Jesus

[A_Nony_Mouse]

You know what really peturbs me, now that I think about it (what with pointing to IE) - is that perhaps unknowingly Enrico here has offered an example of how a language (and the narratives and stories often used to teach said language) can spread so comprehensively and so quickly -even in advance of the main body of the culture, and particularly in the absence of any significant and singular -event- like an invasion..or some christ being born - and still become absolutely dominant (at least linguistically) over a huge landmass. Not only does this example bode poorly for christ's jaunt along the country roads...but the entirety of the jesus narrative.

The entire present day Jesus narrative is based upon four of the 46 gospels. Of the 42 rejected gospels the reason for rejection is known for only one of them.

Consider during the ice people did live as hunter-gatherers in the gaps between glaciers and along the edge of glaciers as well as the plains of Siberia. This suggests high moisture areas leading to forests. As the ice retreated the air would dry out and forests became grasslands. Grass seed became something to gather for food. Eventually the grasses became domesticated and farmers were born. But arkie finds of ancient grains for food shows the time between only a little domesticated to all domesticated took some four thousand years. By the time it was all domestic Mesopotamia had gone from grassland to arid but that was plenty of time to develop all kinds of farming and irrigation techniques for the river banks.

The concept of spreading the language group requires nothing more than for the excess children of farmers to move on when the parents do not have enough land to divide among all the children. When they move on bringing farming with them all they need do is have more children than the H-G territory they move into to cultivate new farmland. The parents' language spreads with their just as would a beneficial allele variation like losing skin pigment for temperate climate living. The farmers' kids and the H-G kids can intermarry but as long farming produces more food and more children H-G culture is going to die out.

It is no different from our western technological society being adopted by even the most primitive cultures around the world. They also adopt our words for the technology. Spreading Aryan words was the same thing. Of course westerners do not move there to outbreed them anymore as the whole world is too populous. Back when the language spread farmers took an insignificant amount of land compared to what H-G folks needed so actually moving was not an issue.

The Christian thing does follow this a bit. The early apologetics of the Christians focused on claiming their religion was the same as or very similar to the Roman religion. Which is not that hard to see when you consider the Romans had already incorporated Yahweh into their pantheon. He was bearded with curly ram's horns.



Miracle worker and god stories were merely templates. They were sort of fill in the blank things. It would be surprising, even a point in favor of truth, if there were significant differences between Jesus, Mithra and Apollonius of Tyana. For example, had Jesus said, the only real god does not want to be worshiped like the false gods, I might perhaps have second thoughts on atheism. (Of course I would rather he had said e=mc^2 but that is another discussion.)

Someone posted the inscription from Japan about the Jesus who learned there and returned there. That is a mix of Christianity and Islam -- someone else really died on the cross. The Japanese would probably have had contact with Islam first.

Anyway the point of how quickly an idea spread is not different from the spread of the latest twist on vampires. aBRAhaM Stoker's original is an amalgam of myths and legends from across Europe back to Roman times. Nothing prior to him had even a common name. They had only of the of characteristics, such as drinking blood, no reflection, shape shifting that he put into a single conception of vampires. None of the things he put into one story ever came to dominate and some had survived only as history.

But when he put them all together the book was an instant success. AND every place that had only one of those characteristics instantly claimed they had always had Bram Stoker vampires. Literally, We had shape shifters therefore we had Stoker vampires. And that is why Vlad the Impaler is so clearly not a Stoker vampire. In fact the closest connection is the name which comes from the Order of the Dragon -- of the Dracul.

People fit stereotypes. As in Holy Grail, I should know a messiah when I see one; I have followed enough of them.