burning flames

(these are not my words) I am not a biblical scholar. I don't speak Greek, Aramaic, or Hebrew. I can only rely on Greco-Roman historians and the analysis of the Bible and the things not mentioned.

If Jesus were indeed a historical person (god or human), there are disturbing facts.

1. He is not mentioned in the legal records of Pontius Pilate. Romans recorded executions and listed the offence committed. If Jesus were crucified by the Romans for the treasonous sin of claiming to be King of the Jews it would be recorded. It would be reported and told over and over in the empire as an example of what Rome does to insurrectionists, royal usurpers, or rebels. Jesus was tried for a political crime not for being a god. Rome was tolerant of new gods. How come the Romans failed to even notice Jesus or record his trial or execution?

2. How come the Jews did not notice his crucifixion or the very silly event of zombies walking about Jerusalem after Jesus was killed? Most Jewish knowledge seems to come from extra-Judaic sources regarding Jesus. The most quoted account is by Flavius Josephus a Jewish-Roman historian who only mentions people who follow a man named Jesus who did wonderful things. Linguists and archaeologists have shown that the paragraph on Jesus in Josephus was a forgery that was added long after the document was written. The writing style is different and it was out of context as a clear insertion. All other mentions are only about the hearsay of Christians. No eye-witness accounts are shown of Jesus.

3. The story of Jesus is that he was born of a virgin woman impregnated by the Father God. He was the Son of God. His fate was to be slain and resurrect in three days. Silliness aside, this story is about the 16th in a long series of virgin born god-men or heroes who died and resurrected. Horus, Aten, Mithra, Apollonius, Lugh, Lieu, Balder, and possibly Krishna have the same basic story plot with only some minor differences in place names and character names. The period 6000 BCE- 200 CE was a time of great popularity of god-men or semi-divine heroes. It is reasonable to suggest that the Jesus story was simply plagiarised from Mithra or Horus because they were written earlier.

4. The Myth of Jesus Christ was like the other myths written before the knowledge of molecular genetics. Mary's divine pregnancy was not supposed to be a physical insemination by God's penis in sexual intercourse. She would not be a virgin in that case. So it was an immaculate conception...no matter was inserted into her womb. So that means Mary had to supply all of the chromosomes to her ovum. Her ovum would have to be self fertilised by another ovum to get the full batch of 46 chromosomes with their component genes and two X chromosomes. Mary had no Y chromosome to incorporate into the production of a male child. So biologically Jesus had to be a female. Parthenogenesis is rare and unproven to occur in humans, but it results inevitably in a female. Either that or Jesus was a transgender female living as a man.

4. From about 50 CE Jesus evolved in stages from a special human being created by God (Messianic, Ebionite, Nazerites) to a god but of inferior rank to the High God (Arian and Jehovah's Witness), to the Trinity Model (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) clearly modelled on the Mithraic Trinity (Ahura Mazda-father, Mithra-son, Spenta Maingu-Holy Spirit) and/or the Egyptian Trinity of Atum-Father, Aten or Horus-son, and Kneph (Holy Spirit in Coptic). So there is nothing original in what was to become Christianity by the end of the 4th Century. Lugh the Sun God of the Irish Celts was born of a virgin impregnated by the Father God (Dagda or Aed Álainn). Lugh as well as the Teutonic Baldur (son of Wodin), Sol Invictus of Rome, Mithra of Persia, Belinos of the Gauls each were born on the Winter Solstice (Dec 25) and each were slain but reborn.

Most likely Jesus is a mythic hero god-man like those others were. He remained because of the political backing of a powerful emperor Flavius Valerius Constantius. Had Constantinius lost to Maxentius on October 28, 312, at the Milvian Bridge, you would all be Arians (Jehovah's Witnesses) or Trinitarian Pagans today instead of Trinitarian Christians.

GakuseiDon

No, most of that isn't accurate. Of those bits that are accurate, very little is disturbing. And of the small remainder that is both accurate and disturbing, it is only so for the most ignorant of fundamentalist Christians (e.g. those who would be disturbed to find out that Jesus wasn't actually born on Dec 25).

burning flames

what is off, if you please?

GakuseiDon

I would argue the following statements:

He is not mentioned in the legal records of Pontius Pilate. Romans recorded executions and listed the offence committed. If Jesus were crucified by the Romans for the treasonous sin of claiming to be King of the Jews it would be recorded.

Even if it were recorded within Roman records, it isn't disturbing that they've been lost.

this story is about the 16th in a long series of virgin born god-men or heroes who died and resurrected. Horus, Aten, Mithra, Apollonius, Lugh, Lieu, Balder, and possibly Krishna have the same basic story plot with only some minor differences in place names and character names.

The above is doubtful, though I've never come across "Lugh" and "Lieu" before. Where does that claim come from?

So it was an immaculate conception...no matter was inserted into her womb.

Immaculate conception refers to the birth of Mary, not Jesus.

Toto

whose words are they?

Those records have not survived, so we don't know if he was mentioned. We also can't be sure that the records would have recorded every rebel crucified.

The Romans crucified enough people to send a message where it was needed. And Rome was not always tolerant of new gods, especially if they claimed to be the one true god.

Because it never happened? In particular, the zombie story is an obvious legend.

Archeologists have nothing to do with it. One particular historian has made an argument that many of us find very persuasive, that the passage was added by Eusebius. Others are not persuaded.

The writing style is not that different, and this argument is not conclusive.

True.

This sounds like Kersey Graves' 16 Crucified Saviors. Please read about it here in the Library.

Mithras was born from a rock, not a virgin. Plagiarized is the wrong word, but you could argue that this element was borrowed from pagan stories.

If you don't believe in miraculous births, Jesus was born through normal methods, and later followers wrote a miraculous birth into the story to show how important he was. If you do believe in miracles, God could do anything. This is bordering on silliness.

This is a popular trajectory, based on the idea that Jesus started out as a man and became more godlike as Christianity developed. It is a hypothesis without a lot of clear evidence - Paul is the earliest, if the standard dating is corrent, but his Christ is very godlike.

This is debatable. There was some original stuff and some borrowed stuff.

Wrong No evidence for Lugh. No evidence that Jesus was born on Dec 25.

Possible.

Who remained?

This is quite muddled.

Ljoilae

As for the point of Jesus' story being plagiarized from pagan sources, I have heard the arguement from modern day people that the pagan sources were "satanically inspired" prior to Jesus ever being incarnated to mislead people... and I was surprised when several months ago I read (I think it was Ireneus) saying the same thing! Apparently when Christianity first popped up everyone else noticed it too...

I"m sorry I can't remember what I was reading at the time.

burning flames

yeah, but you wonder how far god would let satan go to treick us. it seems dishonest on gods part

Tim Holt

Interesting topic; can you be more specific with your references?

dog-on

Not Irenaeus, to the best of my knowledge, but Justin definitely says so...

jules?

Lugh, most celtic hero/gods are born on beltaine, ; may day, nine months after Lughnasadh, a cross quarter day in August and adopted by Augustine [hence his adoption of sextember [!?]] Lughnasadh in corporates the word element of marrage so; divine marrage between king/hero/god and nation/goddess/maiden results in birth 9 mounths after consumation.

personally I see the similarities between solar gods/heroes as a late catholic absorbtion so as to make the faith more universal.

so many opinions and only one life!

jules