Freke and Gandy's book has about 70 pages of bibliography, buy the book. Their conclusions are not really new. It was just a while since someone packaged it well. The entirety of religious history is one of syncretism and emulation. Many ancient texts and iconographs are published in Ancient Near Eastern Texts by Pritchard. Get the original volume with suppliment, not the little abridgements. Higgin's old Anacalypsis (2 vol) has thousands of references to original sources. Sources never get outdated. Newer finds are sometimes posted on various boards. The Perseus research site has many Greek and Roman materials.
Osiris-Dionysus
by yxl1 43 Replies latest watchtower bible
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peacefulpete
BTW yxjf Freke and gandy do no assert that entire list you posted had taken place 2500 bc. These represent a family or genre of myths that evolved in time as all myths do. Some elements like the disappearing or dying and returning god motif are among the oldest known to historians, yet other more sophisticated concepts don't appear until Greek and Roman periods. The Jesus story is not anachronistic as it would be if it mirrored myths from 2500 BC. That would be evidence of a miracle. Rather, it fits in perfectly with the stage of mythic developements surounding it. F and G's book is demonstating how the Jesus cults were a product of their times, not merely a recycling of ancient mythology.
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yxl1
Hoob, Thanks for the interesting link. I will giving it a read when I get home from work.
Freke and gandy do no assert that entire list you posted had taken place 2500 bc
I never said they did! But you're correct. No one said that all the events on the list took place around 2500BC...that was my mistake and you have my apologies.
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avishai
There were many other "gods supposedly crucified. The Krishna mythos parralels jesus'. Odin was crucified for three days. This is a very old myth. What a bout Mithras? Also very similar.
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Narkissos
A little digression: have you ever noticed Hosea 6:1-3? What a "prophecy" of the third-day resurrection wouldn't it make! Yet it is very seldom quoted by Christian fundamentalists (including JWs). Why? Because it's a clear reference to the Baal's resurrection ritual, applied to Yhwh in Israel, and criticized by the prophet (not so much for the ritual itself as for the shallow religious and moral views surrounding it).
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seedy3
Actually there are many parallels in the past Osris, Mythras (Roman), Mythra (Persian), Odin, Baccus, Attis, Baal, Tamuzz, Just to name a few. Most all of them have very simular occurences involved in their worship. Almost all have the Euchrist meal in one way or another, and most were all raised from the dead after three days. Some were born of virgins, some were crucified, some had 12 followers who witnessed his resurection or his afterlife, ect, ect. However the closest to the life of Jesus was Baccus, with a close second being Attis. As one website put it old parts to make a new religon.
Seedy
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peacefulpete
yxl1...sorry if my brevity seemed curt. i feel the fine distinction between simple "copying" and a process of syncretism is essential to understand the research. Sites like Tektonics seek to distinguish the Jesus story from it's genre by emphasizing the unique characteristics in the various myths while glossing over the broader similarities. This is why I made my initial comment. The writers at these Christian sites do not understand the distinction between copying and syncretism. Or if they do, then they are trying to misrepresent the scholar's arguements to lay people like us. Just as Attis was disticnt from Osiris ,Jesus is distinct from Osiris. Each myth has it's own unique story and message. Yet few reject the fact that later myths have indebtedness to earlier ones. As the world's cultures contacted each other an exchange in mythology took place, with cetain themes and motifs having greater appeal than others (or political clout) . In time theses recurring themes and motifs were expressed in hundreds of local variations.
Additionally I've seen Christians declare a myth was this way or that way and that scholars are lying when they say a myth had this element or another in it. Sometimes it is a matter of semantics, Attis born from rock (like Mithra), yet others say he had a mother. The fact is both are correct, his mother was the earth ( I forget her name), his father was Zeus. Some stories will emphasize the mother element the others, his birth from rock. Some iconographs depict a mother other not. The greater import is that he was divinely conceived, untainted by 'sin' and went on to do miracles, offer hope and salvation to humans. Some Christians have made much noise about whether Krishna's mother was a virgin. Here the definition of virgin is the issue. Yes she had other children, 8 I think, each was killed by the evil king fearing a rival. Yet Krishna was unique as he was not the product of union with her husband but the result of Divine conception. She was even given notice in a vision of light that a life would enter her womb to become the lord Krishna. So is this a virgin birth? Many Hindu writings call it so. Christians insist that it was not. This is the kind of obfuscation Christians sites like tektoniks present as proof.
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peacefulpete
hundred years after the time of Christ (as does indeed all their evidence of D being crucified [52]). They also state incorrectly that there are no representations of the crucified Jesus before the fifth century; as Raymond Brown noted in Death of the Messiah, there are about a half-dozen depictions of the crucified Jesus dated between the second and fifth century, and even if this were not so, the literary depiction in the Gospels amounts to the same thing. Freke and Gandy chose rather a poor examplar to feature on their cover."
I like the statement that "there are about a half dozen depictions of the crucified Jesus dated between the second and fifth centuries", then say, "even if this were not so". Actually there are not any christian depictions or crucufictions prior to the 5th century,(some contend that one or two Dionysian icons are really Christian) but this is irrelevent as prechristian use of the cross, chi rho or tree as instrument of death of godman is well established. To say that the authors were being deceptive in their choice of artwork is slanderous to me. They never said that the cover illustration was prechristian nor implied it. In fact the book speaks about the AD developements of the cult iconography.
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Balsam
I read Freke's & Gandy books, both of them. This has been over a year ago, have been waiting to see if any others here would finally read these. I read the "Christ Conspiracy" by an author I can't think of right now. After reading these book, it lead me to try and understand if the bible still has a place in my life. After continued investigation into the Gnostics which the WTS cames is all wrong. I think the Gnostic writtings as is spoken about in the "DaVenti codes" novel talks about that so many people are reading now.
It really takes a while to digest this kind of information, and look at it with a skeptical mind, and do lots of research. Each of us can only draw our own conclusions.
Ruth
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peacefulpete
The Christ Conspiracy book is not the best on the subject. Too much "conspiracy". I say this only because Hooberus has a link from the tektoniks site in his favorites file(lol) that attacks the author's credentials. This has been discussed here a number of times this year.