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Jesus Resurrection

There is no historical writer who wrote of any of the NT events, none.
But all of the Christian gospels that told different stories of Christ were destroyed. The fragments from the Nag Hamandi revealed much about the Gnostic Christians, some sects did not believe in the resurrection, or some believed Jesus was a man. So did the Adoptionists.

All those gospels were heresy and destroyed by Rome once they picked out which gospels to keep. Especially after the Catholic church was formed.
They destroyed any reference to any other historical data.

The conspiracy is that modern Christianity is nothing like what was going on in the 1st several hundred years. Catholicism started so certain church leaders could gain control over people. Original Christianity was nothing like it is now.
After the Lost Gospels were found the church came out with a statement saying the text helped back up Catholicism, a total lie from the Pope. It was a media spin.

-from Wiki, note the mention of Elaine Pagels and Bishop Irenaeus whom I mentioned.


"The Christian heresiologists, most notably Irenaeus, regarded Gnosticism as a Christian heresy. Modern scholarship notes that early Christianity was very diverse, and Christian orthodoxy only settled in the 4th century, when the Roman Empire declined and Gnosticism lost its influence.[66][64][67][65] Gnostics and proto-orthodox Christians shared some terminology. Initially, they were hard to distinguish from each other.[68]

According to Walter Bauer, "heresies" may well have been the original form of Christianity in many regions.[69] This theme was further developed by Elaine Pagels,[70] who argues that "the proto-orthodox church found itself in debates with gnostic Christians that helped them to stabilize their own beliefs."[65] According to Gilles Quispel, Catholicism arose in response to Gnosticism, establishing safeguards in the form of the monarchic episcopate, the creed, and the canon of holy books."

""heresies" may well have been the original form of Christianity in many regions."

They are being subtle here to not upset religious folks. Christianity was different for ~300 years!? Gnosticism is very Budhhist and Hindu like. Many believed the resurrection was metaphorical.

Ive never claimed there wer no gnostic writings. Of course there are, there still is from that period, anyone can read them.

But, theres no texts saying there wer no witnesses, no persecutions. Only texts saying there was.

Thats what i mean by conspiracy.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
View attachment 24711

A three hour tour is a problem if you're on the SS Minnow. The bible also acts like going to Egypt is a problem, but it's a walk of less than a week or two on your own two feet.
That does not appear to be the "Bethlehem" in the Bible. That city was in Judea and not in Galilee :

Bethlehem - Wikipedia

By searching for "Bethlehem of Galilee" you created a search for the wrong city, if that is what you did. Current Bethlehem to "Nazareth" ( scare quotes are there since it is unknown if that is the Nazareth of Jesus's time) is 97 miles:

bethlehem to nazareth distance - Bing
 
No, you don't want that. I gave you an article sourced by Richard Carrier, complete with books and page numbers. You can't argue with that so you're pretending that I didn't give sources and then in other answers you admit there were sources but say they were "bad" sources.
Why would I want to mislead? I'm passing on information, what you do with it is your choice.
You know you could google "Kata Matthaion euangelion" and "gospels" and figure it out for yourself. You will just wank around in every direction and use denial or slander no matter what source I give so why waste my time?



Not mine, I use only scholarship.



Like I said he mentions only the resurrection, no aspects of his Earthly life Paul mentions only knowledge from scripture and revelation (hallucination).



Isn't my perspective, it's Phd historians perspective.

There is no debate. You already lost. I gave sources about other historical savior demigods which you ignored. Again, you can easily corroborate the Greek at the beginning of each gospel.
When facts go against your beliefs you just play games. Go back to the essay and show me one source which is wrong.
The "issues that come from the facts" are denial and silly games.



I'm not putting any cents in. I told you you lost, you haven't dealt with the sources on an issue we were discussing. The end.







Because back then there were people called historians who give actual information about the time.
Tell me where Justin Martyr says most people were not superstitious. Use one of these "sources" you are barking for.
Even in the bible the non-believers are believing OTHER gods.



That's funny, by "careless attitude" you mean an educated person who doesn't blindly follow superstitious nonsense and actually reads what historians say about the era.
I just gave you an essay sourced from a Phd yet you keep pretending like I just made a bunch of stuff up? The denial is thick.

Maybe you "know your not speaking a factor with your slanted spin" because the article was written by a historian. DER!!!



Again, when I have facts you pretend like I don't care then say you DO care so you can't possibly talk with me. Hilarious.
Now, if I say "who cares" about some ridiculous bible passage that makes perfect sense because the bible has ZERO credibility. There are no outside sources that support it.
Any mention of the religion are just talking about members of the cult.

Using gospel passages proves nothing so there is no debate there. The historical arguments are relevant. Unfortunately you can't deal with historians. Fine. You lose.



I can see that educated people annoy you. All those facts.

The worst part is when I say "it doesn't matter" I'm talking about YOU. Any source I use YOU will ignore. You are not interested in a historical debate. So it does not matter.
Now you're pretending like "oh it matters to me!" Ok, then go back, look at any source and then tell me why you don't believe it.

You just looked at like 100 sources and shut them down in probably 1 second. In fact I'm pretty sure you didn't even look at anything. You just came here and asked for more sources.




Is that right? Hmm let's see are there any mentions of physical resurrection of demigod Osiris’s body? There are. Where? Pyramid Texts 207b-209a and 2010b-2011a, = Utterance 676.

Now that essay gives dozens.
I could post 100 more essays and endless history from historians and you'll just say "they are crap". You are a fraud.




I just gave you a Greek passage that is so easy to look up and you got all paranoid and said I'm trying to mislead you? Done. I'm not spending time looking it up again.
Carrier mentions it here at 8 min






Oh no, I'm not at suboxonezone level, oh no?!

Using gospels as a historical source is hilarious. It's fan fiction.



Except not Greek because then I'm trying to mislead you.
Also not the 50 sources in the article right.
Please stop kidding yourself. Any sources I post you will call crap. Your not looking for a debate. I really don't know what your doing?



ok, please see my other post with all the sources and page numbers then tell me why you don't agree with them
If you want to say "those are crap" then explain why.

-(hint, I already know you are not going to deal with any historical facts.)



I don't know but I definitely don't care if you want to believe in Hercules, Osirus or Jesus.
Jump right in.



Oh is that right?
Let's go back to the top of the post,

In Greek the gospels start with euangelion kata -
The Gospel of Matthew = [To euangelion kata Matthaion]
which is how Greek writers said "as told to me by"

Let's confirm that with a Ph.D. bible historian,

"Because regardless of how codex or scroll tags worked, Kata Markon simply means “as told by Mark,” not “as written by Mark” (a different Greek phrase was used for the latter). It is a designation of source, not authorship. Which, as a title, generally was something invented ad hoc (otherwise you would have the author, “as written by,” saying he got his information from Mark and who Mark was and so on). In any case it never means “written by.”

Christians (alone in antiquity, and solely in this case) quickly conflated these concepts because they needed the sources to be the authors themselves, and legends grew advocating that view (e.g. it’s obvious Irenaeus, and everyone else, got this idea from Papias, who says he learned it from dubious oral lore, even though Papias was a stupid and gullible man, as Eusebius reports, and what he wrote about the Gospels is either false or not even referring to our Gospels, since we can see it fails to match them).

Amazing Proofs of Jesus! • Richard Carrier


Im gonna deal with your post bits.

From wiki

"In Egyptian mythology, Osiris is the god of life, death, the flooding of the Nile and the afterlife. He was the brother and husband of Isis. They had a son named Horus. Osiris was murdered by his brother Set because Osiris was pharaoh, which Set wanted to be. Osiris was killed when Set tricked him into getting into a box, then poured Lead onto the box to close it so Osiris could not get out of it. However, Isis brought Osiris back to life for one night. After Horus was old enough, he defeated Set and became the pharaoh. Osiris' mother was the goddess Nut, father Geb, sister Nephthys, and sister as well as wife Isis."

Notice it says just for one night? Thats not like Jesus. Plus the other details are not comparible. The way jesus and osiris are killed are different. Theres no clear plagurization going on. Plagurizing is very obvious because whole sections of paragraphs can be exactly the same verbatum. That does not appear in these stories. Even that link you gave me of a original story (which was hell to read, my gosh that was dry and terribly translated, that old english, dang) theres no plagurizing. I could tell you my life story and then have you tell yours and gauss what? Wer gonna have similarities, but alot of difference too. But similarities would obviously not mean my story borrowed let alone plagurized your story. Its the same thing going on here.

From https://reasonabletheology.org/was-christ-copycat/

"As mentioned above, most versions of the birth of Horus are the result of a sexual relationship between Osiris and his wife-sister Isis. Some claim that Horus was crucified, but this is not only unsupported by history but is a major anachronism. Crucifixion was a Roman method of execution put into practice thousands of years later. They may as well say that Horus was killed in a motorcycle crash.

Rather than being crucified, most versions of the Horus myth do not have a death recorded at all. In some instances, it was believed that he merged with the sun god, Re, and each sunrise is a symbol of him being reborn each day. Again, this is hardly parallel to the resurrection of Jesus."

So, horus dont even resurrect at all, not even for a day, like osiris.

As for the gospels, mathew, mark, luke and john, your point about the gospel according too. That was added in the second century. It was not part of the originals.

But, it was added because of what some of the church fathers said.

"Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.—Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 1."

A link with more loged together here When and how did the names Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John get attached to the gospels?

Ok, your thoughts?
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
Ive never claimed there wer no gnostic writings. Of course there are, there still is from that period, anyone can read them.

But, theres no texts saying there wer no witnesses, no persecutions. Only texts saying there was.

Thats what i mean by conspiracy.


Actually all of the Gnostic text that tells us anything interesting were destroyed by the church.
The Nag Hammandi find in the 1950s revealed to us much of what we now know about the different theologies.
And there were Gnostic writings that said there was no resurrection. Some claimed there was a metaphorical resurrection only. There is also Adoptionism which the Adoptionist gospels say Jesus was a man and then adopted by God to be a supernatural deity.

The only text we have that do say there was witnesses and such are the actual gospels which we know to be writings that follow mythic literary structure to the T.
The writers who didn't believe in Jesus, like many Jews and people in other religions wouldn't write a story about Jesus where he wasn't sacrificed unless they were historical writers documenting the events.
There are no historical records except mention of people who followed gospels and historical Christian forgeries.

There may have been many writers who wrote about Christianity being a fraud. Except in 3AD that became illegal in Rome punishable by death. In 12AD the church infiltrated all Europe and could destroy and kill anything they labeled heresy. So to expect counter-writings to survive is very unrealistic.

The only reason the Gnostic text survived is because someone hid them in a cave and buried them.
Had those been found the owner would have been killed and the texts burned immediately.
The church either destroyed or took over all religious buildings, artifacts and scripture throughout the middle ages.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
Im gonna deal with your post bits.

From wiki

"In Egyptian mythology, Osiris is the god of life, death, the flooding of the Nile and the afterlife. He was the brother and husband of Isis. They had a son named Horus. Osiris was murdered by his brother Set because Osiris was pharaoh, which Set wanted to be. Osiris was killed when Set tricked him into getting into a box, then poured Lead onto the box to close it

Notice it says just for one night? Thats not like Jesus. Plus the other details are not comparible. The way jesus and osiris are killed are different. Theres no clear plagurization going on. Plagurizing is very obvious because whole sections of paragraphs can be exactly the same verbatum. That does not appear in these stories. Even that link you gave me of a original story (which was hell to read, my gosh that was dry and terribly translated, that old english, dang) theres no plagurizing. I


First no one ever said "plagarize". It's syncretism.

- The differences are what establish them as different gods, and not just revamped versions of the same god. The differences are irrelevant. Cultural diffusion and syncretism by definition always produces differences between the originating, existing beliefs and the resulting, new beliefs. So it is illogical to argue that because God A is “different” from God B, that therefore God B’s mythology was not adapted from God A’s. To the contrary, ideas that are witnessed as pervasive (many different kinds of virgin births; many different kinds of resurrections) are seen as bearing a cultural commonality (“a” virgin birth; “a” resurrection), and that commonality is then adapted to a specific belief system, creating a new religion. The process always involves transformation: the creation of differences. Those differences are what is brought by the native, adopting culture, and then added, to transform the adopted culture.


-Every dying-and-rising god is different. Every death is different. Every resurrection is different. All irrelevant. The commonality is that there is a death and a resurrection. Everything else is a mixture of syncretized ideas from the borrowing and borrowed cultures, to produce a new and unique god and myth. I

The Wiki article left out some sources including the pyramid text.

Osiris - Not only does Plutarch say Osiris returned to life and was recreated, exact terms for resurrection , and also describe his physically returning to earth after his death , but the physical resurrection of Osiris’s corpse is explicitly described in pre-Christian pyramid inscriptions!

-Osiris. Clearly raised from the dead in his original, deceased body, restored to life; visiting people on earth in his risen body; and then ruling from heaven above. And that directly adjacent to Judea, amidst a major Jewish population in Alexandria, and popular across the whole empire.

-But as Plutarch explains, the esoteric truth was that the god’s death and resurrection occurs in sublunar space, after each year descending and taking on a mortal body to die in; and that event definitely involved coming back to life in a new superior body, in which Osiris ascends to a higher realm to rule from above, all exactly as was said of the risen Jesus (who no more remained on earth than Osiris did). The only difference is that when importing this into Judaism, which had not a cyclical-eternal but a linear-apocalyptic conception of theological history, they converted the god’s dying-and-rising to a singular apocalyptic event.

As to the article I don't know what you mean? Carrier writes in a casual laid back style. The old English is the sources that you ASKED FOR? But they are only short quotes that can be skipped over.
Did you read the correct essay?
Dying-and-Rising Gods: It's Pagan, Guys. Get Over It. • Richard Carrier

Also Wiki isn't going to have the most updated and precise scholarship. Carrier is using the same original sources that everyone of those modern books sourced on Wiki use - Plutarch and Pyramid Text.
Carrier is specifically reading the sources looking for parallels to Jesus so he is the scholar to use for this topic.
People writing Wiki articles are not looking to **** people off by noting all the Christ comparisons. If the editor is Christian your article might just get passed by.
Historian D.M. Murdock has already pointed out that Wiki often uses bad sources on Mystery religion articles. Look at how poor and misleading that article you linked to was. Some people probably think that that article is accurate and closes the book on the subject. Cognitive bias.


Really? A short apologetics article? From a Pastor? What happened to your need for source and page numbers? That suddenly fell out the window? See how cognative bias works?

It's bizarre that uneducated modern Christians try to change history and pretend like the savior god myth wasn't popular? Ancient Christians have already admitted that Jesus was a copy-cat, they just said he was the best version. This isn't actually a debate, it's history. Christian apologetics exists to blind people of history.

Justin Martyr says it in his 1st Apology-

"many of the Christian teachings parallel similar stories in pagan mythology, making it irrational for contemporary pagans to persecute Christians"

Tertullian said it also:

"Ancient Christians well knew there was nothing new about their dying-and-rising god. Not in respect to the mytheme. Their claims were solely that his particular instantiation of it was better, and the only one that actually happened. They didn’t make up the stupid modern arguments that dying-and-rising god myths didn’t exist or weren’t part of a common mytheme everyone knew about. For example, in the same century, Tertullian, in Prescription against Heretics 40, makes exactly the same argument as Justin. Funny that. They had better access to the evidence than we do. They knew what was really and widely the case. We should listen to them."

"As mentioned above, most versions of the birth of Horus are the result of a sexual relationship between Osiris and his wife-sister Isis. Some claim that Horus was crucified, but this is not only unsupported by history but is a major anachronism. Crucifixion was a Roman method of execution put into practice thousands of years later. They may as well say that Horus was killed in a motorcycle crash.

Hmmm, Horus isn't in Carriers article at all?


As for the gospels, mathew, mark, luke and john, your point about the gospel according too. That was added in the second century. It was not part of the originals.

But, it was added because of what some of the church fathers said.

"Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.—Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 1."

A link with more loged together here When and how did the names Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John get attached to the gospels?

Justin Martyr, who your quoting, knew of only 2 gospels and he read Greek. He never says any of the Greek was added later, he wasn't even around "later" he died in 165?
The other page doesn't seem to draw any conclusions except maybe Bishop Ireneaues, who was probably reading the Gospels same as everyone else.

"the Gospel according to N' did not necessarily mean that 'N' wrote the text by hand, by himself. Instead, it is merely the Gospel according to them;"

Going further, Bishop Ir. was quoting Papias gotten from Eusebius where Papias cites John the Elder???
The Elder used to say: [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_the_Evangelist']Mark
, in his capacity as Peter’s interpreter, wrote down accurately as many things as he recalled from memory—though not in an ordered form—of the things either said or done by the Lord. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied him, but later, as I said, Peter, who used to give his teachings in the form of chreiai,[Notes 1] but had no intention of providing an ordered arrangement of the logia of the Lord.[/URL]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusebius
and Matthew:

Therefore Matthew put the logia in an ordered arrangement in the Hebrew language, but each person interpreted them as best he could.

That is a complete mess. I don't even know where scholarship stands on these people?

But this is a panel of experts including a pastor who comb over ALL of the evidence for Jesus and the gospels in order.

and they all admit there is no way to show any material as authentic.
 
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Actually all of the Gnostic text that tells us anything interesting were destroyed by the church.
The Nag Hammandi find in the 1950s revealed to us much of what we now know about the different theologies.
And there were Gnostic writings that said there was no resurrection. Some claimed there was a metaphorical resurrection only. There is also Adoptionism which the Adoptionist gospels say Jesus was a man and then adopted by God to be a supernatural deity.

The only text we have that do say there was witnesses and such are the actual gospels which we know to be writings that follow mythic literary structure to the T.
The writers who didn't believe in Jesus, like many Jews and people in other religions wouldn't write a story about Jesus where he wasn't sacrificed unless they were historical writers documenting the events.
There are no historical records except mention of people who followed gospels and historical Christian forgeries.

There may have been many writers who wrote about Christianity being a fraud. Except in 3AD that became illegal in Rome punishable by death. In 12AD the church infiltrated all Europe and could destroy and kill anything they labeled heresy. So to expect counter-writings to survive is very unrealistic.

The only reason the Gnostic text survived is because someone hid them in a cave and buried them.
Had those been found the owner would have been killed and the texts burned immediately.
The church either destroyed or took over all religious buildings, artifacts and scripture throughout the middle ages.

Im working on it, just wanna let ya know. This is an ocean of information to get through. But, yes im reading cariers article. Its taking hours to get through. Im looking through the sources too.

I even figured out how to use the "find on this page" tool on my phone. Dang, that sure saves time from reading a whole source book. Helps find the spots in the source.

Im not done, a few more days. Just alot of info to get through, then i got to organize my thoughts. Some of this is actually interesting, some of its dry. But, ill get through it.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
Im working on it, just wanna let ya know. This is an ocean of information to get through. But, yes im reading cariers article. Its taking hours to get through. Im looking through the sources too.

I even figured out how to use the "find on this page" tool on my phone. Dang, that sure saves time from reading a whole source book. Helps find the spots in the source.

Im not done, a few more days. Just alot of info to get through, then i got to organize my thoughts. Some of this is actually interesting, some of its dry. But, ill get through it.


That article is just a short introduction to the topic. Carrier's book is 700 pages.
 
That article is just a short introduction to the topic. Carrier's book is 700 pages.

Its gonna take me weeks to get through this and digest it.

Ok....lets see....

Of course someone already gave some refutations of richards article, so, to save myself time typing, here it is.

Evidence for Jesus: Was Inanna (Ishtar) "Crucified" (Crucifixion)? Was Zalmoxis "Resurrected" (Resurrection)?

The one on inanna i cought that by myself from reading and doing word searches on cariers sources, but this article puts it together none the less.

Id like to make a point about synchretism.

We already agree theres no plagurization, so, thats off the table.

Ok, if i wer to tell you my day and you wer to tell your day, there would be what looked like synchretism.

Like, today i woke up, got a shower, drove to wearhouse, got racks in kentucky and drove to North carolina. On the way i stopped and eat a whole half a chicken and cucumber and coffee.

Ok, if you wer to tell me your day, youd have some differences and similarities. But imagine if a third party wer to come by and say i barrowed your word "woke up and showered", im sure both of us would agree that would be absurd. But apparently its not absurd when it comes to the Jesus story for some.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
Its gonna take me weeks to get through this and digest it.

Ok....lets see....

Of course someone already gave some refutations of richards article, so, to save myself time typing, here it is.

Evidence for Jesus: Was Inanna (Ishtar) "Crucified" (Crucifixion)? Was Zalmoxis "Resurrected" (Resurrection)?

Ha, apologetics.

They are so slick. According to "our sources". They pick and choose to build a narrative.
They quoted just enough Carrier to make their point but not enough to contradict it.

The Thracian cult that worshiped Zalmoxis made up the polemic that he didn’t really die, he just hid in a cave, and thus pretended to have resurrected from the dead which the apologetics article uses as the final say.
But Carrier points out the polemic tells us the Thracians did believe Zalmoxis had died and rose from the dead, and appeared to disciples on earth to prove it. They are using an article Carrier wrote in 2006. Carrier has updated his work and his final book came out in 2014.

Zalmoxis was a resurrected god -
"The story entails these cultists believed in their savior god’s bodily death and resurrection. Because that’s the only way the Greek polemic Herodotus is citing would make sense, as it imagines Zalmoxis appearing in his same body and visiting his followers to verify he was alive again—and not merely appearing in visions, nor as a ghost. Accordingly, Celsus, the earliest known critic of Christianity, included Zalmoxis in his list of resurrected deities (as attested by Origen, Against Celsus 2.55)"

Plus the apologetics use J.P. Holding and Wiki as a source? Holding has....issues, as well as charges pending, his work contains some mis-use of history.

The one on inanna i cought that by myself from reading and doing word searches on cariers sources, but this article puts it together none the less.

First the work by Carrier they are using is from 2003, before he even did his research project so this line - "The only case, that I know, of a pre-Christian god actually being crucified and then resurrected is Inanna" - is outdtaed by 15 years? There are now 6 pre-Christian dying/rising demigods Carrier writes about.

They are also not using the clay tablets from Sumeria, the story is plain and clear:

"For her, a clear-cut death-and-resurrection tale exists on clay tablets inscribed in Sumeria over a thousand years before Christianity, plainly describing her humiliation, trial, execution, and crucifixion, and her resurrection three days later. After she is stripped naked and judgment is pronounced against her, Inanna is “turned into a corpse” and “the corpse was hung from a nail” and “after three days and three nights” her assistants ask for her corpse and resurrect her (by feeding her the “water” and “food” of life), and “Inanna arose” according to what had been her plan all along, because she knew her father “would surely bring me back to life,” exactly as transpires in the story (quotations are from the tablets, adapting the translation of Samuel Noah Kramer in History Begins at Sumer)"


The apologetics article tries to quibble with details which I've already fully explained, each culture has different details. I think that explanation was perfectly clear.

Then they lie trying to establish that Christianity is too unique, like only Jesus dies for sins. Well Zalmoxis died so his followers could enter into afterlife. Because early Christians were obsessed with "sin" (not all were, the power hungry bishops were) this means nothing as a historical aspect.
They act like Jesus was the only person ever offered as a substitutionary sacrifice?
who are they trying to fool? Oh yeah - themselves.







Id like to make a point about synchretism.

We already agree theres no plagurization, so, thats off the table.

It's not completely off? 12 tribes, 12 apostles, 12 this or that mysteriously pops up in tons of religions.
Like I said, after Persia left Judea they took all sorts of concepts and added them into the OT.
Even heaven vs hell is plagarized.

But the terms are euhemerization and Syncretism -
is the combining of different beliefs, while blending practices of various schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merging or assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, thus asserting an underlying unity and allowing for an inclusive approach to other faiths. Syncretism also occurs commonly in expressions of arts and culture (known as eclecticism) as well as politics (syncretic politics).

This is what every apologetics article on pagan similarities mysteriously can't figure out. One resurrection happens in a cave so they are all like "it's way different, it was in a cave, that's so different, you can't even see the sun.....it's nothing like Jesus?"


Ok, if i wer to tell you my day and you wer to tell your day, there would be what looked like synchretism.

Like, today i woke up, got a shower, drove to wearhouse, got racks in kentucky and drove to North carolina. On the way i stopped and eat a whole half a chicken and cucumber and coffee.

Ok, if you wer to tell me your day, youd have some differences and similarities. But imagine if a third party wer to come by and say i barrowed your word "woke up and showered", im sure both of us would agree that would be absurd. But apparently its not absurd when it comes to the Jesus story for some.


Oh god..... where you're going with this is ridiculous. Does your day also include being a savior god, being “son” of a supreme God, a passion, baptisim, personal salvation cults, secret teachings, securing a place in the afterlife, virgin birth, miracles, dying and rising again and acting exactly like a mythological character?

It doesn't matter if Jesus was the only story of it's kind, Krishna is fairly unique but do you believe in him? Actually Krishna is a bit like Jesus also but whatever.

Again, you cannot steer away from the parallels, even ancient apologetics writers admitted there were striking parallels. Why would Justin Myrter say that it was foolish for pagans to criticize Christians when the pagan beliefs mirrored Christians beliefs?

-Various early church writers, such as Irenaeus (Bishop of Lyons; circa 120 CE to ?) Justin Martyr (Christian apologist; 100 to 165), Tertullian (Christian theologian; circa 160 to 220 +) concluded that the Pagan/Christian similarities were a Satanic attempt at "diabolical mimicry." Satan was said to have use "plagiarism by anticipation." That is, the Devil made a pre-emptive strike against the gospel stories centuries before Jesus was born. The reason was to confuse the public into thinking that Jesus was merely a copy of previous god-men. The goal was to demolish the credibility of Christianity in the people's eyes.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa1.htm


Mr Apologetics says:
"I am not a historian so I can only recommend the sources below. Carrier has written an extensive reply to evangelical Christian apologist J.P. Holding's book The Impossible Faith (2007) titled Not The Impossible Faith (2009) which is a re-print of his online article "Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False?" (2006). His claims on Inanna and Zalmoxis are taken from this article/book and his "Kersey Graves" article. And on these, he is wrong."

So he's not a historian. More importantly Carriers work from 2014 is vastly superior to any earlier work.
 
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Ha, apologetics.

Everytime someone says "opologetics, apologetics!" It dont mean anything to me. Do you not realize carier is an opologetics for his own position? Opologetics is simply to defend your position. Saying apologetics is NEVER a refutation in itself. In fact, because theres so much information to sift through in this subject, dealing with the word apologetics is a wasted effort. I hope we can stay focused purely on the mountain of content alone moving forward.

For instence, just reading your recent post here, thinking on it, clicking on the source again and doing word searches and typing stuff out myself, its already been about an hour and a half for me doing this. And im not done the post yet.

They are so slick. According to "our sources". They pick and choose to build a narrative.
They quoted just enough Carrier to make their point but not enough to contradict it.

The Thracian cult that worshiped Zalmoxis made up the polemic that he didn’t really die, he just hid in a cave, and thus pretended to have resurrected from the dead which the apologetics article uses as the final say.
But Carrier points out the polemic tells us the Thracians did believe Zalmoxis had died and rose from the dead, and appeared to disciples on earth to prove it. They are using an article Carrier wrote in 2006. Carrier has updated his work and his final book came out in 2014.

Zalmoxis was a resurrected god -
"The story entails these cultists believed in their savior god’s bodily death and resurrection. Because that’s the only way the Greek polemic Herodotus is citing would make sense, as it imagines Zalmoxis appearing in his same body and visiting his followers to verify he was alive again—and not merely appearing in visions, nor as a ghost. Accordingly, Celsus, the earliest known critic of Christianity, included Zalmoxis in his list of resurrected deities (as attested by Origen, Against Celsus 2.55)"

Ok, i clicked on the source 2.55 you got there and i did a word search for zalmoxis. Hes not there. Did you do a word search or read through it to find the relavent section? I put in resurrection, but it was talking about Jesus. Zalmoxis isnt mentioned here.

Plus the apologetics use J.P. Holding and Wiki as a source? Holding has....issues, as well as charges pending, his work contains some mis-use of history.

Misuse of history? Doesnt everyone whos human have issues? Lol. Carier cheats on his wife. But gauss what? I dont bother with that because it gets away from the subject and the content. It really wastes alot of time, something i dont have ALOT OF. I work for a living. So when i come on here, id like to beat at the bare bones of the issues. For instence, is his charges of misuse of history in relation to the points he made about cariers article or something unrelated? If related, then it interests me, if not related, it dont interest me, just like carier cheating on his wife, it dont interest me because i know that dont mean he cant do scholar work.

First the work by Carrier they are using is from 2003, before he even did his research project so this line - "The only case, that I know, of a pre-Christian god actually being crucified and then resurrected is Inanna" - is outdtaed by 15 years? There are now 6 pre-Christian dying/rising demigods Carrier writes about.

Ok, well it shows he made some errors.

They are also not using the clay tablets from Sumeria, the story is plain and clear:

"For her, a clear-cut death-and-resurrection tale exists on clay tablets inscribed in Sumeria over a thousand years before Christianity, plainly describing her humiliation, trial, execution, and crucifixion, and her resurrection three days later. After she is stripped naked and judgment is pronounced against her, Inanna is “turned into a corpse” and “the corpse was hung from a nail” and “after three days and three nights” her assistants ask for her corpse and resurrect her (by feeding her the “water” and “food” of life), and “Inanna arose” according to what had been her plan all along, because she knew her father “would surely bring me back to life,” exactly as transpires in the story (quotations are from the tablets, adapting the translation of Samuel Noah Kramer in History Begins at Sumer)"

Wheres the actual clay tablet that says the words crucifixion, resurrection and on the third day at that? Im really sceptical on that one.

The apologetics article tries to quibble with details which I've already fully explained, each culture has different details. I think that explanation was perfectly clear.

Yes, you made it clear, but its worth noting that those differences are very important.

Then they lie trying to establish that Christianity is too unique, like only Jesus dies for sins. Well Zalmoxis died so his followers could enter into afterlife. Because early Christians were obsessed with "sin" (not all were, the power hungry bishops were) this means nothing as a historical aspect.
They act like Jesus was the only person ever offered as a substitutionary sacrifice?
who are they trying to fool? Oh yeah - themselves.

That substitutionary sacrifice is unique. That's not a lie.

It's not completely off? 12 tribes, 12 apostles, 12 this or that mysteriously pops up in tons of religions.
Like I said, after Persia left Judea they took all sorts of concepts and added them into the OT.
Even heaven vs hell is plagarized.

I know about the 12 issue. Heres the thing, the new testament quotes alot of the old testament. It does little to no quoting of other pagan cultures. And usually it gives credit where its due when they quote it. So if you wanna toute the NT borrowed, why not say they barrowed from the OT?

Wheres the 12 issue at in the other cultures?

But the terms are euhemerization and Syncretism -
is the combining of different beliefs, while blending practices of various schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merging or assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, thus asserting an underlying unity and allowing for an inclusive approach to other faiths. Syncretism also occurs commonly in expressions of arts and culture (known as eclecticism) as well as politics (syncretic politics).

This is what every apologetics article on pagan similarities mysteriously can't figure out. One resurrection happens in a cave so they are all like "it's way different, it was in a cave, that's so different, you can't even see the sun.....it's nothing like Jesus?"

I
get that, but theres no CLEAR CUT proof that the Jesus story barrowed from pagan cultures. Its akin to saying i barrowed words you used to write about my day.

Oh god..... where you're going with this is ridiculous. Does your day also include being a savior god, being “son” of a supreme God, a passion, baptisim, personal salvation cults, secret teachings, securing a place in the afterlife, virgin birth, miracles, dying and rising again and acting exactly like a mythological character?

Your missing my point. My point was to illustrate the issue. Theres no direct proof theres barrowing going on.

It doesn't matter if Jesus was the only story of it's kind, Krishna is fairly unique but do you believe in him? Actually Krishna is a bit like Jesus also but whatever.

Again, you cannot steer away from the parallels, even ancient apologetics writers admitted there were striking parallels. Why would Justin Myrter say that it was foolish for pagans to criticize Christians when the pagan beliefs mirrored Christians beliefs?

-Various early church writers, such as Irenaeus (Bishop of Lyons; circa 120 CE to ?) Justin Martyr (Christian apologist; 100 to 165), Tertullian (Christian theologian; circa 160 to 220 +) concluded that the Pagan/Christian similarities were a Satanic attempt at "diabolical mimicry." Satan was said to have use "plagiarism by anticipation." That is, the Devil made a pre-emptive strike against the gospel stories centuries before Jesus was born. The reason was to confuse the public into thinking that Jesus was merely a copy of previous god-men. The goal was to demolish the credibility of Christianity in the people's eyes.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa1.htm

The goal of the early apologists was to basically persuede the powers that be to detere away persecuting christians by basically saying that everyone has beliefs and some of its similar. It was a agenda to deter persecution.

But yes, your right, satan was trying to copycat Gods plans/prophesies, and not the otherway around.

Hence, yes, there are similarities, but its akin to me and your day being similar. Its not serious to me.

Mr Apologetics says:
"I am not a historian so I can only recommend the sources below. Carrier has written an extensive reply to evangelical Christian apologist J.P. Holding's book The Impossible Faith (2007) titled Not The Impossible Faith (2009) which is a re-print of his online article "Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False?" (2006). His claims on Inanna and Zalmoxis are taken from this article/book and his "Kersey Graves" article. And on these, he is wrong."

So he's not a historian. More importantly Carriers work from 2014 is vastly superior to any earlier work.

You can do historical work and not be a historian.

By me checking the source and doing a word search on zalmoxis, thats doing historical WORK but yet im not a historian.

Ok, all this took me 2 and a half hours.

Please after you respond, keep it on target. It took me 2 and a half hours.
 
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Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Everytime someone says "opologetics, apologetics!" It dont mean anything to me. Do you not realize carier is an opologetics for his own position? Opologetics is simply to defend your position. Saying apologetics is NEVER a refutation in itself. In fact, because theres so much information to sift through in this subject, dealing with the word apologetics is a wasted effort. I hope we can stay focused purely on the mountain of content alone moving forward.

For instence, just reading your recent post here, thinking on it, clicking on the source again and doing word searches and typing stuff out myself, its already been about an hour and a half for me doing this. And im not done the post yet.



Ok, i clicked on the source 2.55 you got there and i did a word search for zalmoxis. Hes not there. Did you do a word search or read through it to find the relavent section? I put in resurrection, but it was talking about Jesus. Zalmoxis isnt mentioned here.



Misuse of history? Doesnt everyone whos human have issues? Lol. Carier cheats on his wife. But gauss what? I dont bother with that because it gets away from the subject and the content. It really wastes alot of time, something i dont have ALOT OF. I work for a living. So when i come on here, id like to beat at the bare bones of the issues. For instence, is his charges of misuse of history in relation to the points he made about cariers article or something unrelated? If related, then it interests me, if not related, it dont interest me, just like carier cheating on his wife, it dont interest me because i know that dont mean he cant do scholar work.



Ok, well it shows he made some errors.



Wheres the actual clay tablet that says the words crucifixion, resurrection and on the third day at that? Im really sceptical on that one.



Yes, you made it clear, but its worth noting that those differences are very important.



Thos substitutionary sacrifice is unique. That's not a lie.



I know about the 12 issue. Heres the thing, the new testament quotes alot of the old testament. It does little to no quoting of other pagan cultures. And usually it gives credit where its due when they quote it. So if you wanna toute the NT borrowed, why not say they barrowed from the OT?

Wheres the 12 issue at in the other cultures?



I
get that, but theres no CLEAR CUT proof that the Jesus story barrowed from pagan cultures. Its akin to saying i barrowed words you used to write about your day.



Your missing my point. My point was to illustrate the issue. Theres no direct proof theres barrowing going on.



The goal of the early apologists was to basically persuede the powers that be to detere away persecuting christians by basically saying that everyone has beliefs and some of its similar. It was a agenda to deter persecution.

But yes, your right, satan was trying to copycat Gods plans/prophesies, and not the otherway around.

Hence, yes, there are similarities, but its akin to me and your day being similar. Its not serious to me.



You can do historical work and not be a historian.

By me checking the source and doing a word search on zalmoxis, thats doing historical WORK but yet im not a historian.

Ok, all this took me 2 and a half hours.

Please after you respond, keep it on target. It took me 2 and a half hours.
A quick note on Christian apologetics sites versus professional works. In the world of both history and science published works are vetted through the peer review process. Works with obvious errors are sent back for correction, and then other experts in the field analyze those works to see if they are correct. It forces authors to admit to mistakes. Apologetics do not go through that process. They do not own up to past errors. That is why they are very poor authorities to rely upon.
 
A quick note on Christian apologetics sites versus professional works. In the world of both history and science published works are vetted through the peer review process. Works with obvious errors are sent back for correction, and then other experts in the field analyze those works to see if they are correct. It forces authors to admit to mistakes. Apologetics do not go through that process. They do not own up to past errors. That is why they are very poor authorities to rely upon.

So was cariers article peer reviewed because it had some errors?

Also, just because its "christian" dont mean they dont self peer review. In fact ive heard one site say they did such a thing.

Also, if a source is christian and they see errors in other sources, there is nothing wrong with them pointing it out. That in itself is its own peer review in a sense.

Basically, its about facts, reasoning and defending your view.

Carier is defending his view, just like christian scholars defend theres.

If christians have there errors pointed out, then they will modify. But, if not, then they wont. And all christians are not the same.

Its everyones responsibility to use reason and facts, period. Its not about christian or naturalism. Its about facts and reason.

Think about it too. Comming on here debating is a peer review in another sense. Unfortanately when points get dismissed instead of refuted its not peer reviewed then. But when stuff is countered that is like a review.

Stuff dont have to go through a "traditional" process in order for similar principles to be done.
 
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Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
So was cariers article peer reviewed because it had some errors?

Also, just because its "christian" dont mean they dont self peer review. In fact ive heard one site say they did such a thing.

Also, if a source is christian and they see errors in other sources, there is nothing wrong with them pointing it out. That in itself is its own peer review in a sense.

Basically, its about facts, reasoning and defending your view.

Carier is defending his view, just like christian scholars defend theres.

If christians have there errors pointed out, then they will modify. But, if not, then they wont. And all christians are not the same.

Its everyones responsibility to use reason and facts, period. Its not about christian or naturalism. Its about facts and reason.

Think about it too. Comming on here debating is a peer review in another sense. Unfortanately when points get dismissed instead of refuted its not peer reviewed then. But when stuff is countered that is like a review.

Stuff dont have to go through a "traditional" process in order for similar principles to be done.
Which article? As was pointed out the site that you used referred to some of his older work that did have errors. Errors that Carrier admitted to. That they did not mention this was lying by omission. Something that an honest source would not do.

And no, your claim about Christians modifying their claims when shown that they are wrong is not true.
 
Which article? As was pointed out the site that you used referred to some of his older work that did have errors. Errors that Carrier admitted to.

Where did carier admit his errors?

That they did not mention this was lying by omission. Something that an honest source would not do.

How do you know it was dishonest? You have a very twisted perception of what honest/dishonest is. First off, where did carier admit? Second, WHEN did he admit. If he admitted after this article, then there would be no omision.

And no, your claim about Christians modifying their claims when shown that they are wrong is not true.

We will disagree on that.
 
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