In my last post I touched briefly on the subject of syncretism, the tendency of new mythologies to build themselves from the remnants of their predecessors. There is nothing inherently sinister about syncretism; it's merely a method of relating the tenets of the new mythology in terms that adherents of the old one will understand. Christianity has for the most part, however, distorted syncretism beyond an attempt to convey a message and Christians have tried to rewrite history from their own faith. The most common examples of this are: Christmas (which I have mentioned previously), the idea that all modern laws stem from Christianity and that the United States was founded as a christian nation. Naturally this is complete bullshit. The following examples will show that Christianity is as someone recently stated "old wine in new bottles".
Moses
Moses being central to both the Jewish faith and Christianity is the perfect place to begin. The story of the birth of Moses is outlined in Exodus 2:1-3
And a man of the house of Levi went and took as wife a daughter of Levi. So the woman conceived and bore a son. And when she saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him three months. But when she could no longer hide him, she took an ark of bulrushes for him, daubed it with asphalt and pitch, put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river's bank.
It sounds like a plausible story until you read the story of Horus, son of Isis and Osiris in Egyptian mythology, 1700 years previously.
Of course the story of Horus remains an influence on Christianity, just compare the depictions of Isis and Horus with that of Mary and Jesus.
The Resurrection
The next most important theme in Christianity is the resurrection. The resurrection is central to Christianity for a number of reasons, the promise of life after death, the divinity of Jesus and the claim that the resurrection is what separates Christianity from other religions. Except that it doesn't. The concept of a life-death-rebirth cycle is one of the most widespread themes in pre-Christian mythologies. For those unfamiliar, the simplified version of the idea is that Jesus was born, grew up, was crucified, waited 3 days and then came back to life.
Similarly in Norse mythology, in the Hávamál, there is a story told about the discovery of runes by Odin. According to the story, Odin is eager to learn the wisdom of the runes to give him power in the nine worlds. He therefore sacrifices himself to himself (not inventing another personality for himself was kinda inconvenient) and is hung from the world tree Yggdrasil for nine days and nights (the number 9 being of particular importance to Norse mythology) and is finally pierced in the side by his own spear Gungir. He later returns to life having gained this new knowledge. Sound familiar?
Similar stories can be found in many other mythologies, including but not limited to Osiris (Egyptian), Orpheus (Greek), Mithras (Zoroastrian), Tammuz (Bablyonian) and Zalmoxis (Dacian).
Miracles
Miracles are the lifeblood of Christianity in general and the Catholic church in particular. For 2000 years, the evangelisation of pre-christian cultures has been driven by the revelation of "holy" people who have been tools of God in showing their fellow people the way. Even today a past history of attributable miracles is a necessary step on the path to sainthood. It pays the church to recognise some unexplained events as miracles and when it comes to Jesus, miracles have to be plentiful. Unfortunately, Jesus seems to be just a tribute act, recreating "miracles" which had already been documented hundreds and sometimes thousands of years before.
The marriage feast of Cana
Widely recognised by Christians as the first miracle performed by Jesus, the marriage feast of Cana features the miraculous and seemingly impossible feat of turning water into wine. It might seem impossible for the son of a Jewish carpenter but not for the Greek god Dionysus who pulled off the same trick at his marriage to Ariadne in Greek mythology.
Lazarus
Bringing people back from the dead must surely be a miracle, unless of course you've got a defibrillator handy. Still though, Jesus managed to bring Lazarus back by just speaking to him, just as Asclepius had done for Hippolytus in Greek mythology centuries before.
The Feeding of the Multitude
This is a difficult one to sift through for several reasons. Firstly, as can be seen in other stories, the Bible can't even seem to agree with itself. In the gospel of John, 5000 people are fed from five loaves and two fish with 12 basketfuls of leftovers. In Matthew's gospel though, 4000 people are fed from seven loaves and two fish with seven basketfuls of leftovers. The numbers are not that important since, like the rest of Christian numerology, they relate to observable phenomena of the time. The five and the seven both relate to the number of visible celestial objects in the night sky - 5 planets and the sun and moon for a total of seven. The twelve represents the zodiac while the two fish represent the constellation Pisces. Astrologers have stated that this is the age of Pisces which began around 1 CE and will end around 2150.
Other aspects of the story mirror the story of Horus in Egyptian Mythology. Horus is known as the distributor of loaves in Egyptian mythology and his city of Annu or Heliopolis is known as the place of multiplying bread. Also Horus is aided in some stories by Taht who in stories of Ra is "the word made flesh". Taht in stories of Horus is represented as a boy who brings food to Horus to be distributed just as the young boy does in John's gospel.
There are many more examples of this throughout Christian mythology but this post is long enough already. The most important realisation to be gained from all this, though, is that, in the words of one biblical scholar:
When you come to understand the area and time in which Christian myth was born you begin to understand the forces that shaped it. Israel at one point in history was in a position so central in the known world that every major civilisation surrounding it had some varying degree of influence. The mythology of Christianity is built from components of its geographical and temporal predecessors including Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Dacian, Sumerian, Babylonian and Zoroastrian.
The Bible is a Chinese whisper, the last written omnibus of an oral history which stretches back thousands of years. The stories themselves are an attempt to understand the world but we have moved on in the last 2000 years and some of the questions they pose have been answered while others have changed. All that remains are fairy stories and outdated social guidelines. If you really want to pass on stories with a moral compass to your children, I suggest the Simpsons box set instead. It'll probably be cheaper in the long run.
The next most important theme in Christianity is the resurrection. The resurrection is central to Christianity for a number of reasons, the promise of life after death, the divinity of Jesus and the claim that the resurrection is what separates Christianity from other religions. Except that it doesn't. The concept of a life-death-rebirth cycle is one of the most widespread themes in pre-Christian mythologies. For those unfamiliar, the simplified version of the idea is that Jesus was born, grew up, was crucified, waited 3 days and then came back to life.
Similarly in Norse mythology, in the Hávamál, there is a story told about the discovery of runes by Odin. According to the story, Odin is eager to learn the wisdom of the runes to give him power in the nine worlds. He therefore sacrifices himself to himself (not inventing another personality for himself was kinda inconvenient) and is hung from the world tree Yggdrasil for nine days and nights (the number 9 being of particular importance to Norse mythology) and is finally pierced in the side by his own spear Gungir. He later returns to life having gained this new knowledge. Sound familiar?
Similar stories can be found in many other mythologies, including but not limited to Osiris (Egyptian), Orpheus (Greek), Mithras (Zoroastrian), Tammuz (Bablyonian) and Zalmoxis (Dacian).
Miracles
Miracles are the lifeblood of Christianity in general and the Catholic church in particular. For 2000 years, the evangelisation of pre-christian cultures has been driven by the revelation of "holy" people who have been tools of God in showing their fellow people the way. Even today a past history of attributable miracles is a necessary step on the path to sainthood. It pays the church to recognise some unexplained events as miracles and when it comes to Jesus, miracles have to be plentiful. Unfortunately, Jesus seems to be just a tribute act, recreating "miracles" which had already been documented hundreds and sometimes thousands of years before.
The marriage feast of Cana
Widely recognised by Christians as the first miracle performed by Jesus, the marriage feast of Cana features the miraculous and seemingly impossible feat of turning water into wine. It might seem impossible for the son of a Jewish carpenter but not for the Greek god Dionysus who pulled off the same trick at his marriage to Ariadne in Greek mythology.
Lazarus
Bringing people back from the dead must surely be a miracle, unless of course you've got a defibrillator handy. Still though, Jesus managed to bring Lazarus back by just speaking to him, just as Asclepius had done for Hippolytus in Greek mythology centuries before.
The Feeding of the Multitude
This is a difficult one to sift through for several reasons. Firstly, as can be seen in other stories, the Bible can't even seem to agree with itself. In the gospel of John, 5000 people are fed from five loaves and two fish with 12 basketfuls of leftovers. In Matthew's gospel though, 4000 people are fed from seven loaves and two fish with seven basketfuls of leftovers. The numbers are not that important since, like the rest of Christian numerology, they relate to observable phenomena of the time. The five and the seven both relate to the number of visible celestial objects in the night sky - 5 planets and the sun and moon for a total of seven. The twelve represents the zodiac while the two fish represent the constellation Pisces. Astrologers have stated that this is the age of Pisces which began around 1 CE and will end around 2150.
Other aspects of the story mirror the story of Horus in Egyptian Mythology. Horus is known as the distributor of loaves in Egyptian mythology and his city of Annu or Heliopolis is known as the place of multiplying bread. Also Horus is aided in some stories by Taht who in stories of Ra is "the word made flesh". Taht in stories of Horus is represented as a boy who brings food to Horus to be distributed just as the young boy does in John's gospel.
There are many more examples of this throughout Christian mythology but this post is long enough already. The most important realisation to be gained from all this, though, is that, in the words of one biblical scholar:
We are faced with the inescapable realization that if Jesus actually lived in the flesh in the first century A.D., and if he had been able to read the documents of old Egypt, he would have been amazed to find his own biography already substantially written some four or five thousand years previously
When you come to understand the area and time in which Christian myth was born you begin to understand the forces that shaped it. Israel at one point in history was in a position so central in the known world that every major civilisation surrounding it had some varying degree of influence. The mythology of Christianity is built from components of its geographical and temporal predecessors including Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Dacian, Sumerian, Babylonian and Zoroastrian.
The Bible is a Chinese whisper, the last written omnibus of an oral history which stretches back thousands of years. The stories themselves are an attempt to understand the world but we have moved on in the last 2000 years and some of the questions they pose have been answered while others have changed. All that remains are fairy stories and outdated social guidelines. If you really want to pass on stories with a moral compass to your children, I suggest the Simpsons box set instead. It'll probably be cheaper in the long run.
No comments:
Post a Comment