Acharya S

D. M. Murdock,^[1][2] also known by her pen name Acharya S,^[3][4] is an American author and proponent of the Christ myth theory.^[5] She writes books, and operates a website named Truth be Known. She argues that Christianity is founded on earlier myths and the characters depicted in Christianity are based upon Roman, Greek, Egyptian, and other myths.^[6] Her theories have received negative commentaries from academic scholars.^[7][8][9]

In her various books, she describes the New Testament as a work of mythic fiction within a historical setting. She claims that the story of Jesus Christ is a retelling of various pagan myths, representing "astrotheology", or the story of the Sun, and also incorporates the science of archaeoastronomy. She asserts the pagans understood the stories to be myths, but Christians obliterated evidence to the contrary by destroying and controlling literature when they attained control of the Roman Empire, which led to widespread illiteracy in the ancient world, ensuring the mythical nature of Christ's story was hidden.^[10]

Murdock compares Jesus' history to other "savior-gods" such as Mithra, Horus, Adonis, Krishna, Quetzalcoatl, and Odin, claiming the similarities result from a common source: the myth of the sun-god or solar deity.^[11]

Life

According to her website, Murdock 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.^[12]

Writing career

As a writer she publishes under the title of acharya, a term from Hinduism for the teacher or leader of a religious group.^[13]

In 1999, as Acharya S, she published her first book, The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold, arguing the concept of Jesus Christ as myth. She states the Christ story is a fabrication.^[14] In 2001, she wrote the foreword to a new edition of The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors: Christianity Before Christ, a book by 19th-century skeptic Kersey Graves.

A follow-up book, Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled, was published in 2004. In it she comments on the Hindu story of the life of Krishna, as well as the life of Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama). She claims parallels to the Christian stories of the life of Jesus as evidence that the story of Jesus was written based on existing stories, and not the life of a real man. Suns of God also seeks to address some of the criticisms leveled at Christ Conspiracy.^[15]

She founded Seattle based Stellar House Publishing in 2005, through which she self-publishes a number of her books. According to the website, they claim to specialize in "Archaeology, History, Astrotheology, Mythology and Religion".^[16]

In 2005–06 she was one of fifty Fellows of The Council for Secular Humanism's Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER).^[17]

Her 2007 book, Who Was Jesus? Fingerprints of The Christ continues the theme of The Christ Conspiracy by expanding her theory questioning the historical validity of Jesus Christ alleging "early Christian history to be largely mythical, by sorting through available historical and archaeological data."^[18]

In 2009 she released Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection and The Gospel According to Acharya S.^[19] Her work was used in part 1 of Zeitgeist: The Movie, for which she acted as consultant.^[20]

She has been interviewed on a variety of radio stations,^[21] including the Alan Colmes Show. She also appears on podcasts such as Black Op Radio,^[22] and Coffee, Cigarettes and Gnosis.^[23] She has been interviewed in Paranoia magazine^[11] and by The Progressive Observer.^[24]

Reception

In his book You Are Being Lied To, Russ Kick describes The Christ Conspiracy as "an essential book for anyone who wants to know the reality behind the world's dominant religion."^[25] In a book on American conspiracy theorists, Kenn Thomas calls her a "great chronicler of the conspiracy known as Christianity".^[26]

In his book In Search of Jesus, Baptist comparative religion scholar Clinton Bennett describes her views as being similar to those of radical freethinker Robert Taylor (nicknamed "the Devil's chaplain"), secularist MP and fellow Christ mythicist John M. Robertson, and American mythographer Joseph Campbell.^[27] In an article for The Christian Century, 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.^[28]

Acharya S was criticized by Joel McDurmon, in part for the premise that Jesus was based on ancient sun gods because of the modern English homophones son and sun.^[29] Atheist activist and fellow 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.^[30] Acharya S produced a rejoinder to Carrier's critique in which she describes the importance of the ancient Egyptian narratives of the birth of gods such as the one described at Luxor, the connections that existed between Egypt and the ancient Hebrew people and asks "[C]ould the creators of Christianity really have been oblivious to them?"^[31] Theologian Robert M. Price, who is sympathetic to the Christ myth hypothesis, wrote a critical review of Murdock's first book.^[9] However, he subsequently promoted her book Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled in The Pre-Nicene New Testament: Fifty-Four Formative Texts,^[32] and wrote the foreword to Who Was Jesus?: Fingerprints of the Christ.^[4]

In his book Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman discusses The Christ Conspiracy which he calls "the breathless conspirator's dream". Ehrman 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 generalizes that "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."^[33] As a rebuttal of Ehrman's critiques, Robert M. Price, Richard Carrier, D.M. Murdock, and others, published the book Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth in 2013.^[34]

Publications

• Murdock, D.M. (as Acharya S) (1999). The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold. Kempton, Illinois: Adventures Unlimited Press. ISBN 0-932813-74-7. 
• Murdock, D.M. (as Acharya S) (2004). Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled. Kempton, Illinois: Adventures Unlimited Press. ISBN 1-931882-31-2. 
• Murdock, D.M. (2007). Who Was Jesus? Fingerprints of The Christ. Stellar House Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9799631-0-0. 
• Murdock, D.M. (2009). Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection. Stellar House Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9799631-1-7. 
• Murdock, D.M. (2009). The Gospel According to Acharya S. Stellar House Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9799631-2-4. 
• Murdock, D.M. (2014). Did Moses Exist? The Myth of the Israelite Lawgiver. Stellar House Publishing. ISBN 0-9799631-8-4. 

See also

• Historicity of Jesus
• Christ myth theory

References

External links

• Truth be Known - Acharya S' web site
• Stellar House Publishing - publishing house she founded