Roger Pearse

This is my problem with the whole discussion: it's based on a fallacy.

The argument is never stated (never a good sign) but seems to be "There are the following general parallels between the mythology recorded in unspecified manner about pagan deity x and Christian origins. Therefore Christian origins are in fact not the historical statements made in the sources, but instead a recording of a verbal myth of the type of Homer or whatever."

It's easy to see why the proposition is not stated; it looks very shaky even at this point.

But the concept that a parallel proves commonality or connection is a fallacy. It is the same fallacy used by Atlantis cultists to 'prove' that Atlantis existed: "There are pyramids in Egypt, and pyramids in Mexico. This proves that there was a common source for both," or that Egyptians crossed the Atlantic on reed mats. That every child constructs a pyramid on the beach with a plastic spade -- because it is a natural result of piling things up -- seems to escape many people.

The ease with which novice anti-Christians fall into this trap should worry intelligent members of that faith-community. If I were to spend my time concentrating on whatever failings of others I can find, it would narrow my mind and swell my head. If I were to adopt a creed that led me to do this, I think we can say that such a creed was damaging to my character and my intellect. If we found such a creed habitually led people to be both arrogant and foolish, should we not wonder whether we had taken a wrong step somewhere?

In everything, wouldn't we rather people told us of their enthusiasms, not of their hatreds?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Steven Avery

This doesn't make much sense, language-wise, or in terms of historic Christian exegesis.

Interesting, the islamist account does have the nuance of a sexual component, by its choice of words. This is mentioned on a Christian site involved in Islamist debate, and was discussed this in some detail on an errancy forum in 2003,

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

Destronicus

So, these works you mention, are they generally considered to be accurate, unbiased views on the founding of Christianity?

countjulian

Now that's a fallacy. For one thing, these are not "general parallels between the mythology recorded in unspecified manner about pagan deity x and Christian origins." A god impregnating a virgin without having sec with her to make a son who an evil king is trying to stop from taking power is not a "general parallel." For another it's not recorded in an "unspecified manner." Many generations of pagan scholars had been questioning the origins of Homer. For another thing, many of these parallels were noticed and acknowledged by Christians like Justin Martyr, and they, unlike you, did not try to engage in semantics and hair-splitting to wiggle their way out of the truth. Their answer: these parallels were invented by Satan axons ago to deceive the unbelievers and cause doubt in the faithful. To tell you the truth, his answer seems a lot more honest and reasonable.

The only "fallacy" here is you analogy, which falls apart at the seams when even cursory investigation is applied to it. Mexico and Egypt were separated by thousands of miles and there was 0% percent mention in any literature of contact much less influence between the two cultures. Early Christians lived in pagan culture, they were immersed in it. Tarsus, where Paul hailed from, was a major cult center of Heracles, and an early enclave of Mithraism. Ireneaus had to compete with the cult of the virgin goddess Artemis in Ephesus. Even in Jerusalem Tammuz worship had been celebrated their since the time of the prophets. Around the Aegean Jewish synagogues have been found with portraits of pagan gods in them. It was everywhere. Even Christian apologists make mention of pagan gods with a casual knowledge of pagan myth unknown to most today. The first gentile converts (who made up the majority of the church) were of course pagans. What's more, ancient apologists like Origin didn't try to rebut claims like the one Celsus made above by pointing to the few paltry differences in the virgin birth myths and screaming "non sequitur!"; their only excuse was either ridicule (as Origin does to rebut the claim Celsus mad above) or Satandidit. To compare the influence of pagan Mediterranean culture on Christianity to the influence of ancient Mayan and Aztec culture on the ancient Egyptians is dishonesty in the highest degree, and is designed only to convince a believer.

What's more we know that every other religion in the history of mankind has burrowed elements of myth from other cultures. Hinduism, Shintoism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Islam (if you're talking to an unbiased observer) are all known to have burrowed elements of mythology (and there is Taoist mythology) from their culture and other religions. Everyone knows that ancient Mediterranean pagan religions burrowed from each other. For instance, it widely accepted that the immolation and resurrection myths of Asclepius and Heracles had great influence upon one and other, despite many differences in the myths themselves. Heracles died willingly will Asclepius is struck down against his will; the immolation in the case of Heracles was an end to his suffering, while for Asclepius it was a punishment for bringing a man back from the dead. Yet in both cases a son of a god is killed by fire/lightning strike and comes back to life. What's more, even Christians will admit that the Basillidians, Marcionites, Nazarenes, Apollinarians, Docetists, Manicheans and various other Gnostic groups all "went native" and burrowed elements in their myth from pagan myth and philosophy. One need only look at the church in Africa today to see syncretism in action. Even Catholics will admit that elements of their ritual such as burning incense and ringing bells at church are pagan as Plato. Everyone admits that the church in its later stages was utterly syncrestic. To say that only our current form of Christianity was not syncrestic in only its early days against evidence that it was indeed syncrestic from the beginning is nothing more than special pleading.

Wow. Nice ad hominem. I won’t even bother answering any of that, what with calling “anti-Christians�, whatever that might mean, “narrow mind[ed]� and having “swell[ed] head[s]’’ ‘damaged character[s]� and “damaged intellect[s]’’, as well as a “faith-community.� I will say that your remarks do make me feel much better about the force and truth of my argument.

How so? That would be very interesting, because as far as I know “Islamists� don’t happen to believe that Jesus was god’s son, in a sexual or any other manner.

Steven Avery

The Islamists "God has no son" construct has to be looked at in full context. As a response to the 'orthodox Christian' conception of "God the Son", second person of the Trinity, the construct is reasonable. As a response to the Tanach, it doesn't work too well, bumping up against Psalm 2 "Thou art my son..." and many verses.

And, most significantly, as a response to the New Testament it really is completely one-dimensional and even non-functional. The NT very early defines the Son of God as the virgin-born Messiah, whose father is the Holy Spirit and no human man, in Luke 1. And the islamists actually accept that Jesus is virgin born, and I believe generally accept that He is Messiah and sinless.

Here is the most salient verse, although it is good to read the whole section carefully.

Luke 1:35
And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

Ergo by the clear and well-positioned and actual NT definition of "son of God" the islamists would accept Jesus as fulfililng that title, if they were willing to actually work with the definition given in the New Testament, rather than social and mental and historical imageries of the term.

As for the sexual component in the islamic account, a good starting point is
Sam Shamoun's article at ..
http://answering-islam.org/Shamoun/v...conception.htm
And (remember) her who guarded her SEXUAL ORGAN (Arabic- farjahaa): We breathed into her from Our Spirit, and We made her and her son a Sign for all people. S. 21:91

The errantist Steven Carr and I and some other folks went over this in more detail on a forum back in 2003, looking at Shamoun's interp. Sam may overstate the case some, however his basic contention stood up very well.

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

Roger Pearse

I've omitted most of the post, as my original comments seemed to deal with it adequately.

I don't think this is an accurate representation of Justin's comment, which refers to the Old Testament if I recall correctly.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

GakuseiDon

Justin Martyr was stretching to find parallels, to convince pagans who couldn't see the parallels. Here are some of the parallels that Justin lists:

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... 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 Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, rose to heaven on the horse Pegasus.

Christ Mythers like to use Justin to say that Christians recognised the parallels, but very few actually use Justin's parallels themselves! CJ, would you argue that a man rising to heaven on a flying horse is a parallel to Christ's resurrection?

As I say, Justin is trying to convince skeptical pagans of the parallels. It is the pagans who don't see them.

In a way. As Roger Pearse wrote, this has to do with the Old Testament. Satan heard the prophecies about the coming Christ but misunderstood them. From the same link:

For having heard it proclaimed through the prophets that the Christ was to come, and that the ungodly among men were to be punished by fire, they put forward many to be called sons of Jupiter, under the impression that they would be able to produce in men the idea that the things which were said with regard to Christ were mere marvellous tales, like the things which were said by the poets. And these things were said both among the Greeks and among all nations where they [the demons] heard the prophets foretelling that Christ would specially be believed in; but that in hearing what was said by the prophets they did not accurately understand it, but imitated what was said of our Christ, like men who are in error, we will make plain.

Again, the parallels that Justin gives are pretty weak:

The prophet Moses, then, Was, as we have already said, older than all writers; and by him, as we have also said before, it was thus predicted: "There shall not fail a prince from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until He come for whom it is reserved; and He shall be the desire of the Gentiles, binding His foal to the vine, washing His robe in the blood of the grape." The devils, accordingly, when they heard these prophetic words, said that Bacchus was the son of Jupiter, and gave out that he was the discoverer of the vine, and they number wine [or, the ass] among his mysteries; and they taught that, having been torn in pieces, he ascended into heaven.

Also:

And because in the prophecy of Moses it had not been expressly intimated whether He who was to come was the Son of God, and whether He would, riding on the foal, remain on earth or ascend into heaven, and because the name of "foal" could mean either the foal of an ass or the foal of a horse, they, not knowing whether He who was foretold would bring the foal of an ass or of a horse as the sign of His coming, nor whether He was the Son of God, as we said above, or of man, gave out that Bellerophon, a man born of man, himself ascended to heaven on his horse Pegasus.

Also:

And when they knew what was said, as has been cited above, in the prophecies written aforetime, "Strong as a giant to run his course," they said that Hercules was strong, and had journeyed over the whole earth.

Again, how many of these parallels would you use yourself, CJ? Would you suggest that Christ being "strong as a giant to run his course" was modelled on Hercules?

countjulian

Really? So you don't wish to defend your fallacious Aztec-Egyptian analogy?

No, he wasn't. Take another look at my list.

He doesn't make reference to the OT here in my quotation, although he does reference him earlier in the Apology.

Well, for one thing I'm not a Christ myther, and for another I did so use them. Take a look at my list

That last one is the exact same one you give me at the bottom of the page

Thanks for telling me what I already know. Since it seems that no one's bothering to look at the last page, I'll post my list of parrallels and primary texts again:

http://www.theoi.com/index.htm is a great site for further investigation.

Yes, they did.

Origin says

Notice how Origin's answer is not to engage in semantics and hair-splitting, as you do, but merely to call Celsus names.

Well, that's a nice theological (and classical) Christian argument, and may convince those who enter the discussion wanting to be convinced, but I do not believe in Satan, and I find the idea that Apollodorus or Cicero or Ovid was scanning the OT to copy Jesus before he came to earth laughable.

Rick Sumner

First of all, you changed your tune. First Mary did not give birth without sex (her "Holy Hymen" and all that). Now, seeing that you can't defend that, you've given it a switcheroo, and are now claiming that other births occurred without sex. Except, well, they didn't.

The "shower" seems to be a bit of an addition, one not found in the Latin of the Metamorphoses:

tempora vos poterunt, ad opem brevis hora ferendam est.
hanc ego si peterem Perseus Iove natus et illa,
quam clausam inplevit fecundo Iuppiter auro

"Fertilized by a golden Jupiter" seems more apt. The Golden shower, nonetheless, is a legitimate claim, if not a legitimate translation of Ovid. Except that the golden shower then entered her womb. Nobody would ever have suggested that Zeus did not couple with her.

The differences between this and the gospel narrative are rather profound. What we are left with is a birth to high ranking parents, into opposition, a theme so old and so common that to attempt to suggest dependency based on it is absurd. Virtually every cuture has analogues to this. So much so that it's discussed in Otto Rank's list.

http://www.brysons.net/teaching/csun/hero_patterns.html

The same thing can be said of Luke and Leia Skywalker (Luke actually scores pretty highly on Rank's scale). It's a pattern found throughout the world, and throughout time.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

GakuseiDon

You're right, you did. Sorry, my bad.

I mean, in Justin's apology.

Really? Then how do you explain the similarities between the OT stories and Greek myths? Many of the OT stories are arguably older than the Greek myths, so how do you rule out that the Greeks were copying from the OT? Or are the parallels just coincidence?