Why on earth do people still believe this? Has anyone who peddles this bs actually read the Bible?
Jesus is a Persian and Hellenistic savior deity.
There are many sources, I'll start with a summary of Hellenism
Hellenistic religion, any of the various systems of beliefs and practices of eastern Mediterranean peoples from 300 bc to ad 300. The period of Hellenistic influence, when taken as a whole, constitutes one of the most creative periods in the history of religions. It was a time of spiritual
www.britannica.com
Changes that religions began taking from Hellenistic religions (this describes Judaism to Christianity exactly) - how many times is salvation mentioned.
-the seasonal drama was homologized to a
soteriology (
salvation concept) concerning the destiny, fortune, and salvation of the individual after death.
-his led to a change from concern for a religion of national prosperity to one for
individual salvation, from focus on a particular
ethnic group to concern for every human.
The prophet or saviour replaced the priest and king as the chief religious figure.
-his process was carried further through the identification of the experiences of the
soul that was to be saved with the vicissitudes of a divine but fallen soul, which had to be redeemed by cultic activity and divine intervention. This view is illustrated in the concept of the paradoxical figure of the
saved saviour, salvator salvandus.
-Other deities, who had previously been associated with national destiny (
e.g., Zeus,
Yahweh, and Isis), were raised to the status of
transcendent,
supreme
-The temples and cult institutions of the various Hellenistic religions were repositories of the knowledge and techniques necessary for
salvation and were the agents of the public worship of a particular deity. In addition, they served an important sociological role. In the new,
cosmopolitan ideology that followed Alexander’s conquests, the old nationalistic and ethnic boundaries had broken down and the problem of religious and social identity had become
acute.
-Most of these groups had regular meetings for a communal meal that served the dual role of
sacramental participation (referring to the use of material elements believed to convey spiritual benefits among the members and with their deity)
-Hellenistic philosophy (Stoicism,
Cynicism, Neo-Aristotelianism, Neo-Pythagoreanism, and Neoplatonism) provided key formulations for
Jewish,
Christian, and
Muslim philosophy,
theology, and
mysticism through the 18th century
- The basic forms of worship of both the Jewish and Christian
communities were heavily influenced in their formative period by Hellenistic practices, and this remains fundamentally unchanged to the present time. Finally, the central religious literature of both traditions—the Jewish
Talmud (an
authoritative compendium of law, lore, and interpretation), the
New Testament, and the later
patristic literature of the early Church Fathers—are characteristic Hellenistic documents both in form and content.
-Other traditions even more radically reinterpreted the ancient figures. The cosmic or seasonal drama was interiorized to refer to the divine
soul within man that must be liberated.
-Each persisted in its native land with little perceptible change save for its becoming linked to
nationalistic or
messianic movements (centring on a deliverer figure)
-and
apocalyptic traditions (referring to a belief in the dramatic intervention of a god in human and natural events)
- Particularly noticeable was the success of a variety of prophets, magicians, and healers—
e.g., John the Baptist, Jesus,
Simon Magus,
Apollonius of Tyana,
Alexander the Paphlagonian, and the cult of the healer Asclepius—whose preaching corresponded to the activities of various Greek and Roman philosophic missionaries
and a few Journal papers:
Hellenistic Ideas of Salvation, Author(s): Paul Wendland (excerpts)
Source: The American Journal of Theology , Jul., 1913, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Jul., 1913), pp. 345-351
-Christian and Hellenistic ideas of redemption cannot be sharply separated.
-The deity's resurrection from the dead gives to the initiates, who see their own destiny prefigured in his adventures, hope of a life after death.
The deity's resurrection from the dead gives to the initiates, who see their own destiny prefigured in his adventures, hope of a life after death…. the soul, conscious of its divine origin, strives for redemption from its foreign and unrelated companion, the body. It seeks deliverance from things sinful, material, and mortal. But the fundamental motive in these various representations is the same; it is longing for elevation above the earthly world and its ruling powers, i.e., for deification. The end of redemption is a life of eternal blessedness. The redeemer is the deity to whose service one devotes his whole life in order to obtain his help and favor.
But notions and expressions akin to Hellenistic mysticism are already present in, the Pauline doctrine of redemption. Sin is traced back to the flesh and to the natural man. According to Rom. 8:19-22 perishable, degenerate creation looks for deliverance from transitoriness and for the revelation of the sons of God. As the apostle fervently longed for freedom from the body of death (Rom. 7:24), so also redemption is for him deliverance from aiv e'VeCrd, (Gal. 1:4). This leaning toward a "physical" and cosmic extension of redemption is an approach to Hellenistic conceptions. Paul's representa- tion of the believer as living and suffering in Christ, as crucified, buried, and raised with him, recalls the similar way in which the Hellenistic mystery-religions relate the believer to the dead and risen god (Attis, Osiris, Adonis). Thus Paul actually appears to be indebted to Hellenistic mysticism for certain suggestions. As Plato used Orphism, so Paul appropriated forms of expression for his faith from the mysticism of the world to which he preached the gospel.
The relationship of Christianity to Hellenism appears closer in the Ephesian letter. Here Christ is the supreme power of the entire spirit-world, exalting believers above the bondage of the inferior spirits into his upper kingdom (1: 18-22). Christians must struggle with these spirits, among whom the sKoopoipdrope6 (astral spirits) are named. In like manner from the second century on Christ is more frequently extolled as a deliverer from the power of fate.' When Ignatius regards Christ's work as the communication of ryv^oaR and &0c9apria, and the Eucharist as food of immortality, he, like the author of the Fourth Gospel, shows the influence of Greek mysticism. Irenaeus' realistic doctrine of redemption also has, in common with Greek mysticism, the fundamental notions of deification, abolition of death, imperishability, and gnosis.
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