Freethought & Rationalism Archive

jakejonesiv · 09-22-2005, 01:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

I know of Easter, Ishtar and Inanna, but not "Easter/Ishtar". Sounds like Fakelore to me! According to the Wikipedia entry on Fakelore:

Easter has its detractors within Christianity. The majority of the Christian fakelore regarding Easter erroneously associates the holiday with the Babylonian goddess Ishtar, based on a superficial similiarity between her name and the holiday's. This fakelore claims that Easter was chosen in spring to coincide with a pagan fertility celebration and attributes all Easter customs to that celebration.

OK, I'll concede the point. It is not crucial to the argument.
If Easter is derived from Eostre (supposing Bede didn't make her up) rather than Ishtar, we are just swapping one spring fertility goddess for another.

Jake Jones

GakuseiDon · 09-22-2005, 02:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amaleq13

For Christians, Christ didn't STAY dead but he certainly DID die. You can't be sacrificed without being killed and you can't be resurrected without first dying.

Sorry, I should have distinguished between "dying" and "existence coming to an end", as per my OP. Aristides seems to imply that Tammuz's existence came to an end.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jakejonesiv

You know, Tammuz and Inanna were said to rise again too, so there is not even a philosophical distinction.

Aristides, at least, seems to believe that Aprodite "was unable to help her lover (Adonis/Tammuz) at his death", so Tammuz stayed dead. So from his perspective, his criticism is apt.

Anyway, it doesn't matter whether he was correct or not, but that this philosophical distinction existed in second century writings.

Amaleq13 · 09-22-2005, 03:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Sorry, I should have distinguished between "dying" and "existence coming to an end", as per my OP.

I wondered if you meant something else. Thanks for the clarification.

jakejonesiv · 09-23-2005, 07:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Sorry, I should have distinguished between "dying" and "existence coming to an end", as per my OP. Aristides seems to imply that Tammuz's existence came to an end.

Aristides, at least, seems to believe that Aprodite "was unable to help her lover (Adonis/Tammuz) at his death", so Tammuz stayed dead. So from his perspective, his criticism is apt.

Anyway, it doesn't matter whether he was correct or not, but that this philosophical distinction existed in second century writings.

Tammuz didn't "stay dead" or his existence come to an end in any version of the myth. (What would be the point? :huh: The raising of Tammuz occurs every year in the spring and corresponds with the natural cycle of vegetation.)

Either Aristedes didn't understand the myths he was commenting on, or he was misrepresenting them. ymmv.

Jake Jones

GakuseiDon · 09-23-2005, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jakejonesiv

Tammuz didn't "stay dead" or his existence come to an end in any version of the myth. (What would be the point? :huh: The raising of Tammuz occurs every year in the spring and corresponds with the natural cycle of vegetation.)

For what it's worth: according to here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adonis

The connection in cult practice is with Adonis' Mesopotamian counterpart, Tammuz:

"Women sit by the gate weeping for Tammuz, or they offer incense to Baal on roof-tops and plant pleasant plants. These are the very features of the Adonis cult: a cult confined to women which is celebrated on flat roof-tops on which sherds sown with quickly germinating green salading are placed, Adonis gardens... the climax is loud lamentation for the dead god." —Burkert, p. 177).

Adonis was worshipped in unspoken mystery religions: not until Imperial Roman times (in Lucian of Samosata, De Dea Syria, ch. 6 [1]) does any written source mention that the women were consoled by a revived Adonis.

Lucian wrote around 160 CE, after the date commonly assigned to Aristides's apology. So he might not have known about a "resurrection" version of the myth.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jakejonesiv

Either Aristedes didn't understand the myths he was commenting on, or he was misrepresenting them.

Either way, it doesn't affect my point, which is: Doherty is wrong when he suggests that apologists who believed in a historical Christ wouldn't have used the type of presentation that he highlights in Minucius Felix.

09-23-2005, 08:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jakejonesiv

If Easter is derived from Eostre (supposing Bede didn't make her up) rather than Ishtar, we are just swapping one spring fertility goddess for another.

FWIW, it is now thought that I was wrong about this. Easter probably just comes from the English word east which is the direction everyone faced during the Easter vigil. Needless to say, there is no other reference to the mysterious goddess.

B

jakejonesiv · 09-23-2005, 08:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bede

FWIW, it is now thought that I was wrong about this. Easter probably just comes from the English word east which is the direction everyone faced during the Easter vigil. Needless to say, there is no other reference to the mysterious goddess.

B

:notworthy

Jake Jones

freigeister · 09-23-2005, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bede

Easter probably just comes from the English word east which is the direction everyone faced during the Easter vigil. Needless to say, there is no other reference to the mysterious goddess.

Nonetheless, there remains a connection to pagan spring festivals as this Christian website points out:

The word "easter" and the German "Ostern" come from common source, referring to the direction from which the sun rises. In other words, the word referred to the celebration of the spring sun, when all things returned to life. This symbolism was transferred to the resurrection of Christ who brings us new life.

jakejonesiv · 09-23-2005, 09:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Either way, it doesn't affect my point, which is: Doherty is wrong when he suggests that apologists who believed in a historical Christ wouldn't have used the type of presentation that he highlights in Minucius Felix.

If Minucius Felix believed in a historical Jesus, it did not stop there. He also believed that a physical man named Jesus died and rose again. Since this is at odds with the scorn heaped on the pagan gods for allegedly doing the same thing, Doherty deduces that he must have believed in a spiritual Jesus.

To review what Doherty wrote:

Quote:

Minucius Felix: "And yet, although so much time has elapsed and countless ages have passed, is there a single trustworthy instance of a man having returned from the dead like Protesilaus, if only for a few hours? All these figments of a disordered brain, these senseless consolations invented by lying poets to lend a charm to their verse, to your shame you have hashed up in your excessive credulity in honor of your god." [11, J.H. Freese translation]

I don't need to belabor the point that all these references supposedly have direct parallels in the Christian faith and (if we are to believe apologists like GDon) were part and parcel of the writer's own faith. And yet he could have his Christian character speak with scorn of the exact same things in the religion of the pagans without any worry over what effect this scorn would have on the identical features of his own.

Earl Doherty
http://www.christianorigins.com/2ndcearl.html

Either Doherty is right or Minucius Felix was an utter hypocrite. I would settle for hypocrite.

Jake Jones

GakuseiDon · 09-23-2005, 09:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jakejonesiv

If Minucius Felix believed in a historical Jesus, it did not stop there. He also believed that a physical man named Jesus died and rose again. Since this is at odds with the scorn heaped on the pagan gods for allegedly doing the same thing, Doherty deduces that he must have believed in a spiritual Jesus.

To review what Doherty wrote:

Quote:

Minucius Felix: "And yet, although so much time has elapsed and countless ages have passed, is there a single trustworthy instance of a man having returned from the dead like Protesilaus, if only for a few hours? All these figments of a disordered brain, these senseless consolations invented by lying poets to lend a charm to their verse, to your shame you have hashed up in your excessive credulity in honor of your god." [11, J.H. Freese translation]

I don't need to belabor the point that all these references supposedly have direct parallels in the Christian faith and (if we are to believe apologists like GDon) were part and parcel of the writer's own faith. And yet he could have his Christian character speak with scorn of the exact same things in the religion of the pagans without any worry over what effect this scorn would have on the identical features of his own.

Earl Doherty

Either Doherty is right or Minucius Felix was an utter hypocrite. I would settle for hypocrite.

Jake, what exactly do you see is the problem with the statement that Doherty highlights from M. Felix? Doherty doesn't really say, but just assumes it which IMO is reversing the burden of proof.

What is Doherty saying is the problem in that M. Felix quote, in your opinion?

(Ed to add) I don't know if you're aware of it, but in that quote, it is the pagans claiming that there is no "trustworthy instance of a man having returned from the dead". (It's a reasonable position for pagans to take since, if they thought that Christ WAS a "trustworthy instance", they probably would be Christians, not pagans)

To me, it looks like Doherty is representing that quote as from a Christian who is attacking a pagan belief. But in fact, it is a pagan attacking a Christian belief.

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