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| Reasons > Scholarship > Yes! |
| Scholarly Authority | Yes! | History of Scholarship | Amateur Scholarship | |
| Con: J. Z. Smith | Con: AD Nock | Con: BM Metzger | Sourcebooks |
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What,
you thought I was making this up? |
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The Jewish world in
which Jesus lived was awash in Hellenism, and contemporary biblical scholars
are finding its influence everywhere—including, ultimately, in the
historical Jesus. Little by little modern New Testament scholarship is exploring not just the broad fact of Christian borrowing, but also details about the Pagan origins of specific Christian ideas. Here's a smattering. What, you thought I was making this up? |
| Borrowing in general |
Not only are Pagan-Christian similarities seen, but the reason believing scholars don't see them is also seen. See?
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"It
is very hard not to see extensive
and basic similarities
between these [mystery] religions and the Christian Religion. But somehow
Christian scholars have managed
not to see it, and this, one must suspect,
for dogmatic reasons....
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The Christian myths are Greek myths used to interpret Jewish ideals. |
The
myths it [Paul's church] generated
are ultimately Greek myths, though
they were used by Hellenistic Jews to rearticulate Jewish ideals.
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The early Christians behaved like every other group in every other era—they adopted and adapted ideas from the culture around them. |
"Richard
Reitzenstein and Wilhelm Bousset were two scholars who did manage
to grasp the relevance of these ancient faiths for the study of early
Christianity. Their conclusion was a simple and seemingly inevitable one:
Once it reached Hellenistic
soil, the story of Jesus attracted to
itself a number of mythic
motifs that were common to the
syncretic religious
mood of the era. Indeed, as people familiar with the other Mystery Religions
came to embrace the Christian savior, it would have been practically impossible
for them not to have clothed him in all the accoutrements of his fellow
Kyrioi."
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| Specifics |
Jesus virgin birth was borrowed from Paganism.
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There is also no virgin birth story in Paul's letters, the earliest written records of Christianity, dating from just fifteen or so years after the crucifixion. While the letters are filled with passionate devotion to the figure of Jesus Christ and point quite distinctly to his death and resurrection as the centerpiece of faith ... they are utterly silent of the subject of divine birth. This part of the story had not yet been necessary. Nor was it necessary in Mark's day, twenty years later. Inventing it became important only as Jesus expanded into a whole new world: God of the Gentiles. To the Hellenized Gentiles [Pagans] of the Empire—people who were used to their gods' having miraculous beginnings to show that, right from the start, they were different from ordinary mortals—this Jesus, this Son of God, if he were worthy of worship, ought to have a divine birth. This
is where we see a variation on the Jewish
practice of creative borrowing
from ancient writings, for virgin birth was not a tradition in
Jewish history. No Jewish story or legend
spoke of the coming Messiah being born of a virgin. But there were dozens
of precedents for divine-mortal coupling and virgin birth in Greek culture.
Many Greek heroes were sired by gods, either through old-fashioned penetration
or something more grandiose, such as (28)... Etc. etc.
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In
the healing miracles the encounter
of the sick person with Jesus
is usually followed by a remark about the severity of the disease. The
healing is either accomplished through a word of Jesus (magical terms
from Aramaic are sometimes preserved; (cf Mark 5:41; 7:34), through some
manipulation (Mark 8:23), or a combination of both; the conclusion tells
of the success of the healing and the applause of the bystanders. All
these features correspond to the standard
forms of the telling of exorcisms and healing narratives in [pagan]
antiquity… Nature miracles ... basic form and narrative
schema .., closely correspond to those
of analogous stories from the Greco-Roman world, including those
that can be found in the apocryphal acts of the apostles.
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The Judeo-Christian notion of Heaven was borrowed from the Greeks.
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Sometime in the mid-second century BCE, it appears, the Jews found heaven. But where did they find it? Uta Ranke-Heinemann notes that the Greeks believed in immortality of the soul long before the Jews did. She points out that Josephus was quite certain where the Essene [Jewish] belief in immortality came from: "Sharing the belief of the sons of Greece," Josephus writes of the Essenes, "they maintain that for virtuous souls there is reserved an abode beyond the ocean, a place which is not oppressed by rain or snow or heat, but is refreshed by the ever-gentle breath of the west wind (76) coming from the ocean; while they relegate base souls to a murky and tempestuous dungeon, big with never-ending punishments." [Josephus, The Jewish War, 2.8.11] So
here, suddenly, and probably as a result of Greek influence on Judaism,
we have heaven and hell.
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Jesus death was understood as a martyr's "nobel death"
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The
logic behind both views of Jesus' crucifixion
can be traced to contemporary conceptions of martyrdom.
There is now a strong consensus among
New Testament scholars that martyrological
ideas were used by early Christians
at some time to understand Jesus' death.….The
ideas of 'vicarious, expiatory suffering, death, or self-sacrifice,"
to use [Harvard scholar] Williams' terms, were not
Jewish ideas. A similar investigation of Greek traditions,
however, turned up many analogies.
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| Luke wrote his gospel as a foundational epic—following the traditional Pagan formula. | [T]he
literary model for Luke's work was the ancient Greek epic ....
The epic is a political and highly charged endeavor to provide a
foundation story for a community. As Virgil's Aeneid is
connected to the legendary events of
ancient Troy...so is the hero of Luke- Acts, Jesus of Nazareth, presented
as the heir of Israel's ancient prophecies. Divine
providence guides the course of his activity and the activity
of the apostles.... The course of events demonstrated divine legitimation
for a new nation that, in spite of adversity, is destined to
set the stage for a new era of history that is seen as
the eschatological fulfillment of ancient prophecy.
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Mark and John's Gospels follow the old Pagan formula of an 'aretalogy,' listing the miracles and great deeds of the god.
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The
literary genre of another early written source for the extant gospels
of the New Testament can also be recognized: one or several collections
of miracle stories of Jesus, which were used by the Gospel of
Mark and also by the Gospel of John. This type
of literature enumerates the great deeds of a god, hero, or famous person;
it must be properly designated as an 'aretalogy.'
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| Drudgery
Divine
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You'll
find:
This book is widely quoted in the academic literature. It's got lots of good information and tons of references to the literature. But,
because Professor Smith thinks obscure is clever, the
writing is terrible. This book will not make sense until you've
read A.D. Nock's Early Gentile Christianity and Its Hellenistic
Background.
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Here's a sample >> Jesus,
admits Professor Smith quoting the Christian-borrowing scholar
Loisy, was a savior-God like Osiris, Attis and Mithras. He
was a god who came to earth, died, and saves, etc. etc. from
which, opines Professor Smith,
Professor Smith is famous for his anti-borrowing agenda—which is why he's quoted a lot. |
"[Jesus]
was a savior-god, after the manner of Osiris, and Attis, a Mithra.
Like them, he belonged by his origin to the celestial world;
like them, he had made his appearance on the earth; like
them, he had accomplished a work of universal redemption,
efficacious and typical; like Adonis, Osiris, and Attis he ha died a violent
death, and like them he had returned to life;
like them, he ad prefigured in his lot that of the human beings who should
take part in his worship, and commemorate his mystic enterprise; like
them, he had predetermined, prepared, and assured the salvation
of those who became partners in his passion." [Quoting A.
Loisy, The Christian Mystery, in: The Hibbert Journal, 10(1911 - 12),
51]
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| Introduction
to the New Testament Volume 2 History and Literature of Early Christianity by Harvard Professor Helmut Koester
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This book is a treasure—an excellent place for new students to start and a valuable reference if you already know plenty. A clearly written, readable roundup of modern New Testament scholarship by a giant in the field. Includes the history of who wrote what, when—and who copied from whom. Not just the canonical books, but also Q, the Gospels of Thomas, Hebrews, etc. etc. Wow. Also details the history of which sects developed in each region, when. Not what you learned in Sunday school. Highly recommended for any serious student.
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