Randel Helms begins his myth-busting book Gospel Fictions
with this puzzler:In the first century of the Common Era, there appeared at the eastern end of the Mediterranean a remarkable religious leader who taught the worship of one true God and declared that religion meant not the sacrifice of beasts but the practice of charity and piety and the shunning of hatred and enmity. He was said to have worked miracles of goodness, casting out demons, healing the sick, raising the dead. His exemplary life led some of his followers to claim he was a son of God, though he called himself the son of a man. Accused of sedition against Rome, he was arrested. After his death, his disciples claimed he had risen from the dead, appeared to them alive, and then ascended to heaven. Who was this teacher and wonder worker? (p.9)
John Ouvrier knows. John is, if memory serves, a former WCG minister stationed in Hawaii who led a breakaway group back in the late 1970s, temporarily dallying with the Church of God (Seventh Day) before presumably dissolving into the mists. These days John occasionally writes for The Painful Truth.
In any case, Bob Thiel (bless him!) has drawn attention to an article by John that answers Helm's question. The wonder-worker from Century One is Apollonius of Tyana.
Who?
Bob wonders who too. Scratching his noggin, Bob notes that there was an early church leader called Apollonius, but he'd be too late to fit the bill. It seems a bit strange that Bob, a self-designated authority on the Early Church, should be unaware of Apollonius of Tyana's existence. That certainly makes his attempt to refute Ouvrier look a little lame.
I found John's article interesting but flawed. He leaps well beyond the evidence (which is fascinating enough not to need flights of fancy) to some truly hair-raising conclusions. Worse, he indulges in blatantly anti-Catholic conspiracy theories (why do the equally ancient Greek Orthodox get off scot-free?) But, that said, John does us all a service by bringing Apollonius to everyone's attention. While he is well documented in the scholarly literature (which Bob must have avoided I guess), Apollonius is largely unknown in the wasteland of the pews. Bob can't have read W. H. C. Frend's monumental Rise of Christianity
, a classic text which does indeed mention Apollonius. But to suggest that Jesus was Apollonius is to join the dots right off the page. Yet nobody can deny that figures sharing a great many common traits with Jesus were not exactly unknown in the first century.There is no conspiracy to hide Apollonius' existence, at least among those who can be bothered to pick up a reliable text, but it would be fair to say that he hasn't received the attention he deserves either. Exact details surrounding his life are disputed (see the Wikipedia entry) - but that's hardly surprising when details of Jesus life are equally contested. It was a very long time ago.
27 comments:
It takes a long time to even realize that there were many first century contenders who certainly seem to end up as a composite person, either Jesus, Apostles or Paul, in the NT.
I used to wonder as a minister reading page after page of the detailed comments of Jesus in John at Passover and in the long winded speeches of Acts....who wrote this stuff down in so much detail? Later, of course and sadly :) you learn that it was a Greek style of putting words the mouth of a character that you imagine would say such things and it was a perfectly legit way to tell a story.
"Is Apollonius of Tyana - Paul of Tarsus ?
Apollonius of Tyanna, a Pythagorean philosopher and contemporary of the Jesus Christ of the Gospels. Many agnostic and atheistic scholars as well as other free thinkers believe that some portions of the Gospels of Jesus Christ are actually modeled on the adventures of Apollonius. Quite possibly, due to the lack of historical evidence for Jesus as depicted in the Gospels. - some believe him to have actually been the Jesus Christ. Others postulate the theory that Paul the Apostle and Apollonius are one and the same.
Some scholars argue that Paul of Tarsus a/k/a Paul the Apostle did not exist, and that All of the original writings and teachings attributed to him in the New Testament are the writings and teachings of Pol of Tyana a/k/a Apollonius of Tyanna. Other scholars present reasonable arguments that Paul was only a mythical character patterned after Pol.
The hypothesis that Apollonius was actually the apostle Paul lends itself much credence upon a brief review of the available facts.."
There is much information, speculation but hard to dismiss similarities between all the players to dismiss them.
Or perhaps Diabolical Mimicry!
""The devil, whose business is to pervert the truth, mimics the exact circumstances of the Divine Sacraments...Thus he celebrates the oblation of bread, and brings in the symbol of the resurrection. Let us therefore acknowledge the craftiness of the devil, who copies certain things of those that be Divine."
Tertullian, late 2nd century CE, commenting on the many similarities between Mithraism and Christianity.
From Encyclopædia Britannica:
Apollonius Of Tyana flourished 1st century AD, Tyana, Cappadocia.
A Neo-Pythagorean who became a mythical hero during the time of the Roman Empire. Empress Julia Domna instructed the writer Philostratus to write a biography of Apollonius, and it is speculated that her motive for doing so stemmed from her desire to counteract the influence of Christianity on Roman civilization. The biography portrays a figure much like Christ in temperament and power and claims that Apollonius performed certain miracles. It is believed that most of the biography is based more on fiction than fact. Many of the pagans in the Roman Empire believed what was said in this work, and it kindled religious feeling in many of them. To honour and worship Apollonius, they erected shrines and other memorials.
" Apollonius Of Tyana ." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007.
Connecting Apollonius to Paul and Jesus is really the Dean Blackwell approach to history. Sometimes I think it is the destiny of some people to reinvent Armstrongism over and over again, only in different forms.
Blackwell selected bizarre and speculative twists of Church history and legitimized them as the true history of the Church of God. He had an eclectic palate and fished for those things that supported what he already believed.
Absent was a recognition of the main thurst of Church history and the notion that the Body of Christ could have preserved a valid record.
-- Neo
Apollonius of Tyana is Paul of Tarsus. See my article "History's Jesus - Part III" at the Painful Truth website.
As everyone knows, I can't be wrong, heh heh, well at least it won't matter if I AM.
An awful lot of coincidence for it not to be true though. And, there's an awful lot of Paul in the gospels too, even if his name is not mentioned.
Paul/Apollos is Christianity, not Jesus. Paul may have even been the man who caused the Jews to be banished from Rome.
Josephus: Antiquities, Book 18, Chapter 3, Paragraph 5.
DennisDiehl said...
....Or perhaps Diabolical Mimicry!
"The devil, whose business is to pervert the truth, mimics the exact circumstances of the Divine Sacraments...Thus he celebrates the oblation of bread, and brings in the symbol of the resurrection. Let us therefore acknowledge the craftiness of the devil, who copies certain things of those that be Divine."
Tertullian, late 2nd century CE, commenting on the many similarities between Mithraism and Christianity.
The Church didn't borrow portions of the book of John from Mithra......and only the devil would give you that thought, right?
And Herbie is a counterfeit Flurry.
Diabolical Mimicry!
Somehow this term reminds me of Monty Python sketch, "No one expects the Spanish Inquistion!".
It would have made a great comeback at Spokesman club. "Diabolical Mimicry!"
I mean what could you reply back?
Just for pfun...With Pentecost coming up this weekend and it being the birthday of the NT Church..few have ever looked at how the Gospels agonize over getting Jesus back to heaven before the 50th after one Sabbath or another during Passover when Jesus was Crucified.
At any rate...from my writing on Questions Your Pastor Will Hate..Let's take a look the rush to get Jesus out of the Picture, so the Church could get on with it's business.
It is obvious that the reason the church can't know the day or the hour Jesus is coming back, is that they couldnt' even agree on the day, hour, means, location and method of his leaving prior to Pentecost. Look up the passages and "enjoy"
Question. Pastor…When and where from did Jesus return to heaven?
Mark 16:14-19 says he ascends while they are all sitting at a table, inside I presume, near Jerusalem. Lookout rafters!
Matthew 28:16-20 doesn’t mention ascension at all, but Jesus does meet the disciples for the first time at a Mountain in Galilee where he had told them in 26:32 he would meet them after his resurrection.
But then in Luke 24:50-51 Jesus ascends outside, after dinner, and at Bethany and on the same day as the resurrection!
I guess Luke realized that Jesus would have had to go through the roof in Mark's account, so got him outside where they could see him go into the clouds instead of just into the rafters.
Luke also corrects Matthew’s “I’ll first meet you in Galilee” by saying in Luke 24: 5-8 that they needed to remember that Jesus told them, when in Galilee that he would see them again in Jerusalem by rising from the dead there. He flips the idea of 'I'll see you in Galilee first" to "Remember He told you in Galilee, He'd first see you in Jerusalem.." Nice trick!
Seems like Luke is correcting Matthew idea that Jesus would see them in Galilee by reminding them Jesus told them, when in Galilee, they would see him in Jerusalem, where events needed to take place for Luke.
John mentions no ascension and in Acts 1:9-12 we are told Jesus ascends at least 40 days after his resurrection and from the Mt. of Olives.
Now all these things can’t be a harmonious account of just where and when the ascension occurred. We remember the ascension story of Luke in Acts, but the others don’t match his. They just don’t.
So here we have Jesus leaving the same day as his resurrection, from Jerusalem or Bethany depending, inside at dinner, or outside but at least 40 days later...
Perhaps this is why we "Count 50" for Pentecost. At least when you count to something you almost all end up in about the same place doing the same thing at the same time..:)
....sometimes ya just have to ask yourself...WWAoTD? (Apollonius of Tyana:)
Sadly, and of course, those once affiliated with all the COG's, and I deem this true, are little prepared or desirous of discussion on that which enlightens the origins of the story.
And to Mr. Smarty Pants Diehl. Jesus can ascend from as many places, in as many ways and at as many times or not at all if he chooses. It's like four people who try to tell the story of a car crash...sheesh.....
If the disciples want to leave Jerusalem before Pentecost where Jesus told them to say, the so be it! AAAAAAAAAAAAAnnnd...if Jesus in John 20:22 ("And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost") wants to blow the Holy Spirit on them for practice before Pentecost, that's HIS business, not yours
No greetings from Charlotte for you.
Dr. D Thiel
"And to Mr. Smarty Pants Diehl. Jesus can ascend from as many places, in as many ways and at as many times or not at all if he chooses. It's like four people who try to tell the story of a car crash...sheesh....."
It's not like four people who try to tell the story of a car crash. It's one person (the holy spirit) telling the story of a car crash through four people. So naturally all four stories are exactly the same . . . whoops.
It goes to show that even the Catholic Church can make a mistake. They should have discarded and destroyed all gospel stories but one. That would have solved the problem rather nicely.
Corky, you are right. The Holy Spirit inspires the only way to go here...
Irenaeus reveals...
"It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are, since there are four directions of the world in which we are, and four principal winds...the four living creatures [of Revelation 4.9] symbolize the four Gospels...and there were four principal covenants made with humanity, through Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Christ. (Against All Heresies 3.11.8; cf. M 263)
So glad he did not get it in his head there were 12 brothers, 12 tribes, 12 hours in the day, 12 disciples, 12 apostles, 12 Gates of the New Jerusalem and of course, and sadly perhaps the 12 signs of th Zodiac!
Yep, the church should have picked Luke as the only gospel (after all, Paul said there was only one).
Matthew goes into fantasy land right off the bat with the Magi story. What would Zoroastrian priests have to do with it? And then he resurrects too many people.
Mark leaves out a lot of important stuff and has a forged ending.
John attempts to change Jesus from a man into a god and mentions too much Mithraic material.
Luke gets my vote, he lies just as good in the gospel as he does in The Acts and Peter is a goof.
Corky said: "Matthew goes into fantasy land right off the bat with the Magi story. What would Zoroastrian priests have to do with it?"
Perhaps the Magi story, while definately added to Matthew (and if you snip the whole birth story out of Matthew, you'd never know it was there,) was a theological transfer of Mithras to Jesus. After all, Mithraism, as a religion, was ending and now Aries the Lamb was going to die to "end the age" and start a new religion based on, not Bull worship, but lamb worship in the Age of Pices...fishers of men.
Corky says, "Mark leaves out a lot of important stuff and has a forged ending."
True, Mark is the first fleshed out story of Jesus after Paul had died speaking only of a cosmic Christ. Remember, Paul never met, knew, quoted or spent five minutes with any real human Jesus. Everything after Mark 16:8 is added and poorly so, to wind it up where it had no ending.
BUT...while Mark has no good ending, John has two. Stick the 21st chapter of John back on Mark 16:8 and "ta ta" , minus a few edits, you have the original ending of Mark. John ends the first and best time at the end of John 20 and again, in the same way in 21 because it is contrived and edited to appear to be the ending.
Corky said: "Peter is a goof."
In John he absolutely is a goof and John always sandwiches comments about him between cracks about Judas. To John, Peter, who denied Jesus, is no different than Judas who betrayed him. Peter is not fit to rule in the Church. However, Mark's community of believers won the Peter/John wars and may have added the end of Mark, which reinstates Peter by Jesus, to make the point that all is forgiven. Cool stuff....
I've said this before, but it is so obvious. Luke tells the Annias and Sapphira story as a spoof on Peter that the followers of Paul would get. Peter, who said he'd do one thing (never deny Jesus) and did another (denied Jesus), kills off church members because they said they'd do one thing (give money) and did another (held back) Great fear may have come on all the church, but Luke and Paul were laughing their asses off at Peter!
There is nothing new in the politics and showmanship in the COG's and that found in the Gosels and NT.
DennisDiehl said...
"It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are, since there are four directions of the world in which we are, and four principal winds...
Alas! I'm being blown around by every wind of doctrine!
Where's my HWA happy face kite?
Angry Atheist Books Sell, Revealing New Intensity To Public Angst Over Faith
(AP) - The time for polite debate is over. Militant, atheist writers are making an all-out assault on religious faith and reaching the top of the best-seller list, a sign of widespread resentment over the influence of religion in the world among nonbelievers.
Christopher Hitchens' book, "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything," has sold briskly ever since it was published last month, and his debates with clergy are drawing crowds at every stop.
Sam Harris was a little-known graduate student until he wrote the phenomenally successful "The End of Faith" and its follow-up, "Letter to a Christian Nation." Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" and Daniel Dennett's "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon" struck similar themes - and sold.
"There is something like a change in the Zeitgeist," Hitchens said, noting that sales of his latest book far outnumber those for his earlier work that had challenged faith. "There are a lot of people, in this country in particular, who are fed up with endless lectures by bogus clerics and endless bullying."
Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary, a prominent evangelical school in Pasadena, Calif., said the books' success reflect a new vehemence in the atheist critique.
"I don't believe in conspiracy theories," Mouw said, "but it's almost like they all had a meeting and said, 'Let's counterattack.'"
The war metaphor is apt. The writers see themselves in a battle for reason in a world crippled by superstition. In their view, Muslim extremists, Jewish settlers and Christian right activists are from the same mold, using fairy tales posing as divine scripture to justify their lust for power. Bad behavior in the name of religion is behind some of the most dangerous global conflicts and the terrorist attacks in the U.S., London and Madrid, the atheists say.
As Hitchens puts it: "Religion kills."
The Rev. Douglas Wilson, senior fellow in theology at New Saint Andrews College, a Christian school in Moscow, Idaho, sees the books as a sign of secular panic. Nonbelievers are finally realizing that, contrary to what they were taught in college, faith is not dead, he says.
Signs of believers' political and cultural might abound.
Religious challenges to teaching evolution are still having an impact, 80 years after the infamous Scopes "Monkey" trial. The dramatic growth in homeschooling and private Christian schools is raising questions about the future of public education. Religious leaders have succeeded in putting some limits on stem-cell research.
And the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding a national ban on a procedure critics call "partial-birth abortion" - the first federal curbs on an abortion procedure in a generation - came after decades of religious lobbying for conservative justices.
"It sort of dawned on the secular establishment that they might lose here," said Wilson, who is debating Hitchens on christianitytoday.com and has written the book "Letter from a Christian Citizen" in response to Harris. "All of this is happening precisely because there's a significant force that they have to deal with."
Indeed, believers far outnumber nonbelievers in America. In an 2005 AP-Ipsos poll on religion, only 2 percent of U.S. respondents said they did not believe in God. Other surveys concluded that 14 percent of Americans consider themselves secular, a term that can include believers who say they have no religion.
Some say liberal outrage over the policies of President Bush is partly fueling sales, even though Hitchens famously supported the invasion of Iraq.
To those Americans, the nation's born-again president is the No. 1 representative of the religious right activists who helped put him in office. Bush's critics see his Christian faith behind some of his worst decisions and his stubborn defense of the war in Iraq.
"There is this general sense that evangelicals have really gained a lot of power in the United States and the Bush administration seems to represent that in some significant ways," said Christian Smith, a sociologist of religion at the University of Notre Dame. "A certain group of people sees it that way and that's really disturbing."
Mouw said conservative Christians are partly to blame for the backlash. The rhetoric of some evangelical leaders has been so strident, they have invited the rebuke, the seminary president said.
"We have done a terrible job of presenting our perspective as a plausible world view that has implications for public life and for education, presenting that in a way that is sensitive to the concerns of people who may disagree," he said. "Whatever may be wrong with Christopher Hitchens attacks on religious leaders, we have certainly already matched it in our attacks."
Given the popularity of the anti-religion books so far, publishers are expected to roll out even more in the future. Lynn Garrett, senior religion editor for Publishers Weekly, says religion has been one of the fastest-growing categories in publishing in the last 15 years, and the rise of books by atheists is "the flip-side of that."
"It was just the time," she said, "for the atheists to take the gloves off."
Atheism is a game played best if you are an "artful dodger". The more artful, complex and nuanced the dodges, the more sophomoric the arguments, the better your gamesmanship will be.
The problem is, if you're really good and win at this game, in the last assessment, you lose everything.
-- Neo
Asking obvious question of the text, observing the findings of science and no longer being shame, guilt or fear driven by religious denominations who are piously convicted but marginally informed about reality plays quite a part in the shift as well.
It might be nothing else but many being willing and able to wake up from their sleep and address the obvious questions that before were either "a mystery" or not to be asked.
Adhering to Pachal's Wager would keep mankind in the Dark Ages and ill informed Churches way too influential over the mind that thinks for itself.
It's not a conspiracy...it's a waking up.
"In the last days, knowledge shall be increased,,," while an omen for the Church is liberating for the free thinker, which is not an evil kind of human being...
atheism isn't without blood on their hands either: Lenin / Stalin / Pol Pot / Mao Tse Tung / Kim Jong Il.
People will find reasons to kill for God or any other ideology.
Charlie said...
atheism isn't without blood on their hands either: Lenin / Stalin / Pol Pot / Mao Tse Tung / Kim Jong Il.
People will find reasons to kill for God or any other ideology.
Atheism wasn't the cause in those examples, it was communistic dictatorships at fault. Most atheists are very humanistic and rightly so because they know this is the only life we have.
Theists on the other hand tend not to be humanistic but selfish con men disguising themselves as men of God. It's a safe con game too, no fear of punishment in this world or the next because they have a secret knowledge . . .
They know that there is no next world so they are safe to con tithes out of their fellow man in this world through fear and superstition.
That's my personal experience as well Corky. I am not an athiest as some wrongly assume. But they think if one is not comfortable with the God of the Bible or convinced that the God they know is the only God that is, then you get boxed and categorized rather quickly.
Those not in the box of fundamentalism or literalism don't have a need to be "right" or to judge the righteness of others. It takes an immense burden away from the mind. I guess it's what I see as smuggness that still gets a rise out of me. Working on that!
I am more an observer drawing current conclusions that don't need to be locked in stone to be interesting or informative. It's the reason I tend to have to bite my lip when someone declares their belief as the truth of this or that or I feel judged under the old ideas that were really put in the book to keep people in line with fear and such daring not to think for themselves but rather just believe and go along with it all.
Some in the COG's claim to have total freedom of speech and ideas etc..but I have found that when I ask them if they have discussed that idea with the minister, the answer is usually "no." That's not the kind of freedom of thought, inquiry and speech I am referring to.
"Sadly and of course" ( I love Bob Thiel!) that, to me, is transitional freedom and what one keeps to themselves as they evolve probably out of this or that "ism" they currently think they believe in.
DennisDiehl said...
That's my personal experience as well Corky. I am not an athiest as some wrongly assume.
I reckon I'm an atheist, I don't believe there are any gods at all or even any spirits either. I live in a world that is totally natural with nothing supernatural in it.
My morals don't seem to have declined from that lack of beliefs but my church attendance has declined drastically.
Gosh...I'd have to be sedated to sit in any church service...:) I have to admit to a certain desire to sit and listen to Dave to hone my passive aggressive self...but I spare me!
I knew one atheist well. He and I used to exchange viewpoints, sometimes heatedly, but he was a friend.
Regarding his view on humanity, he claimed he believed in Darwinian natural selection -- the survival of the fittest. He suggested to me once that if he had a relative in difficulty, he would be disinclined to help that family member because perhaps natural selection was at work to eliminate the person from life and the gene pool.
Pretty cold.
But if you do not believe in God and you believe that competition among the species reigns, why not go with the flow?
In fact he moved back to his home State recently to take care of an ailing mother. He thought it was the "right" thing to do. I wonder why he has a sense of right and wrong? Where does he think that sense of right and wrong originated?
If our mentation is the sum total of the chemical reactions taking place in our brains, why would compassion arise from this stew of reactions at all?
If the sum total of our mentation is defined by chemical reactions inherent in the brain, how would we recognize we have a mind at all?
How would we be self-aware?
Atheism is a bankrupt philosophy for spineless people who are tyranized by their own autocratic egos. They fear their inner brat.
-- Neo
"Atheism is a bankrupt philosophy for spineless people who are tyranized by their own autocratic egos. They fear their inner brat."
This coming from an expert on what all atheists are like. But, in truth, our sense of what is right and wrong comes from the society in which we live and how we were raised.
It would kind of make someone wonder how the world got along before the Bible came along or how those countries survived that did not have any idea there were Jews in the world.
One would wonder how other countries, having never heard of Jesus, invented the golden rule several hundred years before he mentioned it.
But, as I said Neo is an expert on what all atheists are like - he knew one, ya know?
Neo said:
"Atheism is a bankrupt philosophy for spineless people who are tyranized by their own autocratic egos. They fear their inner brat."
Well that settles it then...
People are people no matter what their philosphy or religion. Some are nice...or better and others are total jerks...or worse.
One thing to notice though; nice people have more friends, and friends and family are what makes life worth living.
Happy Memorial Day (Monday) to all of you that have served (Whether US or not).
Corky: I did not present myself as an expert on atheism. I related to you the boundaries of my experience with atheists. When you say "we" you betray a naive and primitive notion that atheists are all alike -- that is like you.
Rather egocentric.
I was just expressing my opinion in an area where I am not an expert, just as you have expressed your opinions about Christianity, an area where you clearly are not an expert.
-- Neo
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