FRDB Archives

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.


Go Back   FRDB Archives > Archives > Religion (Closed) > Biblical Criticism & History
Welcome, Peter Kirby.
You last visited: Yesterday at 03:12 PM

 
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 12-24-2006, 09:53 AM   #1
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: London, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 1,719
Default Mythemes: Odin's crucifixion

According to the Nordic poem Havamal Odin was crucified as follows:
Quote:
[Odin says to himself:]
I know that I hung on a windy tree
nights all nine,
wounded with a spear and given to Odin,
myself to myself,
on that tree of which no man knows from where its roots run
There are three obvious parallels with Christian mythology here. First of course that the god (Odin) was crucified (cf Acts 5:30: "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree" in order to equate crucifixion with hanging on a tree). Second that the god sacrificed himself ("given to Odin, myself to myself"). Third that he was wounded by a spear, similar to John 19:34 "But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water."

The oldest source for the Havamal seems to be from around 800CE, so we cannot establish if the myth predates the development of the Jesus story. Nevertheless the parallel between the two is interesting, especially as the crucified saviour/god in this case is not one of the usual suspects from the mysteries.

This parallel is my main point, but I do not want to withold what Arthur Drews in The Christ Myth, says about the spear thrust:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Arthur Drews
The transfixing of the victim with the holy lance, as we find it in John xix. 34, appears to be a very old sacrificial custom, which is found among the most different races. For example, both among the Scythian tribes in Albania in the worship of Astarte (Strabo) and in Salamis, on the island of Cyprus, in that of Moloch (Eusebius, "Praep. Evang.," iv.16). "The lance thrust," Says Ghillany, with reference to the Saviour's death, "was not given with the object of testing whether the sufferer was still alive, but was in order to correspond with the old method of sacrificing. The legs were not broken because the victim could not be mutilated. In the evening the corpse had to be taken down, just as Joshua only allowed the kings sacrificed to the sun to remain until the evening upon the cross" (op. cit., 558).
The op cit here is "Die Menschenopfer der alten Hebräer" (The Human Sacrifices of the Ancient Hebrews) by Ghillany, 1842.

Gerard Stafleu
gstafleu is offline  
Old 12-24-2006, 10:03 AM   #2
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Colorado
Posts: 8,674
Default

There are major problems with this entire line of comparison though. I find all of this a bit like the work of Joseph Campbell, pointing out various broad similarities and then trying to do cultural psychoanalysis on it.

This stuff has nothing to do with the story of Jesus, because we can see the very clear "Old Testament" basis for these story elements.

When looking at the story of Jesus, the first place to look for understanding it is the Hebrew scriptures, mostly the OT, but also the midrash, etc.
Malachi151 is offline  
Old 12-24-2006, 11:11 AM   #3
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: London, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 1,719
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Malachi151 View Post
When looking at the story of Jesus, the first place to look for understanding it is the Hebrew scriptures, mostly the OT, but also the midrash, etc.
Of course it is. I'm not saying one story is derived from the other. But I do find it interesting that we find such an obvious parallel in two such otherwise different myths. Do you simply write it off to total coincidence? Could be, I suppose, something like the human imagination can only imagine a limited amount of things, so we are bound to find overlaps. But even then, we find a little cluster of three overlaps here, isn't that a bit much for coincidence?

Gerard Stafleu
gstafleu is offline  
Old 12-24-2006, 11:34 AM   #4
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Colorado
Posts: 8,674
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by gstafleu View Post
Of course it is. I'm not saying one story is derived from the other. But I do find it interesting that we find such an obvious parallel in two such otherwise different myths. Do you simply write it off to total coincidence? Could be, I suppose, something like the human imagination can only imagine a limited amount of things, so we are bound to find overlaps. But even then, we find a little cluster of three overlaps here, isn't that a bit much for coincidence?

Gerard Stafleu
In this case yes I do write it off as either coincidence, or a later corruption of the Nordic poem. We know very well where the whole "piercing" thing comes from in the Jesus story, and can see why it is a story element.
Malachi151 is offline  
Old 12-24-2006, 01:17 PM   #5
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: London, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 1,719
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Malachi151 View Post
In this case yes I do write it off as either coincidence, or a later corruption of the Nordic poem.
Coincidence, hm, that seems a bit of a stretch, could be though. I'll sooner buy a contamination.

Quote:
We know very well where the whole "piercing" thing comes from in the Jesus story, and can see why it is a story element.
The piercing bit is not my primary focus here, that is the self crucifixion. I see the piercing bit as a poignant detail.

Do I take it that you'll want to see some more examples of self crucifixion, with or without piercing spears, from other mythologies before you start thinking about the universality of this theme?

Gerard Stafleu
gstafleu is offline  
Old 12-24-2006, 01:18 PM   #6
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: London, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 1,719
Default

Oh, and BTW, how do you see the origins of the piercing and why it is a story element?

Gerard Stafleu
gstafleu is offline  
Old 12-24-2006, 01:21 PM   #7
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: England
Posts: 2,561
Default

Given how late our sources for Odin hanging on Yggdrasil are, it would not be surprising if it had been influenced by Christianity.

The interesting conclusions to be drawn form the Odin myth are:

1) If the myth evolved independently of christianity, it demonstrates that this kind of myth is just the sort of thing that humanity is prone to come up with.

2) If the myth evolved under Christian influence, it demonstrates how easy it is for important story elements to be lifted from one mythic tradition into another.
The Evil One is offline  
Old 12-24-2006, 02:17 PM   #8
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Colorado
Posts: 8,674
Default

For one thing:

Quote:
Isaiah 53:

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
More specifically:

Quote:
Zechariah 12:

10 "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit [a] of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son. 11 On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be great, like the weeping of Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. 12 The land will mourn, each clan by itself, with their wives by themselves: the clan of the house of David and their wives, the clan of the house of Nathan and their wives, 13 the clan of the house of Levi and their wives, the clan of Shimei and their wives, 14 and all the rest of the clans and their wives.
See:

Quote:
John 19:

34Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. 35The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. 36These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: "Not one of his bones will be broken," 37and, as another scripture says, "They will look on the one they have pierced."
John 19 refers to Zechariah 12, though in typical Christian fashion, the reference makes no real sense.
Malachi151 is offline  
Old 12-24-2006, 02:25 PM   #9
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: London, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 1,719
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Evil One View Post
The interesting conclusions to be drawn form the Odin myth are:

1) If the myth evolved independently of Christianity, it demonstrates that this kind of myth is just the sort of thing that humanity is prone to come up with.

2) If the myth evolved under Christian influence, it demonstrates how easy it is for important story elements to be lifted from one mythic tradition into another.
Exactly. Which, I would suggest, shows why it is useful to try and gather such common mythemes, regardless of whether they belong in class 1 or class 2.

BTW, I would like to tentatively (pending more evidence/examples) propose a class 3: a common origin for the mythemes, followed by a parallel development of the specific myths. But even without class 3, classes 1 and 2 provide sufficient incentive to look into the matter.

Should a sufficiently large class 1 (things that humanity is prone to come up with) be established, the next question re that class would then be why humanity comes up with these.

Gerard Stafleu
gstafleu is offline  
Old 12-24-2006, 02:33 PM   #10
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: London, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 1,719
Default

(Malachi151 points out a number of piercings)

Agreed, one can see where John got it: piercing occurs as a (bit of a) theme in the OT. You can probably guess my next question: whence this theme? If we then see a similar piercing in the Odin story, we can wonder if we should recognize a general mythological piercing theme. And, running far ahead of ourselves at this point, we can hopefully wonder if at some point we will be able to do better than saying "in typical Christian fashion, the reference makes no real sense." Maybe it does make sense, even if right now we don't know why.

Gerard Stafleu
gstafleu is offline  
 

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 12:54 AM.

Top

This custom BB emulates vBulletin® Version 3.8.2
Copyright ©2000 - 2015, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.