Alvin Boyd Kuhn (September 22, 1880 - September 14, 1963) was a scholar of comparative religion, mythology, linguistics and language.
Born in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, Kuhn studied the Ancient Greek language at university. He started his career working as a language teacher in high schools. He later enrolled at Columbia University to work on his PhD on Theosophy. His thesis, Theosophy: A Modern Revival of the Ancient Wisdom was, according to Kuhn, the first instance in which an individual has been "permitted" by any modern American or European university to obtain his doctorate with a thesis on Theosophy. Kuhn later expanded his thesis into his first book of the same name in 1930.
Highly influenced by the work of Gerald Massey and Godfrey Higgins, Kuhn contended that the Bible derived its origins from other Pagan religions and much of Christian history was pre-extant as Egyptian mythology. He also proposed that the Bible was symbolic and did not depict real events, and argued that the leaders of the church started to misinterpret the bible at the end of the third century. Many authors including Tom Harpur and John G. Jackson were influenced by the works of Kuhn. His final book, A Rebirth for Christianity, was completed shortly before his death on 14 September 1963.
Read more about Alvin Boyd Kuhn: Selected Bibliography
Famous quotes containing the words boyd and/or kuhn:
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That tills the sand and sawis in the air;
But twice unhappier is he, I lairn,
That feidis in his hairt a mad desire
And follows on a woman thro the fire,
Led by a blind and teachit by a bairn.”
—Mark Alexander Boyd (1563–1601)
“In a sense that I am unable to explicate further, the proponents of competing paradigms practice their trades in different worlds.”
—Thomas S. Kuhn (1922)