Debunking the "Dying and Rising Gods" Theory

[houseofcantor]

Who says they did?  That's right..nobody.  If the -christians-....not jews...-christians- copied a narrative, either intentionally or unintentionally...as we -very commonly do- it would have been those narratives common to the Med and ANE.

Jews did -and still do- think you christians are full of shit.  Realize this.  It never caught on with them.

It obviously did with a fair number of them early on.

And then Christianity - not Judaism - caught on with a massive portion of the rest of the world.

But there was no pagan prototype.  

Jesus is unique.

Paul was unique, you mean. 

In two areas from what I understand:
1) Free religion.
2) Pushing the gospel.

[houseofcantor]

Jesus is God, and He is alive and active in His Church throughout the world.

Appolonius, apparently, is not.

That's crazy talk.

[Drich]

Priceless coming from the adherent of a Jewish sect that someone slapped a '2.0' on ^_^

btw, the Jews borrowed from Zoroastrians and there are several much older flood myths. But you're right - some of the dying and rising gods claims are exaggerated. Still doesn't make your story original.

But establishing when Zarathustra lived is only the first step. Next, we have to establish what he actually taught (as opposed to what modern Zoroastrianism claims he taught). The only source for Zarathustra’s teachings is the Avesta, and the oldest copies we have of the Avesta date from the 13th century AD. The late date for this collection of writings lends no support whatsoever to the idea that Christians borrowed from Zoroastrianism (the oldest copies of the Jewish Scriptures that we have today date centuries before Christ, and the oldest complete manuscripts of the Christian Scriptures we have date from the 4th century AD).

http://www.gotquestions.org/Jesus-Mithra...anism.html

[Minimalist]

As a youth, Yamauchi was sent to an Episcopalian school. But, by 1952, he had begun to shift towards evangelicalism. In his senior high school year Yamauchi studied at a rural school and worked at a missionary farm known as the Christian Youth Center. He is a founding member of the Oxford Bible Fellowship church in Oxford, Ohio. He was a supporter of the Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship throughout his career, and particularly at the campus of Miami University. He has contributed popular articles to periodicals like Christianity Today magazine on the resurrection of Christ and in response to controversial claims made about the Dead Sea Scrolls.[citation needed]

Yamauchi was featured in the widely read Christian apologetic work The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. He has given presentations on the Easter story to such universities as Cornell, Yale, and Princeton. He has also appeared in various television documentaries concerning the life of Christ.

In other words, Yamauchi is just another fundie dipshit but since he tells Randy what he wants to hear that's all that matters!

[Salacious B. Crumb]

"Their bodies were taken to heaven"? That's not what Christians believe about Jesus, is it?

Every catholic that I have met, truly believes that, but they could be wrong, so you can tell me. I was taught that. Many passages would lead me to believe that. Some say he was transformed before ascending. I believe it could depend on interpretation, maybe not. You can let me know the exact answer if you like though. This is the gist of what I remember:

Instead of being sucked up into a whirlwind (which was quite similar to the Romulus story I posted a few pages back), I know jesus goes through some different events. He’s placed in a tomb, his soul descends to hell (maybe his body would melt), the earth quakes which rolls back the stone, women go to see jesus in the tomb.. he is not there, angel says that he has risen (I’m guessing that means his body as well), jesus remains on earth for 40 days appearing to some folks, jesus tells mary magdalene that he has not yet ascended to his father.. but tell my brothers that I will be ascending to my father, he goes to the Mt. of Olives and ascends into heaven to sit at his father’s right hand forever (but he will come back again).

This really ought to silence the Osiris/Horus/Mithra/whatever crowd, don't you think?

I don’t think it matters what I think. People will still believe what they believe. I was saying that I haven’t seen a copycat, but have seen similar stories borrowed from other beliefs that the christian faith has adopted as their own. I think the point that you will fail to miss (because you’re a catholic) is that you are extremely biased to one of these stories being true, and even if there was an exact copycat of a religion prior to the story of jesus, you’d probably still believe yours was the true one. Even if your story was completely original, that doesn’t make it true. I’m sure you heard this one as well.. us, atheists, view your religion (as fiction) the same as you view every other religion but your own.

Of course not. But here's why:

On the subject of the existence of Jesus and the value of the gospels, etc., Ehrman is standing on solid ground with the vast majority of NT scholars. Good so far. Then he loses his footing when he begins to wander away from the majority opinion.

But that's why he's an atheist.

Please tell me this isn’t an argumentum ad populum. If not, then good. Keyword: Opinion.

However, I still find it strange that you quote him a lot, then when you don't agree with something he says, then his opinion is completely invalid.

Christianity happened because God stepped into history in the incarnation.

I won't pretend to be an expert on Appolonius since I've never heard of him...and that's kinda the point. One set of eyewitnesses has been found credible whereas another has not.

Jesus is God, and He is alive and active in His Church throughout the world.

Appolonius, apparently, is not.

Then, we come to this. There is no rational conversation to be had here. You are arguing from the presupposition that god stepped into history in the incarnation and that jesus is god and that he is alive. These beliefs haven’t been proven to be true. I’ll listen to the proof, but I doubt it will be proof for us. If you had this proof, you’d be quite the hero across the world right now for the christians. If this was true, there would be much more christians in the world, and the numbers wouldn’t be declining.

[abaris]

In other words, Yamauchi is just another fundie dipshit but since he tells Randy what he wants to hear that's all that matters!

What did you expect? A nobel prize winner?