GakuseiDon wrote: ↑Tue Dec 31, 2019 6:08 pm
Finding parallels and harmonization may well be the first steps towards syncretism. But if nothing changes, how do you say that syncretism has occurred? Is there a difference between finding a parallel and syncretism, in your opinion? If so, what is it?
Because ancient writers wrote as if these gods were the same god, and the extent archaeological depictions show that they were combined.
So this:
plus this:
made this:
As far as worship and rites go, we can't say anything because that has not been preserved. At the very most that I can see, after the Attis cult and Mithraic cult syncretized, the Attis cult used bulls in their sacrifices instead of rams, and if Hipolytus and Ambrose are any authorities Attis became more of a celestial figure. Other than that, the Mithraists never castrated themselves nor took on any apparent traits of the Attis cult. But nonetheless they were still sincretized.
Boswell goes over all of this on his blog.
Christians claimed that the Egyptians recognised Joseph as a form of Serapis. What did the Egyptians say to that? I don't know, but my guess is it was "GTFO!", followed by a boot up the bum.
That's not the point at all. I'm sorry but I feel like you are deliberately being disingenuous here. The point is that Christians and Jews had no problems with looking for parallels to their religions to pagan and gentile religions. That's the point.
Early Christians saw any number of parallels between pagan beliefs and Christianity. Justin Martyr saw parallels in the doctrines of Plato as showing Plato took some of them from the Old Testament. Is that an example of syncretism? I don't think so. That is an example of parallelomania.
Then again, Justin Martyr also said that Christianity and paganism stemmed from the same source and not that they just shared happenstance beliefs. Make of that what you will.
And given that many of the features that crop up in Christianity were already in vogue before it emerged... if you're asking what changes we should be looking for, Christianity itself is that change, as it's just a synthesis of Jewish and pagan ideas.
Early Christian apologists wanted to show its validity by comparing it to the pagan religions. This nearly all went one way: there might be some truth in pagan beliefs, but Christianity was MORE true. Some parallels were valid; others were stretches.
Okay? The very fact that they made such comparisons is enough to validate the practice of comparing Christianity and paganism, which critics and sceptics have always antagonized mythicists over.
If it was good enough for early Christians, who were alive and writing when much of the New Testament was still being written, then it's good enough for us.
Indeed, such comparisons even made it into the New Testament itself!
So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for
“‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said,“‘For we are indeed his offspring.' Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Right there. Paul is quoting two pagan poets to preach his own god.
But who are these poets and what was the context of their poems?
The first quoted is Epimenides'
Cretica In it Minos addresses Zeus thus:
They fashioned a tomb for you, holy and high one,
Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies.
But you are not dead: you live and abide forever,
For in you we live and move and have our being
[
As an aside, this sounds very similar to another Christian doctrine.]
The second poet Paul quotes is Aratus and his work
Phenomena
Let us begin with Zeus, whom we mortals never leave unspoken.
For every street, every market-place is full of Zeus.
Even the sea and the harbour are full of this deity.
Everywhere everyone is indebted to Zeus.
For we are indeed his offspring ...
So both poets are in fact address Zeus. And yet Paul feels that these poets' ideas of Zeus are similar to his god so much that he calls attention to it. Well, if it's good enough for the goose, it's good enough for us.
With Joseph, I suspect that Christians saw that Serapis was a grain/harvest god, and so connected that to Joseph's story in the OT, and then claimed that Serapis was connected to Joseph. The Egyptians unknowingly were worshipping a Jewish figure. Christianity -- via its Jewish roots -- wins again! If this resulted in a change in Christianity or Judaism or Egyptian religion in how they viewed Joseph or Serapis, then the label 'syncretism' might be applicable. That's the evidence I'd like to see.
You don't get any of this, do you?
That Christians and Jews claiming such a connection between Joseph and Serapis is evidence of syncretism--an acknowledgement of a broader cultural commonality--between the two myths. However, such a syncretism, historically, never occurred because, as far as I know, Egyptians never recognized Joseph, and Serapis was a-whole-nother entity on his own. So the syncretism was one way, Christians and Jews.
They're not making some off the cuff comparison like Justin does. They are explicitly claiming that the Egyptians worship Joseph as Serapis. That is nearly identical to what Herodotus said regarding Osiris and Dionysus.
Honestly man it's not that hard. You are just overthinking it to the extreme.
Yes, interesting. I read as much as I could using Google books. But so what? Some of the spells included passages from Homer. Once Christianity started to become popular, Jesus became just another god that could be invoked for magical purposes. Is this a controversial position?
Here's where I throw in the towel. You are either being deliberately disingenuous or you have zero comprehension of this.
This and a few other texts like it are proof that certain Coptic traditions syncretized Jesus and Horus.
No, Jesus wasn't just another god among other gods. This was a Coptic Christian text that invoked Jesus AND Horus as one and the same god. Just as what numerous other gods before them who were syncretized had done to them.
There was the evidence right in your face and you didn't even see it.
I don't expect anything more to come from this.
Magic was popular in the old days in Alexandria. Throw in references to Jesus, Horus and passages from Homer to make the spell stronger. Common sense!
No, Jesus and Horus were invoked as the
SAME god. The artifact of the cross with Jesus and Horus on it is further demonstration that, at least to whatever church created it,
THEY WERE THE SAME.
Not that I believe in magic personally. But access to hidden knowledge and the supernatural has been a driving force from the start of humanity. Rituals and magic incantations has infused all societies, including earliest Christianity IMO. It was morphed in more recent times into Psychic Phenomena, Christian science, mysticism, pseudo-science and so on. These interact with more mainstream religions, forming cults and heresies. These are forms of syncretism, if you like.
Most of this is irrelevant. Even so, I'm not claiming the magical incantations actually work. That's not the point of anthropology. Nor was it why I bothered to reference the text to begin with, which the point has obviously been lost on you.
When it comes to Joseph and Serapis, you seem more interested in applying the label than in understanding what actually happened.
Whatever you say jefe.
Just who are these people that deny a connection can be made between Christianity, Judaism and paganism? Can you name names and positions please? If they are just some amateur like myself, why should anyone care? If they are scholars, then lets have a look at their arguments!
Are you serious? Whole books by Christian apologists and secular scholars have been written denying the very notion that paganism can be comparable to Judaism and Christianity. And their arguments are the same "apples to oranges" tripe, without understanding any of the nuance, or history, of the phenomenon of syncretism.
I need a break from this