Toto

This link looks like an interesting source.

Early Christian Literature: Christ and culture in the second and third centuries (or via: amazon.co.uk)
By Helen Rhee

GakuseiDon

I think that Justin claiming the devil got them wrong should be taken into account, depending on what the argument is. I think if Justin had better examples, he would have used them, to make his argument stronger.

No. "Man on flying horse" and "Jesus ascending to heaven" -- it's a parallel. Justin tells us that. Lots of parallels between Kennedy and Lincoln. As the excellent Scopes website puts it:
http://www.snopes.com/history/americ...ln-kennedy.asp

It's not difficult to find patterns and similarities between any two marginally-related sets of data, and coincidences similar in number and kind can be (and have been) found between many different pairs of Presidents.

dog-on

I have no problem with this, but I am not sure what it really has to do with the request by the OP.

aa5874

The "devil" is a Myth so it is really of very little use for this discussion.

Justin Martyr ADMITTED that the Jesus story is NO different to Greek/Roman Myth Fables in "First Apology" and even Trypho in "Dialogue with Trypho" stated that the Virgin birth of Jesus is like Virgin Births in Greek/Roman Myth.

Dialogue with Trypho Since the 2nd century it was ALREADY argued and ADMITTED by a Christian writer there were parallels between the Jesus story and Greek Mythology.

First Apology The Jesus story of a Virgin birth of a Son of a God with his death, resurrection and ascension is like, paralleled to, Greek/Roman Myth as ADMITTED and IDENTIFIED by Justin Martyr and Trypho since the 2nd century.

Toto

Obviously, the parallels are not exact, so Justin has to argue that the devil got them wrong. This is how Catholics today view a lot of other religions - pale and inaccurate copies of the One True Religion.

You seem to be still hung up on debating the people who think that Jesus was an almost exact copycat of Mithras. I think there is nothing left of that straw man.

Everybody loves Snopes. You know that Brian Flemming interviewed and quoted the authors of the Snopes site for his documentary, The God Who Wasn't There? His point there was that urban legends can arise and propagate in surprisingly short periods of time.

The question of whether two seemingly unrelated historical events show an amazing similarity is a different question from whether a religion that displays some common themes might have borrowed them from contemporaneous religions that also exhibit those themes.

aa5874

I do not know of any Scholar or writer who has claimed that Jesus of the NT was exactly Mithras.

Some here are allowed to engage in Strawman arguments.

It has been reognised an ADMITTED by a Christian writer over 1700 years ago that the Jesus story has parallels to Greek/Roman mythology.

It is therefore PERFECTLY reasonable for any Scholar or writer to SHOW that the Jesus story is Greek/Roman mythology intermingled with Jewish Myth.

shalak

Hmm, I may pick up Justin Martyr's apologies then. If there is a Christian writer combing through the parallels, irregardless of his excuses for them being similar, it could definitely be a good study point for me.

Please remember that this would be my first real study into the comparative religions. By all means please continue the discussions going on here though because it is giving me more resources and more things to look into. I am enjoying the discussions here as well ^_^.

sotto voce

If. It should never be assumed that any writer is a Christian other than the authors of the NT, whoever they were.

shalak

I was under the impression there wasn't any doubt about Justin Martyr being a Christian along with others such as Origin (or whatever his name was) etc. I am wondering what exactly causes a lot of skepticism with any of these authors, save NT writers, being Christians?

aa5874

Your claim is quite contradictory and hopelessly absurd.

A writer who identifies himself as a Christian must NOT be assumed to be a Christian but those who NEVER ever did and of whom we know nothing must be assumed to be Christians!!! How illogical!!!

No Canonised Gospel author identified themselves as a Christian and the Pauline writings appear to contain at least one writer who was a fraud, that is, he was posing as some other person.

And further, it is NOT even sure if the Pauline writers were Christians because they appear to be Notorious liars.