Dying Gods

[flitzerbiest]

The following deities* also died and were resurrected, according to the sacred texts associated with their religions:

Aesclepius
Adonis
Baldr
Dionysus
Mithras
Orpheus
Osiris
Persephone

Question for Christians: Do you believe these resurrection stories? Why or why not? Please note that their basis of support (i.e. sacred texts) is identical to that for Jesus.



* = partial list

[Mithrae]

Question for Christians: Do you believe these resurrection stories? Why or why not? Please note that their basis of support (i.e. sacred texts) is identical to that for Jesus.

I think you'd have a hard time making your case for that. I'm on nodding terms with Mithraic studies, for example, and have yet to see any reference to sacred texts mentioning death and resurrection. Prior to the Christian era I suspect it would be hard to make a case from any source that Mithras was a death/resurrection god, and during/after the turn of the millenium Mithraism (like some of the others you mention) was a mystery cult, with no sacred texts whatsoever. What we've pieced together, to my understanding, comes mostly from the archaeological remains of the plentiful mithraeums, and comments about their practices from the authors of antiquity.

Even if a case could be made that Christian-era Mithras was a death/resurrection god (and I haven't delved deeply enough to confirm even that to my satisfaction), the very nature of the mystery cults implies an obviously mythic nature to the stories, to our minds at least. By contrast the gospels, particularly the synoptics, read as narrative in an historical context, about an historical person, portraying a literal resurrection. That's not to say that the gospels can't be read mythically or that the mystery cults couldn't be interpreted as looking back to literal events, but such a view would require justification.

And finally, even granting that any/all of those gods were indeed considered death/resurrection figures in a literal sense, perhaps even some on the basis of sacred texts, it's certain that none of those texts were written within a generation of the earthly life of the figure in question.

[flitzerbiest]

Even if a case could be made that Christian-era Mithras was a death/resurrection god (and I haven't delved deeply enough to confirm even that to my satisfaction), the very nature of the mystery cults implies an obviously mythic nature to the stories, to our minds at least. By contrast the gospels, particularly the synoptics, read as narrative in an historical context, about an historical person, portraying a literal resurrection.

I find this to be an odd argument. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that the mere fact that the gospels are written in a different literary genre makes their claims more credible. The claims are parallel--death and resurrection. I fail to see that how one tells the story makes the substance more likely to be true.

[prkrruns]

several points:

1) eye wittnesses
2)social standing where they had nothing to gain and much to lose
3)first wittnesses were women


1) There were eye wittnesses that claim Jesus appeared to them after his resurection. These are for the most part the diciples. They all have the same story.

2) The diciples had nothing to gain from laiming that Jesus was resurected. They did not ask for money, they did not "climb the social ladder". Actually many of them were tortured and killed for claiming that Jesus had risen from the dead.

3) The first wittnesses of the empty tomb were women. In that time women had no social standing. They were often servants or cooks. The fact that the women were the ones to discover the empty tomb and tell people about it makes the story more believable. After all, if the deciples really were creating an elaborate hoax, then why not have somone who would be trusted find the empty tomb and spread the news? why try to sabotage their own plan?

These are a few reasons why we believe Jesus rose from the dead. In no other story will you find this kind of proof.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

1) There were eye wittnesses that claim Jesus appeared to them after his resurection. These are for the most part the diciples. They all have the same story.

Name a single eyewitness account of the resurrected Jesus.

2) The diciples had nothing to gain from laiming that Jesus was resurected. They did not ask for money, they did not "climb the social ladder".

Refuted by Gospel Matthew 27:62-64.

Actually many of them were tortured and killed for claiming that Jesus had risen from the dead.

Stories of "many" of the apostles and earliest disciples being "tortured and killed for claiming that Jesus had risen from the dead" is a matter of later Christian tradition and occurs mainly in the various second and third century Apocryphal accounts but is nowhere contained in the NT.

3) The first wittnesses of the empty tomb were women. In that time women had no social standing. They were often servants or cooks. The fact that the women were the ones to discover the empty tomb and tell people about it makes the story more believable. After all, if the deciples really were creating an elaborate hoax, then why not have somone who would be trusted find the empty tomb and spread the news? why try to sabotage their own plan?

If the tomb was empty then it was empty for all to see. The gender of those who first pointed this out is immaterial.

[Mithrae]

Even if a case could be made that Christian-era Mithras was a death/resurrection god (and I haven't delved deeply enough to confirm even that to my satisfaction), the very nature of the mystery cults implies an obviously mythic nature to the stories, to our minds at least. By contrast the gospels, particularly the synoptics, read as narrative in an historical context, about an historical person, portraying a literal resurrection.

I find this to be an odd argument. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that the mere fact that the gospels are written in a different literary genre makes their claims more credible. The claims are parallel--death and resurrection. I fail to see that how one tells the story makes the substance more likely to be true.

Not quite - I'm saying that Christians would be foolish to take death/resurrection myths (the Osiris/Set/Horus story would be an example of material built up over centuries and obviously intended as myth) literally or to 'believe' them in that sense. There is an obvious distinction there between at least some (possibly all) of your examples and the Christian example, which was not written as myth. That would be a reason why they might believe one and not the others.

[WinePusher]

1) There were eye wittnesses that claim Jesus appeared to them after his resurection. These are for the most part the diciples. They all have the same story.

Name a single eyewitness account of the resurrected Jesus.

The Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Texts considered to be eye-witness accounts by Scholars who have critically studied the New Testament and the Authenticity of the Gospels.

Actually many of them were tortured and killed for claiming that Jesus had risen from the dead.

Stories of "many" of the apostles and earliest disciples being "tortured and killed for claiming that Jesus had risen from the dead" is a matter of later Christian tradition and occurs mainly in the various second and third century Apocryphal accounts but is nowhere contained in the NT.

First of all, this is false; second of all, it is irrelevant. The accounts contained in the Acts of the Apostles describe the persecution that the Early Christians faced from Rome, and Extra-Biblical accounts tell us that they were "tortured and killed for claiming that Jesus had risen from the dead." As a non-theist, I would think you would accept Non-Biblical sources as more reliable than the New Testament.

3) The first wittnesses of the empty tomb were women. In that time women had no social standing. They were often servants or cooks. The fact that the women were the ones to discover the empty tomb and tell people about it makes the story more believable. After all, if the deciples really were creating an elaborate hoax, then why not have somone who would be trusted find the empty tomb and spread the news? why try to sabotage their own plan?

If the tomb was empty then it was empty for all to see. The gender of those who first pointed this out is immaterial.

The point prkrruns is making is that the Empty Tomb is not legend because of the way the narrative is structured. The fact that women are presented as the first who discoverd the empty tomb hurts the authors credibility, thus the criterion of dissimilarity applies here and the probability that the tomb was actually empty increases substantially.

[Murad]

1) There were eye wittnesses that claim Jesus appeared to them after his resurection. These are for the most part the diciples. They all have the same story.

Name a single eyewitness account of the resurrected Jesus.

The Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Texts considered to be eye-witness accounts by Scholars who have critically studied the New Testament and the Authenticity of the Gospels.

Which NON CHRISTIAN scholars consider the 4 canonical Gospels to be authored by "EYE WITNESSES"?
Do you know what date they were recorded down in text?

* Mark: c. 68"73,[32] c 65-70[3]
* Matthew: c. 70"100.[32] c 80-85.[3]
* Luke: c. 80"100, with most arguing for somewhere around 85,[32] c 80-85[3]
* John: c 90-100,[3] c. 90"110,[33] The majority view is that it was written in stages, so there was no one date of composition.

Such vivid linguistics found in the New Testament, can you believe it derived from oral tradition? What about the editing & alteration of the canonical Gospels(Greek Manuscripts)? Were the editors eye witnesses aswell?

[Tired of the Nonsense]

Tired of the Nonsense wrote:
Name a single eyewitness account of the resurrected Jesus.

WinePusher wrote:
The Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Texts considered to be eye-witness accounts by Scholars who have critically studied the New Testament and the Authenticity of the Gospels.

Even the most conservative of Christian scholars acknowledge that neither the authors of Gospel Mark nor Gospel Luke have any claim to eyewitness authority. The author of Gospel Luke as well as Acts, according even to Christian tradition, was a disciple of Paul, who was himself not an eyewitness to any of the events detailed in the Gospels. The earliest information on the author of Gospel Mark is taken from church father and Christian historian Papias who, writing in the first half of the second century, identified the author of Gospel Mark as a disciple of the apostle Peter and as a person who did not himself "know the Lord."

Papias also referred to the author of Gospel John as John the PRESBYTER, John the elder, an elder of a church in Asia Minor near to Papias, not the accepted title of evangelist normally accorded to the apostle. There is in fact nothing to connect the Gospel of John to the apostle John, beyond the name John, as common then as today, and 2,000 years of assumption, tradition, and wishful thinking on the part of Christians. Nor was there any uniform early opinion on the subject of who wrote Gospel John. Early tradition placed the writing of Gospel John at Ephesus in Asia Minor (modern Turkey), not far from Papias' home city of Hierapolis. As to the identity of the author, that is a question which was then and has remained very circumspect. "Early tradition, however, was not unanimous. Irenaeus says that some whom he does not identify denied the authorship of John." "Eusebius and Hippolytus report that it was denied by Caius, a priest of Rome (200). Epiphanius mentions the Alogoi, 'opposed to the Logos,' so called because they denied that John wrote the Gospel." (Dictionary of the Bible, "John, Gospel of," by Father John L McKenzie, S.J., page 448, 1965.) In fact there was strong opposition to the inclusion of Gospel John into the NT canon by members of the eastern clergy precisely because they denied the authenticity of Gospel John. They were pretty sure it had been written by one of their own, and not the apostle. This question was finally settled once and for all time in 1907 by a Pontifical Biblical Commission which certified that the Gospel of John was indeed written by the Apostle John. It's true because the Catholic Church says so. In fact however, we don't know who wrote Gospel John. It was written some 60 or 70 years, or later, after the execution of Jesus. It cannot be considered an eyewitness account.

Papias, again in the first half of the second century, along with his good friend and fellow Christian leader, Polycarp, both indicated that the apostle Matthew undertook to write a Gospel during the period when Peter and Paul were supposed to have been founding the church in Rome, circa 60-65 AD. For this reason Matthew has traditionally been considered to have been the first Gospel. Papias and Polycarp, as well as later church historians Eusebius and Origen also confirm that Matthew was written for the Jews, in the language of the Jews. In other words, Aramaic. That presents a problem, because you see, ALL FOUR NT Gospels were written in GREEK. Pure Greek, not translations. And in fact Gospel Matthew is largely the Gospel of Mark, since almost the entire Gospel of Mark has been incorporated into the pages of Gospel Matthew. Which is a pretty good indication that Gospel Mark was written BEFORE canonic Gospel Matthew. The Gospel of Matthew included into the modern NT IS NOT the Gospel reported to have been written by the apostle Matthew in Aramaic. So who actually wrote the Gospel of Matthew which is to be found in all modern copies of the New Testament? NO ONE KNOWS! And what happened to the Gospel which was reported to have been written by the apostle Matthew? This is thought to have been the gospel referred to as the "Gospel of the Hebrews" which WAS reported to have been written in Aramaic and which was directed towards the Jews. Like so much else from that early era, this work did not survive beyond the fourth century. In other words, the formation of the Catholic Church. We don't know who wrote Gospel Matthew, but it was written decades after the time when Jesus lived and as such it cannot be considered an eyewitness account.

We in fact have NO direct eyewitness accounts of the resurrected Jesus. What we do have is a record of the stories that were in circulation by the second half of the first century.

Tired of the Nonsense wrote:
Stories of "many" of the apostles and earliest disciples being "tortured and killed for claiming that Jesus had risen from the dead" is a matter of later Christian tradition and occurs mainly in the various second and third century Apocryphal accounts but is nowhere contained in the NT.

WinePusher wrote:
First of all, this is false; second of all, it is irrelevant. The accounts contained in the Acts of the Apostles describe the persecution that the Early Christians faced from Rome, and Extra-Biblical accounts tell us that they were "tortured and killed for claiming that Jesus had risen from the dead." As a non-theist, I would think you would accept Non-Biblical sources as more reliable than the New Testament.

Apart from the execution of the apostle James by Herod Agrippa and the stoning death of a Christian named Stephen, there are no accounts of the apostles or earliest Christian disciples being "tortured and killed for claiming that Jesus had risen from the dead," to be found in Acts. Stories of the "martyrdom" of the various other apostles stem from the second and third centuries when Christianity was outlawed by the Romans and Christians WERE being "tortured and killed for claiming that Jesus had risen from the dead." These were not eyewitnesses however, any more than you are.

Tired of the Nonsense wrote:
If the tomb was empty then it was empty for all to see. The gender of those who first pointed this out is immaterial.

WinePusher wrote:
The point prkrruns is making is that the Empty Tomb is not legend because of the way the narrative is structured. The fact that women are presented as the first who discoverd the empty tomb hurts the authors credibility, thus the criterion of dissimilarity applies here and the probability that the tomb was actually empty increases substantially.

Mark 16
"[1] And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.
[2] And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.
[3] And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?
[4] And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great."

The narrative is "structured" is such a way as to indicate that the women went out to the tomb on Sunday morning knowing full well that they had no hope of reaching the body of Jesus because the entrance to the tomb was covered by a rock weighing many tons. And they did so based on the vague hope that perhaps there would be some nice accommodating men, who just happened to be hanging out in a graveyard at the crack of dawn, who would nicely agree to move the great stone for them. In fact the discription of the action of the women going out alone to the closed tomb only makes sense if the women KNEW full well that the tomb was open. And if they knew that much, they surely knew it was already empty. Their task was PRECISELY the one of proclaiming the tomb to be empty and setting in motion the rumor of the risen Jesus, just as the Jewish priests had feared the disciples of Jesus intended to do. Disciples of BOTH gender.

[Mithrae]

Papias also referred to the author of Gospel John as John the PRESBYTER, John the elder, an elder of a church in Asia Minor near to Papias, not the accepted title of evangelist normally accorded to the apostle.

From memory Papias didn't mention the gospel of John at all. He named presbyter John as one of his teachers (and the source for his information on the writings of Mark and Matthew), but is not known to have associated him with any written work.

There is in fact nothing to connect the Gospel of John to the apostle John, beyond the name John, as common then as today, and 2,000 years of assumption, tradition, and wishful thinking on the part of Christians.

There's nothing to explicitly connect it to the name 'John,' before the time of Irenaeus (c. 180 CE). But there are explicit claims it was written by an eyewitness, and I haven't yet found convincing reasons to believe that's not the case. Identifying John as the 'beloved disciple' seems simply a product of him being the most likely candidate.

In fact there was strong opposition to the inclusion of Gospel John into the NT canon by members of the eastern clergy precisely because they denied the authenticity of Gospel John. They were pretty sure it had been written by one of their own, and not the apostle.This question was finally settled once and for all time in 1907 by a Pontifical Biblical Commission which certified that the Gospel of John was indeed written by the Apostle John.

I'd never heard either of those before. Mind if I ask for references? Particularly the early opposition to John's canonisation.

Papias, again in the first half of the second century, along with his good friend and fellow Christian leader, Polycarp, both indicated that the apostle Matthew undertook to write a Gospel during the period when Peter and Paul were supposed to have been founding the church in Rome, circa 60-65 AD.

Papias did (as you've mentioned) say that Matthew wrote in the language of the Hebrews, but not when. It was Irenaeus who said it was at the time Peter and Paul were in Rome.

Apart from the execution of the apostle James by Herod Agrippa and the stoning death of a Christian named Stephen, there are no accounts of the apostles or earliest Christian disciples being "tortured and killed for claiming that Jesus had risen from the dead," to be found in Acts.

Acts also mentions the imprisonment of Peter, a whipping given to Peter and John, plus the imprisonment of numerous other believers by Paul, claiming that the crack-down was severe enough to cause "all but the apostles" to scatter from Jerusalem. Those two are the only recorded martyrs, agreed, though there's also a claim about a plot to kill Paul after his conversion.