That Old-Time Religion : The Story of Religious Foundations

Rating:
Summary: Interesting Work
Review: If you are into this sort of thing, trust me, you'll love this book! I enjoyed the fact that we learn about things that we generally take for granted, without knowing their origin or meaning. A brilliant and fascinating expedition into the far reaches of religious thought.

Rating:
Summary: evidence inadequate, especially on language
Review: Jordan Maxwell and his colleagues Paul Tice & Alan Snow are inspired by the late C19 diffusionist writer Gerald Massey, who believed he could trace all religions back to a small number of linked cults (stellar, lunar, solar). Massey was enthused by the then quite recent decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, and merged the genuine knowledge that was emerging from Egypt with the early modern fantasies - now largely debunked - about Egyptian mystery religions of vast antiquity. Maxwell et al. themselves focus mainly on the religious issues in the usual historical revisionist manner, finding a huge number of possible links but arguing persuasively for very few. They also draw from a three-volume work published around 1940, apparently anonymously. This book has the overall title Priesthood Of The Ills and contains a large amount of non-standard philology, adduced as support for these diffusionist theories of religion. This linguistic material cannot be taken seriously: it is on the level of Guido von List's absurd philology and similar British Israelite proposals. But Maxwell et al. believe that there is a Language Conspiracy, which involves (a) keeping humanity divided by forcing many mutually unintelligible languages on us and (b) blocking us from discovering the original ('true') meanings of words. This suggests that all changes in the meanings of words are somehow illegitimate, which of course is false; but Maxwell et al. hold that the meanings of some of the key words in ancient languages were very different indeed from those of the English words normally used to translate them. This has been concealed by the forces of Evil. These 'true' meanings are implicated in huge numbers of unrecognised links between languages; but focusing on pronunciation rather than spelling will apparently do the trick: you can then hear which words are really connected, because they sound similar! (Two hundred years of historical linguistic scholarship is simply ignored.) Then you can appreciate the 'true' form of Christianity and its links with earlier religions. Maxwell et al. also make a few other unintentionally entertaining statements about language matters. If these ideas are to hold up, it must be on grounds other than linguistic!

Rating:
Summary: Fact or fiction? You Decide!
Review: This book is a nice read and thankfully not too overwhelmingly exhaustive. That is not to say however that it is not chopped full of presentable information. As far as whether the information J. Maxwell and his colleagues present is credible and I cannot vouch for. In other words, I don't have the credentials, but I will say that I was deeply intrigued the the relgio-cultural parallels that J. Maxwell and his contributors suggested. It is truly an incredible read! Whether the information is true or just plain bunk the reader who considers purchasing this book will be glad to know that the book is a quick read. It takes no time at all to read because the info presented is concise.