rgprice wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 11:57 am
Right, but one thing to be cautious of is that many later Roman and Greek Christian apologists actually made the case that Jesus was more similar to the Greek and Roman gods than he really was in order to make the worship of Jesus seem less radical.
I think they were able to do that because Jesus is very similar to Greek and Roman gods. Pretty much every mythological motif in the Jesus stories are found in Greco-Roman religions. It seems that some people saw Christianity as a mystery cult when it first became known.
From "Reading Dionysus: Euripides’ Bacchae and the Cultural Contestations of Greeks, Jews, Romans, and Christians" by Courtney Friesen:
Early observers of Christianity also noted its resemblances with Dionysiac religion. Pliny the Younger, for example, the earliest extant writer on Christianity, in his famous letter to Emperor Trajan in 112 CE (Ep. 10.96), describes Christian activities in Bithynia and requests the emperor’s advice on how to proceed. Robert Grant has argued that Pliny’s account is significantly shaped by the description of the Bacchanalia affair written by Livy, whom Pliny was known to have read and admired. As in Livy, the Christians meet at night, they sing hymns and take oaths, and they share a common meal (Ep. 10.96.7; Livy 39.8, 18). Moreover, contrary to accepted social and religious practice, as in Livy, participants include a mixture of class, gender, and age, and come from both the city and the country (Ep. 10.96.9; Livy 39.8-9). Jean-Marie Pailler builds on these observations, arguing that in addition to the verbal parallels adduced by Grant, there are wider similarities in the manner in which Pliny conducted his investigation. His request for direction in policy from the emperor is analogous to that of the consul’s relationship with the Senate in Livy; his question as to whether Christians should be punished because of the name itself (nomen ipsum) or only for offences committed (flagitia, 10.96.2) follows the distinction made by Livy in the prosecution of the Bacchanalia affair between those who were merely initiated (initiati erant) and those who committed actual crimes (39.18.3-4). In addition, Pailler argues that Pliny’s description of the Christians’ folly appears “bien ‘bachique’”: “Others were of the same madness” (Fuerunt alii similis amentiae, 10.96.4). If the thesis of Grant and Pailler is correct,then Pliny’s Epistles 10.96 indicates that at least one early observer of Christians—the earliest extant example—interpreted their religious behaviors in close connection to Dionysiac mystery cults. In the following chapter, we will see that this perception continues with Celsus who, writing about six decades later, similarly compares Christianity with Dionysiac mystery cults and contrasts Jesus with Dionysus.
From "Introducing the New Testament: A Historical, Literary, and Theological Survey" By Mark Allan Powell:
After all, Christianity was regarded as a mystery religion by some Romans when it first appeared on the scene...
The problem I have is when people, like Freke and Gandy, try to claim that the Jesus story is just straight cribbed from the a story about Dionysus, or something like that.
I think some people take it too far but I do think there are parts of the gospels that are taken from pagan myths. For example, I think the wine miracle in John was taken from Dionysus myths.
From "Reading Dionysus: Euripides’ Bacchae and the Cultural Contestations of Greeks, Jews, Romans, and Christians" by Courtney Friesen
A juxtaposition of Jesus and Dionysus is also invited in the New Testament Gospel of John, in which the former is credited with a distinctively Dionysiac miracle in the wedding at Cana: the transformation of water into wine (2:1-11). In the Hellenistic world, there were many myths of Dionysus' miraculous production of wine, and thus, for a polytheistic Greek audience, a Dionysiac resonance in Jesus' wine miracle would have been unmistakable. To be sure, scholars are divided as to whether John's account is inspired by a polytheistic legend; some emphasize rather it's affinity with the Jewish biblical tradition. In view of the pervasiveness of Hellenism, however, such a distinction is likely not sustainable. Moreover, John's Gospel employs further Dionysiac imagery when Jesus later declares, "I am the true vine". John's Jesus, thus, presents himself not merely as a "New Dionysus," but one who supplants and replaces him.