Hislop's "Two Babylons" - Does Anyone Take it Seriously?

[Robert_in_SD]

Hello all;

On the radio this morning as I was switching through the stations I came across a broadcast of “Turning Point” where the “reverend” Dr. David Jeremiah was discussing Revelation 17. He relied heavily upon Hislop’s book The Two Babylons to paint a very lurid and inaccurate picture of the Catholic Church as the Tammuz-worshipping “whore.” All of the half-truths and false logics of Hislop were brought to bear on the program as I thought to myself, “How can anyone take this tripe seriously?” Up until today I had some respect for “doctor” David Jeremiah, but how can an educated man rely on the half-baked conclusions drawn by Hislop in his now very outdated book?. Isn’t his tome about as poorly supported as Boettner’s Roman Catholicism? And haven’t recent archeological findings and other unbiased and scholarly works deflated the conclusions that Hislop draws in his book? Jeremiah presented Hislop’s book to his listening audience as virtually unquestioned in its accuracy and scholasticity - misrepresentation on top of misrepresentation. Truly appalling.

What say you all on this subject? Does anyone take Hislop’s book The Two Babylons to be a serious scholastic work?

 

[pnewton]

On another board (protestant Christian) I post it has been used a couple of times. Yes, there are still Christians that consider it true. Heck, if people can but into fiction like DaVinci Code, Star Wars, etc., there will always be those that believe anything.

Remember The Chariot of the Gods craze?

 

[At_His_Feet]

There is a non-Catholic author named Ralph Woodrow who some years ago published a book entitled “Babylon Mystery Religion”, that was highly favorable to Hislop’s “Two Babylons”. But then, through his own research he came to understand how wrong Hislop was; as a result, he pulled the original book from circulation and published a refutation of Hislop entitled “The Babylon Connection?”. I have “The Babylon Connection?” book and I think it’s excellent.

I ordered it from here:
ralphwoodrow.org/books/pages/babylon-connection.html

 

[catsrus]

I read that silly Hislop book about 25 years ago when I was going to a kingdom hall. It was highly recommended by the jws.
I thought it was the most twisted and idiotic claptrap I’d ever read.

 

[cestusdei]

No one who is a serious scholar takes it seriously. I enjoy turning it against those who try to use it against us. I point out the death and resurrection stories in Egyptian mythology and then ask them if they think Christians are just using pagan myths and applying them to Jesus? This tends to annoy them, but it makes the point.

 

[Philena]

I actually tried to read it a couple of months ago. I made it through the first chapter and decided that it is a totally unreadable book.

The sad fact is that many fundamentalists and members of the SDA church do read it and believe it. Many of the widely distributed Chick tracts get their material from this book.

 

[ComradeAndrei]

If you are confronted by anyone with Hislop’s “book”, you can be fairly certain that aside from the Bible, it is probably one of few other books they’ve read.

I say that not to insinuate that the “bible-believer” types are necessarily stupid, but rather that if they’d bother to expand their reading a bit more they’d see how utterly rediculous it is.

 

[Contarini]

Robert in SD:

Hello all;

On the radio this morning as I was switching through the stations I came across a broadcast of “Turning Point” where the “reverend” Dr. David Jeremiah was discussing Revelation 17. He relied heavily upon Hislop’s book The Two Babylons to paint a very lurid and inaccurate picture of the Catholic Church as the Tammuz-worshipping “whore.” All of the half-truths and false logics of Hislop were brought to bear on the program as I thought to myself, “How can anyone take this tripe seriously?” Up until today I had some respect for “doctor” David Jeremiah, but how can an educated man rely on the half-baked conclusions drawn by Hislop in his now very outdated book?. Isn’t his tome about as poorly supported as Boettner’s Roman Catholicism? And haven’t recent archeological findings and other unbiased and scholarly works deflated the conclusions that Hislop draws in his book? Jeremiah presented Hislop’s book to his listening audience as virtually unquestioned in its accuracy and scholasticity - misrepresentation on top of misrepresentation. Truly appalling.

That’s depressing. I would have thought better of Jeremiah as well. I notice that his doctorate is a D.D. from the college where his father was president. Not suggesting nepotism here, only that he clearly was not exposed to a broad range of ideas. He does have a master’s degree from Dallas Theological Seminary, but again, that’s a school within his own tradition. Still, it’s disappointing.

On the bright side, I found a fundamentalist web-page denouncing him for being a “neo-evangelical.” So he can’t be all bad

And yes, Hislop’s book is a particularly entertaining work of 19th-century fiction, and certainly people in the scholarly world would recognize that. But the U.S. is an egalitarian, populist society where people don’t like to have their minds made up for them by experts.

After all, lots of you insist on disbelieving the scholarly consensus about Luther and listening to out-dated Catholic propaganda (“The Facts About Luther”) instead. How is that different?

Edwin

 

[ComradeAndrei]

After all, lots of you insist on disbelieving the scholarly consensus about Luther and listening to out-dated Catholic propaganda (“The Facts About Luther”) instead. How is that different?

And how is “The Facts About Luther” out-dated? I read it, and I thought it was pretty much on the money, but in fairness I could grant that the good Monsignor was kind of lashing into a really dead horse.

However, even if you put that book in the realm of propaganda it is not in the deepest darkest hell of propaganda that Hislop’s “The Two Babylons”, Boettner’s “Roman Catholicism”, Ellen G. White’s “The Great Controversy” etc. are in.

 

[David_Zampino]

At His Feet:

There is a non-Catholic author named Ralph Woodrow who some years ago published a book entitled “Babylon Mystery Religion”, that was highly favorable to Hislop’s “Two Babylons”. But then, through his own research he came to understand how wrong Hislop was; as a result, he pulled the original book from circulation and published a refutation of Hislop entitled “The Babylon Connection?”. I have “The Babylon Connection?” book and I think it’s excellent.

I ordered it from here:
ralphwoodrow.org/books/pages/babylon-connection.html

Woodrow has taken big hits from his “supporters” for his refutation.

 

[Contarini]

ComradeAndrei:

And how is “The Facts About Luther” out-dated? I read it, and I thought it was pretty much on the money, but in fairness I could grant that the good Monsignor was kind of lashing into a really dead horse.

However, even if you put that book in the realm of propaganda it is not in the deepest darkest hell of propaganda that Hislop’s “The Two Babylons”, Boettner’s “Roman Catholicism”, Ellen G. White’s “The Great Controversy” etc. are in.

Granted. I was being unduly provocative. I’ve been very annoyed by a number of recent posts that repeat out-of-context quotations and then refuse to defend them in the light of Luther’s teachings as a whole. And often these tactics seem to go back to O’Hare.

The use of out-of-context quotations to smear someone is about as vile a tactic as you can use. But since I have only read extracts of O’Hare’s book, I shouldn’t have mentioned it.

Nonetheless, I stand by the basic point that many Catholics on this board (including you) thumb their noses at the scholarly consensus and rely on works of propaganda instead. You’re only shooting yourselves in the foot when you do this. You can’t well complain when your opponents do basically the same thing.

What would it cost you to go to acknowledged works of scholarship for your knowledge of Luther (or, horror of horrors, to read the texts themselves?). Rely only on texts that tell you what you want to hear, and you will never arrive at the truth. I apologize for drawing a direct parallel with fundamentalist use of Hislop–I’m not syaing that O’Hare is on the same level. But as long as you listen only to those who have an agenda you like, you are making the same basic mistake and have no grounds for challenging fundamentalists in their more outrageous errors. You are imprisoning yourselves in a relatively nice room with a couple of windows; they’re in a dark dungeon. But neither of you can feel the breeze off the mountains, and you can’t communicate effectively with each other.

Edwin

 

[ComradeAndrei]

The use of out-of-context quotations to smear someone is about as vile a tactic as you can use. But since I have only read extracts of O’Hare’s book, I shouldn’t have mentioned it.

OK, well if you are saying that Msgr. O’Hare used out-of-context quotes, would you mind giving an example? I’m not saying that he didn’t, but I’d like to see an example.

Nonetheless, I stand by the basic point that many Catholics on this board (including you) thumb their noses at the scholarly consensus and rely on works of propaganda instead. You’re only shooting yourselves in the foot when you do this. You can’t well complain when your opponents do basically the same thing.

I don’t thumb my nose at scholarly consensus, rather I take it with a grain of salt. Like I insinuated in the other post, I’m not just going to take your word on it. You can say “scholars say this, scholars say that”, well I like to have things referenced. Also like I refered to in another post, some of the academics are just plain playing way out in left field. When the intelligensia are trying to tell me that the Biblical Canon should include stuff like the “gospel” of St. Thomas or Mary Magdelene I’m not going to buy it just because they are “scholars”. This is the “wisdom of men” that Christ warns us about. To the “Greeks” it is foolish…

Furthermore, and just a question, have you ever gone to college? I am now and the greatest thing I learned here is not to just trust some person because they have a Ph.D. Sometimes the more paper they have plastered to their office walls just shows how out of touch with Truth they are. Can you say, “bias” or “agenda”?

I’m not saying I reject what academia has to say-I am just saying that I don’t take it all lock, stock, and barrel without question. Scholars (and theologians, unless you buy into Hans Kung’s garbage) aren’t infallible.

 

[ComradeAndrei]

Continued-

What would it cost you to go to acknowledged works of scholarship for your knowledge of Luther (or, horror of horrors, to read the texts themselves?).

What would it cost you to stop worshiping at the alter of scholarship and assent to the Magisterium? I have no problems with scholarship-as long as they are orthodox.

Also, I have read some Luther, I even have his Small Catechism. A lot of what he teaches was pretty orthodox, but that is the kicker-not all of it was.

I don’t think Luther was the devil incarnate like some of the Church propagandists of the Counter-Reformation made him out to be. That said, I’m sure Arius wasn’t too bad of a guy either. However, they were both arch-heretics and the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I would say that the Church propagandists maybe didn’t need to go as far as they did, not because they were wrong but because Luther defeats himself if you let him speak unadulterated. You really don’t need to spice it up any.

Rely only on texts that tell you what you want to hear, and you will never arrive at the truth.

Ha, hardly. I read all sorts of heretical and apostate works-stuff that is far from “what I want to hear”.

I apologize for drawing a direct parallel with fundamentalist use of Hislop–I’m not syaing that O’Hare is on the same level. But as long as you listen only to those who have an agenda you like, you are making the same basic mistake and have no grounds for challenging fundamentalists in their more outrageous errors.

Oh, but I most certainly do. I don’t go around making absolutely baseless claims based on some books that are of very dubious scholarship and then shut myself off to anything else. A fundamentalist may challenge me by quotting Boettner, but will refuse to read anything Catholic because he only goes by “God’s Word”. Hey, I’ll read any trash they give me, and I won’t even dismiss it right from the get-go. I’ll give it a fair shake. That is pretty open minded, don’t you think?

You are imprisoning yourselves in a relatively nice room with a couple of windows; they’re in a dark dungeon. But neither of you can feel the breeze off the mountains, and you can’t communicate effectively with each other.

And I’m sure that you are out in that mountain breeze singing the “Sound of Music”, free of all our dogmatic drudgery and polemical slavery? There is also something to be said about having to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything. I’m not about to be tossed about on the waves of false doctrine just because some grad student wants to sound controversial. We should have an open mind, but not so open that our brain falls out.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Contarini:

That’s depressing. I would have thought better of Jeremiah as well. I notice that his doctorate is a D.D. from the college where his father was president. Not suggesting nepotism here, only that he clearly was not exposed to a broad range of ideas. He does have a master’s degree from Dallas Theological Seminary, but again, that’s a school within his own tradition. Still, it’s disappointing.

On the bright side, I found a fundamentalist web-page denouncing him for being a “neo-evangelical.” So he can’t be all bad

And yes, Hislop’s book is a particularly entertaining work of 19th-century fiction, and certainly people in the scholarly world would recognize that. But the U.S. is an egalitarian, populist society where people don’t like to have their minds made up for them by experts.

After all, lots of you insist on disbelieving the scholarly consensus about Luther and listening to out-dated Catholic propaganda (“The Facts About Luther”) instead. How is that different?

Edwin

[Getting back to subject of thread ]​

I don’t think it is different.

Hislop’s book is very interesting in a number of ways:

• as a piece of mid-Victorian Scottish anti-Catholic writing;
• as an interpretation of parts of the book of Revelation;
• for its interpretation of artifacts from Mesopotamia - it could even be regarded as an early example of the “Pan-Babylonian” hypothesis (though building on rather different foundations from the scholars whose names are associated with that hypothesis);
• as an instance of mid-Victorian attempts to reckon the date of the Second Coming by looking at political events

It’s interesting as a cultural artifact - and more readable than some of its critics are prepared to allow, IMO.

It’s fascinating stuff - but not the kind of book to read if one wants to know what Mesopotamian religion really involved.

The problem with using the book as a source for Mesopotamian religion is, that when he wrote, little of the detail of the religion was known - the texts were either unrecovered, unedited, or gave little information except for a few names of gods. Only once does he refer to any texts; and this is in a book which proposes to show that the Catholic religion is the same as the religion of Assyria & Babylon. It is difficult to show this, if one does not refer to texts from Assyria & Babylon - so his book relies on inference, not on quotation, as is done now.

It’s unfair to blame him for failing to use texts, and other evidence, that were not available to him: but this doesn’t alter the fact that the book, however interesting, is not reliable.

There is also the fundamental problem that (for reasons which it would take too long to explain) he constantly treats Aramaic (“Chaldee”, as it was known in his day), and the two other languages spoken in Mesopotamia, as one: which plays havoc with his interpretations of words.

The book is behind much of Chick’s anti-Catholic writing - with predictable results.

The difficulty is, to convince those who won’t read anything but Hislop. ##