RE: Jesusism - Just Another First Century Mystery Cult
October 29, 2017 at 12:11 pm
(This post was last modified: October 29, 2017 at 12:35 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
Yeah, that's the ticket......
It's not "whether" christianity can be accurately described as a mystery religion, it -is- accurately described as such. Proceeding from there, the notion that all of the other mystery religions were significantly influenced by this common cultural theme to produce the category under which they all fall..but that one particular mystery religion wasn't..and just happened to become a textbook example..is too ludicrous to entertain in any attempt to understand the religion in a historical context...regardless of whether or not you find it untenable to consider just because you (and any number of quacks) believe in fairies.
That, in a nutshell, is the difference between anthropology and apologism.
As to the constant reference to "respected historians" not agreeing, let's run with that..explore it a little. If by "respected historians" you mean people who feel that there may have been some person around which hellenic syncretism coalesced with med judaism to form an earlier but not at all recognizable form of christian belief..then yeah, sure. Notice the fairies are still absent, and the historicity of the gospels is in no way advanced. They're positing that some advocate, in that case, helped to create a recognizable mystery religion...which had significant deviance from previous forms of the same and would one day..with further syncretism and political intrigue inc in europe..to what we recognize as christianity today.
But, ofc, that's not who you mean by "respected historians"...you mean quacks who believe in fairies, who believe that the gospels are an AP report from the front. You mean "apologists".
It's not "whether" christianity can be accurately described as a mystery religion, it -is- accurately described as such. Proceeding from there, the notion that all of the other mystery religions were significantly influenced by this common cultural theme to produce the category under which they all fall..but that one particular mystery religion wasn't..and just happened to become a textbook example..is too ludicrous to entertain in any attempt to understand the religion in a historical context...regardless of whether or not you find it untenable to consider just because you (and any number of quacks) believe in fairies.
That, in a nutshell, is the difference between anthropology and apologism.
As to the constant reference to "respected historians" not agreeing, let's run with that..explore it a little. If by "respected historians" you mean people who feel that there may have been some person around which hellenic syncretism coalesced with med judaism to form an earlier but not at all recognizable form of christian belief..then yeah, sure. Notice the fairies are still absent, and the historicity of the gospels is in no way advanced. They're positing that some advocate, in that case, helped to create a recognizable mystery religion...which had significant deviance from previous forms of the same and would one day..with further syncretism and political intrigue inc in europe..to what we recognize as christianity today.
But, ofc, that's not who you mean by "respected historians"...you mean quacks who believe in fairies, who believe that the gospels are an AP report from the front. You mean "apologists".
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