Who am I thinking of? Question to all

by Sam the Man 32 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  LittleToe

  Taking a secular view, it's an interesting book, for sure.

  ...It is hard for us today to imagine the Jesus story being consciously created, but this is because we have misunderstood ancient spirituality. Myths were not seen as untruths as they are now. They were understood as allegories of spiritual initiation, which encoded profound mystical teachings. Reworking old myths to create new ones was a standard practice in the ancient world...

  ...Whilst our ideas clearly rewrite history, we do not see ourselves as undermining Christianity. On the contrary we are suggesting that Christianity is in fact richer than we previously imagined. According to the original Gnostic Christians, the Jesus story is a perennial myth with the power to impart the mystical experience of Gnosis, which can transform each one of us into a Christ, not merely a history of events that happened to someone else two thousand years ago.

  http://www.vexen.co.uk/books/jesusmysteries.html

  The thing about "initiations" is that you've gotta believe them for them to have any effect
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  Shining One

  Sam,
  >I am a legend, a mystery Godman who appeared in many forms under many names thousands of years before the birth of Jesus. Can any Christian explain to me why?
  
  Since mankind had a common origin, one can trace the legends and myths back to common sources within the middle east where man first lived. I would speculate (though with some study of multiple sources of scholarship) that tribal groups passed down information that had some grains of truth. God's influence was upon many though He chose to reveal prophecy through the Hebrew lineage. The Godman came according to prophecy and even the Magi of Persia were well informed and looking for His arrival, no doubt through the captivity and dispersion of the Hebrews. God did indeed break through from eterity and into our time frame at the perfect time to reveal the salvation of mankind. Jesus is the 'lamb slain from eternity'!
  You can see that in the many similar ideas of atonement by animal sacrifice that stems from the first 'covering' that God made Adam and Eve. There the promised seed was prophecied in Genesis 3 and we see Cain and Abel bringing in their sacrfices. All of this is common to groups that worshipped El, who was the original God that fathered all the other gods in polytheistic religions. El Shaddai is the name used by Abraham for God and later on God called Himself, I Am, or Yahweh by translation. Other names are El Elyon, Adonai, Erkamkana Adonai, Yahweh Sabboth (Lord of Hosts). God is often named by His actions as a verb! One of the Bible translations that use some of these names is the Roman Catholic, New Jerusalem Bible.
  Rex
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  Sam the Man

  Hi Sad Emo,

  there are others but the book focuses primarily on the Osiris-Dionysus myth/legends. They make amazing reading, I recommend the book. P.s. why are you sad?

  Hi Littletoe,

  Do you have a religion/faith?

  Shining One,

  Interesting points. There are those who believe this region to be where everything escalated from. Why would you think that there is just one region on earth where all other religions/faiths came from?
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  Sad emo

  Hi Sam

  Thanks for the reply, I think I'll try chase up the book to read it myself

  P.s. why are you sad?

  It's my nature at the moment - if I was a donkey, my name would be Eeyore

  emo (of the trying hard to be happy class)
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  stillconcerned

  
  yeah, LT..

  Do you have a religion/faith?

  (snicker edited out...)
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  in a new york bethel minute

  JEHOVAH Jr.!!!
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  kid-A

  BRIAN?????

  
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  Qcmbr

  JEHOVAH Jr.!!! - Jesus had kids?
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  LittleToe

  Sam:ROFL

  Hang around long enough and you can answer that one for yourself
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  Leolaia

  The problem with the book is that the authors are classicists and steeped in Hellenistic culture, not Second Temple-era Judean culture....and thus the book practically omits the whole Jewish context of early Christianity. This is a huge oversight imho. The influence of the OT and Second Temple Judaism (itself partly Hellenized) is much more significant on all levels. Also, there is a lack of distinction between direct Hellenistic influence at the earliest stages and subsequent influence when Christianity spread in Gentile communities and tried to accommodate itself to existing mysteries and religious concepts. The notion that the Savior was born on 25 December, for instance, is almost certainly not from the earliest stratum of Christianity.