Image courtesy of Wikipedia
The next time you’re traveling in Rome, take this little tidbit with you: an interesting article on the Sistene Chapel. Taken from the Aish HaTorah web site here. The author is Rabbi Benjamin Blech.
In the heart of the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel is the site of the conclave where every new pope is elected. It is without doubt the holiest chapel in the Christian world, and draws more than 4 million visitors per year. Most of the world knows it best for its magnificent frescoes painted by the great Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarroti. What has remained a little-known secret, however, is that within this citadel of Christianity lies perhaps the greatest subversive act in the history of art.
Almost none of the visitors who enter the Sistine realize that they are gazing upon secret messages embedded by Michelangelo in his artistic masterpiece. They would certainly be surprised to learn that, in the pope’s own chapel, Michelangelo employed these secret messages to advocate for a revolutionary change in Christianity’s relationship to Judaism, and that the code itself was rooted in the Jewish tradition. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m in the course of reading the book “The Christ Conspiracy” by Acharya S (a mystical designation for the person named D.M. Murdock – ‘acharya’ is defined as ‘divine personality’ in Hindu, ‘monk’ in Jainism and ‘teacher’ in Buddhism). I was originally made aware of her work during my research of the internet movie “Zeitgeist” and found that her work was cited for many of the claims that I debunked on my page concerning Zeitgeist Astronomy.
On the rear of this book, the author is called “archaeologist, historian, mythologist and linguist”. Her book however better reflects her as a librarian or researcher, as ponderous amount of the text consists of citations of other authors’ works. It is not with these cited authors that I can take issue, as I currently have no access to the original texts.
What I’ve noticed however is that in the passages where she “goes it on her own”, the inaccuracies fly from the page. I’ve come across many of these so far in my reading, having reached page 246 of this 400+ page book.
Last night I read page 238 of the book, where our author is trying to propose that the names of so-called “patriarchs” of the Hebrew Bible are merely borrowed from gods of the people with whom the ancient Hebrews had some association. The portion related to Noach and the Ark was being discussed by our author in relation to ancient Egypt. The passage that particularly resulted in this post was as follows (page 238 of “The Christ Conspiracy” by Acharya S):
“In Hebrew, the word for ‘ark’ is THB, as in Thebes, such that the Ark of Noah is equivalent to the Thebes of Menes, the legendary first king of the Egyptians, from whose ‘history’ the biblical account also borrowed.”
There are two problems here with Acharya S’s reasoning which go to the heart of my questioning her true credentials and motives:
Read the rest of this entry »
Originally aired in the United Kingdom on BBC 4. The narrator is theologian Dr. Robert Beckford. Waiving further comment, I’ll let the video speak for itself.
Quite some time ago I created a page entitled “Zeitgeist Astronomy – What Planet Are You From?“. The purpose behind this page was to debunk many of the astrotheological claims made by the internet movie Zeitgeist. Much of the astronomy and astrology used in part one of this movie is simply incorrect and has drawn from numerous authors who propound the astrotheology concept as the basis for the Christian religion. A cursory look at celestial mechanics shows that these authors are either ignorant or wilfully deceptive.
In honor of the upcoming release of the sequel to this film, I’ve linked my original page here. Please note that the page only concerns part one of the Zeitgeist movie. I’ll leave parts two and three to those who are more versed in these issues.
