The Messiah Matrix: A Conversation

Freethought Nation

presented by Acharya S and TruthBeKnown.com, online since 1995

Here's an interesting document sent to me by the author, Dr. Kenneth Atchity, who is a former professor and current TV/film producer. He emailed me with the doc, asking me to post it on my website, so here it is. We had no previous communication, so whatever he's done here is entirely his own creation. The document gives the impression that I'm writing a book called Mythicism - a great idea that FTL and I have discussed but that is not in the works.

Atchity is promoting his own fiction book on the subject, The Messiah Matrix, and it sounds like he's got a good grasp of the subject matter, although I have not investigated the argument that Caesar Augustus was "largely responsible" for creating Christianity. Certainly, some of what was said about Augustus was used in the creation of the Christ character, but the Roman emperor (63 BCE-14 AD/CE) is obviously too early to have any other role in Christianity's creation than, perhaps, pushing for a religion that would unify the faiths of the Roman Empire, including merging Judaism with all the Pagan religions and mythologies.

Here is what the email I received says about the Augustus issue - the book that inspired this theme sounds interesting:

Quote:

Dr. Atchity was largely inspired by a book first published in 1899 titled The Worship of Augustus Caesar by Alexander Del Mar (1836–1926), a rigorous historian, an American political economist, a numismatist, an author, as well as the first director of the Bureau of Statistics at the U.S. Treasury Department from 1866–69. His non-fiction work contains a rich history of mythological gods and points a blatant finger at Augustus Caesar as being the preeminent 'Christian savior.' One particular aspect that Dr. Atchity found fascinating concerns the Pontifical College and their tampering with the calendar in the Middle Ages to artificially push back the date of Augustus’ apotheosis by 15 years. In other words, if this calendar change had not been instituted the date for Augustus’ apotheosis would have been 1 A.D.--the most widely accepted date of Jesus' birth. Today, the ‘accepted’ date of Augustus' apotheosis is 15 B.C.E. This is one of many historical elements that Del Mar presents that are imbedded in The Messiah Matrix.

Note that the bulk of the attributes in the lists from my book that Atchity includes here can be verified through ancient texts and artifacts - something I've been doing on this forum and in my blogs, articles and books since Christ Con was first published in 1999 (and before). I will be providing the documentation in depth in my revision of Christ Con, which hopefully will be out in 2013. Some of these attributes need to be tweaked for accuracy, such as: "His disciples purportedly bestowed upon him the title 'Jezeus,' or 'Jeseus,' meaning 'pure essence.'" In my revision, I have changed this saying to "Jai Shri Krishna," which is the closest I could find to a shout that resembles "Jesus Christ," discussing the subject in a footnote. A few other attributes may need to be removed altogether. Suffice it to say that the lists are accurate enough to make the point.

Also, the notes in brackets in the quoted text below are Atchity's. I don't subscribe to such dates for Zoroaster as 6000 BCE, for example. The ideas circulating in the name of this mythical Persian composite may have been in existence that far back, but the Persian language itself did not exist at that time, so there was no "historical" personage by that name at that time. Again, the rest of the dates are likewise not mine, and I don't concur with the bulk of them. Horus/Osiris seems about right, but Krishna and Buddha are too early, and Mithra is too late, and so on. And, again, these are not real people so these dates would not constitute their "birthdays" or any other such milestone. Putting these dates aside, it is sufficient to assert that these ideas are pre-Christian.

Having said all that, I certainly appreciate Dr. Atchity's effort and his close attention to my work.

For the record because some people continue to approach me as if it is a novel idea, I've been wanting to make a "Christ Conspiracy" film since I began doing this work in the early 1990s, long before my CC book was actually written and so called.