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Jesusism - Just Another First Century Mystery Cult
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Jesusism - Just Another First Century Mystery Cult
Quote:The earliest definitely known form of Christianity was a Judeo-Hellenistic mystery religion. This is also beyond any reasonable
doubt, yet frequently denied in the field of Jesus research, often with a suspiciously intense passion. So I shall here survey a case for it.

To say Christianity was a mystery religion is not to say that Christianity is exactly like any other mystery religion, any more than any mystery
religion was 'exactly like' any other. Often when scholars deny that Christianity was a mystery religion, they really mean it wasn't just one of
the already-existing mystery religions superficially overhauled with Jewish concepts. Christianity wasn't 'Osiris Cult 2.0'. Which is certainly true. But
that's all that anyone's evidence can prove. If instead we define a mystery religion as any Hellenistic cult in which individual salvation was procured
by a ritual initiation into a set of 'mysteries', the knowledge of which and participation in which were key to ensuring a blessed eternal life, then
Christianity was demonstrably a mystery religion beyond any doubt.

I f we then expand that definition to include a set of specific features held in common by all other mystery religions of the early Roman era, then
Christianity becomes even more demonstrably a mystery religion, so much so, in fact, that it's impossible to deny it was deliberately constructed as
such. Even the earliest discernible form of Christianity emulates numerous cultic features and concepts that were so unique to the Hellenistic mystery
cults that it is statistically beyond any reasonable possibility that they all found their way into Christianity by mere coincidence. They formed a
coherent, logical and repeatedly replicated system of ideas in every other mystery cult. It would be irrational to conclude the same wasn't so of Christianity.
Christianity cannot be understood apart from this fact. And any theory of historicity that fails to account for it cannot be credible.  That Christianity taught eternal salvation for the individual cannot be denied. That it taught that this salvation was procured by initiation rituals
(such as undergoing baptism and partaking of the Eucharist) cannot be denied.


Richard Carrier, On The Historicity of Jesus pgs 96-97

Very common shit in new packaging as far as the first century was concerned!
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Jesusism - Just Another First Century Mystery Cult - by Minimalist - October 18, 2017 at 12:52 pm

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