, but I see little to no evidence of what your stating here Carrier. You give
assertion that you are right after assertion as if your credentials and reputation make you trust worthy to take
these things on face value. I always laugh when I hear the term parallelomania because for one the term was
created by a Christian Apologist who denied any and all parallels to Jesus’ life in pre-Christian pagan religions. I
also find it interesting that you assert a series of facts about Luxor and Deir el-Bahri without providing a single bit
of information on authors or other academics who agree with you.
Also, Brunner agrees with you? He’s been dead for 15 years; how would he agree with you?
R E P LY
Devan Evans: Very interesting peace of work, but I see little to no evidence of what
your stating here Carrier. You give assertion that you are right after assertion as if
your credentials and reputation make you trust worthy to take these things on face
value. I always laugh when I hear the term parallelomania because for one the term
was created by a Christian Apologist who denied any and all parallels to Jesus’ life in
pre-Christian pagan religions. I also find it interesting that you assert a series of facts
about Luxor and Deir el-Bahri without providing a single bit of information on authors
or other academics who agree with you. Also, Brunner agrees with you? He’s been
dead for 15 years; how would he agree with you?
His book doesn’t vanish from existence because he died. As far as the Luxor material goes,
my blog is based entirely on his book and what he, an Egyptologist, says in it. That’s the
authority. And that’s the book you can go check for yourself.
I have yet to see any living Egyptologist cited who disagrees with anything I actually said. If
you can find one, let me know.
R E P LY
LAW OF P ER S P EC TIVE • S EP TEMBER 21 , 201 8,
11:05 AM
“I have yet to see any living Egyptologist cited who disagrees with
anything I actually said. If you can find one, let me know.”
argumentum ad verecundiam hmmm…given the prodigious intellect that

Richard Carrier commands, I am surprised that he often commits this
fallacy, continuously. Obviously, he is able to summon all manner of
minutia to destroy any sort of work that comes from outside the hallowed
walls of the ivory tower, yet he appeals to authority (especially “peer
review”) and the related ad hominem argument to discredit anyone
working outside of academia who lacks its sanctioned authority. And just
because he has so many tools and tricks of his profession with an unusual
talent to remember and communicate them like a samurai wielding a
katana does not mean he is also leaving out many details. And just
because he wields this o-katana does not make him the final word on any
of this information. It’s this totalizing discursive style in his writing that
bothers me the most.
I am curious what he thinks of the Egyptologists’ dating of the Great

Sphinx of Giza. How old does he think this is? What if someone made a
different assessment who was not an Egyptologist, and yet was
denounced not on the merit of her/his work, but instead because he was
not from this academic gang? So, if Richard Carrier is reading this, can he
tell me his opinion of old the Giza Sphinx might be?
Please keep in mind that a non-Egyptologist did study the Sphinx with
evidence-based science and came up with markedly different conclusions
as per the dating, yet these have been totally ignored and opposed by the
Egyptology gang.
How about the issue of red shift and the “Standard Model” of
cosmology? And what about the cosmic inflation theory? Has he looked
into the electric university theory (aka plasma cosmology) and the work of
Halton Arp? If he has, is Arp’s work invalid because his fellow
astronomers kicked him out of the gang because it did not pass the holy
grail of peer review? Can group think become insular and blind to its own
ideological constructs and does this ever happen in academia? And where
do a lot of these scientific and other breakthroughs come from? By
conforming to a thought community’s ideology or by breaking from it?
R E P LY
RICHARD CARRIER •
S EP TEMBER 24, 201 8, 6 :1 5 P M
So…no Egyptologist today agrees with your

crazy shit. Got it.
WI LL • F EBR UAR Y 25, 2012, 2:52 AM
Richard, thanks for that scrutiny of Acharya.. I’ve found her irritating.. my own knowledge of Christian origins
and antiquity is very slight, but i found her making ad hoc asserions about priesthood conspiracies to create
christianity that jumped out to me and screamed “red flag!!”. here are some quotes from Christ in Egypt that
bothered me:
“Many of the elements of the tale, however, could have existed within the walls of the massive Library of
Alexandria, Egypt, where undoubtedly much of the most serious work in creating Christianity, the gospel story
and the character of Jesus Christ was committed.”
How does she know that “much of the most serious work in creating Christianity” was done in the Library of
Alexandria? She actually uses the word “undoubtedly”. That evinces a level of certainty that doesn’t seem
justified.
“..when priests went about to create a new, empire-unifying religion that came to be called christianity.”
“..there are many scattered sources used by the priesthood which created this tale…”
Maybe you can correct me on this Richard, but it seems anachronistic to me to associate the CREATION of
Christianity with efforts of “empire-unifying”. To my knowledge Christianity is the product of the first and second
centuries CE. And anything like efforts of unifying the empire under the umbrella of Christianity didn’t occur until
the fourth century with Constantine and the church councils. So her chronology seems somewhat confused to
me; unless she intends to radically reconstruct the christian timeline. If that is the case, she needs to martial quite
a mountain of evidence, which she hasn’t.
Is it an unfair criticism to suggest that this “priesthood”, she continually evokes as the manufacturers of the Jesus
myth, is nothing but an ad hoc invention by Ms. Murdock, herself? In all fairness, she does admit that “..there is
no one concrete source for the complete story as found in the New Testament…”. But she then immediately
refers to the “priesthood which created this tale…” as if she has specific knowledge that their was such an
organized association of religious authorities already in place at the onset. One gets the image of a group of
elderly robed gentleman sitting around a big table drawing up the design for their new religion. I suppose it is not
impossible, but it seems like an entity such as a priesthood is a feature which arises later in the evolution of a
religion….although maybe im wrong about that. Of course the problem is that she does not tell us where she
obtained this information. Nor does she refer to any information on the basis of which she could have infered the
existence of such a pre-extant priesthood. This is why I tend to think that she has overstepped the evidence with
this ad hoc assertion.
Anyway, feel free to correct me here, Richard. She just seems blatantly wrong to me. I would appreciate any
comments, qualifications or corrections to my above complaints about Acharya’s positions. Thanks for your
time!
R E P LY
R IC H AR D C AR R IER • F EBR UAR Y 26 , 2012, 1:24 P M
Will: Maybe you can correct me on this Richard, but it seems anachronistic to me to
associate the CREATION of Christianity with efforts of “empire-unifying”.
Yes, in those terms, you are right. It’s plausible to hypothesize that unifying the Gentile and
Jewish worlds (and thus “the empire”) was an aim of the original founders of Christianity, or
at least of Paul (whose sect became what she means by “Christianity”), but that’s not quite
what she means or the way she puts it.
A better way to put it would be that the Jewish and Gentile worlds were in increasingly
violent collision and heading in a direction many could see was not going to end well for the
Jews, whereas creating a hybrid Jewish-pagan religion with broader appeal that was
fundamentally nonviolent could have been seen by some as a way forward that would save
Judaism and end its conflicts with Gentility. They would have been wrong. But the question is
only whether they would have thought it was a good idea (same as Marx thought
communism was a good idea; never having anticipated Stalin, Castro, or Mao).
And again, this would only be a hypothesis, not something we can be “certain” of.
You are likewise right that she chooses words poorly. “Priesthood” evokes entirely the
wrong image.
R E P LY
R OBER TTULIP • MAR C H 2, 201 2, 3:57 P M
Dear Richard,
I read your comments here with interest after seeing them discussed at Acharya’s freethoughtnation site. I led a
discussion on her book Christ In Egypt at booktalk.org, where this theme of Egyptian parallels was discussed in
depth.
There is a pervasive prejudice against discussion of Egyptian mythic sources for Christianity due to cultural
factors and associations that are not readily recognised. These factors, seen in the history of Egyptian studies
going back at least to the Renaissance, have led to an academic bias that endangers the reputation of anyone
who studies this material. Yet parallels such as Osiris=Lazarus, Isis=Mary, Horus=Jesus, Set=Satan and
Anubis=John have abundant evidence to support them.
The Jesus Myth Theory addresses deep cultural problems in Western civilization. Egyptian parallels are at the
center of these problems. Lightly dismissing them distorts the analysis of the theological basis of the Gospels.
Acharya has investigated this material with integrity, courage, depth and rigour. She has uncovered some
intriguing material on the history of suppression of evidence, explained in detail in Christ in Egypt. I’m glad to see
you have opened this dialogue, however circumspectly. I hope your engagement will lead to broader scholarly
discussion of Egyptian sources in Christianity.
Robert Tulip
R E P LY
RICH ARD CARRIER • MARCH 5, 2012, 12:08 PM
roberttulip: Yet parallels such as Osiris=Lazarus, Isis=Mary, Horus=Jesus, Set=Satan

and Anubis=John have abundant evidence to support them.
These claims of parallels all conflate different historical periods and ignore Jewish history,
even when they have any validity (and many of them don’t).
For example:
Mary was only associated with Isis centuries after the origin of Christianity. And Satan was
originally an angel in God’s court about whom no hostility or evil was associated and who
didn’t have any role at all similar to Set. Only after influence from Zoroastrianism (Persian
religion, not Egyptian) did this figure evolve into an enemy of God and stories were invented
about his fall and that associated him with the serpent of Eden (an association that did not
originally exist). This is the “Satan” that Christianity inherited; it is a product of syncretism
between Judaism and Persian religion. And so on.
There are a number of methodological (i.e. logical) flaws made in trying to draw parallels. A
rigorous method of controlling for base rate fallacies and other statistical errors must be
deployed to prevent seeing “parallels everywhere” and then touting that as “evidence” of
anything other than coincidence (or even parallel influence from a third source). That does
not mean some parallels aren’t genuine, but you need a sound methodology to find which
ones are and which ones aren’t; and then to find out what the causal significance of that is.
Your attempt to make this about “fear” of taking an unpopular position is especially ridiculous
here, as I am on record as taking the “terrifyingly” unpopular position that Jesus is a myth and
never existed as a historical person. So you can’t claim I am being influenced by any
emotional hostility to that idea. I am simply making sound observations of fact and
methodology as a qualified expert with a Ph.D. in ancient history.
R E P LY
R OBER TTULIP • MAR C H 8, 201 2, 1 :42 AM
Richard Carrier said “These claims of parallels all conflate different historical periods”
Hi Richard
Are you familiar with scholarly work on Egyptian mythical sources for Christianity?For
example Tom Harpur in The Pagan Christ summarizes research on the parallels between Isis
and Mary, and between Osiris and Lazarus. He shows that John 11 is an obvious lift from
Egyptian myth in the hieroglyphic record. The etymology and the symbolic roles have such
strong parallels that cultural connection is the only explanation. You should check out pp128-
136 in Harpur’s book.
RC: “Your attempt to make this about “fear” of taking an unpopular position is especially
ridiculous.”
You misquote me as talking about fear. I never mentioned fear, but I did observe there is
systemic avoidance of the Egypt material, which is derided as ridiculous by people who have
not even read the research. It is not a sound rebuttal to say Christians ignore this material so
you can too.
You are to be congratulated for contributing to the debate on the existence of Jesus. The
issue here is that the syncretism in the production of the Christ story drew from all the main
cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean, of which Egypt was possibly the biggest and oldest.
The evidence for Egyptian parallels is compelling, while ignoring Egypt leads to a very partial
and unpersuasive account. Please don’t follow the line of the apologists by rejecting the
findings on Egypt without studying them.
Regards
Robert Tulip
R E P LY
RICH ARD CARRIER • MARCH 8, 2012, 9 :47 AM
roberttulip: Are you familiar with scholarly work on Egyptian

mythical sources for Christianity? For example Tom Harpur…
Let me stop you there. Harpur in my opinion is not a reliable scholar. I

don’t recommend anyone read him.
He shows that John 11 is an obvious lift from Egyptian myth in the

hieroglyphic record.
I don’t trust Harpur to get the details right, but the gist of this is otherwise
partly true (see, for an account I trust, Helms, Gospel Fictions, pp. 94-
100). However, John 11 is actually a rebuttal (using the literary device of
reification) to Luke 16:19-31. He thus adapted an Egyptian parable to
accomplish that. But this is late, long after the origin of Christianity (John
wrote 100-140 A.D.), responding to an original story in Luke that
showed no Egyptian influence (apart from connections to an otherwise
unrelated parable). So as you can see, attention to chronology is crucial.
R E P LY
ROBERT TULIP • MARCH 8,
2012, 5:27 PM
Richard, as you would know, Harpur is among those

who have sought to rehabilitate the reputations of
forgotten amateur Egyptologists such as G Massey and
A Kuhn. It seems to me that there is a circularity in the
exclusion of this material from academia – the Classics
establishment did not like what these scholars had to
say, and so excluded them from tenure and
preferment, and then used that exclusion as an excuse
to ignore them as unreliable. This prejudicial process is
quite well documented on the broader question of bias
in Classics by Martin Bernal, Cornell Professor
Emeritus of Government and Near Eastern Studies, in
his book Black Athena.
I’m not endorsing everything in Massey and Kuhn, but

I would caution against the tendency to find some
error, say in K Graves who you mentioned above, and
then using that to dismiss other research.
Be that as it may, you seem to accept that John 11, the
story of Christ’s miraculous raising of Lazarus from the
dead, identifies Isis with Mary. That is far earlier than
the “centuries after the origin of Christianity” you
previously suggested. And it is hard to imagine that the
inclusion of this parallel in John emerged suddenly, so it
is reasonable to postulate an older secret oral tradition,
for example involving Serapis, serving as a bridge
between Egyptian myth and Christianity.
Regards, Robert Tulip
RICH ARD CARRIER • MARCH 9 ,
2012, 4:27 PM
Robert Tulip: It seems to me that there is a

circularity in the exclusion of this material from
academia – the Classics establishment did not like
what these scholars had to say, and so excluded
them from tenure and preferment, and then used
that exclusion as an excuse to ignore them as
unreliable.
I’m not excluding him on any such grounds. I’m

excluding him because his methods suck. Which I can
ascertain myself from reading how he argues and cites
sources and evidence.
Be that as it may, you seem to accept that John 11,

the story of Christ’s miraculous raising of Lazarus
from the dead, identifies Isis with Mary.
Not Jesus’ mother, though. See the problem?

Likewise, Lazarus in that story is the analog to Horus-
Osiris, not Jesus. This is therefore wholly unconnected
to the later attribution of the Virgin Mary with Isis
(and Jesus with Horus).
Likewise, John is not saying “Lazarus was Osiris and

Mary was Isis.” Rather, he is saying Lazarus and Mary
are real and Osiris and Isis are not, so you’d better
start worshiping Jesus and not Osiris, because unlike
Osiris or Isis, Jesus can actually raise the dead. It’s
called transvaluation. It’s the same thing Mark did
with Homer.
DEVA N EVA N S • MARC H 2, 2012, 9 :43 P M
“His book doesn’t vanish from existence because he died. As far as the Luxor material goes, my blog is based
entirely on his book and what he, an Egyptologist, says in it. That’s the authority. And that’s the book you can
go check for yourself.
I have yet to see any living Egyptologist cited who disagrees with anything I actually said. If you can find one, let
me know.”
1. No, you asserted what you said is true without any indication of sources, no references to any periodicals on
the subject, no references to other up-to-date sources on the subject and nothing regarding a single other
Egyptologist than you just simply aserting your right while the other camp is wrong. That is what you effectively
did there… You give no evidence that the
2. Murdock gives quotation of Brunner’s work and the other pieces of work she cites which describe the Luxor
reference. You also make a statement of assertion as if fact about Deir el-Bahri without providing a single
reference outside your own translation and your own word. What Egyptologists have you looked into about
this? Can you give me their names and their works they have made so I can read them myself, you seem to be of
the view that I am going to take your word on it just cause you have a PhD… you showed no evidence while
Murdock showed plenty more and all you’re just doing is hand waving; for shame.
R E P LY
RICH ARD CARRIER • MARCH 5, 2012, 11:56 AM
Devan Evans: No, you asserted what you said is true without any indication of sources
Like what? Give me an example of a fact-claim I made that is not in Brunner (a relevant
example; not something Acharya already agrees with).
R E P LY
T A T T V A M A S I • M A R C H 7, 2 0 1 2 , 9 : 5 9 A M
Hi Richard, I was wondering about your accessment of Zoroastrianism. Now to my knowledge there is no
known Hebrew OT (if you will) which predates the Alexandrian Septuagint. Indeed, all that we read through
concerning the Jewish scriptures comes to us from a Post Babylonian Captivity, Post Persian release from
Babylonian Captivity, and pre-Christian. So the entire influence present in such works as the oldest Jewish
scriptures on record is Babylonian, Persian, and Alexandrian-Egyptian. I struggle to see how the biblical Satan is
NOT the product of Zoroastrian and Egyptian influences combined?
R E P LY
R I C H A R D C A R R I E R • M A R C H 7, 2 0 1 2 , 1 2 : 5 9 P M
tat tvam asi:
First, it is fallacious to argue that because all manuscripts post date the Persian exile, that
therefore all texts reflect Persian influence. To the contrary, experts have demonstrated which
parts show such influence, and which parts record material inherited from previous centuries
(and which parts we’re not sure of). The book of Job, for example, was probably written
around that time, yet in it Satan has not become the Fallen One, but remains in God’s court
as his right-hand-man. It thus still retains the older Jewish belief (reflected in Numbers 22:31-
34, which was probably written before the Persian exile).
Second, it is a complete non sequitur to argue that “the Jews were influenced by their
Egyptian neighbors, therefore every one of their beliefs is a product of influence from their
Egyptian neighbors.” The evidence has to be looked at. And in this particular case all we find
are Persian connections, no Egyptian ones. Maybe in some other instances the evidence will
show the reverse. And maybe in some Jewish apocrypha Satan is altered to model Set (I
haven’t seen that, but who knows). But either way, one has to actually demonstrate this
causal influence. It cannot simply be presumed.
R E P LY
TAT TVAM AS I • MAR C H 9 , 201 2, 1 :05 P M
Richard, Murdock has written a very detailed and specific response to your blog, which can be found here:
http://freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1461&p=25012#p25012
I’d appreciate if you would find the time to acknowledge and respond. And I’d like to invite you to join
Murdocks forum as well because there are alot of issues that I think we can all (opposing mythicist views) hash
out given the opportunity to do so.
Thanks.
R E P LY
RICH ARD CARRIER • MARCH 9 , 2012, 2:17 PM
I’ll check it out next week. I won’t have time to examine it until then.
R E P LY
TAT TVAM AS I • MAR C H 9 , 201 2, 3:56 P M
Thank you for acknowledging Murdock’s response to this blog page.
I get the feeling that all she really wants to do is try and come to some mutual understanding with you on the
issues. Now there are some sore feelings going around with Murdocks fans over the whole ordeal, but all that
aside I think that if you look this over very carefully and feel that some errors were made on your part and
apologize, some of those feelings circulating around the web will begin to subside.
R E P LY
WILL • MARCH 14, 2012, 11:04 PM
I’m very eager to read Dr. Carrier’s response to Acharya’s rebuttal… I did find it odd,
however, that Acharya is inferring all manner of insidious and petty motives on Carrier. My
impression of him, from reading alot of his blog posts and listening to his debates, is that he is
only interested in the quality of the scholarship…. he doesn’t seem to put much ego into it.
And i’ve heard him own up to mistakes and make corrections on multiple occasions. he really
seems to maintain a high level of scholarly objectivity….. which is a big reason i find his
opinions interesting.. i never feel like there’s irrational axe-grinding going on. also he seems to
adhere to very logical methodology. so i don’t think Acharya’s emotionally charged
characterisation of his allegedly self-serving motives are justified.
Having said that, I have not looked into the issues being disputed so i am refraining from
judgement about who is right until i see how this conversation plays out.
R E P LY
TAT TVAM AS I • MAR C H 1 4, 201 2, 9 :1 3 AM
This is something that I found very confusing about your blog right from the beginning of reading it:
Richard Carrier wrote: “More important is that Acharya/Murdock says the bulk of my details come from the
“D” text and not the one at Luxor. The D text she refers to is the narrative accompanying the panels at the Deir
el-Bahri Temple Complex built by Queen Hatshepsut in the 15th century BC. The Luxor Temple was built at the
same time by the same queen.
…The visual panels at Deir el-Bahri are in all essentials identical to those at Luxor (with a few minor variances in
the section after the nativity sequence, which are thus not relevant here). The D text simply expands the
abbreviated text at Luxor. To claim that the shorter text at Luxor doesn’t simply abbreviate the full narrative
provided at Deir el-Bahri is thus nonsense. To claim that the two stories are somehow intended to be completely
different (despite being visually identical and inscribed in the same decades by the same queen) is even more
nonsense.”
There’s a few very clear and open error’s here in the above response. First of all, the assertion that both temples
were inscribed by the ‘same queen in the same decades’. These temples are nearly a century apart and Luxor’s
inscription has to do with Amenhotep III’s efforts.
DM Murdock wrote: From Hatshepsut to the gospels
“The outline of the “Out of Egypt Theory” as concerns the gospel nativity cycle is quite simple:
1. Hateshepsut (d. 1458 BCE) created a nativity scene, with an inscription that included some “sexy” bits.
2. Amenhotep III (fl. 1386/8 to 1351/49 BCE) copied the nativity scene and parts of the inscription, leaving out
the bulk of the “sexy” parts.
3. Birth houses or mammisis were built for numerous pharaohs and Greco-Roman rulers right into the common
era, including scenes of a similar nature as the earlier nativities, without the “sexy” inscriptions.
4. These mammisis – as well as the earlier Amenhotep birth cycle at the popular tourist spot of Luxor – could
have served as inspirations for the gospel writers, whose efforts, the evidence indicates, occurred significantly at
Alexandria, Egypt.
The bottom line is that we have in the Egyptian birth-cycle imagery up to and into the common era some very
suggestive parallels to the gospel birth narrative, and ignoring these facts in a comparative religion study itself
ranks as poor scholarship.”
The details of this progression are in the response I’ve asked you to read and consider. There’s clearly a direct
line of evolution where the birth sequence becomes more and more virginized over time leading down into the
common era.
I really do wonder why you’ve written this blog the way that you have Richard. It would appear that you never
even bothered to read either Christ in Egypt or at the minimum just the 20 pages dedicated to this “Luxor
Thing.” Everything Murdock wrote in her response to this blog page had already been addressed in the 20 page
long investigation in Christ in Egypt and other places.
If that’s the case then ok, whatever, you just brushed it off thinking that you already knew better and responded
without in-depth research and analysis. But apparently this topic is worthy of more attention than a mere wave of
the hand dismall. I don’t know if you’re feeling a little embarrased at this point Richard, but come on, don’t you
think that an apology is in order for these glaring errors in your criticism? You people leading the forefront of
mythicism ought to be working together and not against each other don’t you think?
R E P LY
RICH ARD CARRIER • MARCH 16 , 2012, 9 :46 AM
tat tvam asi: These temples are nearly a century apart and Luxor’s inscription has to
do with Amenhotep III’s efforts.
That may be correct. I’m looking into it and will revise accordingly.
Birth houses or mammisis were built for numerous pharaohs and Greco-Roman rulers
right into the common era, including scenes of a similar nature as the earlier nativities,
without the “sexy” inscriptions.
If there are other scenes that prove a virgin birth concept more in line with the Gospels, then
why is she arguing from Luxor? Shouldn’t she be arguing from those scenes, which would
even be nearer in time to the Gospels?
Certainly, if she can show an annunciation-virgin-birth-adoration cycle that is closer to the

Gospels than what we have at Luxor, then she should do that. Then we can talk about what
parallels might exist between the Gospels and those inscriptions and whether they are causal
or coincidental or inevitable.
These mammisis – as well as the earlier Amenhotep birth cycle at the popular tourist
spot of Luxor – could have served as inspirations for the gospel writers, whose efforts,
the evidence indicates, occurred significantly at Alexandria, Egypt.
“Could have served” is a vastly weaker argument than “did serve.” As to “the Gospel
writers” working in Alexandria, there is no reliable evidence of that. Indeed, experts on
Matthew place its composition in Syria or Turkey; Luke-Acts never mentions any
Alexandrian or Egyptian affairs but knows a great deal about the Aegean, which places him
most likely in Greece or thereabouts. Either of them “might” have composed in Egypt, but
“possibly, therefore probably” is a fallacy. That is not how valid historical arguments are
made.
By contrast, we can already explain all the elements of the nativities in Matthew and Luke
without recourse to any Egyptian influence, and those explanations (which derive from the
OT and inter-Christian polemic) make more sense of the evidence and have greater prior
probabilities (as I explain in my blog here).
Finally, I have read her “20 page” reply (which I found rambling and confused and based on
a series of conjectures and speculations), and it simply doesn’t respond to my points made
here.
Don’t you think that an apology is in order for these glaring errors in your criticism?
What errors? (You mean the dating of the temples, or something else?)
You people leading the forefront of mythicism ought to be working together and not
against each other don’t you think?
No. I don’t think that. Bad mythicists (e.g. Atwill, to pick an example of someone who is
very much arguing a thesis Murdock must reject) are doing good mythicists no favors. In fact,
they are making it worse for us, by communicating to the scholarly community that
“mythicism” is based on sloppy methodology, dubious speculations, and ignorance of the
arguments and evidence discussed by the actual experts in these matters. So when I try to
present at a conference or publish a paper, I have to explain at length how my methodology
is valid and that I do not endorse all the nonsense that people like Atwill argue, and even then
academics are suspicious, because all they have seen is Freke & Gandy crap. Mythicists
can’t even agree on what happened (is it Murdock’s explanation? Or Atwill’s? One of them
is wrong…which one? What method do they have to answer that question with?). There is
therefore no benefit in “not criticizing” each other. Because, by all disagreeing with each
other, most mythicists must be wrong. And the cornerstone of valid, professional
methodology is pursuing and rooting out error and determining who of any collection of
disagreeing parties is wrong. We therefore must do that. To say we shouldn’t do that, in
some sort of political solidarity to the abstract “idea” of mythicism is precisely the kind of
dogmatic, political, emotional bullshit that is screwing over serious myth research. That
behavior is the surest way to never be taken seriously by anyone who matters.
R E P LY
R O O B O O K A R O O • M A R C H 1 7, 2 0 1 2 , 4 : 3 6 P M
Bravo to Richard Carrier for maintaining the importance of critical thinking concerning any fanciful expressions of
the Christ Myth theory. The idea that mythicists should show “solidarity” by tampering their criticisms of other
mythicists is ridiculous and self-destroying. Preaching a general removal of thinking caps for the sake of the
“mythicism cause” is not in the interest of serious scholarship. There is no such cause nor such “movement”.
Exponents of the Christ Myth theory are as diverse, contradictory as historicists themselves are, for all kinds of
different reasons.
None, including Carrier, is beyond critical examination. And Carrier knows how to take criticisms in good spirit
and respond to them when appropriate. That is a thing that Murdock does not seem to have ever learnt or be
capable of doing. She seems to take every criticism as a personal attack rather than a discussion of scholarship,
and can tolerate only compliments and “followers”.
Carrier didn’t mince his words, and must be applauded for his firm stance.
And the suggestion that he tries to build a group of fanboys and followers, as Murdock actually does, is also
ridiculous. Carrier has no desire to be mistaken for a sect or cult leader.
R E P LY
MI C H A EL MA C R OSSA N • MAR C H 19 , 2012, 12:53 AM
I think the argument over the meaning of “immaculate conception” is a bit of a silly distraction, particularly where
you say there could be no immaculate conception in Egyptian culture because the idea is foreign to that culture,
when you know she never meant the Mary-free-from-sin idea. You could merely say something like `I will
assume by “immaculate Conception” she means spiritual conception of the son of god and will use the term
“spiritual conception” myself, rather than the technically incorrect “immaculate conception”‘ (And if you must
display your superior knowledge, you could add a footnote explaining the correct meaning and perhaps add that
it is a dogma of the Catholic church which is not accepted by Protestants).
R E P LY
Michael Macrossan: You could merely say something like `I will assume by
“immaculate Conception” she means spiritual conception of the son of god and will
use the term “spiritual conception” myself, rather than the technically incorrect
“immaculate conception”‘
I disagree. Professionals ought to use terminology correctly, and not in ignorance (what did
she think the word “immaculate” means? That it didn’t even occur to her to ask is evidence
that she is not fully informed on the very concepts she is discussing). There is room for
colloquialism and similar deviations from strict terminology, but this misuse of a term
fundamental to what she claims to be studying (the origins and development of Christianity),
and that is not excusable and must be corrected. If she had subsequently corrected herself, all
would be fine (since everyone makes mistakes from time to time, although this one is
particularly hard to explain). Yet she didn’t even do that.
What is wrong to do is what she did: not even admit she made an error, but insist she is right
because other people make the same error. Thus yet again not even caring that the word
“immaculate” makes no sense at all in her usage. Her uncorrectability is again evidence of the
very problem I am pointing to.
R E P LY
K OR EY • MARCH 25, 2012, 9 :47 PM
How does your understanding that the reference to John the Baptist is authentic fit into the “Christ myth
Theory”?? Are you saying the gospel writers added the unrelated John into their stories without his approval, or
that John thought of Jesus as a pagan godman, or something else altogether?? Maybe a dumb question.
R E P LY
R I C H A R D C A R R I E R • M A R C H 2 7, 2 0 1 2 , 1 2 : 3 6 P M
They didn’t need his approval. By the time Mark (and it was most likely Mark, but if not him,
someone shortly before him) made that up, John the Baptist was long dead. They just used a
known historical character to create a meaningful scene for Jesus, the same thing they did
with Pilate and Caiaphas. That’s how all historical fiction gets made. As to what they
intended by doing that, that may be debated.
In Luke, it’s clear the author wants his readers (or his lower ranking ones at least) to believe
it literally happened. In some way Luke believed this would further his agenda (which by then
had become political, over struggles to control or unify the church). In Mark, it’s possible the
author meant only to convey a symbolic point (about Jesus taking the torch from John), or he
is reifying something that (as you suggest) actually happened, e.g. Mk. 1:9-11 might originally
have been a vision of the Jesus figure reported or recorded by John the Baptist, which Mark
converts into an earthly encounter (this is how myth often came to be reified, e.g. the cosmic
Osiris had events in his life in outer space translated into events on earth at a particular
historical time; thus, in a similar way, Luke’s parable about Lazarus is reified by John into an
actual Lazarus; and so on). Some scholars suggest the earliest Christian sources were in fact
books about John, not Jesus, e.g. Luke 1 appears to be a nativity story about John, which
has been adapted mostly to Jesus. But I have no opinion on that.
R E P LY
B E N S C H U L D T • M A R C H 2 7, 2 0 1 2 , 5 : 2 3 P M
“
in a similar way, Luke’s parable about Lazarus is reified by John into an actual Lazarus; and so
on).
Is it possible that the name “Lazarus” was inserted back into Luke after John’s gospel was well known to half-
assedly harmonize them?
R E P LY
That would be a much less probable hypothesis. Whereas John’s story makes sense as a
rebuttal to Luke’s, that explanation dissolves if Luke never used Lazarus; and there would
then be no reason for anyone to link the two stories, so as to insert Lazarus in Luke’s, unless
they saw one as a rebuttal to the other, which would not be obvious. One could perhaps
imagine Luke’s is (or was transformed into) a rebuttal to John’s, but that requires a very
elaborate system of ad hoc assumptions (an almost keystone cops sequence of events and
coincidences). Moreover, it goes against natural probability (mythmakers reify parables, not
usually the other way around) and precedent (much of John is explicable as a rebuttal to or
improvement on Luke). So I don’t consider it at all likely.
R E P LY
BEN S C H ULDT • MAR C H 28, 2012, 6 :37 P M
Oh okay. So you are saying there’s no way to recognize a connection without the name Lazarus? I thought
perhaps even in generic terms it would be obvious enough, but perhaps not. The only reason I say this is
because this is like the *only* parable that actually has a proper name on it which makes it suspicious. So I
considered it plausible that John reified a parable in Luke he wanted to respond to (as you say), gave a
character a name, and then other Christians recognized the generic link, but not the bitch slap and could only
haphazardly mesh the two by retconning in the name (since they didn’t want to destroy the parable set up). I
don’t know all the arguments surrounding this, so it was just a suggestion.
R E P LY
n.b. Lazarus is a pun (the name, Eleazar, means “God is my help” or “God has helped” etc.);
it’s kind of obvious why it was chosen for the parable.
R E P LY
S L I M Y M A N • J U LY 2 5 , 2 0 1 4 , 2 : 4 5 A M
I was about to buy this book. I noticed the author’s name and recalled you pulling her up on a few things in the
past. I asked this question about Ehrman’s ‘Did Jesus Exist’, but would you recommend reading this book,
despite its misconceptions? I guess this question actually has two parts:
1) Is there enough solid information within this book to warrant reading it; perhaps with your criticisms as a lens
through which to read the remainder?
2) Would this book be worth reading strictly as a sceptic to see where people often go wrong, using your post
and background knowledge as references? Or, as was my worry regarding Ehrman’s book, is the risk of
accidentally internalising bad information too great a risk for someone who is still somewhat of a layman with
regard to ancient history?
R E P LY
R I C H A R D C A R R I E R • J U LY 2 5 , 2 0 1 4 , 4 : 3 0 P M
Which book are you referring to? Murdock has several. I don’t recommend any. She
doesn’t adequately demarcate what is well documented from what is not, so a lay person
can’t vet her own information so as to tell the difference between what is her own
idiosyncratic assumption, claim, or interpretation, and what is established already in the field,
or actually demonstrated by a source, etc. And she doesn’t do research well (e.g. over-relies
on antiquated scholarship and doesn’t do contemporary literature surveys). And this makes
things harder for a lay reader, not easier. You will get more confusion and misinformation
than accurate data (and you won’t know which is which).
R E P LY
R O B E R T T U L I P • J U LY 2 6 , 2 0 1 4 , 6 : 0 3 A M
Richard, I’m surprised you offer such a sweeping dismissal of Murdock’s

work. Her recent book Did Moses Exist? is excellent, presenting a
rigorous analysis of the origins of the Moses myth in the much older story
of Dionysus. The Christ Myth Theory involves work in philosophy and
theology as well as in your speciality of history. I think you are far too
hasty to denigrate alternative perspectives which it appears you have not
closely studied and do not understand. With Best Wishes, Robert Tulip.
R E P LY
RICHARD CARRIER • J U LY 2 8 ,
2014, 5:51 PM
Sigh.
I don’t have enough time in the world to expose all the

crank theories in the universe.
“Moses was based on Dionysus” is right up there with

“Jesus came from a flying saucer.”
If Murdock has fooled you into thinking there is a

convincing argument for this, then you either don’t
know sound reasoning when you see it, or you didn’t
check her facts. Probably both.
If she wrote a book arguing that the Moses myth was

partly lifted from the Sargon myth, then we’d be back
in the mainstream. Because that is almost certainly true.
But Dionysus? Please.
Just for example: Murdock’s claim that Dionysus

parted the Red Sea and crossed it with a crowd of
people (“he passed through the Red Sea on foot, with
a multitude of men, women, and children”) has
absolutely no evidence for it. At. All. Her entire
specious methodology for trying to invent this claim out
of completely unrelated evidence (and the sloppy
scholarship of hundred-plus-year-old tomes,
sometimes books written two or three hundred years
ago!) is a classic example of why she simply is not to
be trusted by anyone as a scholar. This is pure crank.
Instead of checking the actual ancient sources,
Murdock simply believes what Voltaire says, for
example, hook, line and sinker. Voltaire cites no
sources for any of his claims.
In ancient evidence Bacchus changed the course of

some rivers (or in earlier accounts changed them into
wine to get his enemies drunk), and crossed a river
dryshod by building a bridge over it and likewise a
sea by crossing in a boat, and none of this in Egypt,
and he calmed the Indian Ocean and crossed it (in
some accounts with an army) in the normal way (in
ships/vessels). He did not “part” any of these much
less cross their bottom “on foot” with a “multitude.”
Even the actual tales appear to have arisen after the
conquests of Alexander the Great (no prior myths have
any clear knowledge of these claims or his conquest of
India), by which time the Moses story had already long
been written, but even those stories in India bear no
resemblance to the Moses story. By the time a story
appears that Bacchus dried some rivers to cross them
(still not in Egypt), it was the 17th century, and the
author claiming it (Bochartus) was badly confused (he
says Nonnus says this in his epic about Bacchus, but
no, he doesn’t…Nonnus mentions the monster
Typheus drinking a river dry; not Bacchus; not Egypt;
and not at all the same story).
Please, stop buying crank scholarship. Check facts.

And if you can’t, because the author doesn’t tell you
where their ancient sources are, well, then if they are
claiming something remarkable, you know they
probably don’t have any ancient sources.
S L I M Y M A N • J U LY 2 6 , 2 0 1 4 , 7 : 4 1 A M
Ah, dumb on my part. I was referring to ‘Jesus in Egypt’. I hear many people draw links
between Jesus and the story of Horus and I wanted to see some alternative views on the
matter; I notice a lot of people argue about the supposed (and the questionable) parallels.
After reading her blog posts claiming that other scholars are just jealous of her, in conjunction
with your analysis, I will give her books a miss until I know more. Thanks again.
R E P LY
R I C H A R D C A R R I E R • J U LY 2 8 , 2 0 1 4 , 5 : 5 4 P M
Ugh. Yeah.
Any time you hear “Jesus and Horus” you know you are being fed
bullshit. The parallels are with Osiris (and no, though Horus the young in
some myths becomes Osiris the old who begets Horus the young in a
cycle, they are not the same person and do not have the same
mythologies) and they are far fewer than claimed.
R E P LY
R O B E R T T U L I P • J U LY 3 0 , 2 0 1 4 , 4 : 2 7 P M
Hi Richard, thanks for taking the time to reply to my comment. I absolutely do not want to get into any
personality debates, as I am just interested in learning what is true in these complex questions. So I found your
categorical rejection of the Dionysus Moses link to be very intriguing, since I think there is a good scholarly case
for it, as part of the broad overturning of the conventional paradigm regarding the historicity of Biblical figures
and in support of emerging hypotheses regarding evolution of myth. I will review the evidence on Dionysus over
more time and prepare a summary as I see it, which I hope you will find interesting.
Congratulations on the superb reviews you have received for On The Historicity of Jesus.I have just ordered a
copy and look forward to studying it.
R E P LY
SLI MY MA N • AUGUS T 11, 2014, 6 :59 AM
Haha, seems your response drew a few tears from the other side Mr. Carrier:
http://www.freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4709&p=29296
R E P LY
R OBER TTULIP • AUGUS T 1 6 , 201 4, 8:29 P M
On Richard’s question about the evidence for derivation of Moses from Dionysus, my book review of
Murdock’s Did Moses Exist? linked below notes the issues of timing and ancient prevalence of the myths to
indicate that partial derivation of the Moses myth from Dionysian traditions is a probable hypothesis.
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2PFCVC4RIFMSL
R E P LY
R IC H AR D C AR R IER • AUGUS T 18, 2014, 12:02 P M
In your entire analysis you fail to cite a single ancient source describing anything about
Dionysus that relevantly parallels the story of Moses.
How do you not notice this fatal flaw? You are missing the key premise in the whole
argument.
If you can’t even figure out how logic works, what’s the point?
R E P LY
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That Luxor Thing

BY R ICH AR D CAR R IER / ON FEBRUARY 20, 2012 / 74 COMMENTS

Parallelomania is the particular disease of Jesus myth advocates who see

One important example of a “non-parallel” is the

More important is that Acharya/Murdock says the bulk of my details come

JER TH EBA R BA R I A N • F EBR UAR Y 21, 2012, 6 :21 AM

F • F EBR UAR Y 21, 2012, 9 :07 AM

Well, here’s the response I see so far:

Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection

Here’s a review of Christ in Egypt by Dr. Robert Price:

R IC H AR D C AR R IER • F EBR UAR Y 21, 2012, 6 :50 P M

MA R K U S • JAN UAR Y 22, 2020, 4:03 P M

RICHARD CARRIER • JAN UAR Y

23, 2020, 12:31 PM

Give me one example of any falsehood I have stated

STEVE • F EBR UAR Y 21, 2012, 10:59 AM

IBIS 3, D EN IZEN OF A S P ITEF UL GH ETTO• F EBR UAR Y 21 , 201 2, 1 :26 P M

STEVE • F EBR UAR Y 21, 2012, 1:32 P M

R IC H AR D C AR R IER • F EBR UAR Y 21, 2012, 6 :22 P M

IBIS 3, D EN IZEN OF A S P ITEF UL GH ETTO• F EBR UAR Y 21,

SI LI • F EBR UAR Y 21, 2012, 2:53 P M

Could you expand a bit on what this means?

R IC H AR D C AR R IER • F EBR UAR Y 21, 2012, 6 :17 P M

C . J. • F EBR UAR Y 22, 2012, 5:37 AM

ELLE • F EBR UAR Y 22, 201 2, 7:04 AM

See what you think: http://judithweingarten.blogspot.com/2011/12/whose-christmas-is-it-anyway.html?

R IC H AR D C AR R IER • F EBR UAR Y 22, 2012, 11:23 AM

ER I C SWEEN EY • F EBR UAR Y 22, 2012, 8:06 AM

R IC H AR D C AR R IER • F EBR UAR Y 22, 2012, 11:09 AM

And the fallacy of conflation. Murdock is not Graves.

Father’s wife: Hera vs. Hercules, Dionysus, Apollo

Father’s mother’s son: Pelias vs. Jason

Mother’s brother: King Kamsa vs. Krishna

Mother’s father: King Acrisius vs. Perseus

Mother’s father’s brother: King Amulius vs. Romulus

MA N OJ JOSEP H • F EBR UAR Y 22, 2012, 1:03 P M

R IC H AR D C AR R IER • F EBR UAR Y 24, 2012, 12:11 P M

RICHARD CARRIER • MARCH 18, 2012, 12:32

MATTH EW • F EBR UAR Y 22, 201 2, 5:26 P M

R IC H AR D C AR R IER • F EBR UAR Y 24, 2012, 11:57 AM

JA C K SON • F EBR UAR Y 23, 2012, 10:47 AM

R IC H AR D C AR R IER • F EBR UAR Y 24, 2012, 11:30 AM

R IC H AR D C AR R IER • F EBR UAR Y 24, 2012, 9 :30 AM

ELLE • F EBR UAR Y 24, 2012, 12:39 P M

R IC H AR D C AR R IER • F EBR UAR Y 24, 2012, 12:53 P M

Elle: Speaking of Josephus, what about the Testimonium Flavianum?

R IC H AR D C AR R IER • F EBR UAR Y 24, 2012, 6 :25 P M

LAW OF P ER S P EC TIVE • S EP TEMBER 21 , 201 8,

argumentum ad verecundiam hmmm…given the prodigious intellect that

I am curious what he thinks of the Egyptologists’ dating of the Great

S EP TEMBER 24, 201 8, 6 :1 5 P M

So…no Egyptologist today agrees with your

WI LL • F EBR UAR Y 25, 2012, 2:52 AM

R IC H AR D C AR R IER • F EBR UAR Y 26 , 2012, 1:24 P M

R OBER TTULIP • MAR C H 2, 201 2, 3:57 P M

RICH ARD CARRIER • MARCH 5, 2012, 12:08 PM

roberttulip: Yet parallels such as Osiris=Lazarus, Isis=Mary, Horus=Jesus, Set=Satan

R OBER TTULIP • MAR C H 8, 201 2, 1 :42 AM

RICH ARD CARRIER • MARCH 8, 2012, 9 :47 AM