RE: Jesus Christ in comparative mythology
October 9, 2015 at 7:07 pm
Well the list of hero god constructs goes all the way back to Horus in 3000 BCE, however my favorite pre-jesus story is Romulus. The compare and contrast between Romulus and jesus should make people pause and contemplate the similarities...
Lets take a peek:
Mythology has always fascinated me. When you research mythology, you find the common strains, a rhythm, a philosophical skeletal system where the “hero god” is constructed, and the same system is used time and time again. It is almost as if one borrowed from another throughout time. It is impossible to ignore the implication of systematic fabrication. The jesus story, however, was not original. The entire story seems to have been plagiarized in bits and pieces, and sometimes blatantly intact, from ancient god/man mythology passed down by Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Persian cultures.
The list is long, from Horus in 3000 BCE Egypt all the way to jesus, but I will focus on just one…Romulus 771 BCE. In Plutarch’s biography of Romulus, the founder of Rome, we are told he was the son of god, born of a virgin; an attempt is made to kill him as a baby, and he is saved, and raised by a poor family, hailed as King, and killed by the conniving elite; that he rises from the dead, appears to a friend to tell the good news to his people, and ascends to heaven to rule from on high. Sound familiar? Just like Jesus.
Plutarch also tells us about annual public ceremonies that were still being formed, which celebrated the day Romulus ascended to heaven. The story goes as follows: at the end of his life, amid rumors he was murdered by conspiracy of the Senate, the sun went dark, and Romulus’s body vanished. The people wanted to search for him but the Senate told them not to, “for he had risen to join the gods”. Most went away happy, hoping for good things from their new god, but “some doubted”. Soon after, Proculus, a close friend of Romulus, reported that he met Romulus “on the road” between Rome and a nearby town and asked him, “why have you abandoned us?”, To which Romulus replied that he had been a God all along but had come down to earth and become incarnate to establish a great kingdom, and now had to return to his home in heaven. Then Romulus told his friend to tell the Romans that if they are virtuous they will have all worldly power.
Folks, does any of this ring any bells for you? You do realize this story predates Jesus by 800 years right? Fabricators of religion borrow from previous religions Man/God/hero constructs and have all the way back to 3000 B.C.E.
So the fact that the jesus son of god myth story has clearly been plagiarized from older Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Persian cultures, coupled with the fact that no one who wrote of Jesus actually knew him should make a thinking person take a pause, and reflect on the basis of their faith.
In regards to my posit; paragraph three speaks about the ceremony celebrating Romulus's ascension actually going on at the time, so he is a witness, unlike the lack of witnesses in the NT of jesus. More importantly the tale of Romulus itself though was widely attested as pre-christian: in Romulus (27-28), Plutarch, though writing c. 80-120 CE, is certainly recording a long established Roman tale and custom, and his sources are unmistakenly pre-christian: Cicero, Laws 1.3, Republic 2.10; Livy, From the founding of the city 1.16.2-8 (1.3-1.16 relating the whole story of Romulus); Ovid, Fasti 2.491-512 and Metamorphoses 14.805-51; and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 2.63.3 (1.171-2.65 relating the whole story of Romulus); a later reference: Cassius Dio, Roman History 56.46.2. The story's antiquity was even acknowledged by christians: Tertullian, Apology 21.
So as you can see, before christianity was even beginning to be fabricated, the story of Romulus was solidly incorporated into the Roman culture. So it would be a false and disingenuous posit to suggest that the story of Romulus was fabricated after jesus, and based on jesus, when it fact it is the exact opposite. It is also false to say it was interpolations (besides the fact it is all an obvious made up fabrication) as interpolations are additions to writings to make them seem more in line with whatever view the forger wishes to support after the fact. Conjecture? No, it was actually pre-christian, and as I provided above, easy to find within respectable writers from differing times and places. If Plutarch was the only one to write of it, OR he and the other writers were all writing about some "god" named Romulus from 800 years ago, and were writing it after jesus, then you could absolutely draw a correlation to the posit that the story of Romulus was based on jesus, or that it was fabricated to throw suspicion on the jesus story, sadly the facts do not reflect that.
It isn't a huge leap to consider that when the cult leader was nailed to a piece of wood, Paul had to scramble to come up with something as the "prophet" was just executed, and failed to fulfill the prophesy....hmmmmm what to do, what to do...ooooh lets do like people have for the last 3000 years, lets borrow from previous hero god constructs from older stories....voila!
Why didn't jesus fulfill the "prophesies"? lets review:
The Bible claims that Jesus made the following comment:
Matthew 16:28
“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
Jesus also advised against going to court over someone who steals something and also told people not to store up stocks or reserves for the future. Clearly, he thought the end was very near.
Likewise, Paul advised followers not to marry and that the end time was near. In this scripture he obviously believes that some of the people he is talking to will still be alive at the second coming.
I Thessalonians 4: 16-18
“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”
The obvious fact is that the second coming was not forthcoming at that time, or even close to being near. The 2000-year delay is a strong piece of evidence that Christianity is a failed religion.
The following quote from Stephen L. Harris, Professor Emeritus of Humanities and Religious Studies at California State University- Sacramento, completes this point with a devastating argument. Remember that Jesus was a Jew who had no intention to deviate from the Hebrew scriptures:
“Jesus did not accomplish what Israel’s prophets said the Messiah was commissioned to do: He did not deliver the covenant people from their Gentile enemies, reassemble those scattered in the Diaspora, restore the Davidic kingdom, or establish universal peace (cf.Isa. 9:6–7; 11:7–12:16, etc.). Instead of freeing Jews from oppressors and thereby fulfilling God’s ancient promises—for land, nationhood, kingship, and blessing—Jesus died a “shameful” death, defeated by the very political powers the Messiah was prophesied to overcome. Indeed, the Hebrew prophets did not foresee that Israel’s savior would be executed as a common criminal by Gentiles, making Jesus’ crucifixion a “stumbling block” to scripturally literate Jews. (1 Cor.1:23)”
Jesus’ immediate followers, mostly his 12 disciples, probably did not immediately identify this failure, because after Jesus’ body was likely stolen and concealed, a rumor spread that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead. A sense of optimism overcame their grief about his execution and renewed some hope that he was a true messiah. If they had known then that there was to be no return in the near or long-term future, they likely would have abandoned any further activity. Despite this resurgence in their faith, they never agreed with Paul’s concept of Jesus as being divine. Anything written in the Bible to suggest that they did is probably a result of later editing by some of Paul’s followers. Such a belief would have been an exceptional departure from the Jewish faith.
Just my two cents...
You, not a mythical god, are the author of your book of life, make it one worth reading..and living.
