In Response - part 2

What follows are the next set of comments from Bino and my replies to them. The dialogue between Bino and me begins in the comment section of the post titled "Miracles", and continues in the post titled "In Response." It might be helpful to read those first if you haven't already to get the flow of the dialogues.

Greta: I was not attempting to explain, or deny, the similarity between Jesus’ divine birth and the other ancient divine births. My point was that similarities with other stories which are false does not necessarily make all such stories false.


Again, Jesus’ story (and every other one for that matter) deserves to be judged by its own merits, not judged based on the falsehood of others.

Bino: Yes, but the question wasn't "Which of these impossible stories do you think are true," the question was "Which do you think are myths."


The question recognized that ancient cultures shared ideas about how the world worked, and told its histories in accordance to those shared ideas. Ancients believed great men were qualitatively different from other people, and the stories about great men having divine births were a reflection of that. A way to show where the great man's greatness came from. The repeated pattern reflects a purpose.


Do you not recognize that?


Do you really think the story of Alexander's divine birth was invented all on it's own, without reference to or consciousness of all the other stories of all the other divine births?
And Romulus' divine birth?
And Augustus' divine birth?
And Scipio' divine birth?


Do you really think everybody came up with the same lie, each of them all on their own? Or are all the stories connected be the underlying ancient idea?


And if so, on what ground is Jesus' story not also connected?

Greta: What would have made Jesus a great man? What was it about him that would have made his contemporaries ascribe divine birth to him? He wasn’t a ruler; he didn’t lead a revolution as his Jewish contemporaries had hoped he would; at most, (if not divine) he was a great teacher and speaker and an exemplary man on how we should aim to live our lives – loving our neighbor and all that. Is that enough to have made others ascribe a divine birth to Him? Was this enough to make him qualitatively different from all the other Jewish rabbis of his time? There must have been something else – His own claims of deity and His resurrection to back up his claims? That would do it. The divine births attributed to Augustus, Romulus, and Scipio were political expressions of emperor worship…no similarity to Jesus there. I have not said anywhere that these ideas were invented in a vacuum. I have only insisted that the similarity does not make Jesus’ story false. It does not follow that because a lot of people claimed to be divine, no one could be divine. In addition to this, Jewish people were definitely not in the habit of ascribing divinity to any human, no matter how great they were!

(And yes, I believe the other stories are myths and I’ve explained why in previous posts, so I’ll ask you again to speak to the important differences between Jesus and these other stories.)

You place a great deal of emphasis on the similarities with other ancient pagan stories. However, this idea that Jesus and the Gospels can be judged through the framework of ancient pagan myths is hundreds of years out of date. It shows how out of touch “popular” ideas are with today’s scholarship. According to William Lane Craig, there are precious few scholars “who think of myth as an important interpretive category for the Gospels…Scholars came to realize that pagan mythology is simply the wrong interpretive context for understanding Jesus of Nazareth.” And this from Craig, “Contemporary scholars may be no more prepared to believe in the supernatural character of Jesus' miracles and exorcisms than were scholars of previous generations. But they are no longer willing to ascribe such stories to the influence of Hellenistic divine man (theios aner) myths. Rather Jesus' miracles and exorcisms are to be interpreted in the context of first century Jewish beliefs and practices.” So it seems that your insistence that Jesus is connected to other pagan myths is out of line with today’s scholarship.

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Greta: How do I know that people who knew the stories going around about Jesus weren’t true didn’t call the apostles liars and show that their stories weren’t true? Because Christianity – or “The Way” as it was called in its earliest stages – started and spread in the very city that was filled with people who knew Jesus and were aware of his ministry. If you’re going to spread a lie, do you start where everyone knows it isn’t true? And would it catch on like the Christian message did in a city filled with people who could prove it false?

Bino: So,


a) The truth is, you have no direct evidence that people didn't disagree with and attack proto-orthodoxy. You base your claim on speculation about motives.


b) The truth is, you have no direct evidence that success and survival of a religion indicated it began without opposition. You merely speculate that this is so. This speculation is contradicted by the history of Islam and Mormonism.

Greta: a) No, I didn’t say it wasn’t attacked. There were people who were very interested in stopping the spread of the belief that Jesus was divine, had been crucified, and had been resurrected. I said those attacks weren’t successful. I find it very unlikely that those attacks wouldn’t have been successful if the things that were being preached about Jesus were lies given that those supposed lies would have been preached in the very city where they could have been most easily refuted. A claim of physical resurrection is not a difficult thing to disprove if it is indeed false. Given that Christian beliefs did spread rapidly in Jerusalem where it would have been easiest to disprove, you need to explain how Christianity could have gotten off the ground under those conditions because your position is much more unlikely.

b) Again, I never indicated it wasn’t without opposition. I said the opposition wasn’t successful, and for good reason. Islam and Mormonism do not contradict this because neither of these religions provide a way of being proven false. Mohammed received his revelations, which his religion is based on, alone in a cave. No one could say whether it was true or not (whether or not he believed his own claims); nor did he offer a way to verify that God had given him this authority as Jesus did through His resurrection. Mormonism is much the same. An angel delivers golden tablets to Joseph Smith. The tablets are written in an unrecognizable script that God then translates to him; only he is allowed to see these tablets. Again, no way to tell whether his story is true or not; and no verification of Joseph’s authority.

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Greta: Yes, these were historical men. I was comparing the historicalness of Jesus to the mythological figures you mentioned in your post.



Bino: Since non-historical seems to be important to you, let me I ask you about some further examples.


Would you agree then that the non-historical stories about Noah are myths?
And the non-historical stories about Adam and Eve and the talking snake – that's a myth too, according to your methods?
And the giants?
And Leviathan?
And Solomon?
And David?
And Samson?
All non-historical, and therefore myths.

Greta: You simply assert that these are all non-historical. I don’t agree, so please provide evidence for your assertion that isn’t just supernatural or biblical bias.

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Bino: I have. I can't. Please help me see the differences:

Greta: Again, I am referring to the mythological tales. Here is part of the myth of Osiris…[snip for length]
I’m sure I don’t have to help you see the difference in this story and Jesus’ story.

Bino: Osiris was an ancient middle eastern son of god on Earth, who died, came back to life, and lives in heaven where he judges the dead and gives his believers a better deal in the afterlife.

"I approached the frontiers of death and, having walked on the threshold of Proserpine [the home of the dead], I returned."
[Apuleius, Metamorphosis, Book 11, 23],


"The keys of hell and the guarantee of salvation were in the hands of the goddess, and the initiation ceremony itself to the form of a kind of voluntary death and salvation through divine grace."
[Apuleius, Metamorphosis, Book 11, 21]


"Be of good cheer, O initiates, for the god is saved, and we shall have salvation for our woes."
[Firmicus Maternus, The Error of Pagan Religions, 22.1]


Osiris is completely different from Jesus, who was another ancient middle eastern son of god on Earth, who died, came back to life, and lives in heaven where he judges the dead and gives his believers a better deal in the afterlife.


Right. Osiris and Jesus are completely different.

Greta: Once again, their similarities don’t prove anything. And the differences are important. Osiris’ story, which I quoted part of in the last post, is not the same sort of story you read in the Gospels. Jesus’ is set in a specific time and place, and even though his resurrection is definitely a spectacular miracle, it is not told in a way that is filled with fantasy and legendary qualities. There is also no evidence that the ancients believed Osiris physically and bodily rose from the dead as Jesus did. Orisis’ death and “resurrection” were tied to agricultural seasons and his resurrection was only spiritual. He became a god of the netherworlds. Jesus’ resurrection was physical and had a completely different purpose.

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Greta: Jesus’ miracles were most often set in historical contexts making it at least possible that they could be verified.

Bino: I don't know how miracles are verified. How do you imagine it can be done?

Greta: Jesus’ miracles are verified in the sense that they were performed publicly with many eyewitnesses to verify what they saw, many of whom willingly suffered and even went to their deaths because of what they believed about Jesus. How many reliable eyewitnesses to a miracle would it take for you to believe it, or do you have a bias against miracles that makes you dismiss them out of hand?

As I have answered all your questions, whether you agree with my answers or not, I would appreciate your answering the questions I have posed to you throughout these posts.

1) What is your basis for believing miracles are impossible? Is it a bias against the supernatural or do you have evidence?

2) Can you see and account for the significant differences between Jesus’ story and the pagan ones you find similar?
         a) the death and resurrection as atonement for sins
         b) the bodily – not just spiritual – resurrection of Jesus
         c) the fact that Jews did not deify their leaders
         d) what would have made Jesus worthy of deification, given that you believe the fact that the ancients deified those who were qualitatively greater than other men explains Jesus’ deification?

3) How would you explain the rapid acceptance and spread of Christian beliefs after Jesus’ resurrection in Jerusalem where it would have been most unlikely to successfully spread lies?

4) Can you allow that the falsity of many stories does not necessarily make all such stories false?

I will be happy to continue this conversation when you’ve answered the questions I’ve put out there and given a basis for your beliefs that Jesus’ claims were not true. As I said before, skepticism is not without responsibility. You need to give an account for why you believe as you do and provide supporting evidence.