outhouse

Could you please pay attention?

Did I ask for the virgin birth? Hell no!



Mark mentions Mary once by name, and mentions of her once more. And in no way shape or form is there anything remotely even with imagination, anything that can be tied to Isis, in any way shape or form.




Mark is the earliest tradition and has built a very human Mary that is in no way a deity like Isis in any shape or form. The first tradition is that of a mother.


In the second century they were still debating pagan and OT influence for the virgin birth mythology, and no where in these early arguments is Isis named, why? Justin Martyr goes into detail about this.



There is no direct connection.

Robert Tulip

If you want a serious conversation I suggest you be less rude. The absence of the virgin birth from Mark is relevant, given the trope of Isis as virgin mother. You are asking for evidence in a place where we are unlikely to find it. That shows nothing. That is fatuous. Mark may be the first Christian gospel, but his ideas rest upon extremely ancient mythological traditions of a dying and rising saviour. The scale, age and influence of the Isis tradition, already old beyond counting at the time the Gospels were constructed, made it a useful template for Christian ideation. The queen of heaven motif in the Apocalypse is far older than Mark, and provides illustration of continuity between pagan myth and the Christian fiction.I have previously commented on this fatuous point of why early Christians did not acknowledge their sources, and am happy to repeat myself in the face of apparent inability to assimilate simple ideas. There was a cultural war between Christianity and pagan religion. Therefore, if Christianity found ideas within pagan religion that it considered useful, it had to alter them to conceal their origin. The Lazarus story in John is an excellent example, as is the Queen of Heaven in Revelation.

Justin Martyr was a fool. His 'devil got there first' explanation for the apparent borrowing by Christianity shows the bereftitude of his intellect. Perfect for the church. By citing an author such as Justin who actually believed that Jesus was born with no human father, you are digging yourself into a hole in regard to analysis of how the myth actually evolved. Orthodox miraculous debates are not of any scientific merit.

outhouse

If you want a serious conversation, quit dodging questions.

It would normally not bother me, but I'm seeing a pattern of this. Could we stop it then?

Your wrong here again.


It shows the earliest members of the movement that would evolve into Christians did not use Isis in any shape or form in relation to Mary.

Just the opposite of Isis, in Mark, Mary is very human and not considered a deity.



As has been every reply of yours in this thread.



Sorry but that is not what is written in Mark.

I will tell you what is though, because its obvious you missed it completely.

A Galilean traveling teacher and healer who is baptized in the Jordan by JtB, gains a few followers of his own and teaches and heals in villages. He travels to Jerusalem for Passover where he causes trouble in the temple and was placed on a cross to die.


The tradition lies firmly in the OT which is obviously the foundation and influence of a Messiah created by these Hellenistic Jewish Proselytes who compiled earlier sources to create Gmark.


dying-rising gods are blown out of proportion for skeptical polemic.


False

There is no evidence for this, as matter of fact, Gmark which is the foundation for the gospels and Christianity, has no comparison at all in any way shape or form for this.

Queen of heaven is also a OT term for Asherah.

And this "queen of heaven" didn't come from Isis. the term in Gluke is Queen Mother. And that is due to her relationship with the son of god.

Its well known mythology surrounding Asherah, but even then, we know Mary's queen of heaven didn't originate from this OT passage regarding Asherah.

Thus there is no illustration of continuity between pagan myth and Christianity the way you intend to pervert it so badly.

Sure there is, and a lot of it too.

Stop, your repeating a pattern of poor work here.

When? at what time was this war going on? You need to be specific if you want to build anything that will stand up.

When the gospels were being written there was no war going on with pagans. The movement was trying to survive, and had a war going on with Judaism.

You understand that?, we have evidence of a little cultural war, and it wasn't with pagans. The only pagans we know about are the Romans, and we have details of that, so there is no mystery there.



False again.

Christians were under the gun from Romans, they didn't care about your imaginative pagan influence. They would not sacrifice to the Roman deities and that had them in quite the trouble with Romans. They were tortured and Martyred, and if you read a real history book you would know that instead of hiding, many wanted to become Martyrs for the movement.

Pick up Candida Moss's book and actually read it please. She goes into detail about these topics.


Christians viewed Jesus sacrifice on the cross as the ultimate human sacrifice, they would not sacrifice to Roman deities or even denounce their faith, facing torture in horrific ways. So the last thing they would ever do is compromise their faith or hide it due to your imaginative pagan war.


There is nothing hidden here at all.

There is also debate if Revelations passage refers to Mary.


Of course you will say that, only because it doesn't follow your faith.

Right now, all I see is your faith.

mountainman

The cultural war between Christianity and pagan religion for the sake of discussion may be taken as being concluded at the Council of Constantinople c.381 CE.

'We authorise followers of this law to assume the title of orthodox Christians; but as for the others since, in our judgement, they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious names of heretics.'

- Emperor Theodosius 381 CE

The question remains when did the cultural war between Christianity and pagan religion commence.



When were the gospels being written?
Please provide your evidence.



What about Justin Martyr?




You have no evidence that the myth of the martyrs was history.

It remains a legendary story started by the authorship of Eusebius.

The saints and martyrs enter history in the later 4th century.





IN EUSEBIUS MOSS TRUSTS.









εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Robert Tulip

Readers will recall that the cause of Jeffrey's accident was encountering a challenge to his fixed dogma that Isis is not a type for Mary. Traditionally, Christian typology was dogmatically restricted to the Old Testament, with the abundant comparisons between Jesus and figures such as Adam, Jonah and Moses, and between Mary and figures such as Hannah and Eve.

The Lazarus story similarly uses Egyptian sources as types. It is pretty obvious that this would not have been a focus of subsequent Christian reading, given the violent antipathy of the church towards Egypt.

Complaining about making a mess on your computer is not a particularly good refutation of the obvious Egyptian typology of the Lazarus story. And yet that is the best Jeffrey has offered.
Could we call Jeffrey's suggestion to restrict analysis of Isis and Mary to an exclusive language guild a fallacy of relevance, of pomposity, of qualifications, or some other more precise inexactitude? Typology does not require knowledge of original languages, except via those who have done the linguistic scholarship, such as Massey. Assessing the Egyptian sources for the Christ Myth is a matter of comparative mythology, an interdisciplinary field that my studies in philosophy provide a good grounding for. These ideas are accessible in translation.

Jeffrey accuses me of assuming the Isis link. No. What we see here is that he shows no interest in the Egyptian typology of the Christ Myth, but just denies it on emotional grounds.

Chili

Good point here spin, to say that if she, woman proper here, known as the universal Queen of heaven she was already then, and was real for each and every Jew who "walked with God," as we can say (and those were many and many more than the bible lets us know).

So there in nothing new about the archetype itself, but She is unique in her own way as the archetype now in the particular made known as an intrinsic part of this transformation event now archetypal in the actualization of the archetype.

Interesting here is that also Jesus could not identify her by name and called her 'woman' at the royal banquet that was organized on his behalf, and in fact said "who is my mother" to tell us that woman was 'it' but he was not her son as 'insurrectionist' during that transformation stage of life.

Jesus also knew that he needed to die to set the Christ free in him as dual nature during this event.

The name Mary belongs, but I suppose, Josephine would have done it too, since Joseph is the Jew who here was made fully Man, now as the first Christian and so it was the OT that Jesus died to on our behalf in this now public event so that the NT has a efficient cause for it to be.

It therefore now is necessarily true that She will be called Queen of heaven and of Earth and for which Jesus is the way but not the end.

This then would also be the reason why in Egypt she was called Isis, while the Jews did not and could not have a name for her while still waiting for their own messiah. From this follows that a name for her is now a must.

Roger Pearse

It's great, isn't it?!? The bible Mr Tulip has in front of him is interesting indeed. Christians believe that Jesus and his wife Isis/Mary were attacked by his brother Seth/?, who killed Jesus, chopped him into 14 pieces, and scattered the bits up and down the Nile. Mary/Isis then went and looked for the bits, which she found, aside from his willy which (as you will recall from John's gospel) was eaten by a crocodile. She then cast a magic spell to reunite the bits, plus make an, erm, substitute bit, and to reanimate him. After that she had sex with him, in order to get pregnant, then let him die (a moving scene in John 20, wasn't it?). After which Jesus became god of the dead, while his son Horus/? grew up and killed Seth.

Yes, that's what we all learned in Sunday School. It's obvious that's what John's gospel says.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Robert Tulip

Many thanks Toto for sharing this fascinating and relevant material. I have now obtained Assmann’s book The Egyptian Moses. It casts an interesting light from a man whom this critical article opens by saying is “described as the world's leading Egyptologist—a characterization that few these days would dare to dispute.”

I would like to discuss Assmann’s work in detail, but cutting to the chase here, the implication appears to be that his claimed “conscious attempt to ruin the sacred truths by demonstrating that Western monotheism had its origins in pagan practices” is anti-Semitic. This term “ruin” illustrates the intensely polemical nature of the article. You don’t “ruin” a truth by explaining it. Rather, the explanation gives a basis for a deeper understanding, even reverence, for that which is explained. If the previous reverence is shown as needing discussion, then all to the good, for those who are genuinely interested in “sacred truth” rather than just a political tradition.
Yes, except that it is wrong to infer that such natural analysis is somehow “anti-Semitic”, as could be assumed from the article title. The spectre of anti-Semitism is an appalling way of poisoning the well for research on the real relation between Israel and Egypt. Modern science is utterly naturalistic, and therefore “counter to the anti-nature monotheism of the Abrahamic religions” but we hardly say this makes science anti-Semitic.

The a priori rejection by natural scientific thought of alienated supernatural transcendental monotheism should be the start of a dialogue about relation to Biblical thought, as for example in this thread discussion on Isis and Mary. However, the Assmann article title could even be read as implying that all rejection of the supernatural is also ‘fueling anti-Semitism’, when science touches on the ‘sacred truths’ of Semitic tradition.

As Assmann explains, great Jews such as Spinoza and Freud (not to mention Spinoza’s acolyte Einstein) rejected the monotheist tradition. They do not deserve to be called ‘self-hating’ for their dedication to enlightened reason.

I fear that unstated attitudes to Judaism are behind much of the puzzling confusion around the study of the relation between the myths of Israel and Egypt. Philo-Semites do not need to attack scholars who question Jewish beliefs on evidentiary grounds.

Assmann points out that the Enlightenment was intrigued by Egypt. Somehow this fascination has waned, while the popular trope of pharaoh as tyrant continues to be preached as central to the Exodus myth. It would be nice if Assmann acknowledged the work on Exodus by Israel Finkelstein.

It really does not help the analysis to make asinine comments about differences, as though these deflate the similarities. Acharya S recently noted that in his book Egypt, Canaan and Israel in Ancient Times (or via: amazon.co.uk), Egyptologist Dr. Donald B. Redford says “Few students of comparative religion today would dare even to broach the subject [that]… in mythology similarities do exist, if only in broad plot structure and plot roles.” This problem of fear of comparative analysis in scholarship has been mocked here, and yet here we find it raised by a distinguished Egyptologist.

stephan huller

Ummm. Yes you partake of the same anti-Semitism. I don't think you or her hate Jewish people per se. You two hate Jewish culture and the fact that it acts as firewall around Christianity for the idiotic beliefs of the new age cult you belong to. You hate Jewish culture because it says "Keep out"

Toto

I think that the term antisemitism should be reserved for the racialist classification of Jews and the belief that they are inherently genetically or culturally inferior. It doesn't make any sense to call every criticism of the Jewish religion antisemitism.