Quote:
Originally Posted by SeeBass
|
This is a crock.
• In the first place, crucifixion was invented by the Persians at some point in the mid-first millennium b.c.e. Any claims with regards to ancient Egyptian or Greek gods or heroes having been crucified prior to 600 or 700 b.c.e. is entirely false.
• Attempts to draw parallels between the virgin birth / baptism of Jesus and pagan gods tend to be very strained or non-existent. While I do concede that the virgin birth tradition attached to Jesus was probably influenced through contact with Greek religious traditions, this should not be at all surprising, given that myths were commonly borrowed and passed rather readily through cultural and religious boundaries.
• Jesus was NOT EVER presented in any Christian tradition as having been born on Dec 25. Christmas was adopted by the church for the official celebration of Jesus nativity, and as a result several elements of the Greco-Roman Saturmalia festival gravitated into the adopted Christian celebration. However, it is abundantly clear that throughout Christian history, the actual date of Jesus's birth remained a readily acknowledged mystery. The invention of Christmas had much less to do with commemorating the specific date of Christ's arrival, and much more to do with placating tens of thousands of new Roman converts into the recently State sanctioned religion.
• Attempted connections between the religious practices of Jesus, such as his baptism, the performance of miracles, or the basic teachings or even the organization of his ministry are incredibly strained. There was a great deal of "cross-seeding" between religions largely because most religions at some point or another stemmed from a common worldview. The point is that hundreds of religious leaders engaged in ritual purification, the assembly of followers, and the performance of miracles. Does that mean that they were all "copycats"? No. It simply means that ancient religion was much more homogeneous than we tend to imagine.
In the end, this Zeitgeist inspired garbage is a product of conspiricy theorists with a very poor sense of ancient history, and sloppy research abilities. Any supposed connections they seek to make are well after the fact, imagined, and not in any sense part of the historical record. What is happening here is more along the lines of anachronistically reading Christian traditions backwards onto more ancient religions.