Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

The Nile, with its annual inundation, was the preeminent symbol for rebirth, resurrection, renewal, and rejuvenation for the land. This connects to baptism, especially in Paul's belief of it in Romans , and Plutarch also stated that Osiris's immersion in the Nile was also a symbol for death and ren...

I agree. Although I haven't focused much on the salvation/mystery cults in my post above^^, I have previously considered them; particularly the cults of Serpais*, and of Osiris, Isis and Horus. I would thus lean more to the term Greco-Egyptian rather than Greco-Roman religion. * See The Corpus Herm...

Would a salvation/mystery cult be an alternative? I think it's a mix of Judaism and Greco-Roman religion. Some of the earliest writings we have on Christianity compare it to mystery cults.

a better candidate than Dionysus is the view that the miracle in GJohn was the John's correction of the Parable of Wineskins as invented/used by Marcion. Instead of a distinction between old and new wine, the water of old wineskins is cast in new wine directly. I would agree but considering all the...

Dennis R. MacDonald has a new book out called The Dionysian Gospel: The Fourth Gospel and Euripides which delves into some of the issues concerning Dionysus and the fourth gospel while simultaneously arguing for particular layers in the gospel. I have read it through only once so far, and have yet ...

It's interesting that the wine miracle in GJohn takes place at a wedding. In the month of January the ancient Greeks would have Dionysus festivals where water would turn into wine and weddings took place. From "Reading Dionysus: Euripides’ Bacchae and the Cultural Contestations of Greeks, Jews,...

John T wrote: ↑Wed Aug 08, 2018 10:00 am But to compare Mithraism to Christianity is as absurd as comparing Santa Claus to Jesus.

Not really, Christianity resembles the mystery cults.

Just found this http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3040303&partId=1 Papyrus; On verso: Demotic text of Tale of Setne (II); recto : Greek text of land-registers from Crocodilopolis, dated to Year 7 of Claudius (46-7 AD). Setne-Khaemwase...

Also found this https://www.ancient.eu/article/1054/the-tales-of-prince-setna/ The stories have influenced many later writers and important works of literature. Herodotus cites Setna as the high priest Sethos in one of his best-known passages regarding the troops of the Assyrian king Sennacherib def...

In his Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life , he makes an excessive study of the vases that depict the idol of Dionysus that was set up during the Lenaia and Anthesteria, and which me and Ethan have provided many examples of. The idol itself is made up of a vertical support skeleton, w...