Christianity predates Jesus?

[Nosameerf]

Hi brothers,

I have heard some people mention that Christianity pre-dates Jesus. I am currently reading a book called The Jesus Mysteries which I am enjoying very much. The thesis is that Jesus is basically a Christian appropriation of the pagan Osiris-Dionysus myth. The reasons being the supposed similarities between the individuals concerned:

The Jesus Mysteries thesis

Freke and Gandy base the Jesus Mysteries thesis partly on a series of parallels between their suggested biography of Osiris-Dionysus and the biography of Jesus drawn from the four canonical gospels. Their suggested reconstruction of the myth of Osiris-Dionysus, compiled from the myths of ancient dying and resurrected "godmen," bears a striking resemblance to the gospel accounts. The authors give a short list of parallels at the beginning of the book:

* Osiris-Dionysus is God made flesh, the savior and "Son of God."
* His father is God and his mother is a mortal virgin, 7 month pregnancy.
* He is born in a cave or humble cowshed on December 25 before three shepherds.
* He offers his followers the chance to be born again through the rites of baptism.
* He miraculously turns water into wine at a marriage ceremony.
* He rides triumphantly into town on a donkey while people wave palm leaves to honor him.
* He dies at Eastertime as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.
* After his death he descends to hell, then on the third day he rises from the dead and ascends to heaven in glory.
* His followers await his return as the judge during the Last Days.
* His death and resurrection are celebrated by a ritual meal of bread and wine, which symbolize his body and blood.

Later chapters add further parallels, including Mary's 7 month pregnancy.

According to The Jesus Mysteries, Christianity originated as a Judaized version of the pagan mystery religions. Hellenized Jews wrote a version of the godman myth incorporating Jewish elements. Initiates learned the myth and its allegorical meanings through the Outer and Inner Mysteries. (A similar pattern of "Lesser" and "Greater" Mysteries was part of the pagan Eleusinian Mysteries. Mithraism was structured around seven serial initiations.) They suggest that, at some point, groups of Christians who had only experienced the Outer Mysteries were split off from the elders of the religion and forgot that there had ever been a second initiation, and that, later, when they encountered groups who had retained the Inner Mysteries, the "Literalist Christians" attacked the "Gnostics" for claiming what the Literalists saw as false knowledge and false initiations. They claim that the Literalists won out when the emperor Constantine saw the political merit of 'one empire, one emperor, one god', nearly exterminating the Gnostics, and became the Roman Catholic Church and its modern descendants.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jesus_Mysteries

Is this what people are talking about when they say that Christianity pre-dates Jesus or do they mean something else and if so, what?

[theplumbtruth]

Nov 15, 2009 21:45:30 GMT Nosameerf said:

Is this what people are talking about when they say that Christianity pre-dates Jesus or do they mean something else and if so, what?

It's a very complex issue. As someone mentioned on another thread, Jesus was a person and Christ is more a title. Jesus was referred to as the Christ here to lead God's kingdom on earth. To have a Christ consciousness is more Gnostic. Christianity evolved from the Apostle Paul and is not 100% what Jesus the Christ preached.

Jesus and Mother Mary may well be taken from other pagan traditions whether it be Isis and Osiris, or more pointedly in Masonic symbolism the Widows Son. Many religions around the world have the story of the Widows Son.

Individual beliefs and concepts of Jesus are so very, very personal to many I'll leave it at that. But I would love to hear others comments here too.

[methuselah]

As theplumbtruth says, it's complex. Saying "Christianity predates Jesus" is a tad disingenous, but I see what they mean. If you look at early Christianity as being a hellenistically- influenced form of Judaism, esp. with a huge dollop of Hermeticism, you'd be closer to the truth on it. This tends to be overstated a bunch.
Yeah, the Osiris- Dionysus legends had an influence (and that whole concept is present in most of the old mystery faiths), but the points mentioned have far more in common with Mithraism, which is really where Constantine & Co. got the particulars for the Christian "religion."

Since we're all adults here, and can handle some non- mainstream thinking, you may also want to keep in mind that the actual existence of the man Jesus isn't necessary for the philosophy of Christianity to be relevant; he may very well have been a mythic figure, so talk of anything being "pre- Jesus," IMHO, is irrelevant.

Also, the words of Paul may have very well been adapted to conform to what the Church did to the religion. Many Gnostics believe he may not have been given a fair shake.

[generatics]

Not that I'm a member of the tinfoil hat crowd, but I highly recommend watching the first section of the Zeitgeist movie. You can watch it for free on Google video, and the first part of it deals exclusively with comparisons of Christianity to nearly every previous ancient religious cult. It scratches the surface quite nicely and has a ton of interesting info. The rest of the film deals with 9/11 conspiracy and the Federal Reserve, but the first part is quite interesting.

[mgc]

zeitgeist, lovely movie.. there was a bit to much "color therapy" to my liking but the info was interesting.. part 2 and 3 will prolly leave u wondering weather ur rather naive or the director rather crazy..

[methuselah]

Nov 17, 2009 22:45:27 GMT generatics said:

Not that I'm a member of the tinfoil hat crowd, but I highly recommend watching the first section of the Zeitgeist movie. You can watch it for free on Google video, and the first part of it deals exclusively with comparisons of Christianity to nearly every previous ancient religious cult. It scratches the surface quite nicely and has a ton of interesting info. The rest of the film deals with 9/11 conspiracy and the Federal Reserve, but the first part is quite interesting.

While there was a lot pointed out in the first section of Zeitgeist that was true, there were enough inaccuracies that I don't believe I'd use it as an authoritative reference.

[mgc]

I don't believe I'd use it as an authoritative reference.

imo it was one of those "connect the dots and follow the 8 lane wide red line" type of movies that may contain flaws but leaves the red line in tact; ur getting screwed..

[methuselah]

Nov 18, 2009 15:04:23 GMT mgc said:

I don't believe I'd use it as an authoritative reference.

imo it was one of those "connect the dots and follow the 8 lane wide red line" type of movies that may contain flaws but leaves the red line in tact; ur getting screwed..

I understand; that just doesn't work for me. If a theory, especially a conspiracy, has blatant errata, I chuck the theory- that makes it flawed.

Absolutely no argument on the "we're screwed" thing, however.

[letterorhalveit3]

Nov 18, 2009 15:51:36 GMT methuselah said:

Nov 18, 2009 15:04:23 GMT mgc said:

imo it was one of those "connect the dots and follow the 8 lane wide red line" type of movies that may contain flaws but leaves the red line in tact; ur getting screwed..

I understand; that just doesn't work for me. If a theory, especially a conspiracy, has blatant errata, I chuck the theory- that makes it flawed.

Absolutely no argument on the "we're screwed" thing, however.

Not all flawed theories are wrong. They are flawed. Theres a difference. If everyone in history trying to proive something chucked out an idea at its first sign of a flaw...we'd still be living in caves and painting ourselves blue.

[Nosameerf]

I am really enjoying reading all your comments. I also liked Zeitgeist but I read a few thing that said that a lot of it was not wholly accurate and it did put me off. The first part is the most enjoyable though and very well done.

Senior lecturer in Ancient History Chris Forbes of Macquarie University has severely criticized Part I of the movie as having no basis in serious scholarship or ancient sources, relying on amateur sources that "borrow ideas from each other, and who recycle the same silly stuff" and "not a single serious source" can be found in official reference lists attached to the movie. Of the film he says "It is extraordinary how many claims it makes which are simply not true."

Forbes notes that Ra, not Horus, is the Egyptian sun god, and that there is no evidence in Egyptian sources saying that Horus' mother Isis was a virgin. Similarly, neither Krishna (the eighth son), Dionysus (whose mother had slept with Zeus) nor Attis were ever supposed born of virgins. He points out that "son" and "sun" are not homophonic words in either Latin, Ancient Egyptian, or Greek, and therefore no such misunderstanding would occur; that the December 25 birth is not part of any of the myths—including that of Jesus, for whom Christmas Day was appointed as a festival day in open knowledge that the real date was not known.

Dr. Forbes also criticizes the movie's use of Roman sources to suggest that Jesus didn't exist, noting that a long list flashed across the screen of supposed contemporary historians that did not mention Jesus is actually comprised of geographers, gardening writers, poets and philosophers, who should not be expected to mention him. The allegation that Josephus' mention of Jesus was added later is criticized as misleading. Josephus actually mentions Jesus twice, with only one reference believed by scholars to have been doctored in the Middle Ages but to change an already existing mention of him. He also argues that the film misrepresents Constantine when it presents him as making Christianity compulsory (when he only legalized it) and inventing the historical Jesus (when early church records show that the historicity of Jesus had been a key element of faith from early on).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist,_the_Movie#Criticism

Anyway, the more I read this book The Jesus Mysteries, the more I love it, especially its focus and explanation of the ancient mysteries. These seem particularly relevant to some of my experiences as regards Freemasonry. It especially fills in some of the background details for the first degree tracing board (for me anyway).

[Tamrin]

Oddly, the notion of Christianity predating Jesus is a point on which both skeptics and fundamentalists agree. Only those in between are unconvinced.

The skeptical side has already been mentioned here. The fundamentalist notion is that Jesus came to fulfil the law (Matthew 5:17) and they therefore look to prior Biblical 'history' for evidence of the prefiguring of Christ. For instance, some see figures such as Moses and Noah as prototypes.

[Tamrin]

The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors

[/size]
by Kersey Graves[/b], 1875[/size]

[On-line Book - www.sacred-texts.com - Linked Above][/center]

This is one of the most controversial books about the Christian narrative of Jesus ever published. Graves tried to gather together all of what was known at the time about other similar stories of gods who walked the earth, preached ethical and mystical doctrines, and ended up as deicides. Today, folklorists have discovered a set of world-wide themes relating a story of a culture-hero who has a miraculous birth and tragic death. This is one of the archetypal stories which Jung and Campbell discussed. It is now considered less shocking that incidents in religious narrative could be drawn from the global bank of folklore motifs. This does not lessen the impact, however, on traditional believers in these narratives as the absolute truth.

So is the need for a deathless hero who saves humanity part of the deep structure of our brain? Is religion simply filling a psychological need which is part of being human? This book may be picked apart in its details; however, it was one of the first to explore this 'big' question, an answer to which is as pressing today as it was then. The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors raised a host of questions, few of which have yet been adequately answered, over a century later.

There are serious flaws in this book. Graves was apparently not working from original sources, with the exception of the Bible; he seems to have relied on books such as Higgins' Anacalypsis, without necessarily citing them. He muddles Vaishnava Hinduism and Buddhism, two belief systems with fundamental differences. That said, the traditional narratives of Krishna and Buddha do contain motifs in common with the NT stories of Jesus.

Production notes. This text first appeared on the Internet at another site, in a slightly defective and added-emphasis version with a disclaimer on each page. I have corrected the text to reflect the original book as closely as possible, as per this sites' standards. Some have criticized Graves for excessive typos (as if this was an intellectual failing on his part), and there are certainly a few in this book. However, I can state definitively after a modern spell-check of the text that they are not particularly excessive compared to any given book from this period.

[Tamrin]

See also Robertson's book, which remedies some of Graves' omissions:

Pagan Christs
by John M. Robertson, 1911

[/size]

[On-line Book - www.sacred-texts.com - Linked Above][/center]

...you take the blue pill--the story ends...you take the red pill...
and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.--Morpheus in The Matrix

Talk about your red pills. J.M. Robertson herein challenges not only the historical authenticity of the canonical accounts of the founding of Christianity, but also Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, and Judaism. He answers the question implicit in Kersey Graves' 1875 screed, The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors. Why so many similar stories of savior figures in world religion?

At the dark heart of this mystery, according to Robinson, is a prehistoric drama involving human sacrifice (particularly, of children), cannibalism, and regicide. The purpose: to implore the gods, or to expiate collective sin. As time passed, the rituals were softened, and turned into symbolic equivalents (such as the scapegoat and the eucharist), while retaining the tragic end of the narrative. A culture hero, born under portents, dies, often under torture, in order to save all humanity. These and other tropes ended up embedded in our tales of the founders of major religions, from Buddha to Jesus.

Robertson pulls in historic, ethnographic and folklore data from hundreds of carefully cited sources. He covers examples from antiquity such as Mithraism, Manichaeism, and Apollonius of Tyana. In the final section he universalizes his study and focuses on Native America, particularly the Aztec. The conclusions of this book remain highly controversial, but the sheer mass of evidence accumulated demands consideration. This will be a thorny book for believers, but a revelation for free-thinkers.

Savior-God on Cross (Aztec)

[theplumbtruth]

from Tamrin's quote on The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors:
There are serious flaws in this book. Graves was apparently not working from original sources, with the exception of the Bible;

And why do some still think the Bible is an original source? Where the heck do you think all those ancient stories came from? Not to mention how many translations they went through to become the bastardized versions we have today, biblical or otherwise.

[magusmasonica]

Nov 19, 2009 1:47:50 GMT theplumbtruth said:

from Tamrin's quote on The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors:
There are serious flaws in this book. Graves was apparently not working from original sources, with the exception of the Bible;

And why do some still think the Bible is an original source? Where the heck do you think all those ancient stories came from? Not to mention how many translations they went through to become the bastardized versions we have today, biblical or otherwise.

Oh you naughty heretic ;D

[methuselah]

Nov 18, 2009 18:51:37 GMT letterorhalveit3 said:

Nov 18, 2009 15:51:36 GMT methuselah said:

I understand; that just doesn't work for me. If a theory, especially a conspiracy, has blatant errata, I chuck the theory- that makes it flawed.

Absolutely no argument on the "we're screwed" thing, however.

Not all flawed theories are wrong. They are flawed. Theres a difference. .

No. You can't properly sell a reality with bullsh*t. The reality may be the reality, but selling it with gaping errors makes you an unwitting snake oil salesman. Does that matter to the general public? No. Does it matter to the educated? Yes. Selling truth with bullsh*t puts you on the same level as the priesthood.
Review the Lecture in the 32nd on this.

[middlepillar]

Nov 19, 2009 7:14:40 GMT methuselah said:

Nov 18, 2009 18:51:37 GMT letterorhalveit3 said:

Not all flawed theories are wrong. They are flawed. Theres a difference. .

No. You can't properly sell a reality with bullsh*t. The reality may be the reality, but selling it with gaping errors makes you an unwitting snake oil salesman. Does that matter to the general public? No. Does it matter to the educated? Yes. Selling truth with bullsh*t puts you on the same level as the priesthood.
Review the Lecture in the 32nd on this.

I would have to agree with Methuselah, if there is bullsh*t it is covering a serious flaw (or even a small one) the longer time goes on the wider the flaw becomes, just like Chinese Whispers, once the damage is done it is irretrievable no matter how pure the intentions.

[mgc]

this would be a great discussion in its own right..

No. You can't properly sell a reality with bullsh*t.

Selling truth with bullsh*t puts you on the same level as the priesthood.

r u claiming the bullshit (i assume u mean flaws here?) to be intentional?

The reality may be the reality

it may be?

once the damage is done it is irretrievable no matter how pure the intentions.

there r prolly not many scientists who havnt xperienced this first hand.. does that mean all their work was in vain?

[methuselah]

Nov 19, 2009 10:25:32 GMT middlepillar said:

if there is bullsh*t it is covering a serious flaw (or even a small one) the longer time goes on the wider the flaw becomes, just like Chinese Whispers, once the damage is done it is irretrievable no matter how pure the intentions.

Well said, Bro..

[methuselah]

Nov 19, 2009 12:32:49 GMT mgc said:

this would be a great discussion in its own right..

No. You can't properly sell a reality with bullsh*t.

r u claiming the bullshit (i assume u mean flaws here?) to be intentional?

No, not at all. I've seen and heard a lot of theories that were flawed, due primarily to the zeal of the promoter overriding the need for better fact- checking, or overlooking errors that fit in with the general theory. It happens a lot among esoterics, in fact.
It happens in Masonry a bunch.

there r prolly not many scientists who havnt xperienced this first hand.. does that mean all their work was in vain?

No, but a good scientist adjusts a theory when necessary, and generally starts out postulating something new. If a schlub like me immediately recognizes glaring errors in a "new" theory I've generally known and worked with for a hell of a long time, it ain't a scientist: it's a wide- eyed fluffy bunny who just discovered the idea, a conspiracy theorist who is so in love with the theory that his BS-O-Meter is momentarily out of adjustment, or a scammer. In this case, I suspect it's a combo of the first two.

Minor example: My ex now considers herself a Gnostic. Why? Because the founding Christians worshipped the Magdalene as the personification of the Divine Female Principle, and she and Jesus had kids who gave birth to an honest, homespun, attractive French chick who is a Parisian cop.
Not.
Thank you, Dan Brown and Da Vinci Code, via the torturous route of Baigent and Leigh. I actually am a Gnostic, BTW, and the arguments with her over this were hilarious. She went to Scotland to specifically check out all the wiz- bang- dandy Templar and Masonic symbolism that isn't there.
(I don't begrudge Big Dan- his publisher just needed to print "fiction" a little larger on the spine, I guess. :

Now, were there pieces of truth in that book? Sure. And a whole lot of bullsh*t, to make it more marketable. My ex bought it as a tidy truth, because the female- worship angle appealed to her (she's fairly newly- out- of- the- closet gay, and a tad Diannic), she had never heard any kind of alternate Christian story before, so this was new and cool, and she's not particularly savvy when it comes to such things.

She is now working under a bullsh*t operating system, with a little bit of truth for the wrong reasons. Christian fundies, and a ton of esoteric Christians, do the same thing, because they overlook errata. I consider that harmful. It's their own fault, but it's still living in error.
Always analyze.