Madmax, good point. I know that the originality does not imply truth, but on the other hand non-origninality certainly can point to falsity. The reason I'm sick of it is because the people who say it have no idea that other religions that predate christianity that have baptism, resurrections, gods becoming men, and so on. Its more of a reaction to the uninformed people.

Amos123- I still don't know what you are talking about.

ErwinFletcher

aikido7, thanks for reading my question. I'll look into that stuff.

ErwinFletcher

Here are some beginning points for you to research. The Christ myth links will be a bit more concise in answering some of your questions then the Enuma Elish and Gilgamesh links, but I felt those were important to include for comparison.

The Babylonian Creation story Enuma Elish: http://www.piney.com/Enuma4.html

The Mesopatamian Flood Myth. Gilgamesh : http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/GILG.HTM


Here is a good site about the pagan origins of the Christ Myth: http://home.earthlink.net/~pgwhacker/ChristianOrigins/

Here is a more detailed site, and the original information was written in 1941, be sure to scroll to the bottom of each page to read the next part of the myth : http://www.nbufront.org/html/Masters...MythPart1.html
From part four : Krishna was the second person in the Hindu Trinity, which consisted of:—(1) Brahma, (2) Vishnu and (3) Siva. Krishna was the human incarnation of Vishnu. (Jesus Christ is considered to be the second person in the Christian Trinity.)
The close parallels between the life-stories of Buddha and Christ are just as remarkable as those between Krishna and Christ. Buddha11 was born of a virgin name Maya, or Mary. His birthday was celebrated on December 25. He was visited by wise men who acknowledged his divinity. The life of Buddha was sought by King Bimbasara, who feared that some day the child would endanger his throne. At the age of twelve, Buddha excelled the learned men of the temple in knowledge and wisdom. His ancestry was traced back to Maha Sammata, the first monarch in the world. (Jesus' ancestry is traced back to Adam, the first man in the world.) Buddha was transfigured on a mountain top. His form was illumined by as aura of bright light. (Jesus was likewise transfigured on a mountain top. "And his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light."12 After the completion of his earthly mission, Buddha ascended bodily to the celestial realms.
Mithra,13 a Persian sun-god, was virgin-born, in a cave, on December 25. His earliest worshippers were shepherds, and he was accompanied in his travels by twelve companions. The Mithraists kept the sabbath day holy and celebrated the Eucharist by eating wafers embellished with a cross. The great Mithraic festivals were the Birth (Christmas) and the Resurrection (Easter).
Adonis14 or Tammuz of Babylonia was also born of a virgin. He died a cruel death, descended into hell, arose from the tomb and ascended to heaven. In a mid-summer festival, the worshippers of Adonis wept over an effigy of the dead god which was washed with water, anointed day the Resurrection was re-enacted, after which the crowd shouted: "The Lord is Risen." Finally his ascension was simulated in the presence of his devotees.
Attis15 of Phrygia was called the Good Shepherd, and was said to be the son of the virgin Nana. It is reported that Attis, when in his prime, mutilated himself and bled to death under a sacred pine tree. The Festivals of the Death and Resurrection of Attis were staged by his worshippers from March 22 through March 25. A pine tree was cut on March 22, and an image of the god was tied to the trunk. He was shown as "slain and hanged on a tree."16 Then the effigy was buried in a tomb. On the night of March 24, the priests opened the tomb and found it empty. The Resurrection of Attis was celebrated on March 25. His followers were baptized in blood, thereby having their sins washed away, and they were therefore declared to have been "born again."
Strange as it may seem, the Aztecs of ancient Mexico likewise could boast of a crucified savior. Quetzalcoatl17 was born of a virgin, and also, like Jesus, was tempted and fasted for forty days. He is shown in the Borgian Ms., on a cross, with nail marks on his hands and feet. He is depicted as a man of sable hue. After being crucified, he rose from the dead and went into the East. The Mexicans were expecting his Second Coming when the Spaniards invaded the country in the sixteenth century.



An interesting perspective on the Bible and the real origins of Christianity : http://www.pe.net/~bidstrup/bible.htm


Here is some information I found about the myth of the Devil http://www.users.qwest.net/~rjwsr/devbio/ which is strongly influenced by the dualism of Zoroastrianism http://www.religioustolerance.org/zoroastr.htm


These are the pagan holidays as identified by the Neo-pagan movement. I am not aware of any of these being in dispute by scholars (and if they are I would sincerely appreciate the information): http://www.witchvox.com/xholidays.html - make sure to click on the links for each holiday and the articles attached.

I could go on and on, such as looking into the Catholic saints, such as the one of my name sake, Brighid. There is a Celtic goddess with the exact same name and "mythical" nature that was sanitized by Christianity and made into a saint because the Irish natives would not relinquish her worship and now a Church stands at her temple in Kildare, still attended by 19 virgins keeping her flame alive ....

Brighid

Brighid, Thanks for taking the time to reply. That should keep me busy for a little while. Since my last post I was thinking about Zoroasterism, and the info I found on Encarta. The influence was pretty clear to me. Have you read "The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark"? That was very compelling to me, having read the Odysey and the Aeneid in college. The influence there was more literary, but certainly applicable. Thanks again!
ErwinFletcher

Interesting post Brighid, "Tay John" is about a Native Indian tribe NW of Edmonton AB who have the cross in the form of a tree, the four persona's Eve Adam Mary and Christ and much more.

Does this not make you think that salvation is native to mankind and the method is archetypal? How else could so many religions be transparent?

Amos

There is a precedent for a hanging god pierced with a spear in "pagan" myth. This is Odin from Nordic and German mythology. Odin hung himself on the World Tree and then stabbed himself in the side with his own spear as a sacrifice to himself. He did this in order to gain greater knowledge.

From Greek mythology there are the myths of Zagreus, Orpheus, and Dionysus, all three having stories of them being ripped apart and in some cases devoured. Some scholars (such as Robert Graves) believe that at Mystery celebrations the "gods" were eaten again by their respective worshippers in some substituted form. This eating of the "flesh" allowed one to become identified with the divinity and could procure a special place in the afterworld. This all sounds similar to the Christian tradition of the Eucharist. This is not too extreme of a position considering Christianity's position within Rome where undoubtedly it had some characteristics in common with other Mystery cults (such as the ones devoted to Dionysus, Demeter, Isis, and Osiris among others). We cannot discount the influences of these practices upon the then infant Christian religion.

(I am not even sure if "church" is the proper word to describe organized Christianity at that time. Or even if there was such a thing as "organized" Christianity sonsidering there were widely different sects and no codified canon appeared until later, that is another story altogether though...)

I hope I could be of some help to you.

regards,

red dawn

[This message has been edited by red dawn (edited May 08, 2001).]

Bede

Red Dawn,

While I agree that there certainly was cross polonisation between Christianity and pagan religions it would be wrong to thing the process was one way. Your PREcedent is actually a POSTcedent as the Odin myth is dated to about the tenth century AD. If there is a connection it is far more likely that Christianity influenced the pagan myth in this case.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Amos,

“Does this not make you think that salvation is native to mankind and the method is archetypal? How else could so many religions be transparent?”
I would agree that this is an interesting question and one I have pondered from time to time. For arguments sake, lets hypothesize that religion and the commonalities stated in the previous posts are only archetypal and the specific and sometimes differing methods of religious worship are indigenous to that population. This would then require that each indigenous religion could only claim value in that population and could not factually declare originality or absolute truth.
Those pagan religious myths that predate Christianity and Judaism obviously influenced the native minds of the followers of El and Jehovah and then the Christ. If the theme of a godchild, born of virgin birth, who suffered great physical pain, was sacrificed on by hanging/crucifiction, died, descended into Hades/Hell, rose in three days, ascended into Heaven, is now the judge of the living and/or the dead and has savior status, is found is nearly every culture from one end of the Earth to the other prior to Christ, in my opinion this leaves the divinity of Jesuah suspect (among a myriad of other reasons). He is simply the archetypal savior of a society wishing to separate itself from part of its community. Why should I believe Christ to be the savior but not Dionysus, Osiris or Attis, Buddha or Krishna? They all bare the same stories. Buddha and Krishna predate the Christ and Krishna predates both by centuries. Unlike Christ, Buddha is mentioned by many of his contemporaries, although I am unsure of the actual historical or physical evidence of his existence. China, in many ways was far more advanced then Egypt centuries before Christ.
Despite the multitude of saviors that have been born of a virgin, suffered, died, went to hell, rose and ascended to heaven, promised to save the Earth – well not a single one of them has accomplished this task in the 40,000 years of human existence. Maybe our human brains need to create these patterns to rationalize the suffering and arbitrariness of nature.
I believe that we are at the primitive stages of our human evolution and one day, possibly centuries from now our future generations will see us as we see the caveman; uncivilized, uneducated and primitive. We are still infants needing archetypal images to explain things we cannot understand. My son used to need his woobie to protect him from the imaginary monsters lurking in his bedroom at night, waiting to devour him and men need gods to protect and comfort them from the imaginary demons they see lurking, waiting to devour their souls.


Brighid

Lance

Red Dawn: Didn't early humans often eat certain animal parts/type and drink blood to take the attributes of the animals? Seems I remember this from somewhere.

Not too much of a stretch to associate it with divinity.

Bede:

Odin's story is older than Christ's in the region---

The missionaries used the similarities to help convert the locals.

It is older than 1000 AD. Substantially.