Jesus--Fact or Fiction??

[Mike Cl]

Element 30:
Early-first-century Judea was at the nexus of countless influences, not only from dozens of innovating and interacting Jewish sects (Elements 2 and 33), but also pagan religions and philosophies (Element 31 and 32).  The influence of the latter is sometimes denied, but cannot be, not only because pagans lived, traveled, and traded all throughout Judea (with significant populations in cities throughout the Holy Land, from the Pagan quarters of Caesarea, Gaza, Ptolemais, Tiberieas and Sepphoris to the ten likewise cities of the Decapolis and major port cites such as Tyre and Ashketon, but even more so because Jerusalem, and all Judea, was frequented by millions of pilgrims from the disaporea every year, many (such as Philo of Alexandria) thoroughly Hellenized, who brought with them ideas and teachings from the foreign communities they came from.  Act 2.5-11 and 6.9 are thus reflecting the reality, and that in Jerusalem itself. 

These latter ideas would have infiltrated Palestinian society in two ways.  Some would arrive by simple report:..................................................But others would arrive through prior syncretism;  diaspora Jews combined pagan religious and philosophical ideas with their own Jewish faith (as Philo of Alexandria did--and just as what were then 'mainstream'Palestinian Jews had done before when they adopted notions of hell and resurrection, and the Devil as a supernatural enemy of God, all from their pagan Zoroastrian overlords centuries before), and then came to Judea and promulgated their new ideas as Jewish ideas rather than pagan.  Paul himself is an example:  a diaspora Jew, from either Tarsus (Acts 9.11; 21.39; 22.3) or Damascus (Gal. 2.17; 2 Cor 11.26), whose own version of Christianity, ultimately accepted even by the founders (the 'pillars' of Gal. 2), was laden with ideas from pagan philosophy, literature and mystery cult.

[Baruch]

Correct again.  Temple Judaism itself had evolved out of paganism.  Moses was a myth, even 2000 years ago.  There were Buddhists, Hindus and even Chinese who visited Antioch in Syria.  Petra and Damascus were under Arabic pagan cults.  And philosophers then called Cynics (not what it means now) but a kind of anti-social Hippie ... is a clear context for the ministry of Jesus.  A great deal of paganism came into Zionist Judaism, 500 years earlier, in Babylon.  Rabbinic argumentation owes a lot to Athens.

[Mike Cl]

Element 31:
Incarnate sons (or daughters) of a gods who died and then rose from their deaths to become living gods granting salvation to their worships were a common and peculiar feature of pagan religion when Christianity arose, so much so that influence from paganism is the only plausible explanation for how a Jewish sect such as Christianity came to adopt the idea (again, Element 11).  For example, you won't find this trend in ancient China.  No such gods are found there.  If Christianity had begun in China its claims would indeed have been unique and astonishing.  Yet in its actual Greco-Roman context it was neither unique nor astonishing.  Thus it cannot be a coincidence that Christianity arose with an idea matching a ubiquitous pagan type unique to the very time and place it was born. 

The dying-and-rising son (sometimes daughter) of god 'mytheme' originated in the ancient Near East over a thousand years before Christianity and was spread across the Mediterranean principally by the Phoenicians (Canaanites) from their base at Tyre (and after that by the Carthaginians, the most successful Phoenician cultural diffusers in the early Greco-Roman period), and then fostered and modified by numerous native and Greco-Roman cults that adopted it. 

........................................The public ubiquity of dying-and-rising god myths, always the divine sons or daughters of a supreme god, and often being worshiped as personal saviors, is therefore beyond dispute, and cults not have failed to play a major role in the origins of Christianity.

[Baruch]

Correct again.  But it goes deeper ... Baal of Tyre has a common local ancestor to Osiris of Egypt, Osiris being a form of Canaanite worship brought into Egypt 1000 years earlier (circa 2000 BCE to 1000 BCE) which democratized the afterlife.  When the pyramids were built, only the Pharaoh and his retainers merited an after-life.  The idea of Last Judgement also arises in Egypt (though commonly found elsewhere).  The idea of eating the body of a god, is a pre-historic African rite, present in the Pyramid Texts on the pyramid of Unas ... where divine cannibalism is described ... and that develops into the Temple cult in Judaism, and the Eucharist in Christianity.  The successor in Islam is the lamb eaten at the Hajj, rather than the Passover.

[Mike Cl]

Yes, it does go much deeper.  I only copied about 1/4 of Carrier's entry for that element.  I tried to distill the most salient points since I did not want to be typing into tomorrow. :)  He does mention what you mentioned above.  But I must admit, that as you post replies to these elements Carrier establishes, my admiration for you depth of knowledge grows.

[Baruch]

Yes, it does go much deeper.  I only copied about 1/4 of Carrier's entry for that element.  I tried to distill the most salient points since I did not want to be typing into tomorrow. :)  He does mention what you mentioned above.  But I must admit, that as you post replies to these elements Carrier establishes, my admiration for you depth of knowledge grows.

Ever read The Book Of The Dead?  Very informative, if you are open to how that influenced all future human culture.  And it wasn't completely democratic, but was more of a Middle Class thing.  Very popular in Middle Egypt for some reason ;-)

I simply refuse to despise our ancestors, however primitive they may seem to us.  Without their progress, we would be arguing over stone tools.

[Mike Cl]

Ever read The Book Of The Dead?  Very informative, if you are open to how that influenced all future human culture.  And it wasn't completely democratic, but was more of a Middle Class thing.  Very popular in Middle Egypt for some reason ;-)

I simply refuse to despise our ancestors, however primitive they may seem to us.  Without their progress, we would be arguing over stone tools.

No, I've not read that--yet.  Maybe I should; I've heard of it.  I don't despise our ancestors, either.  It is hard to judge them since I have not lived within their societies.  Or in those eras.

[Baruch]

No, I've not read that--yet.  Maybe I should; I've heard of it.  I don't despise our ancestors, either.  It is hard to judge them since I have not lived within their societies.  Or in those eras.

I recommend, reading about contemporary people, different from oneself, or people of the past sufficiently different from oneself .. to get out of oneself.  Reading about pretend future people is too easy to corrupt to optimism or pessimism, there is no "control" to the self experiment.

[Mike Cl]

Element 32
By whatever route, popular philosophy (especially Cynicism, and to some extend Stoicism and Platonism and perhaps Aristotellanism influenced Christian teachings.

.....................The first-century Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus, for example, shows clear signs of having been influenced by Cynicism, and in result taught things very similar to Jesus, concerning for example, charity, pacifism, forgiveness and brotherly love.  And if that can be so for him, it can be so for Jesus, or anyone in the Christian tradition after him, or the Jewish tradition before him.  And so, too, any other popular philosophy of the age.

[Baruch]

Element 32
By whatever route, popular philosophy (especially Cynicism, and to some extend Stoicism and Platonism and perhaps Aristotellanism influenced Christian teachings.

.....................The first-century Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus, for example, shows clear signs of having been influenced by Cynicism, and in result taught things very similar to Jesus, concerning for example, charity, pacifism, forgiveness and brotherly love.  And if that can be so for him, it can be so for Jesus, or anyone in the Christian tradition after him, or the Jewish tradition before him.  And so, too, any other popular philosophy of the age.

There were alternatives, including pagan alternatives like Apollonius of Tyana, who also reputed to raise the dead.

[Mike Cl]

There were alternatives, including pagan alternatives like Apollonius of Tyana, who also reputed to raise the dead.

There were many, many alternatives with a bunch Carrier suggested.  I just omitted that part to save my old, tired, and slow fingers.

[Baruch]

There were many, many alternatives with a bunch Carrier suggested.  I just omitted that part to save my old, tired, and slow fingers.

Several alternatives were tried out, at least previewed.  Emperor Severus Alexander had several religions simultaneously, just in case one of them worked.  And Constantine really was a Sol Invictus guy, he was just LARPing Christianity, until he got to his death bed (back then, once you became a Christian, no more sinning).

[Cavebear]

Several alternatives were tried out, at least previewed.  Emperor Severus Alexander had several religions simultaneously, just in case one of them worked.  And Constantine really was a Sol Invictus guy, he was just LARPing Christianity, until he got to his death bed (back then, once you became a Christian, no more sinning).

So none of them really meant it about their religious believes.  I knew that.  That you did and continued the idea is not a big surprise.  You aren't anything without your beliefs.  Sensible people don't need them.  Or you.

[Baruch]

So none of them really meant it about their religious believes.  I knew that.  That you did and continued the idea is not a big surprise.  You aren't anything without your beliefs.  Sensible people don't need them.  Or you.

Roman Emperors and I are demigods ... but then everyone is.  I can't speak for those Roman emperors, just observe what they do, and follow the money.  I would assume that in spite of political agendas, their beliefs were sincere.  Having more than one god, isn't a challenge to a polytheist.

Or are you assuming that in all times, including our own, you can tell when a politician is lying ... if you can see their mouth is open?  By all means, but apply that to modern people, not just ancient people who are in no position to defend themselves.

[Cavebear]

Roman Emperors and I are demigods ... but then everyone is.  I can't speak for those Roman emperors, just observe what they do, and follow the money.  I would assume that in spite of political agendas, their beliefs were sincere.  Having more than one god, isn't a challenge to a polytheist.

Or are you assuming that in all times, including our own, you can tell when a politician is lying ... if you can see their mouth is open?  By all means, but apply that to modern people, not just ancient people who are in no position to defend themselves.

I quit politics when I understood that.  And when I had to beg for money at even a local level.