Kersey Graves

Kersey Graves

Kersey Graves (born November 20 or 21, 1813 or 1815 in Brownsville, Fayette County , Pennsylvania , † September 4, 1883 in Richmond , Indiana ) was an American nontheist Quaker , skeptic , writer , spiritualist , reformist and atheist . Graves wrote books that were critical of religion , up to and including those that called religious beliefs "false".

Life

Kersey was born on November 21, 1813, the seventh of eight children of the Quakers Elizabeth ("Betty") Jones and Enos Graves (also Grave, Greaves) in Brownsville, Pennsylvania. His family and the families of a few of his uncles moved to Wayne County, Indiana , in 1816 .

He only went to school for about three or four months in his life and taught himself his knowledge by reading, so he was still considered a well-educated man. However, according to another source, he received an academic education and became a professor.

He began teaching at a school in Richmond at the age of 19 and continued teaching for the next twenty years. He was an advocate of absolutism and campaigned for some radical freethinkers in Quakerism. He was also interested in language reforms .

In August 1844, he joined about fifty utopian settlers in Wayne County. In the same month he was disowned by them for neglecting the presence and forming a rival group. The groups he was subsequently associated with dealt with mesmerism and spiritualism.

Goshen Friends Church (built in 1807 as "Mad River", since 1819 or 1824 "Goshen Meeting House" ) in Zanesfield, Logan County , Ohio

In July 1845 he married in in today as Goshen Friends Church known Goshen Meeting House in Zanesfield the Quaker Lydia Michiner (Jan. 18, 1814 * in Cadiz , Harrison County , Ohio; 19 † March 1889 in Richmond , Wayne County, Indiana) , Daughter of Abigail Stanton and Benjamin Michener . The Goschen Meeting House was a center of the " Congregational Friends" and dealt with "Temperance and Peace", health reform, anti-slavery , women's rights and socialist utopianism.

They had four or five children (including Benjamin Graves , * 1847; Sarah Elizabeth Grave , * 1849; Alonzo Graves , * 1857; Elma Graves , * 1859) in their home in Harveysburg, Ohio and later moved back to Richmond with them, where they bought a farm.

The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors

His book The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors will of Peter Joseph and Dan Brown in their works zeitgeist and The Da Vinci Code have been used as the source. The film Zeitgeist shares a list of supposedly Christ-like deities from Graves book almost completely and Dan Brown in his book The Da Vinci Code the claim that Christianity is based on pre-Christian deities ( e.g. Mitras , Osiris , Dionysus , Adonis and Krishna ).

Kersey Graves in turn (like the spiritualist Gerald Massey , 1828-1907, who traced all religions back to Egyptian mythology ) referred in his theses in particular to Godfrey Higgins ' (1772-1833) book Anacalypsis (1836), the Graves' acceptance of the crucifixion anticipated some "saviors" and highlighted them as a "reliable and trustworthy writer" by Graves, but himself made unsubstantiated statements (e.g. that the Hebrew Genesis was a Buddhist text ) and presumably made significantly incorrect statements. Higgins assumed that all or at least some of the Greek gods and goddesses (e.g. Apollo , Hercules and Jupiter ), many Roman goddesses (e.g. Venus , Diana , Isis and Ceres ), the Egyptian god Osiris and possibly Horus and the Hindu god Krishna were black have been.

Richard Carrier , an opponent of the theory of the Jesus myth , criticized Kersey Graves book as unreliable and unscientific.

Works

• The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors: Christianity Before Christ (1875)
• The Biography of Satan: Exposing the Origins of the Devil (1865)
• 163 Questions For Believers In Postmortem Punishment
• The Bible of Bibles: Or, Twenty-seven "Divine Revelations:" Containing a Description of Twenty-seven Bibles, and an Exposition of Two Thousand Biblical Errors in Science, History, Morals, Religion, and General Events; Also a Delineation of the Characters of the Principal Personages of the Christian Bible, and an Examination of Their Doctrines
• The Biography of Satan (Annotated): Or, a historical exposition of the devil and his fiery dominions
• Sixteen saviors or one? : The Gospels not brahmanic / ( Cincinnati : Thomson, 1879)

literature

• History of Wayne County, Indiana, together with sketches of its cities, villages and towns, educational, religious, civil, military, and political history, portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens , vol. 1 (Chicago: Inter-State Publishing Company, 1884), page 639: "PROF. KERSEY GRAVES, well known to the people of Wayne County by his literary laboratories, was born in Brownsville, Pa., Nov. 21, 1815, and died in Richmond, Sept. 4, 1883. He received an academical education, and at the age of nineteen began teaching in Richmond, Ind. He continued that occupation here and elsewhere for twenty-three years. He early became interested in scientific studies and Spent several years traveling and lecturing on phrenology, physiology and physiognomy. He lectured frequently on temperance and was an anti-slavery orator of some note. He became dissatisfied with popular theology quite early in life, and used his pen to correct what he believed to be errors. His first book was "The Biography of Satan," which had a large sale. His next production, "The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors," reached its tenth edition and was sold in both America and Europe. Among his latest works was a book entitled "The Bible of Bibles, "being an account of twenty-seven Bibles of various ages and countries. He devoted the latter years of his life exclusively to literary work and lecturing, and contributed many articles to magazines and newspapers. His memory was remarkable and his mental acumen great. He lived an upright life. He married Miss Lydia Michener and reared four children. "

Web links

Commons : Kersey Graves  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Read Books and Biography of Classics Author Kersey Graves. Retrieved July 24, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Kersey Graves. Retrieved July 24, 2020 . 
3. ↑ Who Was Kersey Graves. Accessed July 30, 2020 . 
4. ^ Zanesfield Goshen Friends Church Postcard. In: Logan County Digital Collection. June 13, 2012, accessed July 29, 2020 . 
5. ^ William Wade Hinshaw: Goshen (Darby Creek) Monthly Meeting. Retrieved July 29, 2020 . 
6. ^ ^{A b} Thomas Graves of New Castle Co., DE, Quaker. Accessed July 30, 2020 . 
7. ^ The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors - Kersey Graves. Retrieved July 29, 2020 . 
8. ↑ James Patrick Holding: Shattering the Christ-Myth . Xulon Press, 2008, ISBN 978-1-60647-271-2 , pp. 316 (English, 388 pp., Google.de ).
9. ^ History vs The Da Vinci Code. Retrieved July 29, 2020 . 
10. ↑ CHAPTER 55 - The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown). Retrieved July 29, 2020 . 
11. ↑ JP Hannah: A Skeptic's Investigation into Jesus . Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2020, ISBN 978-1-5326-7461-7 , pp. 15–17 (English, 316 pages, google.de [accessed on 23 August 2020]).
12. ↑ Godfrey Higgins: Anacalypsis an Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil of the Saitic Isis: Or an Inquiry Into the Origin of Languages, Nations and Religions . Longman, 1836 ( google.de [accessed August 23, 2020]).
13. ↑ Godfrey Higgins: Anacalypsis: An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil of the Saitic Isis: Or, An Inquiry Into the Origin of Languages, Nations, and Religions . Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1836, pp. 137-138 (English, 867 pp., Com.sb [accessed August 24, 2020]).