Pagan Parallels: Achilles Heel of Christianity

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Roger Pearse
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Re: Pagan Parallels: Achilles Heel of Christianity

Post by Roger Pearse »

beowulf wrote:Why is all this so important to you?. You are not only disagreeing – which is healthy and legitimate- but attacking the author with undesirable passion

The Romans Catholic Church has invented the original sin, the Trinity and so forth, and it has for centuries burned ‘heretics’ to impose its lies on the people of Europe. Yet you are offering your deep respect to a truculent defender of the Vatican Absolute Monarchy for the trivial reason that this person manages a blog as his contribution the wankfest !

Only the Church has the authority from God to interpret the Scriptures, and it has killed to protect that absurd claim. Sadly, you are defending slavery.
Can anyone make any sense whatsoever of this post? (baffled)
Maximos
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Re: Pagan Parallels: Achilles Heel of Christianity

Post by Maximos »

Bernard Muller wrote:The resurrection of Lazarus in gJohn is obviously a made up story and it does not matter from where the author of the gospel got his inspiration (if he ever got it from outside texts or foreign beliefs).
The story of Lazarus serves many purposes in gJohn and every parts seem concocted and made in order to fulfill them.
- Jesus can resurrect a dead person (dead for at least three days) (Jn 11:4,6,17,25,39,44) and is not only a healer of sick people (Jn 11:21,32). Before three days would be only a revival (as in Lk 7:11-17) ("John" had to do better that that!).
- Thomas not afraid of dying: the latter (good) members of the Ebionistic Thomassan sect believed they would not die (ref: Jn 11:16, gThomas). Other Christians believed that at the end of the 1st century.
- Beliefs by contemporaries in the resurrections in the last day (Jn 11:24) and Jesus is Christ & Son of God (Jn11:27).
- Jesus could weep and show human emotion & compassion & love (Jn 11:35-36).
- The resurrection was widely witnessed and made everybody believe in Jesus as divine (Jn 11:45-48).
- That precipitate the desire by the Jewish elite to have Jesus killed (Jn 11: 49-53) rather than disturbances in the temple (which would explain Jesus' demise as a vulgar trouble maker) (ref: gMark).

The name Lazarus is obviously imported from gLuke, as also the two sisters, Martha & Mary.

I do not see why the author had to know about some stuff from Egyptian mythology (and from different sources at that) in order to create his multipurpose story.

Cordially, Bernard
"The resurrection of Lazarus in gJohn is obviously a made up story and it does not matter from where the author of the gospel got his inspiration"

Why wouldn't it matter where these syncretised myths came from? I would think it would matter greatly and should be a part of the research - research that New Testament scholars, theologians and historians are not even investigating, which is why Acharya's work is so important. She traces these myths back to their origin best she can. That's one reason why her work is so fascinating.
In “Horus in the Pyramid Texts,” T. George Allen summarizes the resurrection account, rolling into one entry the events as found in separate utterances, demonstrating how composite myths are made: “Horus causes Osiris the King to stand. (PT 364:617a-c/T 196; PT 369:640a/T 200)… Horus and Thoth raise Osiris (the king) (from) upon his side and cause him to stand among…the two divine enneads. (PT 477:956a-c/P 327) Horus bids Osiris the king come forth (from tomb?) and awake. (PT 620:1753a-b/N 11) Horus comes to king, parts his bandages, and casts off his bonds…(PT 703:2202a/N 615)”

This description of Osiris the mummy being summoned from the tomb amid his two siblings sounds very much like the episode or pericope in the New Testament of Jesus calling forth the “mummy” Lazarus from the tomb in front of his two sisters: “When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with bandages, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them “Unbind him, and let him go.” (John 11:43-44)

Like Jesus, at PT 268:372a-d/W 175 Horus also purifies the dead and removes evil: “Horus…purifies…him in the jackal-lake, cleanses his ka in the Dewat-lake, and purifies…the flesh of his bodily ka…” After the purification, it is said (PT 419:746b/T 225) that “Horus has dispelled the evil which was on you for four days.” Coincidentally, the time of Lazarus’s period in the tomb is also four days: “Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.” (John 11:17; 11:38)As can be seen, there is good reason to assert that the raising of Lazarus represents a rehash of the resurrection of Osiris—and the parallels continue.

In “Monumental Christianity,” devout Christian antiquities expert and presbyter Rev. Dr. John P. Lundy (1823-1892) provides and image of Horus holding and ankh with “the Osiris” reclining on a couch, along with the caption, “Horus, with his Cross, Raising the Dead.”

Image

https://sites.google.com/site/religions ... m-the-dead
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
Roger Pearse
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Re: Pagan Parallels: Achilles Heel of Christianity

Post by Roger Pearse »

Maximos wrote: In “Monumental Christianity,” devout Christian antiquities expert and presbyter Rev. Dr. John P. Lundy (1823-1892) provides and image of Horus holding and ankh with “the Osiris” reclining on a couch, along with the caption, “Horus, with his Cross, Raising the Dead.”
I'm not sure what this statement is intended to show, since it isn't stated. But let's by all means look at this.

John P. Lundy, presbyter, Monumental Christianity; or the Art and Symbolism of the Primitive Church as witnesses of the one catholic faith and practice New York (1876) is online here.

I note that any doctorate is not stated on the title page. It would be interesting to know what evidence is given for this claim. The dates of his life are given as 1823-1892 by Archive.org, and confirmed at Copac. The latter suggests that this book was almost his only work. The author was, I would guess, an Episcopalian priest of anglo-catholic tendencies, since I see no nihil obstat, as a Catholic would have, and nobody else would call himself "presbyter".

The table of contents tells me that this is illustration 183, to be found on p.403. This indeed shows a picture of Horus leaning over Osiris with an ankh, presumably to restore life (one notes, uneasily, that the text is full of appeals to authority rather than translation of any ancient text saying so). The author apparently does believe that "The ancient Christian monuments ... reveal so many obvious adaptations from the pagan mythology and art, that it became necessary for me to investigate anew the pagan symbolism: and this will account for the frequent comparisons instituted and the parallels drawn between Christianity and paganism." A little later "... the Christian faith, as embodied in the apostles' creed, finds its parallel, or dimly foreshadowed counterpart, article by article, in the different systems of paganism here brought under review. ... It reveals a unity of religion, and shows that the faith of mankind has essentially been one and the same in all ages." p.xvi-xvii.

I do not see any suggestion of borrowing in all this; rather the idea that the concepts of Christian teaching are as old as creation, and one or another pagan cult will demonstrate one or another element of them, depicted sometimes with the same sorts of symbols.

Perhaps so. But how showing that the ancient Egyptians believed in a sort of resurrection of the dead - rather different from Christian ideas - helps Acharya S I don't quite see.

All the best,

Roger Pearse
Maximos
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Re: Pagan Parallels: Achilles Heel of Christianity

Post by Maximos »

Roger Pearse wrote:Perhaps so. But how showing that the ancient Egyptians believed in a sort of resurrection of the dead - rather different from Christian ideas - helps Acharya S I don't quite see.

All the best,

Roger Pearse
That's the problem, Roger, you rigidly refuse "to see" anything that disagrees with your Christian faith. I think Acharya's point here is that these religious concepts did in fact exist in Paganism long prior to Christianity.
"Over a century ago, renowned British Egyptologist Sir Dr. E.A. Wallis Budge (1857-1934), a Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum, as well as a confessed Christian, remarked that a study tracing the "influence of ancient Egyptian religious beliefs and mythology on Christianity" would "fill a comparatively large volume." Since Dr. Budge's time, for a variety of reasons, including the seemingly irreconcilable academic gap between historians and theologians, no one has taken up the call to produce such a volume—until now...."

- Christ in Egypt, Preface
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Pagan Parallels: Achilles Heel of Christianity

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Maximos wrote:[
That's the problem, Roger, you rigidly refuse "to see" anything that disagrees with your Christian faith. I think Acharya's point here is that these religious concepts did in fact exist in Paganism long prior to Christianity.
This is the problem I find over and over with Murdock and her followers: failure to persuade brings on charges of "refusal" to see, and such like. Refusal implies intent. Is it not somewhat arrogant to assume a bad motive in someone who fails to see things from our perspective? We may be convinced that a person is biased because of some ideological commitment or whatever, but that hardly makes them flawed characters who "refuse" to see things our way. I think most of us sincerely believe we act with the best intentions -- even astrotheologians! ;-) We can still agree to disagree and live and let live without saying the other is willfully failing to understand another's point of view.

As for the point being made, of course the concepts found within Christianity existed before in the wider culture. It could not be otherwise. New genres, new ideas, new religions come about because of creative ways of mixing and adapting existing concepts. But we all know the old caveat about correlation and causation.

Indeed, as for Christian art, it was quite natural for its earlier forms to reflect pagan figures. Artists had been trained to reproduce set figures so these were adapted for Christian purposes -- hence Jesus appearing like Apollo or Hermes etc.

But this art was introduced well after the various Christianities had taken root and been embraced by significant numbers. It is probably misguided to suggest that the early Christian art is an indicator of what went into the creation of the religion in the first place.
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Roger Pearse
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Re: Pagan Parallels: Achilles Heel of Christianity

Post by Roger Pearse »

Agreed. The only response to disagreement from Acharya S and her minions is ad hominem - "you say that only because you are a dirty scumbag catholic/protestant/jew/hindu/whatever". There is a bottomless assumption of bad faith in anyone who disagrees. It's tedious.
Roger Pearse
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Re: Pagan Parallels: Achilles Heel of Christianity

Post by Roger Pearse »

neilgodfrey wrote: Indeed, as for Christian art, it was quite natural for its earlier forms to reflect pagan figures. Artists had been trained to reproduce set figures so these were adapted for Christian purposes -- hence Jesus appearing like Apollo or Hermes etc.
This is the "workshops" problem; that once Christianity became popular, and promoted heavily by the emperor, then there was demand for "Christian" (or Christianised) sculpture or artworks, whether sincere or not; but the workshops simply adapted their existing pattern books, as would naturally occur.
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stephan happy huller
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Re: Pagan Parallels: Achilles Heel of Christianity

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But this is the part where it is not surprising that people lose patience with members of your group. Neil is an atheist. Roger a believer. And they can agree on the simple fact that you are being evasive. At some point this consistent (a) avoiding the evidence (b) switching to personal attacks leads the observer to treat you with contempt. It can't be that everyone is seeing something dishonest about the way you operate and you don't see it. This is not an attack on the wonderful Dorothy Murdock but her anonymous army of minions. The evidence from the early period simply does not support her assertions. You can dodge all you want, this isn't going anywhere. My suspicion is increasingly that we are not dealing with an 'army' of supporters but the same people writing under different names. Maybe 2 or 3 perhaps 4 at the most. It's just tiring. No one can pretend to be this stupid - i.e. not recognize the need to have the original sources support Murdock's contentions. Quote mining and hobbling together bits and pieces taken out of context from countless sources will not work. You need to provide an examination of what Osiris is versus what Lazarus is - developed from the original sources - and then prove a relationship. The same goes for Mithras and Jesus and all the other arguments she comes up with. Just having Massey make a claim, assume that Massey or some other old source is infallible and then develop a thesis is silly and useless. It's time for you people to stop avoiding the facts and admit none of this holds water.
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Maximos
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Re: Pagan Parallels: Achilles Heel of Christianity

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"Here we discuss the evidence for the motif of "the Twelve" in antiquity, including as concerns the Bible as well as in other artifacts and myths in numerous other cultures. As we can see, the ancients in many places around the world have been very focused on this sacred number, which signifies the 12 hours of day and night, the 12 months of the year and the 12 signs of the zodiac. The Twelve is, in fact, a motif found ubiquitously, dating back centuries to millennia.

Were the 12 Tribes of Israel Based on the Zodiac?

This is a subject about which there is much disinformation, including attempts to claim that the zodiac postdated the founding of the Israelite nation with its 12 tribes and that, hence, the numbering of the tribes could not be based on the 12 zodiacal signs, as has been suggested by many people since ancient times.

Testimony of Josephus and Philo

The claim that the 12 tribes of Israel were identified with the 12 signs of the zodiac is spelled out clearly by the ancient Jewish writers Philo and Josephus, during the first century. During the first century BCE, Diodorus Siculus identified the 12 tribes with the 12 months.

As I relate in Christ in Egypt (261):

See Exodus 39:9-14: "...they made the breastplate... And they set in it four rows of stones... And the stones were according to the names of the children of Israel, twelve...according to the twelve tribes."

As Josephus says (Antiquities, 3.8 ): "And for the twelve stones, whether we understand by them the months or whether we understand the like number of the signs of that circle which the Greeks call the zodiac, we shall not be mistaken in their meaning." (Josephus, 75.)

Earlier than Josephus, Philo ("On the Life of Moses," 12) had made the same comments regarding Moses: "Then the twelve stones on the breast, which are not like one another in colour, and which are divided into four rows of three stones in each, what else can they be emblems of, except of the circle of the zodiac?" (Philo, 99.)

As we can see, by the first century it was well known that the theme of "the 12" was astrological in nature...."

- The Twelve in the Bible and Ancient Mythology
Roger Pearse
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Re: Pagan Parallels: Achilles Heel of Christianity

Post by Roger Pearse »

Perhaps: but if so, it would be rather unwise to presume, on the strength of this, that any items that come in twelves are therefore connected, or indeed interchangeable.
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