mountainman

Parallels between Asclepius and Jesus

The following is a summary of arguments made by the author Gerald D. Hart in his book Asclepius: The God of Medicine


Are these parallels new, and if not can anyone advise of earlier.

Best wishes,



Pete Brown

lpetrich

Some of those similarities are rather forced and less-than-convincing, like that Trinity one.

And some of the similarities are more general; Asclepius was one of the numerous deities and demigods and heroes who had literal biological divine parentage. In fact, Asclepius likely fits Lord Raglan's Mythic-Hero profile rather well, as Jesus Christ does.

However, curing lots of disease is a real similarity; many legendary heroes had not been very into medicine.

Gamera

There are parallels between Jesus and an Ikea catalog, as I pointed out once.

By the way, where do you get your information about Askepius? What texts and how old are they? Do you know anything about their ms history, and if you don't, why are you relying on them?

Jeffrey Gibson

It's a pretty safe bet that Pete doesn't know where the various statements made by his authority about Asclepius can be found, let alone whan the date from. Nor, I think, could he prove that the picture of Asclepius that his authority presents us with is anything more than his own construct, and nothing that was held from the beginning of devotion to Ascelpius as well as always and everywhere, let alone (though more importantly) at a time that the traditions about Jesus were being recorded in the Gospels.

But he could always prove us wrong by citing the primary sources in which each of the claims about Asclepius and his career are attested.

But far more interesting to note is how Pete's authority has, in order to prove his point about similarities, makes his "case" by cooking the evidence to get what he wants -- by appealing to (and constructing) a portrait of Jesus that no gospel author shared or presented us with. Like Mel Gibson, he has taken bits and pieces from the Gospels and cobbled them together in order (if I understand him correctly) to present us with a model of Jesus that serves to prove an apriori that Jesus is based upon Asclepius.

To see that this is so, just go through his claims about Jesus and find which Gospels each one of these claim is grounded in -- and in which they are not.

Jeffrey

MarkA

I do not think Jesus is an exact copy of Asclepius but they certainly share some characteristics. Healing, resurrection and being both human and divine are certainly common traits. Jesus apparently shared many common traits with other divinities like Dionysus and Adonis as this was mixed in with his Jewish religious upbringing. In other words this melding of Hellenic and Jewish religious characteristics is something you would expect from the gospel evidence.

Jeffrey Gibson

Where is Asclepius said to have undergone the experience that Jews of Jesus day thought "resurrection" involved and entailed? And where in the NT is Jesus described as "divine" in the same way that Asclepius was thought to be "divine", let alone both human and divine?

Jesus apparently shared many common traits with other divinities like Dionysus and Adonis

Apparently is the operative word here. And what common traits are you referring to?

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

Here's a review of Hart that appeared in Bull. Hist. Med., 2002

Quote:

Gerald D. Hart. Asclepius, the God of Medicine. London: Royal Society of Medicine Press, 2000. xx + 262 pp. Ill. £17.50 (paperbound, 1-85315-409-1). Gerald D. Hart is a retired hematologist and an amateur numismatist whose purpose in this volume is “to popularize Asclepius and interpret the present-day use of his staff and serpent symbol by various disciplines of the healthcare team”(p. xvii). Hart makes no claim to originality. He largely reproduces the views of Emma Edelstein and Ludwig Edelstein in their magnum opus, Asclepius: Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonies (or via: amazon.co.uk) (1945; reprinted 1998). Hart adopts the euhemerist view that Asclepius evolved from a historical figure into a god: on the evidence of his mention in Homer’s Iliad, he believes that Asclepius was a physician who lived before the end of the eighth century b.c. and whose accomplishments led first to heroic status and later to deification. Here as elsewhere, Hart tends (like the Edelsteins) toward rationalistic explanations. Medical training is often helpful for making sense of ancient healing practices, but it does not take the place of a thorough knowledge of the cultural context in which they develop. One of many examples in this regard is Hart’s failure to understand the concept of miasma (ritual pollution) as the basis of the Greek exclusion from sacred precincts of those giving birth or dying (p. 60). And, like the Edelsteins, Hart tends to idealize the temple-healing of Asclepius. Given that the book is largely derivative, professional historians cannot look for the historical rigor that they would normally expect of a historical monograph that deals with so controversial a figure as Asclepius. Hart often relies on secondary sources for matters of fact, and thereby takes over unexamined their interpretation of the evidence. Thus he seems to be unfamiliar with the historiographic problems surrounding Hippocrates, assuming that the Father of Medicine was the figure described by later legend (pp. 37–38). Other criticisms might be made of Hart’s approach. He makes frequent comparisons between modern medicine, on the one hand, and ancient medical practices or the healing cult of Asclepius, on the other. Thus he calls the family of Asclepius “the divine healthcare team” (p. 33). Priests of asclepieia administered “mind-therapy” (p. 71), as well as music and occupational therapy, to pilgrims who sought healing. The grant of immunities to physicians was an early form of socialized medicine (p. 121). The interchange of ideas among physicians at asclepieia was a form of “continuing medical education” (p. 137). Assuming presentist and essentialist categories, Hart views modern medicine as a continuation of ancient methods that did not differ markedly from the presuppositions that undergird modern practice. Thus he considers Soranus’s gynecological works “surprisingly modern texts” (p. 159), while alleging that the Hippocratic “theory on the pathogenesis of disease summarizes our present knowledge on the onset of infection” (p. 139). Particularly questionable are assertions that ancient physicians in many cases prescribed what we now know to be medically efficacious treatment (pp. 85 ff.). Nor does Hart avoid that besetting sin of medical historians, retrospective diagnosis (see, e.g., p. 157). The strength of the volume lies in the attention that the author gives to the numismatic evidence for the cult of Asclepius. Of 513 sites at which the god was worshipped, 267 were connected with coins, and 211 sites are known only through numismatic evidence. This is an area that was conspicuously overlooked by the Edelsteins (who focused on literary rather than on archaeological or numismatic evidence), and Hart provides a popular introduction to the subject illuminated by many coin illustrations. While the professional historian will find much to criticize in this volume, the attention given to numismatic and archaeological evidence (especially from Roman Britain) sheds light on the cult of Asclepius that is missing from the Edelsteins’ study. Gary B. Ferngren Oregon State University Soranos

Jeffrey

MarkA

From Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology (or via: amazon.co.uk) - 'God the Father of the Christian Trinity, the father-creator of Mary, God the Holy Ghost, her spouse, and God the Son, her slain and resurrected child, reproduce for a later age the Orphic mystery of Zeus in the form of a serpent begetting on hisown daughter Persephone his incarnate son Dionysus.' There is more elaboration but this is the essence of it.

Adonis died, was reborn each spring after being immaculately conceived. Attis, another name for Adonis was intimately and consciously associated with Jesus. Frazer in The Golden Bough says, 'At least it is a remarkable coincidence, if it is nothing more, that the Christian and the heathen festivals of the divine death and resurrection should have been solemnised at the same season and in the same places. For the places which celebrated the death of Christ at the spring equinox were Phrygia, Gaul, and apparently Rome, that is, the very regions in which the the worship of Attis either originated or struck deepest root. It is difficult to regard the coincidence as purely accidental.'

I apologize if my meaning was not clear about the divinity of Jesus. I did not mean it was in the NT but that the reference to Jesus being raised in Nazareth which was a short walking distance to Sepphoris the great Greco-Roman city where he would certainly have visited and been exposed to the mythology of the classical world. The defining moment of Nicea did indeed make him God but I suspect he was so regarded by the orthodox churches for some considerable time before.

MarkA

Where is Asclepius said to have undergone the experience that Jews of Jesus day thought "resurrection" involved and entailed?

He was killed by Zeus and then resurrected by him. Dead and then brought back to life. I think Jews would understand that experience.

Jeffrey Gibson

Incarnate son???

What are the primary sources he adduces for these claims? Ther certainly aren't the NT for the ones he makes about Jesus.

And Dionysius the offspring of Presephone was never resurrected -- and certainly not in the sense that the idea of "resurrection" had in Jewsih thought.

Leaving aside the matter that Jesus was never thought to be "immaculately conceived (that's Mary in Christian tradition), what source does Frazer adduce that attests to Attis being such?

More importantly, Attis and Adonis are not resurrected. And they certainly weren't criminals who suffered execution. The parallels are forced.

Jeffrey