All of the supernatural characters of Christianity

[_Milesius]

Hercules was the first to pop into my mind. There are a number of versions of the story of Hercules. One of those versions names his mother, Alcmenes (also the name for the virgin goddess) as a virgin.

According to whom DB?

This detail of Hercules isn't all that important. We can name a number of virgin-born figures, but the point that I was making was that this wasn't necessarily reason to suggest that all aspects of the story were borrowed. I was just making a point that there are similarities, not just between Jesus and Hercules, but many other figures. The most important virgin-born figure (as it relates to synthesis into the Christian theology) to Jesus would be Mithra, born of a virgin in a cave.

Mithras was born of a rock DB.

The one most relevant to the story of Jesus is the Semitic version of Adonis, who satisfies "risen" the way you intended it, since he dies with Winter and rises with Spring.

He is not relevant at all DB.

As to Paul, I was under the impression that, by his own admission, he never knew the person Jesus but, instead, based his entire faith on a vision he claimed came to him about Jesus’ resurrection. I suppose I will have to dig deeper, but it poses more of a mystery as to why early church leaders were unfamiliar with the "facts" about the life of Jesus.

Wrong again DB.

Either way, as Moksha mentioned, others, including Dionysus shows remarkable similarities to Jesus.

No.



This one is a known forgery. I would not be surprised if the others are as well, or if they are being misrepresented.

Moksha also mentioned Mithra:

The epigraphical and other evidence we have for the particulars of Mithraic worship postdates Christianity DB.

Some have even suggested that early Christians were indistinguishable from worshippers of Serapis.

Some morons perhaps.

I, of course, understand the reluctance of believers to accept that a synthesis of these stories created their religion, but don't pretend that it isn't a possibility.

You are absolutely credulous and vapid DB.

[_Milesius]

You are still full of **** I see.

What is your problem?

I suppose I feel compelled to prove you wrong, just to show everyone how much of an ass you are...

Hercules:
• born from a god (Zeus) and a mortal virgin mother (Alcmene).
• while still an infant, a jealous goddess, Hera, tried to kill him.
• performed miraculous deeds.
• descended into Hades.
• died in agony.
• rose again as a god.

Are you trying to suggest that there are no similarities? Or are you suggesting that the similarities between Jesus and Hercules exist because the Jews stole the story from the Greeks?

Either way, you would be wrong.


Did early Christians believe Jesus had a physical body?

• Paul records not one thing from an earthly life of Jesus.
• Clement is credited with the most important Christian text outside the New Testament, his First Epistle. It attributes to the Apostles themselves foreknowledge of career rivalry among Christians, who consequently institute "Apostolic succession" to maintain the peace of the Church. The epistle, important as it is in the gathering up of papal authority, says nothing of a historical Jesus.
• Barnabas says much about Enoch, Daniel, Moses, and what the Lord "hath revealed to us by all the prophets", but says next to nothing about Jesus.
• Papias, a 2nd century Bishop of Phrygia knew nothing of the 'Gospels'.


So, how do you explain early church leaders not having knowledge of many of the important elements of Christianity held as truth, today?

Rather than being a crybaby, you might consider engaging in discussion. Else we will all be forced to consider you a mental invalid and unworthy of future responses.

My problem is that I don't suffer fools like you gladly. If you and that crazy, worthless skank Acharya S (from whose site you lifted this stupid bull**** verbatim without attribution) are going to share a brain, then at least get one that works.

Incidentally, I already vaporized you here DB.

[_Milesius]

It is absolutely true. The character El (not just the name) is Canaanite, and we find that character in the Bible. But the pagans invented him. Same goes for Yahweh.

No, it is not, hayseed. You claimed "All of the supernatural characters of Christianity were stolen from the pagans," which is not remotely true, even if what you claimed above is correct, which it isn't.

[_Jersey Girl]

Milesius

The epigraphical and other evidence we have for the particulars of Mithraic worship postdates Christianity DB.

Exactly so. Thank you!

[_mikwut]

Hi again emilysmith,

Hercules was the first to pop into my mind. There are a number of versions of the story of Hercules. One of those versions names his mother, Alcmenes (also the name for the virgin goddess) as a virgin.

No, not one. They all tell the story of an oath that Amphitryon makes to preserve her virginity until he returns from seeking revenge for the death of her brother. They are cousins. For heavens sakes the stories themselves show that she bore two sons by intercouse, one with Zeus and one with Amphitryon, she wasn't a virgin and the legends don't make that claim. Read them. You didn't provide a source for your quote so I can't assess it. I realize there are the allegations your making, repeating them from dubious sources doesn't offer more credibility, it compounds the frustration.

This detail of Hercules isn't all that important. We can name a number of virgin-born figures, but the point that I was making was that this wasn't necessarily reason to suggest that all aspects of the story were borrowed. I was just making a point that there are similarities, not just between Jesus and Hercules, but many other figures. The most important virgin-born figure (as it relates to synthesis into the Christian theology) to Jesus would be Mithra, born of a virgin in a cave.

Source? Mithra was not born of a virgin and what is the point of a post Christian similarity? Where is the scholarly article or source for these claims? What is the point of your similarities? There are carbon based similarities between bugs and man rocks, so what? Are you making a syncretic claim or not?

Christ's perilous possibility with Herod and Hercules' with Hera are more dissimilar than similar.

suppose I could have been wrong, but I was under the impression that Jesus went to Hell and preached to the angels that had been cast down there. My Bible study is a little rusty, though. Now that i am picking through, I see that it is maybe just implied by Isaiah.

The more prescient point is the dissimilarities. Hades and Hell are syncretic possibilities for sure but are not the same thing, and the reasons Hercules and Jesus interacted with either are completely disimiliar.

We agree Herc wasn't resurrected akin to Jesus.

To suggest that there are no similarities would be the equivalent of burying your head in the sand... truly.

Sure, but to suggest that there are not any meaningful similarities to substantiated your claim, would be completely mature, reflective and consistent with scholarly consensus and sources.[/quote]

A crucified Dionysus 400 years before Christ in the same vicinity?

Source, because the syncretism works after Christianity as well, although your timing is claimed it isn't source documented anywhere.

A virgin-born Mithra whose members partake of his flesh just like the Christian sacrament? These are fairly specific parallels.

Mithra was not born of a virgin unless you mean a rock is a virgin but not a female human virgin. There is no Christian sacrament either. There is common Roman meals that mithraists participated in. There is one quote often bandied that cannot be properly attributed to Mithra. What is your sources?

I, of course, understand the reluctance of believers to accept that a synthesis of these stories created their religion, but don't pretend that it isn't a possibility.

I won't pretend if such proper scholarly research compels me so, but it doesn't, and it isn't any sort of reluctance, this is really bad skepticism, really. I take skepticism very seriously and have deep respect for robust and thoughtful expressions of it, but this stuff has been shown silly by scholarly consensus, and not just believers. I think a reluctance of non-believers to have easy and simple answers to a complex matter is also at play.

my best, mikwut

[_emilysmith]

You are still full of **** I see.

My problem is that I don't suffer fools like you gladly. If you and that crazy, worthless skank Acharya S (from whose site you lifted this stupid bull**** verbatim without attribution) are going to share a brain, then at least get one that works.

Incidentally, I already vaporized you here DB.

Wow, you are a genuinely dumb blonde. Both Josephus and Tacitus mention Jesus, and they are not the only ones, just the most important outside of the New Testament.

Are you that insecure that you must resort to a constant stream of insults?

Incidentally, the Josephus text is a forgery. Even the Catholic Church admits that much. Other problems presented by the Josephus text include the fact that he mentions many Jesuses, and the one in questions is the son of Damneus.

One also has to ask why a practicing Jew would refer to Jesus as the messiah, I suppose.

"The passage seems to suffer from repeated interpolations." – Catholic Encyclopedia.

" How could Josephus claim that Jesus had been the answer to his messianic hopes yet remain an orthodox Jew?

If Josephus really thought Jesus had been 'the Christ' surely he would have added more about him than one paragraph, a casual aside in someone else's (Pilate's) story?

Not a single writer before the 4th century – not Justin, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, etc. – in all their defences against pagan hostility, makes a single reference to Josephus’ wondrous words.

The third century Church 'Father' Origen, for example, spent half his life and a quarter of a million words contending against the pagan writer Celsus. Origen drew on all sorts of proofs and witnesses to his arguments in his fierce defence of Christianity. He quotes from Josephus extensively. Yet even he makes no reference to this 'golden paragraph' from Josephus, which would have been the ultimate rebuttal. In fact, Origen actually said that Josephus was "not believing in Jesus as the Christ."

Origen did not quote the 'golden paragraph' because this paragraph had not yet been written.

It was absent from early copies of the works of Josephus and did not appear in Origen's third century version of Josephus, referenced in his Contra Celsum."

But it gets worse:

"It was the around the year 53 AD that Josephus decided to investigate the sects among the Jews. According to the gospel fable this was the period of explosive growth for the Christian faith: " the churches ... throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria ... were edified... and ... were multiplied." – Acts 9:31.

This is also the time of the so-called "Council of Jerusalem" when supposedly Paul regaled the brothers with tales of "miracles and wonders" among the gentiles (Acts 15.12).

And yet Josephus knows nothing of all this:

"When I was sixteen years old, I decided to get experience with the various sects that are among us. These are three: as we have said many times, the first, that of the Pharisees, the second that of the Saduccees, the third, that of the Essenes. For I thought that in this way I would choose best, if I carefully examined them all. Therefore, submitting myself to strict training, I passed through the three groups." – Life, 2.

Josephus, Pliny, Seutonius, Tactitus, and several other sources commonly held up by Christians as proof, has all turned out to be wild goose chases. What is even worse, is that the early Christians treated the truth like the Muslims currently do. This means they were willing to lie for the greater good.

"How it may be Lawful and Fitting to use Falsehood as a Medicine, and for the Benefit of those who Want to be Deceived." - Jerome, 12th Book of Evangelical Preparation

"We shall introduce into this history in general only those events which may be useful first to ourselves and afterwards to posterity." - Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 8, chapter 2.

"Not all true things are the truth, nor should that truth which merely seems true according to human opinions be preferred to the true truth, that according to the faith." - Clement (quoted by M. Smith, Clement of Alexandria, p446)

"Do you see the advantage of deceit? ...

For great is the value of deceit, provided it be not introduced with a mischievous intention. In fact action of this kind ought not to be called deceit, but rather a kind of good management, cleverness and skill, capable of finding out ways where resources fail, and making up for the defects of the mind ...

And often it is necessary to deceive, and to do the greatest benefits by means of this device, whereas he who has gone by a straight course has done great mischief to the person whom he has not deceived." - Chrysostom, Treatise On The Priesthood, Book 1

"The False Decretals" were a set of more than a hundred fake letters and decrees attributed to pontiffs from first century Clement (88-97) to seventh century Gregory I (590-604). They are now attributed to 'Isodore Mercator', a ninth century master forger, almost certainly a papal aide.

"The Clementines" were twenty books of 'curious religious romance' (Catholic Encyclopedia), masqueraded as the work of first century pontiff Clement I though they were written in the fourth century.

The correspondence between Seneca and Paul were also a fourth century invention of first century letters.

A two-part document known as the "Donation of Constantine" was supposedly from the first Christian emperor to Pope Sylvester I (314-35). In reality, it was forged in the 8th Century.

The list of forgeries goes on and on. Christians have been lying since day one, and they continue to let the leaders of their church's deceive the willing mass.

Tacitus suffers the same problem, and is clearly an interpolation. Sulpicius Severus is the first one to mention him word for word, even though others who would have had access to his work earlier conveniently leave out this text.

So, I don't know how you could consider that any kind of a victory, considering you cite known forgeries. Even worse is that you act like a 12 year old boy.

Do you have some kind of mental illness?

[_basilII]

Did early Christians believe Jesus had a physical body?

• Paul records not one thing from an earthly life of Jesus.
• Clement is credited with the most important Christian text outside the New Testament, his First Epistle. It attributes to the Apostles themselves foreknowledge of career rivalry among Christians, who consequently institute "Apostolic succession" to maintain the peace of the Church. The epistle, important as it is in the gathering up of papal authority, says nothing of a historical Jesus.
• Barnabas says much about Enoch, Daniel, Moses, and what the Lord "hath revealed to us by all the prophets", but says next to nothing about Jesus.
• Papias, a 2nd century Bishop of Phrygia knew nothing of the 'Gospels'.


So, how do you explain early church leaders not having knowledge of many of the important elements of Christianity held as truth, today?

Rather than being a crybaby, you might consider engaging in discussion. Else we will all be forced to consider you a mental invalid and unworthy of future responses.

Please tell me you are joking! Have you even read Clement's epistle (he clearly believes Jesus was real person and had a body and he also quotes some of Jesus' sayings from the canonical gospels) or the fragments of Papias (where he specifically mentions the gospels of Mark and Matthew). Read Ignatius of Antioch (110 AD) and tell me that the catholic christians did not believe Jesus had a body! Or Justin, or Irenaeus, or any of the so called Church Fathers. I can supply lots of quotes if you wish. The basic elements of the Jesus story were firmly in place in the orthodox tradition by the end of the first century at the latest (and probably much earlier based on the existing historical evidence): his divinity, his virgin birth from Mary, his baptism, preaching, passion and crucifixion, resurrection, appearance to the apostles, and the sending forth of the apostles to proclaim the kingdom and build the church.

Sure the various Gnostic sects taught that Jesus' body was an illusion, that was one of the most important distinctions between them and the orthodox. The Gnostics tried to fully Hellenize Christianity, the catholic Christians stayed much closer to their Jewish roots.

And Catholics would probably love it if more people read those early writers like Clement and Ignatius. More than a few Protestants have converted to Catholicism or Orthodoxy over the years after studying the early church. It has certainly moved me in that direction.

[Guest]

Personally, I think Jesus was probably a real person. Of course, with each successive gospel he becomes more God and less human. He was really just an apocalyptic preacher who ended up pissing off the wrong people.

Edit: Also, I don't think it matters much whether he was a real person or not, because the development of the Christian religion has very little to do with the man Jesus.

[_emilysmith]

I don’t know why we are still going on about Hercules, or why anyone would insist that only one version of the story of Hercules has ever existed. Many stories were told and written about Hercules, with a great deal of variation regarding the details. The 12 Labors just happens to be the most popular. It seems those of the opinion that Hercules (or Alcides, as they refer to him) originated from a “pure” woman get their opinion from several artistic representations, as well as the story of first “Herakles,” who was born of the maiden, Io, in Egypt. The canonized version of the 12 Labors was a Roman creation, though many versions of Hercules’ name and stories exist. There were even cults who worshipped Hercules who had a different perspective on his stories.

“The historian Herodotus mentions the probability that in addition to the traditional Herakles there was also an ancient Herakles. Diodorus Siculus agrees that there was an ancient and traditional Herakles but also extends the possibility that there was a third hero/god named Herakles. This third Herakles would have lived several generations before the traditional Herakles and tens of thousands of years after the ancient Herakles. Diodorus Siculus does not specifically say that this Herakles was a son of Zeus.

Herodotus relates an incident in Tyre, Phoenicia were he saw, circa 450 BCE, a temple dedicated to Herakles which the priests said was established when the city was first founded ... that would be 2,300 years prior to Herodotus’ inquiry. Herodotus also visited the island of Thasos where he was told that their temple of Herakles was established five generations before Herakles, the son of Alkmene (Alcmene), was born.

Diodorus Siculus states his belief that there were three different hero/gods named Herakles. The first Herakles was descended from the Heifer-Maiden Io in Egypt ... he traveled the inhabited world and exceeded all men in his strength and valor. He inflicted punishment on the unjust and killed the wild beasts which made the various lands uninhabitable. The second Herakles was one of the Idaean Daktyls who were named after the mountain on which they lived ... Mount Ida ... they were best known as metal workers and magicians. The third Herakles was the son of Alkmene and emulated the life-plan of his predecessors to such an extent that many of the deeds of the first and second Herakles were in time transferred to the third Herakles.”

Rather than chase these “artistic representations,” along with accounts by Herodotus and Diodorus Sicilus down the rabbit hole, it seems more productive to abandon discussion of Hercules since he, obviously, had little to do with the characters as brought up by the OP. If you want to know more, you can hunt down a copy of “Greek Religions” or “Ancient Mystery Cults” by Walter Burkert, who, apparently, details some of the variations of Hercules and traces them back to their more primitive forms.

Again, I merely used Hercules to illustrate a point, and used him as an example of what was NOT incorporated into the story of Jesus. So, I don’t see a discussion of Hercules as being able to bear any fruit.

I suppose you could draw a similarity at “begotten by God,” and it would be more fitting for Mormonism, from what I read.

Either way, that is all I have time for, at the moment. I'll return with more later.

[_mikwut]

Personally, I think Jesus was probably a real person.

Of course, with each successive gospel he becomes more God and less human.

Each gospel makes equally clear that he was crucified, was killed and put in a tomb and then was resurrected.

He was really just an apocalyptic preacher who ended up pissing off the wrong people.

I obviously quibble with "just".

Edit: Also, I don't think it matters much whether he was a real person or not,

Well, it does matter a great deal.

because the development of the Christian religion has very little to do with the man Jesus.

You going to have to explain this in more detail. If your saying Paul and subsequent historical factors play a greater role in the growth of Christianity than your simply making an axiomatic historical statement, but that belies the obvious - that there is no role to play, whatsoever, without the the man Jesus and hence, the man Jesus has everything to do with the development of the Christian religion.

regards Buffalo, mikwut