David Barton on Jefferson too Full of Lies for Publisher

David Baron is a famous (infamous?) pseudo-historian, specializing in early American history. He is a favorite of the Religious Right because he tries to argue from the primary documents that the US was founded as a Christian nation, on Christian values, and not on Enlightenment values. And, heaven forbid, none of the Founding Fathers were deists; in his interpretation, they were nigh-on evangelical (not the denomination, but in the attitude of spreading the gospel).

He has written several books before, and they had be addressed by historians as full of mischaracterization and even fabrications. One of the best volume to read just for that is Chris Rodda's book Liars for Jesus (currently in its first volume). It is thorough, and you will learn some real American history while you're at it.

Nonetheless, Barton published a new book which pretty much repeated the same old, same old, in The Jefferson Lies. The 'lies' were supposed to be those things promulgated by liberal professors to disguise the real Thomas Jefferson. And wouldn't you know it, the book isn't better researched than before. NPR did a review of it, and the verdict is very bad.

How bad? As bad as the publisher pulling the book from shelves! The publisher, Thomas Nelson, received complaints from multiple sources, and then they pulled the book due to lack of confidence in its content.

This may not be the end of the book's life, however. Barton can go to another publisher (there are plenty of publishing houses that don't mind this sort of criticism and even thrive on it), and he could self-publish. Nonetheless, this is a significant and public blow to his credibility. Will it sting long?

You decide!

Hat tip to Hemant Mehta, thanking Greg for the links.

Big Shift for the Catholic Church

Just in the news is that the Pope says it is morally justified to use condoms. Now, it isn't for just anything, but only for stopping the spread of diseases like AIDS. This is remarkable since in the past the Catholic Church would not support condom use in sub-Saharan Africa which has been enveloped by HIV.

The example given by the Pope is a male prostitute trying to reduce the spread of infections, and this is something the vicar for Christ on Earth has said previously, so the shift isn't that radical. This means that the rash of American bishops that attacked the Obama Administration for making them have to provide birth control via insurance for non-Catholic employees are not out of line with Vatican policy. No excommunications are going to happen on that front any time soon.

Nonetheless, it may be a sign that the old institution will get on with the rest of the modern world and not have to have every act of sex have to produce at least one child. It also means that, hopefully, the Church won't keep saying that condoms make the AIDS epidemic worse.

The Star and Zeitgeist

While I have in prior writings and posts attacked naturalistic theories to explain the Star of Bethlehem as a historical, natural event, I also have encountered other approaches that have their own popularity. In a recent email, I was directed to the coverage of the Star in the Internet-distributed "documentary" Zeitgeist, which is filled with layers of conspiracy. The first third is an argument that Jesus didn't exist, and all of Christianity (and other religions?) is based on astrology or "astrotheology." This is largely the product of the self-published author D. M. Murdock, a.k.a. Acharya S.

What is the basic idea? At about the time of the winter solstice, the three stars of Orion's belt point at the rising sun, pointing through Sirius. This alignment takes place then at about Dec 25. There are also connections between Sirius' heliacal rising (first rising at sunrise in a year) and the summer solstice alleged  Moreover, this was supposed to be celebrated and connected in ancient Egypt, thus making the Christians copy-cats. Thus the Star is fiction and based on Egyptian mythology, itself based on astronomy. Those details are best laid out by Acharya here.

Now, I am not the first to look critically at her claims concerning the Nativity of Jesus, and one place to look at a good examination is done by Richard Carrier here (and update here). Not only are there significant factual errors and unjustified assumptions, but there are good, scholarly-defended results that indicate a lack of historicity for these things (which I hope to detail in my future book on the subject). In particular, the stories of Daniel help explain a lot of the details of Jesus' birth story in Matthew, along with the Moses typology.

However, I haven't found so much detailing the problems with the Star story from Zeitgeist (and if someone finds some links, please share), so I will repost the message I sent back to an inquisitor (name redacted and the email improved for grammar and spelling.)

Hello XXX, 

Thank you for the email and the links. I am familiar with the work of the author you have linked and her interpretation of the Star. However, I think you should be cautious in using her as an authority on this. 

Consider her use of sources. Most all her secondary scholarship is at least a century old, a time when quality was much lower in scholarship. It's also a problem because her central point about the stars of Orion's belt called the Three kings by Egyptians has no support in the primary literature--actual ancient texts. It's also beside the point because Christians didn't refer to the Magi as kings until much later; same with their number three. That means the original story had nothing to do with three kings, thus unrelated to an alleged Egyptian myth. 

There are other details that go against the story in Matthew. While the Magi follow the Star, the belt of Orion leads Sirius. And while Sirius is a star as was Matthew's Star, the Magi are not stars. Why these differences if the Christians were following Egyptian precedent? 

There are also issues with the astronomy. The heliacal rising of Sirius is nowhere near the summer solstice, and the Egyptians cared rather little about solstices. Their agriculture didn't depend on the sun's position as other cultures but on the seasonal flooding of the Nile. (For example, the Maya didn't have seasons so they don't align their calendar with leap years as we do.) The claim about where the stars of Orion and Sirius point on the winter solstice is wrong. The belt has set by sunrise, and it's even worse with precession. 

Lastly, the connection to December 25 is a false lead because, again, the Christians didn't think Jesus was born on that day until centuries later and usually figured different days; Clement of Alexandria gives several guesses, and none are in December, let alone the solstice.
Thus, all the historical and mythological connections are not valid, the astronomy is wrong, and the match between the alleged myth and the Gospel story is poor. That's a big overall negative assessment. 

The much more popular account given by biblical scholars is citing Jewish literature which definitely influenced early Christianity, namely the Star Prophecy of Numbers 24:17. It was used by numerous Jews, including Josephus, rabbis in the Talmud, and the Qumran sect. This is the starting point I have been using in my research about the story, and I suggest the same for you own investigations. On the Nativity stories, the best book is still Raymond Brown's "Birth of the Messiah". I hope to have a future book to supplement Brown's work, but his book is magisterial. 

I hope this helps you. In the mean time, I strongly recommend you be careful about your authorities. See what their sources are, if they cite primary literature rather than old, secondary literature, and if their work has had peer review. It's the only way to have some confidence in the facts presented; otherwise, your have to check everything yourself, thus making the book a pointless read since it didn't inform you but for your own research. Save yourself the time and headache. 

Thanks again for your interest.

In summary, the astronomy is wrong, the astrology is wrong, the fit to Matthew's account is weak, and there are much better explanations. Obviously we have enough reason to be skeptical of the Zeitgeist version of the Star of Bethlehem, and it gives us reason to be skeptical of a lot more as well.

But does Numbers 24:17 explain the Star completely? I will have to say more on that later.

Edit: Apparently Acharya's first name is not "Dorothy", so I have adjusted the text above to reflect this.

Best (Fake) Early Curiosity Photos

Previously I showed the first thumbnail pictures the Mars rover Curiosity sent down. Here is something a bit more enhanced: 

And one of the Mars orbiters was able to photograph the decent of the rover, at least the parachute stage:

But thanks to the Internet, there are already some clever, tongue-in-cheek hoaxes.

Lesson of the day: I need to learn photoshop since these were up on the 'net within an hour of landing. Then again...

Curiosity is on Mars!

The Curiosity rover successfully landed on Mars not long ago, and it is already sending images. Here is what the first thumbnail looks like.

It shows the ground, the horizon, and the right wheel. Not large, just 64x64 pixels. But an amazing start.

Astrology: The Stars say NO

Recently I have tried to do some videos for YouTube, and video editing is hardly my forte. Nonetheless, I wanted to see if it was possible to use the medium to talk about things of interest to me. As a first experiment, I have posted this video about astrology:



Depending on traffic, I may expect to see a lot of interesting responses defending the divination process. This may lead to future video responses on my part. Even so, at least I picked an easy target for criticism that doesn't have the number of loyal followers as, say, creationists.

  

Looking forward to the fun!

Posting at Debunking Christianity

Recently I have been in contact with one of the contributors at the blog Debunking Christianity run by former evangelical, William Lane Craig-trained John Loftus (which I guess makes him the Batman of atheism), and it looks like I will have the opportunity to do a bit of a guest post concerning the Star of Bethlehem. It's good to know people in cyber-places. Check out there in the next couple of days; this post will be updated with a link when it is up.

Update: the post is up now.

Update 2: My post has been located at the new Skeptics Blog site.