Roger Pearse

This is rather a strange objection. I wonder if perhaps you don't realise that the month of December is a *Roman* month? The date "25 December" certainly existed, although the Romans counted from the kalends, so this day is the 8th day before the kalends of January in their reckoning. This is Christmas day, in the mid 4th century.

Whatever the day is called, anyone who proposes to assert that Mithras was supposed by the ancients to have been born on Dec. 25 (or viii kal. Ian., if we prefer) does have to produce something like *evidence*. That evidence is either ancient literary texts saying so -- and there ARE ancient literary texts calling that date the solstice, or the new sun -- or else some inscription or archaeology.

I don't think questions of Julian/Gregorian are relevant here.

This sentence is ungrammatical, so I'm not sure what is being said. But surely this merely rebuts your own last point?

By all means produce some statement that whichever god you have in mind was born "3 days after the winter solstice". You might like to reflect, tho, that ancient authors vary as to which day was the winter solstice, precisely.

If there really is someone who cannot tell the difference between a human female virgin and a lump of concrete, I suggest that they take great care when going to a club. They could come home with all sorts of injuries. Trust me on this.

More seriously, such claims -- they are not arguments -- don't seem very impressive to me.

I seem to remember contributing to the former thread, which was most interesting. Unfortunately they locked me out of the thread in the end.

Unfortunately nothing like a last supper is recorded in any ancient source about Mithras. And I rather doubt any such thing is recorded for Osiris either. Osiris had other things on his mind in his last hours.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

JonA

Roger Pearse

Proof indeed.

Roger Pearse

I did look at some of the Anahita claim a while back:

http://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/?p=2884

http://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/?p=2648

I'm not sure whether that covers all bases, but note that the Acharya S article gives no ancient source.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Dave31

Just more typical hand-waving dismissals.

That's the point that seems to go over peoples heads. The CONCEPTS existed long before Christianity. Christianity BORROWED them and made them their own. What's so difficult to understand? Ever hear of syncretism?

"...we should not expect to see ancient primary sources claiming Mithra (or any god) was born on December 25th because that is a Gregorian calendar date that did not exist until 1582."

No, it really isn't a strange objection at all. It's a factoid. Are you seriously trying to claim the Gregorian existed in the 4th century? I made no mention of any other calendars. The point is that Dec 25th as we know it today is a simple figure of speech when discussing ancient sun gods who were born around the winter solstice. Another factoid is that Dec 25th was the actual winter solstice in the 4th century. You already know this so why pretend otherwise?

Then why did you bring it up?

Even though you just said "That evidence is either ancient literary texts saying so -- and there ARE ancient literary texts calling that date the solstice, or the new sun -- or else some inscription or archaeology. "

Oh please, you're just being facetious. Regardless of complex calendars or calendar changes the typical birthdate for sun gods was the winter solstice or threes days afterward - scholars refer to it as a triduum. Stop pretending like you don't already know this.

Just more distraction fallacy and ridicule in order to avoid an objective discussion of the issues.

Read Christ in Egypt also the Coffin Texts 317:111. See Faulkner, AECT, I, 241 and Faulkner, AECT, II, 224 and Plutarch, "Isis and Osiris," Moralia, V, (13, 356 B-C); Babbitt, 35, 37.

mrsonic

roger, do you believe that no other man god before your man god came back to life on earth? you don't believe that the idea of ressurection only came into existence after christianity?

Toto

But you can only claim this if you make the CONCEPTS so general that you can't really show anything in particular. Are you really claiming that some early Christian engaged in copyright infringement? Or just that Christians picked up on some universal cultural themes that they found around them - a not very radical idea?

For example, the virgin Mary in the gospels is just a young girl who gives birth to a baby, somewhat miraculously, although there are exegetes who claim that the birth in the gospels is not necessarily parthogenesis. It is only later in Christian history that she becomes something like a goddess, immaculately conceived. Anahita and the other "virgins" that Acharya S brings up as comparable are much more than young women who give birth. They are goddesses who are somehow perpetually virginal even after multiple births. The only common theme here is giving birth - but that is a universal part of human experience. So what does this show?

The human brain is wired to look for patterns and enjoy finding them. Sometimes those patterns are meaningful, sometimes not.

Roger Pearse

This does not seem to address what I said.

You're welcome to produce evidence for your claim that 25 Dec. was the solstice in the 4th century. But the relevance of this is unclear.

I didn't -- you did. Remember?

That's right. But however many ancient authors say "25 Dec is the solstice", that is not the same as an ancient author saying "25 Dec is the birthday of Mithras". Surely?

I have to ask this: is English not your first language? Because I sense that you keep replying to something other than what I actually write! Which wastes your time and mine.

You need to document this claim from ancient sources; and you also need to indicate the basis for your claim about scholars.

But I think the point of my query has got lost. You started by claiming that we shouldn't worry about the fact that no ancient source documents these deities being born on 25 Dec., because 25 Dec. didn't exist because the Gregorian calendar didn't exist (a very strange argument, as I remarked). You then went on to say that the fact the calendar didn't exist was irrelevant. I agree; but that rather renders your first point meaningless.

Do learn to laugh at yourself. It's a valuable corrective that we all need to learn.

I'm afraid you'll have to point me to the passage in "Isis and Osiris" that supports your claim about Mithras and Osiris, if that is your claim. To help, here's the first fifth of the book. Here is the entire text of chapter 13:

Where in this is stuff about a "last supper"?

The rest appears to be a crude "argument by offline book reference". I note that the Acharya S book isn't given a page number -- always a sure sign of that sort of thing. And ... we want ancient sources, not claims by people like Acharya S.

Now I don't propose to be run around. If you have evidence from ancient sources for a "last supper" of Mithras, or of Osiris, why not produce it?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

You probably need to start a separate thread about whatever it is you are saying here. I'm not very interested in general religious argument. What I want to see is people getting the raw historical facts -- not opinions, for I'm sure yours are as good as mine -- correct.

Because, whatever our religious views, I don't see how any of us are helped by making crude errors like "Mithras was born on 25 Dec." if in fact no ancient source records it and it is a modern myth.

To address your second sentence briefly, I would imagine that the idea of the dead coming back to life is primeval, and probably connected with the earliest men seeing corn sown as seed and sprouting in the spring. It is an idea which requires no explanation as to origins; I can see that some such story would naturally occur to any child independently. Somewhere in this thought is the research that Frazer did for the Golden Bough (although if you verify his statements in that work against the ancient sources, they don't always back up his theory!)

But to discuss it, we would need to know a lot of primary data. And if the real argument is not about facts, but that Christianity must be untrue because some of its arguments and myths are recorded before it came into existence -- a religious argument, usually insinuated rather than stated clearly -- then I would point out that this is a non-sequitur; the conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premise, and I know Christians who argue the opposite, that the similarities prove the truth of Christianity. The argument would need to be made much more carefully before we could consider it.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

I think you're right.

The example I tend to reference is the Atlantis cultists. These argue that pyramids in Mexico and pyramids in Egypt 'must' be connected, that the connection must be a lost Atlantis in the middle of the ocean, and that the similarity proves this.

In reality the connection is that both cultures used blocks of stone, and the force of gravity will tend to cause blocks of stone to assume pyramidal shapes.

All these arguments from similarity are fallacious unless drawn very narrowly indeed. Generally those making them want to include as much as possible; but a valid argument must have a negative corollary, that excludes false matches.

The arguments also usually insinuate rather than argue, which is never a good sign. It is also insinuated that similarity proves connection and derivation. But of course this is not necessarily so. If I learn of an ancient Mayan ritual meal -- I don't know if there are any -- then I see no special reason to suppose that Mayans crossed the Atlantic to copy the passover, or, equally, that the ancient Jews developed ocean-going boats to teach the Mayans about it. Eating in groups is normal to men; and giving things religious significance is normal to men; and combining the two inevitable.

All of these arguments, in my humble opinion, are useless as a source of information, therefore. There are nearly always *other* possible reasons for similarity.

All the best,

Roger Pearse