Christlike man who lived before Jesus?

rebel8

I was recently looking up some stuff about resurrected gods that predate Christ (there are many)...

I found Mithra/Mithras. I guess I will need to take a trip to the library. The stuff on the Internet seems to be not sourced and kind of fishy, but so far the claims I've read:

-he was a god predating Christ, born of a virgin
-his temple was located on the site that now houses the Vatican
-he was born on Dec 25 in a cave or stable
-he did miracles similar to Christ
-he had 12 traveling companions
-he was called "the good shepherd", "the way, the truth and the light", "redeemer", "savior", "Messiah", "lion" and "lamb".
-he was resurrected on Easter after being dead 3 days, resurrection celebrated annually
-ceremonies--baptism to remove sins, anointing, sacred meal of bread and water, consecrated wine possessing special powers, a mystical liquid drunk while saying a sacred formula
-followers also believed in a flood and judgment day
-from the Xians--none of this is true

Have any of you read about this, and can you recommend a credible book about this? I see lists on Amazon and Wikipedia but I was wondering which ones are good.

I do see lots of web sites but I'm kind of skeptical about their sources/accuracy....not that anything this old has a lot of proof laying around anyway.

Satanus

Wt has claimed that various men prefigured jesus christ: moses, david, elijah, and others. One would think that they were somewhat like him;)

S

Seeker4

You should rent the documentary The God Who Wasn't There. It explores this idea that there were actually numerous men/gods whose lives parralleled that of the Bible's Jesus in dozens of ways.

Their concept is that there were dozens of myths about a character like this, and one of those myths, or a combination of the myths, was the foundation for creating the Christian religion.

It's actually an idea that has been around for a long time, and there are books that discuss it in detail.

S4

Leolaia

A good place to start (seriously!) is Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithras

There are two main problems with the kind of information you presented. One is that it is based on conflating aspects of the Eastern religion of Mithra with the Western mystery cult of Mithras; the Roman religion is only tenuously related to the original Persian belief of Mithra. This derives in part from Cumont's thesis which is not generally accepted today (also, the inscriptional evidence in the West is especially difficult to interpret). Also, the language used to describe Mithraism in the list of parallels seems to "sweeten" the parallels with Christianity; for instance, I have never seen a Mithraic epithet "the way, truth, and the light" mentioned anywhere in the literature and it seems like it was (at least in this form) taken from the fourth gospel itself and then cited dubiously as a parallel. One final issue is that Mithraism was the main competitor with Christianity in the third and fourth centuries and much of our information about Mithraism comes from this time -- it is thus unclear how much there was mutual influence, or the extent to which the resemblence is based on a common cultural milieu between the two. Nonetheless, the parallels are very striking in many ways (such as the Santa Prisca Mithras inscription, "You saved us after having shed the eternal blood", although here the blood here is not Mithras' own but that of the bull he slew which gave fertility to the ground and immortality to the devotees who drink the blood in the communal meal) and even Justin Martyr and Tertullian had to admit that the Mithras cult had anticipated Christianity in some respects.

Here is an academic article on the relationship between Mithraism and Chrisitanity:

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=0soI8HZXT3gC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1306&dq

It is also worth noting that Judaism was strongly influenced by Persian Zoroastrianism and many apocalyptic concepts (such as progressive corruption of society, the coming of a Savior at the end, Judgment Day and eternal judgment, resurrection, and eschatological punishment by fire) are generally thought to have arisen through Persian influence. One Zoroanistrian book called the Oracles of Hystaspes was popular among Christians and (whether in a Jewish version or not) possibly influenced the author of Revelation. The Savior figure that most closely parallels Jesus (in his apocalyptic guise) is not Mithra but Saoshyant.

rebel8

Yeah, I did read Wikipedia's entries but it wasn't sourced very well?? Then I did several Internet searches and there was tons of juicy stuff but all unsourced. Xians claiming it's all untrue and others making tons of claims...

I have heard this stuff before, but just the basics. I guess I find it interesting. Maybe I will get a book about it and read some more.

Jankyn

Leolaia, you are a research goddess.

cameo-d

Rebel 8,

I am glad you brought this up. It leads to a question I have. It has disturbed me that WT promotes Jesus as "the " Christ. The title Christ has always been synonomous with the name Jesus, or so I thought. But it seems now that WT is subtly changing the meaning...(.or was the meaning there all along?) that the word Christ is not so much a proper noun, .....but is an adjective used to describe "a nature".

Here's a tidbit I thought was interesting:

As the name Jesus is often associated with Christ, the etymology of Christ may be of interest. It was Crist in Old English, having derived from Latin Christus, which itself was adopted from Greek Christos “Christ”, the noun use of the verb meaning “anointed”. Incidentally, that was a direct translation of Hebrew mashiah “anointed” (English messiah), which was short for m’shiahyahweh “the Lord’s anointed”. The ch- spelling of Christ in English did not become prevalent until the 15th century (and that applies to related words like chrism, as well). The earliest recorded use of the word in English is found in the Lindisfarne Gospels (from about 950): “Arises forðon wiðer~wearde crist & lease witgo” which means “For false Messiahs and false prophets will appear” (Matt. 24:24).

If WT uses the wording "the Christ" simply to denote characteristics of a particular nature, then wouldn't it hold true that the word Christ would not be exclusive to Jesus?

Has WT changed the meaning of the word Christ?

Thanks,

Cameo.

Leolaia

rebel8....The quality of Wikipedia varies article to article, but in this case in the article on Mithras is quite good and is well-sourced. I recommended it because it gives a handy sketch that, while not at the level of an academic article by a specialist, presents the information in a pretty reliable way. It is far better than the kind of thing normally found in the internet (such as what is in your OP).

Here is another article that is pretty good: http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Religions/iranian/Mithraism/mithraism.htm

Then I did several Internet searches and there was tons of juicy stuff but all unsourced. Xians claiming it's all untrue and others making tons of claims...

The truth is probably between these extremes. It is true that many of the claims are dubious, exaggerated, fake, etc. I have already expressed in this forum my disdain for the poorly-sourced exaggerations of parallels in the Zeitgeist webmovie. Your list in the OP contains a real howler: "[Mithras] was resurrected on Easter after being dead 3 days, resurrection celebrated annually". Yeah right. But the Christians are wrong too in denying any sort of parallel as well. These are well-known and documented, involving similar liturgy, ceremonial practices, and partly comparable soteriology. The issue is how to interpret the real parallels that do exist, especially concerning a religion that we have only incomplete knowledge of.

rebel8

cameo-d, I believe the local jws taught that Jesus was a name and Christ was a title. Is that not what you were taught?

cameo-d

Thank you for info, Rebel 8.

Is that not what you were taught?

I was taught nothing. Religion was not a part of my upbringing at all. My family did not go to church nor were any of these religious things discussed as I can recall.

Christlike man who lived before Jesus?

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