Zeitgeist the Movie

   Peter Joseph, producer of the documentary Zeitgeist, was quoted as saying:

"The idea that the film is against any group is a fallacy. The only thing the film addresses is ideology and beliefs. Sadly, many don't realize that one's ideology is not them. We are emergent beings and everything we believe is taught to us one way or another. Therefore to say the film is attacking "Christians" is about as absurd as saying the film attacks people with baseball caps. This is a serious problem in our society, for identity is erroneously associated with belief. Once again, propagandists against the project use this idea that the film "attacks" a group in order to try and manipulate their surroundings into not thinking critically about the information. The same kind of propaganda has materialized where the project has been called "new world order", "satanic" "marxist" and other irrational, thoughtless distinctions not worth bringing up.
The Zeitgeist Movement

   It should be apparent to Peter Joseph why Christians see the movie as an attack on Christianity. It is not simply because of the movie, but because of the skeptics and critics of the Bible who did not heed the words of warning and took the movie serious enough to claim it proves that Jesus stole Christianity from the Egyptians. The movie relied heavily on books written with no other motive than to prove the founders of Christianity relied on paganism. One of the major contributors was the books "The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold," and "Christ In Egypt,The Horus-Jesus Connection" written by D. M. Murdock, better known as Acharya S. Although She is a mythologist by profession, Her books as well as Her site are aimed primarily at proving a Christian conspiracy. The theme is always the same, that either Jesus or the Gospel writers stole Christianity from Egyptian religious customs.

   Acharya relied heavily on the ramblings of Gerald Massey, author of "The Historical Jesus an Mythical Christ",written over a hundred years ago. While I do not question the expertise of Acharya as a qualified writer and mythologist, I do question the accuracy of the historical content of Her sources.Gerald Massey admitted that much of His information came from oral tradition with some of it taken from Greek historians. The majority of His history has since been proven false and the majority of Egyptologists do not agree with the misinterpretations of Massey's Egyptian gods. His "ancient: Egyptian history came from Gnostic and Coptic writings. Although it is believed by some that the Gnostics were around prior to the Christian era, the majority of scholars believe it was the first century ce. There is little doubt that they incorporated Christianity into paganism. Their practice of paganism included Greek, Roman, Persian and Egyptian gods. Near the second century ce, they began to add Christian beliefs to their paganism. The Egyptian inscriptions that were referenced do exist, but they do not say what has been misinterpreted as Egyptian gods that appear in the Christian Gospels. Even Massey claimed in more than one paragraph that the Egyptians that embraced Christianity, refused to do away with their pagan gods and incorporated them into Christianity. The Egyptians had been doing that since since their history was first written down. They saw nothing wrong with borrowing gods from Canaan, Syria, Ethiopia or Arabia.The problem arises when Christian era texts are passed off as more ancient writings.

   Most of the sources for the movie, and the book as well, were taken from books on the subject, which were personal opinions. They had little to do with actual history. The Majority were written in the 18th century, and do not reflect the opinions of scholars today. That is possibly the reason for depending on books written at a time when superstition over ruled common sense. There are not very many people still around that believe that Jews have horns. Books from a century ago will lead one to believe that is true, if we place any faith in them. Like the Horus/ Jesus connection, the idea came from unreliable sources looking for something to justify their own beliefs. Like the Horus/Jesus connection it originated from a mistranslation and persisted for centuries. It originated in the 16th century when Michelangelo's statue of Moses showed Him with horns. That came from the Hebrew word "qaran," which meant both shine and horn. It is a good example of not paying attention to reality or not bothering to check sources for honesty and accuracy.


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