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There was a stir from the writers of Holy Blood Holy Grail when Dan Brown came out with his book. They took it to court in a copyright case, as best I remember they lost the case. The bit on Emperor Constantine is true. He converted on his death bed to Christianity according to some sources, but followed the old Roman religions to the last day. His goal with the Christians was to pull the masses together and make controlling them easier. His path to do this was through a one god religion. He called the Council of Nicene and the Christian leaders of the time together and forced them to pull together one book of rules (bible). This refers back to the Nicene Creed in many churches. The conversion to a one god system just made it easier to get that control, which made him one of the first of the Christian hypocrites.
The Christian council reviewed the books of the bible and picked the ones they liked; most of the other books reviewed were burned. This seemed to be the way the early church solver a problem. Try to burn out the history; this is how we lost the Library in Alexandria also.
Dan Browns book is trash, it is not based on facts, but obscure ideas.
I don't know where you are getting your history, but it is skewed. The bible books were selected with specific reasons. The first is that the book had to be complete. The book had to show God's relationship to man. And the books had to be a real history. The maccabees is a complete book. It is a history, but it is not Cannonized because it does not show God's relationship to man. The books that were not Cannonized did not get burned. In fact because they were not used they were just not copied like the Cannonized text and most surviving text are fragments. Also, the text were selected because they were already being used as scripture. It wasn't because we selected text to become scripture.
The entire New Testament can be extracted from the first 100 year of letters from the early church. This excludes only 1 or 2 verses in Timothy. Some verses were used multiple times. The same cannot be said for the text that were not cannonized. So, the Nicean Coucil mearly created a list of the books that were being used as scripture and that were acceptable for doctrine.
I don't know how you tie this to burning of books. There is no reccord that I know of that says books were burned because they were not needed for scripture. There are many Apocrapha books, and Psudopigrapha books and gnostic books that remain to today.
I watched the movie from the Zeitgeist post and have looked through Egyptian history material on the net which has made me take a step back. I know it will make little difference to the religious right, but it seems the story of Jesus was plagiarized from the Egyptian god Horus. The example starts with conception. Both seemed to have been born of virgin mothers (funny the net said there was some doubt on this issue), both were “the only begotten son of God”, Both had foster fathers named Joseph of Royal descent, and both were born in a cave. The annunciation for both was by an angle to their mothers, and the birth was heralded by a star. The date is off by 3 days but still falls into the winter solstice 12/23 VS 12/25 a few thousand years apart. Angles announced the birth for both and it was witnessed by shepherds in both cases. Horus was visited by three solar kings (stars), while Jesus was visited by three wise men following a star. History claims both mothers were told by god to flee the birth place due to threats of murder. Horus and Jesus went through a ritual at age 12, and both seemed to go dark from age 12 to age 30. They were both baptized at the age of 30, and both had 12 disciples. It seems to go on to the ability to walk on water, heal the sick, restore sight to the blind, and calm the seas. I forgot they could both raise the dead as well. The parallel continues to the crucifixion and resurrection after three days.
I am curious as to how others feel on this turn of events. Wouldn’t this link Christianity to a pagan religion.
Comparative religion is fascinating. I watched the Buddha youtube movie mentioned recently in this forum.
I've read bits on just about every religion, and there does seem to be a harmony with many of them.
As a Christian, the message of Christ speaks to me the clearest.
Like you, Oakback, I find comparative religion fascinating too.
For years, I taught World Literature, and found a beautiful film I purchased in VHS format to use in the classroom. I think it is from the History, or Discovery, channel. It is great in that it looks at the (6) major religions of the world, including Judaism, Islam, Christianity, etc., and as we watched the film I would have the students make a chart, comparing/contrasting them.
The film was largely an overview, covered in perhaps 40 minutes at most, and included a discussion of Buddhism, which is not theoretically a religion, but more a way of thinking and a way of life.
I think it helped the students quite a bit, and it did help them understand much of the literature we read from other cultures. We had interesting discussions on the many similarities, and what things separated us all in our thinking. I think reading about/learning about different cultures, beliefs, and religions, and then following our reading and learning with honest, open discussions, and a desire to try to understand (if nothing else) would lead to a great respect of others we tend to stereotype, see as too different, or just plainly decide we don't like.
I don't see being exposed to anything -- whether I see it in film, or read it, or in some other format -- as threatening, or sacrilege, even something like Dan Brown's fiction. One would have to be awfully insecure in his own beliefs to be threatened by something like The Da Vinci Code, or Holy Blood,Holy Grail, or any similar things, I think, and possibly too narrow-minded not to consider how others may view the world.
^ Not everything you mentioned there is accurate. The Bible suggests Jesus was born in the spring. No Christian scholar actually believes he was born on December 25.
Well you know December 25th is the birth date of a pagean god and its also the resurrection date of the Egyption god of Osirus. Both predate the birth of Jesus. The Bible does indicate that Jesus was actually born in the spring. Another thing to note that it is believd that the sabbath is actually Saturday. For thousands of years that was the case until the Catholics changed it to Sunday. The reason was because Sun day was the worship day of the "sun" pagean god and the Catholic Church was trying to attract pageans to the church so thet moved the sabbath a day later. The worship of the sun god on that day is why its called "Sunday". The Seventh Day Adventist agknowledges this which is why they have their worship on Saturday.
Sunday was the day set aside in the Mithra (Roman) cult as its official day to assemble together to worship its Sun-deity. Roman Emperor Constantine legislated Sun-day as a day of rest dedicated to the Greek and Roman Sun-god, Helios. Constantine worshipped "Christos Helios" which means "Christ-The-True-Sun." The Roman Catholic Church venerates Sun-day as its Sabbath even today, and has handed it down to Christianity.
I'll will say there are a WHOLE LOT of THINGS that would shake up the christian church but because of "tradition" the church as a whole will not acknowedge these things.
Dan Browns book is trash, it is not based on facts, but obscure ideas.
I don't know where you are getting your history, but it is skewed. The bible books were selected with specific reasons. The first is that the book had to be complete. The book had to show God's relationship to man. And the books had to be a real history. The maccabees is a complete book. It is a history, but it is not Cannonized because it does not show God's relationship to man. The books that were not Cannonized did not get burned. In fact because they were not used they were just not copied like the Cannonized text and most surviving text are fragments. Also, the text were selected because they were already being used as scripture. It wasn't because we selected text to become scripture.
The entire New Testament can be extracted from the first 100 year of letters from the early church. This excludes only 1 or 2 verses in Timothy. Some verses were used multiple times. The same cannot be said for the text that were not cannonized. So, the Nicean Coucil mearly created a list of the books that were being used as scripture and that were acceptable for doctrine.
I don't know how you tie this to burning of books. There is no reccord that I know of that says books were burned because they were not needed for scripture. There are many Apocrapha books, and Psudopigrapha books and gnostic books that remain to today.
Nikk
First thing is Dan Brown’s book is fiction, not fact. I see it as not trash, but as good reading with a new twist on an old idea.
Next thing I get my history from sources which can be validated from more than one source. I do not reference sources which I find to be in question (Bible). I know few who would use the bible as a reference other than the religious right, which is fine if you are discussing mythology, but not if you want documented history. There is no valid proof of any of the biblical works and this is unacceptable as reference material in this debate with me.
Last of all is the burning of books. The Catholic Church has destroyed more recorded history than any other organization in the history of man. To state they did not shows you need to go to valid historical sources.
Like you, Oakback, I find comparative religion fascinating too.
For years, I taught World Literature, and found a beautiful film I purchased in VHS format to use in the classroom. I think it is from the History, or Discovery, channel. It is great in that it looks at the (6) major religions of the world, including Judaism, Islam, Christianity, etc., and as we watched the film I would have the students make a chart, comparing/contrasting them.
The film was largely an overview, covered in perhaps 40 minutes at most, and included a discussion of Buddhism, which is not theoretically a religion, but more a way of thinking and a way of life.
I think it helped the students quite a bit, and it did help them understand much of the literature we read from other cultures. We had interesting discussions on the many similarities, and what things separated us all in our thinking. I think reading about/learning about different cultures, beliefs, and religions, and then following our reading and learning with honest, open discussions, and a desire to try to understand (if nothing else) would lead to a great respect of others we tend to stereotype, see as too different, or just plainly decide we don't like.
I don't see being exposed to anything -- whether I see it in film, or read it, or in some other format -- as threatening, or sacrilege, even something like Dan Brown's fiction. One would have to be awfully insecure in his own beliefs to be threatened by something like The Da Vinci Code, or Holy Blood,Holy Grail, or any similar things, I think, and possibly too narrow-minded not to consider how others may view the world.
You must be a great teacher.
Had an english teacher in high school that reminds me of you.
I count him as one of my greatest positive influences in life.
I ran across many people who were very confused by Dan Browns wonderful fiction, and some critical thinking would have helped them.
His religion proceeded Christianity and has similarities also--and the practices of his religion were adopted by the Christian cult--even the fact that Mithraism completely exluded women--becoming the Catholic excluding women from being priests, etc. And I bet much of the New Testament ideas painting women as something less--to be subservient to men, etc., stem from Mithraism. I too saw the zeitgeist film--it is what started me reading all these interesting things I was never exposed to. In my view we have been following a very ancient originally Egyptian religion, just changing the names of the players along the way. because in my view it is too great a coincidence that this god, (along with Horus, Attis, Krishna, etc.) shares so many simliarities to Christ, just some of which being: [FONT=Verdana]Mithras had had twelve followers with whom he had shared a last sacramental meal. He had sacrificed himself to redeem mankind. Descending into the underworld, he had conquered death and had risen to life again on the third day. The holy day for this sun god was, of course, Sunday (Christians continued to follow the Jewish Sabbath until the fourth century). His many titles included ‘the Truth,’ ‘the Light,’ and ‘the Good Shepherd.’ For those who worshipped him, invoking the name of Mithras healed the sick and worked miracles. Mithras could dispense mercy and grant immortality; to his devotees he offered hope. By drinking his blood and eating his flesh (by proxy, from a slain bull) they too could conquer death. On a Day of Judgement those already dead would be raised back to life.[/FONT]
There are a lot of similarities to the Horus myths and the Jesus stories. Also to the Mithras cult. Also the Dionysian cult and even the ancient Elysian rites. All are death/resurrection mythologies. These death/resurrection god mystical religions were very popular 2000 +- years ago. The belief centers around the seasons of the earth and the agricultural cycles. The death of the god represents the dying of the plant world at the onset of winter. Then in spring, life is resurrected and plants grow again so food once again becomes plentiful. This has been the cycle of life for humans for just about forever but especially once humanity became dependent on agriculture. Some variation of these myth cycles may well have existed for 10,000 years, tho no one knows for sure.
The events are tied to the solar cycles - the winter solstice is the beginning of winter (there's a 3 month lag from the amount of solar radiation and the temperature of the earth explaining why the least amount of radiation starts the cold season). The resurrection is heralded by the Spring equinox.
The Jesus stories are more confused because of the deliberate action of the early Church to stamp out the deeply ingrained Pagan celebrations. Most of the pagan myths had the god die for winter and be resurrected at spring. The description of the Jesus birth fits spring far better than winter - the lambs - born in spring - for instance. But they had a desire to stop the winter solstice celebrations that occurred in part to make people look forward to the coming spring and celebrate the return of the sun (starting longer days) and get thru the cold winter to come. The big Christian thing was the resurrection of the adult god after having been killed (3 is an ancient mystical/magical number). It is always scheduled on the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the Spring Equinox so Spring should be starting by then in Europe. So it became a dual thing where the sad death of the god occurs in spring immediately followed by the joyous resurrection of the god, heralding the growth season.
The main reason the Catholic calendar has so many holidays was so they could stamp the traditional calendar-tied events with a Christian reinterpretation. Protestants deleted many of these or reduced them in importance since by the time they came around, the pagan meanings had largely been forgotten.
A lot of scholars believe the Jesus stories had their birth from remaking the Greek and Roman resurrection myths. Of course those were also influenced at earlier dates by the Egyptian resurrection myths. The Mithras cult arose at about the same time as the Jesus stories were supposed to have happened as a largely male/warrior religion and became extremely popular. The removal of the feminine principle in the Jesus myths is thought to have arisen in large part on the Mithras male-centric focus and denigration of the feminine. You get some weird imagery that is clearly a feminine attribute laid on the male Jesus (the milk flowing from his breasts, for example).
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Have you read up on Mithras?
