Acharya S facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Dorothy Milne Murdock
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Publicity photo of Murdock
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| Born | March 27, 1960 Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | December 25, 2015 (aged 55) |
| Pen name | Acharya S |
| Alma mater | Franklin & Marshall College |
| Subject | History of religions |
| Years active | 1995–2014 |
| Notable works | The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold (1999), Did Moses Exist? The Myth of the Israelite Lawgiver (2014) |
Dorothy Milne Murdock (March 27, 1960 – December 25, 2015), better known by her pen names Acharya S and D. M. Murdock, was an American writer supporting the Christ myth theory that Jesus never existed as a historical person, but was rather a mingling of various pre-Christian myths, Sun deities and dying-and-rising deities.
She wrote and operated a website focused on history, religion and spirituality, and astro-theology. She asserted the pre-Christian religious civilizations understood their myths as allegorical, but Christians obliterated evidence by destroying or suppressing literature after they attained control of the Roman Empire, leading to widespread illiteracy in the ancient world, ensuring the mythical nature of Christ's story was hidden. She argued the Christian canon, as well as its important figures, were based on Roman, Greek, Egyptian, and other cultures' myths. Her theories are not accepted by mainstream historians, textual critics, and archaeologists other than by a few other Christ mythicists such as, in part, Robert M. Price, a fellow of the Jesus Project.
Life
Murdock was born to James Milne Murdock and Beatrice Murdock in Massachusetts and grew up in Avon, Connecticut. She received a Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree in Classics, Greek Civilization, from Franklin and Marshall College, then spent a year at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Greece. She had one son.
She died of cancers in her immune system and liver on December 25, 2015. She was known as "Dori" to her loved ones.
Writing career
Murdock began her website, Truth Be Known, in 1995. 1999, as Acharya S, she published her first book, The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold, arguing the Jesus Christ story is a fabrication. Her 2007 book, Who Was Jesus? Fingerprints of The Christ continues the theme of The Christ Conspiracy by expanding her theory questioning the historicity of Jesus, alleging "early Christian history to be largely myth, by sorting through available historical and archaeological data." In 2009, she released Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection and The Gospel According to Acharya S.
Murdock wrote refutations of ancient astronauts theories, asserting they "may be prompted by the same type of motivation that produced the Bible, a chronicle largely-consisting of the plagiarized myths of other cultures" re-fashioned as 'fact' concerning purported legend-based characterizations, and may be driven by the attempt to validate biblical myth as historical under a different 'interpretation'."
See also
- Historicity of Jesus
