Let's ask a question about Jesus

by hamilcarr 32 Replies latest jw friends

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  hamilcarr

  Why not start us off with a few good ones?

  I haven't a clue what will satisfy you, so I just quote from wikipedia:

  Parallels with Christianity

  Statue of Dionysus (Sardanapalus), in the Museo Palazzo Massimo Alle Terme in Rome, Italy

  Several deities that predate Christianity are believed by some to display very close similarities to Jesus; Osiris-Dionysus, Asclepius, Apollo, Helios, Hora, Mithras are among them. [25] Dionysos, who was also worshiped long before Jesus, has also many similar features to him: [26] For example, he was worshipped on December 25th (Rustic Dionysia) (Christmas), the day of the winter solstice in ancient Greek times, and his major holiday was in March called City Dionysia (Easter). [citation needed] Some sources even claims that Dionysus died on the cross. [27]

  Dionysian religion and Christianity are significantly parallel; according to Martin Hengel, "Dionysus had been at home in Palestine for a long time", and Judaism was influenced by Dionysian traditions. [28]

  The modern scholar Barry Powell thinks that Christian notions of eating and drinking the "flesh" and "blood" of Jesus were influenced by the cult of Dionysus. In another parallel Powell adduces, Dionysus was distinct among Greek gods as a deity commonly felt within individual followers. Another example of possible influence on Christianity, Dionysus' followers, as well as another god, Pan, are said to have had the most influence on the modern view of Satan as animal-like and horned. [29]

  Wine was important to Dionysus, imagined as its creator; the creation of wine from water figures also in Jesus's Marriage at Cana. In the 19th century, Bultmann and others compared both themes and concluded that the Dionysian theophany was transferred to Jesus; Heinz Noetzel's Christus und Dionysos disagrees, [30] arguing Dionysus never actually did turn water into wine. Martin Hengel replied that opposing traditions would be anachronistic, and that since all Palestinians were familiar with the transformation of water to wine as a miracle, it was expected from the Messiah to perform it.

  Peter Wick argues that the use of wine symbolism in the Gospel of John, including the story of the Marriage at Cana at which Jesus turns water into wine, is intended to show Jesus as superior to Dionysus. [31]

  Paralelles can also be seen between Pentheus' arrest and questioning of Dionysus in Euripides' Bacchae and the arrest and questioning of Jesus by Pontius Pilot. The attitude of Dionysus is similar to Jesus' attitude as presented in the Gospels.
• 

  AlmostAtheist

  >> Dionysus was, for example, the Son of God, born from a virgin.

  That's another one that kind of iffy, especially from a Christian's perspective. Dionysus was the son of Zeus, who impregnated Semele by taking the form of a lightning bolt. A person might say, "Well, it's the same thing. A non-human impregnation took place, whether you call it 'holy spirit' or a 'lightning bolt', it's still a virgin birth." But I don't get the impression it's presented as a "virgin birth" in the legend. It doesn't help that the mother is destroyed in the process of conception, and it is ultimately Zeus that carries the fetus.

  To call this story a parallel with the Jesus one seems a bit of a stretch, when you get all the details laid out.

  >> I was curious to hear what some of the christians on JWD think about this.

  I'm curious too, but the more well-read of the group will slash single-sentence items like this to ribbons. Or just ignore them.

  >> Also real Greek heroes like Alexander the Great were believed to be born from a virgin, conceived by God. Wine and bread were widely used symbols of redemption of sins in a variety of mystery cults.

  You seem to be well-read on the topic, too. Could you perhaps assemble a brief list of references that support the "Alexander" and "bread/wine" comments? Then we'd have something to discuss.

  Dave
• 

  AlphaOmega

  Why are some of the pivotal events of Jesus' life as recorded in the Gospels shamelessly borrowed from pagan predecessors? The following list is not supposed to be exhaustive: immaculate conception, son of God, death and resurrection, the Last Supper celebrated with bread and wine, an incarnate God who dies on a cross to redeem all sins, ...

  Take a look at the work of Freke and Gandy - they produced a list in several of their books.
• 

  Sirona

  Good thread, Hamilcarr

  I'm just reading a book entitled "Origins of Christian and Pagan beliefs"

  It outlines pagan roots for Christian practices such as the Eucharist. Consuming bread and wine as symbols is part of modern pagan rituals too.

  Other things include the requirement for a saviour god. In Pagan mythology, often the god was symbolically slain in order to "save" mankind as part of the year's cyclical vegetation rites. His blood was outpoured for the good of mankind.

  Osiris in Egyptian mythology was slain and reassembled (brought back to life by being put back together) - thereafter ascending to a state wherein he met those who died (their underworld was similar in idea to our heaven in reference to it being the place where the dead go to).

  The winter solstice (around end of december) often heralded the "birth" of the Sun God because the people's observed the shortest day (sun at his weakest) and then the subsequent longer days (ie. he was reborn) so this is why many gods prior to Jesus were said to have been born around this time.

  At around 3000BC, the sun would rise in the constellation of Virgo at the time of the winter solstice - hence "virgin birth" of these gods. Despite some of them not being exactly the same myth (a woman impregnated by god) they still had the commonality of not being "natural human" births - but rather something caused by God in which a mortal woman didn't participate in.

  There is much, much more....

  Sirona
• 

  AlmostAtheist

  >> I haven't a clue what will satisfy you, so I just quote from wikipedia:

  You don't need to satisfy me, I'm already satisfied that's they are ALL myths. You said you were curious about what the Christians on the board think about it. I can tell you what they think -- they've seen lengthy lists of so-called parallels, seen them slashed to nothing by research, and walked away feeling like there are no parallels at all.

  It's the same trap people fall into when they assemble lists of contradictions in the Bible. Rather than present 10 really good ones that are unarguably contradictions, they present 100's of them that are at best only marginally contradictory. A bible-believer scans the lists, says "same ol', same ol'" and walks away believing the Bible is solid.

  Which is why just saying, "Alexander the Great was thought to have been born of a virgin" or quoting a Wikipedia article specifically designed to make the "parallel point" isn't going to work. You need a few specific, well-documented examples.

  Dave
• 

  DanTheMan

  I think it's interesting to learn the story of Zeus impregnating whoever with a lightning bolt, or of Dionysus dying on a cross, or of the circumstances of Pentheus' arrest. And I'm sure that scholars who make it their life's work to hone and increase their knowledge of the mythologies of various ancient peoples and the parallels between them find it to be a very satisfying endeavor. I envy persons such as Leolaia and Narkissos, who have been able to devote so much time to studying these subjects and who seem to be so enriched by it. I wouldn't even know where to start.

  But, to try to present these parallels as evidence to Christians, especially those of the fundamentalist variety, that their belief system was begged, borrowed, and stolen from other ancient religions, with the overall goal of helping them to move beyond a narrow, bigoted religious worldview is to go at it bass-ackwards, imo. Because, once a person joins a deluded collective of people that takes a certain set of ancient tales involving supernatural occurrences to be literally true, then they become emotionally incapable of viewing on an even plane the supernatural tales that they take to be literally true and those which are not part of the mythological structure that they've embraced.

  It's really simple - people aren't born from virgins! People don't die and come back to life! Water doesn't turn into wine! None of these things has ever really happened!!! And I think that, deep down, everybody knows this! I knew it when I was a Catholic. I knew it when I was a JW. But there's that whole compartmentalization thing that religion does to a person, where things are held to be true in one part of the mind and the part of the mind that recognizes the preposterousness of such things is cut off from contemplating them. The whole key to religious deconversion is decompartmentalization, lol.
• 

  hamilcarr

  I can tell you what they think -- they've seen lengthy lists of so-called parallels, seen them slashed to nothing by research, and walked away feeling like there are no parallels at all.

  It works quite well with the JWs I know. A lot of their debunking of catholicism and traditional christianity is based on these very reasons, i.e. the pagan origins of Christmas, Easter (Astarte, Isjtar, Eostre), the cross. So if you say 'take it just one step further and come to the conclusion most of the motives found in the Bible itself are pagan too', they are open to further reasoning. The conclusion of these conversations is 'well it's in the Bible, so it can't be pagan' or 'these pagan elements are crafty imitations by Satan to deceive upright christians', statements you can refer to in further discussions.
• 

  Leolaia

  It works quite well with the JWs I know. A lot of their debunking of catholicism and traditional christianity is based on these very reasons, i.e. the pagan origins of Christmas, Easter (Astarte, Isjtar, Eostre), the cross. So if you say 'take it just one step further and come to the conclusion most of the motives found in the Bible itself are pagan too', they are open to further reasoning. The conclusion of these conversations is 'well it's in the Bible, so it can't be pagan' or 'these pagan elements are crafty imitations by Satan to deceive upright christians', statements you can refer to in further discussions.

  I get what you are saying, and you are right that the Society is oblivious of the elements of the Bible that are just as "pagan" as the customs they puritanically avoid. I think the point that Almost Atheist is making, and which I have made elsewhere, is that one needs to be careful about the specific claims that are made. Your association of Eostre with Astarte/Ishtar is one such example. There is no connection between them. While there are numerous parallels between Jesus and the various mystery religion deities (Horus-Osiris, Dionysius, Bacchus, Adonis, etc.), usually in terms of roles and relationship of the deity with the community of believers (and less in terms of narrative parallels), there have unfortunately been many that exaggerate the narrative parallels to the extent that these other deities have "stories" that exactly match that of Jesus (actually, one particular harmonization of the many stories of Jesus). That is the thing to be careful about. Horus was not crucified. Prometheus was not born of a virgin. Dionysius did not change water to wine at a marriage ceremony. But you will find many people claiming these very things on the internet.

  The other point is that whatever parallels there are, they pale compared to the parallels between the gospel narratives and their actual direct source, the OT. There the parallels are not limited to generalities but the tiniest of details, even verbatim phraseology. Nor is this irrelevant to the question of mysteries. As I said in an earlier thread, each mystery religion reworked its own native mythological traditions on common themes. That is precisely what happened with Christianity. It wasn't a "copycat" kind of borrowing that Freke & Gandy, Acharya S., Zeitgeist (Peter Joseph), and many others make it out to be. Much of the stuff in the gospels that Zeitgeist claims was borrowed from a non-existent Horus mythology (e.g. being born of a virgin with a star in the east, riding on a donkey, etc. etc.) represent exegetical reworkings of traditional material found in the OT. Moreover, the appearance of narrative themes in Christianity that parallel those in mystery religions (such as the dying-rising motif, or the Father-Son dynamic) may also represent a resurgence of traditional Hebrew/Israelite/Canaanite myths that have left their mark on the OT itself (cf. Daniel 7, which was a direct source for NT christology and which utilizes traditional Baal and El themes and imagery).
• 

  Sirona

  Moreover, the appearance of narrative themes in Christianity that parallel those in mystery religions (such as the dying-rising motif, or the Father-Son dynamic) may also represent a resurgence of traditional Hebrew/Israelite/Canaanite myths that have left their mark on the OT itself (cf. Daniel 7, which was a direct source for NT christology and which utilizes traditional Baal and El themes and imagery).

  Thanks for that post. The book I'm reading emphasises the influence of pagan mythology on the OT and subsequently Christianity.

  It suggests that things such as the sacrificing of a lamb at passover are directly related to customs which existed at earlier times.

  For Christians, this means that they must admit that their religion is influenced by pagan faiths and astrological connections (the zodiac)

  Sirona
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  real one

  were there any pagans who were resurrected?