Hi Jack

Just so that I am clear on what you are saying here, is Christianity (and Judaism) unique or not when it comes to the concept of salvation?

My reading of your post tells me that you believe that we are not unique, and that we are unique. I would appreciate it if you could clarify this for me.

Thanks,

Nomad

I'm saying that the Judeo-Christian concept of sin is unique, as far as I am aware. Other religions have concepts of "defying the gods", but this doesn't fit the J/C sin concept: "disobedience" isn't usually some metaphysical substance or entity to be "taken away" and disposed of.

However, the solution to the sin problem doesn't seem to be unique: it is a monster or threat overcome by heroic sacrifice. In other words: the only thing unique about the J/C salvation is the nature of the beast that is being overcome.

"A fine assertion dies the death of a thousand qualificatins." --Antony Flew


Ok so they weren't crucified but they still died so that means that its an influence because it's still a god dying which is a big surprise and real paradoxical? But apparently it isn't, since mythologies all over the place include that. So it's just a category that some god figures fit into. You might as well say that juts having a god of any sort is "barrowing."

The fact is Dhortey's assertion does rest on the implication of barrowing. Because it would be absurd to think that they concretized a historical life for Jesus just through syncratic elements; put him in Jerusalme, caperinium, gave him an origin in Nazerath, and so on all through the absorption of unconscious influences. That does not compute.

So if they barrowed consciously why did they barrow so little? Since most of the Jesus story as roots in the OT, there is no real evidence of barrowing.

Now having reduced the case form conscious barrowing to some manner of slight influences what is left of the Chrit myther's case? Why think of Jesus as a myth when there is nothing more than the influence of an abstract concept?

Moreover; none of those figures actually died due to givng their life as aotonement, so the similiarites go down another notch!

and mroeover many of them did not die at all! Mithra didn't die, he killed. he didn't die. In some Stories Tamuz doesn't die. In many of the stories the death is related to crop cycles and has nothing to do with atonement, sacrafice for other or propitiation.

Meta ->Yea that rock that spawned Mithra was really a father to him. Come on, you didn't read the material apparently. The notion of a god fathering a child with a woman is not what happened with God and Mary. God did not "do" Mary! Ever heard of artificial insemination? Why do you think they call it "viriginal?" Now, the concept that God would enter human history is prior to all the pagan myths and is found in the OT! Edersheim quotes Rabbis in the Talmud who interprit Genesis 3"16 as incornational in some sense.


MEta =>But he can't explian the fact that that one is in the OT also; Is 53, Zach. 4:10 and others. and since most of those figures didn't really actually have resurrections, and most scholars accept syncraticism not barrowing, that is a bogus undertanding.

ahahahah, God what fallacious reasoning. I think that's the genetic fallacy employedin cirucualr reasoning. You think that if you analayze why the Hebrews had a unqiue view it means they didn't have one? What you haven't answered is that they had a qunique view so there's no reaosn to assume barrowing.

Every culutre has hero's it's absurd to think that the Hebrews couldn't come up with a Hebrew figure without barrowing one. Why isn't Hercules a copy of Samson?

SWL: Let's see them. And let's see them from the primary sources, and let's see the dates on the primary sources, and then let's see the actual evidence that borrowing took place. Given that life after death is pretty much a universal amongst religions, similarities that just amount to post-death survival (bodily or not) are meaningless. Given that gods in other religions could die, the fact that some of them did die is also meaningless….

The burden of proof as far as the copycat thesis is concerned, goes way beyond pointing out similarities...There are enough religions in the ancient world to find a parallel to pretty much anything. You have to show that there indeed WAS borrowing - not just similarity.

EARL: On the contrary, the higher burden of proof is on the Christian to show that a god actually died, whereas the skeptic can justifiably assume that copying of some sort--even in the absence of any direct evidence of this--was much more likely and helped to develop Christian theology. I'm not claiming that every piece of Christian theology can be found intact in other ancient cults or religions. The early Christians were free to be inventive in interpreting certain events that they thought happened. We know, however, that the gospel writers felt free to borrow and edit other texts, since at the very least Matthew and Luke did just that with Mark. They also took ideas from the OT using midrash. It's not unlikely a priori that these writers also took ideas from pagan traditions, especially given Paul's special interest in taking Christianity to the pagans. Paul himself said he wanted to be all things to all people, and he used certain pagan terms to explain his gospel, such as the Jewish-pagan combination of the "spiritual body."

NOMAD: Umm... what is the evidence that such "uwritten forms of popular religious beliefs exist at all?

EARL: What is the evidence that the mystery traditions would likely have begun on the day the known first written records of them originated? As I understand the traditions, they are very old and pass from one form into another from different countries. The myth of a dying and rising godman was symbolic of the change of the seasons and was therefore widely present in ancient religions. We also have the early Christians' admission that the pagan traditions predated Christianity; only they claim Satan was behind this fact. We also have the fact that the early Christians burned a lot of pagan texts, which should make us wonder why they did this. Were they embarrassed about certain connections they wanted to cover up? All of this is admittedly highly speculative given the lack of direct evidence of copying from traditions. But early Christianity's totalitarian handling of alternative religious traditions at the very least makes the modern Christian's triumphant declarations as to the lack of direct textual evidence of copying somewhat tasteless.

Keep your eye on the ball Philip. The ONLY thing we are talking about in the debate over an historical Jesus is whether or not the man died. We do not have to worry about whether or not He was God as well.

Once we establish that Jesus, the man, died, then we can talk about how Christians viewed this as the death of God the Son, and in this case, Christianity is quite alone in seeing it as a sacrificial once for all atoning death. That was Meta's point, and you have yet to address it. If you have the time, however, we would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.
Since we would expect Jews writing about the Messiah to quote from Hebrew Scripture, this is not surprising. Further, we would expect biographers of Jesus' life to draw on earlier works about Him. Luke even tells us that he does this. Extending this to the assumption that Mark or the other evangelists would use pagan sources is quite a leap, and requires some evidence.

Do you have any?

We also know that Paul and the Jews had nothing but contempt for pagan religions, so we should not be too quick to assume that they borrowed from these religions.

Personally, I would rather see some evidence of borrowing before I would start assuming it. It seems the sensible sceptical thing to do.

Nomad

I have already told you that it is rude to answer a question with a question. Please do not do this again.

What do legends and myths about an agrarian dying and rising god have to do with the story about Jesus?

So? This is a biased Christian source. Why should we believe anything they say about anything? Their motives are suspect, n'est pas?

No, this is not a fact. Take it up with Bede, but unless you have proof your assertion is baseless heresay.

I think your biases are showing again, but at least you admitted you are engaging in high levels of speculation. I can live with that.

Now, if you can offer evidence in support of any of your other assertions, I am willing to discuss them.

Nomad

EARL: On the contrary, the higher burden of proof is on the Christian to show that a god actually died, whereas the skeptic can justifiably assume that copying of some sort--even in the absence of any direct evidence of this--was much more likely and helped to develop Christian theology.

SWL: No. Not at all. You see...Copying is not the DEFAULT position given the "jury is still out" stance on the theistic hypothesis OR EVEN given the failure of the theistic hypothesis. Once again, we would just have an "I don't know stance". Not knowing what happened in NO WAY equates with evidence for copying, or justifies the assumption of copying. Do I really have to point things like this out? How can I say it without hurting you Earl? Is there any way for me to express my sincere feeling that your reasoning is often very sloppy without offending you? This looks to me like you're just pressed for time and breezing through...

Earl: I'm not claiming that every piece of Christian theology can be found intact in other ancient cults or religions. The early Christians were free to be inventive in interpreting certain events that they thought happened. We know, however, that the gospel writers felt free to borrow and edit other texts, since at the very least Matthew and Luke did just that with Mark. They also took ideas from the OT using midrash.

SWL: Right, they took, what they considered to be authoritative/reliable/inspired writings and drew from them...So what? How does that relate to borrowing from pagan religions? It doesn't...It establishes no precedent for the copycat thesis. Do you even know what 'midrash' is though? I hope you didn't get your understanding of 'midrash' from Bishop Spong. Why don't you tell me all about 'midrash' and give me explicit examples from the Gospels.

Earl: It's not unlikely a priori that these writers also took ideas from pagan traditions, especially given Paul's special interest in taking Christianity to the pagans.

SecWebLurker: Firstly, this is just begging the question as to whether or not these traditions even existed prior to Christianity. Secondly, Everything in Paul can pretty much be derived from the OT itself so even if we assumed that Paul is just a first-century cutpaster, we've got no reason to go anywhere outside Judaism. Hengel makes this very argument in "Conflicts and Challenges in Earliest Christianity".

Earl: Paul himself said he wanted to be all things to all people, and he used certain pagan terms to explain his gospel, such as the Jewish-pagan combination of the "spiritual body."

SWL: No, the spiritual body is not a Jewish-pagan combination. There is no evidence of that whatsoever. The greek conceptions of existence after death were pretty much opposed to any form of somatic existence - they saw the body as a prison. Oh but, Paul's mixing the spirit AND the body here...He's talking about a body MADE of spirit...Is he really? I HIGHLY doubt you can make the argument that Paul is speaking of ontology rather than disposition when he speaks of the soma pneumatikon. Give it a shot...Let's go another 50 rounds...That's an interest of mine. I've already got a ton written about it on this board.

A very sleepy SecWebLurker