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Re:The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb by juliend2 on Thursday February 22, 2018 @12:27AM (#16435334)
Could you please elaborate on those sources (Zoroastrian, Egyptian, etc)? I'm genuinely curious.
Re:The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb by grzm on Thursday February 22, 2018 @12:30AM (#16435344)
For starters, Wikipedia has an article on comparing the Christ story with other mythologies:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_comparative_mythology

Re:The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb by mmyyyy on Thursday February 22, 2018 @01:20AM (#16435558)
From the page:

A number of parallels have been drawn between the Christian views of Jesus and other religious or mythical domains.[1][3] However, Eddy and Boyd state that there is no evidence of a historical influence by the pagan myths such as dying and rising gods on the authors of the New Testament.[3][4] Paula Fredriksen states that no serious scholarly work places Jesus outside the backdrop of 1st century Palestinian Judaism.[5]

Scholars have debated a number of broad issues related to the parallels drawn between Jesus and other myths, e.g. the very existence of the category dying-and-rising god was debated throughout the 20th century, some modern scholars questioning the soundness of the category.[3][6] At the end of the 20th century the overall scholarly consensus had emerged against the soundness of the reasoning used to suggest the category.[6] Tryggve Mettinger (who supports the category) states that there is a scholarly consensus that the category is inappropriate from a historical perspective.[7] Scholars such as Kurt Rudolph have stated the reasoning used for the construction of the category has been defective.[6]

Scholars such as Samuel Sandmel, professor of Bible and Hellenistic Literature at Hebrew Union College, view conclusions drawn from the simple observations of similarity as less than valid.[1]Sandmel called the extravagance in hunting for similarities "parallelomania" – a phenomenon in which a scholar first presupposes the existence of a similarity and then "proceeds to describe source and derivation as if implying a literary connection flowing in an inevitable or predetermined direction", thus exaggerating the importance of trifling resemblances.[1][4]

Re:The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb by rimliu on Thursday February 22, 2018 @01:33AM (#16435636)
I think the better subject for comparison would be creation stories, not Jesus.
Re:The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb by grzm on Thursday February 22, 2018 @01:41AM (#16435671)
Sure. I grabbed a link close to hand which has a pretty decent discussion on one area. If you have others, I'm sure readers would find them useful.
Re:The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb by peterwwillis on Thursday February 22, 2018 @12:57AM (#16435438)
https://listverse.com/2013/06/30/ten-influences-on-the-bible...

On top of those, the ones I remember relate to the Greeks. For a long time Greek language and culture influenced the Christian church, and their lettering and symbolism still linger in the church today.

Early Christian versions of Jesus were basically copies of Eros, and Late Christian versions of Jesus were basically copies of Zeus, and then in the middle ages everyone got depressed so they turned him into a holocaust survivor on a wooden plank. Eve falling victim to curiosity with a Tree of Knowledge is basically just Pandora's story re-spun for different effect. Great Flood? Zeus did it first. Cain & Abel? Acrisius & Proetus. Satan/Hell? Hades/Underworld. Holy Trinity? Pagan Trinity. Twelve disciples? Twelve elder gods.

Point is, Christianity came along well after the Greeks and Romans had been spinning these tales all over the place. The Christians wanted a religion that everyone could be part of regardless of ethnicity. They're pushing this idea that there's not only one God, but there's a Messiah doing a lot of David Copperfield shit, and a Holy Spirit, and more weird stuff. Of course they're gonna include familiar stories to give some credibility to the new ideas. Plus, the old stories had weight - we still have Zoroastrians today!

Re:The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb by mmyyyy on Thursday February 22, 2018 @01:16AM (#16435541)
You seem to have fallen prey to propaganda sources online.

It is undeniable that biblical mythology was affected by other cultures (especially Genesis for example). But other than that you have no idea what you're talking about. What books have you read about this? And by which scholars?

>Early Christian versions of Jesus were basically copies of Eros, and Late Christian versions of Jesus were basically copies of Zeus, and then in the middle ages everyone got depressed so they turned him into a holocaust survivor on a wooden plank.

This claim is just simply false. I challenge you to present a single work that you have read by a professor of Classics, New Testament, Theology, or Ancient history that argues that.

Re:The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb by peterwwillis on Thursday February 22, 2018 @01:29AM (#16435612)
You don't provide sources for your claim that my claim is false is false because you claim I don't provide sources, so your claim is false.
Re:The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb by mmyyyy on Thursday February 22, 2018 @01:44AM (#16435685)
Read for literally any new testament scholar and you won't find a single trace of that argument that you're presenting.

Bart Ehrman, Robert Funk, Dale Martin, John Dominic Crossan, Mark Goodacre, Gerd Lüdemann, James Dunn, and the list goes on and on.

If books are not your thing, you can find a great Yale course about the subject here: New Testament History and Literature with Dale B. Martin: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL279CFA55C51E75E0

Re:The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb by peterwwillis on Thursday February 22, 2018 @09:28AM (#16437720)
k. But as for my assertion about depictions of Jesus as modeled after Roman or Greek gods, it's more of a fun theory than a fact, as all the depictions were just "What would we like him to look like?" They all just painted or sculpted him however they wanted to, which we know included classical depictions such as heroes, philosophers, and even gods, as well as with eastern influences and various other depictions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depiction_of_Jesus https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft3f59... (also I may have totally fucked up by saying the young Jesus was modeled after Eros, may have been a different youthful god, oops?)
Re:The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb by mmyyyy on Thursday February 22, 2018 @04:20PM (#16441487)
Oh when you're talking about art, sure. People and cultures tend to want to identify with Christ and so end up depicting him in a certain way. Of course we know that Jesus was a Jewish man who lived in the middle east, so he's surely not black or white or hispanic, etc..

But you're original claim about the accounts about Jesus copying from Greek mythology, etc.. is just not viable historically.

I encourage you to delve into the literature actually it's quite fascinating! A good book to start with that I've enjoyed is Did Jesus Exist by Bart Ehrman.

Re:The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb by peterwwillis on Thursday February 22, 2018 @07:02PM (#16442828)
Actually I was claiming the Bible's stories in general copied from other cultures' mythology, not stories about Jesus specifically. Certainly the Old Testament comes from Jewish tradition as well as others.

I'll look into the sources you mention, though. I haven't gotten deep into the study of religions themselves but I'm sure I'll want to at some point.