I H S is the abbreviation for Latin words which mean "Jesus, Saviour of Mankind".

To Ross Parker, however, they stand for Isis, Horus and Seth and, since I H S appears on Roman Catholic architecture, vestments and sacred objects this is considered proof that the Catholic Church is a pagan institution. Isis, Horus and Seth were (according to Mr Parker) three of the Gods of Egypt who were linked together in a trinity.

Ross Parker’s argument, however, has a serious flaw. The "trinity" that he is thinking of actually consisted of Isis, Osiris and Horus with Seth being the evil outsider who was ultimately devalued to the point of a devil in the Egyptian Pantheon. Pagan influences within Roman Catholicism are undeniable but Ross Parker has merely betrayed his ignorance of Latin, Roman Catholicism and Egyptian religion.

Mid 1992 saw in Adelaide a widely advertised series of free public lectures with slides on Archaeology presented by Mr Parker who is the principal of the Parker School of Archaeological and Biblical Studies. I attended some of these programs which were held in a number of rented venues including the Adelaide Town Hall.

Apart from what was billed as free having a collection to cover expenses Ross Parker and his school were also a thinly disguised front for the Seventh Day Adventist Church. In the four lectures I attended this was never actually mentioned although the "lectures" were Adventist oriented sermons rather than serious presentations on archaeology.

The Parker School of Archaeological & Biblical Studies is based at the Adelaide office of the Adventist Church and conducts its classes in the hall of an Adelaide Adventist church.

After one lecture Mr Parker, when asked, admitted that the whole exercise was an Adventist operation.

The presentations consisted, in the main, of slides of Ross Parker and his daughter acting as dilettantes at Middle-Eastern historical sites. Several millennia of history were compressed and distorted by preconceived theology.

It was presented as historical fact that Kaiser Wilhelm II was mentioned in the Biblical Book of Daniel. Adventist eschatology was heavily pushed without mentioning either the Seventh Day Adventists or the fact that different Christian denominations have different eschatological beliefs. We were, in effect, shown Ross Parker’s holiday photographs and asked to view them as archaeological texts!

During the presentation on Palestine Ross Parker ridiculed the Documentary Hypothesis (the idea that the Pentateuch originally consisted of four separate documents which were cut and pasted together). Whether the Documentary Hypothesis is in fact true or not is not the issue. For the principal of a "School of Archaeological and Biblical Studies" to attack the hypothesis one would assume he at least understood what it is. The words of Numbers 6:24-26 have been found in a Palestinian inscription dated three centuries before the Babylonian Exile. The Exile was the time when, according to the Documentary Hypothesis, the Pentateuch was assembled. Parker therefore declared this to be proof of the falsity of the theory. He erred.

It was at the time of the Exile that the four documents were allegedly (according to the Hypothesis) combined and edited. The separate documents, therefore, had existed earlier. The inscription, therefore, was a quote from a document which existed before the exile and so does not refute the Documentary Hypothesis!

Ross Parker’s knowledge of biblical matters is in many instances matched only by his archaeological expertise.