gnosis92

The story of the Spartans and Spartacus sounds "biblical" to me, every aspect of the Battle of Thermopylae and Spartacus has parallels in biblical mythology. the story of 300 Spartans Battle of Thermopylae holding of 300, 000 or more Persians, or Spartacus (which sounds like Spartans) a slave who became a general who defeated Imperial Rome, sounds like the universal archetypal myth to me. Perhaps borrowed from Biblical mythology of Samson and the Phillistines, or David and Goliath. Obviously, these stories fit the Hero of Joseph Campbell's Hero of a thousand faces, a much smaller force facing bravely down danger, whether it's Samson and David, or Spartans at Battle of Thermopylae, it's the stuff of legends folks. It may have even been copycatted from earlier Greek and Etruscan and Egyptian mythology. Spartacus leading a slave revolt may have been lifted out of the pages of Exodus and Moses, for example. Brutus and Cassius betraying Caesar, is obviously a copycat of Ephialtes betrayal of the Spartans to the Persians. If these events actually happened, why is every narrative a copycat or "midrash" of "earlier" biblical, Greek, Etruscan and Egyptian mythic hero-soldier events modeled both biblical and Homeric? In some instances, we have only single sources, for example Herodotus.

I'm being ironic. :Cheeky:

If there was a first century religious figure who lived a life of religious devoution to his own mystical beliefs, his story would sound like anyone who lived a pious life, before and after. The same can be said of any soldier-general or craftsman or mathematician or poet in antiquity.

spamandham

...perhaps because both are based off the works of Homer?

Chris Weimer

Say what? Homer antedates both events.

mountainman

Have you read the story of
"The Life of Apollonius of Tyana"?

Bobinius

What is mythical about the Spartans? The Spartans died all.This what we would expect to happen given 300 men against an army of a million.It's natural, and they knew it. Secondly, they were indeed not alone. There were other allies with them (in numbers of a few thousands if I remember correctly), but what matters is that the Spartans sacrificed themselves in battle, fighting bravely till the last man. This was the epitome of the Spartan thinking and warrior philosophy (just like the Samurai were in medieval Japan). Thirdly, the Spartans had a very unmythical advantage of the land. They blocked the narrow passing, and the Persians could not use the advantage of their superior number. If you can pass the same number of men through a passing, it does not matter if you are 300 or a million. It is the same number of men facing eachother. The advantage was of course, that the Persians kept bringing new forces, untill the Spartans died all. What's biblical in this, I don't know.

Malachi151

More importantly, perhaps, is that only ~300 Spartans went to Thermopylae because the bulk of their men had to stay home to keep the slaves from revolting.

Niall Armstrong

There is a point behind the madness.
Like Eliade shows in Cosmos and History (or via: amazon.co.uk), there is (or, at least, was) such a thing as “terror of history”. By recounting historical events in mythological language we (or anyone dependent upon superstition) evade the threat of the unknown. Eliade’s example of the tragic death of the groom, whom the locals insisted had been kidnapped by fairies, shows the need we have to create stories out of history. This has probably happened with elements of the stories of the Spartans and Spartacus as well, even if the cores are historical.

I used to believe that this was the kind of reasoning needed to explain the story about Jesus & company, letting the story have a core of truth. But, as Doherty shows, this doesn’t explain Paul’s treatment of Jesus.

Bobinius

C'mon. There is some truth in this, but I hope that you do not think that the Spartans formed an army that guarded the slaves, and fought wars with only a few people. It's pretty laughable.

Gregg

Yeah, this is something I keep running up against from those who reject Doherty's mythicist case. Doherty knows he can't make his case solely on possibly coincidental Biblical (or "mythic archetype" in general) parallels (although in the case of the gospels the parallels are so many and blatant and pervasive that the "burden of proof" is really on those who want to claim they contain some kernel of historical fact). He bases his case on several pieces of evidence and several lines of argument, each of which is consistent with and supports the others.

It's easy enough to say, "If you're going to reject the historicity of Jesus and his ministry just because it fits into a Biblical or mythic archetype, then you better be consistent and reject all supposed historical events that can be fit into a Biblical or mythic archetype!" But of course no reasonable person is going to reject something as historical solely for this reason.

gnosis92

GaskeiDon though offered a challenge to Doherty and MJ here -- Paul's "born of a woman" and "on the night he was betrayed", etc., shows Paul was thinking of a earthly Jesus, not a heavenly one.

Another poster pointed out that when Paul wrote his letters, he obviously did not consider that in 2000 in the future, people would query why he has so little details on Jesus, and the occassion which spurred those letters did not require Gospel details.

Again that objection went largely unaswered by the usual suspects here.