Dionysus was the original jesus

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
hmm, hercules is more of an example of man transcending his condition through hardship. i dont find any jesus there.

not familiar with the other 2

Originally posted by wolfgang59
Hercules

Son of god (Zeus)

Does good deeds

Dies and is resurrected

Finally goes to join gods (heaven) and his earthly body disappears.

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
Son of god (Zeus)
zeus had many sons.

Does good deeds
so did zeus's other sons. in fact most greek heroes had a god for a parent and they all did good deeds.

Dies and is resurrected
err actually he just dies. in the afterlife he is made into a demigod. unless you have something else you are basing your statement.



doing good deeds is not enough. a messianic figure is unique, he must be a savior unlike any other before him or since.

Originally posted by redbarons
anyone know about this guy

Originally posted by wolfgang59
Well this is precisely the point.
In the ancient world there are lots of stories of "Sons of god"

Man/God duality

Good deeds?
By conquering dangerous archaic forces he is said to have
"made the world safe for mankind" and to be its benefactor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracles

Resurrection
He went to Hades and returned.

Final death ...[text shortened]... pyre) and he returns
to his heavenly father.


You must admit there are some similarities!

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
"By conquering dangerous archaic forces he is said to have
"made the world safe for mankind" and to be its benefactor."
this would mean everyone is jesus. pasteur is jesus, the guy who cured polio is jesus. the seatbelt guy.


He went to Hades and returned.
he didn't die to get there, he just waltzed right in to get hades's puppy. then left.

"Fin ...[text shortened]... t greek hero, yet he was one of a hundred. the world remained mostly the same after his passing.

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
[bhercules was the greatest greek hero, yet he was one of a hundred. the world remained mostly the same after his passing.[/b]

Originally posted by wolfgang59
I'm not saying Hercules was Jesus, better than Jesus, based on
Jesus or ... pretty much anything ... except

there are HUGE similarities between a host of heroes in various
Middle Eastern mythologies with Jesus. To a non-Christian it is
not implausible that the Jesus myth borrowed appealing stories
from other local myths.

Jesus wept and mary crept under the bed for bingers

Originally posted by wolfgang59
I'm not saying Hercules was Jesus, better than Jesus, based on
Jesus or ... pretty much anything ... except

there are HUGE similarities between a host of heroes in various
Middle Eastern mythologies with Jesus. To a non-Christian it is
not implausible that the Jesus myth borrowed appealing stories
from other local myths.

Horus/Attis/Mithra/Krishna/Zoroastra/Dionysus/ all virgin birth all had 12 disciples most crucified some slain all resurrected after 3 days many known as lamb of god or king of kings all had star in the east all wise all teachers all sons of their god.

uoteOriginally posted by redbarons

Horus

Now, Horus...

Again, the list from the (submitted) website:

Horus was born of a virgin on December 25th.
He had 12 disciples.
He was buried in a tomb and resurrected.
He was also the Way, the Truth, the Light, the Messiah, God's Anointed Son, the Good Shepherd, etc.
He performed miracles and rose one man, El-Azar-us, from the dead.
Horus' personal epithet was "Iusa," the "ever becoming son" of "Ptah," the "Father."
Horus was called "the KRST," or "Anointed One," long before the Christians duplicated the story

Let's look at these:

Horus was born of a virgin on December 25th. [We have already seen that Horus was NOT born of a virgin at all. Indeed, one ancient Egyptian relief depicts this conception by showing his mother Isis in a falcon form, hovering over an erect phallus of a dead and prone Osiris in the Underworld (EOR, s.v. "Phallus"😉. And the Dec 25 issue is of no relevance to us--nowhere does the NT associate this date with Jesus' birth at all.


Indeed, the description of the conception of Horus will show exactly the sexual elements that characterize pagan 'miracle births', as noted by the scholars earlier:

"But after she [i.e., Isis] had brought it [i.e. Osiris' body] back to Egypt, Seth managed to get hold of Osiris's body again and cut it up into fourteen parts, which she scattered all over Egypt. Then Isis went out to search for Osiris a second time and buried each part where she found it (hence the many tombs of Osiris tht exist in Egypt). The only part that she did not find was the god's penis, for Seth had thrown it into the river, where it had been eaten by a fish; Isis therefore fashioned a substitute penis to put in its place. She had also had sexual intercourse with Osisis after his death, which resulted in the conception and birth of his posthumous son, Harpocrates, Horus-the-child. Osiris became king of the netherworld, and Horus proceeded to fight with Seth..." [CANE:2:1702; emphasis mine] [BTW, the Hebrew word 'satan' is not a 'cognate' of the name 'seth' by any means: "The root *STN is not evidenced in any of the cognate languages in texts that are prior to or contemporary with its occurrences in the Hebrew Bible" DDD, s.v. 1369f]

He had 12 disciples. [This would be so incidental as to be of no consequence--even if I could verify this fact!


But again, my research in the academic literature does not surface this fact. I can find references to FOUR "disciples"--variously called the semi-divine HERU-SHEMSU ("Followers of Horus"😉 [GOE:1.491]. I can find references to SIXTEEN human followers (GOE:1.196). And I can find reference to an UNNUMBERED group of followers called mesniu/mesnitu ("blacksmiths"😉 who accompanied Horus in some of his battles [GOE:1.475f; although these might be identified with the HERU-SHEMSU in GOE:1.84]. But I cannot find TWELVE anywhere... Horus is NOT the sun-god (that's Re), so we cannot use the 'all solar gods have twelve disciples--in the Zodiac' routine here.]

He was buried in a tomb and resurrected. [We have already seen that the DARG pattern simply cannot be demonstrated in ANY case. And the data is against this "fact" even being true. I can find no references to Horus EVER dying, until he later becomes "merged" with Re the Sun god, after which he 'dies' and is 'reborn' every single day as the sun rises. And even in this 'death', there is no reference to a tomb anywhere...The massive difference between this metaphor of life/death, and the claims of the apostolic band about the real death and bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth should illustrate why the 'numerous, complex, and detailed' and 'non-superficial' criteria have to be insisted on by scholars in this field... ]


He was also the Way, the Truth, the Light, the Messiah, God's Anointed Son, the Good Shepherd, etc. [We saw above that the commonality of religious terms means almost nothing.]


He performed miracles and rose one man, El-Azar-us, from the dead. [Miracle stories abound, even among religious groups that could not possibly have influenced one another, such as Latin American groups (e.g. Aztecs) and Roman MR's, so this 'similarity' carries no force. The reference to this specific resurrection I cannot find ANYWHERE in the scholarly literature. I have looked under all forms of the name to no avail. The fact that something so striking is not even mentioned in modern works of Egyptology indicates its questionable status. It simply cannot be adduced as data without SOME real substantiation. The closest thing to it I can find is in Horus' official funerary role, in which he "introduces" the newly dead to Osirus and his underworld kingdom. In the Book of the Dead, for example, Horus introduces the newly departed Ani to Osirus, and asks Osirus to accept and care for Ani (GOE:1.490). ]


Horus' personal epithet was "Iusa," the "ever becoming son" of "Ptah," the "Father." [Again, a case of religious epithets without any force for this argument.


This fact has likewise escaped me and my research. I have looked at probably 50 epithets of the various Horus deities, and most major indices of the standard Egyptology reference works and come up virtually empty-handed. I can find a city named "Iusaas" [GOE:1.85], a pre-Islamic Arab deity by the name of "Iusaas", thought by some to be the same as the Egyptian god Tehuti/Thoth [GOE:2.289], and a female counterpart to Tem, named "Iusaaset" [GOE:1.354]. But no reference to Horus as being "Iusa"... ]

Horus was called "the KRST," or "Anointed One," long before the Christians duplicated the story [This is still yet another religious name or symbol, without import for our topic. Anointing of religious figures was a common motif in ANE and AME religion anyway. I cannot find this anywhere either.]



Most of the above 'similarities' simply vanish, become irrelevant, or contribute nothing to the argument for some alleged 'identical lives' assertion for Horus and Jesus. To further highlight this, let's look at the thumbnail sketch of Horus' life given in Encyclopedia of Religions, s.v. "Horus":

"In ancient Egypt there were originally several gods known by the name Horus, but the best known and most important from the beginning of the historic period was the son of Osiris and Isis who was identified with the king of Egypt. According to myth, Osiris, who assumed the rulership of the earth shortly after its creation, was slain by his jealous brother, Seth. The sister- wife of Osiris, Isis, who collected the pieces of her dismembered husband and revived him, also conceived his son and avenger, Horus. Horus fought with Seth, and, despite the loss of one eye in the contest, was successful in avenging the death of his father and in becoming his legitimate successor. Osiris then became king of the dead and Horus king of the living, this transfer being renewed at every change of earthly rule. The myth of divine kingship probably elevated the position of the god as much as it did that of the king. In the fourth dynasty, the king, the living god, may have been one of the greatest gods as well, but by the fifth dynasty the supremacy of the cult of Re, the sun god, was accepted even by the kings. The Horus-king was now also "son of Re." This was made possible mythologically by personifying the entire older genealogy of Horus (the Heliopolitan ennead) as the goddess Hathor, "house of Horus," who was also the spouse of Re and mother of Horus.

"Horus was usually represented as a falcon, and one view of him was as a great sky god whose outstretched wings filled the heavens; his sound eye was the sun and his injured eye the moon. Another portrayal of him particularly popular in the Late Period, was as a human child suckling at the breast of his mother, Isis. The two principal cult centers for the worship of Horus were at Bekhdet in the north, where very little survives, and at Idfu in the south, which has a very large and well- preserved temple dating from the Ptolemaic period. The earlier myths involving Horus, as well as the ritual per- formed there, are recorded at Idfu."

Notice how "almost identical lives" Horus and Jesus had (smile):

There is no mention of the more striking claims of similarity made by the CopyCat authors (such as resurrection of El-Azar-us), even though such items would surely be noteworthy in books in the Western world(!);
This sketch does not even REMOTELY look 'almost identical' to the life of Jesus Christ! To look at this and make claims of 'majority overlap' would be ridiculous in the extreme.
The alleged similarities (which much MUST be present to even START the argument about borrowing, remember) are so weak and so dwarfed by the differences between the two figures, as to leave us wondering why anyone brought this argument up in the first place...

Originally posted by sonship
One at a time:

Horus

copied with permission from Glenn Miller's Christian Thinktank

Now, Horus...

Again, the list from the (submitted) website:

Horus was born of a virgin on December 25th.
He had 12 disciples.
He was buried in a tomb and resurrected.
He was also the Way, the Truth, th ...[text shortened]... as to leave us wondering why anyone brought this argument up in the first place...

One at a time:

/Mithras/

Not necessarily in order:

/Krishna/

Krishna....

(Again, the list from the (submitted) website):

Krishna was born of the Virgin Devaki ("Divine One"😉
He is called the Shepherd God.
He is the second person of the Trinity.
He was persecuted by a tyrant who ordered the slaughter of thousands of infants.
He worked miracles and wonders.
In some traditions he died on a tree.
He ascended to heaven.

Looking a little more closely,

Krishna was born of the Virgin Devaki ("Divine One"😉 [We have already seen how these 'virgin birth' parallels are not close enough to constitute a 'compelling similarity', but this one is particularly inappropriate. The facts are simply otherwise--cf. Joseph Campbell, Occidental Mythology, p. 342:

"In India a like tale is told of the beloved savior Krishna, whose terrible uncle, Kansa, was, in that case, the tyrant-king. The savior's mother, Devaki, was of royal lineage, the tyrant's niece, and at the time when she was married the wicked monarch heard a voice, mysteriously, which let him know that her eighth child would be his slayer. He therefore confined both her and her husband, the saintly nobleman Vasudeva, in a closely guarded prison, where he murdered their first six infants as they came. (emphasis mine).

According to the story, the mother had six normal children before the 7th and 8th 'special' kids--a rather clear indication that the mom was not a virgin when she conceived Krishna [remember, this is not an issue of 'special births', but of 'virgin' ones].


He is called the Shepherd God. [So he was a cow-herd...so what?...Simply a common religious title, not a 'compelling similarity'...and we noted above that even this was different when applied to Jesus.]


He is the second person of the Trinity. [This is a misunderstanding of the Hindu pantheon/s. The Hindu pantheon differs from the Christian trinity substantially (e.g., one's a pantheon and one isn't...). The biggest problem with the assertion, however, is that it is simply wrong. Although the Hindu pantheon has changed considerably over over time, Krsna has NEVER been the 'second person of a 3-in-1'. In the oldest layers of Hindu tradition--the Rig Veda--the dominant three were Agni, Ushas (goddess), and Indra, although there were a number of other important deities [WS😕W:84]. After the Vedic period (before 1000 bc), and before the Epic period (400 bc - 400 ad) is the period in which a DIFFERENT "trinity" emerged. So WR:RT:105:

"Traces of the original indigenous religion are plain in the later phases of the history of Hinduism. In the course of time, large shifts occur in the world of the gods. Some gods lose significance while others move into the foreground, until at last the 'Hindu trinity' emerges: Brahma, Visnu, and Siva..."

Krishna was one of the avatars (manifestation, incarnation, theophany) of Visnu. As such, Krishna only appeared on the scene during the Epic period, and most of the legendary materials about him show up in the Harivamsa, or Genealogy of Visnu (fourth century a.d.) and in the Puranas (written between 300-1200 a.d.). He is one of TEN avatars of Visnu (what does that do to a trinity?). [WR:Eliade:133; WR😕W:91f; WR:RT:105f].

This is another exampe of someone 'loosely' using Christian terminology to describe non-Christian phenomena, and then being surprised by the similarity.

He was persecuted by a tyrant who ordered the slaughter of thousands of infants. [Now, this is interesting. The only event in the life of Krsna I can find that is close to this kind of event is the story cited above at his birth, involving only 6 infants. How this person would turn that into "thousands" is beyond me (and probably beyond responsible writing as well). And, this motif of a king attempting to kill a supposed 'infant rival' is common to royal settings--not just divine ones. Hence, one can find this plot-line--a common one throughout human history--in the lives of Gilgamesh, Sargon, Cyrus, Perseus, and Romulous and Remus.(BM:227) This, of course, has nothing to do with mythology--it is simply a historical tendency of vicious kings...Herod's killing of some dozen or two children in Bethlehem is a matter of predictable aggression, not some 'mythic motif'...human monsters can be at least as grotesque as divine ones...)


He worked miracles and wonders. [Surprise, surprise--another religious leader is credited with miracles...Hmm, did Krishna 'borrow' from Buddha or from Thor? From Horus or from...?]


In some traditions he died on a tree.[The tree in India would in no way have the despicable connotations of the Roman cross of execution, even if this were true/known.]


From the standpoint of accuracy, let me mention that I cannot find any reference to him dying on a tree. The records (not from iconographic sources, btw) I have on his death run something like this :

"Krishna was accidentally slain by the hunter Jaras...when he was mistaken for a deer and shot in the foot, his vulnerable spot." (WR😕DFML, s.v. "krishna"😉

"One lance-like (poisonous, cursed) reed was eaten by a fish and then caught by a hunter. In a drinking bout, Krishna, Balarama, and the Yadavas picked the reeds, killing each other. As Krishna sat lost in thought, the hunter, mistaking him for a deer, shot him in the foot with the reed he had found in the fish, and killed him." [WR😀WM]

"Just after the war, Krsna dies, as he predicted he would, when, in a position of meditation, he is struck in the heel by a hunter's arrow." [WR😀AMY; was he meditating 'on a tree'?]

Perhaps he died sitting under a tree, but would that constitute a non-superficial parallel?

He ascended to heaven. [This is a misunderstanding of Hindu thought. "Heaven" is not actually a place in Hindu thought, for 'bodies to go', nor does one 'ascend' to it--especially not 'bodily' as did Jesus.

"At Balarama's death Krsna sat meditating; a hunter, Jara, pierced Krsna's feet by mistake, but afterwards, recognizing the hero, repented. Krsna left his body and entered heaven where he was greeted by the gods." [The Indian Theogony, Sukumari Bhattacharji, Cambridge:1970, p.305; note the difference between this and a 'bodily ascension of Jesus']


These similarities just don't seem to illustrate 'numerous, complex, detailed' parallels--of the type needed to suggest borrowing. And the differences between Jesus Christ and the Krishna of the legends is considerable. The earlier warrior-images of Krisha are those of a worthy and noble hero-type, but the later child/young man legends stand in stark contrast to Jesus. Krishnaic legends portray his playfulness and mischief in positive terms, but his consistent thievery (he stole cheese ROUTINELY from the villagers and lied about it to his mom--he was nicknamed the 'butter-thief' in the literature), his erotic adventures with all the cow-maidens of the village, his tricking the people into idolatrous worship of a mountain--just to irritate the god Indra, and the hiding of the clothes of the village women while they were bathing, and then forcing them to walk naked in front him before he would give the clothes back--these all draw a line between him and the figure of Jesus of Nazareth. [These stories can be found in the Myths of the Hindus and Buddhist reference above, as well as in many summaries of his legend.] The adult images of Krishna were considerably more 'worthy' and he came to be worshipped as a supreme deity. But his overall life (above) and his death as a hunting accident are so completely dissimilar to the life and voluntary crucifixion of the Son of God on earth. The similarities are paltry; the differences are staggering.