The Resurrection

[juantoo3]

Well, I think the title Son of God is exactly related to this, the point being that not the Ceasar but Jesus is the annointed one. Yeah, it is political and it is half of the equation of why he was in hot water.

Yes, but...

As much as the terminology seems to automatically draw flak, I *need* to see Jesus in the context of his day and time. If the phrase "historical Jesus" somehow evokes some quasi-political knee-jerk disengagement, I'm sorry but that is not my doing. The *fact* is, if Jesus was a real live person that drew breath and lived and loved and walked and talked, then he existed in a day and time and context that can be mostly comprehended. We might not be able to determine exactly what color hair he had or how long his beard was, but we can make some pretty good educated guesses about the real man versus the mythic man.

Here's my drive to understand...the mythic man might indeed be a complete and total fabrication. Might be. In which case, why throw my lot in with Christians other than that is what I was born into? Why not be Jewish instead? Or even better, why not chuck it all and be an atheist? Just because there's a feel-good message of love everybody and peace and happiness and all will be well with the world and hereafter? I can get a variation of that anywhere in the major faiths of the world.

In contrast, if Jesus was an actual living, breathing human that walked and taught, then what was he like? What were his surroundings? What molded and shaped his character and personality? What other factors played into this message he brought to the world?

If G-d is real, G-d can handle being questioned. If Jesus is real, he too can handle a few questions. Thomas, the doubter, was not damned for doubting. Admonished maybe, but damned...no.

It is too easy to see how Christianity underwent a drastic reformation at Nicea. I know that our beloved friend Thomas disagrees with me, but as I demonstrated in the Rome in transition thread, there were quite a few variances and re-interpretations that took place in the intervening years leading up to Nicea, and Nicea really sealed the deal as to...if I may be blunt...the Paganization (is that a word?) of Christianity.

I want to see, understand and appreciate the Jesus that the 12 apostles knew and loved. I want the itinerant missionary Rabbi with a radically new interpretation of the Old Religion of G-d's chosen people. I want the simplistic beautiful naked truth...naked not for prurient interests...naked because of intimacy; naked and unashamed.

A lot of this is easy to separate...Easter, Christmas, (how the hell did Halloween get into the mix?). Some points are a bit more difficult to differentiate...and of these the most crucial is the resurrection, IMO. If I were to be able to definitively demonstrate to my satisfaction that the resurrection was indeed a Pagan import, I would be inclined to convert to Judaism, the root core from which Jesus came.

Or the Native American animism of some of my ancestors, which also speaks to my heart in its own subtle ways, which do not conflict with my Christian spirituality.

 

[juantoo3]

Ummm...celebrating Christ's resurrection was not part of early Christian observance?

No, Easter is not. *Any* good encyclopedia will point this out. How the Pagan festival of rejuvination, complete with celebratory orgy (quick like a bunny?), became associated with the resurrection of the Christian Messiah can be seen as directly affiliated with Nicea. One of the specific points discussed and "clarified" at Nicea was the setting aside of the Jewish Passover in favor of the Pagan Easter. Easter predates Christianity by at least two thousand years.

 

[lunamoth]

No, Easter is not. *Any* good encyclopedia will point this out. How the Pagan festival of rejuvination, complete with celebratory orgy (quick like a bunny?), became associated with the resurrection of the Christian Messiah can be seen as directly affiliated with Nicea. One of the specific points discussed and "clarified" at Nicea was the setting aside of the Jewish Passover in favor of the Pagan Easter. Easter predates Christianity by at least two thousand years.

Of course you realize that the eggs and the bunny etc. are not part of the religious observance of Easter, right? Those are kind of like Halloween stuff, Christmas trees, etc..

If there were orgies (I've never heard it; what is your source?), it would be *******ized Christianity, obviously not something handed down in the apostolic faith.

 

[lunamoth]

If I were to be able to definitively demonstrate to my satisfaction that the resurrection was indeed a Pagan import, I would be inclined to convert to Judaism, the root core from which Jesus came.

Or the Native American animism of some of my ancestors, which also speaks to my heart in its own subtle ways, which do not conflict with my Christian spirituality.

I somehow missed this post before, must have been posting at the same time.

Anyway, thank you, that explains a lot about your POV. I certainly respect your intellectual honesty in your search.

 

[juantoo3]

Of course you realize that the eggs and the bunny etc. are not part of the religious observance of Easter, right? Those are kind of like Halloween stuff, Christmas trees, etc..

If there were orgies (I've never heard it; what is your source?), it would be *******ized Christianity, obviously not something handed down in the apostolic faith.

The name of this festival, itself, shows its heathen origin. "Easter" is derived from Eastre, or Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon Goddess of spring and dawn. There also is some historical connection existing between the words "Easter" and "East," where the sun rises. The festival of Eostre was celebrated on the day of the Vernal Equinox (spring). Traditions associated with the festival of the Teutonic fertility Goddess survive in the Easter rabbit and colored eggs.

Spring is the season of new life and revival, when, from ancient times, the pagan peoples of Europe and Asia held their spring festivals, re-enacting ancient regeneration myths and performing magical and religious ceremonies to make the crops grow and prosper.

From "The American Book of Days," by George William Douglas we read: "As the festival of Eostre was a celebration of the renewal of life in the spring it was easy to make it a celebration of the resurrection from the dead of Jesus. There is no doubt that the Church (of Rome) in its early days adopted the old pagan customs and gave a "Christian" meaning to them.

The Easter Story

The clues should be evident to the scholar with terms like "fertility (g)-ddess," "magical and religious ceremonies" (in the context of a Pagan fertility rite), and "celebration of the renewal of life" that orgies were common practice among Pagans at this time of year. Sex magic, anyone?

Edit to add, the final reference quote by Sir James Frazer sums this thought nicely.


CHRISTIAN ONLINE BOOK RESOURCE

resource I found, looks promising:

If Baal was thus worshipped in Britain, it will not be difficult to believe that his consort Astarte was also adored by our ancestors, and that from Astarte, whose name in Nineveh was Ishtar, the religious solemnities of April, as now practised, are called by the name of Easter--that month, among our Pagan ancestors, having been called Easter-monath. The festival, of which we read in Church history, under the name of Easter, in the third or fourth centuries, was quite a different festival from that now observed in the Romish Church, and at that time was not known by any such name as Easter. It was called Pasch, or the Passover, and though not of Apostolic institution, * was very early observed by many professing Christians, in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Christ.

That festival agreed originally with the time of the Jewish Passover, when Christ was crucified, a period which, in the days of Tertullian, at the end of the second century, was believed to have been the 23rd of March. That festival was not idolatrous, and it was preceded by no Lent. "It ought to be known," said Cassianus, the monk of Marseilles, writing in the fifth century, and contrasting the primitive Church with the Church in his day, "that the observance of the forty days had no existence, so long as the perfection of that primitive Church remained inviolate."

Originally, even in Rome, Lent, with the preceding revelries of the Carnival, was entirely unknown; and even when fasting before the Christian Pasch was held to be necessary, it was by slow steps that, in this respect, it came to conform with the ritual of Paganism. What may have been the period of fasting in the Roman Church before sitting of the Nicene Council does not very clearly appear, but for a considerable period after that Council, we have distinct evidence that it did not exceed three weeks.

The origin of the Pasch eggs is just as clear. The ancient Druids bore an egg, as the sacred emblem of their order. In the Dionysiaca, or mysteries of Bacchus, as celebrated in Athens, one part of the nocturnal ceremony consisted in the consecration of an egg. The Hindoo fables celebrate their mundane egg as of a golden colour. The people of Japan make their sacred egg to have been brazen. In China, at this hour, dyed or painted eggs are used on sacred festivals, even as in this country. In ancient times eggs were used in the religious rites of the Egyptians and the Greeks, and were hung up for mystic purposes in their temples. (Fig. 31). From Egypt these sacred eggs can be distinctly traced to the banks of the Euphrates. The classic poets are full of the fable of the mystic egg of the Babylonians; and thus its tale is told by Hyginus, the Egyptian, the learned keeper of the Palatine library at Rome, in the time of Augustus, who was skilled in all the wisdom of his native country: "An egg of wondrous size is said to have fallen from heaven into the river Euphrates. The fishes rolled it to the bank, where the doves having settled upon it, and hatched it, out came Venus, who afterwards was called the Syrian Goddess"--that is, Astarte. Hence the egg became one of the symbols of Astarte or Easter; and accordingly, in Cyprus, one of the chosen seats of the worship of Venus, or Astarte, the egg of wondrous size was represented on a grand scale. (see Fig. 32)

The Two Babylons, ~Alexander Hyslop

The Two Babylons: Easter

And then there's Ezekiel 8:16b;

16 ... With their backs toward the temple of the LORD and their faces toward the east, they were bowing down to the sun in the east.

This sure sounds like an Easter sunrise service to me, and has since the very first time I read it for myself, in context. In context, Ezekiel is being told this is one of the abominable practices.

I am not casting judgment on anyone here, my heart convicts me to direct my walk as I am certain everyone else here is directed in their own walk by their own convictions.

Another promising resource:

Sacred Texts: Wicca and Neo-Paganism

An interesting aside related peripherally to the subject at hand:

The sacrifice of the King's son

Golden Bough Chapter 26. Sacrifice of the King's Son.

On the last morning the orgies, which had been scarcely interrupted during the night, were resumed, and continued till noon, when they ceased, and the assembly proceeded to consummate the sacrifice. The victim was again anointed with oil, and each person touched the anointed part, and wiped the oil on his own head. In some places they took the victim in procession round the village, from door to door, where some plucked hair from his head, and others begged for a drop of his spittle, with which they anointed their heads. As the victim might not be bound nor make any show of resistance, the bones of his arms and, if necessary, his legs were broken; but often this precaution was rendered unnecessary by stupefying him with opium. The mode of putting him to death varied in different places.

Golden Bough Chapter 47. Lityerses. Section 3. Human Sacrifices for the Crops.

One example of a Pagan fertility orgy, although a stretch as it is not directly associated with Easter and its variants...I'll look some more...

THE BARBAROUS rites just described offer analogies to the harvest customs of Europe. Thus the fertilising virtue ascribed to the corn-spirit is shown equally in the savage custom of mixing the victim’s blood or ashes with the seed-corn and the European custom of mixing the grain from the last sheaf with the young corn in spring. ... the same identification is implied in the savage custom of killing the representative of the corn-spirit with hoes or spades or by grinding him between stones, and in the European custom of pretending to kill him with the scythe or the flail. Once more the Khond custom of pouring water on the buried flesh of the victim is parallel to the European customs of pouring water on the personal representative of the corn-spirit or plunging him into a stream. Both the Khond and the European customs are rain-charms.

There is a good deal more evidence that in Egypt the slain corn-spirit—the dead Osiris—was represented by a human victim, whom the reapers slew on the harvest-field, mourning his death in a dirge, to which the Greeks, through a verbal misunderstanding, gave the name of Maneros. For the legend of Busiris seems to preserve a reminiscence of human sacrifices once offered by the Egyptians in connexion with the worship of Osiris.

Golden Bough Chapter 47. Lityerses. Section 4. The Corn-spirit slain in his Human Representatives.

WE have seen that according to a widespread belief, which is not without a foundation in fact, plants reproduce their kinds through the sexual union of male and female elements, and that on the principle of homoeopathic or imitative magic this reproduction is supposed to be stimulated by the real or mock marriage of men and women, who masquerade for the time being as spirits of vegetation. Such magical dramas have played a great part in the popular festivals of Europe, and based as they are on a very crude conception of natural law, it is clear that they must have been handed down from a remote antiquity. We shall hardly, therefore, err in assuming that they date from a time when the forefathers of the civilised nations of Europe were still barbarians, herding their cattle and cultivating patches of corn in the clearings of the vast forests, which then covered the greater part of the continent, from the Mediterranean to the Arctic Ocean. But if these old spells and enchantments for the growth of leaves and blossoms, of grass and flowers and fruit, have lingered down to our own time in the shape of pastoral plays and popular merry-makings, is it not reasonable to suppose that they survived in less attenuated forms some two thousand years ago among the civilised peoples of antiquity? Or, to put it otherwise, is it not likely that in certain festivals of the ancients we may be able to detect the equivalents of our May Day, Whitsuntide, and Midsummer celebrations, with this difference, that in those days the ceremonies had not yet dwindled into mere shows and pageants, but were still religious or magical rites, in which the actors consciously supported the high parts of gods and goddesses?

Golden Bough Chapter 12. The Sacred Marriage. Section 1. Diana as a Goddess of Fertility.

The Golden Bough, ~James G. Frazer

All preceeding emphasis mine, ~jt3

 

[lunamoth]

Thank you for the research Juan. I see the pagan fertility stuff and I see Christians after Constantine adopting some of the pagan practices to coincide with celebrating the resurrection, I don't doubt that there were some who just engaged in fertility rites and called it 'Christian' to please whomever needed to be pleased.

Certainly the blending of Christianity with the state that started with Constantine was not helpful in many ways, no doubt there was much muddying of the water then, as there is now.

And I agree that eggs, rabbits, Christmas trees etc are leftovers from more ancient religions. To me that is irrelevant.

My view, and I am not trying to convince anyone of this approach, is that the Christianity that is important to me is the one I find today. I don't think I can reconstruct an 'original' Christianity. I really do take a lot on faith.

 

[juantoo3]

Actually, this is about where the myth of the Greene Knight should make an appropriate entrance.

 

[lunamoth]

Actually, this is about where the myth of the Greene Knight should make an appropriate entrance.

Maybe a new thread?

 

[juantoo3]

My view, and I am not trying to convince anyone of this approach, is that the Christianity that is important to me is the one I find today. I don't think I can reconstruct an 'original' Christianity. I really do take a lot on faith.

Funny how as we get a little older we tend to mellow? You and I have enough history that you must recall moments when I admitted to past indiscretions, specifically of intolerance...as I get a little older, and I pray wiser, I am seeing others sincere in their search for understanding, and every one of them is taking on faith what they are capable of. And they are dismissing, overlooking, or trying to reconcile with what doesn't seem to make sense. I am no different in this regard.

I want to believe. I know it's corny, but I relate to the Fox Mulder character in the X-files series in a way, except my little green man is Jesus. My Alien invasion is G-d's angels, and the unseen spirits and principalities. My "trust no one" is institutional religion with cut and dried pat answers that don't add up under scrutiny. And my final answer is G-d.

 

[juantoo3]

Maybe a new thread?

Well, I think there are two or three threads out there already. But the Wild Man / Greene Man myths do associate directly as Pagan fertility myths, even if the Wild Man tradition is better associated with the Christmas season, Yule and the Winter Solstice.

 

[lunamoth]

Well, I think there are two or three threads out there already. But the Wild Man / Greene Man myths do associate directly as Pagan fertility myths, even if the Wild Man tradition is better associated with the Christmas season, Yule and the Winter Solstice.

OK, no need for another. Maybe this is getting too far afield from the topic though. I just don't see where in the NT Jesus or the disciples or Paul etc. treated the Christ movement as a fertility cult.

 

[juantoo3]

OK, no need for another. Maybe this is getting too far afield from the topic though. I just don't see where in the NT Jesus or the disciples or Paul etc. treated the Christ movement as a fertility cult.

Well, that's pretty much my point...they didn't. Certainly not at the time.

Iirc, the Paschal season was...I want to say 8...days, that began with the Passover. If the Gospels are anywhere near accurate, and I suspect in this much they likely are, then Jesus gave up the ghost at the precise hour the Paschal lambs were being slaughtered in preparation for the feast. This is a crucial piece of information, Jesus was our Paschal Lamb going forward.

Here's the deal as I see it: if Jesus is the Paschal Lamb, and the Paschal Lamb was the lamb whose blood was smeared / painted above and besides the entrances to the house to mark the house so the Angel of Death would not visit. That blood marked G-d's own, and in a spiritual sense Jesus' sacrifice again marks G-d's own.

What's more, perhaps a fuzz more controversial, is that the veil in the Temple was rent in two, from top to bottom, at the moment Jesus died. I mean, there were a number of natural "witnesses" recorded to the event...the sky darkened, an earthquake...but the veil concealing the Holy of Holys (sp?) is rent in two and now the common lay person can see inside the inner sanctum directly to G-d without "self-proclaimed" or "Institutionally proclaimed" intermediaries. I know our Thomas disagrees with me here too, and I appreciate his concerns about the value of tradition, I simply do not share that view to the extent he does. This event is pivotal and symbolic to me in this regard.

From here, Jesus is said to have entered the realm of death and reclaimed those saints of the flock of G-d...which we have no way of validating or having any corroberating witness...and as we mentioned does sound remarkably like similar stories from contemporary mythos.

But then we get to the triumphant resurrection, the empty tomb on the morning of the third day. There is all of the hope, all of the faith, all of the idealism, all of the validation and vindication. Everything leading up to this moment is the set up, walking out of the tomb is the game winning score. Death is defeated. The adversary is held at bay. The promise of heaven and a forever / eternal / immortal existence in another plane / place gains merit and validity. All of those "thou shalt nots" suddenly have a real and tangible reward attached.

It's not a bunch of wisdom stories and semi-historical fairy tales anymore, it is something worthwhile...something really worth believing.






All of that, every last bit, vanishes into a wisp of smoke if the resurrection isn't real.

 

[Janz]

Funny how as we get a little older we tend to mellow? You and I have enough history that you must recall moments when I admitted to past indiscretions, specifically of intolerance...as I get a little older, and I pray wiser, I am seeing others sincere in their search for understanding, and every one of them is taking on faith what they are capable of. And they are dismissing, overlooking, or trying to reconcile with what doesn't seem to make sense. I am no different in this regard.

I want to believe. I know it's corny, but I relate to the Fox Mulder character in the X-files series in a way, except my little green man is Jesus. My Alien invasion is G-d's angels, and the unseen spirits and principalities. My "trust no one" is institutional religion with cut and dried pat answers that don't add up under scrutiny. And my final answer is G-d.

Me, too and well said!! I like.

 

[juantoo3]

I don't think though that you can find proof or hard evidence for the resurrection. You can find an explanation consistent with the religion. After that it is trust.

Sorry to dredge up a previous comment, but this particular point nags at me.

With all due respect, is this not classic circular logic? If the religion has no "proof," it is entitled to invent one to satisfy its' preferred vision of how things should be? Isn't this the type of reasoning that got us into this mess (conflation of truth and political expediency, supplanting reality) in the first place, and has continued to feed that error in the ensuing 1700 years?

Just some observations, hopefully in time for this weekend's class...

 

[lunamoth]

Sorry to dredge up a previous comment, but this particular point nags at me.

With all due respect, is this not classic circular logic? If the religion has no "proof," it is entitled to invent one to satisfy its' preferred vision of how things should be? Isn't this the type of reasoning that got us into this mess (conflation of truth and political expediency, supplanting reality) in the first place, and has continued to feed that error in the ensuing 1700 years?

Just some observations, hopefully in time for this weekend's class...

What is faith?

 

[juantoo3]

What is faith?

If I were inclined to play rabbi, I would answer the question with a question...like "what is truth?"

Faith is an ephemeral...moving target. As a child I might have faith in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. As I grow a little older, and hopefully wiser, I can begin to see the error of groundless faith and establish a faith based in reason and reality...hence no longer blind and ephemeral.

Of course this presupposes a certain demeaner on my part, a demeaner that is in the interests of establishment institutions to discourage.

Faith in the strictest sense is belief. The difference between faith / belief as I apply to my own walk and that I see in most others is that mine is based in reality and confirmed by experience. Whereas in others I often see a faith / belief that clings on tenaciously *in spite of* reality and experience to the contrary.

So, twice I have answered. Respectfully, what is truth?

 

[lunamoth]

Respectfully, what is truth?

I think truth is the love of God.

 

[juantoo3]

I think truth is the love of God.

OK, that is an interesting take.

Jesus lived...truth, or no?

Hitler lived...truth, or no?

 

[lunamoth]

OK, that is an interesting take.

Jesus lived...truth, or no?

Hitler lived...truth, or no?

I think you are now asking about facts.

 

[juantoo3]

I think you are now asking about facts.

Not really. Just attempting to demonstrate the shortcoming of your definition of truth. I can agree that G-d's love is a truth...but for the reason highlighted by my example I cannot agree that truth is G-d's love...which means that truth has an alternate definition, to me.

No debate on my part, just bringing to light a difference in outlook between us.