RE: Would Jesus promote punishing the innocent instead of the guilty?
September 6, 2020 at 4:30 pm
(This post was last modified: September 6, 2020 at 5:13 pm by GrandizerII.)
(September 6, 2020 at 4:16 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote:(September 6, 2020 at 2:59 pm)Grandizer Wrote: Can we see the context in which the phrase you speak of was said, btw? Line number please. I have a translated Bacchae text available right now.
Sure, in some translations of The Bacchae and the Acts the word "pricks" is translated into "goads".
So you have Dionysus, free from prison, telling Pentheus, “Don’t kick against the goad – a man against a god,” just like in Acts 26:14 “Why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads”
And it also comes after familiar scene where Paul, Dionysus comes to be imprisoned. Not recognized as a divine figure, King Pentheus of Thebes locked him in chains until he could demonstrate that Dionysus is just the wild imaginary figure of repressed women. An earthquake, however, soon rattles the city and Dionysus emerges, chains shed, to the astonishment of Pentheus.
Thanks, but imprisonment happening in two accounts is hardly a remarkable similarity. And phrases like the one you quoted could easily be found in multiple accounts without there having to the case that one must have been lifted from another.
Based on what you described, the account isn't so remarkably similar to anything to do with Paul's account so that the conclusion of plagiarism or whatever is then warranted.
ETA: I missed the earthquake bit. While interesting similarity, this may just simply be a common trope in ancient stories, but it's possible this bit may have been influenced by the Bacchae, hard to tell. Either way, Paul did claim he had a vision, even if the account in Acts then exaggerates and borrows stuff.