Freethought & Rationalism Archive

11-14-2002, 07:29 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Fiach:

In summary: The trinity was plagiarised from the Egyptians of 2000 years earlier.

//

Jesus was just the last one of a long series of god-man resurrection myths.

Fiach

If Jesus was "last one of a long series of god-man resurrection myths" it was not plagiarized because myth is the description of a reality.

To think it is plagiarized would be to deny the metaphysical reality described by the 'word' story (myth).

CX · 11-14-2002, 09:40 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Fiach:
The story is consistent. It is consistent with the myth of Aten

Fascinating rejoinder. Could you provide some references? I'd be very interested to read more.

Fiach · 11-14-2002, 06:28 PM

CX, I composed the post from several sources which I have read extensively but did not have them here before me as I posted. One excellent one of more recent vintage is DECONSTRUCTION OF JESUS, by Robert M. Price, Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, USA. THE AGE OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT, Jacob Burckhardt, Pantheon Books, 1949, New York. The best single source is an article entitled THE HISTORICAL JESUS AND MYTHICAL CHRIST, by Gerald Massey, found in a book AN ANTHOLOGY OF ATHEISM AND RATIONALISM, edited by Gordon Stein, Ph.D., Prometheus Books, pages 229-239. In that same Anthology book is an another article, THE HISTORICAL REALITY OF JESUS, by Edward Greenly, pages 186-202. I think that you can order them on-line either from Prometheus Books or possibly Internet Infidels.

Massey's article mentions the Luxor wall murals. And while I was in Egypt in the British Army some years ago, I managed on leave to visit Luxor with an archaeologist on a special tour. It "blew me away" as Americans would say. There before me was the New Testament in pictures and cartouches, painted 2000 before it was written by Christians.

Fiach

Soul Invictus · 11-14-2002, 06:46 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by CX:


Well you can believe whatever you'd like but I would suggest studying the history of Xian origins a bit more carefully first.

First off the "Trinity" as a church doctrine evolved over time. It was not created out of whole cloth by any particular ecumencial council. The beginnings of that evolution occur at the Council of Nicaea in 325 C.E. under the auspices of the Constantine. Now what was the occaision for the convening of that council? The heresy promulgated by Bishop Arianus who taught that Jesus was simply a man conferred with the spirit of god. Due to this rather heated controversy the church fathers needed to determine what the official church doctrine with respect to Jesus' essential nature should be. In the end they concluded that Jesus was "of one substance" with god. This was not motivated by paganism or any other outside influence, but rather resulted from the fact that the NT isn't all that clear on Jesus' essential nature.

Now then we have god in two persons namely the father and the son. Again because of the ambiguity of the NT texts there was tremendous confusion over the nature of the "Holy Spirit". Thus in 381 at another ecumenical council in Constantinople the church fathers established that the "Holy Spirit" proceeded from the father and the son in order to quell the controversy.

From this I would conclude that the doctrine of trinity evolved over time due to ongoing controversies steming from ambiguity in the NT. It does not appear that the authors of the NT had a firm trinitarian concept in mind initially.

Now a word about Mithraism. Too often people equate the Roman cult of Sol Invictus (the inconquerable sun) directly with Mithraism and perceive that to be equivalent to the ancient perso-Iranian religion of Zoroaster. This is not accurate. Mithras was a actually a minor deity the Perso-Iranian mystery cult which was eventually codified by Zoroaster to lead to what we know today as Zoroastrianism which worshipped Ahura-Mazda. There is significant evidence of a heavy influence on early Judaism coming from Zoroastrianism (most notably it's argued that Zoroaster's monotheism was adopted by previously polytheistic Jews). We actually know very little about early "Roman Mithraism" because, as a mystery cult, much of it's doctrine and theology were kept secret except to the highest level initiates. There are perhaps some parallels between Mithraism and Early Xianity, but that in and of itself does not prove a direct relationship.

Now about Sol Invictus, it was a Roman cult that enjoyed widespread popularity in the Roman Legions and is actually a syncretistic blend of Mithraism/Zoroastrianism and Roman sun worship (among other things). There is considerable modern controversy as to what the relationship between the Roman cult and Zoroastrianism might be. Eventually it syncretized Xian ideas as well and was ultimately subsumed entirely by Xianity and its original essential doctrines and myths were abandoned. This religion post-dates Xianity suggesting that it is unlikely that the original authors of the NT and early Xians were influenced by it. Again there are parallels, but very often too much is made of what are in all likelihood simply common archetypes being expressed in human religious practices.

Basically there are similar themes in nearly every religion, further there was a mixing of cultures and beliefs in the Levant in antiquity which cross-pollinated various faith systems one with another and as such systems like Zoroastrianism did have a heavy influence on Judaism. Xianity was essentially invented in the 1st century by coopting Jewish themes and theology and the gradual accretion of other religious doctrines over time. The concept of trinity derives almost entirely from confusion and ambiguity within the NT texts themselves and the desire of the early church to define and maintain orthodoxy in the face of strong competition from varying theological perspectives.

[ November 12, 2002: Message edited by: CX ]

HA, CX leave it to you to find my handle in history. I thought the concept of the Trinity had origination from the African of Osiris, Horus and Isis. I guess they all influenced each other. Never really knew wher THE definitive Trinity concept came from.

Sojourner553 · 11-14-2002, 06:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tercel:

And discussing Christianity this board is hardly 'wasting board space'.

We invite people like you, Tercel!

And I agree with you on Amos: I'm not convinced Amos isn't a computer program that generates a response choosing parts of speech RANDOMLY between the previous post and New Age/Christian sources.

I think when you reply to it though, it signals it to generates even MORE of its random postings ... (I made this same mistake not to far back and regretted it!

Sojourner

lpetrich · 11-14-2002, 07:51 PM

First, thanx for all the comments. It's clear to me that the Xian Trinity is an Xian invention that had not been inspired by some pagan-religion trinity.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost do not correspond very well with the pagan examples proffered here. However, all three can be found in the New Testament.

However, there are certainly other Xian doctrines that are very suggestive of pagan influence. The Virgin Birth, with God being Jesus Christ's literal biological father, is a rather obvious one; such divine paternity was common in pagan mythology, and even some historical people were imagined to have such paternity. However, that is foreign to the Old Testament / Tanakh, where one only becomes a sort of adopted son of God. And efforts to find virgin-birth prophecies in the OT have depended on a famous mistranslation of a certain part of Isaiah.

Also, Jesus Christ's mother Mary has clearly been a mother-goddess figure in much of Xianity, much like the various pagan mother-goddesses.

(edited to amplify the virgin-birth part)

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: lpetrich ]

CX · 11-15-2002, 07:01 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Soul Invictus:
HA, CX leave it to you to find my handle in history. I thought the concept of the Trinity had origination from the African of Osiris, Horus and Isis. I guess they all influenced each other. Never really knew wher THE definitive Trinity concept came from.

And I think really that's my point. Is Xian mythology and dogma totally original and unique? Obviously not. Xianity like every other religious system did not spring up in a vacuum and was undoubtedly heavily influenced by cross cultural contacts. The virgin birth thing is the most obvious. On the other hand is Xianity nothing more than stitched together bits and pieces of other religions? No. There is a considerable amount of creative theological development in the history of early Xianity. For example I think the "atonement" is a brilliant piece of dogma. Someone took a somewhat Jewish theme (namely sacrifice for the remission of sins) completely revised it and made it apply to Jesus so that his execution looks like a successful completion of god's plan. I doubt I could have come up with something that compelling. And it's been fabulously successful at propagating Xian memes.

11-15-2002, 10:36 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by CX:


No. There is a considerable amount of creative theological development in the history of early Xianity. For example I think the "atonement" is a brilliant piece of dogma. Someone took a somewhat Jewish theme (namely sacrifice for the remission of sins) completely revised it and made it apply to Jesus so that his execution looks like a successful completion of god's plan. I doubt I could have come up with something that compelling. And it's been fabulously successful at propagating Xian memes.

"Tay John" is about North American Indains of the Athabaska Valley who also have the cross as a way for atonement. Their cross is much the same as ours and serves the same purpose. So there is nothing special here except the beautiful dramatization of the event, first in the bible and later in religion itself. Fabulous indeed but not unique.

Bible Humper · 11-15-2002, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Someone took a somewhat Jewish theme (namely sacrifice for the remission of sins) completely revised it and made it apply to Jesus so that his execution looks like a successful completion of god's plan. I doubt I could have come up with something that compelling. And it's been fabulously successful at propagating Xian memes.

It's less brilliant if there was indeed a Jesus, and he isn't just an amalgam of a bunch of old wive's tales. In that case, they had to rationalise the fact that the guru/deity got executed despite his unearthly might. It seems natural for them to look at it as a sacrifice since the deity is already portrayed as demanding sacrifices anyway!

I wonder if Yahweh regrets that nobody burned Jesus the way he liked animals burnt, so that he could enjoy the "savoury" smell wafting up to his cloud castle.

<img src="graemlins/boohoo.gif" border="0" alt="[Boo Hoo]" />

CX · 11-15-2002, 12:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bible Humper:


It's less brilliant if there was indeed a Jesus, and he isn't just an amalgam of a bunch of old wive's tales. In that case, they had to rationalise the fact that the guru/deity got executed despite his unearthly might. It seems natural for them to look at it as a sacrifice since the deity is already portrayed as demanding sacrifices anyway!

I wonder if Yahweh regrets that nobody burned Jesus the way he liked animals burnt, so that he could enjoy the "savoury" smell wafting up to his cloud castle.

<img src="graemlins/boohoo.gif" border="0" alt="[Boo Hoo]" />

I disagree. I think it's all the more brilliant if we accept an HJ. The early Xians basically took an utter and complete failure whereupon their main guy got himself kilt and turned it into an entire religion. It't genius I tell you. I wish I could come up with an idea like that.

11-14-2002, 07:51 PM	#36
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	First, thanx for all the comments. It's clear to me that the Xian Trinity is an Xian invention that had not been inspired by some pagan-religion trinity. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost do not correspond very well with the pagan examples proffered here. However, all three can be found in the New Testament. However, there are certainly other Xian doctrines that are very suggestive of pagan influence. The Virgin Birth, with God being Jesus Christ's literal biological father, is a rather obvious one; such divine paternity was common in pagan mythology, and even some historical people were imagined to have such paternity. However, that is foreign to the Old Testament / Tanakh, where one only becomes a sort of adopted son of God. And efforts to find virgin-birth prophecies in the OT have depended on a famous mistranslation of a certain part of Isaiah. Also, Jesus Christ's mother Mary has clearly been a mother-goddess figure in much of Xianity, much like the various pagan mother-goddesses. (edited to amplify the virgin-birth part) [ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: lpetrich ]</p>

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11-14-2002, 06:28 PM	#33
Fiach Banned Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Scotland, UK Posts: 602	CX, I composed the post from several sources which I have read extensively but did not have them here before me as I posted. One excellent one of more recent vintage is DECONSTRUCTION OF JESUS, by Robert M. Price, Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, USA. THE AGE OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT, Jacob Burckhardt, Pantheon Books, 1949, New York. The best single source is an article entitled THE HISTORICAL JESUS AND MYTHICAL CHRIST, by Gerald Massey, found in a book AN ANTHOLOGY OF ATHEISM AND RATIONALISM, edited by Gordon Stein, Ph.D., Prometheus Books, pages 229-239. In that same Anthology book is an another article, THE HISTORICAL REALITY OF JESUS, by Edward Greenly, pages 186-202. I think that you can order them on-line either from Prometheus Books or possibly Internet Infidels. Massey's article mentions the Luxor wall murals. And while I was in Egypt in the British Army some years ago, I managed on leave to visit Luxor with an archaeologist on a special tour. It "blew me away" as Americans would say. There before me was the New Testament in pictures and cartouches, painted 2000 before it was written by Christians. Fiach

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