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JESUS WAS NOT A FREEMASON

Number4

Registered User
Jesus cannot have been a 'Freemason' when free masonry had not yet been founded! But there's no arguing that he did found that temple not made with hands...

From a historical perspective he may well have been an architect though, as only a person of such status would have the education to debate with the priests in the temple at a young age, as well as the free time and independent resources to devote to preaching. The son of a humble carpenter (just like any other tradesman) would have been employed full time in the father's workshop, helping to put food on the table and learning the trade as you went along and that started almost as soon as you could walk - that was your schooling. But if you interpret the noun tekton to mean engineer or architect, it makes much more sense.

Of course it doesn't fit the narrative of Jesus being a poor man of humble origins, so that part was likely suppressed by the early church....
 

David612

Registered User
It’s interesting for me, a mason who is not a member of a judeo christian faith to sit on the side lines for lines of thought like this.
 

Scoops

Registered User
Traditionally history is written by the victor, whether it is a nation, a political group, a church or a Grand Lodge.

Anatoly Fomenko has spent 7 volumes rewriting all of Western history, based on his reading of the evidence. Five volumes have been translated into English. You can find them on the web if you search.

http://chronologia.org/en/

Having read the five volumes and much else, I wonder if the question of this thread has too many underlying assumptions to be useful.
As you stated, history is written by the victor with their own bias and interpretations. What is different about Fomenko? Why is his interpretation different or do his conclusions just happen to agree with your own internal biases?

Also, translations can introduce different bias, just look at the hundreds of different interpretations of The Bible as an example.

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Scoops

Registered User
>What is different about Fomenko?

Fomenko is an important mathematician who, with other academics, has gone back to the earliest evidence.

For example astronomical analysis of the stars and planets on the ceilings of about 30 ancient Egyptian tombs provides astonishing dates.

Henry Ford was well ahead of his time when he said: History is bunk.
None of that answers why his interpretation is more valid than anyone else's.

As an engineer by training and a data analyst by trade, I know full well how mathematics and statistics can be used to get any answer you want. (and no, before Coach jumps on me for logical fallacy, I'm not trying to use credentialism to dismiss the assertions ).

How has Fomenko kept his own internal bias out of his conclusions?

Or, again, do his conclusions simply agree with your own bias so you, therefore, assert that his approach is superior?

Also, whilst I understand Henry Ford's point, I wouldn't go far as him, but would merely state that all historys need to be read with a certain level of skepticism as to the author's motives.

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TheThumbPuppy

Registered User
it is tradtional that humans believe whatever makes them happy at the time

I must confess that believing that the Battle of Hastings was fought in 1066 – or any other year – leaves me rather indifferent.

Since Fomenko's work seems to be rather lengthy, could you propose one of his findings, what methodology he used for that specific finding and the context in which it would change our common perception?

Some statements on the website you mentioned left me rather unimpressed, such as:
We underline, that new concept of chronology is based, mainly, on analysis of historical sources WITH THE METHODS OF MODERN MATHEMATICAL STATISTICS and vast COMPUTER CALCULATIONS.

I fail to understand how statistical analysis matters in historical research. From another point of view, what did the "vast computer calculations" calculate and what theories were those calculations based on? To make an example, "vast computer calculations" have been used to prove that in 12 years (should be 11 now) the world will end because of global warming based on some theory. The calculations themselves and their results do not prove that that theory on which they are based is true. It is not sufficient that a theory seems reasonable and rational for that theory to be true. Empirical tests are necessary to prove its veracity. If the world does end in 12 or 11 years, then the theory is true. If it doesn't, then it isn't.

Disregarding my personal impression of that website, it would be nice to hear about one specific point of Fomenko's theories and how it contributes to our better understanding of some specific historical events.
 
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TheThumbPuppy

Registered User
Quite so. but who could read 7 large volumes of evidence and tests?

That's why I was asking you to restrict our analysis to just one specific point.

Meanwhile, I've happened to stumble upon an interesting quote on Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Chronology_(Fomenko)#cite_ref-68
Rawlins points out further that Fomenko's statistical analysis got the wrong date for the Almagest because he took as constant Earth's obliquity when it is a variable that changes at a very slow, but known, rate.[68]

Dennis Rawlins, in "Recovering Hipparchos’ Last Lost Lustrous Star", DIO 4.3 (1994): 119, http://www.dioi.org/vols/w43.pdf provides evidence that the Almagest star catalog was based on observations made in the 2nd century BCE by Hipparchus.

I find his note from 1995 at the bottom of page 119 most compelling:
The Fomenko et al paper’s incredible date is based upon several lapses of procedure, most notably the authors’ mistaken use (when going from their Table 1 to Table 3) of the Catalog’s 900 AD obliquity-error (210 : cited at their p.225) as a constant in time. (Since the 900 AD obliquity was 23◦350 , this error corresponds to the zodiac-cataloger’s astrolabe-obliquity-setting = 23◦560 — a result already derived by DR & published in 1982 at eq.27 of PASP 94:359.)

It seems that Fomenko used a constant value for obliquity, that is the Earth's axial tilt, which is not.
Quoting Wikipedia again https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_tilt :
Earth's obliquity oscillates between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees[2] on a 41,000-year cycle.

All of Fomenko's calculations based on historical astronomical observations are affected by his false assumption that the Earth's axial tilt is a constant in time.

That seems to invalidate a large section of his theory.
 
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TheThumbPuppy

Registered User
if you are satisfied by a criticism of a criticism then you need do nothing more.
I'm rather indifferent either way. However it seems to be a rather bad mathematical mistake to not take into consideration that the Earth's obliquity is not a constant but a variable in time.

The precession of the equinoxes is not even a latest-hour scientific finding after all – I think to remember that it was first discovered by Hipparchus in the II century BC.

Or is that one of those periods in history that never existed according to Fomenko, consequently the precession of the equinoxes was never discovered and the Earth's obliquity is therefore still a constant?

Well if you ever have one specific point from Fomenko's theory together with the methodology he used for that specific finding... Whenever you come across one. This thread is not a race.

For the moment at least I'll continue to feast on the philosophic, artistic, architectural and musical riches of the Middle Ages and if I'm fooling myself because they never existed, well it wouldn't be the first time.

After all some physicists believe that the whole universe is a hologram isomorphic to the information inscribed on its boundary and if they're ever able to empirically prove it – although unlikely – then we've all been fooling ourselves that anything actually existed in the way we intend it today.
 
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