Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2019 9:06 am
What are other viable options?
I consider it possible that the gospels are allegories for what the "soul" goes through when incarnated into the "flesh" or physical body. Jesus representing the spiritual aspect in everyone. In the mystery cults initiates would perform a death and rebirth ritual which would end with the initiate being reborn into a new life and gaining a god-like aspect which would take full form when they died. I think the sufferings and crucifixion of Jesus may be an allegory for this.
Plato's republic book 2 362a
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... at.+Rep.+2 :
What they will say is this: that such being his disposition the
just man will have to endure the lash, the rack, chains,
the branding-iron in his eyes, and finally, after every extremity
of suffering, he will be crucified,30 and so will learn his lesson
that not to be but to seem just is what we ought to desire.
Philo, ON THE POSTERITY OF CAIN AND HIS EXILE, 61:
that the body must be thought akin to the souls that love the body, and that external good things must be exceedingly admired by them, and all the souls which have this kind of disposition depend on dead things, and, like persons who are crucified, are attached to corruptible matter till the day of their death.
A Story of the Soul’s Journey in the Nag Hammadi Library: A Study of Authentikos Logos, Ulla Tervahauta
Somewhat later in Phaedo 82E Socrates calls the body akin to a prison or a cage, and in Gorgias 493A and in Cratylus 400B-C the body is the tomb of the soul. In a section starting with Phaedo 82E Socrates explains how the soul must contemplate the realities through the prison of the body...The soul's incarceration is caused by bodily desires, and the prisoner is active in keeping herself imprisoned by submitting herself under the power of these desires...In each pleasure and sorrow there is a nail, as it were, that fixes the soul to the body.
Also the Osiris fetish and djed pillar(made out of the tree that Osiris's dead body was found in) which would sometimes be combined. The fetish pole would have the head of Osiris and sometimes a corn body hanging from it. Sometimes Isis and Nephthys would be portrayed near it in a gesture of mourning. The fetish pole was associated with ritual animal killings and they would hang the skin or intestines on it. I don't necessarily think this is where the crucifixion of Jesus comes from but I think it's an interesting parallel seeing as they're both dying and resurrecting saviors.
The Festivals of Osiris and Sokar in the Month of Khoiak: The Evidence from Nineteenth Dynasty Royal Monuments at Abydos, Katherine J. Eaton
The Osiris Fetish is also depicted in the Chapel of Ramesses I and the Temple of Ramesses II at Abydos.43 The origins of the Osiris Fetish are obscure and debated but,44 by the Nineteenth Dynasty, the fetish seems to have represented the head reliquary of Osiris Khentyimentiu.45 The Osiris Fetish essentially consists of a wig, sometimes with a face,
stuck onto a plain pole.
"...in most representations the fetish is adorned not only with sun disk and plumes, but also with uraei and headbands, and the ribbons associated with these fillets. These elements of the developed cult symbol were all intended to suggest its character as the 'head' of the deity."(R. Wilkinson, Reading Egyptian Art, 1992, 169.)...
There are other iconographical similarities between the two conveyances: golden figures of the king, wearing the nemes-headdress, support the fetishpole along with protective jackals and cobras. In this case, however, some figures of the king are replaced by golden statuettes of Isis and Nephthys, raising their arms in a gesture of mourning...
The scenes in the Osiris Chapel show the Osiris Fetish on two different palanquins. One representation left the pole of the fetish exposed; the other enclosed a significant portion of the pole with the shrine of Osiris' processional barque. According to a later tradition recorded at Dendera, a corn body was made for Osiris-Khentyimentiu and attached to a head, perhaps an Osiris Fetish.91 When the fetish or its contents was attached to a corn
mummy, the barque shrine may have been placed around the pole to protect the delicate corn body...
Since, by the New Kingdom, the [djed]dd-pillar seems to have been associated with the spinal column of Osiris, it would have united the divine members. The Osiris Fetish and the dd-pillar are often juxtaposed, as on the west wall of the Chapel of Ramesses I at Abydos.
Biographical Texts from Ramesside Egypt, Elizabeth Frood
It is likely that this represents the top of an imiut-fetish, the stuffed skin of an animal tied to a pole, which was one of the central symbols of Osiris and Anubis at Abydos.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imiut_fetish
Logan suggests that the jmy.wt has its origin as a standard associated with kingship and transition, a pole upon which the intestines of a ritual animal sacrifice were hung.
There's also the pole that Dionysus(another dying and resurrecting savior) was hung on.
https://www.mfa.org/collections/object/ ... sos-153877
Principal design a sacrifice to Dionysos, encircling the vase. On the front an archaic idol of Dionysos, with a large disc on each shoulder; in front a table with amphorae on it, and sacrificial cakes. Women on each side, and others under the handles and on the other side.
[Label text]: In the scene depicted here, women are gathered at a festival of Dionysus. The women have erected an image of the god in this outdoor celebration. A mask of Dionysus has been hung on a pole while drapery held by large pins suggests the body of the makeshift cult image. The women have decorated the idol with garlands of ivy. Loaves or cakes have been heaped on the table in front of the image of the god as offerings to him.
http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/tools/potte ... /dinos.htm
Style: later classical, rich but not ornate
Subject/s: A. Women or maenads with thrysi and tambourines dance around a pillar idol of Dionysos, festooned with branches and set before a table holding two large stamnoi from which one maenad ladles wine into a skyphos. B. more maenads with thrysi and tambourines join the celebrations
Date: late 5th c.
Analysis: the subjects are very like that of those on the earlier stamnos by the Villa Giulia Painter. Now the image of the god fastened to pillar suggests a festival of Dionysos. The tambourines are new and probably reflect their recent appearance in Athens with the cult of Bendis.