Posted by jimmyjames [jimmyjames] on April 03, 1999 at 01:19:03 {Ed9c7782HMOfSZqlzZ0Uijuk77B9Xg}:
Cygnus,
That was an interesting tidbit you posted further down. You might be like to take a peek at this page. It touches on the astrological argument for the origin of the Jesus story and the dozen other savior myths around the world. Take what it says with a dose of salt though, I've already noticed a few mistakes. Krishna's mother was Devaki, not Maia. She wasn't a virgin (I've never met a virgin with 7 kids, but whatever floats their boat, I guess). His uncle (who was a tyrant-king that sent an order to infanticide when Krishna was born similar to the Herod/Jesus incident) was named Kansa.
Apparently ancients weren't as stupid or supersticious as a lot of people think. Most of their gods were based on astrological phenomena. I guess given the level of scientific ignorance that they had to work with, the stars and planets were really the best they could use in explaining the universe, and that's what they did. It looks like part of the reason so many of these savior-myths are so nearly identical in even minute details is that most of them were based on astrology. The savior himself is based on the sun. Since the 12 signs of the zodiac can be seen across the world, its no surprise that many of these saviors have 12 apostles or followers. (I think Beaver mentioned something like this when Israel's twelve sons were being discussed).
The December 25th birthday appears to be in correlation to the Winter Solstice. Each year the sun "descends" southward until about Dec 22. It stops moving south for about 3 days, and then begins moving north. Thus, the account about Jesus being dead for 3 days and then being "born again". In this case, instead of the crown of thorns representing a part of a tree(?), it actually represents the corona (corona=crown) of the sun.
This is interesting stuff and I'm going to be doing some reading on it. Just thought you guys might like some additional info.
jimmyjames
P.S. I'm surprised you and Seeker were the only skeptics to respond to the Krishna-Jesus post. Ah, well.