Name Acharya S | Role Author | |
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Was there a historical jesus with acharya s aeon byte gnostic radio
Dorothy Milne Murdock (1961 – December 25, 2015), better known by her pen names Acharya S and D. M. Murdock, was an American internet personality and a proponent of the Christ myth theory. She wrote and operated a website focused on history, religion and spirituality, and astro-theology. She argued that the Christian canon, as well as its important figures, were based on Roman, Greek, Egyptian, and other myths. Her theories have been poorly received by mainstream scholars.
Contents
- Was there a historical jesus with acharya s aeon byte gnostic radio
- Acharya s interview by alex tsakiris on skeptiko 226
- Life
- Writing career
- Reception
- Publications
- References
Acharya s interview by alex tsakiris on skeptiko 226
Life
Murdock was born to James Milne Murdock and Beatrice Murdock in Massachusetts and grew up in Avon, Connecticut. She received a Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree in Classics, Greek Civilization, from Franklin and Marshall College, after which she spent a year at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Greece.
She died of breast cancer that spread into her immune system and liver on December 25, 2015. Murdock had one son, Jason, and she was known as "Dori" to loved ones.
Writing career
Murdock began her website, Truth Be Known, in 1995.
In 1999, as Acharya S, she published her first book, The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold, arguing the concept of Jesus Christ and his story is a fabrication.
Her 2007 book, Who Was Jesus? Fingerprints of The Christ continues the theme of The Christ Conspiracy by expanding her theory questioning the historicity of Jesus, alleging "early Christian history to be largely mythical, by sorting through available historical and archaeological data."
In 2009 she released Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection and The Gospel According to Acharya S.
Reception
Acharya's work has been well received by Jesus mythicists, but mostly ignored or castigated by biblical scholarship.
Writer Russ Kick, in his book You Are Being Lied To, describes The Christ Conspiracy as "an essential book for anyone who wants to know the reality behind the world's dominant religion." Conspiracy theorist and publisher Kenn Thomas calls her a "great chronicler of the conspiracy known as Christianity".
Meanwhile, Baptist comparative religion scholar Clinton Bennett compares her views to those of radical freethinker Robert Taylor (nicknamed "the Devil's chaplain"), secularist MP and Christ-mythicist John M. Robertson, and American mythographer Joseph Campbell. Butler University religion professor James F. McGrath describes her viewpoint as one that "once had some currency among scholars" in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but was subsequently abandoned.
Atheist activist and Christ mythicist Richard Carrier criticized her use of the inscriptions at Luxor to make the claim that the story of Jesus' birth was inspired by the Luxor story of the birth of Horus. Theologian and Christ-mythicist Robert M. Price also criticized Murdock's first book, while promoting her Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled, and writing the foreword to her Who Was Jesus?: Fingerprints of the Christ.
Her work has also been criticized by New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman, who, in his Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth calls Murdock's The Christ Conspiracy "the breathless conspirator's dream". He says "all of Acharya's major points are in fact wrong" and her book "is filled with so many factual errors and outlandish assertions that it is hard to believe the author is serious." Taking her as representative of some other writers about the Christ myth theory, he continues "Mythicists of this ilk should not be surprised that their views are not taken seriously by real scholars, mentioned by experts in the field, or even read by them."