The (Non)-Uniqueness Of The Jesus Story Explained By An Apologetic.

[Ranger26]

I was reading about other similar stories to the one of Jesus (which mind you, a lot of them are too far stretched in order to fit the author's point, and have hardly any evidence for them), while others do have a lot of similarities in them backed by good evidence, and stumbled onto a Christian website, where the author actually agrees that yes, indeed, the Jesus story isn't original. However, he goes on to explain it away as that the story is universal to the man-kind and that we all "have eternity set in our hearts" and that we all understand our sinful nature, and a need for a sacrifice to atone for it, which is why many cultures have come to accept/write/come-up/plagiarize this Saviour of the World story.

Here is an article. It is worth reading.

http://apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=10&article=186

What are your thoughts (even though I probably already know ).

Cheers everyone!

[Geezer]

That is the reason I walked away from religion. When I found evidence that the Jesus story wasn't unique, in fact lots of ancient pagan cultures had stories similar to the Jesus story my faith crumbled......never to be resurrected again. (Pun intended)

[JCW]

C.S. lewis (one of my favorite apologists) also recognizes this and took a very similar approach attempting to turn this weakness into a supposed strength. It is an ingenious attempt to try to maintain intellectual honesty without losing your faith and I actually do think that it is pretty affective at quenching some of the doubt for an academic believer.

[PurpleStarGirl]

The articles states that Jesus is the only historical figure that fulfills the criteria for redeeming mankind. How can Jesus be a historical figure if there is no record of him outside the Bible? If someone is an important historical figure, you'd think there would be valid documentations of the person in various historical texts.

[seven77]

The non-uniqueness of the Jesus character was a major factor in why I left my faith. I happened to see the first Zeitgeist film around the same time that I began attending my former church. That film is quite critical of Christianity and the Jesus story in particular.

 

From Wiki:

 

 

Part I questions religions as being god-given stories, stating that the Christian religion is mainly derived from other religions, astronomical assertions, astrological myths, and other traditions, which in turn were derived from other traditions. In furtherance of the Jesus myth hypothesis, this part states that the historical Jesus is a literary and astrological hybrid, nurtured by political forces and opportunists.[5]

 

As a believer, I really struggled to wrap my mind around Jesus being a living, breathing human being who lived 2,000ish years ago and died for all of our sins on a cross. I just couldn't believe that he is or ever was real. Where's the evidence, besides the stories in this one holy book? If he were really real and did the things he did and said the things he said, surely there would be a record somewhere about him during his lifetime. 

 

Even if there was a Jesus, isn't it a bit suspect that so much of his 'truth' neatly lines up with the stories told about saviors from previously existing mythologies? Isn't it strange that so much of the OT seems to be related to or lifted from Ancient Egyptian and Ancient Greek/Roman mythologies and spiritual practices?

 

The church I was baptized in was very OT focused. They were into 'Jewish roots' and encouraged in depth study of the Word using concordances, interlinears and Hebrew/Koine/English dictionaries. Any time I would mention that maybe this stuff isn't historically accurate or was similar to stories/characters from other faiths, they would deny it. Or tell me that I wasn't approaching my studies from the right angle. Maybe you're having doubts? My personal favorite was the 'blame it on Satan's influence' routine. No matter what I said or what I showed people, they would always find a reason for Jesus. They'd make Christianity 'work', no matter how broken it was.

 

It's not just Jesus that is suspect, the entire Christian faith is quite deserving of the skepticism that is thrown its way these days, imho. It's all myth sold as history dressed up as faith. The only truth found therein is the table of contents that lists the page numbers and chapter names. The rest of what is between the covers is about as true as the storybooks I read as a kid and about as deserving of awe as the collection of Greek myths I studied in World History courses.

 

I must confess, I don't see why the Christian mythos can't just be mythos. Why does it have to be absolute truth? I think that those who insist upon Christianity being literally true are doing serious harm to their future existence. 

[♦ Fuego ♦]

"I must confess, I don't see why the Christian mythos can't just be mythos. Why does it have to be absolute truth?"

 

Speaking as a former fundy, if it wasn't true, why bother with it? That said, many people who call themselves Christians today are quite liberal and New Age leaning, so treating it as myth is fine with them. But I was never part of that, since the words didn't lend themselves to that interpretation. Paul even said that if it wasn't true, eat, drink, for tomorrow we die (though he saw that as spiritual death).

 

I also heard the "eternity in their hearts" approach. Every pagan myth was explained away as Satan trying to cloud the truth, or people "really" knowing the truth, but changing it to hide the gospel.

[readyforchange]

As a believer, I really struggled to wrap my mind around Jesus being a living, breathing human being who lived 2,000ish years ago and died for all of our sins on a cross. I just couldn't believe that he is or ever was real. Where's the evidence, besides the stories in this one holy book? If he were really real and did the things he did and said the things he said, surely there would be a record somewhere about him during his lifetime.

Two things about Jesus that always struck me as odd were the lack of information about his life prior to the time he was ~30 years old and starting his ministry, and the apparent fact that Jesus did not write anything down himself. 

 

Maybe some would say that the most important time of Jesus' life were the Matthew and Luke accounts of Jesus' birth (and some details afterwards) and the time of Jesus' ministry, and the rest of the details of his life are not as important.  I think the only other information about his early life was the story of Joseph's and Mary's trip to Jerusalem and the temple when he was about 12, other than some information in non-canonical texts.  But for the individual who is supposed to be most important human to ever live, it seems like there should be a much more complete biography of Jesus.  For example, when he was a teenager, how did he deal with puberty?  Before his ministry started, who were his friends and what did they do together and talk about?  Did he ever travel farther away from home? 

 

It also seems strange to me that Jesus would not have written anything down (or at least anything discovered to date).  A perfect man/being chooses to not write the gospel himself but rather decides to let imperfect humans write the gospel instead?  I wonder why Jesus would not write his gospel himself and given the textual document some unique characteristics to distinguish it and so that the gospel text could never be changed or altered - maybe something on par with the black boxes in airplanes - so that the text could never be destroyed or changed, even if humans tried setting the document on fire or submerging it in water. 

[Blood]

The Jesus mythos is unique from the standpoint that no previous religion had used the "Jewish messiah" archetype for the "heavenly son of God" role, one who expiates sins through his "atoning" death. Nascent Judaism may have had a messianic component, but that conception of the Messiah was a human king who would triumph over their enemies: the Gentiles. Christianity completely subverted that idea by making the Jews the enemies of the Messiah. Hence, Christianity is an anti-Jewish religion. Funny how Bible study classes never talk about that obvious fact. 

 

So it's unique in the sense that it's based on a literary work, the Greek Old Testament, whereas other religious figures in the Greco-Roman world were not based on that book or any book. That is a very important distinction, as the Old Testament was being presented as the real, actual history of the world by the Christians. Most of the other gods were said to have existed in "sacred time," in the foggy mists of ancient history. Even Greeks were dismissing them as "myths" by the first century. 

 

But the larger issue is one of religious archetypes in the ancient world: the seer, the healer, the king, the philosopher, the prophet, the martyr, etc. These existed in various forms in many religions for hundreds of years. Christianity tried to cram all these archetypes into the same character, making a historical reconstruction impossible.

 

A big problem with this issue is that the Christian texts were preserved but the others were not. So we only have fragmentary data. It isn't clear, for example, that a resurrection myth about Adonis existed prior to the Christian era. It seems like there should have been one, but no textual source mentions it until, I think, the 100s or 200s CE. 

[♦ ficino ♦]

The Jesus mythos is unique from the standpoint that no previous religion had used the "Jewish messiah" archetype for the "heavenly son of God" role, one who expiates sins through his "atoning" death. Nascent Judaism may have had a messianic component, but that conception of the Messiah was a human king who would triumph over their enemies: the Gentiles. Christianity completely subverted that idea by making the Jews the enemies of the Messiah.

Great way to put this, Blood!

[Jeff]

Thanks for the info blood.

This stuff fascinates me but I'm always a little nervous when anyone says "checkmate" on any angle.

I'm happy with death by a thousand cuts to the silliness rather than one big wipeout.

The bible mess itself should be the checkmate and yet it isn't for millions.