I'd really like to discuss this...It's only for the Brave!
I had this in another site..But it's only for the brave hearted...
Could all of us Christians be in Babylon?? Do we need to come "Out of Her" This is a one page article..If you look down at the bottom you'll find a surprise.
www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/h/hi/historicity_of_jesus.htm
Would anyone like to READ IT, and make a comment, BUT, you have to read it for the conversation to make sense...
gathering
Well, this article on the historicity of Jesus is interesting, but it does
seem slanted towards the "no-Jesus" side.
I suppose one can answer it with the Faith-argument.
But also, the article does has some problems I believe (besides its bias).
The articles brings up all sorts or similiarities between the stories about
Jesus, and various pagan cults around the Mediterranea, such as the
worship of Isis and Mithra. But oone can find similarities between almost
any faith and another if one looks hard enough (this icludes for example
the "life-death-ressurection", since death was a universal phenomenon,
it isn't surprising that so many cultures would have stories about someone
coming back from it).I remember even coming across a book on the
similarities between Islam and Taoism.
Furthermore, if the Mystery Religions were so esoteris, how did the
creators of Jesus know of them enough to incorporate into their "creation"?
At one point similarities are brought up between Jesus and the Egyptian
diety Horus. This is something that was brought up in another thread (by
Deano), and which I pointed out was exaggerated:
http://www.killermovies.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=330580&perpage=20&pagenumber=2
The Pythagorean analogies are can be argued against in the same way,
if not easier. Finding similarities in numbers is even easier, and as such
is not strong enough to argue influence. Besides, as with the Mystery
Religion, how can the creators of Jesus have known about the inner
beliefs of the Pythagoreanism to be able to incorporate such obscure
references into their fictional figure?
And who are these creators of Jesus? At one point it is argued that Jesus
was created to be a "particularly holy rabbi", which means he was created
by Jews. But if Jews created him, why create him as someone who argued
wioth the Jewish leadership? And why then ignore him and hardly, if ever,
mention him in the other textx (as the article itself points out, Jesus is
hardly mantioned in any Jewish texts)?
Ofcourse, it is known why a real Jesus would be ignored by Jewish
texts, precisely because he antagonized many in the leadershp position, who
often were the ones writing, or knew someone who was writing, the various
historic texts.
Same with the Romans, who ignored Jesus because from their point of view
was an insiginifant trouble-maker.
Gnosticism is quite prominant in this article. I don't know much about it,
but from what I read, they are Christians who also follow beliefs that are not
very Christian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism). But I was
not able to see the relevance in this article. Apparently it was implied that
they, the Gnostics, have the true knowledge of Christianity, namely that
Jesus was not real and physical, but the point is, they still do believe in
a Jesus, unlike this article which says that he was merely some Platonic
allegory.
One more point: even if Christianity borrowed from other religions, that doesn't
mean that there was no Jesus and followers. All that it could mean is that
various epithets and literary devices used Biblically on him were borrowed.
(Debbie?
Thank you.)
Ya, I do believe there was a Jesus. It's just hard to figure out why some scriptures were put in and why were some left out. I did read that there was a Gospel of Q______ something..I forget. But they call it the Gospel of Q. It was found along with the dead sea scrolls. It is ONLY the words of Jesus and nothing more.. So, there must have been a Jesus, I think. It seems that Mark, Matt. Luke and John all took parts of Q for their writings. The author of the "Lost Gospel of Q" stated that each of the gospels were written later, one after the other and that the Q gospel was written first. The historians feel that Mark, Matt..etc..
had come acrossed it and taken down what was needed for their gospel story...Fact or not, I don't know.
I'm glad you took the time to read the article....I find that this was interesting all the similarities between these religions. There are many more like it that don't include the Jews, but mostly Mithras..etc..
You have some good points.. 📖
For me though, there are just too many similar points, like turning water into wine, the bread and the fish, 12 disciples, crucification and resurrection...Could it really be possible that Our Scriptures were taken from an older source???
Interesting about the Gospels Q, which I have to confess I
never heard of until reading your post.
I looked them up:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/gosp_q.htm (On what
they are.)
http://www.cygnus-study.com/pageq.html (Has the sayings,
or atleast most of them.)
About the similarities. Some are interesting, some (especially the
numeriacl Pythagorean ones) are a bit stretching it, in my opinion.
Take the number 12, various explanations are offered, about the
significance of the number 12, but it isn't mentioned that 12 is
a number that goes back to the Babylonian/Sumerian numerical
positional system, which was sexagismal (based on 60, as opposed
to the one we use, which is decimal, based on 10), and 60 by
5 is 12.
It is from that system that we get the 24 hours of the day (originally
12 double hours), as well as the 60 seconds and hours, and even
angular degrees.
If there is any background to Jesus' 12 disciples, it is here.
Also, one can make a religious arguments about "influence". One
can always say that the reason why there are similarities is
because these non-Christians knew of some Godly divine concepts,
but intterpreted them in their own pagan way.
An example is the story of Noah and the Flood. There is also the
far older Babylonian legend of Utnapishtim, and the Flood (found in
the Epic of Gilgamesh). Many would say that that was an example of
the Babylonian myth influencing the creation of the Noah story, and
thus the latter was fictional.
BUt a faithful may simply say that there was indeed a Noah
and a great flood, but that the Babylonians, being pagans with no
knowledge of God, interpreted the story and the cause of the Flood
in their own way, but that the later Biblical peoples, being aware
of God, and inspired by Him, knew the truth.
BUt a faithful may simply say that there was indeed a Noahyeah but that argument can be used the other way around also, that the followers of the bible took the epic of Gilgamesh and interprted it to fit their own faith
and a great flood, but that the Babylonians, being pagans with no
knowledge of God, interpreted the story and the cause of the Flood
in their own way, but that the later Biblical peoples, being aware
of God, and inspired by Him, knew the truth.
Maybe.
Though I still question who would in Palestine in the first or
second century AD can have such extensive knowledge of
such varied, and supposedly secret, religions and philosophies
(like Pythagoreanism and Platonism and the cults of Isis and
Mithra) that he or they can collect them all to create a
figure who is hardly mentioned in the contemporary texts
anyway.
That is the question unanswered in that article.
Probably much information was carved in stone, tablets, writings like that besides stories passed down, but that is also how many religions got started..by storytelling, that is. I guess it would be hard to verify any religions beginnings since they all started from verbal stories.
BTW, found an OT site.
True, true.
In the case of Christianity, it is a religion that was persecuted
during it's first few centuries of existence (I believ one of the
earliest cases of such religious persecutions in history), and
so that may have discouraged many form writing down what
they knew.
Besides, literacy was not too common during those times, and
especially earlier, anyway.
It's the Catholic and Protestant religions that sprang up from Paganism...
True worship is not outward it's inward...It's not physical, but spiritual...It's not a physical heaven or hell, but a spiritual one. It's not connecting with God on a outward appearance, but a inner mind connection...HOW'S That....It's not religion at all, because all can do it! It's not any one rule or denomination, But only God which is Love, Truth, Light.