The American Revolution and the Debate Over Gun Control

While doing research for a side project in which I have a great interest (American History), some general myths have been debunked (for me, at least) in the process.  One such myth is the notion of gun access and the American Revolution.  There is this (somewhat fictive) notion in some parts of the country, by certain individuals, that citizen soldiers–every one of them armed with his own gun–turned aside the British occupation and invasion of the colonies.  Some (like David Kopel) have argued that the British attempted to confiscate and limit gun access to the general public and this, somehow, facilitated the start of the American revolution.

The classic (that is to say, the modern, media-driven) impression of the militiaman is that of Mel Gibson, running out of his burning home carrying an assortment of six or more muskets and rifles.  But how accurate is this pro-gun argument?  What does history tell us?

There is no way that the NRA leadership did not squee during this scene.

The notion that an armed populace rising up against the British, angry at the seizure of weapons in Boston, is a simplistic one that does not take into account the variety of other factors leading up to the war.   Interestingly, those American militiamen and minutemen who fought at the first battles of the war–Lexington and Concord–seem to have been armed by the community (generally there were magazine stores, buildings filled with barrels of gun powder, and weapons stores where muskets would be kept somewhere in outlying areas) and also, in some ways, by the British themselves.  As colonies of British empire, communities in the New World were required to keep up an active duty militia of armed men and artillerists with working cannon.  While the wars in Europe spread to the Americas, the French and their Native American allies were a constant threat to the frontier regions of many Northern colonies (all of New England, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, though also Maryland and Virginia).  During the 1760′s, the rise in bloody raids by French and Native forces, along with the burning of crops and farms (and amounting to the deaths of over 200 Pennsylvanians), the edict of arming the general populace and maintaining military associations seemed only reasonable and expected.

It should be noted strongly that certain factors, socially and regionally, led to the consequence of a some-what armed populace–mainly required military enrollment.  However that isn’t to say that everyone was armed; this myth needs to be dispelled.  The notion that every farmer had a rifle is one that is often played upon by politicians and activists without knowing the facts.  For a large part of the war, a good portion of the Continental Army just wasn’t armed (either because munitions were left behind in a struggle or because new munitions had not yet arrived from Europe).

David Kopel writes, “The Patriots of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, resolved: “That in the event of Great Britain attempting to force unjust laws upon us by the strength of arms, our cause we leave to heaven and our rifles.””  But even if this had been stated, an attempt to suggest that this had started the war is nothing more than a fantasy.  In Pennsylvania, when the Militia Act went into effect in March of 1777, and classes of men were called up to serve (essentially drafted) and sent to the lower PA counties to participate in the Philadelphia Campaign under General Washington.  It was the job of the local governments to arm and supply provisions for these men, though if men had arms, they were requested to show up with them.

Why is this important? On October 3, 1781, the state of the Lancaster militia, residents of Lancaster who were called up to arms (the men who so gallantly charged the claim that they would raise their illegal arms to fight the British–in Kopel’s fantasy world, that is), had been so depressing that Governor Reed wrote to General Lacey that he had “no arms here, Mr. Moore having last week delivered all in the store to our militia of the town, and after this, you know, there is no recovering them” (which, by the way, supports the contention that these were not arms belonging to individual gun owners, but to a community magazine and storage area).  After which, Reed wrote that, “Colonel Ross called yesterday to inform me that he had a battalion of 690 in the same naked condition.”  The disposition of these troops was such that, without arms, they were useless and so Reed had to actually call them back home (though they were not discharged).  During the Battles of Germantown and Brandywine, hundreds of Pennsylvanians sat around camp in the regions of Chester and Trappe waiting for muskets instead of joining the fight.

These kids are better armed than many of the militia companies during the Revolutionary War.

When the British marched on Lexington and Concord, they did so not to harm any of the people, but to destroy the weapon stores and magazines in those areas to prevent rebellion (though they had already invaded at this point and had established a foothold in Boston–the war had already begun).  In other words, they did not go house to house and remove weapons from individuals (this is a mythic construct), but were headed to a community building where these arms were located to destroy them.  Through good intelligence, colonial militiamen and minutemen had already emptied the magazines and store houses and had armed themselves, some with those very armaments, and prepared for a fight.  Such is confirmed in eyewitness testimony of one Sylvanus Wood, a man who joined with other militia on the green at Lexington.  In 1858 his account was published, wherein he writes that the Captain of the militia at Lexington yelled:

“Every man of you, who is equipped, follow me; and those of you who are not equipped, go into the meeting-house and furnish yourselves from the magazine, and immediately join the company.’

Further supporting my position here is the fact that none of these men were solid shots.  While they may have drilled with weapons on occasion, they were not accustomed to firing a weapon often, as many citizen soldiers weren’t skilled at shooting as the math proves (don’t let your eyes gloss over, keep with me here–it pays off).

Assuming that every casualty inflicted during the battles at Lexington and Concord were the results of musket and rifle fire (they weren’t, some were caused by bayonets and bladed weapons–but for the sake of argument), just 15 out of every 100 rounds fired from the colonial militia (numbers unknown, but said to be around 70 at Lexington and around 1000 by the end of the engagement at Concord)  found their target (inflicting about 15% casualties on the British; about 270).  Of the British forces (numbering about 1800 regulars), they did slightly worse; less than 1 out of every 10 shots fired struck a colonial militiaman, which amounted to about 90 casualties.

While the number of British wounded and dead seems high, at the onset of the Battle of Lexington, the British (numerically superior, about 250 to 70-ish American militiamen) inflicted 19 casualties while receiving none.  So while potentially hundreds of rounds were exchanged in the beginning of the fight, by the British, loosely speaking only 8% hit someone.  Marksmanship just wasn’t important; the value of a musket was not in its accuracy but in the amount of them you could bring to the battlefield.  Most muskets were not rifled, so when a volley is fired by a company of men with muskets, within 50-75 yards, it acts like a shotgun.  Sometimes you hit and most times you didn’t.  But the real value to muskets was their fast-loading time and ability to keep up a continuous and steady fire upon the opposing forces.

“It’s a good thing we don’t have to fire at will, I can’t see a damn thing with all this smoke flying about.”

As well, during the Siege of Boston in 1775-6, the militia participating in the siege had been given spears to use in case of an enemy assault, partly because ammunition stores were low and some men just didn’t have weapons to fire.  Later in the war, the situation had not much changed.  While many Pennsylvania riflemen were expert marksmen, the accuracy rate was abysmal amongst them.  We’d like to think that the hardened frontier made these men crack shots, but even in the thick of combat, as skilled as some of these veteran soldiers were in 1778-9 (like during the Sullivan campaign), hundreds of rounds were expended with few finding their mark.  As has been noted elsewhere, at the skirmish of Wetzell’s Mill, at least two dozen veteran riflemen fired at Lt. Col. Webster as he rode, on his horse, right towards them at close range; somehow, every round expended missed him and his horse.

The implications here are obvious; while some men on the frontier made it their livelihood to hunt for food and defend against attacks from local tribes, a good portion of the population did not bother with them.  Worse yet for Kopel’s position, even those who did own and use guns (which were expensive) did not seem to use them regularly to be efficient with them.

The fact is that the 2nd Amendment has never been about owning a gun.  Such language is not present there at all:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

The context–given that it was written during the Revolution–is quite clear, that this is related to the function of an well regulated militia which, by the way, is run by the state government (and which played a key role in the American revolution); today we call them the National Guard.

Not the definition of a ‘well regulated militia’.

The notion of owning a firearm was not unheard of during the period of the Revolution, but it was more common that weapons were kept in community areas specifically for use by the militia who would need them in times of crisis.  In other words, the American colonials had already established a form of gun control, wherein private ownership–even on the frontier (of which most of Pennsylvania was included)–was rare enough that people simply could not arm themselves to fight in the Revolution.  The random speeches and poetic tracts of leaders, notwithstanding as anything more than propaganda, does not prove otherwise.  Attempts to saddle the issue of pro-gun ownership on the founding of this country, when the facts are on the table, are doomed to failure.

Recognizing Fiction in History: “Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death!”

As I delve further into the background narrative of the Revolutionary War in America, I’m learning a great deal more about the power of rhetoric and fiction in the development of this nation.  The most powerful part about this research are the similarities I have had in my own work on the ancient past.

For example, the famous Patrick Henry speech containing the words ‘Give me liberty, or give me death!’ may have not been Patrick Henry’s at all.  Much like the figure of Jesus, it seems, the next generation of followers (or believers, or patriots in this instance) may have fabricated most–if not all–of Henry’s rousing words.  Certainly, we know he said something, but what that ‘something’ is seems to have been completely forgotten by those individuals who were eyewitnesses.  Jefferson remarked in one instance that he had been persuaded by Henry’s words but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember what he had said–not even following the speech!

The words we now know seem to have come from a nineteenth century retelling of the events a few years following Henry’s death (1817).  The author of this retelling (or should we say, reworking) of the speech is one William Wirt (who would have been about 3 years old when Henry delivered his speech).  With eyewitnesses in short supply, and with not many capable of remembering what was said, Wirt seems to have taken liberties with the reconstruction–likely he kept the tone correct, but the words?  Is it possible that ‘Give me liberty, or give me death’ had been Wirt’s and not Henry’s?

Why would someone wholly or even partially invent a speech?  This is not a new phenomena.  The very first ‘historian’ Thucydides invented speeches for his own agendas–idolizing Pericles and portraying him as the ultimate pro-democracy, Athenian statesman in his funeral oration.  Many after Thucydides, including Cicero, accepted his portrayal of the speeches as historically valid, whether they were or not (even though Dionysius of Halicarnassus didn’t much care for it, he stilled suggested it be emulated).

Thucydides wasn’t necessarily being dishonest; he believes he is doing something valuable for humanity.  In fact he appears to have had the same problem faced by Wirt; those who were there just couldn’t get the story straight in their recounting of the events (assuming here that he is telling the truth and not just using this as a rhetorical means to gain forgiveness from his reader for fabricating the speech in the first place).

What I find perhaps most interesting is that no one challenged his portrayal.  No one wrote accounts that his fabrication was a fabrication; no direct attestation from someone who had been there exists, to my knowledge, stating that Wirt’s presentation of Henry is inaccurate.  That, to me, is very telling of the state of usefulness of fabrications; that is to say, they are just as useful as the real thing.

During the time Wirt was writing, his generation started to realize that the veterans of the first war of American Independence had started to die off.  There was a rush, especially before and directly after the Civil War, to create biographies, histories, and lineage notes about various communities, families, and individuals of the Revolution.   Wirt undoubtedly was a part of that national push, especially by elites of society, to develop a cultural history of the time before all the veterans were gone.  In this way, we cannot necessarily fault Wirt for his portrayal of Henry and this famous quote, but we must still–as much as we don’t like it–be suspicious of it.

Your Guide to Crazy Claims

You might have noticed a new page on this site.  If not, well, here is your friendly nudge to go check it out.

Guide to Pseudo-Scholarship

This new page presents the most crazy, unfounded, and bizarre claims I’ve come across over the years and includes a multitude of useful links to blog posts and papers which debunk them.   Check them out, enjoy them, use them, and share the page with all your friends.

Book Review: Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth

I received this book in the mail a few days ago courtesy of Frank Zindler:

Yeah…

Frank Zindler even signed it:

As much as I appreciate the gracious sentiment from Frank, I am not sure I deserve such an accolade.  He may feel differently after he reads this review.

Let me say that Frank and Bob Price did a decent job as editors.  The book, published through the American Atheist Press (2013) is, at 567 pages, a collection of 21 essays compiled into four sections and  a concluding chapter. The 21 essays are divided, rather unevenly, between seven contributors: Frank Zindler, Bob Price, Richard Carrier, David Fitzgerald, D.M. Murdock (Acharya S), Rene Salm, and Earl Doherty (Zindler has the most with nine essays, Earl Doherty comes in next with five essays).

My only gripe as far as editing goes is that there are no indices.  Having an author index, at least a select bibliography, would have been valuable to the volume and at least added some gloss of academia to the volume.  Instead, the lack of an index of any kind only adds to this book’s woes.  More on this in a moment.

At a stock price of over $30 for a paperback that isn’t published through an academic press, I found it wanting for more (or to use Zindler’s words, ‘left…in a state of stunned perplexity’). While I was not a fan of Ehrman’s recent book Did Jesus Exist? (I even wrote a paper which was published last year in the online journal Bible and Interpretation), he is still a scholar–a professional, in fact–who has produced some extremely valuable resources for students and textual critics.  Even if he is misguided, even if he is wrong (his arguments are flawed, but whether or not his conclusions are wrong has yet to be proven in any respect), he earned the right to be treated in a manner that befits his position in the academy.

Some may disagree; that’s fine.  There are ways to attack an argument with passion without resorting to a personal attack.  Instead this volume is, essentially, nearly 600 pages of polemics and rhetoric.   This book should have been a collection worth taking seriously; the last thing mythicism needs is yet another self-published volume full of venom and disgust.  Even if those emotions are justified (and I’m not saying they are), if the mythicist wants to be taken seriously–should they not approach this polarizing and controversial subject in a manner different than the way Ehrman had?  If Ehrman had done nothing else in his volume but demean and belittle every mythicist, does that mean that the mythicist should do the same?  I don’t think so; especially if one wants to have their arguments considered.

The title of this volume bespeaks the purpose: it is a series of essays with the intent to character assassinate.  Price makes no secret of this; he states in the introduction that this book represents a ‘counter-polemical’ because Ehrman started it (seriously).  And Price’s attempts to link the contributors of the volume, in all, and those who support the so-called ‘Christ Myth Theory’ with minimalism is a void one.  While I do argue that I am a sort of ‘New Testament minimalist’, the difference in all of this is that I’ve not made any anti-academic claims or any statement of certainty.  While Thomas Thompson and Philip Davies may be called minimalists, they don’t agree on everything (from dating texts to who may or may not have been historical); the analogy is flawed as what Bob and others are arguing in this volume is that Jesus is a myth, as in lacking any historical function.  And one cannot simply combine Thompson and Davies (or Lemche and Pfoh, etc…, into a comparable ‘David Myth Theory’, now can we?  To my knowledge there exists no volume published by minimalists arguing against Bill Dever or Gary Rendsburg (as much as they might deserve it).

Price also gives D.M. Murdock too much credit.  He is guilty of inflating her credentials in many respects and, while they are friends, it is distracting.  He writes, for example, that ‘her chief sin in Ehrman’s eyes would appear to be her lack of diplomas on the wall’, but that is an oversimplification of what Ehrman argues.  In fact, her ignorance of modern historical methodologies and current studies in various fields is painfully obvious to any of her readers.  She makes mistakes for which she rarely apologizes and continues to argue in the same flawed manner regardless of whether or not she is wrong.  When she feels threatened, she directs her horde of minions (devoted followers–many who have been spammed or trolled by these minions will know what I mean) against the target in an attempt to dissuade (bully) him/her from arguing against her again.  It is distasteful and unwarranted; I am quite surprised that Ehrman was able to keep his composure while speaking of her work as well as he did–a testament to his professionalism (even if the arguments he makes in the book are not).

Also there is a surprising amount of personal correspondence.  Frank produces some 75 pages for his first contribution and more than half of it consists of various email exchanges between Ehrman and himself.  This troubles me as I am not so sure that such a move is ethical.  Certainly Ehrman is busy, as he has actual scholarly work to do (at a prestigious academic institution no less), like teaching students, chairing committees, being a department head, reviewing grad work from students, appearing on doctoral panels, and so on.   When I respond to emails, I am vague and type quickly, especially when I have a lot of them and other pressing matters on my mind.  I can not imagine what Ehrman’s inbox looks like and I cannot begrudge him for being curt or limited or even appearing confused or disgruntled!  The man has a lot to do.  In my humble opinion, it is wholly unwelcome that Zindler dedicated so much space to these emails and also formulated a polemical argument around them; it is quite unfortunate that this appears in this volume.

Another issue I have is the obvious anti-Christian (pro-Atheist) theme that runs through most of the articles.  I get it: published through the American Atheist Press; Frank Zindler, Bob Price, Acharya S, and so on, are atheists; but the whole point–I would imagine–is to not burn the bridges between you and your potential readers.  Additionally, painting Ehrman has someone who wags his finger while, incidentally, allowing ones polemical paper to include finger-wagging against Christians seems to me to be counter-productive.  Especially since one of Ehrman’s arguments is that mythicists are merely angry atheists hellbent on destroying Christianity.

For those interested in owning this volume, I suppose it has one or two redeeming qualities that make it worth owning.

First, Richard Carrier’s online content has been reedited and is as devastating as ever.  But Carrier makes sure to include the caveat that he disagrees with many of the claims made by the rest of the contributors of the volume–so the one of only two individuals in the lot (Bob Price is the other) who has credibility (according to academic standards) has essentially already buried the hatchet in most of the volume.   Obviously, read it and judge for yourself whether his caveat is appropriate (I think it is).  That said, Carrier’s is one of the best that this collection of essays has to offer–but if you’ve read his blog then you really don’t need to buy this book.

Second, I do appreciate Price’s explanation that mythicism is not so easily definable.  But he is also wrong in some respects.  While ten people may have the same conclusion, it does not mean they all reached that conclusion the same way.  Some may have reached the conclusion based on academic curiosity, but some may just have been curious (and also ignorant), others may be conspiracists, others still educated laypeople who have an interest but no real academic discipline or proficiency with the languages.  So what one has are a few people with legitimate work in the field, and most with zero credible work in the field but with lots of speculation and (dis)organized arguments that don’t always show signs of being self-aware of their own limitations.

Third, Doherty has some rather cleverly-written articles in this volume.  But if you want to read Doherty–read him.

In conclusion, I was disappointed.  This book represents the very thing you should never do, not even if you feel it is justified.  This book lacked everything and what it had in abundance was unnecessary polemics.  It was published through a house owned by (or at least in part) one of the coeditors, most of the articles would not make it into an academic publication (e.g., none would pass peer review) due to the careless language or lack of verifiable claims, and what good was said throughout is lost on the flippancy of the rest of the content.  This book actually makes me want to openly apologize to Bart Ehrman on behalf of the contributors–even though I do not count myself among them.

But these criticisms of mine, while they are harsh, can be corrected.  This is the bright side.  If Frank Zindler, et al, felt slighted by Ehrman, why didn’t they do what I did (or Thomas Thompson)?  One need only write a paper and submit it to a journal.  The goal should be to circulate criticisms of the book, respectfully written with valuable contributions to the institution, to the people who need it–scholars.  This has been my biggest complaint about mythicists: they demand to be taken seriously but refuse to do what is necessary to earn that respect.  Alas, Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth is just the most recent example of such a blatant refusal.

Ralph Ellis is a Liar

I have refrained from coming down too hard on Ralph Ellis personally.  I have tried to keep my arguments focused on his unsubstantiated claims.  Alas, Mr. Ellis will not stop personally attacking me; this has gone beyond libel.  Mr. Ellis has even gone so far as to lie about my credibility on his very public website.  This was sent to me today:

Aside from this little projection of Mr. Ellis’ own insecurities, Mr. Ellis knows this is a flat-out lie.  After all he has emails me directly at my rutgers.edu email address during on of his vulgar, unmedicated (I can only presume) harassment rants:

While we all know Mr. Ellis wouldn’t know solid research if it bit him in the pants, even a cursory search on the Rutgers Student Search would prove that I’m a current student:

So either Mr. Ellis is just an outrageously incompetent human being or he is a flat-out deceptive one.  I’m going with a little bit of both at this point.

When Did Josephus Leave Judea? Does it even matter?

Ralph Ellis, in an attempt to defend his claims, has seemed to have misread my argument about Josephus and Abgar bar Ma’nu VI.  He writes, mistakenly, that:

Finally, Verenna also seems to be completely confused about the life of Josephus Flavius, saying he was not in Jerusalem in AD 70. His review says:

Quote:
Abgar Ma’nu VI could not be the individual you claim when you state that “The historical Izas was crucified…[and] taken down [from the cross] by Josephus Flavius” since Josephus was living in Rome, as a court historian, probably on the Palatine Hill–far, far away from Edessa (and Palestine, for that matter).

One hardly know what to make of this assertion. Here is a reviewer of Judaean history, and he does not appear to know that Josephus Flavius was in Judaea in AD 70 – 71. In fact, Josephus says of this very crucifixion event that I mention:

Quote:
as I came back (from Tekoa), I saw many captives crucified, and remembered three of them as my former acquaintance. I was very sorry at this in my mind, and went with tears in my eyes to Titus, and told him of them; so he immediately commanded them to be taken down, and to have the greatest care taken of them, in order to their recovery; yet two of them died under the physician’s hands, while the third recovered. Life 75

So not only was Josephus in Jerusalem at this time, he did indeed come across three of the leaders of the Jewish Revolt being crucified. Since King Izas was one of those leaders, it is axiomatic that King Izas was one of those being crucified. You might also note a similarity with the biblical crucifixion here.

But this speaks of Mr. Ellis’ inability to comprehend what it is that I wrote.  The full quote (taken from here) is:

“In 70-71, when Abgar Ma’nu VI became king, Josephus was on his way to Rome. And in 90-91 when Abgar VI’s rule ended, Josephus was sitting comfortably (probably–chairs back then and all) in his house, paid for by the empire, in Rome, writing his histories and autobiography. He died ten years later. So, no, Abgar VI could not have been crucified and taken down by Josephus–by the way, ‘Flavian’ is the name Josephus adopted after the Jewish War in 70, after he had been granted full citizenship by Titus. Abgar had not yet started his reign when this occurred.”

Notice that my point is in fact that Josephus would not have been around during Abgar VI’s reign; this is precisely my argument.  In fact Abgar bar Ma’nu VI didn’t start his reign until 71 CE; when I wrote 70-71 in the quote above, I was giving Mr. Ellis the benefit of the doubt.  Titus and Josephus were on their way back to Rome in 71, as Josephus mentions:

But when Titus had composed the troubles in Judea, and conjectured that the lands which I had in Judea would bring me no profit, because a garrison to guard the country was afterward to pitch there, he gave me another country in the plain. And when he was going away to Rome, he made choice of me to sail along with him, and paid me great respect: and when we were come to Rome, I had great care taken of me by Vespasian; for he gave me an apartment in his own house, which he lived in before he came to the empire. (Vita, 76)

But is this at all relevant? I suppose I was still giving Mr. Ellis the benefit of the doubt.  Here I was presuming that Mr. Ellis was simply confused; I was under the impression that Mr. Ellis had merely moved the crucifixion of Jesus to the period of the first Jewish war.  After all, how could anyone be so delusional as to think otherwise?  How foolish of me to think that Mr. Ellis just made a mistake; instead, it seems, he meant to argue that Jesus had a history beyond a crucifixion–and that he would be king, no less–twice!

Conventional history be damned, if Mr. Ellis had his way.  We already know that Mr. Ellis picks and chooses his own timeline, regardless of whether or not they conflict with facts.  He claims Paul was born in 37 but ignores the fact that Paul claims to have run from Aretas IV (even though he died around 40CE).  He conflates multiple historical figures, which he admits:

In reality, I have conflated only two pairs of different kings.

a. King Abgarus V of Edessa is King Monobazus of Adiabene.
b. King Manu VI of Edessa is King Izas of Adiabene.

Why have I done so? Because King Abgarus and King Monobazus shared a common wife – Queen Helena of Adiabene/Edessa (and thus King Manu and King Izas shared a common mother). So Thomas Verenna has fabricated a complaint about my work, and then failed to explain why I did conflate two pairs of kings.

Actually, he conflates more than two people.  Still, he is somewhat proud of this fact; as if conflating two historical individuals from different times (ruled 13-50, and 57-71 respectively), separated by another king (Manu V who ruled for seven years between these two), is somehow acceptable methodology.  I’ve dealt with this conflation issue extensively here.  He also conflates Paul and Josephus, and he seems pretty proud of that catastrophe.

And what is this about Abgar and Manu having the same wife?  And what is this about Izates and Manu having the same mother (Abgarus and Izas are not found in the past–these are fabricated names that Mr. Ellis has invented to make his connections seem more plausible)?  This is simply false.  And what is this about his fictional Izas character being crucified at Thecoa?  Really?  He believes this?  I guess so.

So how could he possibly have an issue with conflating the dates here?  Why wouldn’t he just say, ‘Oh well Jesus is Abgar VI bar Ma’nu who was taken down from the cross by Josephus in 70, started his reign a year later in Edessa, and after his reign, was exiled to Britain where he became King Arthur.’  That is exactly what he is arguing (or worse, that his version of Jesus, a conflation of the two kings above, was king prior to the Jewish War, but in his 50′s when he was crucified, escaped crucifixion, went back to rule from 70-71, and then ended up in Britain after being exiled, where he became king again).  Every scenario is less and less probable and more and more ridiculous.

Forget that there is zero evidence for any of these assertions, forget that he’s fumbling through the sources, that he chooses the weakest possible arguments to validate his case; it’s a house made of cards.  So shame on me for reading Mr. Ellis’ content too generously.  What he is actually arguing is way worse than what I had originally imagined.

Because he’s a conspiracy theorist and not a historian.

Aaron Adair on Ralph Ellis and Jesus as King Arthur

In an excellent discussion of some of Mr. Ellis’ bizarre claims, Aaron Adair writes:

In his King Jesus (p. 120), Ellis is trying to connect a bunch of names together etymologically and then connect that to stars and star worship. He wants to related the Egyptian word for star with not only a 3rd century Syrian queen, but also to god names like Ishtar (whom I mentioned before), Astarte, Ashtroreth, and “Zoroastra” (not a misspelling on my part, and one that Ellis uses two in his book plus in the index). He also claims these all derive from ester (אסתר) or aster (αστηρ), again having the meaning of ‘star’. There is so much wrong in just this one paragraph, I need to space it out.

First, his use of the word ‘star’ in Egyptian seems off. According to Hieroglyphs.net, here is the word for star (sba, and not saba)…

This is the paragraph in question:

It’s ‘Zoroaster‘, chief.

About which he continues:

But Ellis isn’t done failing yet. He also claims that all these names are derived from ester, better known probably as the Jewish beauty Esther from the Bible. Her name is more likely derived from or a cognate to the goddess Ishtar mentioned above rather than the other way around. But even this connection is not certain; I would guess in favor of the Ishtar/Esther connection because another figure in the Book of Esther, Mordecai, is almost certainly related to Marduk (Marduka), a major Babylonian deity as was Ishtar, so the parallelism is suggestive. But the real problem is that ester is not the Hebrew word for ‘star’; what would be kokab (כוכב), which in Aramaic becomes kokhba, hence the name of the famous 2nd century Jewish rebel leader bar Kokhba (Son of the Star), a figure Ellis even mentions in this same paragraph. So, quite literally, his lack of knowledge about these words are calling him out in the very paragraph he used them (though he has some weird spelling I haven’t seen before [bar Kokhbar]).

via Jesus was King Arthur, and a Pharaoh, and King of Edessa–The “Scholarship” of Ralph Ellis | Fleeing Nergal, Seeking Stars.

There is much I do not quote from him, so go read what he has to say.  You’ll enjoy it, trust me.  That bar Kokhba spelling is really odd, though; talk about a blunder (and in his indices he lists it as ‘bar Kokhbar’ as well, so this isn’t a typo–he actually spells it with an ‘r’)!  Maybe he is thinking of Admiral Akbar?

It’s a trap!