Clivedurdle

We accept the Genesis myths came from Gilgamesh et al, is there some sort of assumption that mixing of myths stopped at some point, so that the similarities between the co-evolution of stories and the behaviours of bacteria are missed?

Are we using without realising a biological model based on species that do not interbreed rather than comparing with bacteria who continually mix and match bits of each others genome?

Is syncretism actually not taken seriously by our continual thinking in terms of religions like the big three?

PhilosopherJay

Hi Clivedurdle,

Yes, excellent point, ideologies perhaps should be seen as being bacteriological with mixing and matching being a continual process happening at different levels and different times.

The book on Monotheism in Paganism looks exciting. Also the article on Khazars is fascinating. This is an important note in the Wikipedia which agrees with the article's conclusion -

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

dog-on

True, but of course the outright rejection of Jewish tradition, as well as the completely anti-semetic character of the writings lead me to favor gentiles, front and center.

gdeering

H Jay,

I'd add a forth, Dell/Gold Key. The entire Duck-verse, with it's sage Carl Barks.

I've read that in the 1940s at the height of superhero comic book popularity Dell still sold four times as many comics as DC. That a lot of Ducks.


Gregg

PhilosopherJay

Hi gdeering,

Thanks for reminding me, I had forgotten all about them. A lot of their comic books were aimed at really small children, 6-12 years old. ("Richie Rich," for example) I outgrew them pretty early, probably by age nine, and considered them "babyish."

They did a lot of comics based on television shows. For some reason I preferred watching the television shows. I think I had a sense that they couldn't really make any changes to the characters on the television series, so they lacked a certain sense of excitement and reality. The television series were the realities and the comics based on them just seemed to be cheap commercialized rip-offs.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

bacht

Or, the Christian idea could have started with Jews and ended up as a gentile system after the revolts. We know that Romans were interested in eastern "mystery" religions, so maybe they adopted this Jewish offshoot as the latest fad in the 2nd C.

dog-on

Or, the Romans simply read the LXX and imagined.

spamandham

These are good points, but we see the same thing in the letters of Paul, who claims to have been Jewish. I see in the NT a replacement of Temple oriented Judaism and all that it entailed with a new age type of Judaism. Jews who lived in the various Roman cities away from Jerusalem would have been under social pressure to give up the law, and considering it was onerous anyway, no doubt many did.

Since the temple had been utterly destroyed and militant messianic Jews had managed to just about wipe out their race in their foolish (in hindsight) uprisings against Rome, this non-Jerusalem Roman Jew would have been easily swayed by ideas such as those presented by Christianity.

bacht

Of course that's possible, but this sounds more like what Marcion and the gnostics were doing.

Why would pagan Romans go to so much trouble to preserve Jewish traditions in the NT? It's hard to imagine a "normal" Hellenist feeling the kind of eschatological passion we see in Revelation, their world wasn't coming to an end. For most residents of the empire in the 2nd C life had never been better.

gdeering

Yes, crap, I read Archie as a beginner, but missed the Gold Key TV stuff. When I was collecting in the 70's Barks "Scrooge" rivaled Superman / Timelys in price and desirability.

Wow, the chance to have the furthest off-topic thread de-rail EVAH! In respect for this august body, I will desist.


Gregg