Jesus = Dionysus? I say no...

[James the Persian]

Did people check out Mithra? What do you think of the comparison between him and the Christ as described in the gospel of John?
Personally i see more influence on Christology from this myth than any of the Osiris-Dionysus ones.

The problem with that is that you can't say that Mithraism had an influence on Christianity with any more credibility than you can the reverse. Whilst the religion does pre-date Christianity, almost nothing that we know about Mithraism comes from earlier than the 4th century, which is well into the Christian period (in fact it's the beginning of Christian ascendancy in the Empire). That means that any similarity between the two faiths (and there certainly are some) could just as easily, and perhaps more plausibly, given the civil situation in th 4th century and later, be attributed to a Christian influence on the Mithras cult. Given the general syncretism found in Roman mystery cults and the intense opposition to such syncretism in Christian circles, this alternative looks even more likely. It's just, unfortunately, much more fashionable to posit pagan influence on Christianity than the reverse.

James

 

[Halcyon]

The problem with that is that you can't say that Mithraism had an influence on Christianity with any more credibility than you can the reverse. Whilst the religion does pre-date Christianity, almost nothing that we know about Mithraism comes from earlier than the 4th century, which is well into the Christian period (in fact it's the beginning of Christian ascendancy in the Empire). That means that any similarity between the two faiths (and there certainly are some) could just as easily, and perhaps more plausibly, given the civil situation in th 4th century and later, be attributed to a Christian influence on the Mithras cult. Given the general syncretism found in Roman mystery cults and the intense opposition to such syncretism in Christian circles, this alternative looks even more likely. It's just, unfortunately, much more fashionable to posit pagan influence on Christianity than the reverse.

James

Oops, my bad, i forgot to post the wiki link.

The Mithra i'm talking about is a Zoroastrian God, possibly dating from 1,400BC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithra#In_Zoroastrianism

Sorry for the confusion.

 

[James the Persian]

Oops, my bad, i forgot to post the wiki link.

The Mithra i'm talking about is a Zoroastrian God, possibly dating from 1,400BC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithra#In_Zoroastrianism

Sorry for the confusion.

There's no confusion. They are one and the same, it's just that the Roman mystery cult is a long way down the line of development from the Persian idea on which it is based. Large amounts (probably most) of what we know about the worship of Mithra comes from the Roman cult, and most of this is 4th century AD or later. As for the original Zoraoastrian Mithra, I fail to see any spectacular similarity with Christ. There's a certain similarity with Arian Christology, but that's about it. The real striking similarities are all only to be found in the later, post-Christian period, which further compounds my suspicion that the modern, fashionable trend is reading the whole situation backwards.

Now, there was one deity, Zalmoxis, that does show (from what little we know about him) striking similarities with Christ. The thing is, though, that this appears to be why the Dacians pretty much converted as a whole population immediately upon hearing the Gospel in the first century - they seem to have seen their mythology as prophetic. The situation in Dacia is truly unusual because almost none of it (modern Romania) was under Roman rule and even in areas which never were, you find churches and monasteries (though these inevitably not until later) from the very earliest centuries, with no noticeable accounts of any conversion. It literally does seem as though they pretty much converted over night without incident, though the later Gothic invasions did result in martyrdoms, such as the famous martyrdom of St. Sava the Goth (the latter almost certainly being a mistranslation of Geat - Dacian - caused by the fact that his home was ruled by the Goths, who were responsible for his death).

James

 

[Halcyon]

As for the original Zoraoastrian Mithra, I fail to see any spectacular similarity with Christ. There's a certain similarity with Arian Christology, but that's about it. The real striking similarities are all only to be found in the later, post-Christian period, which further compounds my suspicion that the modern, fashionable trend is reading the whole situation backwards.

That's fair enough.

I noted these similarities, but i might be reading too much into them.
First born of Ahura Mazda;
Equal with Ahura Mazda in terms of worthiness for prayer;
The divine representative of Ahura Mazda on Earth;
Protects the righteous from demons;
He's the Judge of Souls;
The protector and redeemer of souls.

Now, there was one deity, Zalmoxis, that does show (from what little we know about him) striking similarities with Christ. The thing is, though, that this appears to be why the Dacians pretty much converted as a whole population immediately upon hearing the Gospel in the first century - they seem to have seen their mythology as prophetic. The situation in Dacia is truly unusual because almost none of it (modern Romania) was under Roman rule and even in areas which never were, you find churches and monasteries (though these inevitably not until later) from the very earliest centuries, with no noticeable accounts of any conversion. It literally does seem as though they pretty much converted over night without incident, though the later Gothic invasions did result in martyrdoms, such as the famous martyrdom of St. Sava the Goth (the latter almost certainly being a mistranslation of Geat - Dacian - caused by the fact that his home was ruled by the Goths, who were responsible for his death).

James

Hmm, that's an interesting story, thanks James.

Zalmoxis certainly does show some similarity with the mission period of Jesus's life.

 

[doppelganger]

This is what the Jesus Mysteries et al are proposing, that Jesus is a retelling of the same story. What i'm proposing is that the story is completely different, only the ascetics are the same.

For example;

Battlestar Gallactica
Star Wars
Star Trek
Buck Rogers

All have similar themes; space, war, funny names, and they're all categorised under the same heading - Sci Fi. But the underlying stories of each are different.

The differences in the story aren't on the level of mythological motif though. Jesus IS a vegetal image. He is the vine. In Christianity as it came to be, he replaced Sol Invictus (right down to stealing his birthday, commemorating the "rebirth" of the sun on the old Winter Solstice). His "resurrection" holiday is a Spring fertility festival featuring eggs, rabbits and other traditional symbols of fertility and the rebirth of the cycle of life in the Spring.

Now as to the details, I think very few of those in the story come from Dionysis/Osiris/Adonis/Mithras, though some certainly appear to have been borrowed from those sources. Rather, the mythology of Jesus is borrowed from the Old Testament. It is midrash, a literary style of reworking an existing text or story into the details of a new story - which is exactly what the relationship is between "A Bug's Life" and "The Seventh Samurai." The entire Passion and Crucifixtion, for example, is a reworking of Psalm 22 (and depending on the version, Psalm 69:21) and the "Suffering Servant" of Isaiah 53, which had previously been treated midrashically in composing the ritual of the scapegoat.

Remember that this myth arose in the primordial soup of swirling ideas that was the still expanding Roman Empire. Perhaps it originated in a place like Alexandria, Egypt, where displaced Jewish scholars well versed in the Hellenistic academic traditions were coming into contact with Hinduism, Buddhism, Mithraism, Greek philosophy and many other mythological world views. So what begins to emerge is a picture of a Jewish midrash into which (depending on the author) details from the mysteries or Stoicism or Neo-Platonism have been incorporated.

You mention the Gospel of John, for example. The poem at the beginning and the "Christology" of John is very clearly borrowing from the Neo-Platonic philosophy of the Alexandrian Jew Philo "the Pythagorean." Philo had already taken Plato's idea of the creative logos (which is itself a myth) and begun to interpret it through a Jewish lens. John's "the Word" is largely built from Philo's Logos, reimagined as a man and later constructed as an agent in History.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Many of the earliest Christian churches were also built right on top of Mithras buildings - it literally took the place of the cult - in the same place.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Many of the earliest Christian churches were also built right on top of Mithras buildings - it literally took the place of the cult - in the same place.

I should qualifiy this statement... these early Christian buildings are not dated before the middle of the second century - not much in Christianity is. Very interesting to me is that it happened all over the Empire.

It did not happen only with Mithras, but with many other Roman cults as well... I think that it has to do more with holy ground in the city that continued to be honored after the city's benefactors - the people in control of the city's goods and services - converted to Christianity.

The preists of the cultus of Roman cities were the wealthy benefactors, and the cultus was one of the many apparataii by which the benefactors were honored for their generousity. When they converted to Christianity, they simply converted the buildings used to honor them to fit their new religion.

 

[doppelganger]

I would also add that we have a similar problem with Mithraism as we have with Christianity and "Gnosticism" - a lack of historical source documents. Mithraism was a "mystery" religion and its teachings were provided to initiates, but not generally published. As with early "Christianity" much of what we know about it is from later critics and polemicists.

By the way, the story of a god becoming a man to carry out a saving plan for mankind is the key mythological motif that is common to the mysteries and Christianity. That there were so many variations on this theme in various religions around the same time I think suggest either a common source or a general awakening to a deficiency in the religious answers to such issues as the problem of evil, which would mark such innovations as the "God-man" as perhaps a necessary part of the theistic process. Jung argued in his Response to Job that the embodiment of deity in the form of the Son is a necessary step for reconciling our experiece of the harsh reality of "Creation" with continuation of Theism - a problem that the Book of Job laid bare.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

that the embodiment of deity in the form of the Son is a necessary step for reconciling our experiece of the harsh reality of "Creation" with continuation of Theism - a problem that the Book of Job laid bare.

Which, of course, pre-dates the Greco-Roman mystery religions by a long shot. The idea that the Egyptian/Ugarit/Canaanite/Assyrian/Babylonian king is the embodiment of deity in the form of the Son is present in the earliest Ancient Near Eastern texts.

This concept may be as old as religion itself.

 

[Willamena]

I think you are right. The death-and-rising story is a universal expression of spiritual transformation or awakening. It is not just God, but ourselves, who die and rise through these stories. As Paul (of the NT) says, "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me."

luna

Much too convient. Saying "it's hard wired" is akin to saying "God did it." We don't have to look any further for an explanation.

Here is a quote from a fellow who never stopped looking, his whole life:

Now, according to the normal way of thinking about the Christian religion. We cannot identify with Jesus, we have to imitate Jesus. To say, ''I and the Father are one," as Jesus said, is blasphemy for us. However, in the Thomas gospel that was dug up in Egypt some forty years ago. Jesus says, ''He who drinks from my mouth will become as I am, and I shall be he.'' Now, that is exactly Buddhism. We are all manifestations of Buddha consciousness, or Christ consciousness, only we don't know it. The word ''Buddha'' means ''the one who waked up.'' We are all to do that—to wake up to the Christ or Buddha consciousness within us. This is blasphemy in the normal way of Christian thinking, but it is the very essence of Christian Gnosticism and the Thomas gospel. Civilizations are grounded on myth. The civilization of the Middle Ages was grounded on the myth of the Fall in the Garden, the redemption on the cross, and the carrying of the grace of redemption to man through the sacraments. The Christ story involves a sublimation of what originally was a very solid vegetal image. Jesus is on Holy Rood, the tree, and he is himself the fruit of the tree. Jesus is the fruit of eternal life, which was on the second forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden. When man ate the fruit of the first tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he was expelled from the Garden. The Garden is the place of unity, of non-duality of male and female, good and evil, God and human beings. You eat the duality, and you are on the way out. The tree of coming back to the Garden is the tree of immortal life, where you know that I and the Father are one. Getting back into the Garden is the aim of many a religion. When Yahweh threw man out of the Garden, he put two cherubim at the gate, with a flaming sword between.

Now, when you approach a Buddhist shrine, with the Buddha seated under the tree of immortal life, you will find at the gate two guardians— those are the cherubim, and you're going between them to the tree of immortal life. In the Christian tradition, Jesus on the cross is on a tree, the tree of immortal life, and he is the fruit of the tree. Jesus on the cross, the Buddha under the tree— these are the same figures.
~Joseph Campbell

 

[SB Habakuk]

The Key here lies in the theory of the Resurrected God- The Osiris type and to which Dionysus Zagreb the God of one profoundly thorough Greek religious group. However if one is well learned in the religions of the world one can really understand the catholic theories in play here-\

for though the theory of the Crucuified-Resurrected God pervates through out man's religious psyche it is not Christian . I will Illustrate

Truth comes into this system of things as an Image- for us to understand the Image a reflection o f the Image is Given

There Is Wisdom and Little Wisdom
There Is Church and Little Flock
There Is Evil and there is the Middle
There is Commercial Christianity and the Vieled Truth

I will expound on these terms and there manifestations within our own reality
The Counter Image of the Truth is This Osiris Type for It is true- CHRIST DID NOT DIE AT CALVARY_ but still all are held to account by this Image of his death

The QUestion is why
When you figure this out you would have Unvieled a Truth

 

[angellous_evangellous]

The Key here lies in the theory of the Resurrected God- The Osiris type and to which Dionysus Zagreb the God of one profoundly thorough Greek religious group. However if one is well learned in the religions of the world one can really understand the catholic theories in play here-\

for though the theory of the Crucuified-Resurrected God pervates through out man's religious psyche it is not Christian . I will Illustrate

Truth comes into this system of things as an Image- for us to understand the Image a reflection o f the Image is Given

There Is Wisdom and Little Wisdom
There Is Church and Little Flock
There Is Evil and there is the Middle
There is Commercial Christianity and the Vieled Truth

I will expound on these terms and there manifestations within our own reality
The Counter Image of the Truth is This Osiris Type for It is true- CHRIST DID NOT DIE AT CALVARY_ but still all are held to account by this Image of his death

The QUestion is why
When you figure this out you would have Unvieled a Truth

I want what you're smok'in.

Don't hog the fog, bra...

 

[Halcyon]

The differences in the story aren't on the level of mythological motif though. Jesus IS a vegetal image. He is the vine. In Christianity as it came to be, he replaced Sol Invictus (right down to stealing his birthday, commemorating the "rebirth" of the sun on the old Winter Solstice). His "resurrection" holiday is a Spring fertility festival featuring eggs, rabbits and other traditional symbols of fertility and the rebirth of the cycle of life in the Spring.

Sure, but that was a much later addition when the goddess Eostre's spring worship was incorporated, surely?
What i really wnat to discuss is the origin of the Jesus myths themselves, in that first century.

Now as to the details, I think very few of those in the story come from Dionysis/Osiris/Adonis/Mithras, though some certainly appear to have been borrowed from those sources. Rather, the mythology of Jesus is borrowed from the Old Testament. It is midrash, a literary style of reworking an existing text or story into the details of a new story - which is exactly what the relationship is between "A Bug's Life" and "The Seventh Samurai." The entire Passion and Crucifixtion, for example, is a reworking of Psalm 22 (and depending on the version, Psalm 69:21) and the "Suffering Servant" of Isaiah 53, which had previously been treated midrashically in composing the ritual of the scapegoat.

Very interesting stuff, i can believe that far more than i can the idea that Jesus is the Jewish Osiris.

By the way, the story of a god becoming a man to carry out a saving plan for mankind is the key mythological motif that is common to the mysteries and Christianity. That there were so many variations on this theme in various religions around the same time I think suggest either a common source or a general awakening to a deficiency in the religious answers to such issues as the problem of evil, which would mark such innovations as the "God-man" as perhaps a necessary part of the theistic process.

If you could give me some sources to look at that would be great - i assume you're not talking about the Osiris-Dionysus gods here, because they were not gods with a saving plan for mankind?

 

[doppelganger]

If you could give me some sources to look at that would be great - i assume you're not talking about the Osiris-Dionysus gods here, because they were not gods with a saving plan for mankind?

Krishna, Mithras, Adonis, Sol Invictus and, yes . . . Osiris-Horus and Dionysus.

As for Dionysus, our friends at wiki tell us:

In another version of the same story, Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Persephone, the queen of the underworld. A jealous Hera again attempted to kill the child, this time by sending Titans to rip Dionysus to pieces after luring the baby with toys. Zeus drove the Titans away with his thunderbolts, but only after the Titans ate everything but the heart, which was saved, variously, by Athena, Rhea, or Demeter. Zeus used the heart to recreate him in the womb of Semele, hence he was again "the twice-born". Sometimes people said that he gave Semele the heart to eat to impregnate her. The rebirth in both versions of the story is the primary reason he was worshipped in mystery religions, as his death and rebirth were events of mystical reverence. This narrative was apparently used in certain Greek and Roman mystery religions. Variants of it are found in Callimachus and Nonnus, who refer to this Dionysus under the title Zagreus, and also in several fragmentary poems attributed to Orpheus.

For Osiris-Horus we discover:

Osiris (Greek language, also Usiris; the Egyptian language name is variously transliterated Asar, Aser, Ausar, Wesir, or Ausare) is the Egyptian god of life, death, and fertility. At the height of the ancient Nile civilization, Osiris was regarded as the primary deity of a henotheism. Osiris was not only the merciful judge of the dead in the afterlife, but also the underworld agency that granted all life, including sprouting vegetation and the fertile flooding of the Nile River. Beginning at about 2000 B.C. all men, not just dead pharaohs, were believed to be associated with Osiris at death . . .

The myth described Osiris as having been killed by his brother Seth who wanted Osiris' throne. Osiris was subsequently resurrected by Anubis. Osiris and Isis gave birth to Horus. As such, since Horus was born after Osiris' resurrection, Horus became thought of as representing new beginnings. This combination, Osiris-Horus, was therefore a life-death-rebirth deity, and thus associated with the new harvest each year.


Ptah-Seker (who resulted from the identification of Ptah as Seker), who was god of re-incarnation, thus gradually became identified with Osiris, the two becoming Ptah-Seker-Osiris (rarely known as Ptah-Seker-Atum, although this was just the name, and involved Osiris rather than Atum). As the sun was thought to spend the night in the underworld, and subsequently be re-incarnated, as both king of the underworld, and god of reincarnation, Ptah-Seker-Osiris was identified as the sun during the night.

For Mithras:

The name Mithras is the Greek masculine form of Mithra, the Persian god who was the mediator between Ahura Mazda and the earth, the guarantor of human contracts, although in Mithraism much was added to the original elements of Mitra. However, some of the attributes of Roman Mithras may have been taken from other Eastern cults: for example, the Mithraist emphasis on astrology strongly suggests syncretism with star-oriented Mesopotamian or Anatolian religions. At least some of this synthesis of beliefs may have already been underway by the time the cult was adopted in the West. When Mithraism was introduced by Roman legions at Dura-Europos after 168 CE, the god assumed his familiar Hellenistic iconic formula (illustration above right) [1].


The mythology surrounding Mithras is not easily reassembled from the enigmatic and complicated iconography. Indeed the dedicatory inscription on a 2nd-3rd century tauroctony discovered in a Mithraeum at Ostia in the 1790s refers to the "incomprehensible deity": INDEPREHENSIVILIS DEI [2]. Apparently the cult did not depend on the interpretation of divinely-inspired revealed texts, and the textual references are those of Christians, who mention Mithras to deplore him, and neo-Platonists who interpreted Mithraic symbols within their own world-schemes.

The motif: a god takes the form of a man who dies and ressurects for the purpose of bringing abundant life. Jesus is a vegetable god with some Greek philosophy folded in. The seasonal associations are found later because they were there in the beginning. As to the focus on morality and love, first, every religion has a variation of the Golden Rule, so that doesn't distinguish Christianity from any of them. And second, although there's a lot of great teaching on selflessness and love in Christian scriptures, do you find Christianity as it is practiced to be mainly about self-sacrifice in love or to be mainly about the significance of the sacrifice specifically of the god-man Jesus and his resurrection?

Also, just because other version of the motif are more clearly and expressly associated with harvest, the seasons and nature festivals, doesn't mean they aren't also about the sacrifice of their god-man as an act of love symbolizing their own moral call to love one another. In many hunter-gatherer myths, the sacrifice of the animal for the hunt is an act of the animal's love and an inspiration for the hunter to sacrifice and love others.

 

[doppelganger]

For more information I highly recommend Joseph Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces for an understanding and detailed description of the general motif.

And for all the the specific details of the development of the motif throughout world religions, Campbell's four-volume work The Masks of God ("Primitive Mythology", "Occidental Mythology", "Oriental Mythology" and "Creative Mythology").

 

[lunamoth]

And to go along with the midrash thesis doppel suggested, an intentional telling of the stories of the synoptic gospels in an order which follows the Jewish sacred days calendar can also be distinguished, starting with a partial year in Mark and then in Matthew extended to cover an entire year of readings.

luna

 

[muichimotsu]

I notice something interesting in that there can be a division and distinction between Jesus and Dionysus, specifically in Nietzsche's philosophy. Jesus is seen as opposed to the Dionysian figure, as the two have diametrically opposed value systems that they are teachings. Someone might need to help me here...

 

[SB Habakuk]

it is no surprise that the prphet of Osiris is Thoth-interpreter of the gods just as Hermes is in the Greek

Dionysus is supposed to be the successor of Zeus bu we all are aware who he is ; Bacchus- The weeping God is identified also with Tammuz,Balder and Adonis

all of whom are Christ in there respective etymologies
all of whom are part of the counterfeit- all of whom are anti-Christ

 

[Halcyon]

it is no surprise that the prphet of Osiris is Thoth-interpreter of the gods just as Hermes is in the Greek

Dionysus is supposed to be the successor of Zeus bu we all are aware who he is ; Bacchus- The weeping God is identified also with Tammuz,Balder and Adonis

all of whom are Christ in there respective etymologies
all of whom are part of the counterfeit- all of whom are anti-Christ

Uh huh, because Satanail went back in time to plant false mythology, right?

 

[SB Habakuk]

Again i reiterate Satanail was not original evil- he became evil- he is not the embodiment of eternal evil- he is but _A TRICKSTER and ILLUSIONIST'
The Originator of the SAVIOUR MYTH is Thoth