A shame there are only threee of us, M. Four, if we count Eric's mutt.

Maimonides was not an atheist--on the contrary, he was deeply religious. I think you are thinking of Spinoza, but he wasn't an atheist either, in my opinion.

Christian hierarchy was often quick to adapt and modify popular traditions to help secure converts.

"Oh we are bound by law all right. Lots of them."
It is what? 3400 years since Moses and the written law, with little to no proselytizing. It is truly miraculous that those laws and traditions could hold a people together through all that has passed since.

Arghhhhh. The number of errors in this post, just about Egyptian mythology and religion, are immense, and the errors excruciating. A classic case of "don't believe everything you read", and you've walked right into it!

The book you're citing is basically rewarming the usual anti-Catholic non-factual factoids, except that it's focusing them against Christianity. Rewarmed Golden Bough, rewarmed Lorraine Boettner -- except that Frazer had to back off a lot of his bogus scholarly conclusions, and Boettner later disavowed his own work (though too late to stop the memes he started). You also get misinformation from would-be pagans who don't actually understand their own attempted traditions.

Roger Pearse's blog has an interesting series of posts, detailing his search through primary sources on Mithras and comparing them against all the Mithras factoids and bad quotes.

I think you'll find that very similar misuse is made of Osiris, Adonis, Attis (that's a really creepy disgusting legend in the primary sources!), and so forth.

There's a really good book on why Christianity did save so many pagan myths and authors as pagan myths and authors, without covering them up in any way. Euhemerism, the absorption of philosophy into creating theology, the idea of "spoiling the Egyptians, the idea of some myths and poets and philosophers being inspired as the Holy Spirit's preparation for the Gospel, Christians joining the game of making Virgilian centos, etc. is a fascinating area to look at. It also has the advantage of being true history, and not pulled out of somebody's butt. :)

Eric Olm,

Read the link Jewish Athiest

====

Will,

Most Christians are totally unaware of Jewish Oral law and how it has modified the laws of Moses. The Jewish religion is a living tradition modified for the age and the culture.

Read Maimonides.

For instance - through interpretation and "enabling laws" there is no longer a Jewish Death penalty. The last such sentence handed down by a Jewish Court was the Adolph Eichmann case.

Thus the anti-gay laws are no longer enforced as written.

The actual reformation of Jesus has been more effectively incorporated by Jews than by many Christians. Biblical literalism hasn't been practiced by Jews for at least several millenia (aproximately).

Look at the case objectively. Jesus was killed because he was a political revolutionary. The Romans didn't care much about religion. There were many in the Empire. What concerned was threats to Roman authority.

The fact that Jesus died on Passover is a BIG clue. Celebrating the Death and Resurrection was a way for Rome to cover up the essence of the message.

You want to observe the Death of Jesus properly? Ask your Jewish friends how to conduct a Seder. IMO.

You know who got it right for a while?

Negro Slaves who prayed for and sang about deliverance and the Jubilee Year. The Jubilee Year was part of the Jewish practice of slavery. Read up on it some time. The laws and the thinking behind them are a fascinating subject. I studied that under one of the finest scholars of Jewish law and a member of the Chicago Bet Din Rabbi Groner. He was my Rabbi when I was growing up.

Jewish slavery was not about caste (hereditary). It was a temporary condition.

Maureen,

I was a Pagan (in the modern sense) for about a decade. I studied it deep (like everything I do). What I wrote came out of that study not just the links I provided. I'm familiar with the Golden Bough. But I also cross checked with other sources. The above corresponds to the totality of what I learned when I was a practicing Pagan.

It is possible that I'm mistaken. It is also possible that I'm not. I'll look into your link.

And there are modern resurrection myths. Such desires are part of the human condition.

Here is one about a Jewish Rabbi.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menachem_Mendel_Schneerson

Some viewed his focus on messianism as controversial. During his lifetime many of his followers have considered him to be the Jewish Messiah, and even after his death, many await his return as the Messiah.

BTW I never studied Mithras. My focus was on the Egyptian Gods and culture. So I am unable to address your point at all. Not my area of study.

Re: "death sentence for believers"

You do realize that the way "believers decided" back then (particularly in Alexandria) was to form a mob and run around rampaging? That's how a lot of Byzantine politics worked, too.

You didn't get executed for heresy in Byzantium, either. You might lose your ecclesiastical post (though it was much more common to lose it for political reasons, since the Court kept trying to make ecclesiastical posts part of imperial bureaucracy) or you might get exiled (though again, this was hugely more likely to happen for the openly stated reason of politics). Lots of people had both of these happen to them repeatedly, and lived to ripe old ages. It was the mob that killed people.

Read primary sources. It's a lot of fun.

Oh, and you do realize that Arianism was largely kept going by the court elite and catchy songs, yes? If you put Jesus in the position of Mary or Mohammed (just a very perfect created thing), you didn't have to believe in the equality and dignity of all human beings, and that man really was created in God's image. Same thing with the Islamified heresy of iconoclasm, which also was largely supported by the elites of the court. So was Gnosticism mostly for the elite; Donatism was for the ultra-pure and rigid. Marcionites were all about the anti-Semitism.

Monophysitism and other heresies were a different kettle of fish, though, which is why they ding-donged back and forth for so long before people worked out what was the right doctrine.

How I approach religion: by their fruits ye shall know them.

The Holocaust was not a 12 year event. There was several thousand years of practice that lead up to it. Pogroms aimed at Jews - were regular European events.

Not exactly "Love thy neighbor" events. Which says that the essence was lost - and I do believe that it is being refound.

The most profound Christians I ever met celebrated Passover. I worked with a father and son over 30 years ago. Both were electronic engineers.

Maureen,

This is interesting from the link you provided:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6MXPEMbpjoAC

BTW Maureen,

The link I got from the site you suggested bolsters my thesis. i.e. Christmas is an accretion not an original practice. As is much of what is thought to be "real" Christianity.

BTW I have no beef with anyone's religion - until it gets political.

Simon,
Thanks, I was aware of the depth of the Talmud, and I have tried to study, but it is tough for a gentile hermit to find a good Rabbi.

Btw, I don't know much about Jew vs. Jew religious mobs in Byzantine times, but I know they had them, very enthusiastically. (Especially if you claimed to be the Messiah, of which there were plenty in Byzantine times.) There was a lot of Jews doing Jewish outreach and proselytizing back then, also.

Becoming a mob was one of the primary sports in Alexandria, I think, and Constantinople loved it too. :)

That's one hell of a post. In the finest traditions of this blog. I wish I had written it. Thank you!

Anon,

I have not studied the details of Ecclesiastical Christianity. What I know is the effect on culture.

And the dignity of all men is coming back in vogue. It was not always paramount. Thus religious wars, pogroms, burning witches, torture by the Inquisition (small numbers to be sure - but significant because of what it said about teachings that would allow such practices). And we are not entirely out of those woods.

As a minority culture Jews have had to believe in and promote the dignity of all men. Out of self preservation. It is one reason that Jews have been in the lead in breaking down institutional racism in America. Gone too far re: law. Yes. None the less at one time something HAD to be done. Jim Crow was an abomination. And you well know that Jim Crow was supported by some churches.

Currently the Reform Jewish movement supports equal rights for gays and is against making war on the users of some drugs - the dignity of all men. We understand the difference between vice and crime. Vice requires individual interventions - crimes can be handled by law. Mixing up the two creates political persecution for personal habits. It is unwise number one. And it doesn't work number two.

I find it difficult to understand what you mean by accretion. People continued to pick away at figuring out what divine revelation meant, and what reason could do to supplement that. People continued to find interesting ways to express Christianity (and some very very creative interpretations of Biblical passages!).

But if you look at Acts and the Didache and Justin Martyr, you find a description of Christian beliefs and activities that is entirely recognizable and understandable. A first century Christian magically gifted with English would be able to attend Mass in my parish, no problem. He'd sit in a pew instead of on the floor, and the deacons wouldn't chase out all the non-baptized before the Creed, sure. But the basic functions of every part of the Mass and the interpretations of Scripture in the homily would be alike enough for him to snooze through it. The only thing that might weird him out is that we don't tend to sing everything.

The difficulty comes when people assume there isn't any Biblical reason for doing stuff, and then automatically assume it must be something pagan or secular or what have you. People used to assume that the convent of St. Brigid had an eternal fire because of pagan Irish fire worship. Then scholars found out it was actually the last remnant of a pan-European fad for eternal flames that started in Merovingen France and Germany, as a pretty boringly standard Christian devotion. Good luck stopping the factoids, though.

Simon,
Like most hermits my budget is a bit tight so if you have any recommendations from Project Gutenberg they would be appreciated.

Maureen,

Lots of Jewish claimants to the Messiah title. It seemed very popular in Poland/Eastern Europe from about 1500 to 1800. So I'm somewhat familiar with that era.

Current consensus: they were all frauds.

People under political stress are always looking for deliverance. Some one will rise to the occasion. When they don't deliver things often get ugly.

Internecine religious warfare is rather common in history. Hence our First Amendment. The memory was fresh in the late 1700s. Not so fresh today.

The error that allows such events is we forget the dignity of man. Or as in the original: Love thy neighbor.....

If we're talking about state and religion, and whether or not the imperial government should have stuck its red boots into the church door, that's a whole different subject. That's where you actually do see a lot of pagan influence, because Roman law predicated that the king was also the chief priest, and therefore religion was very much the Senate's and Emperor's business if the city was to be protected from the wrath of the gods.

And of course, Christian emperors could seize on David and Abraham and Jesus and so forth as examples of being both king and religious authority.

Nothing like a long distance game of emperor vs pope, or a short distance emperor vs patriarch of Constantinople or Alexandria. And it didn't all get worked out in Byzantium, either. That's a good chunk of European and world history, right up to today, as civil authorities strive to tell religions what to teach or whom to appoint as leaders.

Of course, a lot of what we regard as easy to assume rights were only "discovered" through this very process. You could teach courses for decades without exhausting the material on this sort of thing.

Sorry not to be terribly coherent. I probably need to stop posting and take a break! :) Tons of interesting topics here, but I shouldn't ramble on and on in your combox.

But we can reinterpret the laws based on our own understanding.

That view, and the others you stated in your summary, are quite similar to the Second Great Awakening in this country by the Stone/Campbell movement. That was the formation of the Disciples of Christ & The Christian Churches. The movie Places In The Heart with Sally Field ends with a scene inside one of these churches. In fact, the whole movie is an illustration of their beliefs. (A little sappy, but what do expect from The Flying Nun.)

Regarding that article on Maimonides--I have studied Maimonides, attended classes by the foremost scholars of him, read books, and have been in a weekly class of his writings and thought at my synagogue for five years, and have never heard it even postulated that he didn't believe in G-d. His entire being was steeped in his faith. I am not an expert, but the idea that he was an atheist is absurd. The author may believe it, but that doesn't make it so...

Regarding that article on Maimonides--I have studied Maimonides, attended classes by the foremost scholars of him, read books, and have been in a weekly class of his writings and thought at my synagogue for five years, and have never heard it even postulated that he didn't believe in G-d. His entire being was steeped in his faith. I am not an expert, but the idea that he was an atheist is absurd. The author may believe it, but that doesn't make it so...

Maureen,

Accretion: Saturnalia becomes Christmas.

Eric,

OK I'll take Spinoza as an alternate.

Maureen. Ramble on.

From an article critical of Disciples of Christ:

The Campbellite concept of Christianity is largely the form of religion found in the Synoptic Gospels and the transitional period of the early chapters of the Acts before the displacement of Peter and his message of the Kingdom. However, unlike the early Apostles, they reject the sovereignty of God in favor of the so-called free-will of man -- theistic humanism

And:

...none are completely free of first century Judaism, and thus they struggle with various forms of legalism.

In my area these churches were the main ones who helped gays with AIDS during the plague years. Many also embrace gay marriage.
They don't have a central authority, with each "church" being independent.

Campbellites strongly reject the term "denomination", since their churches operate with a large degree of local independence. Some prefer to refer to themselves as a "fellowship" of churches, some absolutely independent.

A lot of similarities here, Simon.

Frank,

I was waiting for you to chime in. Thanks!

Here is a review of Pagan Christian that fits this outsider's view.

Pagan Christian? - review.

An older book that covers much of the same material, is Man And His Gods. It caused me problems in History of Religion in 12th grade. Bro. Timothy didn't think it was funny when I brought it to class for discussion. My mother was an atheist who married a Catholic, went along with my father by sending me to church schools after 2nd grade, and then undercut it by giving me books like that to read. You could call her a monkey-wrencher. A review of that book is here:
http://www.amazon.com/Man-his-gods-Universal-library/dp/B0007GR34I/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289538680&sr=1-1

BTW, this is definitely one of your best posts.

Thanks!

From Man And His Gods, page 181:

Almost from the moment of its inception the Christian movement began to break up into sects over circumcision, marriage, taboos and contentious items in the creed, and with each schism it tended to lose its Jewish character by taking to itself pagan practices and beliefs....It grew by absorbing competing theological ideas.

In the millennium before Christ:

Toynbee lists eighty-seven correspondences between the story of Jesus' life and the stories of certain Hellenic "saviors," using this term in the human rather than the god-incarnate sense...In all cases the pagan stories are older...
Notable among ancient tales as supplying the stuff for hero legends is that of Herakles, the peasant demigod who attained in late Hellenic time an idealized form and heroic stature. Herakles had a royal lineage, but a flaw in his genealogy; he miraculously escaped from a mortal danger in infancy; he was tempted in the wilderness; his career was an ordeal; his work obtained extraordinary publicity; he was commissioned by God to exercise a beneficent royal authority over all mankind; he suffered spiritual agony in the face of supreme challenge; he resigned himself to the will of his heavenly father and was sacrificed; after his death he came to receive religious worship; his mortal remains miraculously disappeared; he descended into hell; he appeared to the women of the entourage; and finally he ascended to heaven in a cloud.
It was at Tarsus, the boyhood home of Paul, that Herakles-Sandan died a cruel death in an annual festival in order to enjoy a glorious resurrection.

I know, just coincidence.

More from Man And His Gods by Homer W. Smith: (page 201)

As with most deities in the Northern Hemisphere, the death and resurrection of Jesus was placed as near as possible to the spring equinox, while in accordance with Babylonian-Mithraic custom it was put after the full moon. (The name Easter comes from Eostre an Anglo-Saxon goddess of the spring, and was not used until the Middle Ages.) The Christians at first observed the Jewish Sabbath as a holy day, but they later changed their weekly meeting to Sunday to spite the Jews and to please the Mithraists, the first day of the week having been the sun god's day in both Egyptian and Mithraic lore. About the year 354, the birthday of Jesus was set at the winter solstice, the time at which all the sun gods from Osiris to Jupiter and Mithra had celebrated theirs, the celebration being adorned with the pine tree of Adonis, the holly of Saturn, and mistletoe, the yellow leaves of which gave the name to Frazer's classic, The Golden Bough, which describes the cult of Diana-Artemis at Aricia.

From the Forward to Man And His Gods

"The work is a broadly conceived attempt to portray man's fear-induced animistic and mythic ideas with all their far-flung transformations and interrelations...This is a biologist speaking, whose scientific training has disciplined him in a grim objectivity rarely found in the pure historian. This objecftivity has not, however, hindered him from emphasizing the boundless suffering which, in its end results, this mythic thought has brought upon man."
Albert Einstein

M. Simon you say: "I'm pretty much against blind obedience to revealed doctrine. "

You're in good company: "My mind is my own church." Thomas Paine

"Humans are still human."

That is the bottom line. When it comes to the 'fuzzy stuff', including methods of governance, there really is 'nothing new under the sun'.

Simon

I still tend to feel the Ultra Orthodox have been the anchor that has helped preserve the Jewish identity over the millenias; more so than the Reform or Modern movements. Of course I am an outsider and my perspective is suspect even to myself.

Will,

You are correct. In part. But in fact all the Jewish sects these days are moving in the Orthodox direction to a greater or lesser extent. But all Jews have benefited from Jews who are less than traditional. Einstein comes to mind in the modern age.

But even for the Orthodox there are lots of opinions to choose from. A study of the Talmud would reveal that.

Jews who are not being persecuted have a hard time sticking with the faith. My insistence that my mate convert before I would marry her is somewhat out of the norm. Especially since I wasn't a practicing Orthodox Jew - although I was raised in the tradition.

And my point about miracles etc. is part of the Orthodox teaching. I took them up on the offer.