The Pagan Christ

poopsiecakes

Has anyone read this book? I haven't, but I just watched a documentary on it. The author's premise is that the idea of Jesus as a god coming to earth came out of Egyptian mythology and that there is no real archeological evidence that Jesus actually existed. At first I was puzzled because I thought that the existence of a man named Jesus, born in Bethleham etc etc was undisputed but that the miracles & such were considered mythical.

Anyway, it was really interesting and got me thinking. Particularly one thing that was mentioned which was that mankind's progress over the last 2000 years has been severely stunted because of the belief in this man/god; the belief that we are nothing without divine grace and that we were be far more advanced as a species without the influence of Christianity.

I was just curious if anyone has read the book or seen the documentary and any thoughts that came out of it....

fluke

Look up zietgeist in youtube

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zeitgeist+movie&search_type=&aq=6s

Bassically, the whole bible was taken from other religions and stories previously told to people...

tec

Look up zietgeist in youtube if you want. But every Christ-myth'er that I have ever heard of uses false claims to back up the claim that Jesus was a rip off from other ancient religions.

You just have to check sources mentioned to discover that their claim is padded with false information... which is either lazy research or outright lies. Neither of which makes for a credible argument.

I only have so many posts, but please check out the thread, 'who do you think this is talking about.' I list all my reasons for my disbelief in these claims and cite some of my sources.

Tec

poopsiecakes

Thanks for the link fluke - I'll check it out, there seems to be a lot to see!

tec, I'm not sure I believe this guy or not - the documentary had quite a few people discrediting the book so the other side was well represented. It just got me thinking. The only known accounts of Jesus were written well after his death - why nothing during his lifetime? Why not one secular reference to his miracles? I would think that if someone went around healing the sick that someone would have recorded it for posterity right away...

I did read some of your posts on the other thread and I understand where you're coming from. Personally, I haven't believed in the OT for quite a while now, but this documentary really got me thinking!

JerkhovahsWitless

I've never read that particular book. Hmm, I'll have to add it to my list.

Similar books that I have read and recommend are:
- Christ In Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
- 101 Myths of the Bible: How Ancient Scribes Invented Biblical History
- The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold
- Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled
- The Jesus Mysteries: Was The "Original Jesus" A Pagan God?
(I feel like I should be posting Amazon affiliate links to all of those books)

I'm looking forward to reading Sex Worship Or An Exposition of the Phallic Origins of Religion after I finish Thought Reform by Lifton.

From what I've researched, the Zeitgeist debunkers seem to be Christian apologists using WT style thinking. The author of some of the books mentioned above, who's work was used in Zeitgeist has this URL about the debunker claims: http://stellarhousepublishing.com/zeitgeist-challenge.html

Btw, the Watchtower is well aware of Jesus being a sun-god. The very books they've quoted from for years showing the "pagan" origin of christendom's christmas, easter, the trinity, Madonna with child statues, etc, also expose the non-christian roots of Biblical myths.

As a quick example, if you look up the book Paganism In Our Christianity at Amazon.com, you'll be able to search through the book. Searching for "Isis virgin" will bring up pages showing the sun-god Horus was born of a virgin, as well as Buddah. Searching for "eucharist mithra" in the book will bring up a few pages about how the last supper is taken from much older religions.

Try a search for "Paganism In Our Christianity" in the WT Lib. They quote a lot from that book, but of course, out of context and only the parts they need to push their agenda.

"*** sh chap. 3 pp. 65-66 Common Threads in Mythology ***
Christian Myths and Legends?
40 According to some modern critics, Christianity also embraces myths and legends. Is that really so? Many scholars reject as myths the virgin birth of Jesus, his miracles, and his resurrection. Some even say he never existed but that his myth is a carryover from more ancient mythology and sun worship. As mythology expert Joseph Campbell wrote: “Several scholars have suggested, therefore, that there was never either John [the Baptizer] or Jesus, but only a water-god and a sun-god.” But we need to remember that many of these same scholars are atheists and thus reject totally any belief in God."

I love that logical fallacy the paragraph ends with. Actually, one big fallacy sums up that entire article. (Gotta also love their interpolated Josephus quote to prove Jesus' existence later in the article, but they leave out the rest of it where Josephus says Jesus died on a cross).

Interestingly, here's the whole quote from Joseph Campbell "'The rite of baptism was an ancient rite coming down from the old Sumerian temple city Eridu, of the water god Ea, "God of the House of Water". In the Hellenistic period, Ea was called Oannes, which is in Greek Ioannes, Latin Johannes,' Hebrew Yohanan, English John. Several scholars have suggested, therefore, that there was never either John or Jesus, but only a water-god and a sun-god.'"

kashkrunched

Jesus is real. So is Santa Claus and the Wizard of Oz. You just need faith and click your heels three times and say, 'there's no place like the Kingdom Hall'.

Mary

There are a few non-biblical references to Jesus, so I doubt that he was a completely fictional character. Tacitus 55 CE - 117 CE, Roman historian) mentions "Christus" who is Jesus - Annals 15.44

"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."

Flavius Josephus 37 CE - 101 CE also mentions James, the brother of Jesus in his Antiquities, Book 20, ch. 9.

"Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done."

There is some dispute at to whether Josephus' other mentioning of Jesus was tampered with, so I haven't mentioned it here. I believe Jesus most certainly existed. What I think the big debate is, is: Was he the Messiah, or simply a good man who ended up as another statistic of the Roman Empire?

PSacramento

There is as much historical proof that Jesus existed as there is the others like Aristole existed.

poopsiecakes

Mary, they mentioned Tacitus and Josephus in the documentary and the disputed text was discussed and even those who were arguing on the side of Jesus' validity agreed that Josephus' mention of Jesus as the Messiah was added centuries later. You bring up the key point though, in my opinion. There is nothing outside of the bible that points to Jesus as anything divine. I believe that a man existed who was a bit of a free thinker and challenged the system, said some really inspirational things and a whole movement sprang from that.

The comment about how advanced we may be had it not been for the Christian movement really struck me. That's what got me sitting straight up thinking hard. I remember reading that a version of the flush toilet (for example) was invented in the time of Elizabeth I. She saw it and declared it a work of the devil, effectively delaying modern sanitation for centuries. And that's just one thing - imagine what else was invented that was kiboshed because of superstition. We already know how advanced the Egyptians and Romans were and that things definitely went backwards. I had never really put together how believing in Jesus as the messiah may have contributed to that. My mind blew just a little.

Thanks for your post, Jerkhovah - another example of the WTS taking things out of context. How do they get away with this? How is it that more people are not in a serious uproar about being quoted out of context?

PSacramento

The whole notion of Christanity holding b ack science is over blown, it didn't.

Read the works of Augustine Hippo as an example.

The Pagan Christ

Share this