06-29-2006, 11:55 PM
Spurius,
as to your interest in how 'things were rewritten", you may enjoy this aspect of my next book which examines how early Christians essentially "rewrote" the Old Testament in order to have a popular new religion that retained the "respectability and antiquity" of Judaism, combined with the dualism of Zoroastrianism that was far more palatable to the pagan mind than the strict monotheism that Judaism is. This is why Satan is transformed from the obedient servant of Jehovah in the old Testament to the fallen angel and wicked Ahriman dragon carbon copy taken from Zoroastrianism. And of course, pagan hellenistic mythology was thrown into the mix as well, which is why there is a Platonic Hades to punish the wicked, that never existed in the Old Testament, and also why the New Testament is overrun with Greek demons which never seemed to trouble anybody in the Old Testament.
So you can marvel at the popularity of Christianity, but essentially it was a clever concoction of the most popular beliefs from both the east and west, all rolled into one.
This fact however, does not necessarily mean that Christianity is a false doctrine, to have blatantly borrowed so much from pagan cultures to become more popular than Judaism in the Greco Roman world, but rather, perhaps God finally decided Pagans deserved salvation too, but their cultures were such that they could not easily accept strict monotheism of Judaism. Jesus' mission then, may have been to "paganize" Judaism by introducing greek demons and hell, the Persian Ahriman Satan etc. But on the other hand, Jesus may have always been the pious Jewish Rabbi, and all of these pagan ideas that fill Christianity were concocted by later followers that melded Judaism, with the popular pagan religions of the day to create a popular new religion.
as to your interest in how 'things were rewritten", you may enjoy this aspect of my next book which examines how early Christians essentially "rewrote" the Old Testament in order to have a popular new religion that retained the "respectability and antiquity" of Judaism, combined with the dualism of Zoroastrianism that was far more palatable to the pagan mind than the strict monotheism that Judaism is. This is why Satan is transformed from the obedient servant of Jehovah in the old Testament to the fallen angel and wicked Ahriman dragon carbon copy taken from Zoroastrianism. And of course, pagan hellenistic mythology was thrown into the mix as well, which is why there is a Platonic Hades to punish the wicked, that never existed in the Old Testament, and also why the New Testament is overrun with Greek demons which never seemed to trouble anybody in the Old Testament.
So you can marvel at the popularity of Christianity, but essentially it was a clever concoction of the most popular beliefs from both the east and west, all rolled into one.
This fact however, does not necessarily mean that Christianity is a false doctrine, to have blatantly borrowed so much from pagan cultures to become more popular than Judaism in the Greco Roman world, but rather, perhaps God finally decided Pagans deserved salvation too, but their cultures were such that they could not easily accept strict monotheism of Judaism. Jesus' mission then, may have been to "paganize" Judaism by introducing greek demons and hell, the Persian Ahriman Satan etc. But on the other hand, Jesus may have always been the pious Jewish Rabbi, and all of these pagan ideas that fill Christianity were concocted by later followers that melded Judaism, with the popular pagan religions of the day to create a popular new religion.
