Jesus was Mithra Re-Hashed?

[Jayhawker Soule]

You of all people should understand how important lineage is in that part of the world and the fact that much of that "historical information" has been preserved through oral tradition.

I understand the importance of lineage. I understand the importance of evidence. And I understand the ease with with unsubstantiated claims are made.

Now, you said: "there are people living in the region today who are the descendants of Jesus' siblings." Please show us this evidence or, if you'd prefer, retract the claim.

 

[doppelganger]

Coming from a lawyer, I'd expect no less.

I'm also formally trained as an historian.

 

[Booko]

I understand the importance of lineage. I understand the importance of evidence. And I understand the ease with with unsubstantiated claims are made.

Now, you said: "there are people living in the region today who are the descendants of Jesus' siblings." Please show us this evidence or, if you'd prefer, retract the claim.

Learn Aramaic and hang out in the Syriac Orthodox church.

 

[Popeyesays]

There are people living in the United States today that are descendants of Abraham, Moses, and and the siblings of Jesus all at the same time. You can't point them out perhaps, but by the time that many generations have passed one has hundreds of g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g- parents, one of them is bound to be descended from anyone or more of those individuals.

the laws of descent demand it.

regards,
Scott

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Learn Aramaic and hang out in the Syriac Orthodox church.

I'm sorry, Booko, but I asked: please show us this evidence or, if you'd prefer, retract the claim.

 

[Popeyesays]

Jay,

The claim is reasonable. The siblings of Jesus had children, some of those children are the g-g-g-g-gg- parents of people today. It can't be argued.

Such is genetic roulette.

regards,

Scott

 

[MotoEric]

Another coincidence between Jesus and Mithra are that both are born from virgin mothers and born out in the dessert. Now both take place is the same region and both virgin mothers specifically WENT out into the dessert. There is also the recognition of Sunday as the holy day even though Saturday is supposed to be the actual seventh day of the week. Mithra also required its members to be baptized as well and Mithra himself was resurrected. You also have the common theme of Sheppard and his flock in both religions.

Hi,

From what I read I thought that Mithra was supposed to have been self propagated from rock.

Can you please list the similarities that you see and provide your source material for your beliefs on Mithra?

Thank you,

Eric

 

[Booko]

I'm sorry, Booko, but I asked: please show us this evidence or, if you'd prefer, retract the claim.

My response was tailored to be Jaylike in form. Sorry you didn't appreciate the irony of the situation.

If you want to examine the evidence you can do what I suggested. Learn Aramaic and go speak to the families in the Syriac Orthodox Church who claim the descent.

 

[lamplighter]

Yeah why don't you show me where you got the info that Mithra came from a rock? "Anahita, the Immaculate Virgin Mother of the Lord Mithra" FIRST IRANIAN GODDESS OF PRODUCTIVITY AND VALUES Persian Journal Latest Iran News apparently people have done lectures discussing this Mithra business as well www.malaspina.edu/~mcneil/lec/christianity.ppt and referred to the same quote which if you'll read was found on a temple dedicated to Anahita, I'ld be happy to find more but you have to indulge me with some reasonable evidence that Mithra came from a rock. Anyway all this documentation business seems like it would be pretty easy to come up with since we are talking about Jesus the one who supposedly fed so many with so little, somebody who supposedly walked on water, someone who supposedly performed miracles? I SEVERELY doubt that people would have been ho-hum about all this when using a zippo back then would've been considered using witchcraft to make fire. I'm rather sure someone who went around performing miracles would have been much talked about as Julius Ceaser, seems as if people are trying down play Jesus as simple John Smith down the block doing what it takes to survive, but wait we're talking about someone claiming to be the son of god here so why wouldn't he have allot of documentation? According to the Bible he pulled off some wicked magic tricks even by todays standards, but that's just it isn't it? Only the Bible talks about these things and the locals with a best selling book for 2,000 years from there region, gee I can't possibly imagine why they would know anything about Jesus.... I'm looking for more view points on this Jesus fellow than just one account from a biased book to change my mind.

 

[MotoEric]

Yeah why don't you show me where you got the info that Mithra came from a rock? I'ld be happy to find more but you have to indulge me with some reasonable evidence that Mithra came from a rock.

Thanks!

Well, I hope that this will suffice. I look forward to your other citations.

"ALL of our data about the Mithraic cosmogony (including his 'birth') comes from art works--there is NO primary textual data whatsoever to work with.…By the time we DO get some textual data, it shows up in varied and contradictory snapshots--from the various religions--and it DOESN'T support this claim... Mithras was portrayed in art works as having been made out of rock, and then CREATING the world-cave --NOT being originally born 'in a cave'.”

Jack Finegan, Myth and Mystery: An Introduction to the Pagan Religions of the Biblical World (Baker, 1989), 203-207; W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity (Fortress: 1984), 276-279.

This is a quote from a site that was discussing the supposed links between Mithraism and Christianity. Their source material (I believe) are the books cited.


This is based on a older myth about birth of Mithra, that his magical birth at the dawn of time was from a rock from which he formed himself using his Will. He holds in his hand a dagger and a torch. A statue from Housesteads shows Mithras being born from the rock while the twelve signs of the zodiac surround him, showing his image as a stellar god who rules the cosmos even at his birth. A serpent sometimes shown to be coiled around of the Mithras or birth stone/egg.

This is from Mithras and Mithraism

***************************
Next, the cave part. First of all, Mithra was not born of a virgin in a cave; he was born out of solid rock, which presumably left a cave behind -- and I suppose technically the rock he was born out of could have been classified as a virgin! Here is how one Mithraic scholar describes the scene on Mithraic depictions: Mithra "wearing his Phrygian cap, issues forth from the rocky mass. As yet only his bare torso is visible. In each hand he raises aloft a lighted torch and, as an unusual detail, red flames shoot out all around him from the petra genetrix." [MS.173] Mithra was born a grown-up, but you won't hear the copycatters mention this! (The rock-birth scene itself was a likely carryover from Perseus, who experienced a similar birth in an underground cavern; Ulan.OMM, 36.)

This is from Mithraism. Not an influence on Christianity, which is an attempted refutation of the concept of a Mithra / Jesus connection.

Thanks again,

Eric

 

[MotoEric]

By the way, are your thoughts on this spurred by Zeitgeist or the works of Achrya S.?


Thanks,

Eric

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Jay,

The claim is reasonable. The siblings of Jesus had children, ...

The claim that Jesus had siblings is problematic and, in fact, challenged within the camp of traditional Christianity.
The claim that anyone can trace their ancestry to Jesus is silly and unevidenced.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Yeah why don't you show me where you got the info that Mithra came from a rock?

Yeah why don't you read the available scholarship. See, for example, ...

Roman Cult of Mithras: Chapter 8. The sacred narrative - Rock-birth; pp 62-71​

From the Publisher

The Mithras cult first became evident in Rome towards the end of the first century AD. During the next two centuries, it spread to the frontiers of the Western empire. Energetically suppressed by the early Christians, who frequently constructed their churches over the caves in which Mithraic rituals took place, the cult was extinct by the end of the fourth century. Since its publication in Germany, Manfred Clauss's introduction to the Roman Mithras cult has become widely accepted as the most reliable and readable account of this fascinating subject. For the English edition, Clauss has updated the book to reflect recent research and new archaeological discoveries. [ibid]​

 

[Smoke]

The claim that Jesus had siblings is problematic and, in fact, challenged within the camp of traditional Christianity.
The claim that anyone can trace their ancestry to Jesus is silly and unevidenced.

Reminds of me of the story of some member of the Georgian royal family -- I can't remember who it was -- who always wore black on the feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God, on the grounds that it was a family bereavement.

 

[Popeyesays]

The claim that Jesus had siblings is problematic and, in fact, challenged within the camp of traditional Christianity.
The claim that anyone can trace their ancestry to Jesus is silly and unevidenced.

It is denied in the corpus of the faith that Jesus had any siblings at all. Some of the members of the corpus deny that Mary, married to Joseph ever had sexual congress with her husband at all.

I consider that to be non-evidentiary, under Hebrew law, Joseph would have been free to divorce her in that event. James, for one is mentioned in the Gospel as the brother of Jesus.

"6:2 And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands? 6:3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.
6:4 But Jesus, said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.
6:5 And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.
6:6 And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching."

Regards,

Scott

 

[Booko]

The claim that Jesus had siblings is problematic and, in fact, challenged within the camp of traditional Christianity.

Are half-siblings challenged? I have not run across any challenges on that point in traditional Christianity.

The claim that anyone can trace their ancestry to Jesus is silly and unevidenced.

Since Jesus would appear to have had no offspring, I agree.

That is nowhere near the comment I made earlier, however.

 

[lamplighter]

Well there certainly seems to be 2 accounts of Mithra's birth because even this christian apologetic website makes the comment of Mithra and Jesus both being born of a virgin mother and makes a rather lame attempt at refuting christianity was taken from Mithraism Doesn't the religion of Mithra prove that Christianity is false? Also from the book The Hiram Key By Robert Lomas, Christopher Knight

Gautama Buddha: born of the virgin Maya around 600 B.C.
Dionysus: Greek god, born of a virgin in a stable, turned water into wine
Quirrnus: n early Roman saviour, born of a virgin
Attis: born of the virgin Nama in Phrygia around 200 BC
Indra: Born of a virgin in Tibet around 700 BC
Adonis: Babylonian god, born of the virgin Ishtar
Krishna: Hindu deity, born of the virgin Devaki in around 1200 BC
Zoroaster: born of a virgin 1500-1200 BC
Mithra: born of a virgin in a stable on 25th of December around 600 BC
It seems that over the centuries quite a lot of innocent young ladies were giving birth to the children of gods! The cult of Mithra is a particularly awkward for Christians who do not subscribe to the satanic time traveler theory. Mithraism is a Syrian offshoot of the more ancient Persian cult of Zoroaster,which was introduces into the Roman Empire about 67 B.C.

Though Mithra's birth is debatable the fact still remains that people being born from virgin mothers is not uncommon in the region so it would seem they're just going with the flow. So Jesus being born from a virgin mother isn't unique. As for the Zeitgeist and Achrya, no I stumbled across an article about a year ago, pointing all the similarities between Mithra and Christianity and went off on my own wild tangent about the two religions, you see for the longest time after much contemplation on Christianity I had previously come to the conclusion many years ago that the Bible was a tool invented by man for manipulation and when I came to learn about Mithraism it just further concreted my belief on this matter, but don't let that stop anybody from trying to prove me wrong because this conclusion has left me with the feeling of being in a very sinister world with no hope.

 

[Popeyesays]

Are half-siblings challenged? I have not run across any challenges on that point in traditional Christianity.



Since Jesus would appear to have had no offspring, I agree.

That is nowhere near the comment I made earlier, however.

To be half-siblings would mean that jesus and the others shared a mother. Old Roman Catholic belief would stipulate Mary never had sexual congress with Joseph at all, so there would be no half-siblings, just the children of joseph reared in the same house as jesus with no genetic link to Jesus at all.

It seems a silly argument to me, but the argument that Jesus never actually existed seems p[retty sill to me as well.

Regards,
Scott

 

[Comprehend]

...History is so full of examples of huge religious movements being based on completely fictional characters.

I am surprised to hear this coming from a former Discordian.

 

[doppelganger]

I am surprised to hear this coming from a former Discordian.

Neither Greyface nor Malaclypse the Younger are fictional.