Freethought & Rationalism Archive

vid · 10-30-2008, 03:59 PM

Split from my List of early christians commenting on Jesus birth date thread.

Quote:

Joseph F. Kelly, The Origins of Christmas (or via: amazon.co.uk), page 59
http://books.google.com/books?id=ERahko4FXJgC

Other early christians recorded that the pagan Egyptians observed
January 6 as a festival of the virgin-goddess Kore, while still
others identified the date as as the birthday of the god Osiris

Any idea who were these "other early christians" and exact references?

Toto · 10-30-2008, 04:36 PM

From Britannica via google:

Quote:

Epiphany
In Hellenistic times an epiphany (from the Greek epiphania, “manifestation”), or appearance of divine power in a person or event, was a common religious concept. The New Testament uses the word to denote the final appearing of Christ at the end of time; but in 2 Timothy 1:10 it refers to his coming as Saviour on earth. In this latter sense, a festival of Christ's epiphany is first attested among heretical Gnostic Christians (those who believed that mankind was saved by secret knowledge, not faith, and that matter was evil and the spiritual world good) in Egypt in the late 2nd century (Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, Book I, chapter 21), on January 6, when he was manifested as Son of God at his baptism. The date is that of an Egyptian solstice, celebrated by pagans as a time of overflow of the waters of the Nile, and in certain mystery cults as the occasion of the birth of a new eon, or age, from the virgin goddess Kore, daughter of the earth-mother goddess Demeter. In other places of the Middle East, the time was associated with miraculous fountains from which wine flowed in place of water.

Your quote seems to mangle this. Kore was not Egyptian, but Greek.

Toto · 10-30-2008, 04:44 PM

This may be the reference:

Clement

Quote:

And there are those who have determined not only the year of our Lord’s birth, but also the day; and they say that it took place in the twenty-eighth year of Augustus, and in the twenty-fifth day of Pachon. And the followers of Basilides hold the day of his baptism as a festival, spending the night before in readings.

But this is an early Christian recording the celebration of Gnostics of the date, not the existence of a pagan festival. Your source seems to have skipped over a few key phrases in the Britannical source.

vid · 10-30-2008, 05:03 PM

Yes, Britannica seems to be likely source for Kore, thanks. The direct reference you provided seems not to be source for pagan worship, just for various christian groups. I wonder where did Britannica get this info in ancient sources. I also wonder the same about the Osiris claim.

PS: This would be something for mountainman, or for Zeitgeist-ers, right?

Toto · 10-30-2008, 05:25 PM

Not mountainman - Basilides does not fit his theory. But this is right up Zeitgeisters' alleys.

The usual interpretation of Jan 6 is that it corresponds to Dionysios' feast, not a birthday. See this.

Quote:

The date the Church celebrates the feast of the miracle of Cana is 6 January, the feast of the Epiphany. Epiphania means "appearance" in Greek and refers to the revelation of the Lord's power. In pagan antiquity 6 January was the day celebrating the revelation of a different divine power and wine miracles performed by a different god: It was the feast of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine: In fact the motif of the story, the transformation of water into wine, is a typical motif of the Dionysus legend, in which this miracle serves to highlight the god's epiphany. And hence it is timed to coincide with the date of the feast of Dionysus, from January 5 th to 6 th. In the ancient Church this affinity was still understood, when . the 6 th of January was taken to be the day that the marriage feast was celebrated at Cana. . Plainly put, in the legend of the marriage at Cana Jesus reveals his divine power in the same way that stories had told of the Greek god Dionysus (Ranke-Heinmann 1992 81).

The 6th of January became for Christians the feast of the power revelation (epiphany) of their God, thereby displacing the feast of Dionysus's epiphany. As Bultmann says, "No doubt the story [of the marriage feast at Cana] has been borrowed from pagan legends and transferred to Jesus". On his feast day, Dionysus made empty jars fill up with wine in his temple in Elis; and on the island of Andros, wine flowed instead of water from a spring or in his temple. Accordingly, the true miracle of the marriage feast at Cana would not be the transformation by Jesus of water into wine, but the transformation of Jesus into a sort of Christian wine god (Ranke-Heinmann 1992 81). In fact the 'water into wine' is also stated to be one of the first of the many bizarre miracles of Dionysus (Briffault 3 130).

The Britannica page is disconnected. It doesn't look like a regular Britannica entry.

Roger Pearse · 10-31-2008, 01:28 AM

In the past I have found on Wikipedia dubious-looking material ascribed to Britannica which is not in fact found in the Britannica. I infer from this that someone out there is creating material and falsely ascribing it to B. in order to give it a spurious authority. So I would always verify supposed quotations from it on matters such as this.

vid · 10-31-2008, 02:48 AM

By quick googling I found quite many claims of 6th january as pagan festivals of:

- Re:
http://hometown.aol.com/tokapu/calendar00.htm

- Horus:
http://showcase.netins.net/web/ankh/calendar1.html

- Osiris/Dionysus, Kore: (supposed to perform wine miracle on this day)
http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA1...EH&output=html

Last link seems to be drawing from some Zeitgeist-y sources (suspiciously many parallels), and it seems to get "khoiak" month wrong (at dec-jan, instead of sep-oct, see this). It also seems to be drawing from same sources as book cited in first post.

Hard to comment on first two, but I think only ancient evidence would satisfy my skepticism about this.

Roger Pearse · 10-31-2008, 09:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vid

By quick googling I found quite many claims of 6th january as pagan festivals of:

- Horus:

- Osiris/Dionysus, Kore: (supposed to perform wine miracle on this day)

The usual suspects, eh? Good old Horus/Osiris/Dionysius etc; born on 25 Dec AND on 6 Jan!?!

andrewcriddle · 10-31-2008, 01:52 PM

The most important source for an Egyptian festival on the 5-6th of January involving Kore giving birth, is Epiphanius in the Panarion; see Towards the Origins of Christmas
We have little evidence before Epiphanius of an early January festival commemorating Kore giving birth to Aion and some modern scholars, such as Bowersock, regard this festival as a pagan imitation of Christianity.

Andrew Criddle

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10-30-2008, 05:03 PM	#4
vid Regular Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Myjava, Slovakia Posts: 384	Yes, Britannica seems to be likely source for Kore, thanks. The direct reference you provided seems not to be source for pagan worship, just for various christian groups. I wonder where did Britannica get this info in ancient sources. I also wonder the same about the Osiris claim. PS: This would be something for mountainman, or for Zeitgeist-ers, right?

10-31-2008, 01:28 AM	#6
Roger Pearse Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: N/A Posts: 4,370	In the past I have found on Wikipedia dubious-looking material ascribed to Britannica which is not in fact found in the Britannica. I infer from this that someone out there is creating material and falsely ascribing it to B. in order to give it a spurious authority. So I would always verify supposed quotations from it on matters such as this.

10-31-2008, 02:48 AM	#7
vid Regular Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Myjava, Slovakia Posts: 384	By quick googling I found quite many claims of 6th january as pagan festivals of: - Re: http://hometown.aol.com/tokapu/calendar00.htm - Horus: http://showcase.netins.net/web/ankh/calendar1.html - Osiris/Dionysus, Kore: (supposed to perform wine miracle on this day) http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA1...EH&output=html Last link seems to be drawing from some Zeitgeist-y sources (suspiciously many parallels), and it seems to get "khoiak" month wrong (at dec-jan, instead of sep-oct, see this). It also seems to be drawing from same sources as book cited in first post. Hard to comment on first two, but I think only ancient evidence would satisfy my skepticism about this.

10-31-2008, 01:52 PM	#9
andrewcriddle Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Birmingham UK Posts: 4,876	The most important source for an Egyptian festival on the 5-6th of January involving Kore giving birth, is Epiphanius in the Panarion; see Towards the Origins of Christmas We have little evidence before Epiphanius of an early January festival commemorating Kore giving birth to Aion and some modern scholars, such as Bowersock, regard this festival as a pagan imitation of Christianity. Andrew Criddle

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