June 11, 2006
“Our
God Is Truth”
Sacred
Contradictions
The
Da Vinci Code: The Truth Behind the Book
Prayer
and Scripture: Paul
· Today
we’re going to wrap up our series on The Da Vinci Code by answering the
question of whether or not Christianity is a copycat religion.
· First
off, the thing we need to remember is that this is an age-old debate that did not start with Dan
Brown. The essence of the debate is
that there seem to be a number of parallels between Christianity and pagan and mystery religions. And there are many liberal scholars who
believe that the writers of the NT were influenced by these religions. As a result, Christianity is just a copycat
religion; it is not unique in any regard.
I. CHRISTIANITY ACCORDING TO THE CODE
· It
seems fairly clear that Dan Brown
believes that Christianity is not original but is a combination of these
different religions; listen to what he writes and I quote: "The vestiges [remnants] of pagan
religion in Christian symbology are undeniable. Egyptian sun disks became
the halos of Catholic saints.
Pictograms of Isis nursing
her miraculously conceived son Horus became
the blueprint for our modern images of the Virgin Mary nursing baby Jesus. And
virtually all the elements of
the Catholic ritual—the miter,
the altar, the Doxology, and communion, the act of 'God eating'—were taken directly from earlier pagan
mystery religions." Dan Brown: The Da Vinci Code, 232
·
"Nothing in
Christianity is original." 232
· "The
pre-Christian God Mithras—called the Son of God and the Light of the World—was
born on December 25, died, was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in
three days. By the way, December 25 is
also the birthday of Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus. The newborn Krishna was presented with gold, frankincense, and
myrrh. Even Christianity's weekly holy
day was stolen from the pagans….
Christianity honored the Jewish Sabbath of Saturday, but Constantine
shifted it to coincide with the pagan's veneration day of the sun. To this day, most churchgoers attend
services on Sunday morning with no idea that they are there on account of the
pagan sun god's weekly tribute—Sunday." 232-33
· We don't have time today to pick apart each of these
elements, but suffice it to say, according to Dan Brown,
Christianity is a fusion of both pagan religions and the mystery
religions. Of course, if this is true,
then there is nothing different about Christianity, and if that’s true, then
Christianity is not the only way to God, it's just one of many. So today we’re going to determine if Christianity
is new or is just a collection of that which is old.
·
Again, this idea did not originate with Dan
Brown - for years, liberal scholars have tried to show parallels between
Christianity and a host of other religions to try to prove that Christianity is
nothing new just a repackaging of old religion. For example: They say that other religions speak of their
god being born of a virgin, and that their god died and was resurrected. They say that there are similar practices of
these other religions that are the same as our partaking of Communion and
baptism and that all of these similarities prove that Christianity is nothing
new. We could talk about a lot of
things, but today we’ll answer the specific question:
· Is the resurrection of Jesus Christ as
the Savior-God unique to Christianity or were the New Testament writers
copycats of other pagan and mystery religions?
· We’re
looking at resurrection because it is the foundation of our faith. Paul
said himself: "…if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and
so is your faith." I Corinthians 15:14
· In
1890 a Scottish anthropologist
by the name of Sir James Frazer
wrote a book entitled: The Golden Bough. In this book, Frazer developed a theory that all religions of the
ancient Near East developed a similar belief in a dying and rising god based
upon the annual vegetation cycle. Now,
there are three primary religions that are often used to demonstrate
that Christianity is a copycat. But
before we get into all of that, let’s discuss a couple of things. First let's define the word "pagan.” Webster defines "pagan" as: "a follower of a
polytheistic religion (as in ancient Rome).” Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: Eleventh Edition,
890. A "pagan" is a person
who believes in many gods…a god of the sun, a god of the moon. The Greeks believed in many Gods.
GREEK GODS (male) ROMAN
COUNTERPARTS
Zeus Jupiter
King of the gods;
resides in heaven, responsible for storms, thunder and lightning.
Poseidon Neptune
God of the sea;
responsible for earthquakes.
Hades Pluto
God of the underworld
Ares Mars
God of war
Hephaestus Vulcan
God of fire
Apollo Apollo
God of the sun
Messenger of the gods;
oversaw trade, commerce, travelers…dealt with thieves and scoundrels.
Dionysus Bacchus
God of wine, revelry
(party animal)
Greek Goddesses (female) ROMAN
COUNTERPARTS
Hera Juno
Queen of gods; women;
marriage, etc.
Demeter Ceres
Harvest, agriculture;
fertility etc.
Hestia Vesta
Hearth and home;
community
Athena Minerva
Wisdom; practical
arts; war
Aphrodite Venus
Love and sex
Artemis Diana
The moon; hunting
· These
are only the most popular gods of Greek Mythology…there are at least 1,000
other gods. Now, one key thing to
understand about all of this is that the ancients believed that the divine were
equal parts of male and female. Norman
Geisler notes: "No Greek or Roman myth spoke of the literal incarnation
of a monotheistic God into human form (see John 1:1-3; 14) by way of a literal
virgin birth (see Matthew 1:18-25), followed by his death and physical
resurrection. The Greeks believed in
reincarnation into a different mortal body; New Testament Christians believed
in resurrection into the same physical body made immortal (see Luke 24:37).”
·
Now let’s look briefly at the Hellenistic Mystery religions:
Greece Demeter, Dionysus,
Elusinian and Orphic.
Asia Minor (Phrygia) Cybele & Attis
Egypt: Isis & Osiris
(later known as Serapis)
· J.P.
Holding notes, "The taking over of symbolism is true – but signifies
ideological victory, not borrowing. Note to begin with that we are talking here
not of apostolic Christianity of the first century, but of Christianity in the
third and fourth centuries. What we see here is not so much “borrowing” but a
sort of advertising campaign, or a type of artistic one-upmanship. The pagan
deity Mithra was depicted slaying the bull while riding its back; the church
did a look-a-like scene with Samson killing a lion. Mithra sent arrows
into a rock to bring forth water; the church changed that into Moses getting
water from the rock at Horeb. Why was this done? It was done because this was
an age when art usually was imitative. This is because the people of the New
Testament world thought in terms of what could be "probabilities," or
verification from general or prior experience.
Imitation was a way of asserting your superiority: “Mithra is not the
real hero. Samson is. Ignore Mithra.” “This mystery religion uses a miter as a
sign of power. Well, we have the true power. We claim the miter for our own.”
Note that the borrowing only involved art and ritual – it did not involve
borrowing of ideology. A Review and Critique of The Da Vinci Code by J.
P. Holding http://www.tektonics.org/davincicrude.htm#_ftn19. Borrowing stuff and then claiming to be the
original. Still prevalent today. Back to the main three religions. Let's start with the Egyptians.
THE ALLEGED RESURRECTION OF OSIRIS
· The
story goes that Osiris took over ruling the earth shortly after it was
created. Here’s a picture of him…(show power
point). Osiris had a jealous brother
named Seth. Here’s a picture of him. And at a party, Seth had a coffin in the
room and as a type of party game, had people get in and out of it to see if
they would fit. Anyway, when it came to
Osiris' turn, Seth slipped the lid on the coffin and nailed it down…Osiris
suffocated and Seth took the coffin and sunk it in the Nile river. Now who wants to worship a god that’s that
gullible?!
· Anyway, the faithful wife Isis (Here’s a picture of her…this is her son Horus who she conceived
by having sex with Osiris…) dredges the
Nile to recover the coffin of
her beloved and returned Osiris' body to Egypt. But Seth would not be
outdone. Somehow, he gets a hold
of Osiris' body again, but this time he cuts it up into 14 pieces and scattered them
all over the land. But Isis, still the devoted wife,
searches high and low and finally recovers each piece of his body. The only part of his body she could not find
was his penis, which Seth threw into the Nile and was eaten by a fish. So Isis creates another one and has sex with
Osiris and conceives Horus.
· Now some of you are probably thinking, "Now
wait a minute, Osiris is dead, how can Isis have sex with him to conceive a
son?" Well, this is where it gets
interesting. Because there are
different versions of what happened. Ronald Nash in an article entitled: "Was the New Testament Influenced by
Pagan Religions? says, "Sometimes those telling the story are
satisfied to say that Osiris came back to life, even though such language
claims far more than the myth allows.
Some writers go even further and refer to the alleged 'resurrection' of
Osiris. [and then he quotes Joseph Klausner who describes what happed this
way:] "The dead body of Osiris
floated in the Nile and he returned to life, this being accomplished by a
baptism in the waters of the Nile."
Ronald Nash: "Was the New Testament Influenced by
Pagan Religions?": Christian Research Journal, Winter 1994, p.
4.
· Here's
what's happening, and this happens a lot.
Guys like Klausner use
Christian terms like "baptism" & "resurrection" to
describe what happened and then they step back and say: "Wow, doesn't that
sound a lot like Christianity where Jesus was baptized and rose from the
dead." And they read in parallels
that were never there just to discredit Christianity.
· Ronald Nash goes on to say:
"This biased and sloppy use of language suggest three misleading analogies
between Osiris and Christ: (1) a savior
god dies and (2) then experiences a resurrection accompanied by (3) water
baptism. But the alleged similarities,
as well as the language used to describe them, turn out to be fabrications of
the modern scholar and are not part of the original myth. Comparisons between the resurrection of
Jesus and the resuscitation of Osiris are greatly exaggerated. (4) Not every
version of the myth has Osiris returning to life; in some he simply becomes
king of the underworld. Equally
far-fetched are attempts to find an analogue of Christian baptism in the Osiris
myth. (5) The fate of Osiris' coffin in the Nile is as relevant to baptism as
the sinking of Atlantis."
Ronald Nash: "Was the New Testament Influenced by
Pagan Religions?": Christian Research Journal, Winter 1994, p.
4-5.
· But
let's just say that the myth of Osiris was that he came back to life, let's give them that…the myth says
that he came back as the lord of the underworld. That's as close as you can get…and to be lord of the underworld
is to be lord of the dead…he was never resurrected in bodily form in the way
Jesus was.
· Jonathan Z. Smith agrees.
He has a Ph.D. from Yale University, is a distinguished professor and historian
of religions of the ancient Near East, teaches at the University of Chicago
Divinity School, and who is not a defender of conservative Christianity as we
know it. He says, "Osiris, in fact, was not a 'dying' god at all but a 'dead' god. He
never returned among the living; he was not liberated from the world of the
dead…. On the contrary, Osiris altogether belonged to the world of the dead; it
was from there that he bestowed his blessings upon Egypt. He was always
depicted as a mummy, a dead king." Jonathan Z. Smith: Kingship and the gods: a study of ancient Near Eastern
religion as the integration of society & nature: 289.
· Biblical scholar Roland de Vaux notes, “What
is meant of Osiris being ‘raised to life?’ Simply that, thanks to the
ministrations of Isis, he is able to lead a life beyond the tomb which is an
almost perfect replica of earthly existence. But he will never again come among
the living and will reign only over the dead.… This revived god is in reality a
‘mummy’ god.”....the mummified Osiris was hardly an inspiration for the
resurrected Christ." So there is no
"parallel" resurrection story that would even come close to being
similar to that of Jesus Christ.
· And
there is a lot more on this that we don't have time to go into today. In your insert are links to some websites with
more information.
"Walk
Like an Egyptian: Comparing Osiris, Horus, and Jesus."
http://www.tektonics.org/osy.html
Ronald
Nash: "Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions?":
http://www.equip.org/free/DB109.pdf
· So,
if someone tells you that the concept of the resurrection of a god was copied
from ancient Egyptian paganism, don't believe them. Let's now go to
Rome.
THE ALLEGED RESURRECTION OF ATTIS (ROMAN PAGANISM)
· Many
times the myth of Cybele and Attis is used to show that Christianity
copied its resurrection story. Cybele was a goddess whose worship by
the Romans included all kinds of lewd, pagan rituals. Over time, she became known as literally the "Mother"
of all the gods…so her role was pretty major.
Here’s a picture of her (show
power point).
·
What's worthy to note is that the majority of
information about Cybele is dated long after the NT had been written, so just
that alone should cast a lot of doubt on the theory that it had any influence
at all on the NT writers. But we certainly don't want "facts"
to get in the way of a good conspiracy story, do we?
· According to the myth, Cybele fell in
love with a shepherd named Attis. Here’s a picture of Attis. Attis was a ladies’ man and
unfaithful, and the now scorned goddess Cybele drove him insane. Overcome by his insanity, Attis castrates
himself and dies. (Again, more sexual language
which is common with pagan religions.)
According to the myth, this is when death entered the world…so the
reason that it is "appointed unto man once to die", is because Attis
castrated himself. How could anyone
believe this stuff?! Anyway, the now distraught Cybele
musters up all her goddess powers and allegedly brings Attis back to life.
· Now,
for liberal scholars, this is just one more proof that Christianity copied the
idea of a resurrection from early paganism, but again as in the alleged
resurrection of Osiris, when you look at the facts, they don't add up. Gresham
Machen in his book, The Origin of Paul's Religion, says, "The
myth contains no account of a resurrection; all that Cybele is able to obtain
is that the body of Attis should be preserved, that his hair should grow, and
that his little finger should move."
· Gunter Wagner, who is a foremost
expert on all of this stuff, says, "The Attis myth is exclusively an
initiation-myth; it has nothing to do with death and resurrection. All versions of the myth agree that after
Attis died, he remained dead…. In its
various forms, from the oldest traditions right down to the versions received
in the fourth century A.D., the Attis myth knows nothing of a resurrection of
Attis." So the parallels
between the resurrection of Attis and Jesus are non-existent.
·
But the alleged resurrection of Osiris and Attis
are only the minor pagan religions that skeptics refer to as source material
for Christianity. The crown jewel that
they almost always refer to is The
Cult of Mithras.
IS THE CULT OF MITHRAS THE SOURCE OF CHRISTIANITY?
(PERSIAN/ROMAN PAGANISM)
· Now
again, there is so much written that refutes this, we barely have time to skim
the surface. But let’s at least go over
the highlights as to why Mithras is used to prove Christianity is a copycat. J.P. Holding has an amazing website where
you will find hundreds of articles that he has written that provide pretty
exhaustive material that you can use to refute all of this stuff…it's really,
really a great website, and it’s in your insert. J.P. Holding The address is: www.tektonics.org. One of the key articles on his site dissects
all the allegations of the skeptics regarding Mithraism's alleged influence on
Christianity.
· But
the leading proponent of this view is a woman by the name of Acharya S., who wrote a book called The Christ Conspiracy, where she
lays out a number of things that Jesus and Mithra had in common. The parallels according to Acharya S. are:
1. Mithra was born of a virgin on December
25th in a cave, and his birth was attended by shepherds.
2. He was considered a great traveling
teacher and master.
3. He had 12 companions or disciples.
4. Mithras' followers were promised
immortality.
5. He performed miracles.
6. As the "great bull of the
Sun," Mithra sacrificed himself for world peace.
7. He was buried in a tomb and after three
days rose again.
8. His resurrection was celebrated every
year.
9. He was called "the Good
Shepherd" and identified with both the Lamb and the Lion.
10. He was considered the "Way, the
Truth and the Light," and the "Logos," "Redeemer,"
"Savior" and "Messiah."
11. His sacred day was Sunday, the
"Lord's Day," hundreds of years before the appearance of Christ.
12. Mithra had his principal festival of
what was later to become Easter.
13. His religion had a
"Eucharist" or "Lord's Supper," at which Mithra said,
"He who shall not eat of my body nor drink of my blood so that he may be
one with me and I with him, shall not be saved."
14. "His annual sacrifice is the
Passover of the Magi, a symbolical atonement or pledge of moral and physical
regeneration."
15. Samuel Golding is quoted as saying that 1 Cor. 10:4 is
"identical words to those found in the Mithraic scriptures, except that
the name Mithra is used instead of Christ."
16. The Catholic Encyclopedia
is quoted as saying that Mithraic services were conduced by "fathers"
and that the "chief of the fathers, a sort of pope, who always lived at
Rome, was called 'Pater Patratus.'"
·
Now, in his article, J.P. Holding goes through
and refutes these point by point, so I won't go into that…but suffice it to
say, all these claims that Acharaya
makes are false. How do I
know? Because all the source material
we have that describes Mithraism is dated long after the completion of the NT,
again, proving pretty conclusively, it could not have influenced
Christianity. On top of that, a few
months ago I read an article in Biblical Archeology Review, which by the
way is not a Christian magazine, stating that there was never any ritual blood
washing in Mithraism at all, which some scholars try to say Christianity copied
the sacrifice for atonement for sins from.
And, the article states, Mithraism began well after Christianity, and
early versions of this religion contained no elements that even closely resembled
Christianity.
·
Edwin M. Yamauchi,
in his article: "Easter: Myth, Hallucination, or History?"
writes, "Those who seek to adduce Mithra as a prototype of the risen
Christ ignore the late date for the expansion of Mithraism to the west the only
dated Mithraic inscriptions from the pre-Christian period are the texts of
Antiochus I of Commagene (69-34
B.C.) in eastern Asia Minor. After that there is one text
possibly from the first century A.D., from Cappadocia, one from Phrygia dated
to A.D. 77-78, and one from Rome dated to Trajan's reign (A.D. 98-117). All
other dated Mithraic inscriptions and monuments belong to the second century
(after A.D. 140), the third, and the fourth century A.D."
Edwin
M. Yamauchi: Easter: Myth, Hallucination, or History? P. 3.
http://www.leaderu.com/everystudent/easter/articles/yama.html
·
Ronald Nash agrees: "The flowering of Mithraism
occurred after the close of the New Testament canon; much too late for it to
have influenced anything that appears in the New Testament. Moreover, no
monuments for the cult can be dated earlier than A.D. 90-100, and even this
dating requires us to make some exceedingly generous assumptions. Chronological
difficulties, then, make the possibility of a Mithraic influence on early
Christianity extremely improbable. Certainly, there remains no credible
evidence for such an influence."
Dr. Ronald H. Nash, "Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions?"
· So
again, the proof for the copycat allegations prove to be false. Don't forget too, these were "mystery religions" meaning
that they all had secret initiation ceremonies where the initiates were sworn
to secrecy. They didn't talk about what
was going on behind closed doors, so how could Mithraism and the rest have
influenced the formation of the NT?
Also, as these
"mystery religions" aged, they changed radically. One cannot assume that Mithraism of the 3rd
and 4th century was the same as it was in the latter part of the
first. Ronald Nash notes: "Each
mystery cult itself assumed different forms in different locales and underwent
significant changes especially after A.D. 100." Ronald Nash: The Gospel and the Greeks,
112. So, Dan Brown's statement that
nothing in Christianity is original is just false. But what are the elements that make Christianity unique?
THE ELEMENTS THAT MAKE CHRISTIANITY UNIQUE
1. Jesus (as the
savior-God) died to pay the price for sin.
· Ronald
Nash notes: "None of the so-called savior-gods died for someone
else. The notion of the Son of God
dying in place of His creatures is unique to Christianity…. Only Jesus died for sin. It is never claimed that any of the pagan
deities died for sin." Ronald
Nash: The Gospel and the Greeks, 160.
But the Bible is clear that Jesus died for our sins. "He
sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself." Hebrews 7:27
· "But now he has appeared
once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face
judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of
many people…" Hebrews 9:26-28
2. Jesus' death actually happened.
· All
of these other gods have no basis in history as actually having existed; they
were mythological figures. Jesus is a
real, historical person. Josh McDowell notes: "We know
more about the life of Jesus than just about any other figure in the ancient
world. His birth, life and death are
revealed in much more detail than most ancient figures whose existence is taken
for granted by historians."
Josh McDowell & Don Stewart: Answers To Tough Questions, 43.
3. The New Testament records of the life, death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ are reliable historical documents not a collection
of fanciful myths and legends.
·
When you read all this other stuff, all the
mythology, all the alleged deities through the ages and then you read the
Bible, there is a striking contrast.
The stories in the NT show no signs of mythology. In fact, the opposite is true. Many of the NT writers tell us clearly that
the events they were writing of were happening in the backdrop of historically
verifiable times. Luke notes that Jesus
was born during the days of Caesar
Augustus, that a census was to be taken and that this all took place
while Quirinius was governor of
Syria (Luke 2:1-2). These are actual people and events that are
historically verifiable.
· The
travels of Paul were to actual places in the world: Corinth, Thessalonica, Colosse,
Ephesus, Jerusalem and others. When you read the Bible you are confronted
time and time again with actual people, places and events that are historically
viable…there is no trace of mythology. And
frankly, those who do see parallels between the New Testament writings and the
pagan mystery religions are not being honest seekers; instead they are reading
their own biases into the texts. If you
read the Bible with an honest heart to understand the truth, you see the clear
differences.
· C.S.
Lewis in his book, Christian Reflections wrote, "All I am in
private life is a literary critic and historian, that's my job…. And I'm prepared to say on that basis if
anyone thinks the Gospels are either legends or novels, then that person is
simply showing his incompetence as a literary critic. I've read a great many novels and I know a fair amount about the
legends that grew up among early people, and I know perfectly well the Gospels
are not that kind of stuff."
C.S. Lewis: Christian Reflections, 209.
4. Christianity was an exclusivist faith; there was no
tolerance for the worship of other gods.
· This
is what brought on much of the persecution of the Christians. The polytheistic world of Rome (over 1,000
deities) allowed for the worship of many different gods and if there were contradictions, it didn't
matter…there were many gods and each had a different role and
purpose. The practice of religious tolerance is not unique to
the 21st century, it was rampant in Rome.
· Gresham Machen in his book, The
Origin of Paul's Religion says, "A man could become initiated in
the mysteries of Isis or Mithras without at all giving up his former beliefs;
but if he were to be received into the Church, according to the preaching of
Paul, he must forsake all other saviors for the Lord Jesus Christ…. Amid the prevailing syncretism of the
Greco-Roman world, the religion of Paul, with the religion of Israel, stands
absolutely alone." p. 9
· On the other hand, the Bible forbids us to worship
any other gods. (Ex.
20:3-5; 34:14; Deut. 6:13-14 & 8:19-20.)
·
The Bible states that
there is only ONE God. (Deut.
4:35, 39; 6:4; Isa. 43:10-11; 44:6-8; 45:5-6, 14, 18, 21-22; 46:9; 2 Sam. 7:22;
Neh. 9:6; Ps. 86:10; Isa. 37:16, 20; 43:10-11; Jer. 10:10; 1 Tim. 1:17; James
2:19; Jude 25)
· No other gods existed before Yahweh, nor will there
be any others. Isa.
43:10; 44:6,8; 45:5-6, 14, 21.
5. Due to the late dating of the vast majority of extant
documentation for these other pagan religions, there is no way possible that
they could have influenced the writing of the New Testament!
· Is
there any credible evidence that the formation of Christianity was influenced
by Egyptian paganism, or the mystery religions of the Greco-Roman era? Absolutely none.
6. Frankly, if
anyone copied anyone, it was these pagan religions who copied Christianity.
· Bible
scholar Bruce Metzger says,
"It must not be uncritically assumed that the Mysteries always
influenced Christianity, for it is not only possible but probable that in
certain cases, the influence moved in the opposite direction." Bruce M. Metzger: Historical and Literary
Studies: Pagan, Jewish, and Christian.
· Ronald Nash agrees: "It
should not be surprising that leaders of cults that were being successfully
challenged by Christianity should do something to counter the challenge. What better way to do this than by offering
a pagan substitute? Pagan attempts to
counter the growing influence of Christianity by imitating it are clearly apparent
in measures instituted by Julian the Apostate, who was the Roman emperor from
A.D. 361-363." Ronald Nash: "Was the New Testament Influenced by
Pagan Religions: Christian Research Journal, Winter 1994, p.
11.
· Christianity
is not a copycat religion. We haven’t
borrowed from anyone. The claims of
Christ are unique and proven. We don’t
have to be afraid to defend our faith.
It is faith, that is true, and it involves trusting God. But faith in Jesus Christ is not
intellectual suicide, but reasonable and even logical. My prayer is that this series has
strengthened your faith and helped equip you to better witness to His great
love in our world.
· On
June 25th we’ll be starting a new series on contemporary issues,
beginning with a Christian response to the environment. Let's pray!