GakuseiDon

Who argues that there was no influence from similar ideas in pagan religions? Why do you persist in building these strawmen arguments?

Most of the arguments are not that there was no influence, but the claims being made about pagan religions aren't correct in the first place, e.g. claims like "the pagans believed in a virgin born Mithras who was crucified between two thieves", or "the pagans thought that their myths that appeared to be set on earth were actually performed in another dimension". Look at the cr*p in the movies "The God Who Wasn't There" and "The Naked Truth" and you will see lots of these types of claims.

Let's look into these claims, dismiss them if they aren't accurate, and go from there. I think that this is the point that was raised in the OP. Perhaps we should add to "no more bad claims" the item "no more strawmen", on either side of the debate.

IMHO the virgin birth of Jesus was an add-in for the pagans, to give legitimacy to the idea that Jesus had a "divine spark" and thus was able to ascend through the firmament, as per pagan gods like Caesar and the Heroes of myth.

As for how Jesus got associated with the "Lord of Creation", we have the interesting example of Philo's Moses, a pre-existent being who was a mediator between God and man, who brought in a new covenant, and possibly was even taken up to heaven. This was a ready-made template for the first Jewish Christians to apply to Jesus.

My own humble guess: Jesus was an exorcist (IIRC EP Sanders believed that exorcism in those days wasn't as common as we usually think) who got associated with Wisdom as an intermediary figure. The earliest Christians were possibly adoptionists who believed that Jesus, due to his relationship with God, had somehow conquered demons, and had passed on the key to his disciples on how to do this.

Paul came on board once he had his vision. God revealed the secret to Paul that had been hidden in the scriptures -- Jesus came for the Gentiles as well as the Jews! Those believing Gentiles could be "adopted" into Christianity, as heirs to Christ, who was the heir to God's promise to Abraham. I have little doubt that Paul used pagan concepts to communicate Jesus's role to the pagans, including ideas from mystery religions.

Once we hit the Second Century and the number of pagans trained in Greek philosophy converting to Christianity increaseed, Jesus had become associated with the Logos and Christian theology began to absorb more Greek philosophy.

The results would be the same, I guess, from a textual question. I don't think a study of the texts requires either position to be taken. It's only if you want to support a bias either way that this needs to be brought in.

(ETA) jakejonesiv, I'm amazed at your propensity to build these strawmen arguments. Can you give some examples of anyone on this board to back up these claims of yours:

Who has imagined this?:
"It is often imagined that a normative first century monotheistic Juadiasm existed, from which arose Christianity, with no influence from the pagan religions"

Who has claimed this?:
"So how can one claim the pagan myths were unknown to the Jews and early Christians?"

Malachi151

Exactly and thank you, now we are getting somewhere.

gstafleu

Maybe, but then Jake wasn't talking about that, so why bring it up? His main point of comparison was Dionysus, and he adduced quotes from Justin Martyr that show that Christians in those days saw the parallels as well. Maybe it would be more productive if you answered that rather than decry things that weren't said.

As for Dionysus, have a look at this chapter from The Golden Bough. You'll note an interesting variety of birth mechanisms, amongst which "Or, again, the heart [Dionysus heart after he was killed] was pounded up and given in a potion to Semele, who thereby conceived him," which is a form of conception without intercourse. Alternatively we have "Zeus in the form of a serpent visited Persephone, and she bore him Zagreus, that is, Dionysus, a horned infant" Also a quite interesting form of conception by divine intervention.

As for rituals, we have "When we consider the practice of portraying the god as a bull or with some of the features of the animal, the belief that he appeared in bull form to his worshippers at the sacred rites, and the legend that in bull form he had been torn in pieces, we cannot doubt that in rending and devouring a live bull at his festival the worshippers of Dionysus believed themselves to be killing the god, eating his flesh, and drinking his blood." And a little further: "Meantime it remains to mention that in some places, instead of an animal, a human being was torn in pieces at the rites of Dionysus."

Frazer also remarks on the parallels between these rites and ceremonial regicide: "Such traditions point to a custom of temporarily investing the king’s son with the royal dignity as a preliminary to sacrificing him instead of his father." Ceremonial regicide was wide spread for quite some time. The interesting thing is that we see a reference to it in the crown-of-thorns and purple robe bit in the passion.

Anyway, it would seem that addressing the parallels that are there is more useful than decrying the ones that are not present. Given that so far we have no OT candidates for the divine sacrifice, the "bread=body:eat" it part of the Eucharist, nor for the crown-of-thorns scene, it would be strange to ignore parallels of these themes that were apparently prevalent in the culture of the day.

Gerard Stafleu

Ben C Smith

Jake said that it is often imagined that Christianity arose without pagan influence. GDon said that most of the arguments to which Jake was referring are not actually against pagan influence. GDon was decrying something that was said, not something that was not said.

(The double negative GDon used, are not that there was no influence, is tricky, but it admits that yes, there may well have been an influence.)

Ben.

Malachi151

Just to clarify, I'm not saying that there wasn't "pagan" influence on Christianity or the Jesus story, nor am I even certain what that would mean, as GD stated, my concern is about all of the bogus claims that are made in relation to various JM postulates, and these often relate to claims about "pagan influences" which are factually incorrect. That doesn't mean that there are no legitimate influences, the problem is that there are a lot of bogus claims, and I'd like to see those addressed.

The more bogus claims there are out there the less credibility legitimate claims have.

gstafleu

Ben, I didn't quite read it that way (probably because he brought up that Mithras bit that Jake didn't talk about), but you have a point.

Malachi, agreed, bogus claims should be weeded out. Having said that, I still have the impression that there is a lot of resistance when it comes to seeing Christianity as a mythology. Hence there is a bit of a vacuum, and we all know how well bogus flourishes in such an environment.

So back to (hopefully) non-bogus influences. Or perhaps that deserves its own thread? Anyway, I still see two important things, the divine sacrifice and its ritual counterpart the Eucharist, as very difficult to derive from the OT. Plus we have the titillating detail of the immolated king ritual in the crown of thorns bit. In that chapter in the Golden Bough to which I gave a link we see links to all of these. That doesn't mean that I think somebody copied the chapter of the Golden Bough and called it "Mark" (which would be an interesting feat in anachronism at least). But it does give me some ideas as to the possible origins of the ideas behind these other(OT)wise difficult bits. Agreed?

Gerard Stafleu

GakuseiDon

Sure. There are lots and lots of parallels. Justin Martyr saw many:
1. Bellerophon ascended to heaven riding on his horse Pegasus, vs Jesus ascending to Heaven after his crucifixion, death and resurrection.
2. Jesus "washing His robe in the blood of the grape", vs Bacchus as the "discoverer of the vine".
3. Scriptures saying that the Messiah will be "Strong as a giant to run his course," vs Hercules who "was strong, and had journeyed over the whole earth".

Justin Martyr saw parallels everywhere. Unfortunately, the pagans didn't, which is why Justin had to plead "we propound nothing new or different from what you believe regarding those whom you call the sons of Jupiter". But the reason why the pagans couldn't see this was because (according to Justin) Satan and the devils "did not accurately understand" the Hebrew Scriptures, and "like men who are in error", got them wrong.

OK, those are parallels. What's the next step?

Gamera

I don't know, Ben. My sense from Turton's Commentary is that he is simply doing literary analysis of biblical texts, with some historical background thrown in. Basically he is comparing narrative elements, i.e., various thematic and rhetorical structures. And that's always problematic for the reasons I cited.

But even assuming that he has identified specific LXX antecedants to NT passages, I don't even know if that goes to historicity. It's not uncommon for historians (even in our time) to conflate bibliography with culturally significant narratives, so that a personage's life takes on a mythic role. Roman historians were particularly fond of suggesting parallels between Roman personages and revered characters from Rome's mythic past.

Indeed, this still happens. Martin Luther King, Jr., has been compared to Moses (something he himself did rhetorically in his own speeches), and I bet if you look at his biographies, you can discern narrative elements that heighten the comparison. That doesn't make MLK's life a myth, it just means that the author wants the reader to see a parallel.

So, circling back, there is nothing inconsistent between Jesus' historicity and the gospel authors attempting to embed his life in Hebrew history through borrowings of incidents and themes from Hebrew scriptures. One might even argue it confirms his historicity, since generally only historical persons have the honor of having their lifes embedded in a mythic past.

Ben C Smith

I once told him that he should have called his work a literary commentary on Mark, since it deals far more with literary devices than with historical argumentation.

But I am basing my statement mainly on his posts in this forum. He does frequently argue that the parallels undermine historicity.

I agree.

I agree.

Again, I agree, though you make it sound like I would not. By way of reminder, I was reacting to your statement that JM theories regard the Jesus story as derived from prior myths in a structural fashion; I am saying that there are those from the JM camp who regard the Jesus story as more directly borrowed from the LXX in a verbal fashion.

Ben.

jakejonesiv

When nearly every detail of Gospel Jesus' life can be shown to be based on recasting a literary story, that tells against historicity.

But I would like your opinion. (GakuseiDon has already answered. Thanks). If Christianity really did start with the death of an obscure individual, how did it happen? How did he grow so quickly from a failed prophet to the Saviour of the cosmos?

Did the disciples tell each other ghost stories? Did they fool themselves into believing he was resurrected? How do you get from a dead body rotting in a garbage heap to Heavenly Redeemer in 2 to 3 years?

Why isn't it more likely that we are dealing with the evolution of myth from the salvation cults and mystery religions that were predominate in that era?

Jake

P.S. Where did the mystical union, of being in Christ, so important in the Pauline epistles, where did that come from?