RE: Pagan influences on the biblical stories of Jesus' life
March 21, 2016 at 4:31 am
(This post was last modified: March 21, 2016 at 4:35 am by Panatheist.)
(March 21, 2016 at 2:40 am)Kitan Wrote:(March 21, 2016 at 2:31 am)Panatheist Wrote: Islam is both monotheistic (and in a stricter more literal sense of affirming God's oneness) and newer than the various Christianities.
When you say about sixteen cultures "believed in the same characteristics in a god figure that Christianity describes in Jesus," are you specifically referring to virgin births, resurrections, and the like? Do you have any links?
Sorry, I was not thinking properly. You are correct, Christianity is the middle child with the Judeo-Christian family. Islam is the newest, and will most likely be the most problematic even though that role is usually reserved for the oldest.
And in accordance with your second reference, I do have links.
And okay, I got the number wrong. I'm only human.
Sixteen is not correct.
Ten it is.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unreasonabl...ate-jesus/
http://listverse.com/2009/04/13/10-chris...ate-jesus/
That is not a very good source. Right off the bat from the first two entites mentioned: Jesus would have lived very very far away from where Buddhism and Hinduism originated, and there are often exaggerations and errors in the purported similarities between Buddha, Krishna, and Jesus. I was thinking of perhaps mystery religions or other cults closer to where the early Jesus movements would have originated.
(March 21, 2016 at 4:13 am)Huggy74 Wrote:(March 21, 2016 at 2:02 am)Panatheist Wrote: I know that some claims about pagan influences on Christianity are overblown or discredited, but is there any truth to the claim that the virgin birth, the death, and resurrection of Jesus (and possibly some other elements) took inspiration from pagan religions or mystery religions?
This matter is of strictly academic interest to me.
Nope
That's what I'm thinking, too. For some reason a book I'm reading with otherwise good information suggests that the story of Jesus was influenced by Mediterranean religions as to the virgin birth, etc. I can give more weight to the claim that Christianity does at least have hellenic influences, but I don't know that such is responsible for Jesus' birth and resurrection stories.