Food for thought - in the 80s I read 220 correlation between Jesus and Horus, but many have not so I am introducing another path to reality WHY AN UNORIGINAL JESUS? Before we address the major question of this two-part series of articles, the obvious question must be asked: Why would anyone want to claim that the story of Jesus is unoriginal or plagiaristic? There are several answers, but due to time and space I will concentrate on only two. First, it is a simple fact that those who do not believe in God and who consequently accept a completely naturalistic view of origin of the Universe and its inhabitants, must find some way to explain the uniqueness of Christ and the uniqueness of the system of religion he instituted. In addressing this point, the late James Bales wrote: If one accepts a naturalistic and evolutionary account of the origin of religion, he will believe that Christianity can be explained naturally. His very approach has ruled out the possibility of the supernatural revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Eminent British evolutionist Sir Julian Huxley asserted: In the evolutionary pattern of thought there is no longer need or room for the supernatural. The earth was not created; it evolved as did all the animals and plants that inhabit it, including our human selves, mind, soul, brain and body. Those who believe that the Universe and life within it evolved in a purely naturalistic fashion likewise must find a totally naturalistic cause for every facet of life. Religion itself is one of those facets, therefore, according to the naturalist, also must have evolved exactly as Huxley suggested it did. It is not difficult to see why an evolutionist would believe it to be inevitable that the story of Jesus originated from earlier, primitive stories. In fact, to say that the story of Jesus evolved from older, more primitive stories is to assert nothing more than what the theory of evolution as taught in every other area of human existence. Atheist Joseph McCabe explained: What we see, in fact, is evolution in religion. The ideas pass on from age to age, a mind here and a mind there adding or refining a little until the slow river of evolution entered its rapids. Second, while some may be motivated by a search for a purely naturalistic origin of religion, others teach that the story of Jesus is derived from earlier Jewish and/or pagan myths and legends. As Bales went on to observe, some have suggested that Christ and Christianity are viewed as natural developments out of Judaism and paganism. That very position has been defended by former-believers-turned-apostates, Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, in The Jesus Mysteries (which is an all-out, frontal assault on the divinity of Christ). We had both been raised as Christians and were surprised to find that, despite years of open-minded spiritual exploration, it still felt somehow dangerous to even dare think such thoughts. Early indoctrination reaches very deep. We were in effect saying that Jesus was a Pagan god and that Christianity was a heretical product of Paganism; It seemed outrageous yet this theory explained the similarities between the stories of Osiris-Dionysus and Jesus Christ in a simple and elegant way. They are parts of one developing mythos.... The Jesus story has all the hallmarks of a myth, so could it be that that is exactly what it is? Why should we consider the stories of Osiris, Dionysus, Adonis, Attis, Mithras, and the other Pagan Mystery saviors as fables, yet come across essentially the same story told in a Jewish context and believe it to be the biography of a carpenter from Bethlehem? We have become convinced that the story of Jesus is not the biography of a historical Messiah, but a myth based on perennial Pagan stories. Christianity was not a new and unique revelation but actually a Jewish adaptation of the ancient Pagan Mystery religion. This is what we have called The Jesus Mysteries Thesis... The obvious explanation is that as early Christianity became the dominant power in the previously Pagan world, popular motifs from Pagan mythology became grafted onto the biography of Jesus.... Such motifs were borrowed from Paganism in the same way that Pagan festivals were adopted as Christian saints days.... The Jesus story is a perennial myth...not merely a history of events that happened to someone 2,000 years ago. And so, while there actually may have been a literal person known as Jesus Christ, he was nothing more than literally a person. The traits claimed for him by his followers (e.g., unusual entrance into the world, unusual activities during his pilgrimage on Earth, unusual exit from this world, arose after the fact as a result of having been derived or plagiarized from ancient pagan and/or Jewish sources. Christs historicity is at stake here; even as unbelievers and infidels of every stripe have long acknowledged his existence. My issue has to do with whether or not Jesus of Nazareth was who He claimed to be, the unique, only begotten, incarnate Son of God. It is known by Archeologist that there was no Nazareth or Bethlehem during the time Jesus was supposedly born and in reading about his birth in the second chapters of Matthew and Luke in the New Testament it appears they were confused.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 13:44:30 +0000
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