THE JESUS STORY (continued) -- SEARCH FOR THE REAL PARENTS OF MY SOUL

THE JESUS STORY (continued)

SEARCH FOR THE REAL PARENTS OF MY SOUL

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© January 13, 2015

RELIGIOUS RIVALS FOR THE ALLEGIANCE OF THE GRECO-ROMAN WORLD

The conditions were favorable for a new religion, but the competition was fierce.  Christianity, by comparison, did not appear to have an outside chance of surviving.  Indeed, at its outset, Christianity seemed to be one of the least of many rivals with little promise of success against the others.

We cannot undertake this social psychological odyssey without naming contenders in Jesus’ day, when the complexity of religious allegiance became so intense in the Mediterranean basin. 

Over time, scholars, pseudo-scholars, skeptics, agnostics, atheists and Christian apologists have written weighty tomes from every conceivable aspect and vantage point to support or deny the validity of Christianity. 

This personal odyssey represents but the tiniest blip on the iceberg of that compelling inquiry.  So, it is not to be construed as seeking company with this community of scholars, but rather to represent the author’s journey for closure, that is, for a better understanding of his roots, his culture, indeed, himself in these times.  Hopefully, in that sense, it will help the reader better appreciate his own spiritual roots which have a long history even if these roots are not acknowledged.     

Ideas first taken to be exclusively Christian may be shown to have had an earlier antecedence.  As we go forward, the many facets in the family of man and his hunger for spiritual connection are on display.

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Some cults, more than two thousand years ago, were maintained by the state.  These included the gods of Rome.  The Roman Empire was an aggregation of city states, many in existence before the formation of the Empire and were autonomous.  Each felt dependent upon the favors of its gods and saw to it that the worship of the state’s official divinities was strictly maintained. 

As previously covered, the state religions were no longer believed, yet the continuance of their rites was understood to be prudent for the welfare of society.  Draconian measures were imposed to see that the pomp and circumstance of the rites was not compromised. 

Outstanding among the officially supported cults was that of the Emperor, who was treated as a god.  The East had long been familiar with a ruler who was also a divinity as Alexander the Great experienced in his eastern conquests.  It was natural that Caesar Augustus, who had brought about peace to the Mediterranean, would be hailed as an incarnation of divinity.  Statues of Augustus were erected across the empire and religious ceremonies instituted to treat him as a god.

Caesar Augustus went along with this as he regarded it as a safeguard of law and order, and important for the realm’s preservation and prosperity.  Dissent from this divine adoration might well be interpreted as tantamount to treason.

Prominent, too, at the time were the so-called “mystery religions.”  They were secret in many of their ceremonies, and their members swore an oath not to reveal the esoteric nature of their beliefs. 

After a few centuries, many of these religions disappeared only to find many of their tenets reappear in some new religions.  Cults were known to copy one another and to provide an easy going syncretism, which ultimately produced fuzzy distinctions.  Not the least of these faiths to owe a serious debt to mystery religions was Christianity.  

Several of these mystery religions were built around Dionysus.  According to the story told about him, Zagreus, the son of Zeus by Persephone, was born in the form of a bull.  He was destined to rule the world, but was torn apart and eaten by the jealous Titans.

But Athens saved his heart, Zeus swallowed it, and when Semele born Dionysus to Zeus, Dionysus was Zagreus reborn.  He was also often given the name Bacchus.  The bull is associated with fertility cults. 

One of the coarser mysteries of Dionysus has devotees drinking the fruit of the vine with Dionysus as Bacchus.  Bacchus was the god of wine as well as of animals and vegetable life. 

Devotees of this cult also ate of the flesh of a newly slain bull still dripping blood, and thus saw it as partaking in the life of the god.  They engaged in sacred dances as well, which induced ecstasy and in which they were supposedly possessed by the spirit of the god (Watts 1961. 1964, 1972).      

These mystery religious are having a rejuvenation today.  Young people are looking for the same answers as these searchers did nearly 2,000 years ago (Frazer 1907).  Among these mysteries were those associated with Magna Mater, or the Great Mother, who loved the virgin-born of the shepherd, Attis.  Attis died, slain either by his enemies or by his own hand.  If the latter be the case, it has been deemed by emasculation (Cumont 1903). 

The Magna Mother mourned the passing of her son, Attis, and then effected his resurrection, as he became immortal.  Postulants of the Magna Mother in full-fledged initiation mourned Attis, and then, at the climax of a wild dance, emasculated themselves.  This was followed by a day in which the resurrection of Attis was celebrated, as the devotees now felt themselves united with Attis, willing participants in his immortality. 

Somewhat similar cults had as their center a young god whom the Greeks called Adonis, and who died and rose again.  In like manner, another set of mysteries clustered around the myth of Osiris, a king who had been killed by his brother. His widow, Isis, in mourning sought him, found his body, revived it, and became ruler of the dead.  In the religion that developed around this myth, Serapis replaced Osiris and Isis was deified.  The chief shrine was the Serapeum in Alexandria, Egypt.

The Eleusinian mysteries developed near Athens which had the focus of their rites on the death of vegetation in the autumn and winter, and the resurrection of life again in the spring.  This was done through the nature myth of Persephone who was carried off by Hades to the underworld, was sought by her mourning mother, Demeter, was restored to the world of light, but was compelled to return to the underworld for part of each year (Guthrie 1935).

Widespread was the mystery religion which had Mithra for its main figure (Cumont 1903).  Mithra, a god of Persian origin, was usually represented as bestriding a bull and slaying it.  From the dying bull issued the seed of life for the world, and hence the act became the symbol of regeneration.  The cult practiced baptism and had a sacramental meal.  Its membership was restricted to men and its places of worship, crypts or underground caverns, were too small to accommodate more than a few members at a time.

Most mystery cults eventually made their way to Rome.  They also penetrated much of the Empire along the Mediterranean coastlines.  Their appeal seems to have been the simple assurance of immortality, which the religion gave its members combined with a fellowship that many in the world craved as large numbers of people were uprooted and disenfranchised from their birth homes. 

There were many competitors for spiritual dominion and dominance.  Judaism was among the most formidable of the religious groups vying for the favor of the peoples of the Roman Empire.  As a faith, Judaism identified with one ethnic group, stressing its belief that Israel was a peculiar people that had been especially chosen by God.  With this manifest, Judaism could scarcely hope to win all of the human race even if it so desired, which it didn’t. 

Some of the Jewish prophets had regarded Judaism as having a universal mission and destined to embrace all men in its fellowship.  Yet, the majority of Jews did not follow such prophecy.  As we have shown, Jewish communities were numerous and widely scattered as the Jewish scriptures had been translated into Greek, and thousands of non-Jews were attracted to the faith.  They sought either full incorporation into Judaism or became a fringe group practicing many of the tenets in the Jewish belief system without formal acceptance.  

Judaism, alas, then as now was not a proselytizing faith, whereas Christianity has proven to be very much such a religion. Since the time of Apostle Paul, Christianity has been in the vigorous and demanding business of selling its rationale to the world of ideas.  The distillate of this marketing strategy centered on the power of the crucifixion of Jesus and His resurrection, as it captured the imagination of the known world.  

JESUS AND PARALLEL CRUCIFIED SAVIORS

Paul instinctively knew the most dramatic incident in the life of Jesus was his crucifixion.  This would suggest that he was familiar parallel pagan "crucified saviors,” such as Adonis, Attis, Baal, Bacchus, Balder, Beddru, Devatat, Dionysus, Hermes, Horus, Krishna, Mithras, Orpheus, Osiris, Tammuz, Thor and Zoroaster

The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, then, shares this phenomenon with many other crucified saviors who are reported to have died and again risen as gods.  As a consequence, Christianity is rivaled by many pagan “mystery” religions. 

Those who would refute the Jesus story claim: (1) Jesus of Nazareth didn't exist as a person in history (also called "mythicism"); and (2) the events of Christ's life in the Gospels were copied from "previous saviors" of non-Christian pagan religions.

The prominent three "parallel pagan" gods appear to be Dionysus, Mithras, and Osiris. Most Christians, indeed, most well-read skeptics and atheists are unfamiliar with Greek, Roman, Persian or Egyptian religions and deities. So the argument goes that all these gods and religions are based on myths, fables, or legends with the Jesus story on a par with Dionysus, Mithras, and Osiris.

If one has taken a mythology, comparative religion or humanities course in college, these gods would be talked about. However, the information on them is readily available in any scholarly encyclopedia. A better source is the multi-volume The Encyclopedia of Religion (1987) edited by Mircea Eliade or the 2005 second edition edited by Lindsay Jones.  If interested, it is well to check your local public or university library for the relevant scholarship.  This is necessary to separate the "wheat" from the "chaff" (Matt 3:12; Luke 3:17). 

As skeptic Richard Carrier puts it:

"You'll have someone make up a fake quote, or misrepresent a document, misrepresent the evidence. Then they'll put it on a web site, or put it in a book that's published by what people think is a respectable publisher. And then hundreds, thousands of Christians will read this and believe it because they assume, well this guy wouldn't lie. He wouldn't have made this stuff up. And so they go and repeat it. And so you get the lie repeated many times, mostly by people who aren't lying, who really do think it's true but just didn't check" (Richard 2005).

So, it is a critical point in this odyssey as to the validity of the Jesus story compared to these pagan crucified saviors.  This "parallel pagan" argument critical of Christianity by hyper-skeptics, atheists, agnostics, or Christian apologists is widely available on the Internet, or in the 19th century pseudo-historical work of Kersey Graves, The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors (1875).  Graves (DVD) sees overlapping claims:

“(All these gods) received divine honors, nearly all worshiped as Gods, or sons of God, and were incarnated as Christs, Saviors, Messiahs, or Mediators.  A few reputedly born of virgins; some of a character nearly identical to that ascribed to Jesus in the Christian bible; many reported to have been crucified; and all taken together, furnish a prototype and parallel for nearly every important incident and wonder-inciting miracle, doctrine and precept recorded in the New Testament, of the Christian's Savior” (Graves 1875). 

Graves himself accepted the historicity of Jesus Christ as he was not in the strictest sense, a "mythicist."  His hypothesis is that these various godmen were all 'historical personages' who patterned themselves after this archetype; that these various crucified saviors and godmen were 'real people' who were deified with fairy tales and myths added to their biographies (Graves 1875). 

Richard Carrier disavows Kersey Graves as a reliable source and doesn't think much of the concept of "parallel pagan" gods.  He claims the  supposed "parallels" that either pre- or post-date Christianity's founding lack reliable historical evidence in support of the idea, and thus concludes the "parallel" concept is simply mistaken (Carrier 2005). 

Should we accept that "The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors: Or Christianity Before Christ” is unreliable, the fact remains that no comprehensive critique exists. Most scholars recognize many of his findings are unsupported.  In general, even when the evidence is real, it often appears many years after Christianity began, and thus might be evidence of diffusion in the other direction (Carrier, 2005).

That said there are other similar savior figures in the same neighborhood and at the same time in history: Mithras, Attis, Adonis, Osiris, Tammuz, and so forth, and nobody thinks that these characters are anything but mythical with most stories having some kind of resurrection or another.

It is that aspect of the Jesus story in the New Testament patterned after "dying and rising gods" of antiquity that aggravates skeptics as that story existed long before Christianity. This view became popular among scholars during the so-called "history of religions" school at the turn of the 20th century.

The category of "dying and rising gods," along with the pattern of its mythic and ritual associations, received its earliest full formulation in the influential work of Sir James G. Frazer (1856-1941) in The Golden Bough (1st edition 1890 in two volumes, 2nd edition 1900 in three volumes, 3rd edition in 12 volumes, 1906-1915, with an abridged one-volume edition published in 1922).  This level of dedication to this idea has proven the legacy of anthropologist Frazer who is considered the founder of this discipline.

This theme was repeated by other scholars of mythology such as Joseph Campbell who edited Pagan and Christian Mysteries (1955), and his more famous The Hero with a Thousand Faces (originally 1949), whose views were made popular through a 1988 PBS series "The Power of Myth" interviews with Bill Moyers. However, on the "dying and rising gods" motif the Encyclopedia of Religion (1987) concludes:

"The category of dying and rising gods, once a major topic of scholarly investigation, must now be understood to have been largely a misnomer based on imaginative reconstructions and exceedingly late or highly ambiguous texts....In most cases, the decipherment and interpretation of texts in the language native to the deity's cult has led to questions as to the applicability of the category. The majority of evidence for Near Eastern dying and rising deities occurs in Greek and Latin texts of late antiquity, usually post-Christian in date" (Smith 1985).

Smith is emphatic: "Some of these divine figures simply disappear, some disappear only to return again in the near or distant future; some disappear and reappear with monotonous frequency. All the deities that have been identified as belonging to the class of dying and rising deities can be subsumed under the two larger classes of disappearing deities or dying deities. In the first case, the deities return but have not died; in the second case, the gods die but do not return. There is no unambiguous instance in the history of religions of a dying and rising deity."

Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd state in The Jesus Legend (2007):

"While the claim that aspects of the Christian view of Jesus parallel, even are indebted to, ancient pagan legends and myths has a long history, it gained prominence with the birth of the history of religions school in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries....The history of religions school was extremely popular in academic circles for several decades, but owing to trenchant critiques by such scholars as Samuel Cheetham, H.A.A. Kennedy, J. Gresham Machen, A.D. Nock, Bruce Metzger, and Gunter Wagner, it eventually fell out of fashion."

Although the category was largely abandoned by most reputable scholars and historians by the mid-20th century, there are exceptions. Tryggve N. D. Mettinger of Lund University in Sweden, wrote a recent (2001) scholarly critique challenging the modern consensus and attempts to "resurrect" the dying and rising theme. He nonetheless admits:

"There is now what amounts to a scholarly consensus against the appropriateness of the concept of dying and rising gods. Those who still think differently are looked upon as residual members of an almost extinct species....The situation during the last half of the century was thus one when it seemed fairly clear that there were no ideas of resurrection connected with Dumuzi / Tammuz, and that the ideas of a resurrection in connection with Adonis are very late.

The references to a resurrection of Adonis have been dated mainly to the Christian Era....Frazer's category was broad and all encompassing. To Frazer, Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, and Attis were all deities of the same basic type, manifesting the yearly decay and revival of life. He explicitly identified Tammuz and Adonis. The category of dying and rising deities as propagated by Frazer can no longer be upheld" (Mettinger 2001).

The category is still revived among the "free thought" community in the non-scholarly form of Kersey Graves, sometimes in the revised James G. Frazer The Golden Bough form as a valid argument against historical Christianity.

Evangelical author Ronald Nash in The Gospel and The Greeks: Did the New Testament Borrow from Pagan Thought? (2003 2nd edition) examines in Hellenistic philosophy, the mystery religions, and Gnosticism and their relationship to early Christianity. He concludes:

"Was first-century Christianity a syncretistic religion? Was early Christianity a synthesis of ideas and practices borrowed from different sources, some of them pagan? To the extent that key words like dependence, influence, accommodation, and borrowed are understood in a strong sense, my answer to this question will be an unequivocal no"(Nash 2003).

In chapters seven through eleven, he examines the various Greco-Roman mystery religions and such pagan deities as Demeter, Dionysus / Bacchus, Orpheus, Isis / Osiris, Cybele / Attis, Mithra, Mithraism, and Zoroastrianism, along with their supposed influence on the Christian sacraments and essential Christian beliefs (e.g., the Incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ), which is a thorough Christian reply to the "parallel pagan" argument or "copycat" thesis.

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NOTE:

We now move on from this “Birth of Christianity,” realizing this is all being considered in this secular Age of Information with the miracle of instant global communication.  Life over the last century has been a test of the credulity of both Christian believers and nonbelievers.  For this author of the Search for the Real Parents of My Soul, there is no recourse then to move on to JESUS AND THE GOSPELS: THE FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY.  References not included here.