T.L. Winslow

Hi,

I just finished an essay on the dreaded J-Virus, which I think is the last word on the whole subject of Jesus. This site is free to republish it or use it in any way they want. Come check it out at the link below.

Ciao,

T.L. Winslow, Fiction Author www.tlwinslow.com

The J-Virus

Metacrock

NO actually real scholars don't concern themselves with this idiocy. real scholars know that this is foolishness. None of the your littel silly "dying rising savior gods" exhibit any of the paraells attributed to them in their real mythology. You have to read a book by a fruad like Achyra S. to get that sutpidity. The real myths do not have Mithras being crucified being born on Dec 25 being born of a Virigin or any of that. Ditto for the others, Oriris or whomever.


Now show me a primiary source, or a truely scholarly source that indicates this? I will bet that you cannot do that. I have yet to see a single christ Myther who had provided me with such a source.


Now it can' be just a quote from a book that says they are praellel, it has to be from an mythogropher whose only purpose is to tell what the myths say and who is not concerned with the Christ topic at all. I have collected quotations form such books and can document that these paralells do not exist.


Moreover, I see that you have contradted the S virus. Oddly enough those who are in disagreement with me seem esecially prone to that one.

Here's is some of the material I'm speaking of.


The Mythic Mysteries are very complex, and the only real similarities to Jesus are minute ones.. Most of these alleged similarities are suspect or unimportant. It is often claimed by skeptics on the Internet that "there is so much similarity" but I find very little. Mithra comes from Persia and is part of Zoroastrian myth, but this cult was transplanted to Rome near the end of the pre-Chrsitian era. Actually the figure of Mithra is very ancient. He began in the Hindu pantheon and is mentioned in the Vedas. He latter spread to Persia where he took the guise of a sheep protecting deity. But his guise as a shepard was rather minor. He is associated with the Sun as well. Yet most of our evidence about his cult (which apparently didn't exist in the Hindu or Persian forms) comes from Post-Pauline times. Mythic rituals were ment to bring about the salvation and transformation of initiates. In that sense it could be seen as similar to Christianity, but it was a religion and all religions aim at ultimate transformation. He's a total mythical figure he meets the sun who kneels before him, he slays a cosmic bull, nothing is real or human, no sayings, no teachings.
 
 
  1) no Virginal Conception Mithra was born of a rock, so unless the rock was a virgin rock, no virginal conception for him. (Marvin W. Meyer, ed. The Ancient Mysteries :a Sourcebook. San Francisco: Harper, 1987,, p. 201).
 
  2) No crucifixion or resurrection. There no story of Mithras death and no references to resurrection. The only similarity about him in this relation is that his shedding of the Bull's blood is said by H.G. Wells (Out Line of World History ) to be the prototype for Jesus sacrifice on the cross. But in reality the only similarity here is blood, and it wasn't even his own. It may even be borrowing form Christianity that made the shedding of blood important in the religion.
 
  3) No Savior, no baptism, no Christmas Moreover, one of the major sources comes from the second century AD and is found in inscriptions on a temple, "and you saved us after having shed the eternal blood." This sounds Christian, but being second century after Christ it could well be borrowed from Christianity ( Meyer, p 206). [This source, Meyer, is used by Kane as well, but it says nothing to back up his claims, and as will be seen latter, Meyer disparages the notion of conscious borrowing] (More about this ceremony on Page II)
  "Mithra was the Persian god whose worship became popular among Roman soldiers (his cult was restricted to men) and was to prove a rival to Christianity in the late Roman Empire. Early Zoroastrian texts, such as the Mithra Yasht, cannot serve as the basis of a mystery of Mithra inasmuch as they present a god who watches over cattle and the sanctity of contracts. Later Mithraic evidence in the west is primarily iconographic; there are no long coherent texts".(Edwin Yamauchi, "Easter: "Myth, Hallucination, or History," Leadership University)


D. Osiris
 
 
Osiris was of the most influential families of gods in ancient Egypt. Perhaps in the distant past they were based upon some sort of flesh and blood family, but we know nothing of that. Our knowledge of Orisis is that of a purely mythological family. Isis was the mother goddess, Osiris is the brother and husband of Isis. He possesses generative powers connected to nature, not fertility per se, but to the land so dependent upon water from the Nile for production of crops. Whereas most fertility deities are related to sexual fertility as well as crops Osiris seems to be more connected to crops themselves.
 
  1) no virginal conception is connected to Osiris, they live in a family. They are the product of intercourse of the gods.

Meyer records that Isis and Horus were worshiped as mother and child. Like the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus, Isis was "Queen of heaven" pictured with infant seated on her lap. (159). While that may constitute a pagan influence upon latter Christianity, there was no cult of Mother and Child in the Gospels. Osiris' birth stories come from the Hellenistic period. The Greek Poet Plutarch wrote on Isis and Osiris, in which Osiris is conceived and brought forth from the union between Rhea and Kronos, but there is another tradition that Osiris sprang form the sun. (Meyer, p.161). These figures are purely mythical so even the technical virginity above does not apply to them. If being the product of virginal conception was at all important to the Osiris story, or even was ever mentioned in connection with him, one would think that these stories would respect that view. There is no claim that I can find of his 'vigilant conception.' That is, unless one counts the sun as a virgin.
 
  2) No crucifixion Osirirs is killed by Set, his evil brother, who than sank his coffin in the Nile, "thus Horus as the mythological counterpart of the living Pharaoh, succeeded his dead father and assures the triumph of continuity and order in Egyptian life. Isis meanwhile along with Thoth, Horus, Anubis, and Nephthyts employs her magical powers to mummify Osiris and thereby to restore him from death to life." (Meyer, p.157) So we are not dealing with the restoration of actual flesh and blood life, but a mummified state which is merely in a waiting mode, for a future resurrection, and we don't even know if this will be life as a restored flesh and blood person, or life as a mummy. Moreover, this is a purely mythological scene not something played out in history with historical figures. It seems more likely that it is the prototype and perhaps justification for preserving bodies as mummies. What's more, Osiris was not crucified. One encounters Osiris in the land of the dead waiting to be taken to that afterlife, (Ibid.) no eyewitnesses see him restored to normal huan life.
 
  3) References to baptism far fetched


The language with which scholars sometimes speak of these myths, either purposefully or not, suggests a lot more than does the actual story. Osiris was drowned in a box in the Nile which is spoken of in such terms as: "The dead body of Osiris floated in the Nile and he returned to life, this being accomplished by a baptism in the waters of the Nile." (Joseph Klausner, From Jesus to Paul (New York: Macmillan, 1943), 104.)Wagner suggests that comparing the coffin of Osiris floating on the Nile to baptism is like comparing the sinking to Atlantis to Baptism. (Gunter Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1967), 260ff.)

 4) No resurrection
  Easter: Myth, Hallucination or History by Edwin M. Yamauchi Leadership U. http://www. leaderu.com/everystudent/Easter/articles/yama.html Updated 22 March 1997 (prof. of History at Miami University, Osford Ohio)
This leaves us with the figure of Osiris as the only god for whom there is clear and early evidence of a "resurrection." Our most complete version of the myth of his death and dismemberment by Seth and his twofold resuscitation by Isis is to be found in Plutarch, who wrote in the second century A.D. (cf. J. Gwyn Griffiths, Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride, 1970). His account seems to accord with statements made in the early Egyptian texts. After the New Kingdom (from 1570 B.C.. on) even ordinary men aspired to identification with Osiris as one who had triumphed over death". "But it is a cardinal misconception to equate the Egyptian view of the afterlife with the "resurrection" of Hebrew-Christian traditions. In order to achieve immortality the Egyptian had to fulfill three conditions: (1) His body had to be preserved, hence mummification. (2) Nourishment had to be provided either by the actual offering of daily bread and beer, or by the magical depiction of food on the walls of the tomb. (3) Magical spells had to be interred with the dead-Pyramid Texts in the Old Kingdom, Coffin Texts in the Middle Kingdom, and the Book of the Dead in the New Kingdom. Moreover, the Egyptian did not rise from the dead; separate entities of his personality such as his Ba and his Ka continued to hover about his body". "Nor is Osiris, who is always portrayed in a mummified form, an inspiration for the resurrected Christ. As Roland de Vaux has observed:
  What is meant of Osiris being "raised to life"? Simply that, thanks to the ministrations of Isis, he is able to lead a life beyond the tomb which is an almost perfect replica of earthly existence. But he will never again come among the living and will reign only over the dead.... This revived god is in reality a "mummy" god [The Bible and the Ancient Near East, 1971, p. 236]".
 
 
E. Tammuz
In Babylonian Mythology was the consort of the goddess Ishtor. He was also the god who died and rose again continually. This was another crop cycle relationship based upon nature. (Herbert Spencer Robinson, Myths and Legends of all Nations, New York: Bantum Books, 1950, 13-16). This is purely mythological. There is no historical figure that Tammuz is based upon. He did not die and rise as a flesh and blood human, but only as a mythical figure. He healed no real people, only the mythical goddess Ishtar. Since his dying and rising is crop related we can suspect that he is not even faintly based upon a real figure. This was a copy of nature for fertility purposes. He was consort to Ishtar who was goddess of 'love' in the crass sense, related to fertility.
 
  1) No Virginal Birth Thre are no stories of Tammuz as the product of a virgin birth. I suspect that documentation comes from Achyra S.
 
  2) No Crucifixion He was not crucified but killed by a wild bore (Ibid.).
 
  3) No Resurrection
 
  Easter: Myth, Hallucination or History by Edwin M. Yamauchi Leadership u. http://www. leaderu.com/everystudent/Easter/articles/yama.html Updated 22 March 1997

(prof. of History at Miami University, Osford Ohio)"In the case of the Mesopotamian Tammuz (Sumerian Dumuzi), his alleged resurrection by the goddess Inanna-Ishtar had been assumed even though the end of both the Sumerian and the Akkadian texts of the myth of "The Descent of Inanna (Ishtar)" had not been preserved. Professor S. N. Kramer in 1960 published a new poem, "The Death of Dumuzi," that proves conclusively that instead of rescuing Dumuzi from the Underworld, Inanna sent him there as her substitute (cf. my article, "Tammuz and the Bible," Journal of Biblical Literature, LXXXIV [1965], 283-90). A line in a fragmentary and obscure text is the only positive evidence that after being sent to the Underworld Dumuzi may have had his sister take his place for half the year "(cf. S. N. Kramer, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 183 [1966], 31). "Tammuz was identified by later writers with the Phoenician Adonis, the beautiful youth beloved of Aphrodite. According to Jerome, Hadrian desecrated the cave in Bethlehem associated with Jesus' birth by consecrating it with a shrine of Tammuz-Adonis. Although his cult spread from Byblos to the GrecoRoman world, the worship of Adonis was never important and was restricted to women. P. Lambrechts has shown that there is no trace of a resurrection in the early texts or pictorial representations of Adonis; the four texts that speak of his resurrection are quite late, dating from the second to the fourth centuries A.D". ("La 'resurrection' d'Adonis," in Melanges Isidore Levy, 1955, pp. 207-40).
 
 
 
 
He was not a savior figure, he did not have a cult of salvation seekers founding a mystery religion after him, he was not a savior but a symbol of the crop cycles, the male counterpart to the Greek Procepheny.
 
 

F. Krishna

Actually Krishna is the only one of these figures who bares a striking similarity to Jesus, but not in any of the characteristics mentioned above. This will be dealt with in the argument below (IV) but suffice to say Krinsha is a totally mythological being. There is no real evidence that he ever existed, no record of people who met him, no body of his teachings, no eyewitnesses, and no historical persage to whom he can be related. Within in the context of the myth, he bares no similarity to Jesus. He was not a teacher or a healer but a King and Chariot driver, a warrior and archer. (Robinson, 53).
 
  1) no virgin birth>It simply is not there, it is not part of his story.
 
  2) no crucifixion
 
  Killed by an arrow in battle. (Robinson, 62)  (Achyra S. apparently, and Kane on his website say that he was hung on a cross and then shot with an arrow, but the graphic Kane shows which he says shows him on a cross includes no cross at all. I find no record of a cross any any of the literature I have read of him, and since he was killed in battle one wonders what that cross was doing on the battle field). 3) No resurrection, he does not raise from the dead, no story pictures him doing this.

G. Cyble and Attis
 
"Cybele, also known as the Great Mother, was worshiped through much of the Hellenistic world. She undoubtedly began as a goddess of nature. Her early worship included orgiastic ceremonies in which her frenzied male worshipers were led to castrate themselves, following which they became "Galli" or eunuch-priests of the goddess. Cybele eventually came to be viewed as the Mother of all gods and the mistress of all life." (Ronald Nash,"Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions?" The Christian Research Journal, Winter 1994, p.8) [CRJ:http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/cri/cri-jrnl/web/crjo169a.html
1) No Virgin Birth There is nothing in the story about a Virgin birth. 2) Not Crucified But Self-Castrated!
Cyble loved a Shaped named Attis. Because he was not sufficiently attentive she drove him mad. In response to his madness Attis castrated himself and died (Ibid).
 
 
 


2) Supposed "Resurrection" false and related to crop cycles
 
 
"The presuppositions of the interpreter tend to determine the language used to describe what followed Attis's death. Many writers refer carelessly to the "resurrection of Attis." But surely this is an exaggeration. There is no mention of anything resembling a resurrection in the myth, which suggests that Cybele could only preserve Attis's dead body. Beyond this, there is mention of the body's hair continuing to grow, along with some movement of his little finger. In some versions of the myth, Attis's return to life took the form of his being changed into an evergreen tree. Since the basic idea underlying the myth was the annual vegetation cycle, any resemblance to the bodily resurrection of Christ is greatly exaggerated." (Ibid) [Ouch!]
H. Buddha
 
 
Glenn Miller, Christian Think Tank on the specifics of Buddha, Buddha was born of the virgin Maya. [We have already seen the radical differences here, and the data that his mom was married before his conception counts against the factuality of this. There ARE later traditions, however, that assert that she had taken vows of abstinence even during her marriage (a bit odd?), but it can be understood (so in EOR) to refer only to the time of that midsummer festival. The first and finest biography of the Buddha, written by Ashvaghosha in the 1st century, called the Buddhacarita ("acts of the Buddha") gives a rather strong indication of her non-virgin status in canto 1: "He [the king of the Shakyas] had a wife,splendid, beautiful, and steadfast, who was called the Great Maya, from her resemblance to Maya the Goddess. These two tasted of love's delights, andone day she conceived the fruit of her womb, but without any defilement, inthe same way in which knowledge joined to trance bears fruit. Just beforeher conception she had a dream." (Buddhist Scriptures, Edward Conze,Penguin:1959.:35).]

I. No similarities to Jesus or what he offers


1) Similarities nonexistent


Not only do all of these figures miss on every count that Till mentions but none of them were healers, none of them were moral teachers, and none of them as much as were excited in public; they all died (if they died) through the treachery of friends or the slaughter of enemies in battle or ambush. There are greater similarities with other figures perhaps, but one should check the date of the artifacts and stories, because changes are they are influenced by Christianity, or examine the details because most of the time similarities are exaggerated.  

2) Scholars rule out conscious borrowing

Most scholars rule out any sort of borrowing by Christianity from the mystery cults for their notions of rebirth and salvation. There may have been some linguistic influences, but the most direct would have been Hellenistic, not Persian or Egyptian.(See W. F. Flemington, The New Testament Doctrine of Baptism (London: SPCK, 1948), 76-81.)


3) Careless language and No Critical Distinctions



  The main problem however is that these groups offered nothing that was really like that which Christianity offered. Rooted as it is in Jewish Messianic expectations, it is foolish to try and carry over such superficial similarities as if they are the very essence of religion. Lots of cultures can have religious meals, and abolution rites. There are merely surface things, the mere presence of such rituals tells us nothing about the ideas of the group. Christian baptism offers an image of solidarity with the savior who sacrificed his life for us. The notion of rebirth is centered in that concept, rising to walk in newness of life. Jesus was reinvigorated, he did not merely mimic life, he took on a new life, robust and glorified but every bit like the one he had before, flesh and blood vitality. None of these pagan myths offer that sort of resurrection, nor do they offer the sort of union with God upon which Christianity bases its view of salvation.
 
  Reinhold Neibuhr (Greatest American Theologian) http://www.christiananswers.net/summit/nash2.html The page is titled: "Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions?" "Many alleged similarities between Christianity and the mysteries are either greatly exaggerated or fabricated. Scholars often describe pagan rituals in language they borrow from Christianity. The careless use of language could lead one to speak of a "Last Supper" in Mithraism or a "baptism" in the cult of Isis. It is inexcusable nonsense to take the word "savior" with all of its New Testament connotations and apply it to Osiris or Attis as though they were savior-gods in any similar sense."

4) Nash Summarizes differences in Jesus and Pagan "Saviors"
 
  Was The New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions by Ronald Nash from the Christian Research Journal, Winter 1994, p 8 Elliot Miller Editor-in-Chief http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/.../crjo169a.html
 
 


(1) None of the so-called savior-gods died for someone else. The notion of the Son of God dying in place of His creatures is unique to Christianity.[13] (2) Only Jesus died for sin. As Gunter Wagner observes, to none of the pagan gods "has the intention of helping men been attributed. The sort of death that they died is quite different (hunting accident, self-emasculation, etc.)."[14] (3) Jesus died once and for all (Heb. 7:27; 9:25-28; 10:10-14). In contrast, the mystery gods were vegetation deities whose repeated deaths and resuscitations depict the annual cycle of nature. (4) Jesus' death was an actual event in history. The death of the mystery god appears in a mythical drama with no historical ties; its continued rehearsal celebrates the recurring death and rebirth of nature. The incontestable fact that the early church believed that its proclamation of Jesus' death and resurrection was grounded in an actual historical event makes absurd any attempt to derive this belief from the mythical, non historical stories of the pagan cults.[15] (5) Unlike the mystery gods, Jesus died voluntarily. Nothing like this appears even implicitly in the mysteries. (6) And finally, Jesus' death was not a defeat but a triumph. Christianity stands entirely apart from the pagan mysteries in that its report of Jesus' death is a message of triumph. Even as Jesus was experiencing the pain and humiliation of the cross, He was the victor. The New Testament's mood of exultation contrasts sharply with that of the mystery religions, whose followers wept and mourned for the terrible fate that overtook their gods.[16]


 [Copyright 1994 by the Christian Research Institute, P.O. Box 7000, Rancho Santa Margarita, CA 92688-7000.]
 

[ October 04, 2001: Message edited by: Metacrock ]

Muad'Dib

Metacrock, please note that HTML tags do not work in UBB. If you refrain from using them in the future it will make your messages much more readable.

Metacrock

OK sure thing. I didn't realize those were there.I copied that from my own site and it copied the tags,and I didn't realize it would. I'll have to delete them in future.

thanks.

Toto

Go edit your post and delete them now if you expect anyone to try to read it.

SingleDad

I wouldn't hold too much hope even without the tags.

A Disciple

In response to T.L Winslow:
Hi,
I just finished an essay on the dreaded J-Virus, which I think is the last word on the whole subject of Jesus. This site is free to republish it or use it in any way they want. Come check it out at the link below.

Ciao,


Just a quick note: If you are concerned about the "errors" of the Bible. Then please study all the points. For instance, do you hear someone say "There are many contradictions in the Bible, like in Acts 9:7 it states those present at Paul's conversion heard the voice but saw no one.
AC 22:9 They saw a light but did not hear a voice." then go out and tell everyone that it IS a contradiction without looking into it??
There is a book called "The Errors in the King James Bible" that explains the apparent contradictions. Please study all sides before making a supposed judgement.
I am not trying to be rude, I just think we should study all the sides and ask questions, before coming to conclusions.

Thank you.
Jay

Vorkosigan

For instance, do you hear someone say "There are many contradictions in the Bible, like in Acts 9:7 it states those present at Paul's conversion heard the voice but saw no one.
AC 22:9 They saw a light but did not hear a voice." then go out and tell everyone that it IS a contradiction without looking into it??
There is a book called "The Errors in the King James Bible" that explains the apparent contradictions. Please study all sides before making a supposed judgement.
I am not trying to be rude, I just think we should study all the sides and ask questions, before coming to conclusions.

Thank you.
Jay

Nobody here pays much attention to Biblical Inerrancy, it being obvious that the Bible is a book like any other. If you want to read what skeptics say on the copious number of errors, contradictions, and other problems in the Bible, check out Biblical Errancy Magazine or Skeptical Review. If you can find some serious problems, start a new thread and people will be happy to discuss them with you.

Michael

[ October 04, 2001: Message edited by: turtonm ]

Metacrock

Of couse not, you have no hope anyway

T.L. Winslow

Like I said, the J-Virus. Read the above posts and I rest my case. Quod erat demonstrandum. Q.E.D.

Check out my Fabulous Fiction Bible Research page for some interesting links to the Bible as pure fiction.

T.L. Winslow
"The World's Greatest Genius" (tm) www.tlwinslow.com

TLW's Fabulous Fiction Bible Research Page