Dionysos By Richard Seaford:
So these cults would have a myth that was related to the initiation ritual. The myth would usually involve a god or goddess either dying and resurrecting or going down into the underworld and returning. This was an allegory for the initiation ritual. The initiates would symbolically die and resurrect or be reborn and during this ritual they would identify with the god that had this experience in the myth. This is what initiates into the cult of Jesus did when they were baptized into the cult. Paul says,Rituals in the ancient world are generally associated with myths. The myth, as a projection of the ritual, may explain it's origin, justify it, or give it meaning. For instance, the Euleusinian mysteries were associated with the myth of Demeter losing her daughter Kore to Hades...Dionysiac mystic initiation is projected in the experience of Pentheus in Bacchae. One of his experiences is to be dismembered, and have his dismembered body reconstituted by his mother. Dismemberment is not uncommon in initiation rituals of various cultures, as an imagined ordeal of the initiand. But one would expect it to be followed by restoration to wholeness and life. Pentheus is restored by his mother to wholeness, but- being a mortal- cannot be restored to life. Dionysos, on the other hand, after being dismembered by the Titans, is restored (in one version by his mother: Diodorus 3.62.6) to life as well as to wholeness...But just as mystic initiation embodies the opposed aspects of resistance (to the transition) and death, on the one hand, and on the other the achievement of immortality (through the transition), so Pentheus embodies the former aspect and Dionysos the latter. Dionysos could be called 'Initiate' and even shares the name Bakchos with his initiates, but his successful transition to immortality- his restoration to life and his circulation between the next world and this one- allows him also to be their divine saviour. Moreover, in order that initiands should experience the necessary preliminary fear, the public myth of Pentheus embodies an irreversible death. The dismemberment and restoration to life of Dionysos, on the other hand, seems to have been for some time kept out of the public domain, so that some scholars have denied it's existence before the first certain reference to it in the third century BC (Callimachus fragment 643)...Eventually the myth seems to have lost it's secrecy. Diodorus, a contemporary of Julius Caesar, tells us (3.62.8) that the things that are revealed in the Orphic poems and introduced onto initiation rituals agree with the myth of the dismemberment of Dionysos by the Titans and of the restoration of his limbs to their natural state. Plutarch (Moralia 364) compares Dionysos to the Egyptian Osiris, stating that 'the story about the Titans and the Night-festivals agree with what is related of Osiris- dismemberments and returns to life and rebirths'...The restoration of Dionysos to life was (like the return of Kore from Hades at Eleusis) presumably connected with the immortality obtained by the initiates...Not inconsistent with this is the possibility that the dismemberment myth was related to the drinking of wine that we have seen to be common in the mystic ritual...wine is earlier identified with Dionysos himself (e.g. Bacchae 284), more specifically with his blood (Timotheos fragment 780)...Second, a secret of the mystery-cult was that dismemberment is in fact to be followed by restoration to life, and this transition was projected onto the immortal Dionysos, who is accordingly in the myth himself dismembered and then restored to life. Third, this power of Dionysos over death, his positive role in the ritual, makes him into a saviour of his intitiates in the next world.
The initiates of the cult of Dionysus would even be referred to as "Bakchos" or "Bacchae", which is another name for Dionysus, like initiates into the cult of Jesus the "Christ" are referred to as "Christians".Or aren’t you aware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4We therefore were buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life. 5For if we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be raised to life as He was.
Metamorphoses of Myth. A Study of the Orphic Gold Tablets and the Derveni Papyrus by Stian Sundell Torjussen:
From "Reading Dionysus: Euripides’ Bacchae and the Cultural Contestations of Greeks, Jews, Romans, and Christians" by Courtney Friesen:The simultaneous life-death experience in the first line of the Pelinna tablets thus seems more firmly connected to initiation. Line two, where Bakkhios himself has released the dead woman, must also be taken from an initiation. The release referred to here is not only connected with the symbolic death and rebirth of the first line, but also the future of the initiate as laid out in the concluding lines of the texts...Thus, death and rebirth should be understood symbolically and taken as a reference to a ritual we know, from ancient authors, was connected to death and rebirth, and where the two, as symbols, could happen simultaneously: an initiation.
Not only were the followers of Dionysus and Jesus identified with their savior, they also were said to make up the body of their savior.Not only does Paul employ language that reflects mystery cults in several places, his Christian community resembles them in various ways.They met in secret or exclusive groups, employed esoteric symbols, and practiced initiations, which involved identification with the god’s suffering and rebirth. Particularly Dionysiac is the ritualized consumption of wine in private gatherings (1 Cor 11:17-34).
Porphyry's Against the Christians: The Literary Remains By R. Joseph Hoffmann:
Another aspect of the death and rebirth ritual was being 'purified' or 'cleansed' of past sins. In GJohn blood and water come out of the wound of Jesus. The blood and water represent purification and the giving of life....Paul's use of body imagery in his first letter to the Corinthians and the theme of spiritual communion through the incorporation into "the body of Christ"(1 Cor. 12.27f.) is familiar from the language of the Dionysiac mysteries:"Blessed is he who hallows his life in the worship of God, he whom the spirit of God possessth, who is one with those who belong to the holy body of God"(Euripides, Bacchae 73-75). Pagan critics of the early movement pointed to the fact that Christians addressed Jesus in terms equivalent to those used by the bacchantes(Dionysus' worshipers). Jesus was kyrios(lord) and lysios, redeemer. In the Dionysiac cult, the god redeemed adherents from a world of darkness and death by revealing himself in ecstatic visions and providing glimpses of a world-to-come.
https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/ ... sus-Christ:
Osiris was associated with the life giving and purifying waters of the Nile. Water is even said to issue from his body like Jesus.To understand the point being made by the use of this phrase, it will be helpful to examine the use of "water" and "blood" in the Gospel and the epistles of John. While water is mentioned in the epistles only here, several significant references to it are found in the Gospel. The Baptist baptizes with water (1:26, 31, 33), as does Jesus (3:22; 4:1-2), and the water symbolizes cleansing. Jesus changes water set aside for the Jewish rites of purification to wine (2:1-12). He speaks of the necessity to be born of "water and the Spirit" (3:5, 8), where "water and Spirit" probably connotes one idea, namely, cleansing by the Holy Spirit (compare Ezek 36:25-27). Thus water also symbolizes the gift of the Spirit (4:13-14; 7:3739) given by the risen Jesus. Together these references stress the idea of purifying, and particularly the purifying effected by the Spirit of God.
Except for the passage under consideration, blood appears in the epistles only in 1 John 1:7, where it is said that "the blood of Jesus purifies us from every sin." In the Gospel "blood" stands for Jesus' self-sacrifice in death (6:51-58), without which there is no eternal life. Right relation ship with God, whether described in terms of being purified or having eternal life, depends upon the death of Jesus.
One passage in the Gospel of John does bring together the images of water and blood. When the soldiers pierce Jesus' side at the crucifixion, it is said that "blood and water" flowed from it (19:34). This is under stood as evidence that Jesus had indeed died, a necessary corroboration since the soldiers had not expected to find him already dead. It is likely that this story has symbolic importance as well. In light of the imagery of water and blood in the Gospel, the water and blood from Jesus' side signify that his death releases the gift of the Spirit (water) and purification from sin (blood), which together confer eternal life. As Barrett aptly phrases it, John intends us to see in this event that "the real death of Jesus was the real life of men" (1978:557).
Waters of Death and Creation: Images of Water in the Egyptian Pyramid Texts By Greg Jones:
For the Living and the Dead: The Funerary Laments of Upper Egypt, Ancient and Modern by Elizabeth Wickett:The element of purification is present in the statement: "the waterways are flooded by means of the purification which issued from Osiris".
Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt By John H. Taylor:... deceased king and subsequently all deceased, male or female, are to become 'the god Osiris' and are symbolically 'drowned' (Pyr 24d, 615d, 766d). Osiris was believed to embody the source of the inundation: "You have your water, you have your flood, the fluid which issued from the god, the exudation which issued from Osiris"(Pyr 436)
The cult of Dionysus would go around initiating people by telling them they would be purified and cleansed of their sins if they followed Dionysus:The first stage was the purification of the corpse by washing...According to Egyptian belief, water held important purifying and life giving qualities. Each dawn was a repetition of the original birth of the sun god from the watery chaos of Nun. Hence lustration came to be closely associated with rebirth...A ritual purification was necessary before the dead king could ascend to heaven...In the ritualized process of mummification the deceased was identified with Osiris.
Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture by Walter Burkert:
So here we have a cult that follows a dying and resurrecting savior god that goes around trying to initiate people by offering salvation. This is exactly what Christians did.As Plato noted, the cult has itinerant "purifiers" and "initiators", kathartai, telestai, who, through the appropriate rituals, offer their clients freedom from various afflictions, including the fear of death and postmortal punishments. The key document for such priests is a decree of king Ptolemy Philopator from Egypt, dated at about 210 B.C., which orders "those who are performing initiation rituals for Dionysus" to register at Alexandria. They are organized in "families", with tradition from "father" to "son" and are presumed to guard a sacred text (heiros logos), be it mythical stories or ritual formulas; this, the decree says, shall be deposited at the royal office in Alexandria under seal. That wandering initiators would cover the distances between Macedonia, Thesaly, Lesbos, Crete, and southern Italy is not remarkable.
Another ritual that was sometimes done was eating food and drinking wine that represented the god who died and resurrected. In the cult of Dionysus they would eat meat that represented the body of the god and drink wine which was associated with Dionysus and his blood.
Dining with John by Esther Kobel:
Homo Necans: The Anthropology Of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual And Myth by Walter Burkert:By consuming the animal's raw flesh along with wine, both of which represent the deity, followers shared in the vital forces of their god. They substantially ingested the god...Reading John 6:56-58, which contains strikingly peculiar and graphic vocabulary, in light of these traditions proves to be allusive of these motifs. Whoever chews Jesus's flesh and drinks his blood and therein demonstrates belief in Jesus, is said to attain eternal life...The allusions of theophagy as known from Dionysian tradition may well function as a means of reasserting to believers that Jesus is present among them, even within them, and provides life for them even after his own death."
Osiris was associated with bread because he was associated with grains. The Egyptians would make "Osiris beds" that were in the shape of the body of Osiris and plant seeds in them. The germinating grain was symbolic of his resurrection.The association of wine and blood, especially around the Mediterranean where red wine predominates, is natural and is attested outside of Greece, in the Semitic realm.... The Greeks tended to equate Dionysus and wine already in Classical times. Consequently, the drinker of the wine would be drinking the god himself.
From http://www.historyplace.com/specials/sl ... mies12.htm:
Osiris: Death and Afterlife of a God By Bojana Mojsov:Osiris, supreme god of resurrection, was closely associated with the life-giving forces of nature, particularly the Nile and vegetation. Above all, he was connected with germinating grain. The emergence of a living, growing, plant from the apparently dormant seed hidden within the earth was regarded by the Egyptians as a metaphor for the rebirth of a human being from the lifeless husk of the corpse. The concept was translated into physical form by the fashioning of images of Osiris out of earth and grain. These “corn-mummies” were composed of sand or mud, mixed with grains of barley.
Following Osiris: Perspectives on the Osirian Afterlife from Four Millennia By Mark Smith:All justified souls were admitted to the community of gods and spirits, modeled after the pattern of earthly society. The giving of the bread and beer that issue from Osiris was not unlike the Christian bread and wine offered at the mass of the Eucharist. Osiris, the Good Being, gave sustenance to the righteous and pointed the way to immortality with the shepherd's crook.
So in GJohn when Jesus says the bread(Osiris) is his body and wine(Dionysus) is his blood I think he is being portrayed as a new Osiris and Dionysus. I think the breaking apart of the bread or his "body" may also be a reference to Osiris having his body torn to pieces.The title of this spell is 'Entering in front and going out behind in the midst of those who eat the bread of Osiris'...that of Spell 228 states that when someone who knows the spell proceeds to the god's domain he will eat bread at the side of Osiris, while that of spell 339 promises that knowing the utterance means eating bread in the house of Osiris. The colophon of Spell 1079 states that anyone who knows the names of a group of kneeling deities will be with Osiris for ever and will never perish.
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.