They were plays depicting the passion of the christ. What is your point?
"The passion play of Bel, the Babylonian Sun-God, was in existence centuries before the birth of Jesus. It was a mystery play acted every year in the beginning of spring. The main features of the play have been deciphered from some tablets discovered from Babylonian ruins. The tablets disclose very remarkable facts which must be disturbing to thousands of honest minds in Christendom.
The story of Bel and the story of Jesus are one and the same, and this not only deprives the evangelical records of the claims to be genuine, but it convicts them of complete plagiarism!"
THE CHRISTIAN PASSION STORY:
1 Jesus is taken prisoner.
2 Jesus is tried in the House of the High Priest and the Hall of Pilate.
3 Jesus is scourged.
4 Jesus is led away to crucifixion on Golgotha.
5 Together with Jesus, two malefactors are led away and put to death. Another (Barabbas) is released to the people, and thus not taken away with Jesus.
6 After the death of Jesus, the veil in the temple is rent (Synopt.), the earth quakes, the rocks are rent asunder, the graves are opened, and the dead come forth into the holy city. (Matthew).
7 Jesus’s robe is divided among the soldiers (Synopt., John, cf. Ps. 22 : 18).
8 The lance-thrust in Jesus’s side and outflow of water and blood (John). Mary Magdalene and two other women busy themselves with the (washing, and) embalming of the body (Mark, Luke).
9 Jesus, in the grave, in the rock tomb (Synopt.) goes down into the realm of the dead (1 Pet. 3 : 19; Matt. 12 : 40; Acts 2 : 24; Rom. 10 : 7, “descent into hell” dogma).
10 Guards are set over the tomb of Jesus. (Matthew).
11 Mary Magdalene and the other Mary sit before the tomb. (Matthew, Mark).
12 Women, in particular Mary Magdalene, came to the tomb to seek Jesus where he is behind the door of the tomb. Mary stands weeping before the empty tomb because they have taken her Lord away (John).
13Jesus’s restoration to life, his rising from the grave (on a Sunday morning).
14 His festival, approximately at the spring equinox, is also celebrated as his triumph over the powers of darkness (cf. Colossians, 2: 15).
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THE BABYLONIAN PASSION PLAY:
1 Bel is taken prisoner.
2 Bel is tried in the House on the Mount (the Hall of Justice).
3 Bel is smitten (wounded).
4 Bel is led away to the Mount.
5 Together with Bel a malefactor is led away and put to death. Another, who is also charged as a malefactor, is let go, thus not taken away with Bel.
6 After Bel had gone to the Mount, the city breaks out into tumult, and fighting takes place in it.
7 Bel’s clothes are carried away.
8 A woman wipes away the heart’s blood of Bel flowing from a drawn-out weapon (spear?).
9 Bel goes down into the Mount away from sun and light, disappears from life, and is held fast in the Mount as in a prison.
10 Guards watch Bel imprisoned in the stronghold of the Mount.
11 A goddess sits with Bel; she comes to tend him.
12 They seek for Bel where he is held fast. In particular a weeping woman seeks for him at the “Gate of Burial.” When he is being carried away, the same lamented: “O, my brother! O, my brother!”
13 Bel is again brought back to life (as the sun of spring); he comes again out of the Mount.
14 His chief feast, the Babylonian New Year’s festival in March at the time of the spring equinox, is celebrated also as his triumph over the powers of darkness (cf. the creation hymn “Once when on high” as the New Year’s festival hymn).
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"There is thus no doubt at all that the passion story of the Bible is simply a re-cast of the story of Bel or Baal.
Being mystified at the identity of their beliefs with pagan ideas, the early Church Fathers blamed the Devil for creating mischief. Tertullian, a church historian, said: “The devil, whose business is to prevent the truth, mimics the exact circumstances of the Divine Sacraments in the Mysteries of Idols.”
Justin Martyr, a church father, says: “... which things the evil spirit has taught to be done out of memory in the mysteries and ministrations of Mithra…”
The Devil has been blamed for many things, but for once a grave injustice has been done to him in that the Fathers of the Church have accused him of something of which he is innocent and totally unaware. This is a most convenient way of evading facts and eluding the truth. The Devil cannot confront the Fathers to defend himself and debate with them the chronological correctness of their assertion. A brazen anachronism was thus perpetrated by them. Did paganism borrow from Christianity or did Christianity plagiarize wholesale from paganism? In the sequence of time: did Christianity come before paganism, or paganism before Christianity?
The Devil thus provided an easy and convenient target for venting wrath and abuse resulting from a patent inability to find a plausible explanation, and from mystification and bewilderment. They would not be reasonable enough, or gentlemen enough, to admit and acknowledge the fact that Christianity was a mere rehash of pagan beliefs. This would be a lowering of their dignity. A scapegoat had to be found. And who could be a better candidate for this honour than old Lucifer himself?!
The wardens of the Church in those days never failed to do two things, until Christianity fully triumphed over the existing creed. They incorporated, on the one hand, almost all of the popular pagan cults into their faith; on the other hand they took particular care to destroy and burn the Pagan records and libraries – amongst them that of Alexandria some 50 years after the death of Constantine – in order to obliterate the origin of the faith so alien to that of Jesus."
The Affinity Between Christianity and Paganism
