SLD

NO. You're evidence points to mithraism appearing in the middle of the first century BC. You've stated this several times in this debate. Do you not know what BC means? Let me explain it, it means the century before Christ - not after.

Furthermore there is another telling point in this - Mithraism had its start in the same region that Paul comes from - the greater Tarsus region in the Southern part of Asia minor along the coast. Paul would have been intimately familiar with Mithraic mystery cults and it seems that he incorporated some of its ideas and rituals (especially the Eucharist) into Christianity.



You miss the point Metacrock. The Eucharist is one of the most important links between Christianity and the Mystery Cults. It is vital to participate in it as a Catholic today and for centuries past. (Maybe not so much for modern day fundies). But we have overwhelming evidence that the Eucharist was around long before Christianity. Cicero mentions it, a fact you just ignored in your long post above. And as I pointed out above, Mithraism was around in the eastern provinces starting at least in the 1st century BC not 1st Century AD.

You also seem not to understand the point of quoting the early church writers on this point. These early Christians admitted that the Mithraic Eucharist pre-existed Christianity. That is significant evidence that the Mithraic Eucharist itself pre-existed Christianity and that it was very similar to the Christian one. We don't need the original texts from the early first century BC to prove this point. If the early Christians were willing to admit it, can't you?

Ahh. You're only argument is Jesus wasn't made up?!! Please you've been arguing far more than that here. Several posters have made the point that whether Jesus is "made up" or not is irrelevant. The question is whether the stories about him in the New Testament are true or not. Showing that there was a historical character somewhere behind all this proves nothing about what this historical character stood for. It most certainly does not prove the resurrection.

Finally, let me respond to an earlier post about the Virgin Births and sex with god. Not all of the virgin births involve sex with God. Both Herodotus and Plutarch, before Christianity, talk of immaculate conceptions occuring via a ray of light. Perseus's mother, Diana is also impregnated by Zeus as a shaft of golden light (as opposed to another more common shaft that Zeus used on other occasions). The virgin births thus are not all sexual. Nevertheless, the important archtype of the story is that God has an encounter with a virgin and a demigod is born - rather sexually or asexually.

SLD

SLD

Peter Kirby

Metacrock says: "hate to tell you this. But all of those guys but Titus do in fact mention Jesus!"

Pliny the Elder didn't mention Jesus. You are probably thinking of Pliny the Younger.

best,
Peter Kirby

lpetrich

Peter Kirby:
Metacrock says: "hate to tell you this. But all of those guys but Titus do in fact mention Jesus!"

?

Pliny the Elder didn't mention Jesus. You are probably thinking of Pliny the Younger.

I mentioned Pliny the Elder on account of the 3-hour midday darkness during the Crucifixion in Matthew. If Thallus had seen it, PtE and others must also have seen it. And nobody's ever claimed that PtE had seen it.

And the same can be said of Philo of Alexandria -- he also would have seen it if it had happened and written about it. But he had not written a thing about it.

Likewise, Josephus was a very little boy when it allegedly happened, but he could have learned of it from others -- along with all those zombies walking out of their tombs and stuff like that.

None of these gentlemen need to have tied those remarkable sights to JC's crucifixion -- all they "had" to do is record it and give a date for which it happened.

Peter Kirby

I agree with you about the silence on these fantastic events. I was responding to Metacrock, who said that Pliny the Elder had mentioned Jesus.

best,
Peter Kirby

Metacrock

Meta =>why do you guys always do this? Is it just poor reading comprehension? Is it because you weren't in college debate, so you can't follow a long argument? Or is it an attempt to put me through Holy AG-oooooo-neeeee!


[i]I didn't bring it up! I'm not arguing that this proves anything! Sojourner said "if Jesus was real they would have mentioned him" and she listed several of those in the list. So I put up the list and said "they did mention him." that's a direct answer to her argument. But it's not my argument, I wasnt' trying to prove Jesus' existece with that list, I don't need to.

I aslo will say this: So what if they lived after him? They are historians, they are suppossed to write about the past! that doesnt' prove they didn't have access to materials about him!!!









Meta =>Gibbon's book about the Roman empire was fifth and sixth hand. So I guess it didn't really fall right? Thallus quoted by Africanus. Show what's wrong with that? It's still a tradition of scholarly sources, Africanus was a good historian. What's the problem?




Meta =>I don't care about that! So what if Matt embellished the text with that about the graves exploding open? that doens't prove Jesus was made up by a pattern of pagan gods!



Meta =>argument form silence. I've already indicated why Jesus wouldh't be mentioned by them.


Josephus and the Talmudic evidence are enoguh to prove his existence anyway.






Meta =>I'm sure you misconstrue him too. and couldn't out argue his arguments either.

Metacrock

[/b]



Meta => Yes, you are quite right. I may have misspoke myself in writting too quickly (look up there in that thread, there's a lot of crap to cover!). The cult appeared in the 1st century BC as far we know, but it's artifacts that show any similiarites to christianity all show up latter. That says to me that they copied Christianity, since the Roman soliders from Ostia were in Jerusalem; but I admit copy could have gone both ways.







Meta =>Nothing more than argument from sign. That' a fallacy. Just because they were in the same region hardly proves that Paul barrowed from them. Paul brags about being a Pharisee, why would a faithful jew who is proud of his phariseeism copy form pagan cults? He also incidates in 1 cor that he thinks other relgions are filled with demons. Why would he barrow from them?







Meta =>No, you miss the piont my skeptical friend. Such things are archetypes, not conscoius barrowing. That doesnt' prove Jesus was made up. At most it proves that certain religious practices are shared by many faiths, big deal.







Meta =>Well first of all, that christian apologists say it is reason to doubt it! Because they weren't anthropologists. Unless we know how the Mithrists talked about it, we don't know if the apologists are just reading in their own understanding of cerimonial bread.

example: RCC missinoaries went to Tiabet in the middel ages. They couldnt' speak the language but they saw monks in black robes with prayer beeds. They assumed that these were long lost Catholic brotheren who had fortgotten the mass and had their own native language version of it. They thought they were catholics! they were Buddhists. So Tertullian may have heard that these pagans have bread in their ceremonies so he assumed they they think of this in the same way we do. They didn't necessarily. That's also some time after the gosples are written. Just because they had it by that time doesn't mean they didn't copy it from Christianity.

and all of that is irrelivant because having a eucharist doesn't imply that Jesus was made up!






Meta =>go back and look at the very first post and the very first sentence of the very first post.








Meta =>Everytime they said that I've said "I am only concerned about the historiacal Jesus!" when will atheists learn to listen? or skeptics or whatever???







Meta =>go back and look at what I said about archetypical barrowing?

also check out my page on Biblical inspiration, maybe that will give you a clue as to why I am not bothered by the prostect of coplies in the Bible. My only concern is to show that Jesus was not made up!


I've done this in this very thread, read these two pages and you will see what my concerns are, and why it does't bother me to think that some little thing might be a copy from some other faith. But Jesus himself is not a little thing:


Salvationa/other faiths

http://www.geocities.com/metacrock20...n_others1.html


models of Rev
http://www.geocities.com/metacrock20...Models_rev.htm

Metacrock

the list says Pleny the younger. If my additonal fn to the list said elder, yes, that was a mistake.

Metacrock

Meta =>OK first of all, I didn't say Pleny the E spoke of the darkness at noon. I said Celsus did. and thallus. Secondly, I don't care about that. I don't care if that's an embellishment. Read my links in the post above and find out why I don't care.






Meta =>So what? that doesn't prove anything. That's just argument from Silence.


again, read those links, see why i don't care.

My purpose was not to prove that a darkness at noon happened, it was to indicate to Sojourner that some people did talk about Jesus and about the miracles in the NT. But that doesn't mean I care to prove that they happened.

lpetrich

Meta =>why do you guys always do this? Is it just poor reading comprehension? Is it because you weren't in college debate, so you can't follow a long argument? Or is it an attempt to put me through Holy AG-oooooo-neeeee!

???

Meta =>Gibbon's book about the Roman empire was fifth and sixth hand. So I guess it didn't really fall right? Thallus quoted by Africanus. Show what's wrong with that? It's still a tradition of scholarly sources, Africanus was a good historian. What's the problem?

First, Gibbon can be checked against numerous surviving primary sources.

Second, was Africanus being truly objective or being an Xtian propagandist? None of Thallus's works survive, and he is only mentioned third-hand. So why grasp at such a pathetically weak straw?

Meta =>I don't care about that! So what if Matt embellished the text with that about the graves exploding open? that doens't prove Jesus was made up by a pattern of pagan gods!

So that's where Metacrock draws the line.

(non-mention by Pliny the Elder, Philo, Josephus, etc.)

Meta =>argument form silence. I've already indicated why Jesus wouldh't be mentioned by them.

Maybe not Jesus Christ himself, but that alleged 3-hour midday darkness. It would have been present for everybody to see, even if most of those seeing it would not have been able to connect it to JC's crucifixion.

Josephus and the Talmudic evidence are enoguh to prove his existence anyway.

There have been oodles of arguments over Josephus's few stray references, and the Talmud is second-hand, at best. The Talmud also tells us that JC's father was a Roman soldier named Panthera, and do you believe that, O Metacrock?

Meta =>... Paul brags about being a Pharisee, why would a faithful jew who is proud of his phariseeism copy form pagan cults? He also incidates in 1 cor that he thinks other relgions are filled with demons. Why would he barrow from them?

Simple. He could have carried over some pagan practices from earlier in his life. And he had joined some already-existing sect that may already have had some of these practices.

While all the time claiming that he believes in the One True Religion.

MortalWombat

And yet just a few lines down, you have just answered your own question in your explanation for the ubiquity of the use of the Eucharist in pre-Christian religions:Whenever a movie is made these days with the plot "boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back," does anyone accuse the screenwriter of directly copying off of earlier movies and stories? No. These types of ideas are "in the air" so to speak. If common "in the air" ideas and themes are used today, what makes it so difficult to understand that it wouldn't be the case in antiquity as well?

To use your own expression, it may not have been "conscious borrowing" at all. If these ideas were all up in the air at the time and incorporated into multiple religions independently, if may have appeared to Paul that the other religions were just demonic copycats made to lure away true believers.
Let's look at the verses in question:
The fact that he even has to tell his followers not to partake in the rituals of the pagans is telling. It appears by these verses that all of these religions have very common practices. But to Paul only Christianity is the genuine article: the others are demonic frauds.

If the commonality of the rituals is due to "archetypes and not conscious borrowing", why not also the same for the commonality of other aspects of the religions?