The Bible's relation to earlier Pagan traditions

[greenrivers]

Has anyone else here looked into the theory that says that many things depicted in the Bible were taken from earlier religious traditions? I've had an interest in this for a while, and I've found some interesting facts that I can't debunk. The website "Exposing Christianity" summarizes this argument well.
Does anyone else have any thoughts or sources on this topic? It interests me a lot but I'm still looking to learn more.

[John2]

I've always liked this website. You can spend hours and hours here, and there are references to many books on this subject.

http://pocm.info/

[andrewcriddle]

One issue is that some of the allegedly parallel Pagan traditions are not clearly pre-Christian.

Do you wish to discuss any specific potential parallel ?

Andrew Criddle

[MrMacSon]

Has anyone else here looked into the theory that says that many things depicted in the Bible were taken from earlier religious traditions? I've had an interest in this for a while, and I've found some interesting facts that I can't debunk ... Does anyone else have any thoughts or sources on this topic? It interests me a lot but I'm still looking to learn more.

Hi. I've looked into things being taken from some of the Egyptian mystery religions, particularly the cult of Serapis, which was reputedly growing around eastern Mediterranean from the 1st to the 3rd centuries, and for which there is significantly more archaeological records than for Christianity during that period. Other cults, such as the cult of Asclepius, may also have contributed.

It's interesting that the imagery for Serapis is virtually identical to Christianity's depiction of Jesus -

• • 

    Serapis London Museum.jpg (27.33 KiB) Viewed 5607 times

It's interesting to note that at least one of the 'Seven Churches of Asia' (the NT book of Revelations, and alluded to in the Pauline texts) was a built as serapeum in the 2nd century AD/CE.


See this thread in this Forum- Serapis-Christian links overlays??



I have wondered if baptism was borrowed from the cult of Serapis, which has a strong water-immersion aspect, or from other pagan religions. I wonder if John-the-Baptist was involved with a such a tradition, and it seems others have speculated similarly - .

The link between the Corpus Hermeticum, John the Baptist, and the Serapis Cult is able to answer one of the most nagging questions of the history of the “underground stream”, a question that Picknett and Prince’s book 'Templar Revelation' posed when it showed that the people who worshipped John the Baptist were also Hermeticists ...

As the Corpus Hermeticum and the Serapis cult were the same and, as there is evidence that John the Baptist was a priest of Serapis, it follows that those who held John in high esteem would do this because of his particular doctrine, which was the Hermeticum.

http://philipcoppens.com/ficino_mag.html

See this thread in this Fourm - 'The Corpus Hermeticum in relation to Christianity'

• The website "Exposing Christianity" summarizes this argument well.

Could you provide or confirm the url, as there seems to be a few websites with "Exposing Christianity" in it's title or url -

• 1. [url]http://see_the_truth.webs.com/[/url]
  
  2. https://exposingchristianitydotcom.word ... us-christ/
  
  3. http://exposingchristianitywithtruth.blogspot.com.au/

.

[MrMacSon]

.
The reference to 'Mark' in the pages in the reference in this post* is interesting -

The source could be a forgery however other parts of this book support it's authenticity. FWIW, Mark (aka,the Boukalou/Buffalo) was allegedy martyred during a festival dedicated to Serapis (the bull)in Alexandria.

Source: The African Memory of Mark: Reassessing Early Church Tradition by Thomas C. Oden

* http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 5309#p5309

[theterminator]

Obviously, Paul and the earliest Christians regarded Jesus as a divine being and “the son of god,” and all the dying-and-rising gods are divine beings and “the son of god” (or daughter in a few cases). Moreover, almost all the dying-and-rising gods were personal saviors (by the time Christianity began); all the dying-and-rising gods undergo a “passion” (patheôn, same exact word used of Jesus), a great suffering ending in their death that awards them their divine status; all the dying-and-rising gods are resurrected in some fashion, some very similar to Jesus (rising in their own body restored or ascending to and getting a superior body in heaven; note how dishonest Ehrman has been about this before); and almost all the dying-and-rising gods award their followers a handsome afterlife with a baptism through which the follower emulates the death and resurrection of the savior. To claim this isn’t astonishingly similar to Jesus is simply lying at this point. See OHJ, pp. 96-108 (Christianity has too many similarities with the baptismal mystery cults for this to be a coincidence), and pp. 168-73 (Jesus has too many similarities with the dying-and-rising god-type for this to be a coincidence)

To claim this isn’t astonishingly similar to Jesus is simply lying at this point.

http://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/11435


so who is right? ehrman or carrier?

[GakuseiDon]

To claim this isn’t astonishingly similar to Jesus is simply lying at this point.

http://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/11435

so who is right? ehrman or carrier?

Dr Carrier is a terrible reader and reporter of other people's comments. I'd get an exact quote from Dr Ehrman before deciding who was right.

[andrewcriddle]

By careful selection one can generate a composite picture of the ancient dying-and-rising god which seems to have striking resemblances to Christianity.

It is much more difficult to do this by comparing a specific example, (e.g. Attis and Cybele in the 1st century CE), to Christianity.

Andrew Criddle