Gilgamesh, a Mesopotamian king/hero.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gilgamesh
For you christians, read up on him. The miracles, the virgin birth, the crucifixion the coming back to life....all Gilgamesh not jesus!
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I think the definition of religion should go somewhat like this: "A set of archaic principals, stipulations, and beliefs characterized by the absorption of older beliefs as part of the new mythos."
"Here is where most of the stories about jesus actually come from..."
Perhaps indirectly, I don't know of any solid evidence that early creators of Christianity were copying directly from the Epic of Gilgamesh or that they were even aware of it. There have been many similar stories in other cultures of the region and I think it's more reasonable to surmise that Christianity grew out of some combination of many of these legends.
Also, Gilgamesh may have been the seminal story, or it may just be the oldest incarnation that we have a record of. There may have been prior versions.
@C.M.Allen ......
I think you are probably right about older myths "hanging around" ,periodically being repeatedly re-worked and adapted as circumstances required......
I would cite the repeated use of the abandoned child motif , found and raised by a "foster family" before being taken up by a royal family...
It appears in the Oedipus cycle ,
then further back in the Moses birth myth ,
then again in the Sargon birth story ,
and once more in the Hindu Kama in the Sanskrit Mahabarata.
Truly ,it seems that religion is a "Pick & Mix" activity.
@Watchman: "abandoned child motif"
That one even reached Japan in the form of the Momotaro (Peach Boy) story. A baby is found inside a giant peach floating down a river.
@Algebe..
Indeed.... there are vary many of these stories.... Romulus and Remus is yet another version...
"The Flood " is another wide spread theme.... There are many and they seem to cross fertilize each other over time and geographic areas ....
Well put.
I'd bet stories like these can die down and live as local legends for centuries in a society before being revived as new revelation again and again.
1. I am yet to find one god that doesn't do miracles, so the idea that this is proof that Jesus was made up is preposterous.
2. I am yet to find a source which claims that Gilgamesh had a virgin birth. "(T)here is no account of Gilgamesh’s miraculous birth or childhood legends." http://www.ancient-literature.com/other_gilgamesh.html
3. I cannot find any source which says how, specifically, Gilgamesh dies.
4. "Lord Gilgamec has lain down and is never to rise again...has lain down and is never to rise again... shoulder-belt has lain down and is never to rise again." - It says that he will never rise again several more times. http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1/tr1813.htm
Most of the parallelisms drawn are pretty strained. OP says that Gilgamesh was half human and half divine (half god) but so many demigods did have this characteristic.
The resurrection: Gilgamesh precedes jesus by 2700+ years
http://realitysandwich.com/5642/the_resurrection_before_jesus/
Crucified "saviors" that precede jesus:
Here is Graves' main list, arranged chronologically:
Thulis of Egypt, 1700 B. C.
Chrishna of India, 1200 B.C.
Crite of Chaldea, 1200 B.C.
Atys of Phrygia, 1170 B.C.
Thammuz or Tammuz of Syria, 1160 B.C.
Hesus or Eros 834 B.C.
Bali of Orissa, 725 B.C.
Indra of Thibet (Tibet), 725 B.C.
More items...
The rising from the dead as gods:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2012/04/jesus-just-one-more-d...
Born of virgins myths:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miraculous_births
The flood myth:
http://time.com/44631/noah-christians-flood-aronofsky/
ALSO, READ the fucking title. It says where MOST of the stories come from!
1. "The resurrection: Gilgamesh precedes jesus by 2700+ years" - Your 'source' fails to quote the actual 'Epic of Gilgamesh', whereas I did.
2. "Crucified "saviors" that precede jesus: Here is Graves' main list, arranged chronologically" - Uh yeah. Several problems found:
Graves often does not distinguish his opinions and theories from what his sources and evidence actually state.
Graves often omits important sources and evidence.
Graves often mistreats in a biased way the sources he does use.
Graves occasionally relies on suspect sources.
Graves does little or no source analysis or formal textual criticism.
Graves' conclusions and theories often far exceed what the evidence justifies, and he treats both speculations and sound theories as of equal value.
And again I posted PRIMARY sources. I found a PDF of the book done by Grave's and I couldn't find a single source, only quotation marks around certain words, with no reference or citation.
3. "The rising from the dead as gods:"
a. Tammuz dies yearly, Jesus died only once. Tammuz also goes to the underworld, Jesus has never been.
b. Osirus doesn't really come back from the dead; the body his destroyed, but his (I guess it would be called) 'conscious' lives on as a member of the shadowy underworld.
c. The best account we have of Dionysus coming back, which reads "Dionysus (was) torn in pieces by them, and his remains being afterwards put together again, he returned as it were once more to life, and ascended into heaven". There is a problem though, this was written by CHURCH FATHER Origen, roughly 2-and-a-half centuries after Jesus.
d. Edwin M. Yamauchi, professor of history at Miami University, Ohio, in his article Easter: Myth, Hallucination, or History states, “P. Lambrechts has shown that there is no trace of a resurrection in the early texts or pictorial representations of Adonis; the four texts that speak of his resurrection are quite late, dating from the second to the fourth centuries A.D. "A Zeal for God Not According to Knowledge" writes that "no sources refer to the second century, pictorial or literary, mention Adonis's resurrection."
e. Attis: AJM Wedderburn writes: "At least down to the mid second century C.E the rites of Attis were ones of mourning, unmixed with any joy at resurrection...Wagner follows Nilsson in seeing the first mention of a resurrection of Attis in the Fourth Century C.E." In 'Mother of the Gods: From Cybele to the Virgin Mary', "It is therefore between the third and fourth centuries, and most likely under Christian influence, that the ideology of Attis' resurrection was developed"
4. "Born of virgins myths:" - Only a couple of these are virgin births. Please tell me if I missed any.
a. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horus: "Horus was born to the goddess Isis after she retrieved all the dismembered body parts of her murdered husband Osiris, except his penis, which was thrown into the Nile and eaten by a catfish,[7][8] or sometimes depicted as instead by a crab, and according to Plutarch's account used her magic powers to resurrect Osiris and fashion a golden phallus[9] to conceive her son (older Egyptian accounts have the penis of Osiris surviving)." - Not virgin birth. (But gross af)
b. Dionysus: Daniel B. Wallace writes,"The virgin birth of the pagan god Dionysus is attested only in post-Christian sources...several centuries after Christ." (Reinventing Jesus, p. 242).
c. Mithra: Despite the claims of obvious and profound parallels between Christianity and Mithraism, when one looks at the evidence an entirely different picture emerges. First, Mithra was not thought of as virgin born in the most ancient myths; rather, he arose spontaneously from a rock in a cave." (Cited in Reinventing Jesus, p. 242). Lee Strobel adds, "Unless the rock is considered a virgin, this parallel with Jesus evaporates." (The Case for the Real Jesus, p. 171).
d. Vishnu (and a tiny bit of Hercules): Charlie Campbell says, "The Zeitgeist movie says that Krishna, a supposed incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, was born of a virgin. Edwin Yamauchi says, "That's not accurate. Krishna was born to a mother who already had seven previous sons, as even his followers concede." (Quoted by Lee Strobel in The Case for the Real Jesus, p. 182).Dr. William Lane Craig says, "The alleged pagan parallels to this story [the story of the Virgin Birth, or, more accurately, Jesus' virginal conception] concern tales of gods' assuming bodily form and having sexual intercourse with human females to sire divine-human progeny (like Hercules). As such these stories are exactly the opposite of the Gospel story of Mary's conceiving Jesus apart from any sexual relations. The Gospel stories of Jesus' virginal conception are, in fact, without parallel in the ancient Near East." (From online article by William Craig, "Jesus and Pagan Mythology")
Try this site: http://www.alwaysbeready.com/zeitgeist-the-movie
5. "The flood myth:" - Basically, all the 'sources we have', is the 'Epic of Gilgamesh' and Genesis. Both talk of a colossal flood. I believe that they both talk of the same flood, but the Epic was written close to after it was finished, but Genesis was written quite a bit after.
UnKnown,
The Bible says that Yeshua went to hell for a couple of hours.
Where?
It's in the Apostles' Creed. Google "Harrowing of Hell." Between the crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus is supposed to have gone down into hell bring salvation to all the righteous people who had ever lived, though why the righteous were in hell I can't imagine.
Actually, that text could also be read as, “descended into the dead”.
In the Christian tradition, it’s believed that the gates of heaven were closed when Adam and Eve first sinned. As a result, no soul could go into heaven even if they lived a good life (with a few exemptions). It was through Christ’s sacrifice that he destroyed death and opened the gates of heaven so the souls who were dead could have eternal life. So naturally, he’d have to “descend into the dead” to raise them up to eternal life.
Note: this is just an FYI. You don’t have to believe it. Just giving info on a Christian teachings that are usually misrepresented.
Another FYI. The Apostles Creed isn’t in the Bible.
Jon the Catholic,
According to the fairy tale no one goes to heaven, except Yeshua. Everyone goes to one of three destinations = the sea, death, or hell. The good news is that all three are temporary and everyone makes bail on Judgment Day. At that time you will either get into the golden cube or get tossed into the lake of fire, along with death and hell. So you won't spend eternity in hell if you are a Bible believer. However, for muslims and some other religions eternal hell is the option to a version of heaven or paradise.
And remember, the biblical golden cube isn't really heaven. It's on a waterless planet that doesn't have any darkness. You're stuck in the golden cube behind a tall wall forever. Other religions have better heavens and paradises.
What religion are you talking about?
Jon, you said, "As a result, no soul could go into heaven even if they lived a good life (with a few exemptions). It was through Christ’s sacrifice that he destroyed death and opened the gates of heaven so the souls who were dead could have eternal life."
If your heaven is your god's house, and if your god is all powerful, why do you suppose your god needed to go through a blood sacrifice of himself to reopen his own gates?
He didn’t need to do anything, really. It’s what he chose to do. And he chose to do this to show us the way to heaven.
Interesting. I guess it's a good thing that most parents use other tools to teach their children or the human race would have died out long ago...
@Jon
Heaven:Seems to me, all the people it would be most interesting to talk to are in the other place.
Oh and for all you christians that want a link or proof. Of course I provided them some of them not all because the proof is overwhelming, but anyway, why don't you christians just have FUCKING FAITH instead of trying(unsuccessfully) to nitpick.
The point is that there is no story original to the jesus myth. Every story precedes jesus by centuries plus!
@mykcob4: "The point is that there is no story original to the jesus myth. Every story precedes jesus by centuries plus!"
So logically the Pyramids built in South America 3000 years ago were also copy of Egyptian Pyramids? Or was it the Egyptian who were the copyist? or was it just coincidence?
They are over than 10 000 km apart, separated by vast ocean and vast land mass.
"or was it just coincidence"
You say that like that couldn't possibly be the solution.
Remember : you are a single speck, living on a planet, that revolves around a star, which is one of many stars in the galaxy that revolves around our central supermassive black hole.
And all of this exists by coincidence and chance (unless you are of the opinion that aliens created life on earth. And even then, that dosent take care of the sheer coincidence and chance that is the rest of the universe.)
So, to say that two societies couldn't have had the same idea at the same time seems slightly moronic to me.
Zwalja there is a big difference between the pyramids of Egypt and South/Central America.
The jesus myth comes from cultures near to Jerusalem, not unknown continents. The jesus myth was derived from the oral and written history of myths that preceded jesus but were relatively near or accessible to the jewish people....AKA the known world of the time.
@zwalja
I personally believe that it's entirely possible there was great deal more in the way of trade and discovery going on in ancient times than written history credits. It's not impossible that someone from the Middle East didn't get to South America long ago. Read up on Thor Heyerdahl. Mykob4 is right. It's also possible that myths similar to those told about Gilgamesh were extant before the Sumerian civilisation, but that story is certainly a link in the chain.
"So, to say that two societies couldn't have had the same idea at the same time seems slightly moronic to me."
We are not on evolution topic here, merely about if Jesus entity was a copied product of the past before it. I don't think it was. But I read different book concerning the son of Mary.
I didn't say we were. That statement had nothing to do with evolution. Stop tossing red herrings all over the place.
Most pieces of modern religion are scavenged from the carcasses of preceding beliefs.
@Discere: "Most pieces of modern religion are scavenged from the carcasses of preceding beliefs".
It is originated from the same source, yes that is the Islamic stance, one author.
You misunderstood. When I say scavenged from the carcasses of preceding beliefs, I'm not saying they came from the same author.
I'm saying every modern religion is a Frankensteinian monster composed of differing parts of extinct ancient beliefs, held together by a shambling framework so unstable that to the outside observer it seems impossible it could be one thing. That is how I see every modern religion. Islam. Christianity. Catholicism. Hinduism. Ect.