h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

All very well, but I don't think any of the above are examples of repression, the only one that can really matter.

Presumably the operative word in the case of Jesus and Mithras is 'replace'; but all the antecedents for Jesus and Christianity are Jewish. Besides, Mithraism only dates from the sixties AD, when the core doctrines of Christianity were already established, not to say written down.

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Interesting information, Andrew! Thank you, I didn't know that... Do you know the novels of Stephen Lawhead? He mentions Mithraism...

<<"but all the antecedents for Jesus and Christianity are Jewish">>

No influence from Babylonian or Persian faiths then? *cough* Revelations *cough*

Plus a big dose of Greek philosophy, of course.

Actually, Math, they didn't rename Easter. It's still called Easter...

The word means (surprise, surprise) easter (as in the /direction/ of East) and was the name for the month which has its full moon after or on what we know call Spring Equinox (March 20/21) when the sun rises in the East. Bede said there was a feast to a goddess of that name, but it's not strictly a name, it's a title, if anything. As in, (if it really WAS a goddess) 'the Lady of the East'.

Probably Sunna, if it's anyone.

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Jez

The Old Testament Book of Zechariah is quite enough by itself to explain the Book of Revelation, i.e. there's no need for Babylonian or Persian influence to explain it. There are other OT books that contain similar passages, e.g. Daniel, Joel, parts of Ezechiel. The influence of Greek philosophy I grant you, up to a point, although it also influenced the Jews of the period, e.g. the Book of Wisdom.

Yes, Bede is the source. He calls it Eostre. In Romance languages the name for what we call Easter is typically something like 'Pascua' (Spanish), derived from the word from which we also get 'Passover', which is where the feast really comes from. (Although not the Easter eggs.)

Alas, Vicky, I don't know Stephen Lawhead...

Jez, I think Nicky wrote a pretty good condensed summary, although not all Christians will agree on every point. Getting all the references would take time, but for example Heaven is the subject of Jesus's discourse in the whole of Matthew 25 - to name just one source.

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Hello Noggin. The assertions are backed up by the New Testament, especially the accounts of Jesus' miracles, which he worked in order to substantiate his claim to be the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Hi Andrew,

How come you Christians never do any research?

The Roman army first encountered the cult of Mithras in Persia (modern Iran) during the reign of the emperor Nero although its origins in India have been traced back to 1400 BC. One of the many mystery cults that the Romans introduced from the east, Mithraism first appealed to slaves and freedmen but with Mithras's title Invictus, the cult's emphasis on truth, honour and courage, and its demand for discipline soon led to Mithras becoming a god of soldiers and traders.

It was almost certainly known to the Babylonians and as all these areas traded extensively during the pre-Roman period, to the Jewish Kingdoms.

Fell less ignorant now?

Blessings,
Matholwch .

Math, this is beside the point. Mithraism dates from after the time of Jesus, as is perfectly well documented, and to speak of its *predecessors* (of whatever stripe) influencing *Judaism* is obviously not the same as Mithraism itself influencing Christianity.

Finally if all these influences, whether Greek or Persian, were metered through Judaism, then what I wrote was quite justified: all of Jesus' antecedants were Jewish. But Mithraism was not one of them.

Hi Andrew,

And here we come to the nubbin. There is no accepted, peer-reviewed, hard historical evidence for the existence of the man Jesus. There are no records of him, nor for his immediate kin.

The first actual third-party evidence of anything to do with the NT is the appearance and subsequent martyrdom of Peter in Rome, and that is pretty slim.

For all we know his existence was created by some radical jews in the first century who felt that judaism had grown stale and needed new life through a new prophet. They cobbled together several of the popular myths of the time, including both the birth and death stories of Mithras. They then locked these into their own history - Caiaphas, Annas, Pilate, Herod, to give it some down to earth versimilitude.

Note that the stories of this prophet/messiah and his disciples are not marketed at home, where the locals could say "I don't remember that". Instead they are sold across the Greek and Roman spheres, at first through expatriate jews and later through the locals. By the second century, when all the original authors were dead, it had become a strongly greek religion, not a jewish one.

The Roman records of the time do not show the execution of a so-called Jewish messiah (though they do record date harvests, changes of legionary commanders and reports on the activities at the Jerusalme Temple). Nor do they record the destruction of the temple.

Over the last two centuries a horde of christian antiquarians, scholars and archaeologists have searched desperately for hard evidence, to combat the rising tide of doubt. Millions have been spent by American churches in particular, subsidising expeditions. Although they have been able to match some events in the Gospels to the history of the time, they have not turned up one scrap of evidence for the birth, life and death of the man Jesus.

Some claim to have found him in the scrolls of the Essenes, but this has mostly been by imagining what words might fill certain long gaps in suitable sentences.

Indeed, there is probably more evidence for the existence of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. And upon this foundation of sand is based one of the world's 'great' religions.

This actually annoys me because I like the man Jesus. He was a great teacher and many of his stories, if cleansed of their religious robes, are truly marvellous. The silly thing is that if Peter and Paul had just marketed his words, and not tried to dress them up into the basis of a cult, we'd probably have a much better world today.

Awaiting a good smiting,
Matholwch .

Hello Math

On the contrary, it isn’t worth getting provoked by this sort of argument. Anyway, let us do some serious research from mainstream sources. This is going to be another long post.

There is as much evidence for the existence of Jesus as one could reasonably wish for. One could point to the very existence of the early Christians and the writings they produced, some of which form the New Testament, others of which are nearly contemporary such as the letters of St Clement and St Ignatius of Antioch, and the Didache. In particular, the New Testament manuscripts are by far the best preserved and attested literary works from that time. Other classics generally considered reliable, e.g. Julius Caesar’s ‘Gallic Wars’, are supported by far less manuscript evidence, dating from far later.

One could perhaps include the accounts of early onlookers as well. The Jews of the time did not deny that Jesus had lived, any more than they could reasonably deny the existence of Julius Caesar, or indeed the Emperor Titus, who destroyed the Jerusalem Temple leaving only part of the supporting wall of the mount which still stands. The existence of Jesus is one of the main driving forces in history, giving sense to the trajectory of the Roman Empire as well as the lands adjoining, and continuing right up to modern times.

Close to the Temple, on the Mount of Olives, Jesus said to his followers, ‘You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and then you will be my witnesses not only in Jerusalem but throughout Judaea and Samaria, and indeed to the ends of the earth.’ (Acts 1:8)

His hearers, a small group of people, did as Jesus commanded them. The conversion of a large part of the Roman world, which took place within three hundred years, makes sense only if the Christians felt themselves to be obliged by this command of Jesus, which is repeated in other texts, for example: ‘Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation. He who believes and is baptised will be saved’, (Mark 16:15-16) And ‘Go therefore, make disciples of all nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’. (Matthew 28:19-20)

The early Christians were strongly conscious of their mission. The New Testament is full of it, and nearly every page explicitly links it with Jesus. On being baptised Christians notably changed their behaviour: ‘Their whole tenor of their way of living stamps it as extraordinary and admittedly extraordinary (...) they marry like others and beget children but they do not expose their offspring (...) they find themselves in the flesh, but do not live according to the flesh. They spend their days on earth but hold citizenship in Heaven. They obey the established laws, but in their private life they rise above the laws... in a word, what the soul is to the body, that the Christians are in the world’. (Letter to Diognetus, 5-6: an old Christian text, not in the Bible)

Let’s cut this post in two.

The attitude and apostolic activity of the early Christians resulted in Christianity spreading very quickly. Many suffered and died in intermittent persecutions, including Saints Peter and Paul under the Emperor Nero in the AD sixties. But Christianity continued to spread. Tertullian could write at the start of the third century, ‘we were born yesterday and already fill the earth: cities, islands, towns, villages, the army, the imperial palace, the senate, the Forum. Only your temples we have left for you.’ (Tertullian, Apologeticus I) This is over a century before Constantine and the Council of Nicaea.

Without the existence of a great personality to start things off all this could never have happened. Even in your scenario, you posit a group of radical Jews who wanted to give a new lease of life to Judaism. What if one of that group, the leader, was a man called Jesus, or something similar like Joshua or Yeshua? This does not amount to the Christian Jesus, but such a personality certainly existed. In that case your position appears to amount to something like ‘Christianity was founded not by Jesus, but by someone else with the same name’. Or maybe a different name... but what would be the point of such an anti-historical stance?

Whatever the name, I think this reductionist vision is doubtful, because this person Jesus had the clear intention to found something new, as any Jew detects who reads the Gospels. Saint Matthew’s Gospel shows this clearly, structured in a framework of five great discourses echoing the structure of the Pentateuch, one of which is the Sermon on the Mount with what amounts to a new Law that ‘improves’ the old Law. Jesus declared he had come to ‘fulfil the Law’, which is more than just giving Judaism a new lease of life. He picked the twelve apostles in place of the twelve tribes of Israel as pillars of the new Covenant that he speaks of explicitly. There is plenty of scope for serious research, if you want to pick up the gauntlet.

The historical impact of Christianity is obvious. When one assesses a great man such as Julius Caesar one considers not only his ‘Gallic Wars’ but also what one might call the living evidence, e.g. the way he affected civilisation, culture, the arts and architecture, literature; even our language, e.g. his surname ‘Caesar’ became the title of the Roman Emperor, and the words Kaiser and Tsar (or Czar) are the same name updated. I have chosen Julius Caesar because his genius was multifaceted and was around at very roughly the same time. But Jesus Christ, born into a far humbler environment, has had far more influence than Julius Caesar down the centuries. The temple guards, sent to arrest him, returned empty handed saying that no man ever spoke as he did. (John 7:46)

The only sane explanation of what happened is that he sent out his disciples, and that ‘they, going out, preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by the signs that accompanied it’. (Mark 16:20)

There's no reason for Jesus the man not to have existed. There were enough messiah's and messiah cults around at that time (not surprising given that you are a population under invasion and foreign rule, religions are often in some way invoked as a rallying call) and there probably was some bloke at the time going around saying some things and annoying the authorities who got some followers who went on and the rest is history.

But quite who that person was, and what they actually proposed and said is up for debate. Different sources show different aspects and personalities and opinions. They get filtered and changed (albeit probably subtly) to present a certain image. Those writing had particular motives. Ocasionally new bits are found that offer a different perspective. So to say that Jesus Capital J existed is extrapolating a bit far, perhaps. But I'm happy to accept that there probably was someone at the centre of all this. Some things he did, some got made up, some probably got misattributed. Nothing different, really, to what we see today with public figures. Only there's a lot more of them, and lot more media and rumour mills to go along with them.

Quote from http://www.tertullian.org/

Tertullian lived in the ancient city of Carthage in what is now Tunisia, sometime around 200AD. Very little is known about his life - that little comes either from writers two centuries later1, or from the scanty personal notes in his works2. Much of it has been asserted to be untrue anyway by some modern writers.

'Jesus had the clear intention to found something new'- No without Paul it would have faded away. Paul unified disparate groups of messianic Jews in the diaspora and they became known as Christians.

Certainly Ictoan, if one wants to set a baseline, E.P. Sanders suggests “eight undisputable facts” from the historical point of view concerning the life of Jesus and the origins of Christianity:

1. Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist.
2. He was a Galilean who preached and worked miracles.
3. He limited his activity to Israel.
4. He called up those who would become his disciples.
5. He raised controversy over the role of the temple.
6. He was crucified outside Jerusalem by the Roman authorities
7. After the death of Jesus, his followers continued to form an identifiable group.
8. Some Jews at least persecuted certain groups of the new movement.

Source: E .P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, Fortress Press, London-Philadelphia 1985, as quoted at http://www.opusdei.us/art.php?p=16051

On top of this minimum baseline or platform, one can rely on other statements in the gospels and accounts of the New Testament being historical, because they are coherent with them.

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To say that Jesus Capital J existed is not a position that requires any 'extrapolation': it's the most literal interpretation of all.

Tertullian left over thirty works. I just quoted part of the opening chapter of the most important of them. There are many other Christian writers of antiquity.

The early followers of 'The Way' were known as Christians already at Antioch, where Christianity had spread - thanks largely to persecution - before Paul and Barnabas really got going. See the Acts of the Apostles, 11:26, written by Luke, who was a companion of Paul.

On the substantive point, whether Jesus intended to found something new, he inaugurated a new covenant (testament). The manifesto is the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew, chapters 5-7), where Jesus set out the new rule of behaviour for a Christian, just as Moses had given the old law from another mountain. Much of this discourse is taken up with the 8 Beatitudes (echoes of the 10 Commandments) and the interiorisation of the Law ('You have heard it said... but I say to you...').

A short time after in this Gospel Jesus is described as choosing 12 apostles (Matthew 10:1) as a new foundation, just as there were 12 tribes of Israel, the people of the old covenant. Also mentioned in addition are 70 disciples (Luke 10:1).

Jesus said he had come to fulfil the law and the prophecies, and he accepted the titles of 'Christ' (Matthew 16:16), and 'son of man' and 'King of the Jews'. Before his mission he fasted forty days in the wilderness, and later he was transfigured on Mount Tabor, in a cloud, before Peter, James and John, according to the accounts in three of the four gospels (e.g. Mark 9:1-8). And during the last supper he speaks about the blood, i.e. his own, of the new covenant(e.g. Luke 22:20).

To make sense of all these symbols one should perhaps re-read the account of the blood of the old covenant, Exodus chapter 24. Jesus implied that he was greater than Moses (John 6:48-50), and he said explicitly that he was greater than Abraham (8:56-58). There are many more clues. Just put them all together.

That list of 8 indisputable facts: why are they supposed to be indisputable?

There is contemporary evidence, for example, that Jesus was not crucified. Just for one. Some of them are purely from the bible with no corroboration. And the article itself is a classic example of circular reasoning as to why we should take the bibles word.

The aspects of the character we get to see are tainted by human choice. We don't get to see the rounded person. Reading round on some of the other gospels and documents these give some extra dimension to the character that don;t always sit well with the accepted personality.