Discover more in these hand-picked books What you think; what others say.
Stuff you need to know before the POCM makes sense. Ideas, rituals and myths Christianity boosted from the Pagans. Some of the Pagan's dying-resurrected godmen The Triumph of Christianity You are here. What did the Christians borrow? So what?
getting started | Yes! | believers' arguments | believers' independently | dying and rising gods | sourcebooks
Home > scholarship > getting started .
There is serious scholarship about this stuff -- all above Pikachu's head

Not all scholarship is serious scholarship


It is agreed that the statement 'x resembles y' is logically incomplete, for what is being asserted is not a question of the classification of species x and y as instances of a common genus, but a rather a suppressed multi-term statement of analogy and difference capable of being properly expressed in formulations such as:' x resembles y more than z with respect to…;'
[Professor Jonathan Smith, Drudgery Divine, pg. 51]


"the world is otherwise intelligible than to associate professors"
William F. Buckley, Jr.

Yeah. It's no wonder Pikachu just threw up his hands and sound-bited with Buckley; this stuff is so far above his head, "duh" would be his most reasonable response.

We'll skip that part about Catholics being dragged into this mess. It's irrelevant to the first century.

Is there a scholarly consensus about the Pagan origins? Yes, as a matter of fact, there is. Scholars have now overwhelmingly decided that, for example, if anything at all is "borrowed" it is core concepts that everyone borrowed -- for example, rather than say the baptism of X was borrowed from the baptism of Y, both X and Y actually "borrowed" from a far more universal perception that water was a good metaphor for cleansing. I say "for example" -- there is no hard and fast, "applies to all cases" rule; obviously with each religious setting there may be a different answer. No answer in a can -- sorry, Pikachu. What's we'll see here is how Pikachu deals with this scholarship -- which is overwhelmingly contrary to what he wants to prove. Too bad.

Buy into the sucker punch

Pikachu says that people who promote the Pagan origins of Christianity are not wacky bug- eyed- aliens- at- the- Trilateral- Commission- are- reading- our- mail stuff. They are, he says, mainstream academic scholarship. Like heck they are. The vast majority of pagan copycat theorists are from the 19th century; fabricators like Kersey Graves, who just made up stuff and/or had no business getting into this. Today we have the likes of Acharya S, whose books have ads in the back for other books on Atlantis; Freke and Gandy, who haven't got a peer-reviewed article between them and publish with a "wah wah" press; and at best -- Robert Price. Yuk.

More inside.