(March 29, 2016 at 11:47 am)The Atheist Wrote:(March 21, 2016 at 12:07 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: How does one go about demonstrating that there was "no inspiration" from pagan religions in Christianity?
I'm genuinely curious as to how you support your claim that there is 'no truth' to claims of syncretism?
The burden of proof lies with the one making the positive assertion. Since there's no credible evidence to suggest this hypothesis, professional scholars reject it.
Perhaps you need to broaden the spectrum of "scholars" you rely upon?
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily...neighbors/
Quote:An even more common motif featured in early Christian art that draws directly from pagan funerary art is that of the Good Shepherd. Commonly represented as a young, beardless man holding a sheep across his shoulders, we see this representation in pagan funerary contexts long before the advent of Christianity. Initially, this image seems to have an association with the pagan god Hermes, who was the patron deity of shepherds and who would accompany the souls of the deceased into Hades. Eventually, however, the image seems to have developed into a symbol of care and comfort in the afterlife. In antiquity, this widely disseminated image was an ideal candidate for artistic syncretism. The Gospels’ story of Christ as the Good Shepherd (John 10:1–9) and similar parables that make allegorical reference to the image of a benevolent and protective shepherd (Luke 15:3–7; Matthew 18:12–13) was an excellent fit for an image that was already known, used and associated with divine protectiveness.
The use by the Christians of pagan sacred imagery is not necessarily confined solely to the Greco-Roman world. The cultural and religious syncretism that took place in Greek and Roman society with other, even older civilizations meant that many early Christians had a wealth of artistic examples that may have originated outside of their immediate cultural landscape. One example is an Egyptian artistic motif: Scholars have long hypothesized that the image of Mary nursing or holding the Christ child close to her breast is an iconographic image borrowed from the ancient Egyptian motif of the goddess Isis nursing the infant Horus.
