Sacrificing Herakles

Herodotus thought it a silly story: “how Herakles came to Egypt and was taken away by the Egyptians to be sacrificed to Zeus , with all due pomp and the sacrificial wreath upon his head; and how he quietly submitted until the moment came for the beginning of the actual . . . . Continue Reading »

Are the Gospels Mythical?

From the earliest days of Christianity, the Gospels’ resemblance to certain myths has been used as an argument against Christian faith. When pagan apologists for the official pantheism of the Roman empire denied that the death-and-resurrection myth of Jesus differed in any significant way from the . . . . Continue Reading »

The Myth of the Civil War

The Civil War A film by Ken Burns Shown as a PBS television series; also available on nine VHS videocassettes (11 hours). Individual purchases from Time-Life Videos, $180. Institutional price from PBS Videos, $350. Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution by James M. McPherson Oxford . . . . Continue Reading »