Amaleq13

I understand that but I'm trying to determine if your "perspective" has any substance to support it. Pointing out that pagans used crosses as a symbol is simply insufficient to establish a direct connection to Christian use of the cross as a symbol. You understand that, right? If there is no connection, pagan use of the symbol is utterly irrelevant.

I would have thought you had already conducted this research and that this is what lead you to your conclusion. Apparently, I was mistaken.

I'm only interested in determining if you have anything of substance to support your "perspective". Apparently, you do not. Why should anyone take an unsubstantiated perspective seriously?

As it stands, the best available explanation for the Christian use of the cross as a symbol for the sacrifice of Christ appears to be belief in the death of Christ by crucifixion. Unless you have evidence that pagans used the cross as a symbol of sacrifice, there is no connection and your "perspective" is simply a red herring.

spamandham

Because I'm going from memory rather than looking it up. So I fucked up the reference. Sue me.

I never claimed people have written numerous books regarding the fish story. Read more carefully.

No, I'm not denying the Romans crucified people. But I do observe that the passion story has striking parallels to Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53, making it unlikely any of the details are based on real history, even if there is a historical person loosely tied into the story. If you don't see any significance that the cross came to be an icon of Christianity when the symbol was widespread among the culture in which Christianity grew, I suppose that's a matter of interpreting parsimony.


The reference is from "Gospel Fictions", by Helms, p. 96. You can read the translations of the pyramid texts (from about 2500 BCE) upon which this claim is based for yourself, here: http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/healings.html#9

spamandham

Nothing directly. I thought you asked me to provide pagan references in the NT, so I did. If we establish that Christianity is a syncretization of Judaism with paganism, and 12 had significance to both, then why would we assume '12' is derived only from the Jewish side, when it had significance to both?

spamandham

If you want proof, go take a math class. The best we can hope for in regard to ancient history is to try to tie together sparse bits and pieces of information into plausible scenarios. If you don't see any connection, then fine.

...and if there is, then it is relevant. It seems like more than just 'concidence' to me, but I certainly can't prove it.

It doesn't usually seem necessary to provide references to that which is wide spread historical knowledge. No discussion can proceed if we have to start from basics on every point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_cross Scroll down to the section on 'prehistorical use'.

Amaleq13

Why bother with such an obvious strawman? I'm clearly (and quite reasonably) asking for nothing except support for your "perspective". You've acknowledged you have none. Time to move on, amigo.

Yes and what I have requested is precisely what would "tie together" pagan use of the cross symbol with Christian use. You apparently have no such evidence so you actually have not offered a plausible scenario.

You have offered no connection beyond use of the same symbol by two different groups for different reasons. It should be apparent that this fails to establish any sort of relevant connection.

Yes and it is your responsibility to show that there is since it was your claim.

Can you even support it with evidence or a rational argument? That's all I'm asking to see. The bare fact that pagans and Christians used the cross as a symbol is meaningless unless some connection can be established since they do not appear to have used it to symbolize the same concepts.

You seem suddenly confused about what claim I am questioning. I am not questioning the use of a cross symbol by pagans. I am questioning your claim that it somehow connects to Christian use. Are you suggesting that claim is "wide spread historical knowledge"? If not, your comment is entirly irrelevant.

On the contrary, that is an excellent way to establish a credible position. OTOH, if one lacks any fundamental support for one's position, I can understand the desire to skip over the messy (missing) details so as to allow one to leap to one's prefered conclusion. I understand it and recognize it as utterly lacking credibility.

There is nothing in that article that suggests, let alone establishes, a connection between early Christian use of a cross symbol and pagan use. The fact that Christians in the 11th century were using it in their depictions of Jesus is utterly irrelevant to the point you are trying to make.

Ben C Smith

How did you get so turned around as to think that the topic was anything other than the 12 disciples? I even stated early on that, where Jewish symbolism fails, I am quite willing to look to pagan symbolism, but that the Jewish angle explains the 12 disciples just fine in this case.

Because I have evidence of the 12 disciples being explicitly linked to the 12 tribes of Israel. I am asking you (again) for evidence of the 12 disciples being linked with something pagan (specifically something about the 12 moons in a year, to judge from your original statement).

I do not even have a problem with the original 12 tribes of Israel having something to do with lunar cycles or such... if you provide evidence of some kind for this. But, even if the origin of the 12 tribes themselves jives with pagan symbolism, that does not mean that anybody in the Christian period had any such thing in mind when the time came to assign a number to the core disciple group.

It seems like you are trying to slip your view in (which is fine) without subjecting it to evidentiary scrutiny (which is not fine).

Ben.

John Kesler

The "fish story" was one of the pieces of evidence that you cited before concluding with the declaration that "People have written numerous books on this subject, so I don't really see the need to provide an exhaustive list." If the "fish story" is so compelling a piece of evidence that it was one of the few proofs that you saw fit to list, surely it is in some of these "numerous books," isn't it? If your knowledge about the "fish story" hasn't progressed beyond the "so I've heard, I'm no expert" level, then your listing it as a proof was at least misleading.

Among Helms' "proof" that the Lazarus story was borrowed from the myth of Osiris is this, as quoted at Tobin's site:

According to The Anchor Bible Dictionary, volume 4, page 265, the name Lazarus is "an abbreviated transcription of El-azar, ('God helps')." Various people in the OT have the name Eleazar, including one of Aaron's sons, who was of course a priest. Now honestly, which is more likely: that the name was cribbed from the story of Osiris, or that "Lazarus" was derived from the OT? I don't find any of the other alleged proofs to evidence borrowing, but thanks for providing the reference.

spamandham

I presented it, you reject it. That's that. I never claimed I could prove it to your satisfaction.

I already presented it. The cross had strong symbolic significance at the time among the pagan culture in which Christianity grew up, and there is strong evidence (as strong as could be hoped for regarding ancient history) that Christianity is a blending of Judaism with paganism. Further, the cross is not known to have been a Jewish symbol. I find all this relevant, and you don't. End of story.

I'm not suddenly confused, your request was ambiguous. You seemed to be chalenging the idea that the corss was a solar symbol among pagans.

spamandham

You still haven't bothered to figured out what the subject of that claim was, and I have no interest in aiding you. If you can show I claimed there were numerous books written about the fish story, show my quotes, or shut the fuck up.

Amaleq13

You've done no such thing. You presented the bare fact that pagans used the symbol of a cross prior to Christians and claimed a direct connection. You have not presented any evidence that establishes such a connection between them.

But there does not appear to be any connection between earlier pagan symbolic significance and the significance early Christianity attributed to it. You need that connection to support your "perspective". Do you genuinely not grasp the necessity of that for your position?

Unfortunately for your position, none of that evidence appears to connect Christian use of the cross as a symbol of Christ's sacrifice to earlier pagan use of it as a symbol of the sun.

In case you still don't get it, I'm asking for evidence the shows how a pagan symbol for the sun became a Christian symbol of the sacrificial execution of Christ.

No? The cross held no significance to Jews in the first century? It was not a symbol of pain, suffering and humiliation? It was not a symbol of Roman oppression?

On the contrary, I've been quite consistent and explicit in my request for very specific evidence supporting your "perspective". You have, so far, offered nothing which provides that support and apparently have none to offer. Why you don't just stop with that admission continues to be a mystery.

There is nothing in any of my posts that even remotely implies this so I cannot explain your confusion. I have consistently and explicitly asked for evidence of a connection between pagan use of the symbol of the cross and early Christian use. Unless you know of one, you appear to have no substantive basis for your "perspective" beyond the geometric similarity of their respective symbols. Surely you can see that this is insufficient to support maintaining it.