Steven Carr

http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2...character.html

'Achilles and Alexander could be moody, allowing their emotions to affect their decisions.'

Well, I'm sold.

That is at least a strong a parallel as any found in Mark's use of Psalm 22 when describing the crucifixion of Jesus

Toto

This is an interesting essay, but I don't think that it adds any insight to the discussion.

When you have two military heroes from the same culture, one of whom as read about the other and is consciously copying him, yes there will be parallels. Both of their mothers were influential in their lives? They both had close male companions? It would be unusual if this were not true of any ancient Greek.

But is the claim that the numerous parallels with the Hebrew Scriptures are just evidence that Jesus based his life on consciously copying those themes? How did he get himself born of a virgin, or of the house of David, sent to Egypt as a child, etc? How did he get the Roman soldiers who crucified him to cast lots for his clothes?

Steven Carr

Layman (Christopher Price) writes 'In the prior posts, I provided many Christian and Jewish examples of verified historical events being cast in Old Testament terms. '

Are these examples of Laymans really similar to 'verified historical events being cast in Old Testament terms. '

By that I think he means Luke copying 'and he gave him back to his mother', when describing how Jesus raised the child of a widow that he had met at the gate of a city (just as Elijah had)

Steven Carr

How did he get the price fixed on his head as 30 pieces of silver?

PhilosopherJay

Hi Steven,

A writer may poetically compare a beautiful actress like Jessica Alba to the Goddess Aphrodite, but this does not mean that we should take Jessica Alba as being a fiction.

Or the other hand a comparison of the cartoon character Jessica Rabbit (from
Who Framed Roger Rabbit)to Marilyn Monroe or Mae West would not make Jessica Rabbit an historical person.

One has to look at the whole picture to determine the likelihood of an historical personage.

If Alexander was a fictional character, then the history of the Fourth century and Third Century B.C.E. would be completely wrong and the existence of thousands of Greek artifacts in Eastern countries would be incomprehensible; also hundreds of textual references to Alexander and cities built by Alexander would have to be considered fakes. In the case of Jesus, no artifacts become incomprehensible and only one paragraph in the writing of Josephus has to be considered a forgery, if we consider him a purely literary character. Otherwise nothing in history changes.

If tomorrow we would find conclusive proof of the non-existence of Alexander, there would be a massive change of our ideas of ancient history more drastic than anything that has happened in the past thousand years. If tomorrow, we should find conclusive proof that Jesus was fictional, there would be no change in any history, outside of the history of Christianity.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Ben C Smith

Only one? I would have thought two. (Unless the dominant word was paragraph, standing in opposition to phrase or passage.)

Ben.

French Prometheus

That would be a shame since I own a few coins minted under his reign, with his name on them...

Chris Weimer

Hrm, I wonder which of two earliest texts, Mark and Paul, mention this?

Ditto. If you have a large enough tradition, you'll be able to make anything fit. But if you work within the earliest strata, you'll find out that there's a lot less than before.

Chris Weimer

Jesus is on coins too...and so is Zeus. I have one with Athene on it - does that mean she's real?

Layman

Carr,

So you don't like the moody comparison? Then I suppose you have equal disdain for the lists of the supposed similarities between Jesus and all those "dying and rising" savior gods in pagan literature?

Which was kind of the point of that point.

And the other, more probative points of comparison? You know, the ones that follow my transition to discussing similarities that have "an even greater level of detail"?