chichiflys

Hello all,
I am reading the book "Parenting Beyond Belief (or via: amazon.co.uk)". In the chapter about holidays, it touches briefly on how the story of Jesus is very similar to other Mediterranean myths of a part god part man "person", who is born of a virgin, dies and is re-born...

Anyone have more info on this? It is interesting to me and I would like to learn more about it....

Thanks
ChiChi

dog-on

I, myself, like what Justin says on the matter. (Thanks for the site Peter!)

http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...stapology.html

CHAPTER XXI -- ANALOGIES TO THE HISTORY OF CHRIST.

And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter. For you know how many sons your esteemed writers ascribed to Jupiter: Mercury, the interpreting word and teacher of all; AEsculapius, who, though he was a great physician, was struck by a thunderbolt, and so ascended to heaven; and Bacchus too, after he had been torn limb from limb; and Hercules, when he had committed himself to the flames to escape his toils; and the sons of Leda, and Dioscuri; and Perseus, son of Danae; and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, rose to heaven on the horse Pegasus. For what shall I say of Ariadne, and those who, like her, have been declared to be set among the stars? And what of the emperors who die among yourselves, whom you deem worthy of deification, and in whose behalf you produce some one who swears he has seen the burning Caesar rise to heaven from the funeral pyre? And what kind of deeds are recorded of each of these reputed sons of Jupiter, it is needless to tell to those who already know. This only shall be said, that they are written for the advantage and encouragement of youthful scholars; for all reckon it an honourable thing to imitate the gods. But far be such a thought concerning the gods from every well-conditioned soul, as to believe that Jupiter himself, the governor and creator of all things, was both a parricide and the son of a parricide, and that being overcome by the love of base and shameful pleasures, he came in to Ganymede and those many women whom he had violated and that his sons did like actions. But, as we said above, wicked devils perpetrated these things. And we have learned that those only are deified who have lived near to God in holiness and virtue; and we believe that those who live wickedly and do not repent are punished in everlasting fire.

Nylla

http://www.entheology.org/edoto/anmv...asp?a=171&z=10



- Osiris-Dionysus is God made flesh, the saviour and 'Son of God'.
- His father is God and his mother is a mortal virgin.
- He is born in a cave or humble cowshed on 25 December before three shepherds.
- He offers his followers the chance to be born again through the rites ot baptism.
- He miraculously turns water into wine at a marriage ceremony.
- He rides triumphantly into town on a donkey while people wave palm leaves to honour him.
- He dies at Eastertime as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.
- After his death he descends to hell, then on the third day he rises from the dead and ascends to heaven in glory.
- His followers await his return as the judge during the Last Days.
- His death and resurrection are celebrated by a ritual meal of bread and wine which symbolize his body and blood.
These are just some of the motifs shared between the tales of Osiris-Dionysus and the 'biography' of Jesus. Why are these remarkable similarities not common knowledge? Because, as we were to discover later, the early Roman Church did everything in its power to prevent us perceiving them. It systematically destroyed Pagan sacred literature in a brutal programme of eradicating the Mysteries -- a task it performed so completely that today Paganism is regarded as a 'dead' religion.

dog-on

Neat stuff, but you will likely get seriously flamed for it...

(puts on the asbestos suit and grabs the Jiffy-pop...)

Nylla

Why would I get flamed?

dog-on

Nylla, run a forum search under "Acharya S"

robto

Nylla: I challenge you to substantiate any one of these claims with quotations from ancient writings.

Please start by explaining (and giving evidence for) who "Osiris-Dionysus" was and where/when was he worshiped.

Nylla

"Osiris-Dionysus" is a term, not a deity; it's used by some historians of religion in reference to a group of life-death-rebirth deities that share parallel myth cycles.

Nylla

Relax, please. It's just an editorial. An opinion.

gurugeorge

Scholarly tiff alert!

This is something that often crops up in discussions on this board and in many other discussion groups and forums, about the origins of Christianity, the historicity of Christ, etc. Loads of people throughout history - from scholars to amateurs and enthusiasts of all sorts - have noted parallels and similarities between the Christ story and the stories of "dying/rising saviour gods" of the "mystery religions".

But there are tons of scholarly/apologetic arguments that point out the dissimilarities too. And it's true that many people have exaggerated the similarities.

The most visible proponent of the "Christ was mythical" school of thought (often called MJ, Mythical Jesus, as opposed to HJ, Historical Jesus), Earl Doherty, recently reviewed some of the scholarly and apologist literature on the subject, and has what seems to me the most sensible take on the situation.

The gist of his point is that, sure, there are plenty dissimilarities between the Christ story and the Mithras story, and between Christ and Attis, and so and and so forth; but there are as many dissimilarities between the various Mystery Religion deities and Saviour Gods - i.e. Mithras is different from Cybele, form Attis, etc. Yet those differences don't prevent us from granting them all a certain kind of "family resemblance" and holding them sensibly as all belonging to a certain recognisable type of religion.

Nor should those differences prevent us from seeing the strong "family resemblance" between Christ and the other dying/rising/saviour deities of the mystery religions.

This isn't necessarily a clincher for the MJ camp because obviously a historical Jesus - say an obscure preacher or revolutionary - could feasibly have been deified and mythologised into something like a dying/rising saviour god of the Mystery type. But it does add weight to the MJ argument, given the paucity of independent evidence confirming the existence of a historical person behind the myth - i.e. it makes the "myth all the way down" argument more plausible. The historicist has to work hard to show how a person obscure enough to make no notable impact on his contemporaries could have been deified so quickly into the sort of God-like person who, had he actually lived, would have made a tremendous impact on his contemporaries. It makes more sense - so the mythicist argument goes - to think that he was initially a mythological entity to whom historical details were added as time went on, whose life story was then formalised and "finished" in the NT Canon.