For Believers Of Jesus Christ

[ozpoof]

I can't say that I speak for Mormons exactly but I think some would say that most of these things you have described were taught by revelation to Father Adam, Noah and the early Patriarchs and as the world was divided after the flood, many of the prophecies were "hijacked" by the apostate sons of men. These somewhat altered legends,stories, etc. were preserved through the ages in different forms and various cultures but although they took on some of the same characteristics of the true Gospel story which occured when Christ made his first appearence, they were still nonetheless only imitations of the real thing.

That's almost the Catholic explanation. Satan knew that Jesus was coming and what circumstances would surround his birth, so he went back in time and influenced people all over the ancient world to come up with similar God stories in order to discredit the Jesus story.

Then there's the idea that the Jesus story is an extension or adaptation of a story that has been around for thousands of years.

If you're rational, the second explanation is obvious. If you have magical thinking, or need the supernatural to explain things you can't explain to your satisfaction, the time travelling Satan story makes sense.

[ozpoof]

C.S. Lewis argued that the pagans derived them long ago from an ancient revelation from God. He believed that “Christianity fulfilled paganism” and “paganism prefigured Christianity”. — C. S. Lewis: A Biography, pp. 274, 30; Harcourt Inc., (1974).

Justin Martyr, on the other hand, took opposing positions depending on who he was talking to. When addressing pagans in the Roman senate, he argued that Jesus was no different than their gods:

“And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, Jesus Christ, our teacher, was produced without sexual union, and that He was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing new and different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter… Asclepius, who, though he was a great healer, was struck by a thunderbolt, and ascended to heaven.” — First Apology, 21:1-2.

“When we say that He [Jesus] made well the lame and the paralytic and those who were feeble from birth and that he resurrected the dead, we shall seem to be mentioning deeds similar to and even identical with those which were said to have been performed by Asclepius.” — First Apology, 22:6.

However, when speaking to the Jews, Justin blamed any similarities on the devil:

“And when he [the devil] brings forward Asclepius as the raiser of the dead and healer of all diseases, may I not say that in this matter likewise he has imitated the prophecies about Christ?” — Dialogue with Trypho, 69.

So Justin can't be trusted.

[ozpoof]

Walden,

The list that you reproduced of alleged parallels to the supposed Jesus myth is itself a myth. It is a tissue of half-truths and whole fictions. For example, few if any of the figures listed as supposedly born of a virgin were actually claimed by their devotees or mythologists to have been born of a virgin. What skeptics do typically is to find stories in which an anthropomorphic deity impregnates a mortal woman and to declare these stories to be "parallels" to the virgin birth of Christ. They are not. So many, and I would say almost all, of the alleged parallels are strained at best and nonexistent at worst. Try to track down documentation that all of these figures were born in a cave, for example, and I predict that you will have trouble documenting this supposed parallel for most if not all of the figures.

The other methodological problem with the argument is that these parallels simply have nothing to do, in almost every instance, with any possible historical source of the Gospel stories. It should be obvious that stories about the Buddha, Krishna, or Quetzalcoatl have no bearing on how the Gospel stories originated. What skeptics do is to ransack the myths and legends of cultures throughout the ancient world and try to create a composite picture that superficially looks like the Gospel narrative about Jesus. We could easily do the same thing to form a composite story that looks like the story of Julius Caesar, but that would not in any way show that Julius Caesar didn't exist or that he didn't do what historical records report him doing. Even in the few cases where the alleged parallels are culturally close to the context of Jesus (e.g., Honi and Hanini) the similarities have been exaggerated and the differences ignored to create the illusion of a significant parallel.

There are a lot of good resources online that explode various elements of the Jesus-myth argument. Mary Jo Sharpe, a friend of mine, has some excellent articles on her Confident Christianity website (click on Articles).

A literal translation of the Bible also does not call Mary a virgin.

Doesn't the LDS church ransack the myths and legends of cultures throughout the ancient world and try to create a composite picture that superficially looks like the Book of Mormon stories and world? Quetzalcoatl comes to mind.

[ozpoof]

There could be thousands of historical references to Jesus of Nazareth.

There could be one.

None of it would change the *real* question: Is He who He claims to have been?

I believe the real question is, are those who wrote the stories of Jesus Christ telling a story to help us learn, or talking about real events and a real person? If Jesus is a real person, the accounts should not differ - they do. If he is a real person, he should be mentioned outside the Bible by meticulous Romans - he isn't.

Other questions should include, why was the Caesar at the alleged time of Jesus' birth not alive? Why would people be asked to return to their place of birth for a census, rendering the results useless? Nazareth did not exist in Jesus' time. Why is he called Jesus of Nazareth? Was Jesus speaking to the Jews, or all humanity?

[ozpoof]

The difference between Jesus Christ and any of the other "messiahs" is that he transcended them all with the message of salvation for all as a free gift of God's love. The "Jesus Story" is centered on getting the message of God's love across; and nothing impresses more than self-sacrifice unto death. Resurrection to life for all just extends the miracle to include everybody. Nothing is more powerful than that.

Christian churches believe this. They however criticize Mormonism for demanding good works (or performing church duties) before this "free" gift can be awarded. This is why many Christian churches do not regard Mormons as true Christians.

[Questing Beast]

@ozpoof: That's ONE of the main reasons why most Christians deny that Mormons are Christians. But there has always been this disagreement over works and faith and the part that grace plays. Taking the Epistles on the topic holistically, it is obvious that the grace is free to all men; the faith is a gift to those who are worthy of it; and the works, or fruits, follow those of faith. So Mormons may stress the reality of good works, but there is nothing in the doctrines of the Church which assert that by "checking all the boxes" you will get to eternal life, i.e. the celestial kingdom. Mormons place importance on the ordinances of salvation; but they also claim that when all is done, every soul that ever lived on Earth will have had the saving ordinances offered to them. No exceptions: speaking of course of those who are accountable: little children and those who lived and died without law are "special" and come under the grace of God....

[Brant Gardner]

I have been on vacation and therefore an late in responding to the opening post. The problem with the list in the opening post is that it consists of a list of things that have been made to sound more alike that they really are. I know the background of much of the list, and it suffers from the problem of parallel lists. Methodologically, it is unsound.

The second problem with the list is that it purports to demonstrate something that it doesn't demonstrate. It seems to imply that because of the correspondences that therefore we shouldn't be able to believe in the historicity of Jesus Christ. That again exceeds the evidence and the nature of the issue (Rob Bowman has mentioned similar issues). This is an issue for the nature of folklore, and those who put the list together clearly don't understand the field. They don't know how the stories gained any kind of similarity, don't understand that in many cases the differences are critical, and finally don't really understand the interplay between cultural assumptions and texts develop.

The whole thing is much more complicated than the authors of the movie would ever tell you. It isn't scholarship, and it is a poor substitute for it.

[volgadon]

Walden,

The list that you reproduced of alleged parallels to the supposed Jesus myth is itself a myth. It is a tissue of half-truths and whole fictions. For example, few if any of the figures listed as supposedly born of a virgin were actually claimed by their devotees or mythologists to have been born of a virgin. What skeptics do typically is to find stories in which an anthropomorphic deity impregnates a mortal woman and to declare these stories to be "parallels" to the virgin birth of Christ. They are not. So many, and I would say almost all, of the alleged parallels are strained at best and nonexistent at worst. Try to track down documentation that all of these figures were born in a cave, for example, and I predict that you will have trouble documenting this supposed parallel for most if not all of the figures.

The other methodological problem with the argument is that these parallels simply have nothing to do, in almost every instance, with any possible historical source of the Gospel stories. It should be obvious that stories about the Buddha, Krishna, or Quetzalcoatl have no bearing on how the Gospel stories originated. What skeptics do is to ransack the myths and legends of cultures throughout the ancient world and try to create a composite picture that superficially looks like the Gospel narrative about Jesus. We could easily do the same thing to form a composite story that looks like the story of Julius Caesar, but that would not in any way show that Julius Caesar didn't exist or that he didn't do what historical records report him doing. Even in the few cases where the alleged parallels are culturally close to the context of Jesus (e.g., Honi and Hanini) the similarities have been exaggerated and the differences ignored to create the illusion of a significant parallel.

There are a lot of good resources online that explode various elements of the Jesus-myth argument. Mary Jo Sharpe, a friend of mine, has some excellent articles on her Confident Christianity website (click on Articles).

Well said. The Horus parallels in particular are bogus.

The other day my wife and I watched a Polish movie called "An Ancient Tale." I thought it was a Polish retelling of Macbeth. A pagan prince is instigated by his wife to murder his nephews. One of his officers escapes and raises a revolt against him. The prince is troubled by dreams which prove prophetic.

The movie, however is an adaptation of a Polish historical novel based on folktales about the reigns of Popiel and Ziemowit, who are mentioned in sources predating Macbeth. There are also more than enough differences between the two stories. Basically we are left with a cruel prince and his scheming wife, a revolt and a dream. One needs to ask which elements come from similar circumstances and outlooks and which are direct borrowings, something Religulous and Zeitgeist haven't bothered with.

[volgadon]

I believe the real question is, are those who wrote the stories of Jesus Christ telling a story to help us learn, or talking about real events and a real person? If Jesus is a real person, the accounts should not differ - they do. If he is a real person, he should be mentioned outside the Bible by meticulous Romans - he isn't.

Why isn't Philo of Alexandria mentioned in official Roman sources (not counting Jospehus)?

Also, there is good archeological evidence for Nazareth's existence in Christ's day.