Rick Sumner

Yet we find the same thing in Zeus' fathering of Dionysius. Why do you not view that as analogous? Again, the emphasis is on her being a temple virgin.

These conceptions aren't quite analogous. In the birth of Romulus (and of Dionysius, for that matter), the "miracle" is a god laying with a woman. In the Christian story she remains a virgin--there is no description of any kind of intercourse, not so much as a hint of it occurring. Now it could be suggested that I'm reading the text based on my familiarity with the doctrine of virginity--but ancient authors, to a man, read it exactly the same way, and they did so before that doctrine existed. It seems quite reasonable to suggest that the miracle is that she conceived utterly asexually, something that is explicitly denied in all pagan parallels.

This is in Matthew's version, so I've separated it from Luke's, as I see no reason to view Lukan additions as anything but Lukan imagination in this instance. Matthew's entire gospel is coached to parallel the story of the Exodus (Slaughter of the innocents//Pharoah's slaughter of the Jews, Seromon on the Mount//Law on Sinai, Trip to Egypt//trip to Egypt and so on). I can't imagine a reason why I would view the slaughter of the innocents outside of this context--it's based on the Pharoah's slaughter of the Jewish male children in the narrative of Moses, which predates Romulus by quite some time.

There is only one undeniable smoking gun as a source for any of the gospel material--that of Jewish scripture. Occam's Razor fairly demands that if we can account from something from scripture, we are loathe to look elsewhere.

Your assertion about Matthew is, I suppose, a matter of interpretation. The only mention of Mary's virginity is a description of her pregnancy, in a citation of Isaiah. It is difficult for a "virgin [to be] with child" if she isn't a virgin anymore. Note that Matthew's description is with child. It does not seem natural to read that "virgin. . .with child" is to be read as "virgin who mated with the Holy Spirit". That is the key difference between the Christian and Pagan "virgin births"--the "Immaculate conception" is, as far as I know, without parallel, and is the reading that springs most naturally from the texts--again, those in antiquity invariably read it the same way.

I wouldn't reach for the cup just yet.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

countjulian

I've looked into the matter once again, and I have to say, you've convinced me. The pagan virgin-birth phenomenon is more widespread than just Romulus, Remus,and Perseus. Those ones, though, are in my opinion the best examples.

Not so. The language Luke uses, with the HS "overshadowing" and "coming" upon her, is quite sexual. And in the Perseus story there is no intercourse, only a ray of light (a symbol used for the holy spirit, BTW) or a shower of gold. A girl can't lose her virginity to a beam of light or a shower of gold.

No, they didn't. Listen to Celsus



Well, first off, you're use of the term "Immaculate Conception" is inaccurate. The Immaculate Conception refers to Mary's (extra-bilbical) birth without original sin, not the birth of Jesus. Secondly, it may seem natural to you to read it that way, but to a 2nd cnetury pagan familiar with virgin births such as that of Perseus, what do you think would have come to mind if a Christian told the pagan that the god he worshiped was the son of god by a virgin? The quote from Celsus vindicates my point. You have to remember contexts. Also, if this was so important, than why did Luke not make a point of it? What's more, the verse Matt. uses is utterly ripped out of context, not to mention mistranslated. The verse in question if fulfiled later in Isaiah and does not in any way refer to the Messiah; it is clear that Matt. was twisting it out of context (as he often does) to provide a justification for the virgin birth; why would he go to such lengths to justify such a thing? The answer is that he, like Luke, burrowed the idea from pagan mythology , and was merely trying to backtrack and use Hebrew scriptures to justify the myth. This would have been especially important to Matthew, a Jew wary of pagan virgin birth stories.

Rick Sumner

Really? Then you shouldn't have much trouble finding some examples of the same language elsewhere. And I'm not addressing Perseus, I'm addressing Romulus and Remus.

Please do, you're misquoting Origen, and there is nothing surviving from Celsus saying anything remotely similar. Here's the actual quote, note that the speaker isn't Celsus, it's Origen--Origen is not quoting Celsus here, as you disingenuously suggest he is. Here's the real quote, with more caveats to follow.

He's listing things, not making a statement, and has clearly read it to mean "birth from a virgin." And the person speaking is Origen, not Celsus. There is no quote from Celsus being given here.

Celsus argued that the virgin birth was being used to hide something. This one of the apologies made by Origen. But Celsus cannot have thought this if he did not read it to refer to a birth from a virgin.

What Celsus never once says is that the virgin birth, described in the gospels, did not refer to a virginal conception.

http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-04/...#P7817_1858276

With apologies, I was typing faster than I was thinking.


No, it doesn't. Firstly, because you misquoted him. Secondly, because Celsus is vindicating my point. The only one ignoring contexts is you, because your quote from Origen was completely robbed of it.

I'd suggest because it was less important to Luke than it was to Matthew.

This is a strawman, I'm well aware of all this, but that has no bearing on what Matthew meant to say which is the current issue. What Isaiah meant to say is irrelevant to that. And whether it's "mistranslated" is debatable. The greek has a double meaning, the Hebrew doesn't. Matthew simply didn't understand this. To suggest that he is "going to lengths" by not utilizing a language he probably couldn't read is wishful thinking.

Since we're on the topic of disputes in your list, you also might want to double-check your claims about Dionysius. Dionysius was eaten by the Titans, who were then burned by Zeus. From their ashes came humanity, and thus all humanity has a piece of Dionysius within them. When all humanity is dead, all of those pieces will have returned to Olympus, and Dionysius will be reborn. Earl Doherty provides probably the most succinct and accurate explanation of the Bacchae I've ever read, on pages 113-114 of _The Jesus Puzzle_.

To the Bacchae, Dionysius *will* be reborn, but he hasn't resurrected yet.

Orthodox_Freethinker

It is too good to be true. Severely monotheistic Jews wouldn't allow paganism to influence their beliefs. It is much more rational an explanation that Jesus actually rose from the dead, explaining why the Apostles believed Him to be God incarnate.

Claiming that similarity proves influence is the false cause fallacy. There are other possibilities that would explain supposed pagan similarities to the Christian faith, the simplest being that these purported similarities are much more superficial than atheist would like to believe.
Another is that if the Christian faith is actually true, Satan has influenced paganism in order to mock Christ. Yet another is that instead of Satan, it is man's inner yearning for Christ which created these similarities.
In pagan myths, a god may die and rise as symbolic of the cycle of the earth. In the Gospels, Christ rises from the dead at a specific point of history for the salvation of all mankind.

Peace.

anthony93

And what primary sources did you get? 100%? Thats a broad brush to paint with. As for crucified, I assume you mean Roman style which I take to mean you are going to refine definitions so that when it suites you you can say it isn't the same, right? What copycat thesis. I'm interested in the fact that the parallels are there, not how. I do not think that the Gospels are cribbed from the pagans, but that the stories follow a pattern, mytheme or whatever.
I could not care less about helping or hurting the "Copy Cat" thesis. And if the best you can do is 'its 100% bs' (not 99%? or 98?) and 'psuedo-scholarship' (you spelled it that way) maybe you should quit talking about it.

What pagan myth does this parallel? I don't follow. I still don't see how, even if this were an example of what this thread is supposedly discussing it doesn't address the fact that dying and rising gods (Attis, Osiris etc.), incarnate sons of (a) god (Alexander the Great thought he was one) and Miraculous births (probably a better way to put it) are all themes in pagan mythologies.

No it isn't. Acharaya's arguments are made by her, not me. But they are made. Refering to that particular book doesn't make me responsible for defending everything in it. I only "claimed" that the weight of evidence is compelling, or I think it is. And anyway, I read her work as pointing out the mythological function of events and characters in the biblical stories rather than a case for plagerism. You seem to be trying to define "parallel" as identical. The problem with that is, of course, you can always find differences and they aren't insignifigent, just irelevant to whether or not a myth (and the gospels are mythic with a veneer of history) is comparable to another. So, which story is clearly unique? Death and ressurection? Heavenly portents at the birth of the god-man? Divine parent(s)? Miraculous birth?

Rick Sumner

I'm not arguing about what Pagan myths it parallels, in this instance, I'm providing an example of Acharya S. making it up as she goes.


Not at all. I'm defining parallel as a close pattern. That someone was a virgin before they had sex isn't the same thing as a virginal conception, for example.

I haven't said anything was unique. What I've said is that the parallels provided arent actual. For another example, from your very post. Osiris didn't return to life, he became the Lord of the dead.

"Miraculous birth" isn't a parallel at all, since miraculous births are found in absolutely every ancient culture, most of which have nothing to do with each other

Divine parents probably has some pagan influence, though exactly where it begins and ends is debatable (Matthew, who created the "divine parent," may well have simly been trumping God's metaphorical son (Israel) with a literal son).

I sincerely encourage you to dig into Acharya S.' work a little more. Robert Price (something of a Jesus-Myther, at that) offers a scathing review in the Journal of Higher Criticism which you might want to read into.

As a general rule of thumb, when things sound too sensational, at least in this field, it's probably sensationalism. Which is exactly what Acharya S. is.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

countjulian

I'm sorry, I don't quite understand you. Where else would this language be?

Yes, he is.

Although I did misquote Celsus, his charge is presented here. The beginning of the refutation of Celsus is from a Jewish perspective, and Celsus, through his Jew, criticizes the virgin birth by comparing it to pagan myth. Notice that Origin does not deny the charge. He merely calls Celsus names.

Now that is a straw man. Even if one reads the verse in Isaiah as "a virgin shall concieve", it couldn't be referring to Jesus, because the prophesy does not refer to the messiah. It refers to Isaiah's time, and the child is to be a sign to king Ahaz, not 2nd Century Christians. IT is even fulfilled in Kings:

Although the passage above doesn't mention a child, everything else that was prophesied in Isaiah & comes true, so it was already fulfilled. Again, even if one reads the passage as "a viring shall concieve and bear", the passage was still ripped out of context. As in the passion narrative, Matthew wanted to support something in his story with a text from the Septuagint, and he did not care if he was ripping it out of context. Now, why would he have wanted to back up a virgin birth in his story at this point? Because he wanted Jesus to have a pagan-style virgin birth, and he needed a proof text to convince Hebrew sceptics like the Jew in the refutation of Celsus.

Well, for one thing I made no claims as such, I merely quoted ancients like Nonnus and Justin Martyr.

Where did you get that idea from? After Zagreus was killed, he went on to be known as Dionysus. All of the stuff in the Bacchae, Dionysiaca, and the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus, etc. all happened after he was ressurected. Some mention his death without the ressurection, and in other strand of the myth the heart is liquified and given to Semele, so that Dionysus literally "enters into his mother's womb again."

Rick Sumner

I noted that Origen clearly was not quoting Celsus here (in fact, the entire passage is third person, and rather clearly a paraphrase). To which you replied:

The segment leads with "And Celsus has introduced. . .". Origen could not be clearer that he offering a list of criticisms issued by Celsus, not quoting Celsus.

I cheerily invite any reader curious as to my reasons for neglecting to pursue this thread furthur to read the quote. It is quite impossible to reason someone out of something he was never reasoned into.

The cold reality is that you got the quote second-hand (I think the name was Hoffmann, but don't quote me on that. It's quite unreasonable to suggest that two people got the same wrong quote, wrong the same way, independently of each other, when they match verbatim), never bothered to check it out, and now wish to talk your way out of it.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

countjulian

There has been a misunderstanding here. I admitted that I misquoted him. I merely said that Celsus had compared the virgin birth of Jesus to that of other gods and heroes in pagan myth. I am sorry for the misunderstanding. I knew the hoffman version was unreliable, thanks to Pearse at his site http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/celsus/celsus.htm .

I got the quote second hand from an article in the secular library, which was utilizing Hoffman. I apologize.

A more accurate translation of Celsus alone can be found here http://duke.usask.ca/~niallm/252/Celstop.htm

Here, the Jewish critic of Celsus says in Book 1, #57

Also of interest is the statement of the Jewish critic of Celsus in book 2, #54

I think from these quotes, my original point has been vindicated, that the virgin birth was seen as similiar to and in context of the virgin births of other pagan gods and heroes.

Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

very interesting thread, I saw a few items I would like to follow up more on ..

A lot of myths to be debunked. Especially the skeptic myth that this type of unscholarly associative mythological deception is a problem of less scholarly folks like Acharya (or others simply copying down from the earlier Kersey Graves and TW Doane). The errors, misinformation and questionable associative logic are pervasive in skeptic & mythicist writings.

Example of a straight-forward false claim
... from Farrell Till writing the same canards ...

http://www.infidels.org/library/maga.../3front94.html
Farrell Till in Skeptical Review discusses
"Hare Jesus: Christianity's Hindu Heritage" by Stephen Van Eck
"Besides Krishna, there were many other virgin-born pagan saviors"

Now later on Till defacto acknowledged that this was bunkum, however he mumbled about the difficulty of contacting the webmaster to change the site !
So the errors stay up there.. not from scholarly goofball Acharya but from leading skeptic muck-a-muck Farrell Till, who won't even clean his own house.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic