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For Easter, Richard Carrier Discusses the Evidence for Dying and Rising Gods in the Ancient Near East

3/31/2018

75 Comments

 
​The Easter weekend brings some dark news from the world of ufology. The History channel put out a press release yesterday announcing the imminent return of Ancient Aliens, which will launch its thirteenth season (and ninth calendar year) on April 27 with a two-hour season premiere. According to History, to fill the time, the upcoming season will strip mine recent news reports, including the recent revelation of the Pentagon’s UFO tracking efforts at the behest of former Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and the recent claims that voids discovered in Egypt’s Great Pyramid are secret chambers. The series will also claim that statues in the Marquesas Islands and on Sardinia are extraterrestrial because their stylized art resembles supposed “alien features.” History claims that the show reached 47 million viewers in 2017, though this number includes some creative math that counts the same 1.2 million actual same-day viewers multiple times if they watch episodes on different days and at different times.
​However, since it is Easter, I thought it might be interesting to highlight atheist historian Richard Carrier’s blog post this week claiming that pagan faiths had dying and rising gods long before Jesus. This is an old claim, going back to the Church Fathers’ ideas about counterfeit Christs, but more recently favored by anti-Christian nineteenth and early twentieth century authors of the so-called “Christ myth” school, who claimed that Jesus never existed. It was also the conclusion of Sir James George Frazer’s Golden Bough, which pointedly compared Osiris, Attis, and Adonis as resurrecting gods. This caused a scandal in 1890 because of the implication that the Christian story was just another myth. In the full and final third edition of the book, Frazer devotes part of Part IV: Adonis, Attis, Osiris to a comparison of the story of Christ’s resurrection to its pagan counterparts, though it was tactfully omitted in the more widely read 1922 single-volume condensation of the book to avoid upsetting Christian readers.
 
Carrier titled his post “Dying-and-Rising Gods: It’s Pagan, Guys. Get Over It.” It claims to explain why dying and rising gods were at the center of a network of competing cults of savior gods in the ancient Near East. Carrier believes that “Historians still tend to be dogmatically ignorant of the actual facts pertaining to these gods, refusing to look at any of the evidence. Which failure discredits them on this point. No correct opinion can be had, in ignorance of all the relevant facts pertaining to it.” His goal is to prove that dying and rising savior gods not only existed but were the inspiration for the myth of Christ.
 
I have a difficult time with this topic because it crosses between what I believe to be true and what can be demonstrated conclusively to be true. Carrier alleges that there are many dying and rising savior gods, and scholars have spent most of the last century trying to prove this contention wrong, despite what seems to me to be good evidence to the contrary. I explored this a bit in my book Jason and the Argonauts through the Ages. In that case, I looked at the evidence that Jason started out as a dying and rising god figure, on the strength of ancient art that showed him being swallowed by a dragon and emerging from it in triumph. I concluded that a full reading of the oldest extant evidence—including Homeric references, art, and poetic fragments—suggested that Jason as a character emerged from a healing god figure who had descended into the underworld and returned with some sort of immortality salve. But I also explained that this was nothing more than informed speculation because of the lack of explicit textual documentation from the Mycenaean period and the Greek Dark Age. In many cases, exactly how much you see a god who triumphed over death as similar to Jesus is in the eye of the beholder because of the fragmentary and biased nature of the sources.
 
Carrier introduces into evidence Justin Martyr’s claim in Dialogue 69 that Hercules, Asclepius, and Dionysus died and were resurrected. These are among the clearest examples. Hercules killed himself on a funeral pyre, and his soul was granted immortality as a god on Olympus. This, however, was also the Romans’ belief about their deified emperors, and it did not involve a return to earthly life. Asclepius was struck dead for hubris, but Jupiter (Zeus) heard his son Apollo’s prayer and brought him back from the dead, and then raised him to a (minor) god. Frankly, he was more Lazarus than Jesus. Dionysus is the best example, for in the less popular Cretan telling of his life, perhaps inspired by a Minoan-Mycenean original, the Titans tore the infant Dionysus to pieces, but Zeus used his heart to reconstitute him by pureeing the remains and giving them to Semele to drink (Diodorus Siculus, Library 5.75.4; Hyginus, Fabula 167). Diodorus explicitly connects this to an initiation rite, which makes plain that the story was a symbolic one, meant to represent the rebirth of those undergoing initiation.
 
Carrier’s next god is, of course, Osiris, whom he says was not only brought back to life after his death but also returned to Earth, citing Plutarch’s Isis and Osiris 19, where the revived Osiris teaches his son Horus various arts. From our perspective, it certainly sounds like Osiris was walking the Earth, but that’s a Greek gloss on an Egyptian myth, and the Egyptians were more casual about the permeability of the division between the physical and spiritual realms. In their myths events often seem to take place simultaneously in the real world and the realm of the gods. Plutarch even admits this (25-27, 54, 58), noting that the parts of the story set in the real world were the vulgar belief, while the priests maintained in secret that the actual events took place in the sphere of the moon. It is of course irrelevant what the “official” belief was so long as a real tradition of earthly resurrection existed among the populace in some form.
 
These examples are fairly clear, but also have relatively little in common with Jesus, Osiris more than the others. The other gods Carrier cites are more difficult to deal with because less is known.
 
The first is Zalmoxis, a Dacian or Thracian deity whom I have examined in connection to the Dracula story, for Zalmoxis’s weather-magician priests became, in time, the evil scholars of the Scholomance, where Dracula studied. Herodotus, who doubted such things, nevertheless reported that the Thracians believed that Zalmoxis had descended into a cave for three years before he rose from the dead (Histories 4.94). Herodotus believed Zalmoxis had really been in hiding, but as I said years ago, I agree with Carrier that the original story almost certainly involved a cult of resurrection and immortality. Carrier, though, tries to tie too nice a bow on it by suggesting that Herodotus wrong reported three days as three years, thus making the story better agree with Christianity.
 
His next god—actually, goddess—is Inanna (Ishtar), who in a famous poem known in Sumerian and Babylonian forms, descends into the Netherworld and becomes a corpse, her body hung upon a hook for three days and three nights until the gods sprinkle it with the water of life and she returns to life. While Carrier claims that her resurrection was “transferred” to her husband Dumuzi (the biblical Tammuz), portions of the poem discovered in the twentieth century made plain that Dumuzi was also believed to have spent half the year dead in the Netherworld and half the year alive among the gods—basically like Persephone. While Inanna died once, Dumuzi died and was resurrected each year. Thus, the next god Carrier discusses, Adonis, isn’t really a resurrection story in his own right but rather a Greek syncretizing of the Tammuz story. After all, both Jerome and Origen confirm their identity. It is both petty and silly for Carrier to describe either god as living in “outer space,” literalizing the heavenly realm of the gods in a way that neither Greek nor Mesopotamian would accept.
 
He doesn’t need to do this because the stories he presents are pretty compelling on their own. Plutarch’s account of the death of Romulus mirrors the story of Jesus, with elements of the transfiguration, the resurrection, and the road to Emmaus reflected. After the Romans condemned Romulus to death and executed him, one of his followers came across the resurrected Romulus, who announced his own divinity, as Quirinus: 
At this pass, then, it is said that one of the patricians, a man of noblest birth, and of the most reputable character, a trusted and intimate friend also of Romulus himself, and one of the colonists from Alba, Julius Proculus by name, went into the forum and solemnly swore by the most sacred emblems before all the people that, as he was travelling on the road, he had seen Romulus coming to meet him, fair and stately to the eye as never before, and arrayed in bright and shining armour. He himself, then, affrighted at the sight, had said: ‘O King, what possessed thee, or what purpose hadst thou, that thou hast left us patricians a prey to unjust and wicked accusations, and the whole city sorrowing without end at the loss of its father?’ Whereupon Romulus had replied: ‘It was the pleasure of the gods, O Proculus, from whom I came, that I should be with mankind only a short time, and that after founding a city destined to be the greatest on earth for empire and glory, I should dwell again in heaven. So farewell, and tell the Romans that if they practise self-restraint, and add to it valour, they will reach the utmost heights of human power. And I will be your propitious deity, Quirinus.’ (Life of Romulus 18.1-2, trans. Bernadotte Perrin)
​The story is repeated in nearly identical words by Dionysus of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 2.63.3-4 and Livy, Roman History 1.16. Livy’s version is the most important because he is the only one of the authors to have composed prior to Christianity, but he is also missing many of the elements that look to us most like Christian ones. Livy, too, puts Proculus down for a faker and asserts that he made it up to gain power for himself.
 
Carrier finishes up with Baal—who definitely died after his battle with Mot (death) before being ground into meal, sewn into the ground, and resurrected in some way that does not survive in the extant tablets—and Melqart, the Phoenician god, whose death and resurrection in perfected divine form can be inferred circumstantially, but which can’t be entirely proved.
 
But Carrier wants to overstate his case, so he expands his definition of “resurrection” beyond what we would consider the definition of the term. Therefore, he starts to include what the Greeks called nekia, or a voyage to the Underworld. The Greeks (and many other non-Greek peoples) believed that living men could descend to the Underworld, communicate with the dead, and return to the land of the living. Odysseus does this, as does Hercules, and so, too, Orpheus. They did not die and undergo resurrection as a result. Carrier recognizes this, but he includes them as similar tales, and he expands still further to include myths of basically ghosts. Since the Greeks didn’t have a clear distinction between the physical body and the spirit—which had the shape and solidity of the earthly body—he includes stories of ghosts, miracle stories of risen corpses (like, again, Lazarus, whose own resurrection is reported by the Gospels themselves), and even instances of people mistakenly declared dead.
 
“It’s time to face this fact. And stop denying it. It’s time to get over it already. Resurrected savior gods were a pagan idea. All Christianity did, was invent a Jewish one,” Carrier writes.
 
The problem I have is more one of tone than of facts. Carrier is snippy and rude, and seems downright contemptuous of anyone who disagrees with him. While I disagree around the edges, and also think that Carrier overstates some of the evidence, it is true that there were dying and rising gods. This fact was well-known down to the twentieth century. When the myth-and-ritual folklorists and mythologists of the 1800s overstated the number of resurrecting gods—as Carrier sometimes does, notwithstanding his debunking of canards about Mithras, for example—the reactionary forces tried to wish them all away, and even at present we still read of scholars who deny the existence of dying and rising gods. As I found in writing my Jason book, in which I tried to argue that the Mycenaean Jason might have been one such god, this position has remained the default even though it is patently false, thus we have the absurdity of recent arguments that while there were gods who died and came back to life, there is no such thing as a dying-and-rising god (other than Jesus, of course) because the category simply can’t exist as a category. It made writing my own book that much more difficult due to the need to thread the needle and explain how gods could die and come back to life even if the mandarins of mythology both knew this and pretended not to know it.
 
The fact is that some gods and demigods died and came back to life in some form or another. 
75 Comments
A Buddhist
3/31/2018 09:16:30 am

And if the Mandarins of Mythology were not so bound by desire to make Christianity seem unique, there would be more willingness to acknowledge this fact.

I wish that there would be more comparison of the the saviour roles of Jesus Christ and Amitabha Buddha that would not accuse one or the other of being derived from the other. Rather, I think that both figures' cults are related to human moral laziness - everyone wants to go to paradise, but few want to be so morally perfect as to get there. See, for example, the continued support for death penalties and abortions even among many who call themselves good people.

Reply
Gunn
3/31/2018 11:34:09 am

In the Christian view, no one goes to heaven because of being "morally perfect." "Perfection" to enter heaven has to do with faith and believing in a risen Christ. It has nothing to do with individual human greatness. It involves believing in Christ as the Savior from our inherent sinful nature. No one comes to the Father, or heaven, except through the Son. Jesus wept on the occasion of his friend, Lazarus, dying, and then raised him from the dead, even as He, Himself, was later raised from the dead. In the future, there will be mass resurrections...and a final judgment.

Reply
A Buddhist
3/31/2018 11:57:42 am

And there you go, reinfrorcing my point. According to the Christian view, as I see it, a person who kills and eats 99 human babies each day for 99 years is equal to a person who saves the lives of 99 human babies every day for 99 years, and there is something wrong with that. the person who accepts Jesus as savior 1 second before death is saved, the other damned - and it may be the babykiller who is saved.

Have you heard of or read Honen's interpretation of Amitabha Buddha's saving vows? Amitabha Buddha is a much better saviour than Jesus - no link to YHVH the baby-killing god.

Epipope of Defilement Athanasios Gazanakis
3/31/2018 01:33:24 pm

Actually there is no monolithic "Christian view". There has long been a debate on salvation through faith and salvation through works. If one applies logic to Mr. Gunn's presentation of the Christian view (which is tilting at windmills but allons y) then dead babies don't go to heaven because they can't know about much less have "faith" in "a risen Christ".

Gunn
3/31/2018 04:05:35 pm

God is a God of punishments and rewards. Some people are bound for heaven early in life, and some very late in life. Everything is written in the Books. God is keen on justice and fairness, from His perspective. We are His creations, not the other way around.

We are not to question why God would be willing to pay workmen the same day's wages, though one might start working or stop working before the other. The employer handing out wages is the one who decides how to spend his money. In other words, each person has his or her own relationship with God--or not, and God decides who will reap rewards, and how much each person will receive.

Undoubtedly,there will be those who just barely make it, yet have no reward. Nevertheless, their faith in Jesus for salvation at the last moments of life here on earth will enable them to enter the Kingdom of God. Alternately, many people thought of as being wonderful and great here on earth will not be entitled to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

It's up to each person to decide whether to believe in Christ for their salvation, or not. Of course, babies cannot decide, which to me means millions of babies--many of them aborted, will be in Heaven.

(But, "Don't worry about the mule goin' blind...just load the wagon and tote the line.")

EPIPOPE OF DEFILEMENT ATHANASIOS GAZANAKIS
3/31/2018 04:16:54 pm

Well, that sounds like crazy talk I must say.

The Buddhist is onto something with his Baby Killing God concept. Those Egyptian babies never did nothing to those Hebrews!

"God is keen on justice and fairness" but not so keen on those Egyptian babies he retroactively aborted.

Don't get me started on the slaughter of the autochthonous people of Israel when the Hebrews invaded, mandated by the God keen on justice and fairness.

Gunn
3/31/2018 04:22:32 pm

...from His perspective. If you dare to question God about anything, go ahead. If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, prepare to receive your answers. Just remember to ask in Jesus' name, not mocking....

EPIPOPE OF DEFILEMENT ATHANASIOS GAZANAKIS
3/31/2018 05:41:19 pm

Seriously my friend? Jesus can suck it, in Jesus's name.

No God, no problem.

V
4/1/2018 11:51:32 am

Gunn, you exemplify why I find Christianity in general to be abhorrent. If God doesn't want people to question him, he shouldn't have made people capable of asking questions. And if whether or not you like his son bestest is more important than how you behave in life, then God isn't even playing by HIS OWN rules. There is nothing "just and fair" about either of those ways, and it's sickening to hear people twist around until it somehow is.

That Kingdom of God sounds like a horror show to me, and I don't WANT to be there. I don't want to BE "saved," because that would mean accepting such blatant hypocrisy as legitimate. It's NAUSEATING.

JaredMithrandir link
4/3/2018 08:18:36 pm

I'm a Universalsit Christian. So for me it's nto about saying they are equal. It's saying even the Serial Child Murderer probably is that way for a reason and does not deserve Eternal Damnation for it.

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Brian
3/31/2018 09:27:09 am

I think a major problem in this research is that we're looking for some sort of textual determinance, the kind we get from biblical writings, from oral myths of pre-literate cultures. And so we grasp at ancient writers and their relatively modern (because they have writing) interpretations of distant, pre-literate cultures. Like history, myths don't repeat, they rhyme, so you'll never get exact correspondences from culture to culture.

However, it's more than obvious that the idea of a powerful person or god dying and coming back to life is pretty universal. This was a standard notion which was reflected in the initiations of various mystery religions; but we can't think of those ancient, pre-literate religions as being cognate with the Judeo-Christian-Islamic religions, which are based on the written word. The written word is, I believe, what led to their being considered as True with a capital T: the writing conferred a truth that the ancients wouldn't have recognized. "If I read it in the paper, it must be true." The ancients told their stories and "believed" them, but not in the way we do since writing came in; hence all the massive, contradictory variants of the myths. Myths live in the present telling or enacting; modern religion lives in the way things were once written down, and heaven help those who try to tweak the tales.

Literacy has played a larger role in all this than most people consider. I wish it wasn't so difficult for people to get out of their conditioned world views and see things as other people do and did.

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A Buddhist
3/31/2018 11:01:56 am

Indeed, in the writings of Paul and Ignatius there are frequent references to citing the written scriptures of the Jews and treating them as authoritative.

And centuries earlier, Theognis assumed that his words would be preserved forever through writing them down.

So in antiquity, there were strong associations between writing, permanence, and authority.

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Americanegro
3/31/2018 01:03:19 pm

I don't know about the Torah but the Talmud only began to be written down as opposed to oral long after the Jews had writing.

According to Islam the Qur`an was dictated to Muhammad, peanut butter be upon him, exactly the same way as the angel Aiwass dictated to Crowley; the Hadith and their silsila were transmitted orally for a long time, probably until there were just so goshdarn many of them that writing them down made sense.

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vonmazur
3/31/2018 03:49:42 pm

"Peanut butter be upon him" but only from the Hawaiian fast food place....

Americanegro
3/31/2018 04:19:00 pm

You're thinking of "Pono bud be upon him." Da kine, brah!

vonmazur
3/31/2018 11:02:17 pm

Oooh, I forgot about that one!! Well, it is the Aloha Snackbar, so what do you expect, Skippy or what ???

Uncle Ron
3/31/2018 08:07:41 pm

"The written word is, I believe, what led to their being considered as True with a capital T." If you haven't read it, get a copy of "How the Bible Became Holy" which is actually about how writing transformed pre-Christian oral traditions into The Word.

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V
4/1/2018 12:04:15 pm

Wow, I find that to be a terribly insulting and Eurocentric viewpoint. "The ancients told their stories and "believed" them, but not in the way we do since writing came in..." WOW.

Please, tell oral cultures around the world that they don't believe in their own cultures and ways.

No, the "massive, contradictory variants" of myths isn't something that somehow STOPS because writing is involved, or we would not even remotely have been having any kind of "same-sex marriage" debate. Nor would we have the Apocrypha or the Dead Sea scrolls. Or Evangelicalism vs. Protestantism vs. Catholicism vs. Anglicanism. The sole reason ancient mythology appears to be more diverse than modern is because the CULTURES were literally more diverse--there wasn't nearly the kind of continuity of cultural identity in, say, Ancient Greece that there is in modern America.

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MJW link
3/31/2018 11:02:43 am

Christianity is a mystery religion, an offshoot of mystical Judeasm, and it was formed in a time and a place where syncretism happened because of the convergence of ancient belief systems. It's far more likely that Jesus's early movement added these themes in the years after he death as it moved away from its radical Jewish roots.

Carrier just sounds like one of those contrarians who set out to make cheap shocks in the hope that it will make them look all edgy and iconoclastic, when really they are intellectual lightweights.

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Americanegro
3/31/2018 03:41:51 pm

"Christianity is a mystery religion, an offshoot of mystical Judeasm"

Well, Catholics certainly like to say "It's a mystery" but I look forward to your explanation of this assertion. I really am interested because I don't see it.

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A Buddhist
3/31/2018 04:36:40 pm

For a good explanation of how Christianity was originally a mystery cult (albeit an explanation tainted by Jesus mythicism, which I do not agree with) see: http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp13D.htm [The Mystery Cults and Christianity]. Too often, we assume that the way Christianity is now presented is the way it has always been presented.

Americanegro
3/31/2018 05:38:24 pm

Thank you but I don't care. I want to hear the explanation of what sounds like a facile statement from the person who made it.

MJW
4/1/2018 02:49:49 pm

What is it that you don't understand about Christianity's roots as a mystery religion? Perhaps you should start with the core of the religion; the synoptic gospels in which an itinerant Jewish preacher surrounds himself with an inner circle of hand picked disciples to whom he entrusts a deeper understanding of his messianic teachings a simpler understanding of which is conveyed to wider audiences through parables. After that maybe do some broader reading around mystery religions and it should all become clearer.

Americanegro
4/1/2018 03:53:50 pm

So you don't know. Gotcha.

vonmazur
4/2/2018 03:45:46 pm

Use to, was a mystery school, did not last long after Constantine. There are current schools that teach this mystery, but not publicly, usually.......Official Xtianity has not a clue as to the real meaning of anything these days...All is money.




A C
3/31/2018 11:32:43 am

Are you familiar with this Amar Annus paper?

https://www.academia.edu/6428551/Are_There_Greek_Rephaim_On_the_Etymology_of_Greek_Meropes_and_Titanes_UF_31_1999_

I don't remember finding it convincing but it would be a humorous link between Jason and the Nephilim.

Dying and rising god works as a category but the problem with comparative mythological categories is that they distort any myth you put into them. Comparative mythology also tends to dishonestly weight some stories in the category to be more 'archetypal' than others with in turn distorts one's understanding of the arbitrarily less 'archetypal' stories.

It was actually the Cult of Isis which was the most popular Hellenistic savior mystery religion, Osiris was tied up into that of course and there's probably some influence on the figure of Mary from Isis and this is ultimately a minor quible but still an example of how the DRG hypothesis is as much an example of using Christianity as a lens to understand paganism as it is exploring the roots of Christianity.

Chaos monsters and mother goddesses and all other constructions of comparative mythology have the same problems as Dying and Rising Gods. That's just the kind of caveats you have to work under when doing comparative mythology in the modern world. Unless that is you're an over-reaching egoist using New Atheist credulity and unfashionable 19th century research to pretend to be a iconoclast genius.

A less discredited version of the Dying Rising Saviour Cult could be supported by the evidence, but Carrier can't resist using the discredited version. If he has any argument building skills he'd separate Saviour gods and Rising gods into two separate mythemes that just sometimes get combined since that better fits the data while not undermining "his" borrowed argument.

The possibility that a dead historical person became combined with existing cultural tropes is just a lot higher than the idea that a fringe Jewish theology that Carrier basically has to make up based on tortuous reasoning developed into a dominant religion.

The Huns as they appear in sources are just ripped off from Herodotus' Scythians. As Jason mentions on this blog the descriptions of Vinland in the sagas are ripped off Roman sources. Jesus mythicism is methodologically useless because its logic can't be widely applied and therefore we have no reason to suspect it works for Jesus either.

There are a lot of serious scholars doing novel work into the sources of Christianity. Carrier's single issue obsession with being the one guy who can tell it how it is will likely forever keep him out of that club.

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A Buddhist
3/31/2018 12:08:10 pm

Why do you allege that Carrier has a single issue obsession? He recently wrote a book about science education in the Roman Empire (nothing to do with Christian origins): https://www.amazon.com/Science-Education-Early-Roman-Empire/dp/163431090X/?ie=UTF8&tag=richardcarrier-20

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Machala
3/31/2018 02:11:50 pm

If one subscribes to the historical possibility of a Nazarene named Jesus,, who led a sect of mystic and aesthetic Jews that believed in Redemption and Resurrection through the blood sacrifice of a Messiah, then it is no surprise how much attention is paid to fulfilling the ancient scriptures and oral traditions pertaining to this Messiah.

Everything said and done by Jesus and his followers was in direct compliance with Judaic tradition and prophecy.

Later Christian writings bolstered the concept that Christ's life was in fulfillment of the prophecies and promises of his ancestors - to the point that one of the gospels attempts to trace his lineage back to King David of Israel.

I have no trouble in accepting that the death and resurrection theme was NOT unique to Hebraic philosophy and was no doubt "borrowed" and improved upon by Judaic oral tradition and scriptures.

I do believe that the Jewish culture and later their Christian descendants refined it and made it uniquely Judaeo-Christian in its myths and theologies.

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Americanegro
3/31/2018 04:03:38 pm

I would have said "Everything SAID TO BE said and done by Jesus and his followers".

The New Testament has not one but two geneologies of J-Town.

This is one thing Holy Blood, Holy Grail got right. Matthew 1 traces the J Man's lineage not just to David the Murderer Who Had to Have that Poonanny but to the Original OG Abraham.

Luke 3 takes a different route and goes deeper, all the way back to Tupac I mean Adam.

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Patrick Shekleton
3/31/2018 02:32:27 pm

Nice post, Jason. The subject matter isn't in my wheelhouse so it was very interesting to read about. The comments were very informative, as well.

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Jim
3/31/2018 02:58:41 pm

Nothing to see here Patrick, the meat and potatoes for your report to Scott will be found in the previous two blog entries.

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Jim
3/31/2018 02:42:35 pm

I'm not very well versed in this, but Isn't this part of a larger topic ? For instance, didn't Greek (?) mythology have a holy trinity as well, the female trinity of the Hag, the Matron and the young Nymph ?

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Americanegro
3/31/2018 10:01:01 pm

The GILF, the MILF, and the TILF, learned from the Templars.

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Godric
3/31/2018 03:23:32 pm

Your work is greatly appreciated, Jason. Happy Easter!

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An Anonymous Nerd
4/1/2018 10:13:36 am

I added a comment but I doubt he'll publish it: The gist of my comment was that his flattening out of and labeling as "irrelevant" the differences between these Ancient world myths was similar to Christian conversion tactics and to the modern fringe, and that it depressed me to see an actual scholar do such a thing.

-An Anonymous Nerd

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An Anonymous Nerd
4/1/2018 01:09:32 pm

To his credit he published my comments but he sure does devolve really fast to argument from insult.

It genuinely bugs me how he crams disparate cultures into a single hole the way he does. It sets off fringe vibes for me. He sure doesn't like being called out though. Jason deals with the fringe types way, way better than he's dealing with me! Oh well.

-An Anonymous Nerd

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A Buddhist
4/1/2018 02:02:45 pm

In all fairness, you seem to be misunderstanding Carrier's argument. Carrier is not arguing (as you seem to be interpreting him) that the myth of the dying/rising god, having arisen in one place, spread throughout the world. Rather, his argument is the much simpler (and less ambitious) claim that there are multiple stories of gods or semi-divine figures who, having died, come back to life - some upon the Earth where they once lived, others within the divine realm where they once lived.

If there were no strong efforts by pro-Christian Mandarins of Mythology to distort myths so that Christianity seems exceptional (and such distortion is agreed upon by Jason Colavito and Richard Carrier), then Carrier's claim about dying gods who come back to life would not seem exceptional. But we live in a world where Ishvara worship is the norm, so it is not surprising that other strange ideas spread.

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AmericanJMJKillah
4/1/2018 02:56:11 pm

"But we live in a world where Ishvara worship is the norm"

BS with a capital BULL. We don't. Your use of Buddhuist jargon and expecting people to know what you in particular mean by it may not be helpful.

STOP! IN JESUS'S NAME!

A Buddhist
4/1/2018 03:44:34 pm

AmericanJMJKillah: Ishvara is a term in Hinduism and Buddhism for any being that is claimed to be the Supreme Creator God. Since much of the world believes in a Supreme Creator God, I, as a Buddhist, say that Ishvara worship is the norm. Do you understand this?

A Buddhist
4/1/2018 03:47:14 pm

AmericanJMJKillah: As evidence for my claim, see, as an introduction, the wikipedia article for Ishvara.

AmericanJMHKillah
4/1/2018 03:59:45 pm

It's NOT AT ALL LIKE WHAT YOU SAID. You literally TOLD ME TO LOOK UP THE PART THAT CONTRADICTS YOU. In Ireland that's called an idjit.

Ishvara (Sanskrit: ईश्वर, IAST: Īśvara) is a concept in Hinduism, with a wide range of meanings that depend on the era and the school of Hinduism.[1][2] In ancient texts of Indian philosophy, depending on the context, Ishvara can mean supreme soul, ruler, lord, king, queen or husband.[1] In medieval era Hindu texts, depending on the school of Hinduism, Ishvara means God, Supreme Being, personal god, or special Self.[2][3][4]
In Shaivism, Ishvara is synonymous with "Shiva", sometimes as Maheshvara or Parameshvara meaning the "Supreme lord", or as an Ishta-deva (personal god).[5] In Vaishnavism, it is synonymous with Vishnu.[6] In traditional Bhakti movements, Ishvara is one or more deities of an individual's preference from Hinduism's polytheistic canon of deities. In modern sectarian movements such as Arya Samaj and Brahmoism, Ishvara takes the form of a monotheistic God.[7] In Yoga school of Hinduism, it is any "personal deity" or "spiritual inspiration".[8] In Advaita Vedanta school, Ishvara is a monistic Universal Absolute that connects and is the Oneness in everyone and everything.

Your assery makes the Baby Jesus cry.

A Buddhist
4/1/2018 04:12:42 pm

You quote words that prove me right, viz.: In medieval era Hindu texts, depending on the school of Hinduism, Ishvara means God, Supreme Being, personal god, or special Self.[2][3][4]

I use the term Ishvara to mean a Supreme Being (or Supreme Creator God), which is, per the VERY WORDS YOU CITE ["In medieval era Hindu texts, depending on the school of Hinduism, Ishvara means God, Supreme Being, personal god, or special Self"], an acceptable meaning. I am aware that it has other meanings, but you would doubtlessly accuse me of lying about that knowledge.

AMERICANJMHKILLAH
4/1/2018 04:40:36 pm

"Depending on the school" you idiot. I gave you back your list which proves that "depending on the school" you are WRONG and you assert that it shows you are right.

YOU SAY that "God, Supreme Being, personal god, or special Self" equals "Supreme Being (or Supreme Creator God)". Your Humpty Dumptyness makes the Baby Jesus bleed from his poo-poo.

Remember the times before when I have schooled you.

A Buddhist
4/1/2018 05:17:52 pm

AMERICANJMHKILLAH: Why do you insist that my meaning of Ishvara is wrong? So many meanings have been given to this word by so many different thinkers and schools; some of these thinkers and schools use it in my sense, others not.What definition of Ishvara would you like me to give? Surely it is impossible to define the term Ishvara in a way that would satisfy all schools or thinkers who have used the word. Indeed, in its strictest sense, the term Ishvara merely means Master or Lord - a term that can apply to people as well as gods of various types.

An Anonymous Nerd
4/1/2018 05:22:57 pm

No, I know it's not a hyper-diffusionist argument he's making. Granted, given the mentality he's exhibiting it's likely he's taking me that way!

Rather I think that the way he's flattening out the differences between these various myths is disappointingly like hyper-diffusionism and other fringe arguments. (And actually a lot like the arguments old world Christians used to try and convince non-Western cultures that their myths were just a flawed vision of their own faith.) He's explicitly called the differences between the stories either irrelevant or meaningless (I forget his exact word at the moment).

I'm also very puzzled by what he's arguing against. I personally know no one who would consider that particular plot point (divine entity dying or seeming to, then rising or seeming to) 100% exclusive to Christianity. I've tried to make that clear on his blog but I doubt he's listening.

Honestly he seems like kind of a bully-type. He may have the mind and the education but he doesn't seem to like to use them when insults are easier!

-An Anonymous Nerd

An Anonymous Nerd
4/1/2018 05:29:24 pm

PS: He's stopped taking my comments, it would seem, as I replied to the latest reply he made, the one where he willfully misquoted me, and it's not published.

Oh well. Sad to say, the bullies usually win these days.

-An Anonymous Nerd

A Buddhist
4/1/2018 05:41:19 pm

An Anonymous Nerd: You, Jason Colavito, and Richard Carrier may find it easy to accept that the plot point of "divine entity dying or seeming to, then rising or seeming to" is not exclusive to Christianity, but many other people, as Jason Colavito and Richard Carrier have pointed out, do not.

Carrier is, I admit, very rude, and I wish that he would be politer.

AmericanJMJKillah
4/1/2018 05:51:44 pm

"Why do you insist that my meaning of Ishvara is wrong?"

I insist that it's one of many idiot, as you demonsrated, and that you unskillfully use Buddhuist jargon and expect people to know which of the many meanings you're talking about in your personal universe, idiot.

A Buddhist
4/1/2018 06:51:16 pm

AmericanJMJKillah: Ah, so now we are moving away from the factual condemnation ["You are using the term Ishvara in a wrong sense"] to the preferential condemnation ["You, although using the term Ishvara in a correct sense, should not, because it has many other meanings and I should not have to guess which meaning is correct."]. This position of yours is an opinion that I disagree with; many other words have multiple meanings that may need to be clarified [such as Lord, State, Matter, etc.] yet people (including myself) use them regardless. Language is an ambiguous thing! Why are you so hateful? Calling me an idiot repeatedly, etc. This sort of anger and accompanying vituperation, manifested over a mere difference in opinion over what vocabulary I should use, is not healthy to the person manifesting it (as the Dhammapada says) and is not an effective way to persuade other people. Have you considered taking anger management classes? Or reading about how to effectively communicate criticism of other people to others?

AmericanJMJKillah
4/1/2018 07:26:14 pm

It's because you're an idiot and an irredeemable Humpty-Dumptyist who expects every reader to understand your particular idiotic Humpty-Dumpty meaning of a jargon term you readily admit is polysemic. Have you considered seeing a counselor to help you stop douching it up? The Dhammapada can suck it. I like the phone book and Cosmopolitan. Stop flogging your banana leaf books. You talk like everyone lives in your idiot universe. Newsflash: no one does.

"Speak harshly to your little boy, and beat him when he sneezes. He only does it to annoy, because he knows it teases, idiot."

King Henry VIII first received the theological justification for his divorce from Catherine of Aragon from the Neoplatonic brotherhood inside the Vatican; out of said fraternity would emerge Dr. John Dee, the Protestant magician who, using the Hermetic and Kabbalistic cunning of the Roman Catholic magician Marsilio Ficino, furnished William Cecil with the mind control keys and mass persuasion techniques that gained him the rule of England through a reanimated goddess Isis who is known to history as Queen Elizabeth I.

A Buddhist
4/1/2018 07:53:24 pm

AmericanJMJKillah: What some people consider to be jargon, other people consider to be normal parts of their vocabulary. I imagine, for example, that many people, ignorant of the fictional scene in which Humpty Dumpty says that a word is what he says it is and not more nor less would find your use of the term Humpty-Dumptyist to be an incomprehensible jargon-based insult. I, for my part, am not denying that other people have the right to use the term Ishvara in other ways, but we are in agreement that it is a polysemic term that can mean Supreme Creator God - the sense that I use it in. Douche being another polysemous term, your calling me that is itself something that may require interpretation among other people.

Speaking of counseling, have you ever received counseling for your tendency to insult people very harshly? Or do you confine such insults to strangers on the internet. I mean, if someone were to use the term Ishvara in a sense that is rarely used (such as for a highly realized master of Yoga), I would ask the person politely about the use of the term rather than insulting the person.

Americanjmjkillah
4/1/2018 08:43:27 pm

"Indeed, in its strictest sense, the term Ishvara merely means Master or Lord"

Well, no, that's not true, idiot. Do you even Sanskrit bro? I insult you because you need it and I know you will eventually play the "wheelchair, seizures, movement issues" card.

WHEN YOU SAY "ISHVARA WORSHIP" THAT IS STONECOLD BUDDHUIST JARGON, NO MATTER WHAT BS YOU TYPE TO ARGUE WITH IT.

YOU keep trying to shoehorn Buddhuist BS where it does not belong. That's a douche move.

YOU, idiot, brought up counseling.

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

A Buddhist
4/2/2018 08:52:20 am

Americanjmjkillah: To quote Wikipedia: "As a concept, Ishvara in ancient and medieval Sanskrit texts, variously means God, Supreme Being, Supreme Soul, lord, king or ruler, rich or wealthy man, god of love, deity Shiva, one of the Rudras, prince, husband and the number eleven.[1][13][14]"

Leaving aside the aspect related to the number 11 (which is an an extreme outlier), the general meaning of all of the senses of Ishvara is indeed summarizable as "master, lord, and/or being greater than the writer/speaker."

Again quoting wikipedia: The root of the word Ishvara comes from īś- (ईश, Ish) which means "capable of" and "owner, ruler, chief of",[11] ultimately cognate with English own (Germanic *aigana-, PIE *aik-). The second part of the word Ishvara is vara which means depending on context, "best, excellent, beautiful", "choice, wish, blessing, boon, gift", and "suitor, lover, one who solicits a girl in marriage".[12] The composite word, Ishvara literally means "owner of best, beautiful", "ruler of choices, blessings, boons", or "chief of suitor, lover".

Even from the basic etymology of the term Ishvara (whose elements are admitted to be polysemous), one gets the meanings "owner, ruler, chief of" and "best, excellent, beautiful", which can certainly be understood as leading to the general meaning of Ishvara as "master, lord, and/or being greater than the writer/speaker." It is true that this specific meaning is not a literal merger of the meanings of the terms Ish and Vara, but this need not be the case in linguistics - after all, the term understand has nothing to do with the elements "under" and "stand".

Finally, no less an authority than the Encyclopaedia Britannica has 'Ishvara, (Sanskrit: “Lord”)" [see https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ishvara]!

There has been a long tradition of Buddhist argument against arguments for a Supreme Creator God (who was called Ishvara) [see: http://enlight.lib.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/phil390444.pdf as evidence]. Surely as a Buddhist, I am entitled to use Buddhist terminology, just as Christians are regularly using Christian terminology (such as "Good Samaritan"). If people need to have the terms explained, they can ask without insults.

I brought up counseling, it is true, but for your anger management issues.

I have never claimed to have seizures.

enough!
4/2/2018 11:52:24 am

In Samkhya school of Hinduism[edit]
Samkhya is called one of the several major atheistic schools of Hinduism by some scholars.[8][26][27] Others, such as Jacobsen, Samkhya is more accurately described as non-theistic.[28] Isvara is considered an irrelevant concept, neither defined nor denied, in Samkhya school of Hindu philosophy.[29]
In Yoga school of Hinduism[edit]
The Yogasutras of Patanjali, the foundational text of Yoga school of Hinduism, uses the term Ishvara in 11 verses: I.23 through I.29, II.1, II.2, II.32 and II.45. Ever since the Sutra's release, Hindu scholars have debated and commented on who or what is Isvara? These commentaries range from defining Isvara from a "personal god" to "special self" to "anything that has spiritual significance to the individual".[8][30] Whicher explains that while Patanjali's terse verses can be interpreted both as theistic or non-theistic, Patanjali's concept of Isvara in Yoga philosophy functions as a "transformative catalyst or guide for aiding the yogin on the path to spiritual emancipation".[31]
Patanjali defines Isvara in verse 24 of Book 1, as "a special Self puruṣa-viśeṣa)",[32]

– Yoga Sutras I.24
This sutra of Yoga philosophy of Hinduism adds the characteristics of Isvara as that special Self which is unaffected (अपरामृष्ट, aparamrsta) by one's obstacles/hardships (क्लेश, klesha), one's circumstances created by past or one's current actions (कर्म, karma), one's life fruits (विपाक, vipâka), and one's psychological dispositions/intentions (आशय, ashaya).[33][34]
Patanjali's concept of Isvara is neither a creator God nor the universal Absolute of Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism.[3][19]
In Vaisesika school of Hinduism[edit]
Vaiśeṣika school of Hinduism, as founded by Kanada in 1st millennium BC, neither required nor relied on Ishvara for its atomistic naturalism philosophy. To it, substances and paramāṇu (atoms) were eternal, they moved and interacted based on impersonal, eternal adrsta (अदृष्ट, invisible) laws of nature.[35][36] The concept of Ishvara, among others, entered into Vaisheshika school many centuries later in 1st millennium AD.[35][37] This evolution in ideas aimed to explain how and why its so-called "atoms" have a particular order and proportions. These later-age ancient Vaiśeṣika scholars retained their belief that substances are eternal, added Ishvara as another eternal who is also omniscient and omnipresent (not omnipotent). Ishvara did not create the world, according to this school of Hindu scholars, but He only created invisible laws that operate the world and then He becomes passive and lets those hidden universal laws do its thing.[35] Thus, Vaisheshika's Ishvara mirrors Deus otiosus of Deism. Vaisheshika school's Ishvara, states Klaus Klostermaier, can be understood as an eternal God who co-exists in the universe with eternal substances and atoms, but He "winds up the clock, and lets it run its course".[35]
In Nyaya school of Hinduism[edit]
Early Nyaya school scholars considered the hypothesis of Ishvara as a creator God with the power to grant blessings, boons and fruits. However, the early Nyaya scholars rejected this hypothesis, and were non-theistic or atheists.[38][39] Later scholars of Nyaya school reconsidered this question and offered counter arguments for what is Ishvara and various arguments to prove the existence of Ishvara.[40]
In Nyayasutra's Book 4, Chapter 1 examines what causes production and destruction of entities (life, matter) in universe. It considers many hypotheses, including Ishvara. Verses 19-21, postulates Ishvara exists and is the cause, states a consequence of postulate, then presents contrary evidence, and from contradiction concludes that the postulate must be invalid.[41]
सिद्धान्तसूत्र : ईश्वरः कारणम्,
Proposition sutra: Ishvara is the cause, since we see sometimes human action lacks fruits (results).
Prima facie objection sutra: This is not so since, as a matter of fact, no fruit is accomplished without human action.
Conclusion sutra: Not so, since it is influenced by him.
— Nyaya Sutra, IV.1.19 - IV.1.21 [41]
Centuries later, the 5th century CE Nyaya school scholar Prastapada revisited the premise of Ishvara. He was followed by Udayana, who in his text Nyayakusumanjali, interpreted "it" in verse 4.1.21 of Nyaya Sutra above, as "human action" and "him" as "Ishvara", then he developed counter arguments to prove the existence of Ishvara.[42] In developing his arguments, he inherently defined Ishvara as efficient cause, omnipotent, omniscient, infallible, giver of gifts, ability and mea

A Buddhist
4/2/2018 12:38:13 pm

enough!: Are you meaning to argue against a claim that I made? Because from what you quote (from Wikipedia, I presume), you merely assert that certain Hindu schools denied the existence of a Supreme Creator God or denied that it was Ishvara. Certainly, there has been and is much diversity within Hindu schools of thought, as even Tibetan Buddhist treatises about other religions recognized. But the quotations that you have made support my claim that certain schools of Hinduism called a Supreme Creator God Ishvara:


Early Nyaya school scholars considered the hypothesis of Ishvara as a creator God with the power to grant blessings, boons and fruits. However, the early Nyaya scholars rejected this hypothesis, and were non-theistic or atheists.[38][39] Later scholars of Nyaya school reconsidered this question and offered counter arguments for what is Ishvara and various arguments to prove the existence of Ishvara.[40]

[To this I say: Although the Nyayas may have rejected the idea of a Supreme Creator God/Ishvara, their use of that terminology and concept is one of several pieces of evidence that within Hinduism, and Buddhism, there is a habit of referring to a Supreme Creator God as Ishvara]

Enough!
4/2/2018 02:03:20 pm

No, only that as the guy who called you an idiot pointed out, I can't read his name, it has many meanings and you've latched onto one and expect everyone to know what you mean. It's not at all like "the good Samaritan".

Enough. You guys are both idiots.

A Buddhist
4/2/2018 07:14:00 pm

Enough!: It is true that the word Ishvara has many meanings and I use it with one particular meaning, but my meaning is a permitted meaning that is supported by Buddhist texts and some forms of Hinduism. If someone were to ask me in what sense I mean the term Ishvara, I would explain. But arguably, given the term's many meanings, anyone using the term Ishvara would have to explain at least something about the sense in which the term is used.

The term "Good Samaritan" has multiple meanings. It can refer (in its strictest sense) to a member of the Samaritan ethno-religious community centred around Mt. Gerizim who is deemed to be good in some sense. It can refer to a Samaritan in a parable attributed to Jesus. It can also refer to a person, of any religion, who, when confronted by a person in distress, strives to help (this meaning being derived from the role played by the Samaritan in the parable).

enough!
4/2/2018 11:15:12 pm

AMJKFLLAH was right. You are an idiot. You just like to argue.

A Buddhist
4/3/2018 06:43:47 pm

Enough!: It is true that I like to have precise definitions of words, and this can lead to arguments, but how does this make me an idiot? I would think that an idiot would not try to figure out the meanings of words but would settle for any old blather, regardless of quality.

Besides, can you disagree with what I wrote about Samaritans in response to your claim that the term "good Samaritan" has only one meaning?

Stickler
4/3/2018 07:19:14 pm

I can. Everyone who speaks English (well) knows what a "good Samaritan" is. Virtually no one who speaks English (well) knows what an "Ishvara worshipper" is. I'm on Team Idiot and second Mr. Enough!.

A Buddhist
4/3/2018 08:53:27 pm

Stickler: So you would deny that there is a community of people called Samaritans who predate Jesus and any derived story about a good Samaritan who helps a stranger?

And I am aware that the term Ishvara is obscure. Nonetheless, it is a part of Buddhist philosophy and polemic, so I use it. I am pedantic, but how does my use of an obscure term make me an idiot?

Stickler
4/4/2018 12:33:34 am

"Stickler: So you would deny that there is a community of people called Samaritans who predate Jesus and any derived story about a good Samaritan who helps a stranger?"

No, even though I don't know for certain that Samaritans ever actually existed. But I know the STORY, and I would say the fact that you think you're making a good argument is proof that you are indeed an idiot. Still, your life is yours to waste. Anyone who speaks English (well) knows what a good Samaritan is.

A Buddhist
4/4/2018 05:44:07 pm

Stickler: How can you doubt the existence of Samaritans? They still exist in Modern Israel! They are written about by multiple scholarly sources over millennia! I can provide sources if you ask.

I rarely say this, but you are a fool. To even consider that the Samaritans only exist in a Bible story and derived expression reveals that you have not truly been taking my arguments seriously and are ignorant at a fundamental level about the term Samaritan.

And it may be possible for a fluent English speaker to not know the meaning of the phrase "good Samaritan". After all, you are ignorant enough to try to assert that the term "good Samaritan" has only one meaning even though you have no understanding about Samaritans outside what you have learned through popular culture and/or the Bible.

Stickler
4/4/2018 09:22:02 pm

Jesus Christ you really are an idiot.

'Stickler: How can you doubt the existence of Samaritans? They still exist in Modern Israel! They are written about by multiple scholarly sources over millennia! I can provide sources if you ask."

It's not necessary to know any of that to understand the reference to "a good Samaritan".

"I rarely say this, but you are a fool. To even consider that the Samaritans only exist in a Bible story and derived expression reveals that you have not truly been taking my arguments seriously and are ignorant at a fundamental level about the term Samaritan."

I don't care at all about what you're saying. See above where I explain why it's unnecessary to address anything you say.

"And it may be possible for a fluent English speaker to not know the meaning of the phrase "good Samaritan". After all, you are ignorant enough to try to assert that the term "good Samaritan" has only one meaning even though you have no understanding about Samaritans outside what you have learned through popular culture and/or the Bible."

You have ascribed to me an assertion I did not make. Because of being an idiot. "Good Samaritan" ONLY has meaning in popular culture or the Bible.

A Buddhist
4/4/2018 09:45:57 pm

Stickler: And yet you continue to reply to me. My major problem with the assertion that "Good Samaritan" can only be understood with reference to popular culture or the Bible is as follows:

The term "Good Samaritan" has two elements, each of which may be understood independently: "Good" and "Samaritan". The term good may, you must surely admit, be understood apart from popular culture and the Bible. And the term "Samaritan", although it may be understood through the Bible or Popular Culture, may also be understood through consulting non-biblical sources, such as the writings of Josephus or the Talmud. Therefore a person may, through consulting non-biblical, non-popular culture sources, gain definitions of the terms "good" and "Samaritan," whence may be derived a definition of the phrase "good Samaritan" that is not dependent upon either the Bible or Popular Culture. Or do you deny that, for example, Josephus and the Talmud contain discussions of the Samaritans that are independent of the Bible, dealing, for example, with their deeds as a community during the 1st century CE?

Our name is legion
4/5/2018 06:50:50 pm

JESUS FUCKING AMITABHA YOU ARE AN IDIOT. Why do you keep going on with this "well there's 'good' and then there's 'Samaritan'" NONSENSE?

IF THIS IS BUDDHIST BEHAVIOR SIGN ME NOT INTERESTED. FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU. You make Buddhists look like assholes.

A Buddhist
4/5/2018 08:53:08 pm

Our name is legion: I have been wondering myself why I get so involved in these types of discussions, and I suppose that it has to do with my great desire to uncover the truth. Therefore, when people allege that I make false statements, I think much about whether they are correct. If they are (as I see it) correct, I acknowledge my error. But if their correction is itself incorrect, I, as a seeker of truth, try to correct them.

I try in all of these types of discussions to avoid losing my temper, keeping in mind the Buddhist emphasis on compassion, calmness, and dispassionate debate (for which I can provide scriptural references if you are interested). I hope that this at least has been somewhat worthy of note - even as other commenters have repeatedly insulted me in this discussion, I have (with one exception that was triggered by a truly astounding ignorance about Samaritans) refrained from insulting in turn. Now you are not even bothering to present arguments against my analysis of the phrase "Good Samaritan"; you merely assert that it is incorrect and insult me. I hope that you are not like this in meatspace so called - if you were, you would lose debates and the friendship of others.

Hypatia Lockhart
4/1/2018 03:26:03 pm

One thing I always wondered was how much the distinctions between Christianity and various gods that died and then somehow lived on in different ways various academics have pointed out would have been considered very important distinctions by most ancient peoples

Reply
Not the Comte de Saint Germain
4/1/2018 07:02:45 pm

They mattered in the case of Christianity because the Christian resurrection story was about a human who lived in a specific time and place, one not very long before the present, and who died an ignominious death. Pagans in the Roman Empire found those aspects of the story bizarre and ridiculous. The kind of finicky distinctions made by the comparative mythologists, on the other hand, probably didn't matter nearly as much.

Reply
Americanegro
4/1/2018 07:34:31 pm

"a human who lived in a specific time and place"

A human who SUPPOSEDLY lived in a specific time and place.

FIFY.

Jesus himself
4/1/2018 03:48:45 pm

Jason
You have a great mind, geared toward reason and science. Don't worry about the conflict with which you are faced in terms of your beliefs, which are sacred, and the unfolding of historical facts.

If you put enough time into the subject of me and my followers, you will eventually conclude that the historical Jesus never existed but I,

I......

The mythological Jesus, will live forever.

Faith and facts do not need to be consistent. Nobody should force it on others. This is why good pilgrims like Gunn are able to thrive within the great American experiment and experience. It takes time to reach the truth

In my most holy name
Amen

Reply
I Am Risen
4/1/2018 04:47:40 pm

I urge all my followers to watch the live performance of Me Superstar on TV tonight, then if appropriate to re-enact my dirty, dirty conception. You guys could learn something from Papa Joe!

My lady followers who would like to bathe with me should follow this link:

https://www.datejesus.com/bathe/

It's a mitzva in the mikva!

Reply
Only Me
4/1/2018 09:33:00 pm

Happy Easter, everyone. I hope all of you can enjoy some quality time with friends and family.

Reply
JaredMithrandir link
4/3/2018 08:15:21 pm

The difference between Pagan Dying and Rising Gods and The Gospel and that these Pagan Myths were allegories of Death and Rebirth and only sought to reinforce the notion that Death is a natural part of the "Circle of Life" we have to accept. While The Gospel is that Jesus defeated Death and eventually ALL (I'm a Universalist) will Rise again to Eternal Life.

Jason being swallowed by a Dragon would be more comparable to Jonah then to Jesus.

Reply
The Name Jared is tainted forever by Subway
4/3/2018 08:54:46 pm

Anyone who needs to be taught "that Death is a natural part of the "Circle of Life" we have to accept" is too stupid to live. Cya at the Ren Faire!

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        • Fragments on Giants
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