Bede

Hi all,

The Jesus Mysteries has an amulet on the front that shows a crucified man and is labelled Bacchus. The authors claim this shows that Jesus was derived from the mystery religions, which we can, of course, discount. But the question remains, what is this amulet and why does it show a pagan god on a Christian symbol? I found the answer in Richard Kieckhefer's "Magic in the Middle Ages" (CUP) where he discusses these charms and shows illustrations of a couple of them from the British Museum. One features a picture of Jesus on the cross (but this time actually labelled as Jesus) with a woman at prayer at his foot. All very Christian, except that on the reverse are magical incantations.

What is happening here is that any religious symbol believed to have supernatural power is being co-opted by magic users to try to use it for their own purposes. Mainstream pagans as well as Christians were deeply suspicious of this kind of thing and the charms and gems were not part of their religion (or even the mystery religions so the amulet on the cover of JM is unlikely to even be a religious symbol at all). Instead, we find Christian and pagan symbols are being mixed and matched to try and maximise the efficiency of the magic being attempted. The amulet on the cover of the Jesus Mysteries is an interesting example of this rather than the earth shattering piece of evidence the authors take it for. Besides, the British Museum's amulet labelled Jesus is earlier still (3rd century) and, as far as I know, the earliest representation of Jesus being crucified that we possess.

I am trying to get around to visiting the British Museum to check their catalogue (and maybe even see the real thing), but in the meantime thought some here might be interested.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Ted Hoffman

Religions and cults have always borrowed from each other over time. Christianity holds no copyright or patent over anything.
In fact, NOTHING about Jesus is original. I see no problem.

Butters

What about the early church fathers, including Justin Martyr, who did not deny that their religion was the samr as the pagans, but claimed that Satan originated the pagan religions to confuse people when the TRUE religion came along?

Bede

Perhaps you could bring us some of Justin's parallels to see if they are actually convincing. My own experience is that they are not at all clear cut and even he specifically says that the crucifixion had no pagan antecedent.

The fact remains that the picture on the front of the Jesus Mysteries is a 4th century magical amulet and nothing to do with a pre-Christian pagan religion at all. Not that I blame Freke and Gandy for not knowing this, as it took me long enough to find out.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Butters

I'm sure they are not convincing to you, you believe that Christianity is responsible for everything from indoor plumbing to sliced bread.


That may or may not be. You have not laid out any convincing case for this. I have seen several claims that the amulet reffered to as the crucifixion of Baccus dates to around the first century B.C.E., but I haven't found a convincing case for that either. Please show me how you arrived a a 4th century date.

GarColga

Eh? In the photo section of "The Jesus Mysteries", between pages 152-153, it is identified as a 'Plaster cast of a third-century C.E. ring-seal amulet'.

Metacrock

Don't you get it? That means that amulete is not proof of the myther position. O but then you don't proof, you have faith.

Bede

It says 3rd century CE (not fourth as I thought) in the Jesus Mysteries. Have you read it (or indeed anything else relevant)?

B

Metacrock

O well then it's gotta be ture! Guess what else they like about! Look at my post on dying/rising savior gods. They lied about almost eevery so called "dying/rising" savior god!

Gee, but it's in a books, how could it be wrong?

Bede

Garcolga,

Our posts crossed. F and G make out this amulet helps there case that Christianity was based on the pre-Christian pagan mysteries. They think it is a cult object while it is really a magical object.

B