Originally Posted by spin

If we look at footnote 615 on p.207 here, we see a slightly different summary of the source (S. Panciera): "the word eternali is highly uncertain, and is best avoided." Vermaseren was responsible for the original reconstruction with "eternali".

Originally Posted by Student of Sophia

Very interesting.

So, we have the OT, and the devil of the OT. The devil with access to heaven, the one whose job it is to serve as "the accuser" or "the adversary" in the Court or Council of God. And one day, presumably after the events in the book of Job, he diabolically decides to plagiarize the True Word of a literal anthropomorphic creator-God of the entire universe.

He decides to take the keys elements and forge paganism out of them. Does he forge every other religion/mythology that has elements in common with the OT? Why does he do it? To lead men astray?

Time passes. How much time?

And then along comes Christianity. And it is the true climax to the true word of God, and thus the satanic pagan plagiarisms are seen by the wise as the satanic forgeries that they are. It's the only way that such elements could be present in both paganism and Christianity and the OT. An entity must exist who has a role in all three. Satan.

So then we see that not only are the pagan gods actually devils under the control of the OT Satan, but we also see that Satan seems to have evolved into a being who no longer has access to God, who is evil incarnate, who is no longer able to serve a Courtly role as accuser before the Throne of God.

Now he wants the Throne itself. Now it's WAR.

Does that about sum it up?

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Furthermore the sentence is then translated : "you have saved us, having shed the ... blood".

But "sanguine fuso" looks rather like an ablative absolute to me: i.e. "Blood having been shed" -- although one at the end of a sentence would be a little odd (to me, anyway). I wish we had a picture of the whole inscription and location. Could there have been more, I wonder?

Originally Posted by spin

Unfortunately, that's all there was to this inscription. There were a number of such brief messages on the walls. There is nothing more. And as there is nothing more one has to make sense of the one phrase that is meaningful in itself, one that conveys a pithy religious thought, so "sanguine fuso" needs to be understood as part of what came before it. The ablative "sanguine" just seems to be a normal partitive and I think that "sanguine" is governed by "fuso" together giving an adverbial clause explaining the how of "servasti", ie I can't as things stand see anything wrong with the given translation.

Originally Posted by JohnG

The tektonics argument is attempting to place the advent of the Mithra cult after the advent of Christianity, by stating that the original research done by Franz Cumont is incorrect, and that the Persian Mithra and the Roman Mithra are two different cults. However, the argument doesn’t state the Roman version of Mithra still predates the writing of the New Testament by almost two centuries.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but my research tells me that a gap of 175 years separates the alleged time of Jesus from the earliest surviving copies of the gospels. There is only just over thirty papyrus manuscripts of the New Testament, which can be dated before the 4th century. Moreover, each copy has its own oddities and mistakes. No two are completely alike.

From dating artifacts, it is known that Mithraism began in Rome in 68 BCE.

Something else about their argument is not quite right. They are going about their merry business degrading the author of “The Christ Conspiracy” for her comments about knowledge of precession before the time of Hipparchus, and how that doesn’t jibe with Ulansey's theory that Mithraism is based on Hipparchus’ discovery.

Ulansey never states that phenomenon went unnoticed, just that Hipparchus had the math together to ascertain an earthly wobble. Interesting to note, however, that they are using an argument by a researcher claiming that the religions of the time are based on precession, but that's another heated topic.

Ulansey isn’t hesitant to point out the similarities between Christianity and Mithraism and goes into some detail about the astrological implications as well. He goes on to note that “astrological beliefs permeated Mediterranean religious and intellectual life at the time Mithraism originated”. Remember, this is in the same timeframe that Christianity found its origins.

The tectonics main argument (that Christianity preceded Mithraism) doesn’t necessarily reflect with Ulansey’s claim that the Persian Mithra and the Roman Mithra are two different religions. Those are two different statements.

As stated, there is not much info on this subject, but in doing some quick research the apologetic arguments all mirror one another to some extent and roughly look like the tektonics argument...not very good.

I'm not saying one is based on the other, if I had to guess, I would say that they both filled a common need that was reflective of the time period, and that Mithra was popular before christianity, but that's a mildly educated guess based on limited reading.

Originally Posted by lycanthrope

I go by Tertullian and Justin Martyr's treatise on the pagan similarities, which to me suggest there is some pagan influences on christianity. I think the 2 church elders were genuinely spooked by the similarities.