Possible Influences on Christianity

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I have read some articles that cite how Christianity is in essence an amalgamation of different folklore over the centuries. Things like virgin births, etc are mentioned in other cultures. How do we defend that Christianity is true, unique, and not a copycat?

dxu
 
You know, this sounds like the kind of stuff my sons got when they took a “religion” course in college. The professor found bits and pieces here and there and tried to create a conspiracy of sorts to support the notion you present.

When you take the totality of those “other things” they do not hold water at all. When you look at the totality of Christianity (Catholicism) the Truth is unmistakable.
 
Oh look ancient religions promoted a belief in gods and Christianity believes in a god…see how they must have copied each other…I mean is so obvious.

If God is trully revealed through creation then different faiths in their search for God will inevitably come to make similar assignations to the attributes of God(s).

E.g…all powerful and thunder … caring and fertility etc…

Also think about this, if B has attributes pertaining to A it does not necessarily follow that A caused B…there can always be another entity (C) from which both A and B obtained those attributes from. It could also be that A and B are completely separate and by chance ended up having those similarities.

Take for example the eye, if memory serves me right there are over 300+ non-related eye designs in the animal kingdom. That is 300 completely independent evolutionary designs for vision. It would be very tempting to try to link all these to one premordial eye design but the reality is they evolved separately.

well that’s all I have to say for now

God bless

Alex
 
The only thing that leas to the Catholic Church and our belief system, the only religion that contributed to it what so ever was Judaism. I am so sick and tired of people making up this kind of **** to tear down our beliefs. The Catholic is the new Jewish Faith people, we are the second covenant, and we are now God’s chosen people.
 
Hi Snowman,

“It came after it , therefore it was caused by it”. This is a logical fallacy that is very frequent. Just because various religious forms preceded Christianity, it does not mean that Christianity is derived from them.

Christianity is a revealed religion. Jesus claimed to speak for God, died,was buried and resurrected. Without the resurrection, a historical fact, our religion is vain and, as St. Paul says, “We are the unhappiest of men.”

This does not mean that Christianity, in its expression, might not have been influenced by other movements. For example, in the gospel of St. John, we read of Jesus as the “Word”. This expression comes from Greek philosophy, dating back as far as 500 BC, with Heraclitus. In the Hellenic mind the “logos” is a positive force for good, but it has nothing to do with St.John’s “logos”, who is God and creator of all things.

Verbum
 
I hope nobody thinks that I am claiming Christianity to be an amalgamation of folklore of many cultures. I was just asking how to answer this when someone brings it up. I just want to defend our faith!

all the best,
dxu
 
Grace & Peace!

Verbum is quite right–Christianity is a revealed religion. People just didn’t make it up. But how that religion, how that faith, is expressed, what terminology is used, the shape of the liturgy, has been expressed through human culture and community.

Greek philosophy was vital in this expression of Christian religion–look at Origen’s letter to St. Gregory the Thaumaturge in which he states that, just as the Israelites brought from Egypt gold with which to adorn the Temple, Christians should not be afraid to adorn Christianity with whatever is true (“gold”) in pagan philosophy. In other words, where there is truth, there is Christ.

Similarly, Clement and Dionysius use terminology borrowed from the mystery religions. Some believe Clement was a convert from a mystery religion. And Dionysius discussed the sacraments in terms of Iamblichus’ and Neoplantonic theurgy. So what? The liturgy is theurgy! It is “God-working” (theurgy) through “People-working” (liturgy).

Christian worship developed through its contact with Judaism and the mystery religions. Does that make Christianity derivative? No. It points to the truly Catholic nature of the church–it embraces truth where it finds it–it cannot help but to seek, find, and cling to Christ. By using elements of Jewish and pagan worship, Christianity Baptised them and offered them to the Father through Christ. Is this extraordinary? Yes! It’s a miracle of Love! Is it derivative? I don’t think so.

I tend to think of it as creative!

Under the Mercy,
Mark

Deo Gratias!
 
You hit it on the head it is called the copycat thesis and historians don’t take this thesis seriously at all. In fact, every history society meeting among historians often someone makes a joke about it. I wonder where John copied that recipe from?

tektonics.org/copycat/copycathub.html

freerepublic.com/forum/a3b3a47345f84.htm

google.com/search?hl=en&q=copycat+thesis+refuted

christian-thinktank.com/copycat.html

abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread13943/pg1

google.com/search?hl=en&q=copycat+thesis+examined

The Jehovah’s Witnesses like to use this thesis on the Trinity. If you examine their historical proofs there is not even similiarity at all. Atheists will use the example of fall - spring cycle to claim it is an example of death and resurrection. In fall, plants fall asleep, die, in spring to spring to life, resurrection. If you think about it, if the Trinity examples were good parallels to the biblical trinity, then it would make sense that Satan before his fall, would see the Trinue God, and thus would make a counterfeit of the Trinity because he knew that to be what God is like. The other day at the hardware store, I saw a three dollar bill, it was an advertisement bill. But, even the teenager working the counter was not going to accept it as cash. Now if the guy had a counterfeit twenty, he may have gotten change from her. So, if Satan were to make up counterfiet Trinities, it would make sense to make counterfiets of the real godhead.

Historians’ Fallacies : Toward a Logic of Historical Thought (Paperback) by David H. Fischer

Tell anyone who takes the copycat thesis seriously to read Fischers’ book.

Basically, to prove that there is copycat one must have the exact same concepts, phyiscal objects, and same exact meaning of such. If you read copycat examples, and research the gods they refer to, you will see that they fudging big time to make something fit. I once ran accross an new ager who redefined resurrection to mean reincarnation to say that Jesus copied from a hindu god.
 
Christianity has always made use of non-Christian intellectual material to try and better understand itself. St Thomas once said ‘Anything which is true (wherever it is) comes from the Holy Spirit.’

It is true some of the ideas of Christian faith have some material in common with mystery religions, Neo-Platonic Philosophy, Aristotle’s philosophy, Stoic Philosophy, and also Greek metaphysics. These ideas are well traced in the scholarly literature and are available to anyone who wants to do some research. In terms of the Bible itself, there are many excellent commentaries which pretty much take apart the influences bit by bit, though different scholars have differing ideas.
 
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