joelr
Well-Known Member
Christianity is unique in its belief about God coming to save people. Osiris didn't die on the cross for his creation. Jesus dying on the cross was the deepest expression of love that he had for his creation.
These gods were all Saviors to the people who followed them. In different ways. Judaism has more issues with sin so their savior dealt more with sin. Who cares, it's still all fiction? Just because one myths says sins are the most important thing that god hates and you need a way to erase this sin magic? Did you have too many graven images, not rest on Sunday, take the Lords name in vein (no real god could possibly be this worried about freedom of religion), well then you need the Jewish savior because Yahweh is strict.
Generally salvation meant to live forever in some form. In Christianity living forever meant your sins had to be erased. It's so archaic and bronze age but whatever.
Baal was a type of savior and later became a personal savior god but most of the scripture was destroyed by the church. Probably because he was a lot like Jesus.
Baal (or “Ba’al”) was one of the most ancient of resurrected gods. His death is probably the same mourned under the name Hadad-Rimmon in Zechariah 12:11. But whether or no, in pre-Christian texts Baal’s corpse is found by Anat, so in his myth the god is definitely dead; one text even outright says “and the gods will know that you are dead,” and multiple gods actually declare him dead; he is then buried, and funeral rites performed (Mettinger, Riddle, pp. 60-62). There are then clear references to Baal’s resurrection. In fact, his returning to life and then living forever are used as analogies in pre-Christian immortality spells (Mettinger, Riddle, pp. 69-71). Though this god was then not yet a personal savior but a metaphor for communal agricultural salvation, that was prior to Hellenization. He was transformed into one of the many personal savior gods of the region we hear of at the dawn of Christianity (Jupiter Dolichenus), but are allowed to know nothing about, owing to the Medieval Christian destruction of pagan evidence. For example, Hippolytus devoted two entire chapters of his Refutation of All Heresies to the mystery cults and their savior deities. Curiously, those are the only two books wholly destroyed. Go figure. What were the Medievals trying to hide? What did they not want us to read? I’ll let your imagination ponder.