The Pagan Gospel

[- AUB -]

Mythra

 

Hi everyone, sorry to see a copy and paste theist has you lot annoyed, nevermind, time to get to work.

 

Mythra

Oh yes. The alleged Jesus' teachings were quite explosive and revolutionary. For the Jews, that is. Day old stuff, simple plagiarism to the Greeks.

 

Not even for the Jews, “his” teachings consist mostly of pharisaic ideas nicked off Rabbi Hillel and co. I sincerely recommend studying Jewish teachings of the 1st century BCE to 2nd CE as there is still a fare amount of Rabbinical material in the gospels once the pagan stuff has been removed.

 

guacamole

 

Matthew is a primary source.

 

It's not a primary anything, you standards must be very odd. It’s a century too late to be anything other than apologist material. It's evidence of the beliefs of that era, (baring later additions) nothing else.

 

You don't need the original, a facsimile will do.

 

No it won't, you cannot rule out interpolations or similar shenanigans typical of xtians, not if you’re trying to get to the truth. Matthew’s a composite work, drawn from the early xtian practice of using the OT to plot out Jesus’ “life”, even if it didn’t just embellish mark, there is still so much plagiarism in it that there is no reason to suppose it is an eye witness account of actual events or represents early motives and elemesnts, especially as it can’t have been written by a Jew or native of Judea, due to the gentile errors. As such it's special pleading to state it came before pagan elements, it bears to many derivative components, and only ignorance of them prompts theists to defend its integrity.

 

I understand guacamole’s insistence on primary sources, but as mythra lacks the experience in this issue to provide any, and I can’t be bothered, the best you can do is point the way to books by those that have done such research. As they’ve already gone over the relevant ground, and did it better than any here could its much more practical to recommend their work, and hope the theists actually do some reading.

 

Kersey Graves is not the best source for mythicist research, he’s been criticised plenty of time for not providing any sources, but Archaria S has done some half decent defences of his work, (though of course her work is open to criticism as well). The main problem is that so far very few reputable scholars of done the pagan-Jesus connection, as mythicism is the underdog of freethought academic study. All I can do is recommend Earl Doherty and Robert Price again, as theists find it impossible to knock holes in their work.

 

We are right about this, but convincing theists is another matter, they either blank it out (like some on this thread) or demand substantiation as they’re too lazy to look into it themselves, (or scared?). Personally the pagan thing is less convincing to those who don’t wish to be convinced, I prefer the OT and Josephus connections, as they can be shown far more easily.

[chefranden]

No.  I'm not making the positive assertion.  I'm not doing the work.  If you think that the Bible steals from pagan sources, whip out the hetetofore unseen impresively prodigious evidence.

Oops, my bad. Left clicking is sooooo much work.

 

There ya go.  You've settled it.  You're not gonna post the evidence you don't have to give me something I'm not gonna read.

 

I'm not sure I understand the sentance, but no I'm not going to post it here. Because you don't know the secret left click handshake, you are not entitled to that holy information.

 

Why bother even posting in this thread?

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This isn't about whose text is more magical, more special, more sexy, more inspired, more artistic, more exciting, more primal, or anything like that. 

Because I don't like your attitude, bubba!

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Really? Lets have a contest. Lets say to a really big rock, hey get your rock butt into the sea and see which god throws it first? Or how about we pile up a couple of piles of stones and each put a pound of hamburger on top and see which God burns it up first? Though if it is allright with you I'd like to ask for mine medium. You don't even have to pour kerosine oops I mean water on yours. The looser gets stoned! If it is a tie we go have a beer?

 

Neither writer needs to be an eye witness if all we're trying to do is figure out if writer B borrowed from writer A. But we do need the 'primary sources', the writings of writer A and writer B, in order to do the comparison. Encyclopedias, books on Jesus conspiracies, collects of myths written at the pre-teen level, papers written by discredited "anthropologists" with "secret sources lost in the mists of time" do not constitute 'primary sources'.

 

I see then we would have to see which text is older? The pyramind text was carved between 2350-2175 B.C.E (that is B.C. for you). You have what 10 words from the 3rd century C.E. (that is A.D. for you) Then I suppose that we would have to see if they talk about some of the same sort of stuff. But since you aren't going to read the Egyptian text because of being left click challanged. I guess we won't get very far there.

 

I'm not saying M is more primary.  I'm wanting to examine the evidence that people have who are making a rather exceptional claim.

That is why I posted the link for you. Aren't I nice?

 

You know... the whole ecree bit?  Exception claims require exceptional evidence?

 

fwiw

guac.

 

Aye, they do at that. However, I made no claim. I just posted the link for you.

[dogmatically_challenged]

Original primal source that was not doctored by 300 years of "holy" improvements

 

"He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood, so that he will be made one with me and I with him, the same shall not know salvation".  Inscription to Mythras preserved in the Vatican.

 

Prove it false or admit christianity plagiarized it in inventing the eucharist.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You know Mythras, some threads back you felt you had nothing to offer here at Ex-C. HAHA! So untrue!

[chefranden]

.... or perhaps a little more of the 'RECONCILIATION' that Jesus urges us to seek and reveal? Maybe there are many pieces to the puzzle and if we put them all together, reconciled, we could then see the big picture?

 

Reconciled to what?

[chefranden]

HanSolo, I don't think that was the purpose.... then why the rest of the book? Perhaps it was his principles and ideas that were nourishing his spirituality which he stood by all the way through the worst physical death, to demonstrate how we can overcome the condemnation of the world and gives a life that can not be overcome by the world. Wouldn't that make the principles and ideas the purpose?

 

 

Come on Amanda it took him 3 hours to croak, if croak he did. That isn't even a good crucifixtion. My grandmother took 6 months of excruciating pain from cancer to die. My grandfather spent 5 years in terror as his mind slowly disappeared. Read about all the soldiers that died of gangrene or being gut shot in the civil war. I'm not saying the death of christ would have been a picnic, but it not the worst way to go, by any means.

[Cerise]

Come on Amanda it took him 3 hours to croak, if croak he did. That isn't even a good crucifixtion. My grandmother took 6 months of excruciating pain from cancer to die. My grandfather spent 5 years in terror as his mind slowly disappeared. Read about all the soldiers that died of gangrene or being gut shot in the civil war. I'm not saying the death of christ would have been a picnic, but it not the worst way to go, by any means.

 

Amanda, you might want to google "Jonny Kennedy" and "Epidermolysis Bullosa" in order to find out just what a horrifying physical death looks like.

[Ouroboros]

Amanda,

 

The Brazen bull sounds more terrible as a death, or the Spanish Boot.

 

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Torture

[Amanda]

Reconciled to what?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Chefranden, why do people fight? Just wonder if all the different groups had something that had substance.... of course including Aetheist... to offer the group as a whole. Each group must have something there somewhere, at sometime, for many to often obtain blind allegiance to it... at least a passionate support for it to have survived.

 

Consider for a moment, that each part could enter into an arena to discuss and offer the important thrust of their views and determine how they could mesh and work in harmony (reconcile) with each other. A novel idea to consider each part with equal respect, and an honor for each part's contributions. Maybe they could all mesh together without conflict.... MAYBE.... isn't anything possible?

 

As far as Pagan/Druid influence in Christianity... isn't that how we got the Christmas tree and the Easter egg?

[Mythra]

OK the purpose of this post is to show that the claims that christianity got many of it's ideas from paganism is not a "21st century" idea as guaca dude seems to insinuate. These quotes are from Justin Martyr (christian), Origen (christian), and Celsus (all first century, and all more "primary source" than the gospels)

 

From Justin Martyr's first apology:

 

And if we assert that the Word of God was born of God in a peculiar manner, different from ordinary generation, let this, as said above, be no extraordinary thing to you, who say that Mercury is the angelic word of God. But if any one objects that He was cricified, in this also He is on a par with those reputed sons of Jupiter of yours, who suffered as we have now enumerated. For their suffering at death are recorded to have been not all alike, but diverse, so that not even by the peculiarity of His sufferings does He seem to be infereior to them; but, on the contrary, as we promised in the preceding part of this discourse, we sill now prove Him superior-or rather have already proved Him to be so-for the superior is revealed by His actions. And if we even affirm that He was born of a virgin, accept this in common with what you accept of Perseus. And in that we say that He made whold the lame, the paralytic, and those born blind, we seem to say what is very similar to the deeds said to have been done by Aesculapius.

 

and this

 

For while we say that all things have been produced and arranged into a world by God, we shall seem to utter the doctrine of Plato; and while we say that there will be a burning up of all, we shall seem to utter the doctrine of the Stoics; and while we affirm that the souls of the wicked, being endowed with sensation even after death, are punished, and that those of the good being delivered from punishment spend a blessed existence, we shall seem to say the same things as the poets and philosophers; and while we maintain that men ought not to worship the works of their hands, we say the very things which have been said by the comic poet Menander, and other similar writers, for they have declared that the workman is greater than the work.

 

And, from Origen, in "against Celsus"

 

He wished to show that this statement was an invention of ours, and borrowed from the Grecian sages, who declare that human wisdom is of one kind, and divine of another. He imagines that [the subject of humility] is borrowed from some words of Plato imperfectly understood. This saying "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God" manifestly proceeded from Plato, and that Jesus perverted the words of the philosopher.

 

Certain Christians, having misunderstood the words of Plato, loudly boast of a "super-celestial" God thus ascending beyond the heaven of the Jews. These things are obscurely hinted at in the accounts of the Persians, and especially in the mysteries of Mithras, which are celebrated amongst them.

 

And, from Celsus (roman pagan, platonist)

 

As for satan being cast down to earth, Homer writes as follows of the words spoken by Hephaestus to Hera: "Once when I was ready to defend you, he took me by the foot and cast me down from the heavenly places." Zeus speaks to Hera as follows, "Do you remember when you were hanging on high, when I attached anvils to his legs and cast unbroken chains of gold about your arms? You were hanging high in the ether of clouds. Then the gods struck.. but I, seizing him, pitched him from the threshold of heaven, and he fell helplessly to earth.

 

then this

 

What an absurdity! Clearly the christians have used the myths of Danae and the Melanippe, or of the Auge and the Antiope in fabricating the story of Jesus' virgin birth.

 

After all, the old myths of the greeks that attribute a divine birth to Perseus, Amphion, Aeacus and Minos are equally good evidence of their wondrous works on behalf of mankind- and are certainly no less lacking in plausibility than the stories of your followers.

[Mythra]

You know Mythras, some threads back you felt you had nothing to offer here at Ex-C. HAHA! So untrue! 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Thanks, doggie. I'm not very bright, but I'm motivated. I learn a lot from reading Lokmer and AUB's posts.

[Mythra]

Clarification on when these guys lived: second and third centuries

 

 

Justin Martyr: about 100 CE to 165 CE

 

Celsus: his writings were about 180 CE

 

Origen 185 CE to 254 CE

[Amanda]

Come on Amanda it took him 3 hours to croak, if croak he did.  That isn't even a good crucifixtion.  My grandmother took 6 months of excruciating pain from cancer to die.  My grandfather spent 5 years in terror as his mind slowly disappeared.  Read about all the soldiers that died of gangrene or being gut shot in the civil war.  I'm not saying the death of christ would have been a picnic, but it not the worst way to go, by any means.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Hey, Chefranden, didn't his torture start before the cross? I would consider his rejection from his own people, the calloused attitude concerning his demise from his own disciples in the garden, one disciple (Judas) that betrays him, another one too (Peter), the shouting of the people to let a robber go instead of him... an innocent man, to whip and torture him till he was barely recognizable as a person, carry his own torture and death instrument to the place of more afflicted torture, spitting and tripping and mocking are minor incidentals, stripping your clothes off you as lots are drawn, more mockery, know his death is intentionally imposed by man, and to watch your mother witness it all is maybe not the worse, but I would consider it pretty close. And how did you get only 3 hours?

[chefranden]

Chefranden, why do people fight? Just wonder if all the different groups had something that had substance.... of course including Aetheist... to offer the group as a whole. Each group must have something there somewhere, at sometime, for many to often obtain blind allegiance to it... at least a passionate support for it to have survived.

 

I don't think I'm quite tuned into this channel. You are saying that because people are willing to chop each other to bits over some religious hooha that there must be something to it? I think that we tend to murder one another for the same reason rats in a cage do when they gets to be too many of 'em. Then we pin the blame on some holy cause or another, so we can sleep at night.

 

Consider for a moment, that each part could enter into an arena to discuss and offer the important thrust of their views and determine how they could mesh and work in harmony (reconcile) with each other. A novel idea to consider each part with equal respect, and an honor for each part's contributions. Maybe they could all mesh together without conflict.... MAYBE....  isn't anything possible?

 

Well no, anything isn't possible. They ain't going to be any square circles or any unstoppable forces encountering immovable objects, or for that matter there isn't going to be any married bachalors. And there isn't going to be any holy merging of divided opinions and passions. If nothing else, the Christian Church/es with the denomonation of the month club have to be a case in point don't ya think?

[Mythra]

oops. I just found out something about my previous post. So I can save someone else a little cleanup work correcting my mistakes -

 

All of Celsus' writings were destroyed by the christians. The quote from Celsus is actually an interpolation of what it is believed Celsus said, based on Origens "contra Celsus" writings about Celsus.

 

Just tryin to keep it real.

[Kay]

Can you cite me an example of an agricultural myth using primary sources in which the agricultural deity, literally dies and is ressurected in the narrative, in order to "redeem the world"?

 

What about Persephone's abduction into the Underworld? I don't know what the primary source is for Greek mythology, but Demeter basically causes everything to die because the world is trapped in an eternal winter. The world is "redeemed" when Persephone is allowed to return to the land of the living.

 

A bit of a stretch here?

[- AUB -]

Yes, (but not that much) I'll list every pagan motif I can think of, after I’ve seen my new The god who wasn’t there DVD, (just in case it mentions some I don’t know) I'll post a review here afterwards, it might help those theists too lazy to read Price or Doherty. I'd drop the Krishna connection as it could be a two-way influence, but I'd keep an eye on Odin and Hercules.

[guacamole]

Original primal source that was not doctored by 300 years of "holy" improvements

 

"He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood, so that he will be made one with me and I with him, the same shall not know salvation".  Inscription to Mythras preserved in the Vatican.

 

Prove it false or admit christianity plagiarized it in inventing the eucharist.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You got a link for that? A date at which it was composed? Some reference so that I can verify the inscription?

[guacamole]

Hey, I just want to say that what I just posted has nothing to do with what Guacomole and the rest of you are discussing. Just coincidence that my post showed up here as I was catching up on the thread and entered my views as I went along.

 

My gosh you guys.... sparks, sparks, everywhere sparks...   Does someone have to win? at all cost?

 

AHHHHHH, apologies ....I forget sometimes that you guys like this.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Stop trying to ruin our fun!

[guacamole]

I hardly see how this is relavent.  Throughout history there have been those who see religion and myth as metaphor, and those who take it literally.  With rare exception, the distinction between these groups breaks down precisely along lines of wealth and education.

 

It's relevant because a literal death is fundamental to the doctrine in Christianity whereas a figurative "death" and "ressurection", if we decide that's what's being mentioned in these myths, migh not have the same implication.

 

For example: Which is a more likely source for Christ's death and ressurection? The narratives of literal ressurrection from the Hebrew Scriptures, or the metaphorical death and rebirth of a Sun God?

 

Ozzie's Razor... and all that...

 

A noble aim.  Do look at your own.  It seems that you are trying to read your own favorite myths through the lens of 19th-Century literalism rather than in accordance with the genres they were written in (which are, at the least, mythologized history if not wholesale mythology and legend).

 

Actually, I don't dispute that they aren't myth on a certain level. What I dispute is the wholesale borrowing.

 

Again, a meaningless distinction.  You're trying to draw a hard line between a metaphorical and literal doctrine, refusing to wrestle with the obvious - that the metaphor grows out of the literal, and takes on a life of its own.  This happens with sun gods throughout history.

 

I'm drawing a hard line, first, because it seems to me that people who want to make the connection between Christ and "Pagan Saviors" play fast and loose with their hermeneutics, and second, if there is borrowing, it makes more sense that it occured with things that are more similar. In other words, the more symbolic difference in the two narratives, the less likely that borrowing took place from one document to another.

 

It's nothing radical really. It's simply textual criticism. It's what makes people so confident, for example, that Matthew, Mark and Luke either had a common resource or borrowed from one another, whereas John, being so different, had a different source. If we can tell that John was significantly different from the synoptics to be largely original, and those documents are close cultural artefacts, then we need to be able to draw significant distinctions between documents that aren't just separated by long periods of time, but also language, culture, and metaphysics.

 

Being flippant on purpose over a subject you want to discuss seriously?  Tsk, tsk.  It's a bit incongruous, don't you think, to be demanding gravity from your opponents while indulging in flippancy masquerading as rehtoric.

 

Not the subject at large, flippant over the idea that the Zeus wasn't a rapist and that the women he raped were subsequently virgins. In addition, I was being flippant because the source in question was a Christian source, a second hand source about a myth.

 

If the myth in question doesn't exist in the form that JM describes in the pre-Christian era, then there's no way we can tell in which direction the borrowing occured.

 

Because you have not proved yourself worthy of the time it would take to transcribe two or three variants of each myth in question from the books in my library.

 

I'm not asking you to transcribe the two or three variants. I want the direct text of one myth, composed before the Christian era, that we can discuss. So far it hasn't happened.

 

I've posted an extensive reading list for you.  Most of the works germaine to the subject are not available online, and it would be a violation of copyright to post more than brief excerpt (even of some of the primary sources, as the more recent and reliable translations are covered under copyright).  My reading list includes primary sources as well as scholarly linguistic and historical analysis of the sources.  Hardly vacuous.

 

Hardly evidentiary either. You'll excuse me if, despite your impeccable credentials and impressive library, I don't take your word for it.

 

And Martyr wrote early enough that his testimony about the surrounding culture does count as a primary source.  He wrote in the 130s-150s IIRC, far before Christianity became either culturally dominant or terribly widespread.  He was one of the first apologists precisely *because* he's writing at the very time when Christianity is getting popular enough to be culturally reckonable.  Arguing that "all the pagan myths before Martyr could've borrowed from Christianity" is not just silly, it betrays a thorough lack of understanding of the information dispersal rates and patterns in a culture that had no printing press or popular media.  Ideas took a long time to disseminate across the empire, and more time still to become inculcated in the popular consciousness and culture.

 

I never argued that the pagan myths before Martyr could've borrowed from Christianity. I'm arguing that if the myth isn't extant in any form other than a paraphrase in JM, a Christian apologist, writing a defense of Christianity at the "very time when Christianity is getting popular enough to be culturally reckonable", then it isn't reliable evidence because there's no way to determine wether or not the myth in the form given by JM is a cultural artefact that influenced Christianity or was influenced bby Christianity.

 

Matthew is not a primary source by any stretch - at the very least he copied from and expanded on and mythologized Mark.  If you're looking for a primary source for the Christian story (in writing) you have one place to look:  Mark.  And there is excellent reason to suspect, other than its absence from canonical lists until Irenaeus, that Mark was not even intended as history.  Mark is, at least in structure, is an exercise in literary mimesis on Homer's "The Oddyssey", a genere popular at the time that is the Greek equivalent of the Jewish "midrash" (arguments can be made that this is simply a genre thing rather than something impacting its reliablity, but it does bring into serious question the purpose Mark had in writing the book, and whether that purpose was historical of hagiographical).  For a thorough exploration of the textual, historical, linguistic, and literary matters see

 

The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark.

 

Alright, I'll spell if out for you since you seem to have more an argument than anyone else here so far.

 

Let's say we are trying to compare wether or not Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn borrowed from James Fenimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans. All that matters is wether or not we can find evidence that MT borrowed from JFC. It doesn't matter that MT also borrowed from Washington Irving for the story. For the purposes of the discussion, Huckleberry Finn and Last of the Mohicans are the primary sources.

 

In the context of this discussion, when we say "primary source" we aren't talking about a document that was composed earlier, more historically reliable, first to describe the subject matter, or what not. This thread isn't about whether or not Matthew borrowed from Mark, but whether or not ALL the NT writers borrowed from Pagans. In order to be able to do so we have to us the writings of the NT writers and the extant texts composed before the Christian era as our primary sources. It doesn't matter if Matthew was unoriginal. All that matters is that Matthew contains the Virigin Birth text commonly accepted by Christians and we can compare that text with pagan texts.

 

JM doesn't count because he is not writing a myth composed before the Christian era, he's writing a paraphrase (so it's already filtered through JM) of another myth which, as far as I can tell, may or may not have been composed at an early date.

 

If you want to use the myths that JM references, then find the texts of those myths extant before the Christian era.

 

If you're interested in the topic, you should be doing due dilligance.  You should also learn greek, at the very least.  The stuff you find online is a good starting place, but it is incomplete, and much of it is out of date (including the translations).  Sitting there and petulantly demanding you be spoon-fed with ready-made links and transcriptions is highly egocentric and more than a little ridiculous.  I am perfectly willing to spend my time in fruitful (or even interesting) discussion.  I am not, however, your secretary.

-Lokmer

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Bull. You're the one who is saying that Christians borrowed from pagans. Post some evidence in the form of primary sources for us all to examine or don't bother posting in the thread. I'm not the one making the positive claim. My role in this thread is as skeptic of your claim. It's not my job to prove it for you.

 

fwiw

guac.

[guacamole]

Do you mean to suggest that Christian texts are not contemporary redactions or revisions?

 

Do you meant to suggest that Christian texts ARE contemporary redations and revision?

 

And do you mean texts such as Herodotus and Strabo's or Ovid's writings?  Or something like the tablets that held the myth of Gilgamesh?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Exactly.

I'm looking for documents that haven't got an additional layer of editorializing other than the translation, which is a close as we are going to get.

 

fwiw

guac.

[guacamole]

guacamole

It's not a primary anything, you standards must be very odd. It’s a century too late to be anything other than apologist material. It's evidence of the beliefs of that era, (baring later additions) nothing else.

 

Holy Zeus, Isis, and Jim Jones.

 

I'm not explaining it to anybody else. If you can't figure out why it's a primary source for the purpose of this discussion I'm not going to bother with you any futher. I've wasted enough of my time on people who can't grasp that when you compare two documents, those two documents are the primary sources for the comparison.

 

Meditate on that for a while, grasshopper, and return when you are enlightened.

 

fwiw

guac.

[guacamole]

  Oops, my bad. Left clicking is sooooo much work.

 

Now you've got it!

 

No, seriously. The point is that I'm not even sure you aren't just parroting the same thing that every other skeptic who has read the editorializing but not the primary sources in question.

 

If you are making the assertion, provide the evidence. If you're not making the assertion, ... So... How 'bout them Cubbies? Eight games back but they have a shot at the wild card...

 

I'm not sure I understand the sentance, but no I'm not going to post it here.  Because you don't know the secret left click handshake, you are not entitled to that holy information.

 

See! And you guys blame me for just refusing to see the evidence when you haven't taught me the secret handshake!

 

Because I don't like your attitude, bubba!

 

I'm sorry. If I had known you were gonna bruise so easy I wouldn't have been so rough.

 

Come on. With the rhetoric and attitude that gets bandied about here on a regular basis, your protestations over my method of argumentation is a little silly.

 

Do you go about chastizing everyone who posts something with attitude?

 

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Really?  Lets have a contest.  Lets say to a really big rock, hey get your rock butt into the sea and see which god throws it first?  Or how about we pile up a couple of piles of stones and each put a pound of hamburger on top and see which God burns it up first?  Though if it is allright with you I'd like to ask for mine medium.  You don't even have to pour kerosine oops I mean water on yours.  The looser gets stoned!  If it is a tie we go have a beer?

 

Okay. But how about we get the beer before hand cook the meat ourselves?

 

I see then we would have to see which text is older? The pyramind text was carved between 2350-2175 B.C.E (that is B.C. for you).  You have what 10 words from the 3rd century C.E. (that is A.D. for you)  Then I suppose that we would have to see if they talk about some of the same sort of stuff.  But since you aren't going to read the Egyptian text because of being left click challanged.  I guess we won't get very far there.

That is why I posted the link for you.  Aren't I nice?

Aye, they do at that.  However, I made no claim.  I just posted the link for you.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

If the Christian texts are borrowing from the Pyramid texts then they logically have to be more recent. So, sure, there's a possibility that the later Christian texts borrowed from the earlier Pagan texts. But going by age doesn't amount to any evidence. By that standard the C++ for Dummies also borrowed from the Pagan sources because it is more recent. In fact, it also borrowed from the Hardy Boys, Pogo, and Boccacio's Decameron, and everyone knows it and if you can't see that it's the truth well then you just refuse acknowledge it or are scared.

 

fwiw

guac.

[guacamole]

OK the purpose of this post is to show that the claims that christianity got many of it's ideas from paganism is not a "21st century" idea as guaca dude seems to insinuate.  These quotes are from Justin Martyr (christian), Origen (christian), and Celsus (all first century, and all more "primary source" than the gospels)

 

From Justin Martyr's first apology:

 

Jiminy Crickets.... I shouldn't really take the time but I'm a glutton for punishment...

 

I need to save myself some quote tags so I'm going to put the words of JM in bold. For the record JM was born in C.E. 100, and converted to Christianity in C.E. 130. Assuming that he was a genius and started writing his apologies the year he was converted, that's nearly a century of Christian development after Christ's death.

 

And if we assert that the Word of God was born of God in a peculiar manner, different from ordinary generation, let this, as said above, be no extraordinary thing to you, who say that Mercury is the angelic word of God.

 

Post the text of the pre-Christian myth in which Mercury is born to a literal virgin via special creation as opposed to simply an extraordinary birth of some sort.

 

Here's the problem with using JM as a primary source. He says "born...in a peculiar manner, different from ordinary generation,... no extraordinary thing to you..."

 

Note what he does not say: "Mercury was born of a Virgin via an act of special creation which did not require physical contact between Zeus and the woman..."

 

It's not evidence of borrowing on the "virgin birth" because he doesn't refer to it. If you want to argue that they are both "special births", well then la de frickin' da. The Hebrew Scriptures, a document that is culturally and chronologically closer to the NT also contains "special births". Which is the more likely source for borrowing if the criterion is simply "special births"?

 

But if any one objects that He was cricified, in this also He is on a par with those reputed sons of Jupiter of yours, who suffered as we have now enumerated. For their suffering at death are recorded to have been not all alike, but diverse, so that not even by the peculiarity of His sufferings does He seem to be infereior to them;

 

Post the pre-christian myth in which the sons of Jupiter are crucified to demonstrate borrowing.

 

Note what he says in the underlined portion above: "their suffering at death are recorded to have been not all alike, but diverse". He's not saying that they were crucified like Jesus, is he?

 

but, on the contrary, as we promised in the preceding part of this discourse, we sill now prove Him superior-or rather have already proved Him to be so-for the superior is revealed by His actions. And if we even affirm that He was born of a virgin, accept this in common with what you accept of Perseus.

 

Post the Pre-Christian myth in which Perseus is born to a virgin via an act of special creation.

 

Note that he says, "if we even afirm that he was born of a virgin, accept this in common with what you accept of perseus". He doesn't say "Jesus was born of a virgin through an act of special creation just like Perseus was born of a virgin through an act of special creation". He could be saying "accept this in common with what you accept of Perseus" to mean that if you believe in the miraculous birth of Perseus, then it's no stretch to believe in the miraculous birth of Jesus.

 

And in that we say that He made whold the lame, the paralytic, and those born blind, we seem to say what is very similar to the deeds said to have been done by Aesculapius.

 

This is the closest you can get from this passage, divine healing. The problem is that divine healing is such a commone thematic element in the ancient mediterranean basin that it's hard to prove any borrowing whatsoever.

 

If we grant that there is borrowing, the Hebrew Scriptures, which are closer culturally and chronologically to the NT also contain stories of miraculous healings. If the NT is going to borrow from one, which would it be? The monotheistic stories that a reportedly Jewish Messiah would have been brought up on? Or the pagan stories of a separate culture?

 

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The whole problem with the passage. Mythra, is that JM isn't providing stories to show that Satan copied the NT preemptively, but to provide a defense to Pagan critics that, all things considered, the stories about Jesus are no more far out than anything you believe in your own stories about the gods. In answer to Pagan "objections" he describes the stories as "no extraodinary thing", "on par", and "very similar"-- not "the same". In fact JM says right in the example that you have provided that "we still now prove Him superior-or rather have already proved Him to be so-for the superior is revealed by His actions." JM's stated point in the document is to prove the difference (and indeed not just the difference, but the superiority-- whether he succeeds or not is a whole 'nother argument. Don't get sidetracked), not provide explanations for obvious similarity.

 

For while we say that all things have been produced and arranged into a world by God, we shall seem to utter the doctrine of Plato; and while we say that there will be a burning up of all, we shall seem to utter the doctrine of the Stoics; and while we affirm that the souls of the wicked, being endowed with sensation even after death, are punished, and that those of the good being delivered from punishment spend a blessed existence, we shall seem to say the same things as the poets and philosophers; and while we maintain that men ought not to worship the works of their hands, we say the very things which have been said by the comic poet Menander, and other similar writers, for they have declared that the workman is greater than the work.

 

Again his point is to say that the things which are taught by Christians are in reality no more exceptional than the things taught by Plato, Stoics, poets and philosophers. The last comparison, to Menander, is specifically meant to tweak the nose of Pagan idolators because he is pointing out the inconsistency of the position in which one affirms with the poet that the maker is creater than his work, but at the same time worshipping the work of human hands.

 

Now if you further want to explore wether or not Plato, Aristotle, and other philosophers contributed to the development of Christianity, I'll readily discuss it with you. However, understand that Plato and Aristotle, as well as many other philosophers, repudiated the traditional rendering of the myths. I've no problem considering wether or not the Unmoved Mover shaped Christain theology. It's sure as heck didn't shape any pagan theology that I can tell.

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Origen was born in 185. Assuming that he was at least 17, after the persecution when his father was thrown in prison by the very gentle and tolerant pagans, that's more than 150 years after the founding of Christianity. Any myths that are only known from Origen are going to be very highly suspect.

 

He wished to show that this statement was an invention of ours, and borrowed from the Grecian sages, who declare that human wisdom is of one kind, and divine of another. He imagines that [the subject of humility] is borrowed from some words of Plato imperfectly understood. This saying "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God" manifestly proceeded from Plato, and that Jesus perverted the words of the philosopher.

 

He is not saying that Jesus borrowed what he said from Plato. He's saying that Celsus said that Jesus borrowed what he said from Plato. Even assuming that Jesus would have been educated on Plato in the synagogues (and Jesus wasn't above borrowing things other people got right), that's not what Origen is saying.

 

It should be easy enough for someone to find the platonic text in which he says something similar to what Jesus said, no?

 

Certain Christians, having misunderstood the words of Plato, loudly boast of a "super-celestial" God thus ascending beyond the heaven of the Jews. These things are obscurely hinted at in the accounts of the Persians, and especially in the mysteries of Mithras, which are celebrated amongst them.

 

Great. Find the pre-Christian mithraic text which provides the myth. I'll happily concede the point that more than one culture believed in a transcendent God.

 

In reality, what he is saying here is not evidence because he refers to the Christian belief that God has surpassed the Jewish Heaven as "mistaken". He's likely arguing against Marcion. Marcion was a far out dude. Do you want to talk about him?

 

 

And, from Celsus (roman pagan, platonist)

 

You're note on their being no extant Celsus is more than sufficient.

 

 

As for satan being cast down to earth, Homer writes as follows of the words spoken by Hephaestus to Hera: "Once when I was ready to defend you, he took me by the foot and cast me down from the heavenly places." Zeus speaks to Hera as follows, "Do you remember when you were hanging on high, when I attached anvils to his legs and cast unbroken chains of gold about your arms? You were hanging high in the ether of clouds. Then the gods struck.. but I, seizing him, pitched him from the threshold of heaven, and he fell helplessly to earth.

 

Are we discussing borrowing about Satan or borrowing about Jesus? I think you're having enough trouble on proposition about Jesus. Let's avoid muddying the waters, eh?

 

What an absurdity! Clearly the christians have used the myths of Danae and the Melanippe, or of the Auge and the Antiope in fabricating the story of Jesus' virgin birth.

 

Great! Supply the pre-Christiant texts of those myths! Let's not take Celsus' word for it!

 

After all, the old myths of the greeks that attribute a divine birth to Perseus, Amphion, Aeacus and Minos are equally good evidence of their wondrous works on behalf of mankind- and are certainly no less lacking in plausibility than the stories of your followers.

 

Again, provide the pre-Christian text. Once again, the fact that it was Celsus opinion doesn't make it fact and it sure doesn't count as evidence.

 

fwiw

guac.

[Kryten]

If you are going to bring Occam's Razor into it, then you would rely on the simplest explanation that requires the fewest leaps in logic.  People do not rise from the dead.  Therefore the simplest explanation is that it is all myth- Hebrew scriptures included.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Amen! It is extremely likely that a religion such as Christianity would grow from around 100 bce to 400 ce. It is a mix of existing pagan concepts and traditions, and offers the poor, uneducated, and powerless an opportunity for fellowship and belonging in this life, with the promise of reward and paradise in the next. They didn't even have to submit to any of the difficult requirements of other religions such as Judaism (circumcision & dietary laws) and Attis worship (castration). Even the early Gnostics who taught sexual denial/suppression lost out to a doctrine more liberal towards sex.

 

The religion that won out SHOULD have won out because it required less (just believe), offered more (forgiveness, family, heaven), and even promised a fiery hell for their enemies. It was the right religion at the right time. Makes PERFECT sense.

[guacamole]

If you are going to bring Occam's Razor into it, then you would rely on the simplest explanation that requires the fewest leaps in logic.  People do not rise from the dead.  Therefore the simplest explanation is that it is all myth- Hebrew scriptures included.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That might be true if I wanted to dispute the factuality of the matter. I do not. I want to dispute the borrowing, which is a different topic entirely.

 

I said it before and I'll say it again.

 

The factual content of the Gospels is irrelevant to determining whether or not they borrowed from pagan sources.

 

Why is this so hard to grasp?

 

Do you have any evidence of borrowing that utilizes primary sources or is it just your intention to widen the Gospels-aren't-primary-sources-circle-jerk?

 

It's page 6.

 

Nobody's posted any evidence yet.

 

Big fricken' surprise eh?