• @afraid_of_zombies
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    17 months ago

    John Allegro right? I would be more inclined to buy into his theory if

    • Someone could show a path from the Dead Sea Scrolls all the way to the late Middle Ages that escaped all documentation (besides the two initial finds) except stained glass and icons. Not a single person bothered writing it down for over 800 years. That is an impressive conspiracy.

    • The link between the Qumron community and the John the Baptist community isn’t as well established as I think he made it out. Yes there are overlaps but they were part of the same general culture. There isn’t a smoking gun, someone clearly was part of both and carried works across.

    • The mushroom imagery is interesting but there are plenty of non-mushroom imagery as well. Including wands and rabbits and fish and eggs. Allegro is pointing to the one that gets the result but can’t account for the others.

    • I just don’t see why you need a drug trip to come up with the Gospels. Every single part of it was either borrowed from Paul or from Jewish and Greek works that existed at the time. Plagiarism doesn’t need a chemical aid. As for the things that Paul said one dream could have produced it.

    But hey Allegro might be right. All we would need to find is one document from the Vatican that mentions mushrooms in that context or another scroll in a cave or the equivalent of the 1st century BCE Grateful Dead poster ha.

    • @CaptainSpaceman
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      07 months ago

      Funny you mention the Vatican… whats in the vaults is probably worth hiding for their coffers to remain full, and people like us will never see any of it

      If there was proof, my guess is things like global conquest, crusades, burning of the library of Alexandria, etc could account for the lack of its publicity.

      In the end, its a fun theory that may or may not be true. But pretty much all of Genesis is provable false, so it doesnt matter anyways.

      • @afraid_of_zombies
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        07 months ago

        Really it doesn’t explain anything that isn’t already explained, it doesn’t simplify the data that we have, and it doesn’t point a direction to search for new evidence. Also you know lots of people around the same time were advancing drugs -> enlightenment ideas and all we got out of it is some bad sci-fi.

        The evidence presented 60 years ago is the same evidence they have today. All the work done on understanding history and the human brain hasn’t added to those theories. Not a great sign. Successful theories get more supporting evidence over time not the same level of “wouldn’t it be cool?”.

        • @CaptainSpaceman
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          07 months ago

          All we got out of it was 50 years of prohibition because of how afraid the govt was of free thinking individuals

          • @afraid_of_zombies
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            17 months ago

            I never said I was against it’s use. I am clear that this sequence of historical events are explained adequately without saying it is part of it. Just because X happened does not mean Y was a factor, and it doesn’t mean I am against Y.