Freethought & Rationalism Archive

John123 · 12-22-2004, 10:04 AM

Quote:

perfectly obvious to me and many on this board that Jesus has a lot in common with dying gods such as Tammuz, Osiris (and in Europe, the John Barleycorn story).

do you have any evidence to show that jesus's audience were already familiar with those dying gods? i am thinking why wouldn't they be? myths aren't only communicated through written form right?

GakuseiDon · 12-22-2004, 02:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Magdlyn

To the OP,

Gakusei Don likes to blast newbies with enthusaistic yet vague ideas about the origins of the Jesus Myth.

Yep, guilty as charged.

Quote:

It is perfectly obvious to me and many on this board that Jesus has a lot in common with dying gods such as Tammuz, Osiris (and in Europe, the John Barleycorn story). Campbell and Jung acknowledge these are all common archetypes earthlings come up with when confronted with our cycle of seasons.

This Mediterranean type of myth was conflated (incorrectly) with the idea of messiah popular in Judaism at the time. (Jesus does not meet the true criteria for Jewish messiah).

If Jesus is not strictly a sun god, he is indeed associated with fire. And linked with YHWH, Moses and Elijah who had their own fire associations, of course.

There are two things here:
(1) There are definite parallels between Jesus and other gods, but it seems most of the analysis doesn't go beyond the surface. There are parallels between Kennedy and Lincoln, but no-one suggests that this means anything beyond there being parallels. What do the parallels represent? Why should they be meaningful?
(2) There is too much misinformation about so-called 'parallels' that just get copied uncritically from website to website. It doesn't matter how close the parallel between "Horus the KRST" and "Jesus the Christ" is, if Horus was never known as "the KRST".

So, I think the article that was linked to has incorrect information, though this doesn't mean I should have criticised it unfairly, as Toto pointed out.

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