Bible Humper

Here is another tangent of a thread that was supposed to be about solipsism and the existence of God.

According to <a href="http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_04_02_04_MMM.html" target="_blank">this Christian scholar,</a> the often quoted similarities between Jesus and Mithras are all pretty much bunk except for the flimsy December 25 connection.

I can't help but wonder, though, if his conflict of interest perhaps had something to do with his conclusion. What do you guys think?

Bobzammel

Holding is not well liked here

Anyway, even the early Church leaders such as Justin Martyr recognized a similarity between the two.

CX

If you'll look at the thread below on the "Misconceptions about Mithraism" you'll find much introductory material. IMO far too much is made of the similarities between the two cults. As for the December 25th connection well there's nothing flimsy about it. In the early church, Jesus' birth was not an official part of the liturgical calendar. Different Xian congregations celebrated Jesus' birth an baptism at different time of the year. When the church finally decided to officially observer Jesus' birth they picked an arbitrary date absed on the fact that many pagans already had a festival on 25 December. That's not flimsy, that's history.

Fiach

I often wonder why Christianity is not considered an heresy of Zoroastrianism rather then Judaism.

Zarathustra/Zoroaster taught that the cosmos was a conflict between good and evil to be settled at a gigantic battle at the end of time. Ahura Mazda the god of light and good forever fights Ainga Mainu the God of Evil. Of the various sects of Zoroastrianism were several based on Mitra (Mithras, Mithra) who was either born of a rock or a virgin, died and resurrected. He was the light. They had sacraments (not present in Judaism).

In the first Century there were two dominant religions and a host of lesser cults or mystery cults. Even the Celtic Druid faith was growing faster than christianity at first. The fastest growing was Mithraism with shrines all over the Roman Empire. The Cult of Aten the Sun God was also growing. Still small minorities where the Christian cults (many separate sects by the second century), the cult of Apollonius of Tyrana. It seems obvious to me that the evolution of Jesus from messiah to lesser god (Arianism) to full God took almost three centuries. During that time Jesus' story was more and more comingled with that of Aten, Mithra, Apollonius, and possibly Horus (and reflected in the Celtic Sun God, Lugh).

Nothing like that is Judaic. Satan is clearly the Persian Aingr Mainu, who now wages holy war against Joe Hovah. They kept the battle of Armageddon also found in Zoroastrianism. At the end there is a judgement day at which Mitha judges who was good and who was bad. (Sound like Jesus?). Remember that Satan does not appear in the Bible until rather late, probably after the Babylonian captivity. Prior to that the Jewish God Joe Hovah did all of the good and evil acts (such as Noah's Flood, and murdering Egyptian babies.) The serpent in Eden is clearly not Satan. He is described as a serpent not a fallen angel. He is condemned by God to crawl on his belly forever and eat dust. (Joe Hovah was a poor zoologist. He should have known that a legless being has to slide on its belly. And he should have known, if he created them, that snake are carnivores and cannot subsist on a diet of dust.)

In summary: Paul in his lost 14 years in Tarsus, took in a lot of legend from the prevailing Eastern Mystery Cults of that important port and trading city. He had thousands of Mithraists and Atenists around him, a few Jews, and some still evolving undefined Christians. Jesus was still silly putty waiting to be molded. When he was molded, Mithras was one of the models, with a little profile from Aten, attitude from Apollonius, and self-sacrifice from Lugh.

Fiach

Anti-Creedance Front

Granted I'm no college major in the subject, but I've been actively studying this for 2 years. Note that PERSIA conquered Israel before the birth of Jesus. Then, you would already have the underlying Zoroastrian concepts, as Zoroastrianism was forced upon the Jewish populace, before Mithraism came around. I do think Mithraism was a Zoroastrian spinoff, but I think the Persian conquest softened up the Jews for conversion to Mithraism. By the way, this guy is a riot.

(The rock-birth scene itself was a likely carryover from Perseus, who experienced a similar birth in an underground cavern; Ulan.OMM, 36.)

Perseus is a Romantic mutation of Persian! Duh! Mithra IS Perseus.