Interesting Fact About Odin And What I Think It Means For The Historicity Of Bible Accounts

[L.B.]

Saw this when I happened to be searching for information for a cosplay accessory.

 

Why did Odin hang himself?

He gained great wisdom when he hanged himself on the world tree, also referred to as the gallows. This, however, was a spiritual death in which he sacrificed himself to himself. Odin hung on the Yggdrasil tree for nine days and nights and was pierced by a spear. (boldface emphasis mine).

 

 

I'm fascinated. I had not heard such a thing before, but my previous reading into Norse stories was more tale-based than information-based, and the things I had read left out these tidbits.

 

I am more and more convinced every day that the "gospel" stories were fabricated by non-Semites (who were also anti-Semites) - but the stories were primarily circulated among non-Jews.

This explains why the Jews could reject the idea of "Jesus" being Messiah outright - he simply didn't do or say most of the "normal" things the bible attributes to him AT ALL - let alone the

"miraculous" things. Anything truly mystical or magical (you know what I mean) would have warranted many, many references whether the writers were in favor of him or not.

 

"Jesus" would have been discussed with much more candor and respect if he had been a rabbi worth considering, more so if he had actually done anything considered "divinely empowered".

 

No, I believe he was an average, run-of-the-mill apocalyptic preacher with a socio-political bent to his message - which ultimately got him rejected by the Rome-loving Sanhedrin and executed

for treason against Caesar.

 

I think the "prophecies" he fulfilled HAD to be written about LONG after he was dead and retold among those who would/could not have been eyewitnesses. Imagine if someone today were

to announce that they were the returned prophet Mohammed - the fulfillment of long-ago Muslim prophecy. Let's say, for instance (since I haven't read the stupid Mor'On and don't plan to),

that Mohammed was supposed to return to Mecca dressed in a green robe and riding a white horse. If someone were to show up IN MECCA, dressed like that, those who are devoutly following

Islam would RIOT - either in celebration or in preparation to behead and burn the infidel who DARED to make such a claim. It would be not only instant international news, it would become a

tale told and retold by the common folk of all kinds of societies for the rest of time. It would be a story that just cemented itself into our common history.

 

Historians are in possession of TONS of Jewish writings about some of their great rabbis. Could you imagine Jesus showing up in Jerusalem riding the donkey from the gospel story? The devout

eyewitnesses would not only have freaked out like the story says, history would have been FULL of other accounts of how Jesus was either celebrated right then and there, or had his melon bashed

in with rocks right then and there.

 

No, what we have is a story REPORTED to have been written by someone (all four writers, apparently) who may or may not have been there. There are ZERO corroborating accounts from ANY

other source in history.

 

These accounts must have been circulated among people who had two characteristics:

 

1) Were not there (either because they were too far away, or because these things "happened" before they were born)

 

AND

 

2) Would have had no vested interest in believing or disbelieving before they "converted".

 

Of course, the problem is that people don't start with the anthropological and folk-tale nature of these myths and THEN take moral or ethical truths from their stories - no, they

START with these stories being 100% TRUE AND AUTHENTIC AND HISTORICAL AND GOD IS AWESOME!!!!1!!111!!!. There's no reasoning with people who can't see the

historical precedents for the details in the bible stories in all sorts of much-older mythical traditions.

[rjn]

Yes, Odin is yet another mythical being (which, btw, is not the same as "untrue" in my book) who sacrificed himself for greater gain, your point being? I don't see how that part relates to the rest of the post.

[LogicalFallacy]

rjn, I think the point about Odin hanging himself on a tree is similar to the point I raised in the Lion's Den about similarities between mythical stories and how they may have influenced the bible writers (http://www.ex-christian.net/topic/73929-to-what-extent-have-other-mythologies-influenced-the-bible/#.V-GzVXlPq70 ) The basic point being that there are themes running through these different religions that are very similar. What is interesting to ask, is that did these beliefs develop independently of each other, or did they influence each other and their writers? We know the Egyptian gods came before the Christian god, but when are the earliest recordings of Norse gods?

 

I personally don't think any one thing means anything for the historicity of bible accounts, but when you combine Odin, Osiris, the influence of the Isis Cult in Rome on early Christians, general themes of death, burial and resurrection, supreme gods having sons etc... then you can build an overall opinion that the bible is based largely on myth and superstition.

 

As a side note, but ties into the bottom portion of LB's post, Christians say "but they are eye witness accounts". Yes, there are also eye witnesses, still alive today, of miracles performed by a certain W M Branham. When you actually research what was claimed against reality you find it doesn't match, yet hundreds of thousands believe these eyewitnesses. So my response to the bible is an eye witness account, is so what, eye witnesses are wrong all the time.

[rjn]

Some recurring themes and ideas are probably near-universal and date back to the paleolithic. Animism is usually very similar wherever you go. Then there are similarities acquired through contact, and others are retained because certain cultures are related to each other. The Norse religion is a local (Scandinavian) reflection of a larger Germanic one, which in turn has its roots in Indo-European religion.

 

Despite popular belief, the Norse weren't a completely isolated bunch up till the Viking age (8th-11th century): they're mentioned by Tacitus during the first century, and possibly even by Herodotus in the 5th century BCE, so Roman influence, including that of later Christianity, was definitely felt during late antiquity, and without a doubt during the outbreak of the Viking age. Hell, some even theorise the Viking Age started as a pagan defensive war due to Frankish (Christian) aggression. Charlemagne massacred several thousand Saxon pagans and burned their sacred groves just a stones throw from what is now southern Denmark, so I find that quite plausible.

 

Also keep in mind that many ancient religions weren't as dogmatic or "fixed" as we tend to think. There was no pagan Bible or "canon" that people followed everywhere. Beliefs and customs could differ a great deal even within a single, given culture.

 

Most of the stories (as found in the Prosaic Edda) we have about the ancient Norse pantheon were written by the Icelandic scribe Snorri Sturlasson, a Christian, in the 12th and 13th century. He did base his stories on earlier oral accounts though, dating back to at least the early Viking Age and most likely back to the Migration period in late antiquity.

 

 

We know the Egyptian gods came before the Christian god, but when are the earliest recordings of Norse gods?

 

Apart from fragmentary runic inscriptions (the earliest of which date back to the 1st or 2nd century. The writing system as such might have originated in the last few centuries BCE) the earliest history of Scandinavia is based on non-native Roman accounts and oral history written down centuries later. However, we can quite safely assume that some of the themes and stories are very old, dating back to the Bronze Age or even further back in pre-history. There are some striking similarities between Hindu mythology and Norse mythology, which is probably due to a shared Indo-European heritage.

[readyforchange]

As a side note, but ties into the bottom portion of LB's post, Christians say "but they are eye witness accounts". Yes, there are also eye witnesses, still alive today, of miracles performed by a certain W M Branham. When you actually research what was claimed against reality you find it doesn't match, yet hundreds of thousands believe these eyewitnesses. So my response to the bible is an eye witness account, is so what, eye witnesses are wrong all the time.

I'm not sure how closely many Christians examine the attested eyewitness accounts. The four gospels were written anonymously, so the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus are not first-person eyewitness accounts. But even if conceding a possibility that the gospels could have actually been written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Mark and Luke were later Christian converts and did not personally witness the post-resurrection Jesus accounts described in their gospels. In 1 Corinthians 15:6, Paul states that Jesus appeared to over 500 people. On the surface, that might seem impressive. But there are not 500 first-person eyewitness accounts of a resurrected Jesus. This is one person in Paul, who was not there, making a hearsay claim that Jesus appeared to over 500 people.

 

Not sure if you are also familiar with Shirdi Sai Baba, but he was an Indian spiritual master who lived in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and many people believe he was divine and performed miracles. There are also are numerous eyewitness accounts of Shirdi Sai Baba since his death - http://www.shirdisaibabaexperiences.org/.

[L.B.]

Yes, rjn and others, my point was just that the claims about Jesus and his followers can all be shown to be tropes which existed and were well-known long before the Christards invented their religion decades after any historical Jesus lived.

 

One doesn't even need to wrangle the Krishna or Buddha stories, among others, to make them seem more like the later Jesus story, as some opponents of Christianity have done. It's easy enough to see that an incarnated deity who is somehow also human and gives hints about their divinity and gives "prophecies" about the future is a model that existed in a robust and dynamic way LONG ago. Not only were there god/man hero stories centuries before Christianity, there were god/man tales being written and retold during the time when the tribal Jews still thought their god was forming the three-tiered universe!

 

I sometimes like to ask (but I usually get banned before I can) on Christian blogs and forums:

How is it that there are fully-formed mythologies in India and other Asian cultures over 5,000 years ago when there's no way that "Adam and Eve's" children could have incested the population into that large of a number in so short a time, if we discount a global flood?

Assuming the flood, how is it that these myths and cultures formed in such complex ways AFTER the flood? How is it that the world was repopulated with that many millions of people who created their religions and myths which have existed IN THEIR COMPLEX STATE for at least as long as the alleged dates for the flood?

 

In short, whenever I see something like Odin and the tree, or the Gita, etc, I marvel at how these stories were fully-formed and traveling over the known world of their tribes and totally uninfluenced by the Jewish myths. Now we're supposed to believe that the Jewish myth and/or the Christian interpretation/appropriation of same is universally true and globally significant.

[★ Citsonga ★]

In1 Corinthians 15:6, Paul states that Jesus appeared to over 500 people. On the surface, that might seem impressive. But there are not 500 first-person eyewitness accounts of a resurrected Jesus. This is one person in Paul, who was not there, making a hearsay claim that Jesus appeared to over 500 people.

 

Ah, yes, the "500 witnesses" claim is one of the stupidest arguments that Christians trot out. How they can think that a single claim of there being 500 converts equates to having 500 extant eye-witness accounts is beyond me. Even when I was 100% convinced that Christianity was true, I never used that idiotic argument.