Early Christians and the resurrection

[Ursus]

http://www.slate.com/id/2186654/

[Centurion Marcus Valerius]

Interesting article. It inspired me to comb the web for references to resurrection in the Mysteries of Mithra, the cult that originated in Persia.

 

The god Mithra has many parallels to Jesus. It's a fascinating topic to explore. Among the parallels, I recall reading that Mithra was said to have been resurrected. On a quick second glance, it seems this is a controversial assertion and difficult to prove.

 

 

 

RSG

Author of No Roads Lead to Rome

Edited July 7, 2010 by Centurion Marcus Valerius

[Novosedoff]

Those who read the Bible carefully can even find certain evidence that Christians were well aware of reincarnation. Take for instance Matthew 11:11-14 or Matthew 17:10-13, John 9:2 🙂

 

[caldrail]

Christianity still talks about the 'Resurrection' even though the significance is almost ignored today. It was originally a promise that worshippers would be brought back to life in a world free of pain, death, and torment. That was why early Christians were so keen to inter the dead complete, so the revived would not be short of a limb or two.

[Novosedoff]

I think in Europe the idea of reincarnation was popularized mainly through the Pythagorean community a few centuries before Jesus, but the attribution or origin of the belief must have been in the East, because Hinduism and later Buddhism all seemed to be full of reincarnation ideas and they had been around long before Pythagoreans came.

The funny thing is that Pythagoreans are viewed as heresy by the official modern Christian church (all of them) for that very same thing of sharing belief in reincarnation despite the fact that the very founder of Christianity, Christ himself, must have had a very different and rather positive view of it 🙂 That's how far the modern Christianity has diverted from what its founder meant to be.

[caldrail]

Jesus was not the founder of Christianity. Does that sound odd? The jury is still out on whether he actually existed.

The beliefs that Jesus (presumed real name Yeshua) followed were derived from those already in existence. Sure, he had his own take on it, but he operated as a charismatic preacher rather than a cult leader, and inevitably that meant his popularity as a speaker doomed him regardless of what he was talking about. Jesus wasn't the first or the only such preacher to be removed by the authorities in Judaea, never mind the ancient world.

Then we have the period when Proto-Christian cults are being founded here and there, most famously by Paul.

Christianity emerges as the Roman church from the attempted unification of various sects within the empire during the 4th century. It is interesting that the Graeco-Roman split of the later empire is reflected by a later split between Catholic and Orthodox churches (mostly because the Pope tried to boss around the Patriarch in Byzantium). The heresies as defined by the Nicene Creed were not entirely crushed, and later Churches, some of them significant, emerge every so often in the historical record. But note that early Christianity were borrowing ideas from the rival Mithraic religion (and complaining that Mithraism was copying them), and that certain aspects of mythology, namely the 'Miracles', were borrowed from India. It was just too much of a coincidence to think of them all independently.

[Novosedoff]

Well, I shall agree with most of the things you've written, caldrail.

Though I do believe that there must have been a real protagonist for the whole Christian story - how many, one or more, doesn't really matter. Otherwise any attempts to record many times the same fiction story lacking anything real behind it would seem a little odd in terms of hours of  someone's work 🙂 I also believe that there must have been some real inspiration not only for Jesus, but for Paul as well.

We need to better understand the realities of the ancient Mediterranean world back then. Semites used to be the dominant power of the whole region, they were populous,  perhaps even represented 1.5-2% of the world population back then (which is comparable with today's Russian share of the world population) and Romans experienced real troubles trying to establish their own order and kick Semites out of Sicily, then Spain and finally out of northern Africa over the course of 3 Punic wars before they even launched their final incursion into the most wild semite region of Palestine. One must be very naive to think that the transition of power from Semites to Romans over the region could be peaceful.

Paul's sect must have been just one of many other dozens of early Jewish sects that arose during that period, many Jewish sects were decentralised and independent from each other. The Paul's sect was pro-Roman and had close affiliations even with the very top of Roman ruling elite (St Pudens as senator's son is just one example named among the seventy disciples, while seventy disciples are often regarded as nothing less but the 2nd generation succeeding the very first 12 apostles of Jesus' own gang). Most importantly Paul's sect was effectively the one behind the modern Catholic church. Even Constantine and later emperors couldn't undermine the political authority of that early Roman organisation by establishing their own home-grown orthodox episcopacy as counter balancer to it.

Syncretism was widespread in the ancient world. No wonder many Eastern ideas were absorbed and survived in the written sources of later Christianity.

[caldrail]

Even Constantine and later emperors couldn't undermine the political authority of that early Roman organisation by establishing their own home-grown orthodox episcopacy as counter balancer to it.

Constantine never had any issues with any such authority. Why would he encourage to amalgamation of existing Christian sects and offer them patronage if they were competing for power? Sorry, that doesn't add up. He wanted their communal influence to help weld his factional empire together, and as a military man, identified readily with the priest and congregation style of worship. The Bishops were only too keen to comply, given they were benefitting with wealth and land ("The roads were filled with galloping Bishops..." Ammianus Marcellinus). Certainly that influence was something Roman that survived the end of the Western Empire, and indeed, the Catholic Church would have extreme control over hearts and minds by the eleventh century, but that influence had grown to that point, not existent before the Council of Nicaea in 325.

[caldrail]

•  103
• 5,987 posts
• Gender:Male
• Location:Darkest Wiltshire, England
• Interests:Find out more on my blog here at UNRV. Go on, treat yourself...

•  

Posted 1 minute ago

 

  Quote

Even Constantine and later emperors couldn't undermine the political authority of that early Roman organisation by establishing their own home-grown orthodox episcopacy as counter balancer to it.

 

Constantine never had any issues with any such authority. Why would he encourage the amalgamation of existing Christian sects and offer them patronage if they were competing for power? Sorry, that doesn't add up. He wanted their communal influence to help weld his factional empire together, and as a military man, identified readily with the priest and congregation style of worship. The Bishops were only too keen to comply, given they were benefitting with wealth and land ("The roads were filled with galloping Bishops..." Ammianus Marcellinus). Certainly that influence was something Roman that survived the end of the Western Empire, and indeed, the Catholic Church would have extreme control over hearts and minds by the eleventh century, but that influence had grown to that point, not existent before the Council of Nicaea in 325.

[Novosedoff]

Well, Constantine knew very little to nothing about any authorities except for his own 🙂 He was more like a twisted army serge with rather limited knowledge of any religious matters he oversaw, that's why thanks God he barely spoke at the Nicean council.

Have you ever wondered WHY the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople was founded?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecumenical_Patriarch_of_Constantinople#Early_history

The conflict between the Eastern and Western churches was everlasting, it started perhaps in 1st century AD when  Roman bishop Clement tried to lecture the Corinthian priests, the later pope Victor attempted to lecture the Eastern church how to celebrate the Easter festivals. In the 3rd century the Carthaginian bishop Cyprian and the Roman pope Stephanus had a dispute over whether heretics should be allowed to re-join the church again. In 4th century there was a conflict between the Eastern and Western churches over the destiny of Athanasius of Alexandria. Perhaps the most interesting is the Council of Chalcedon of 451 and the dispute over canon 28 about the bishop of which church has a higher authority.

Edited November 28, 2021 by Novosedoff