Syncretism

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FightingFat

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I recently posted a question on the ask an appologist forum forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=363564#post363564 which was answered by Jim Blackburn- thank you Jim. I would however, like to try my arm in the open forum and see if I can start a discussion that might help me with my current debate. Here is my post;

I am very interested in the arguments surrounding the historicity of Jesus. I am particularly struggling in a debate I am having with someone who could be described as Gnostic. The discussion is based around syncretism, where direct equivalents to the annunciation, virgin birth etc have been discovered in Egyptian mythology.
I have had some success debating with other Christians as to the validity of our faith, but I haven’t really faced this sort of argument before- ie that Jesus is a myth and that Josephus and similar sources have beed altered by Christians after the event to reflect proof of his existence.

I would really appreciate some help and guidance in this debate.
So basically, I am debating with someone who is not really happy to accept the standard historical evidence and argues based on syncretism- is there anyone who can help me pick apart the argument that all Christianity has a basis in pre-Christian mythos?
 
The point being- I need to dispute the sycretic theories…Find an argument that shows that Christianity is not based on a collection of earlier myths. I need to do this without using the usual historical sources that we use for the historicity if Jesus…Someone must know how to help me here!!!
 
I have a younger brother (Age 19) who is a fallen away Catholic who for a long time bought into the various “Christianity is Pagan” idea circulated on internet and other places. I bought him a book for Christmas written by a Protestant called THE GOSPEL AND THE GREEKS which deals with Pagan hypothesis and is only book I know written on this from a Christian point of view.
 
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FightingFat:
I recently posted a question on the ask an appologist forum forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=363564#post363564 which was answered by Jim Blackburn- thank you Jim. I would however, like to try my arm in the open forum and see if I can start a discussion that might help me with my current debate. Here is my post;

I am very interested in the arguments surrounding the historicity of Jesus. I am particularly struggling in a debate I am having with someone who could be described as Gnostic. The discussion is based around syncretism, where direct equivalents to the annunciation, virgin birth etc have been discovered in Egyptian mythology.
I have had some success debating with other Christians as to the validity of our faith, but I haven’t really faced this sort of argument before- ie that Jesus is a myth and that Josephus and similar sources have beed altered by Christians after the event to reflect proof of his existence.

I would really appreciate some help and guidance in this debate.
So basically, I am debating with someone who is not really happy to accept the standard historical evidence and argues based on syncretism- is there anyone who can help me pick apart the argument that all Christianity has a basis in pre-Christian mythos?
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Hi Fat
I don’t know if this will help but you might want to mention the Roman Historian Tacitus as he briefly documented Jesus Christ in the Annals of Rome.

classics.mit.edu/Tacitus/annals.11.xv.html

I don’t know how christians could have influenced this document authored by a pagan roman.

Josiah
 
Yes, He’s coming around. The book mentioned is especially good in dealing with the “mystery cults”. Also I’ve found that a lot of the “Christianity is Pagan” websites are Muslim in origin if you do a little digging.
 
Syncretism gets most of its mileage from a logical fallacy: Similarity means common descent. One finds the fallacy trotted out against both the Christian faith in general, and the Catholic Church in particular. In general, a syncretist will observe that legends of dying and rising “gods” exist in other cultures; therefore, there must be a common religion at the base of all human religions. In particular, we can recall some of the slanderous assertions about our Blessed Mother, who is sometimes equated to an ancient fertility goddess. The assertion is that Catholics have somehow adopted that practice, and applied it to the Blessed Virgin Mary, but the only similarity is that, in both cases, veneration is accorded to a female entity.

I confess to having little time for lengthy pursuits with people who are flogging the dead horse of a logical fallacy. After I point out the fallacy, I invite them to offer evidence that the supposed similarity indeed bespeaks a common root (no one has ever done so that I’ve found), and when they can’t, I see little point in continuing to be a lay figure for their faulty logic. If that sounds harsh, perhaps it is, but also syncretism was one of the very earliest cancers that attacked the faith; it still attacks it; and, it still does harm.

Blessings,

Gerry
 
Thanks Gerry! That’s really useful! Can you tell me then, one can draw similarities between many Christian beliefs and early eygyptian ones, even the manger, do you know these parallels and choose to ignore them? Or do you have a reason for disbelieving that many beliefs that became Christian were once pagan?
 
hey fighting - your questions seem to be coming from an error in reason. (i know that they’re not YOUR questions, but those of your friend) just because there were stories that even predated christianity, which have elements in them that we see IN christianity, doesn’t mean that the elements were ‘adopted’ into the christian story contrary to what really happened.

cs lewis addresses this idea on a fundamental level when he talks about christianity being a myth. throughout ancient mythology, you see stories of gods dying and rising from the dead. in ancient folklore, you read of floods destroying the earth. these things don’t detract from the veracity of the christian worldview - they show its truth.

lewis points out that these themes -dying gods, etc- are basic jungian archetypes, deep seated symbols that we humans find deeply embedded in our psyches. all the best stories employ these archetypes - cups and dragons and virgins and snakes and gardens.

lewis then goes on to say that christianity is certainly mythical. it is a myth in that it employs the archetypes found in the best mythological stories. it just happens to be the only myth we know of that is also literally true. it really happened.

now, from one perspective, i can see sceptics going ‘oh, WELL! that’s very convenient, isn’t it? yours just happens to be TRUE… well, how do i know THAT?’ well, there IS quite a bit of historical proof for the life of Christ. but that’s not the direction i would go.

i would say this: how did those archetypes get into our psyches? why do those particular themes strike such rich chords in the human mind? our answer, of course, is that God put them there. He created us. He gave us our psyches. He knew that He would come and die and rise from the dead. so those elements are IN us, in an irreducible way. when we hear the gospel story, it strikes us on a level beyond our intelligence, beyond our reason. it strikes our soul.

so of course any story written before His time that USED these elements would be much BETTER than other stories that DIDN’T use such elements. they’d be the ones we remember, and retell.

there is also, in lewis, a ‘prefigurement’ idea. we see Christ fulfilling ancient OT predictions regarding His life. well, in a sense, He also fulfilled many pagan ideas of god and man. one sees this especially in the writings of plato, which are so easily seen reflected in the writings of john. logos is the easiest example, but there are others. did john steal from plato? many say yes. but it can easily be seen that if plato were very wise, he would be pointing to something true. and if Jesus were Truth itself, plato would be pointing, albeit sometimes ineffectively or erringly, to Him.

please feel free to ask questions or take apart my arguments. there’s more about the flood i could say, but time and space restrain me.

thank goodness. 😉
 
Brilliant stuff thanks Jeff, now we’re getting somewhere!
jeffready789:
hey fighting - your questions seem to be coming from an error in reason.
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I was hoping someone would say that! 😃

One thing I have learned about my faith is not to panic, just pray and stay calm…The answer is there no matter what argument you are confronted with!

OK, this is the guy’s basic argument is that Jesus is a myth. This is how he backs up that statement: -
Origin of the myth… The story was in existence for thousands of years before the invention of Christianity, only the names were different. Every other minute detail was identical. The story got turned into the Jesus myth about 300 B.C.E. by the first Gnostic Christians. Their teachings were catching on and becoming popular so this new Jesus story was adopted by the RC orthodoxy to be the vehicle of their new conspiracy. They adopted the story, concealed a lot of the old mystery teachings into it, somehow twisted the idea that Jesus was a real person out of it (though none of the older Gnostic texts ever spoke of Jesus as a real person and none recognized him as such). And BTW, these aren’t theories, they are facts. As for the instances of the historicity of Jesus, all the examples you mention have been disputed. There is just as much evidence and belief that they are forgeries and later Christian additions than there is evidence that they are genuine. Therefore they cannot be taken as fact and any belief one puts in them one way or the other is a personal deduction based on the reaearch one tends to believe. Based on the way the RC orthodoxy went about bringing their agenda into power tells me they have no qualms about lying and distorting the truth to fit their needs so I find it very hard to believe their side.
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What do you make of it?
 
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FightingFat:
Thanks Gerry! That’s really useful! Can you tell me then, one can draw similarities between many Christian beliefs and early eygyptian ones, even the manger, do you know these parallels and choose to ignore them? Or do you have a reason for disbelieving that many beliefs that became Christian were once pagan?
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The parallels are there, and there is nothing gained in denying that. But the fundamental difference between, say, Egyptian religions and Christianity is that Egyptian beliefs came out of man’s search for God, and the Christian faith comes out of God’s search – reaching out, really – for man. In revealing Himself, God used the material at hand. He appeared to Moses, for instance, as a burning bush which was not consumed. The symbol of fire would be well known to Moses, and the failure for the bush to be consumed would certainly get his attention.

Man found some truth in his search for God, but overall, he got it wrong. Since all truth is of God, the fullness of the revelation He gave to man included those truths that man had figured out. The classic thing that man typically got wrong was the transcendent nature of God, which makes Him distinct from, and apart from (though imminently present in) creation. CS Lewis wrote that left to his own devices, man tends to come up with pantheism, and history bears him out. However, syncretistic systems tend to gloss that difference over, and it is not to be so glossed.

Lewis also argued that only an atheist is compelled to argue that absolutely everything is incorrect in all religions. The Christian can acknowledge that, left to his own devices, man came up with a series of answers, some of which were closer to the correct answer than others, but the correct answer was not worked out by man at all, but revealed by God to man. Syncretists like to talk about the “many roads built up the mountain,” all of which (it is claimed) lead to the same place, and so one road cannot be preferred to another. However, the Christian points out that one road was built DOWN the mountain by God for man to use, and that there can be no question of allowing as the man-built roads are as good as that one.

My chief complaint about syncretism is that it claims the differences do not matter. But yes, they do, and very much, and we get nowhere fast pretending otherwise.

Blessings,

Gerry
 
Mankind has since the beginning been endowed with an intellect created to connect his mind to spiritual realities. Man is the only animal capable of apprehending eternal realities because of the intellect. This gave man an ability to define his life experience from the information drawn from two orders of reality, the reality of things in a state of becoming, and the eternal or spiritual realm. This is also the primary purpose of free will.

After the fall, our ability to apprehend the truth of eternal realities without ambiguity was lost. In as much as we are unbalanced toward the material physical part of reality we are incapable of apprehending truth.

The religions of the world, especially the one’s in the book you mentioned, all have creation stories. If you subscribe to the notion that we all came from a single family archetypical man and woman it is easily explained how from that group several mythologies would develope. In Adam’s line the ‘true’ story or the ‘true myth’ of the original family was presrved in the book of Genesis and this story eventually developed into the traditions and people and then the Church and bible.

Cain was cast out of the garden and began a whole different culture with the original story cast into the shade of his perception not to mention his desires and sin. There were probably off shoot cultures from both of these lines that formed cultures and myths colored by their particular twist on the family of man as well.

So down the timeline of history we have several religions reporting similar stories and beliefs but each shaded according to their particular baggage carried by their particular ancestor founders who are probably mixed into their religious myth as well.

The god’s of egypt and greece are linked to persons of the past such as seth. I read Horus is a son of Seth.

So the divine logos has always been available to all cultures throughout history. The measure of truth of any culture or religion down the ages is the measure their intellect was capable of apprehending it. Which again, was in the measure they were pure. Each great culture seemed to start out noble and run the course through decadence and superstition and then collapse. The Greeks were probably the most impressive in apprehending truth entirely by intellect and very little if any real theophany or intervention from God. I mean the great philosophers starting with Socrates.

When Christ came, the mythology already established in the world pointed to Him in the measure they were true. Something I like to say ( cuz I made it up) is " Myth only points but Truth Happened!"

I risk rambling on so I’ll stop here, if you would like clarification or if I’ve raised other questions in your mind I’ll be glad to help.
 
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