Over the years, I’ve encountered many Christians who’ve quoted from Alexander Hislop’s The Two Babylons as if it were a solid historical resource. The book claims that the Roman Catholic Church is not truly Christian but rather a continuation of ancient Babylonian religion. It’s self-assured and sweeping, and for many people, it seems to explain everything, from Marian devotion to Lent and Easter, to Christmas, as rooted in paganism. But is it accurate? In short: no, it really isn’t. Hislop’s work is a classic example of 19th-century pseudohistory — a polemical piece, written to prove a point, not to explore any historical truth. Flawed Methods and Wild Claims Hislop argues that most Catholic practices — from the Mass and clerical robes to festivals like Christmas and Easter — were somehow borrowed from Babylonian religion. The problem being that Hislop doesn’t rely on primary sources or credible historical data. Instead, he draws connections based on word similarities (like Easter and Ishtar) or visual resemblances (like Mary and child compared with mother-goddess statues from ancient cultures). But phonetic resemblance isn’t evidence, and neither is visual similarity. For example, if I say “sun” and “son” in English, they may sound alike, but they aren’t the same thing. That’s the level of reasoning at work in much of The Two Babylons. Hislop often lumps together completely different ancient figures — Isis, Semiramis, Ishtar, Aphrodite — as if they were all just variations of the same deity. He then tries to say Mary is just the Christian version of this pagan goddess figure. But there’s no credible evidence for that at all. Mary is understood through the lens of Scripture and Christian theology, not through pagan myth. The earliest depictions of Mary and the Christ-child date back to the second century and do not resemble any of the pagan idols. But, again, the common accusations are based on super...Continue Reading → You\'re reading The Two Babylons Exposed: The Book That Misled Millions by Luke J. Wilson, posted on The Sacred Faith: Timeless Truths for Modern Minds.

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