GakuseiDon

We aren't even at the stage of examining whether those beliefs were logical or not, or alien to our way of thinking or not. I am trying to find data to see whether Doherty is correct about "the average pagan's" beliefs in the first place.

Is Doherty correct, IYO?

OK, good! So when Doherty or others talk about Hellenism influencing Christianity, we know it couldn't have been along the lines of saviour gods dying in a "fleshly sublunar realm", since the pagans didn't hold that belief. Would you agree with that?

rlogan

What I am saying is that trying to put any kind of rigor to religious thinking is an oxymoron. The average person believes in things that are not real and I'm not sure how much further we can go than that.

As soon as I read "sublunar" and the like then I'm just not interested anymore. I don't understand the import of even trying. So I don't see what there is to argue about. Whether heaven is "here" or "there" or "everywhere" doesn't make sense to me as fundamentally different views.


I'm not sure I understand the question. You seem to be responding to my observation that sacrifice of the Christ is unique to christianity. If you want to know where I think that came from, I believe it to be Isaiah 53.

Where that savior "exists" is not really a profitable avenue for troubling ourselves. But that it does not conform to Jewish orthodoxy for the Messiah is quite clear - and other Jewish laws or tradition are not followed, so whether it is called "bastardized" or "hellanized" or whatever is appropriate in that respect. It isn't strictly Jewish.

I can't really act in Earl's stead here. Whatever import one places on splitting hairs over "where the crucifixion takes place" is misguided IMHO.

Clivedurdle

Excuse me, are you arguing Paul had never heard of Job, in which Satan is continually going into and out of the presence of God?

I recommend Pagels on Satan. Where on earth, in the aer - spell it right or above the firmament do you get the idea that there were these fixed boundaries when we continually have stories of God walking in the garden in the cool of the evening, the sons of the gods knowing women and creating giants, angels talking to Lot and Mary and many many many more interactions between the gods, demons and humans. Yup a sect may have put limits on stuff, but others didn't. Even Luther thought cold winds over miserable Swiss ponds were demons!

It is all to do with the total world view, which was mixed and muddled, including the classic judaic one of a temple shaped world with as vault above it and some Egypto - Greek ideas that the world was round and the sun was a hot ball.

Alchemic concepts are ubiquitous - aer, fire, spirit, water, fish, blood, wood, metal. We have a clear alchemic ritual in the eucharist - wine into blood, bread into flesh and Jesus Christ is a classic philosophers stone. Before Newton it was thought angels moved the stars - as demons are forms of angels why should they not be above the firmament? Job talks naturally of satan in the presense of God. Pagels also talks of how ideas of satan have evolved. So have ideas of demons. There is no problem with them being all over the place. Later thinkers may have attempted to tidy things up and limit where demons went but that is only an evolution in thinking, probably related to logical - but invented - rules about interactions resulting from observation of stuff like drowning and how come fish can live without breathing.

GakuseiDon

Perhaps we are arguing at cross-purposes. It's what "the average pagan" believed that is at question. Let's find out what they believed first, and then worry about how much sense it made later. (In my opinion, Doherty is wrong on what they believed, but I want to establish that first. We can determine its significance -- if any -- later)

GakuseiDon

Indeed, it is about the total world view. Doherty claims that (my emphasis):

For the average pagan, the bulk of the workings of the universe went on in the vast unseen spiritual realm (the "genuine" part of the universe) which began at the lowest level of the "air" and extended ever upward through the various layers of heaven. Here a savior god like Mithras could slay a bull, and Attis could be castrated.

Does that adequately represent the world view of pagans at that time? I really want to concentrate on the pagan side of this at this stage.

Clivedurdle

The use of the term pagan is also disingenuous. Are you not setting up false dichotomies between various ideas and beliefs? Look at the modern varieties of beliefs - I think that no two people on the planet have the same beliefs.

It is a huge international game of chinese whispers, people were continually trading and sharing ideas, taking bits from here there and everywhere.

We have from at least 500 BCE influences of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Persian, Buddhist, Celtic, probably taoist and confucianist ideas. Forgot Carthage!

GakuseiDon

I'm quoting Doherty. Is he setting up false dichotomies, IYO?

Did Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Persian, Buddhist, Celtic, taoists and confucianists believe that their gods acted in an unseen spiritual realm, as per Doherty's quote?

jgibson000

Leaving aside the issue that many people do think the same thing and the same time, and operate from the same basic conceptual and ontological framework, and that within a given culture there is always an over lap of beliefs among people who think differently, you miss the point. It's not what you think. It's whether Earl's claim about the prominence of a particular shared belief is true. and whether there is any evidence that confirms it (and whether the particular evidence he adduces to show it is confirmed actually does so).

Can you stop riding you alchemy and magical thinking hobby horse for one moment and concentrate on a different idea?

Can you back up this claim with some evidence?

We do? Where? In NT writings? Can you give us some instances from the NT where these "influences" appear? Where, for instance, do Celtic and Buddhist, let alone Egyptian (and from what era of Egyptian culture?) appear?

JG

Clivedurdle

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MA/CELTS.HTM

Umm influence of Celts - let's see, Galatians?

And what hobbyhorse about alchemy and magical thinking. It isn't me continually talking about fish, water, spirits, annointing, wine into blood, bread into flesh, crosses, clay, spitting, blindness and a myriad other alchemic ideas - it is Christianity!

Are these themes there or not?

Clivedurdle

I think I mentioned Carthage. Oh yes Phoenicians - you know - Goliath? Salt, trading, sharing stories of an evening....

How old is the Silk Road, how exactly did the Persians at the time of Marathon communicate across an Empire reaching from the edges of China to Greece?

What are those stories about Joseph in Egypt and camels?