Mithras = Christianity? (Jesus, priests, rituals, morals, virgin)

[logician]

"Is making up history the same as ignoring it?
__________________"
And I'd call you the fool.

Stay on topic, smart***.

kicks at goads*"

What the heck is this all about?

ROFLMAO

[logician]

Originally Posted by crystalonyx

The problem here is some people's strong determination to ignore history before the advent of Christianity, like there was no other religious thought or philosophies worthy of recognition,or that could have had a major influence on Christianity. Somehow, I feel that these people think that Christianity becomes "tainted" with such associations.

"Tainted" I think is an understatement.

[Kcnorwood]

Any religion that tries to stamp out another & replace it with thiers is hiding something, thats why I do not buy into Christianty being the one true religion but a copy of many.

[Ringer]

Or maybe most people just fail to realize that pagan religions actually took some parts from Christianity and incorporated it into their religions. Since we are talking about Mithraism, I'll just post some basic information that can be found in regards to Mithraism = Christianity.

The major reason why no Mithraic influence on first-century Christianity is possible is the timing: it's all wrong! The flowering of Mithraism occurred after the close of the New Testament canon, much too late for it to have influenced anything that appears in the New Testament.[9] Moreover, no monuments for the cult can be dated earlier than A.D. 90-100, and even this dating requires us to make some exceedingly generous assumptions. Chronological difficulties, then, make the possibility of a Mithraic influence on early Christianity extremely improbable. Certainly, there remains no credible evidence for such an influence.

Mithraic scholars, you see, do not hold a candle for the thesis that Christianity borrowed anything philosophically from Mithraism, and they do not see any evidence of such borrowing, with one major exception: "The only domain in which we can ascertain in detail the extent to which Christianity imitated Mithraism is that of art." [MS.508n] We are talking here not of apostolic Christianity, note well, but of Christianity in the third and fourth centuries, which, in an effort to prove that their faith was the superior one, embarked on an advertising campaign reminiscent of our soft drink wars. Mithra was depicted slaying the bull while riding its back; the church did a lookalike scene with Samson killing a lion. Mithra sent arrows into a rock to bring forth water; the church changed that into Moses getting water from the rock at Horeb. (Hmm, did the Jews copy that one?) Think of how popular Pokemon is these days, and then think of the church as the one doing the Digimon ripoff -- although one can't really bellow about borrowing in this case, for this happened in an age when art usually was imitative -- it was a sort of one-upsmanship designed as a competition, and the church was not the only one doing it. Furthermore, it didn't involve an exchange or theft of ideology.

The evidence seems to be pointing in the direction that Roman Mithraism was not fully developed before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., therefor it seems improbable that Christianity was influenced by Mithraism. From what we know, Iranian Mithraism was isolated to Iran having an association with the sun-god along with Apollos and Hermes- minus the resurrection story. Roman Mithraism on the other hand had its association with the tauroctony (i.e. bull-slaying scene) in Rome, and it was later associated with a resurrection by literary writers that had no connection with the devotees themselves.
The allegations of Mithraian influence on Christianity have been rejected by scholars in biblical and classical studies. According to the British scholar Norman Anderson:

"the basic difference between Christianity and the mysteries is the historic basis of the one and the mythological character of the other...the deities of the mysteries were no more than a nebulous figure of an imaginary past, while the Christ whom the apostolic (kerygma) proclaimed had lived and died only a few years before the first New Testament documents were written. Even when the Apostle Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians the majority of some five hundred witnesses to the resurrection were still alive" (1 Corn. 15:6).

In essence, what Paul was saying was: If you do not believe me, just go and ask them?" Certainly Mithraism could not - and did not - put their beliefs on the table as Paul did for all to examine at its most crucial point of development.

I assure you that there are plenty more. I only am quoting these few references that I found not because I'm saying that they are 100% correct in their assertions but that the overwhelming argument seems to be that those who hold that Mithraism influenced Christianity are unable to provide any scholarly or concrete evidence to back up their claims.

[Kcnorwood]

[quote=Ringer;1163020]Or maybe most people just fail to realize that pagan religions actually took some parts from Christianity and incorporated it into their religions. Since we are talking about Mithraism, I'll just post some basic information that can be found in regards to Mithraism = Christianity.
quote]


I'd like to know how an older religion can copy an new religion.

[gnostic]

Originally Posted by angellous_evangellous

Yeah, I think that is de facto an illogical statement. History is often written and interpreted by "winners" but one must have a highly developed definition of "history" and "winner."

What does it mean to be a loser?

What does it mean to be a winner?

What is history?

There are numerous hieroglyphic writings on the walls of the pyramids of the 5th dynasty and 6th dynasty (Old Kingdom), known as the Pyramid Texts, leaves no doubt that it predated Jesus' time by 2 millenniums. These writings contained about how to achieve resurrection and ascension.

The Coffin Texts, written in the 1st Intermediate Period and the Middle Kingdom, contained writings on coffins, leaves no doubt about antiquity, as well as the Book of the Dead from the New Kingdom.

Older than the Babylonian texts about Ishtar and Dumuzi, are the original Sumerian version of Inana and Dumuzi, also written 2 millennium before Christ.

There are no doubt about the Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries predating that of Christ by 6-7 centuries and 2 centuries before that of Christ.

So I don't understand how you angellous_evangellous can doubt these records being far older than Christian writings.

Sometimes history are written by winner, and past Christians have tried to re-write history. There have been book burning and destruction of some works of art and buildings of the past. Much were lost, thanks to over-enthusiastic Christian with torches and hammers.

You go to some of the Ptolemaic temples in Egypt, and you would find heads and body parts, most noticeably exposed penises on statues and wall-sculptures being removed or defaced by Christians.

So don't give us no crap about history being re-written. The Christians are even worse than Muslims when it come to re-writing history.

[Kcnorwood]

One thing that I have always found intresting is the teachings of Buddha & Christ.
While the teachings of Christ do not follow word for word those of Buddha but when you read them it's hard to say that they have not been copied.

[gnostic]

Originally Posted by Ringer

Or maybe most people just fail to realize that pagan religions actually took some parts from Christianity and incorporated it into their religions. Since we are talking about Mithraism, I'll just post some basic information that can be found in regards to Mithraism = Christianity.

Mithra existed centuries long before the Roman adopted this Persian god, and changed his name to Mithras. Mithra had existed even before the beginning of Zoroastrianism, so I don't see how you could say that Mithraism is younger than Christianity.

[Kcnorwood]

Every religion today most likely has some aspect of an ancient belief in its philosophy or practice, but to say that one particular religion is the oldest is naive. The reality is-- we do not know. We have no basis for comparison. Most reference books list Hinduism as the oldest world religion. This is probably because Hinduism has the oldest recorded roots, which lie in Dravidianism. Dravidianism is estimated to have been practiced around 6,000 to 3,000 BCE and as such predates the Sumerian, Egyptian, and Babylonian cultures.