How much of Christianity is based on Paganism?

@ebrown p,

ebrown p wrote:

You are all dancing around the real question here...

Is Christianity superior to other systems of belief (in terms of some universal truth, or in terms of personal experience)?

My original question related to the accuracy of the historical information presented in the video, including the implication of that information, which is that the founding stories of Christianity are based strongly on pre-christian myths.

So far, nobody is arguing the accuracy of the historic references provided in the video.

The question of whether Christianity holds some special place among the long history of identical myths is where we seem to have gone from there.

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@rosborne979,

Quote:

So far, nobody is arguing the accuracy of the historic references provided in the video.

When they claimed that the word "sunset" is derived from the name of the
Egyptian god Set and then traced the origins of the words "hour" and "horizon"
to the Egyptian god Horus, they lost me.

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@George,

George wrote:

Quote:
So far, nobody is arguing the accuracy of the historic references provided in the video.

When they claimed that the word "sunset" is derived from the name of the
Egyptian god Set and then traced the origins of the words "hour" and "horizon" to the Egyptian god Horus, they lost me.

I wondered about those claims as well. Seemed like they were stretching credulity a bit there, but I really don't know for sure.

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@rosborne979,

Which is precisely the point that I was attempting to make in my initial posts. There are uncanny similarities between many related things, and if you pick and choose and string some of these together, plus perhaps manufacture or rework an item here and there, and post them side by side, you can create an impression that is as false as some myths and legends portrayed (by some) as true are probably false.

When it comes to evaluating Christianity, it really doesn't matter whether a legend or myth or custom or symbol is similar to somebody else or intentionally copied from somebody else. It would be unusual for writers to use language and imagery or comparisons that were unfamiliar to them. When such legend, myth, or custom is used as illustration rather than doctrine or canon law, it doesn't matter whether it is true or not. What does matter is the intent of the portrayal and the universal truths contained within it.

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@Foxfyre,

edit: "between many related things" was intended to be "unrelated things".

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The trouble is the Bible is a big book: and there are a lot of religions, you can make loads of matches, claim anything you like. It used to be called the Von Dannicken approach.

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@Fountofwisdom,

Good observation. Just think of all those side by side comparisons of Hitler with Bush and then Hitler with Obama. Amazing coincidences claimed. But if you pick and choose enough selective 'facts' and don't mention any mitigating factors, you could draw 'uncanny' comparisons between Ghandi and Ghenghis Khan or make Idi Amin look exactly like Mother Theresa.

I choose to remain a skeptic in these kinds of things.

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@Setanta,

This is a laughable and irrelevant ramble. The bible wasn't written til much later and in Nicene.

Josephus is unpopular as a collaborator with the occupying Romans: he also mentions the fact that Jesus has an older brother. If he stated anything against the Roman line he would have been executed.
The bible record is at this point at odds with the historical record. Pontius Pilate was a governor who was sent to troublesome areas of the empire to enforce Roman law. He wouldn't have washed his hands, he would have sent the legions in. The people pushing the Bible had to sell it to Romans, so the Romans get an easy ride,unlike the Assyrians.

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The original question of this thread can only be asked, I believe, at this point in history, since Christianity co-existed with paganism past the end of the first millenium in parts of Europe. All of Germany did not get completely Christenized, I thought, until 1300 CE. And recent archeological findings in Rome shows that Jews living in the Rome of Constantine's time had small pagan idols, in addition to Jewish artifacts. So, at this comparatively late date can we think that religions were consecutive in their existence. They overlapped on the timeline.

My point is, how would one discern in 900 CE whether someone was pagan or Christian, if both belief systems co-existed? Many people were sitting on the fence, most likely. By the way, I believe they co-existed without hostility, since paganism was not hostile to Judaism as a religion. Regardless of the country's pagan belief system, the invisible Jewish God was laughable to a pagan. Jews/Hebrews were just a bunch of odd-fellows, I read. Nothing to get hostile towards. We might have a more peaceable world today if we could adopt the tolerance of the pagans?

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@Foofie,

Your response is not entirely unreasonable, although i doubt that there were any pagan communities in Germany as late as the end of the 13th century. Certainly, christianity did not officially come to the Norse and the Russians until the end of the tenth or beginning of the eleventh centuries. (Iceland, for example, did not "officially" adopt christianity until 1000 CE, and then it was in response to a not too carefully veiled threat from Olaf Tryggvason. When "King" Olaf ended his own life that same year, the conversion of "pagans" in Iceland fell off dramatically, and many former converts seem to have rather rapidly recanted their conversions.)

I can only think that in a rather confused way you are saying that "pagans" lived in peace with Jews. They certainly did not live in peace with christians. Many of the conversions to christianity in Europe's history were effected at the point of a sword, and christians slaughtered people simply for being "pagan," while "pagans" in return slaughtered people for being christian. Charlemagne's biographers record that in almost every year for 40 years, he campaigned (or his proxies campaigned) against the then "pagan" Saxons, who as gleefully slaughtered newly converted christians, when they could make any headway against the Franks.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Your response is not entirely unreasonable, although i doubt that there were any pagan communities in Germany as late as the end of the 13th century.

That certainly depends what you consider to be Germany: when Pope Celestine III's called for the Northern Crusdades in 1193, all of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation was already Christianised quite some time. But it lasted indeed up to 1290 until such tribes like theLivonians, Latgallians, Selonians, Estonians, Semigallians, Curonians, Old Prussians ... were baptised. Most became "inhabitants" of the of the country of the Teutonic Knights ('Ordensstaat'/Order State) , which wasn't part of the Empire but a sovereign monastic state.

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I would not have thought of those tribes as Germans, Walter, although it's not a sufficiently important point to me to insist on it. I'd see the people of the eastern Baltic littoral as more nearly related to Slavs.

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@Setanta,

I agree. I just wanted to explain the years Foofie mentioned.

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@Walter Hinteler,

I try never to encourage Foofie . . . he can come up with gems all by himself, without encouragement from us.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

I can only think that in a rather confused way you are saying that "pagans" lived in peace with Jews. They certainly did not live in peace with christians. Many of the conversions to christianity in Europe's history were effected at the point of a sword, and christians slaughtered people simply for being "pagan," while "pagans" in return slaughtered people for being christian. Charlemagne's biographers record that in almost every year for 40 years, he campaigned (or his proxies campaigned) against the then "pagan" Saxons, who as gleefully slaughtered newly converted christians, when they could make any headway against the Franks.

Since Jews wandered into Germany some time after having Jerusalem decimated by the Romans, they could not have founded Jewish villages, unless the pagans accepted them without hostility. I believe that occurred because the Jews came as a family. Less hostility is engendered when one arrives with women and children. Also, there were cultural ways that the pagans might have found useful (like a midwife washing one's hands with boiled water, before birthing a baby)? Anyway, the Jews having arrived in northern Europe as a sad group might have engendered some sort of pity? Regardless, the Germanic tribes allowed them to settle (supposedly on the shores of some river called the Ashkenazi river. Get it "Ashkenazi Jews").

I do not know why, but Jews were just considered odd-fellows by many a pagan, I read. Nothing then to get hostile towards. Perhaps, with the advent of competing monotheistic faiths was a reason established to be hostile to Jews? I have read that the two countries that Jews assimilated totally, where there had been a Jewish community, was India and China. Two non-monotheistic countries that had no anti-Semitism. The Jews had no reason to circle the wagons; with time they just assimilated, I read.

I do not know why pagans killed so many Christians? I would guess it might have something to do with the proselytizing efforts of Christianity and the threat that posed to the survival of paganism. Jews you know do not proselytize. In fact, Rabbis are supposed to dissuade any Gentile that comes to them with the desire to convert.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

I would not have thought of those tribes as Germans, Walter, although it's not a sufficiently important point to me to insist on it. I'd see the people of the eastern Baltic littoral as more nearly related to Slavs.

That could be less than complimentary to some.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

I try never to encourage Foofie . . . he can come up with gems all by himself, without encouragement from us.

Want an adorable euphemism: "gem."

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@Foofie,

Foofie wrote:

Since Jews wandered into Germany some time after having Jerusalem decimated by the Romans, they could not have founded Jewish villages, unless the pagans accepted them without hostility.

The were a couple of Jewish settlements already in Roman Germany (notable the one in Cologne, mentioned in 321.)
In the first towns (with town constitutions), Jews were citizens like others: ceteris cives .

Foofie wrote:

Regardless, the Germanic tribes allowed them to settle (supposedly on the shores of some river called the Ashkenazi river. Get it "Ashkenazi Jews").

That theory sounds quite adventurous. As far as I know, Ashkenaz" is the Medieval Hebrew name for the Rhinish-Southern part of Germany - Ashkenaz's father Gomer being associated with the Germanic tribes. (That's at least, what not only most historians but also researchers from the "Zentralarchiv zur Erforschung der Geschichte derJuden in Deutschland" [Central archive for the study of the history of Jews in Germany, an institution of the Central Council of Jews in Germany] say.)

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

I'd see the people of the eastern Baltic littoral as more nearly related to Slavs.

I foresee trouble on the Lake Ontario shore.

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@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

When it comes to evaluating Christianity, it really doesn't matter whether a legend or myth or custom or symbol is similar to somebody else or intentionally copied from somebody else. When such legend, myth, or custom is used as illustration rather than doctrine or canon law, it doesn't matter whether it is true or not. What does matter is the intent of the portrayal and the universal truths contained within it.

So you're saying that it doesn't matter if the accounts of Jesus's life are true or not. All that matters is that the basic concepts of Christianity arose somehow and now exist.

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How much of Christianity is based on Paganism?

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