(or: the Christian religion didn't invent nothing)
(website of atheist
quotes)- We have a hieroglyphical inscription in the British Museum as early as the reign of Sevechus of the eighth century before the Christian era, showing that the doctrine of Trinity in Unity already formed part of their religion and that ... the three gods only made one person. Samuel Sharp, Egyptian Mythology, (1863) p. 14.
- In that we say he [Christ] made whole the lame, the paralytic, and those born blind, we seem to say what is very similar to the deeds said to have been done by Esculapius. Justin Martyr (100?-165?). First Apology, ch. XXI.
- In reading the particulars of the life of Buddha it is impossible not to feel reminded of many circumstances relating to our Savior's life as sketched by the evangelists. Paul Ambrose Bigandet (1813-1894) Roman Catholic Bishop of Rangoon.
- The most elaborate of all the celebrations of Rome was that of Saturn, held at the winter solstice, and afterwards extended so as to include the twenty-fifth of December.... The festival was called the Saturnalia. Labor ceased, public business was at an end, the courts were closed, the schools had holiday. Tables, laden with bounties, were spread on every hand, and at these all classes for the nonce sat down together. The master and the slave for the day were equals. It was a time of gift-giving and innocent abandonment. In the public shops every variety of the present, from the simplest to the most costly, could be found. Fathers, mothers, kinspeople, friends, all hurried thither to purchase, according to their fancy, what things soever seemed most tasteful and appropriate as presents. John Clark Ridpath, (1840-1900) History of the World, Vol. III, p. 97.
- The Romans had, like other Pagan nations, a nature festival, called by them Saturnalia, and the Northern peoples had Yule; both celebrated the turn of the year from the death of winter to the life of spring -- the winter solstice. As this was an auspicious change the festival was a very joyous one.... The giving of presents and the burning of candles characterized it. Among the Northern people the lighting of a huge log in the houses of the great and with appropriate ceremonies was a feature. The Roman church finding this festival deeply intrenched in popular esteem, wisely adopted it. Rev. Samuel M. Jackson, Universal Cyclopedia.
- The god is born about December 25th, without sexual intercourse, for the sun, entering the winter solstice, emerges in the sign of Virgo, the heavenly Virgin. His mother remains ever-virgin, since the rays of the sun, passing through the zodiacal sign, leave it intact. His infancy is begirt with dangers, because the new-born Sun is feeble in the midst of the winter's fogs and mists, which threaten to devour him; his life is one of toil and peril, culminating at the spring equinox in a final struggle with the powers of darkness. At that period the day and night are equal, and both fight for the mastery. Though the night veil the urn and he seems dead; though he has descended out of sight, below the earth, yet he rises again triumphant, and he rises in the sign of the Lamb, and is thus the Lamb of God, carrying away the darkness and death of the winter months. Henceforth he triumphs, growing ever stronger and more brilliant. He ascends into the zenith, and there he glows, on the right hand of God, himself God, the very substance of the Father, the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, upholding all things by his lifegiving power. Charles François Dupuis, (1742-1809) Origin of Worship.
- In ancient Osirianism, as in modern Christianism, we find the worship of a divine mother and child. In ancient Osirianism as in modern Christianism, there is a doctrine of atonement. In ancient Osirianism, as in modern Christianism, we find the vision of a last judgment, and resurrection of the body. And finally, in ancient Osirianism, as in modern Christianism, the sanctions of morality are a lake of fire and torturing demons on the one hand, and on the other, eternal life in the presence of God. John Stuart Glennie, Christ and Osiris, p. 14.
- The men are dead, and the gods are dead. Naught but their memories remain. Where now is Osiris, who came down upon earth out of love for man, who was killed by the malice of the evil one, who rose again from the grave and became the judge of the dead? Where now is Isis the mother, with the child Horus in her lap? They are dead; they are gone to the land of the shades. To-morrow, Jehovah, you and your son shall be with them. Winwood Reade (1838-1875).
- As early as the second century B.C., the Jews perceived the error and pointed it out to the Greeks; but the Church knowingly persisted in the false reading, and for over fifteen centuries she has clung to her error. Salomon Reinach, (1858-1932) Orpheus, p, 197.
- Its hero
[Prometheus] was their friend, benefactor, creator, and savior,
whose wrongs were incurred in their behalf, and whose sorrows
were endured for their salvation. He was wounded for their transgressions,
and bruised for their iniquities; the chastisement of their peace
was upon him, and by his stripes they were healed.
A.
L. Rawson,
Evolution of Israel's God, p. 30.
-
Jesus
was eventually "historicized," redrawn as a human being
of the past (much as Samson, Enoch, Jabal, Gad, Joshua the son
of Nun, and various other ancient Israelite gods had already been).
As a part of this process, there were various independent attempts
to locate Jesus in recent history by laying the blame for his
death on this or that likely candidate, well known tyrants including
Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate, and even Alexander Jannaeus in
the first century BC! Now, if the death of Jesus were an actual
historical event well known to eyewitnesses of it, there is simply
no way such a variety of versions, differing on so fundamental
a point, could ever have arisen!
And if early Christians had actually remembered the passion as
a series of recent events, why does the earliest gospel crucifixion
account spin out the whole terse narrative from quotes cribbed
without acknowledgement from Psalm 22? Why does 1 Peter have nothing
more detailed than Isaiah 53 to flesh out his account of the sufferings
of Jesus? Why does Matthew supplement Mark's version, not with
historical tradition or eyewitness memory, but with more quotes,
this time from Zechariah and the Wisdom of Solomon?
Thus I find myself more and more attracted to the theory, once
vigorously debated by scholars, now smothered by tacit consent,
that there was no historical Jesus lying behind the stained glass
of the gospel mythology. Instead, he is a fiction. Robert
M. Price,
"Christ a Fiction" (1997).
- We are all acquainted with the fact that in their mythological legends the Greeks and the Romans and other nations of antiquity speak of certain persons as the sons of the gods. An example of this is Hercules, the Greek hero who is the son of Jupiter and an earthly mother.... All those men who performed greater deeds than those which human beings usually do are regarded by antiquity as of divine origin. This Greek and heathen notion has been applied to the New Testament and churchly conception of the person of Jesus. We must remember that at the time when Christianity sprang into evidence, Greek culture and Greek religion spread over the whole world. It is accordingly nothing remarkable that the Christians took from the heathens the highest religious conceptions that they possessed, and transferred them to Jesus. They accordingly called him the son of God, and declared that he had been supernaturally born of a virgin. This is the Greek and heathen influence which has determined the character of the account given by Matthew and Luke concerning the birth of Jesus. Rev. Heinrich Rower.
- In broad
outline and in detail, the life of Jesus as portrayed in the gospels
corresponds to the worldwide Mythic Hero Archetype in which a
divine hero's birth is supernaturally predicted and conceived,
the infant hero escapes attempts to kill him, demonstrates his
precocious wisdom already as a child, receives a divine commission,
defeats demons, wins acclaim, is hailed as king, then betrayed,
losing popular favor, executed, often on a hilltop, and is vindicated
and taken up to heaven.
These features are found world wide in heroic myths and epics.
The more closely a supposed biography, say that of Hercules, Apollonius
of Tyana, Padma Sambhava, of Gautama Buddha, corresponds to this
plot formula, the more likely the historian is to conclude that
a historical figure has been transfigured by myth.
And in the case of Jesus Christ, where virtually every detail
of the story fits the mythic hero archetype, with nothing left
over, no "secular," biographical data, so to speak,
it becomes arbitrary to assert that there must have been a historical
figure lying back of the myth.
Specifically, the passion stories of the gospels strike me as
altogether too close to contemporary myths of dying and rising
savior gods including Osiris, Tammuz, Baal, Attis, Adonis, Hercules,
and Asclepius. Like Jesus, these figures were believed to have
once lived a life upon the earth, been killed, and risen shortly
thereafter. Their deaths and resurrections were in most cases
ritually celebrated each spring to herald the return of the life
to vegetation. In many myths, the savior's body is anointed for
burial, searched out by holy women and then reappear alive a few
days later. Robert
M. Price,
"Christ a Fiction" (1997).
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last updated:
November
29th 2008