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Mythicists and 'Crucifixion'

In talking to mythicists in the FreeThought Nation forum, some of them argued that "crucifixion" can mean something more than affixing someone to a cross or tree and them dying on it, as happened to Jesus (and as I take it to mean in my Christ-myther Challenge).

The issue here is that this kind of thing clearly is what people think of when they hear the term "crucifixion.  So when someone argues that Horus was crucified, they're expecting their audience to believe that Horus was affixed to a cross or tree and died on it, as happened to Jesus.

One of them pointed out that, in Antiquities 5:3, the historian Josephus refers to the death of the Chief Baker in Genesis 40 as a "crucifixion", even though it was not a case of him being affixed to a cross or tree and dying on it.  The Chief Baker had offended the king, and as punishment for the offense, was beheaded and had his dead body impaled on a pole.  Josephus here was certainly expanding the definition beyond its usual usage, but is here talking about crucifixion as a punishment that involved being stuck on a wooden object.

Mythicists seem to take this expansion of the usage by Josephus as an excuse to expand it even further, even to things that don't involve punishment at all.  For example, there is a version of the Osiris story in which, after being killed by Seth, his dead body is put inside a wooden pillar.  Mythicists refer to this as a "crucifixion", when it clearly is not - in fact it's far closer to a modern burial, in which someone's body is enclosed in a wooden casket!

I even had one point on that, per the dictionary, a minor definition is to treat with gross injustice; persecute; torment; torture and thus arguing that "crucify" is something which has happened to millions, if not billions, of people throughout history, thus making the comparison meaningless.  They're basically casting the net so widely that it's bound to catch at least a few ancient deities.

I've also seen them claim (many times) that "crucify" involves simply stretching your arms out to your sides, thus any deity that has ever been portrayed with their arms outstretched has a sudden comparison to Jesus, even though it didn't involve death, crucifixes or trees, or even punishment.

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Phillip, there isn't a single university-level scholar who argues that Jesus never existed, and we have multiple historians from the first and second century who acknowledge Jesus' historical existence. The same can't be said for Little Red Riding Hood. As for the mythicist claims, they were clearly made without having a lick of supporting evidence for the vast majority of them, as shown by the fact that mythicists still can't find the evidence when asked for it.Posted by KingDavid8 on Sep 15, 2012

Really?

No we don't do that. That is done by Bibliolators who throw out Bible verses trying to use the Bible to prove itself.....Hey I prove Little Red Riding Hood existed! You want to see the book?Posted by Phillip on Aug 28, 2012

Good points, Albert. I definitely get the feeling that mythicists often come up with a claim, and then go searching afterwards for some way to justify the claim.Posted by KingDavid8 on May 20, 2012

crucifixion dodgeball

I have found the whole "redefinition" of crucfixion to a motif with arms extended to be little more than grasping at straws. Suppose "Zeitgeist" had claimed Jesus and Horus both were pictured with their arms extended. The reaction would have been, "OK, so what?" By such generalizations, one could claim Richard Nixon is a crucfied sun god with his political setbacks and comebacks his dyings and risings. It is a defintion that is completely trivial and fails to demonstrate a causal connection. The reason people paid attention to the film was precisely because they understood "crucifixion" to be hanging on something: a cross, a tree, or some other instrument of torture and death. There is also the point that the crucifixion is placed in a sequence that causes the death and sets the stage for the resurrection. Other poses of deities with arms extended (casting a spell, giving a blessing, doing a dance, flying in falcon shape through the sky, etc.) are not normally considered fatal. Finally, if you check sources like Acharya S, it is clear that in her early books (eg, Christ Conspiracy), she certainly believed Horus was crucified in something akin to the normal sense and had Horus crucified between two thieves and the cause of death and subsequent resurrection (see CC, p.115). It was only after Zeitgeist began being exposed as nonsense that she fell back to the alternate definition of "crucified." Of course, the whole point is that definition is not a significant parallel but an unrelated coincidence of iconography. In other words, it is meaningless and no one would care if it had been offered as the parallel in the first place. This was an obvious but desparate attempt to cover up a blatant error caused by following quacks like Kersey Graves, Gerald Massey, etc. Posted by Albert on Apr 13, 2012