Ever question why Roman and Greek myth, had similarities to Christianity?

free2beme

The virgin birth, the strong men, Animals being used to tempt mankind, the war between Gods, etc. These are all things from Greek and Roman myth, yet every single one of these could be pulled out as examples from the Christian bible. Did you ever wonder, why? I asked elders and they would say that the Greeks borrowed Christianity to make their myths. While this sounds good, you must realize that Christianity happened later in History, then Greek and Roman myth. So why is it, do you think, that Christianity has things in common with the Greek and Roman myths, if it is not suppose to be mythology?

candidlynuts

you can really dig deep into myth and find a lot of similarities..

i think sumerian myth goes back even farther than greek and roman and also has similarities..

its very interesting and really puts in perspecitve how far back humanity goes and what good it did for anyone to believe in anything .

mann377

Ever notice that many miracles happen near the "water". This is no coincidence. Tthis Hellenistic belief predates the bible and the Jews adopted this.

gaiagirl

Hmmm, Israel conquered by the Babylonians, who are eventually replaced by the Greeks, who are eventually replaced by the Romans. So the "nation" of Israel spends hundreds of years under the rule of whoever was the local superpower, and at the same time, is writing and editing their holy books which eventually became part of the Bible. I'm surprised there aren't MORE similarities.

jaguarbass

Christianity got there storys from their myths there have been many messiahs and virgin births before jesus.

BlackSwan of Memphis

Ever notice that ;many miracles happen near the "water". ; This is no coincidence. ; Tthis Hellenistic belief predates the bible and the Jews adopted this.

This is interesting. I've never heard that before.

you can really dig deep into myth and find a lot of similarities..
i think sumerian myth goes back even farther than greek and roman and also has similarities..
its very interesting and really puts in perspecitve how far back humanity goes and what good it did for anyone to believe in anything .

That's the impression I've been getting as well the more I read. One of the books that got me thinking was by Margaret Starbird. It's called the Woman with the Alabster Jar. While I don't really share her views on Jesus and Mary Magdalene, some of the things I learned in there about the other gods and goddesses that were popular at the time got me on an interesting search.

zagor

free2beme,

You’re not Free Mason, are you? These are their favorite arguments. Anyway, That Jesus of Nazareth existed is by now pretty much accepted fact by most historians, I don't know about every other detail but there are some intriguing records from antiquity

Here are some:
Tacitus wrote:
Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. (Ann. 15.44) Pliny

The governor was a man named Gaius Pilinius, whom we call Pliny the Younger (to distinguish him from his uncle, Pliny the Elder, a famous naturalist). The younger Pliny served as the Roman governor of Pontus and Bithynia (northern Turkey) from 111-113 A.D. During his tenure he wrote numerous letters, including a letter to the Emperor Trajan asking how he should deal with Christians who were accused of crimes against Rome.

Pliny's letter provides a fascinating glimpse of early Christian belief and behavior, though relatively little information about Jesus himself. Pliny states that Christians will never "curse Christ" and that they meet together each week, during which time they "sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god" (Letters, 10.96).
Pliny appears to have no knowledge of Jesus independent of what he has learned from Christians. Nevertheless, he documents that fact that they were becoming a problem in his region, and that they held Jesus in the highest regard, calling him "Christ" and worshipping him as God.

Josephus Jewish historian wrote this remarkable passage:

Keeping in mind that Josephus was devout Jew who didn't accept Jesus as Messiah, this is quite a remarkable statement

There are a number of other references from that time which makes it clear that someone like Jesus truly existed.
Dr. Mark Goodacre from University of Birmingham has recently told in an Discovery programme that it his disciples would not lightly make up a story about Jesus not having an earthly father (would rather try to hide it) given the climate they lived in, such an idea would actually work against their cause if they wanted to make up a character of Jesus. He would have to be perceived as clean and born out of wedlock otherwise no one would listen to a story made up by a bastard.

Which is rather interesting, what we often forget is that we live in civilization very different from those of early Christians under Roman Empire.

Even those perceived similarities should really be viewed in a context. Let say that my mother is Australian and a father English that I was born on 1 of April 1973. On my birthday I got sick and had to go to hospital. As remarkable as it sound while there I’ve met someone who also had a birthday that day, whose mother was an Aussie and father English and his mother and my mother had the same maiden name. Would you say that something like that is impossible to happen or would you say it is just a freaky coincidence?

zagor

To be fair about Jesephuses statement, here is a discussion about in from University of Pensylvania.

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/humm/Topics/JewishJesus/josephus.html

So even if we water it down and take out things added by the church it is still quite a remarkible statement

BlackSwan of Memphis

Zagor:

Is it possible that Jesus as a man existed but that the stories were embellished to compete against other local gods?

zagor

Is it possible that Jesus as a man existed but that the stories were embellished to compete against other local gods?

Of course, new religions always compete with the estublished ones. The question is if there is any substance to so called miricles from the bible. I don't know. But christianity was equally accepted by all layers of society of that time which would indicate that there was something unusual about it all; again to what extent I don't know. Today, we don't have problems accpeting gurus from India that seem to be sometimes performing feets we can't find explanation for, right away. I would say Jesus was equally very good at what he was doing otherwise he would not have been crussified as a threat. I mean think about it, christians of that times were really dying in arenas, not very likely it they were not convinced into something quite real to them; given that many were not just illiterate slaves must have meant that Jesus was very good at what he was doing.

Ever question why Roman and Greek myth, had similarities to Christianity?

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