stephan huller

A slight digression. Would anyone here be surprised if a pagan writer somewhere at some time identified the Biblical story of the Jacob and Esau as a dysfunctional Semitic borrowing of the Dioscuri tradition? Take a look at Origen's summary of Celsus in Book Three "Celsus asserts that the Dioscuri, and Hercules, and Aesculapius, and Dionysus, are believed by the Greeks to have become gods after being men ; but that we refuse to recognise them as such." How many steps are we away from the identification of Dioscuri story with the story of Jacob, his angel brother and his transformation from mortal to immortal? The argument had to have been made by someone, perhaps even Celsus.

Toto

Did the pagans characterise Biblical stories as borrowed from the pagan tradition? I think that Jews and Christians tried to claim that the pagans borrowed from the Hebrew tradition.

stephan huller

Celsus does. It's a running theme to his work. His thesis went something like this - the Jews being a second rate mongrel people went around appropriating ideas from other people. If you want the true Logos, the original divine narrative or understanding you won't find it among these descendants of disreputable shysters and lowlife con artists. You have to go to the writings of the people from whom the Jews stole their ideas - the Egyptians, Assyrians etc. If you prefer the words of Celsus himself, the book begins:

There is, he says, an authoritative account from the very beginning, respecting which there is a constant agreement among all the most learned nations, and cities, and men. (Origen adds - And yet he will not call the Jews a learned nation in the same way in which he does the Egyptians, and Assyrians, and Indians, and Persians, and Odrysians, and Samothracians, and Eleusinians.) [CC i.14]

Moses having, he says, learned the doctrine which is to be found existing among wise nations and eloquent men, obtained the reputation of divinity. [CC i.21]

Those herdsmen and shepherds who followed Moses as their leader, had their minds deluded by vulgar deceits, and so supposed that there was one God. [CC i.23] etc.

spamandham

I wouldn't be surprise at all.

Cain and Abel
Jacob and Esau
Perez and Zerah
Israel and Judah
Jesus and John

Of course, it's just wild eyed speculation to conclude that the writers might have been influenced by their culture.

... Castor and Pollux are explicitly mentioned in Acts, but I think we should assume the author had never heard of them.

mountainman

Yes, the epoch and the Logos during which the gospel authors lived and moved and had their being, could not possibly have influenced these devout Greek scribes from their original Jewish motifs.

stephan huller

For what it's worth I was doing some research tonight and stumbled upon an article by J. Rendel Harris published in 1913 which is an extensive study entitled Boanerges in which he suggested that the sons of Zebedee were christianized Heavenly Twins, avatars of the Dioscuri. The key to this identification is "Boanerges," and Helms says "in that one stroke swept them out of whatever historic reality they might have had and into the procedures of mythic transformation." (p. 34)

http://books.google.com/books?id=JS0...ed=0CC0Q6AEwAQ

I am going to pick up this book sometime this month but it has to be said that if Harris thought there was an argument for connecting the sons of Zebedee with the Dioscuri it's likely to be substantial.

spamandham

The book is available free online, as it is out of copyright, if you want to save a few bucks. Toto linked it earlier in the thread.

stephan huller

Stupid me. Thanks

stephan huller

It's a really strange book it turns out. I think Harris ends up referencing woodpeckers more times than he does the gospels.

Toto

Another book by Harris is Picus who is also Zeus, which can be downloaded from google books. It is also very strange.