Posted by:
RPackham
(
)
Date: November 25, 2014 11:30AM
I don't know anything about the background of either Freke or Gandy. I was impressed by their book. To accept or reject a book based solely on the author's academic credentials strikes me as being either the "ad hominem" fallacy or the "appeal to authority" fallacy.
That Archarya S lied about her alma mater is 100% irrelevant.
I did some checking on the Orpheus medallion that appears to be fake. I also found Freke's response, in which he points out that the use of the medallion on the cover was a kind of afterthought, and played no significant role in their arguments. I found the lengthy criticism pointing out that medieval depictions of Jesus' crucifixion did not have bent arms and legs. That seems to be beside the point, since the medallion was not a depiction of Jesus' crucifixion, but rather Orpheus'.
It does appear that F & G erred in not being more careful about the Orpheus medallion. That seems to me no reason to reject the entire book. Remember that Michael Quinn's book on "Early Mormonism" included a Hofmann forgery, but we benefit from the rest of the book. Same with the Tanners' "Changing World," also including a Hofmann forgery.
I have found quite a few critiques of their book. Those critiques are mostly characterized by facile dismissals ("an old idea that has long ago been discredited"), pro-biblical bias ("It's not biblical!" said one), ad hominem ("F & G are 'popularizers'").
I'm not sure that they convinced me that Gnostic Christianity was the original version of Christianity, but their comparison of the Gnostics and the oriental mystery religions was extensive and well documented. (One critic said we don't know much about the mystery religions because they were secret. But we DO know a lot, because of their Christian critics who described them.) Their summary of the lack of evidence for Jesus' existence is not really new, but is an excellent overview. (Personally, I don't care whether he existed or not: see my article "What About Jesus?" at
http://packham.n4m.org/jesus.htm ).
The endnotes are 60 pages of fine print. Hardly an asset for a "popularizing" book.
As to "conspiracy theories," I tend not to be a believer in conspiracies. But there are conspiracies. Joseph Smith and his family are an example.
Another benefit I got from their book and the descriptions of the Gnostics and the mystery cults was how similar they were to the Mormon temple cult. I found that ironic, since James E. Talmage in his book "The Great Apostasy" excoriates the Gnostics as heretics. Modern Mormon apologists, however, are beginning to point to those very features as evidence that Mormonism is indeed a restoration of early Christianity.