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Christ And His Myths Origins Of Early Christianity
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Book Synopsis How the Gospels Became History by : M. David Litwa
Download or read book How the Gospels Became History written by M. David Litwa and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-06 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling comparison of the gospels and Greco-Roman mythology which shows that the gospels were not perceived as myths, but as historical records Did the early Christians believe their myths? Like most ancient--and modern--people, early Christians made efforts to present their myths in the most believable ways. In this eye-opening work, M. David Litwa explores how and why what later became the four canonical gospels take on a historical cast that remains vitally important for many Christians today. Offering an in-depth comparison with other Greco-Roman stories that have been shaped to seem like history, Litwa shows how the evangelists responded to the pressures of Greco-Roman literary culture by using well-known historiographical tropes such as the mention of famous rulers and kings, geographical notices, the introduction of eyewitnesses, vivid presentation, alternative reports, and so on. In this way, the evangelists deliberately shaped myths about Jesus into historical discourse to maximize their believability for ancient audiences.
Book Synopsis The Myth of Persecution by : Candida Moss
Download or read book The Myth of Persecution written by Candida Moss and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-03-05 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An expert on early Christianity reveals how the early church invented stories of Christian martyrs—and how this persecution myth persists today. According to church tradition and popular belief, early Christians were systematically persecuted by a brutal Roman Empire intent on their destruction. As the story goes, vast numbers of believers were thrown to the lions, tortured, or burned alive because they refused to renounce Christ. But as Candida Moss reveals in The Myth of Persecution, the “Age of Martyrs” is a fiction. There was no sustained 300-year-long effort by the Romans to persecute Christians. Instead, these stories were pious exaggerations; highly stylized rewritings of Jewish, Greek, and Roman noble death traditions; and even forgeries designed to marginalize heretics, inspire the faithful, and fund churches. The traditional story of persecution is still invoked by church leaders, politicians, and media pundits who insist that Christians were—and always will be—persecuted by a hostile, secular world. While violence against Christians does occur in select parts of the world today, the rhetoric of persecution is both misleading and rooted in an inaccurate history of the early church. By shedding light on the historical record, Moss urges modern Christians to abandon the conspiratorial assumption that the world is out to get them.
Book Synopsis The Jesus Mysteries by : Timothy Freke
Download or read book The Jesus Mysteries written by Timothy Freke and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2001-12-18 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on the cutting edge of modern scholarship, this astonishing book completely undermines the traditional history of Christianity that has been perpetuated for centuries by the Church and presents overwhelming evidence that the Jesus of the New Testament is a mythical figure. “Whether you conclude that this book is the most alarming heresy of the millennium or the mother of all revelations, The Jesus Mysteries deserves to be read.” —Fort Worth Star-Telegram Far from being eyewitness accounts, as is traditionally held, the Gospels are actually Jewish adaptations of ancient Pagan myths of the dying and resurrecting godman Osiris-Dionysus. The supernatural story of Jesus is not the history of a miraculous Messiah but a carefully crafted spiritual allegory designed to guide initiates on a journey of mystical discovery. A little more than a century ago, most people believed that the strange story of Adam and Eve was history; today it is understood to be a myth. Within a few decades, authors Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy argue, we will likewise be amazed that the fabulous story of God incarnate—who was born of a virgin, who turned water into wine, and who rose from the dead—could have been interpreted as anything but a profound parable.
Book Synopsis The Rise and Fall of the Christian Myth by : Burton L. Mack
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of the Christian Myth written by Burton L. Mack and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the culmination of a lifelong scholarly inquiry into Christian history, religion as a social institution, and the role of myth in the history of religions. Mack shows that religions are essentially mythological and that Christianity in particular has been an ever-changing mythological engine of social formation, from Roman times to its distinct American expression in our time. The author traces the cultural influence of the Christian myth that has persisted for sixteen hundred years but now should be much less consequential in our social and cultural life, since it runs counter to our democratic ideals. We stand at a critical impasse: badly splintered by conflicting groups pursuing their own social interests, a binding common myth needs to be established by renewing a truly cohesive national and international story rooted in our democratic and egalitarian origins, committed to freedom, equality, and vital human values.
Book Synopsis Christ and his Myths Origins of Early Christianity by : Diego Kurilo
Download or read book Christ and his Myths Origins of Early Christianity written by Diego Kurilo and published by Sophia Lux. This book was released on with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Early Christianity had its origin in the eschatological ministry of Jesus. After his death, his initial followers banded together to form an apocalyptic messianic Jewish sect, known as Judeo- Christians, during the late Second Temple period in the 1st century. Initially, the prevailing belief was that the resurrection of Jesus marked the beginning of the end of times. However, over time, this perspective evolved into anticipating the second coming of Jesus and the beginning of the Kingdom of God at a future time. References: Fredriksen, 2018. Barnett, Paul (2002). Jesus, the Rise of Early Christianity: A History of New Testament Times. InterVarsity Press. p. 21. ISBN 0-8308-2699-8. Alister McGrath, former professor of historical theology at the University of Oxford, claims that many of the “Jewish Christians” of the first century were completely faithful religious Jews.
Book Synopsis The Book of Prophecies by : Christopher Columbus
Download or read book The Book of Prophecies written by Christopher Columbus and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2004-04-09 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christopher Columbus returned to Europe in the final days of 1500, ending his third voyage to the Indies not in triumph but in chains. Seeking to justify his actions and protect his rights, he began to compile biblical texts and excerpts from patristic writings and medieval theology in a manuscript known as the Book of Prophecies. This unprecedented collection was designed to support his vision of the discovery of the Indies as an important event in the process of human salvation - a first step toward the liberation of Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslim domination. This work is part of a twelve-volume series produced by U.C.L.A.'s Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies which involved the collaboration of some forty scholars over the course of fourteen years. In this volume of the series, Roberto Rusconi has written a complete historical introduction to the Book of Prophecies, describing the manuscript's history and analyzing its principal themes. His edition of the documents, the only modern one, includes a complete critical apparatus and detailed commentary, while the facing-page English translations allow Columbus's work to be appreciated by the general public and scholars alike.
Download or read book Jesus the Nazarene written by A. Jordan and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2023-04-05 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The historical Jesus is as elusive as he is appealing. Everyone wants to find who the man really was. Scholars pour over the pages of the New Testament and apocryphal literature for any clue about his true identity. People have looked in all places for answers—accept one. The Talmud contains a powerful counter-narrative to the Christian and scholarly consensus about Jesus. Did Jesus live in the first century BCE? Was he the son of a Roman soldier? Did he perform magic? Why was he executed? These are all questions that the Talmud answers, pointing us closer to knowing who the historical Jesus was and when he lived. Within these pages, you will find a clear presentation of the Talmud’s narrative and some of the implications of this narrative for our understanding of Jesus as a Jewish man from Greco-Roman Palestine.
Book Synopsis The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth by : John Marco Allegro
Download or read book The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth written by John Marco Allegro and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Christian Mythology by : Philippe Walter
Download or read book Christian Mythology written by Philippe Walter and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-11-20 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reveals how Christian mythology has more to do with long-standing pagan traditions than the Bible • Explains how the church fathers knowingly incorporated pagan elements into the Christian faith to ease the transition to the new religion • Identifies pagan deities that were incorporated into each of the saints • Shows how all the major holidays in the Christian calendar are modeled on pagan rituals and myths, including Easter and Christmas In this extensive study of the Christian mythology that animated Europe in the Middle Ages, author Philippe Walter reveals how these stories and the holiday traditions connected with them are based on long-standing pagan rituals and myths and have very little connection to the Bible. The author explains how the church fathers knowingly incorporated pagan elements into the Christian faith to ease the transition to the new religion. Rather than tear down the pagan temples in Britain, Pope Gregory the Great advised Saint Augustine of Canterbury to add the pagan rituals into the mix of Christian practices and transform the pagan temples into churches. Instead of religious conversion, it was simply a matter of convincing the populace to include Jesus in their current religious practices. Providing extensive documentation, Walter shows which major calendar days of the Christian year are founded on pagan rituals and myths, including the high holidays of Easter and Christmas. Examining hagiographic accounts of the saints, he reveals the origin of these symbolic figures in the deities worshipped in pagan Europe for centuries. He also explores how the identities of saints and pagan figures became so intermingled that some saints were transformed into pagan incarnations, such as Mary Magdalene’s conversion into one of the Celtic Ladies of the Lake. In revealing the pagan roots of many Christian figures, stories, and rituals, Walter provides a new understanding of the evolution of religious belief.
Book Synopsis Christ and the Caesars by : Helmut Brunar
Download or read book Christ and the Caesars written by Helmut Brunar and published by . This book was released on 2015-03-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly thirty years after Bruno Bauer published his 1877 book, Christus und die Caesaren...(Christ and the Caesars...), Albert Schweitzer left the Lutheran ministry in his native Alsace-Lorraine to study medicine in Paris (1905 at age 30). In 1911 he earned a Doctorate in Medicine and two years later (1913) he and his wife set off to establish a hospital in Lambarene, now Gabon, West Central Africa. He had given chapter eleven of his 1906 book (Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung; English: The Quest of the Historical Jesus) the title "Bruno Bauer." In that chapter, Dr. Schweitzer had concluded with this statement: ..".his [Bruno Bauer's] work...is the ablest and most complete collection of the difficulties of the Life of Jesus which is anywhere to be found...The shaft which he had driven into the mountain...laid bare once more the veins of ore which he had struck...for his contemporaries he was a mere eccentric...But his eccentricity concealed a penetrating insight. No one else had as yet grasped with the same completeness the idea that primitive Christianity and early Christianity were not merely the direct outcome of the preachings of Jesus, not merely a teaching put into practice, but more, much more, since to the experience of which Jesus was the subject there allied itself [with] the experience of the world-soul at a time when its body-humanity under the Roman Empire-lay in the throes of death...Bauer transferred it to the historical plane and found the 'body of Christ' in the Roman Empire," The Quest of the Historical Jesus, translated by W. Montgomery, B.A., B.D. (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1911), second English edition, pp. 159-160, with a Preface by, F. C. Burkitt, M.A., D.D. What, according to Albert Schweitzer, were the ..".bare...veins of ore..." that Bruno Bauer had struck about Jesus' history (and the New Testament)? Chances are that it can be found in the last chapter (VIII) of Christ and the Caesars(Bloomington IN: Xlibris, 2015): Chapter VIII The Completion of New Testament Literature A Great History and a Late Work of Fiction "We have now seen unfold, in a series of images, the fate of imperial rule, nationalities and social classes during the first two centuries of our calendar. As diverse as the figures were who acted before our eyes, they were still just shells hiding one and the same fact. If on the one hand already at that time the friends of tradition saw the removal of the citizens from their political and national efforts only as a violent act of the new Lord of the world, so we also recognized on the other hand in imperial rule the consequence and image of an emancipation of minds from their limited daily tasks, and a political form that corresponded with the ideal of a world community during that time. Personal freedom within the newly opened world-wide coherence was the heartfelt wish of that discredited time, which, in the history books since the days of Tacitus, has been decried as decayed and lost. The immaterial goods which Greece had produced in a similar time of political decline filled the political void; in Rome and Alexandria they united around the center of the Jewish Law, and Seneca gave the new associations the leader in the image of the one who would perfect mankind and who was eventually able to join in battle with the powerful ruler in Rome," Christ and the Caesars, pp. 365-
Book Synopsis The Birth of Christianity by : Joel Carmichael
Download or read book The Birth of Christianity written by Joel Carmichael and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This challenging study reassesses the roles of Jesus and Paul as the founders of Christianity, in light of the contemporary Kingdom of God agitations against Rome.
Book Synopsis Jesus Christ, Sun of God by : David Fideler
Download or read book Jesus Christ, Sun of God written by David Fideler and published by Quest Books. This book was released on 1993-10-01 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The early Christian Gnosis did not spring up in isolation, but drew upon earlier sources. In this book, many of these sources are revealed for the first time. Special emphasis is placed on the Hellenistic doctrine of the "Solar Logos" and the early Christian symbolism which depicted Christ as the Spiritual Sun, the illumination source of order, harmony, and spiritual insight. Based on 15 years of research, this is a unique book which throws a penetrating light on the secret traditions of early Christianity. It clearly demonstrates that number is at the heart of being. Jesus Christ, Sun of God, illustrates how the Christian symbolism of the Spiritual Sun is derived from numerical symbolism of the "ancient divinities."
Book Synopsis Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth by : John G. Jackson
Download or read book Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth written by John G. Jackson and published by Echo Point+ORM. This book was released on 2018-12-17 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A classic resource that connects the cardinal doctrines of Christianity to their origins in the ancient civilizations that preceded the religion. In Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth, John G. Jackson sources the pagan origins of Christian doctrine with particular focus on the creation and atonement myths. Rooted in historical facts, Jackson’s claims are steeped in research and demonstrate how Christianity synthesizes the rituals, beliefs, and characteristics of savior gods from ancient Egyptian, Greek, Aztec, and Hindu origins. Initially published in 1941, this concise introduction remains an insightful contribution to comparative religion studies.
Book Synopsis The Making of Christian Myths in the Periphery of Latin Christendom (c. 1000-1300) by : Lars Boje Mortensen
Download or read book The Making of Christian Myths in the Periphery of Latin Christendom (c. 1000-1300) written by Lars Boje Mortensen and published by Museum Tusculanum Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mythology is usually reserved for non-Christian religions. However, the adoption of Christianity in Northern and East-Central Europe between c. 1000 and 1300 can be adequately described as a myth-making process: local saints were added to the Christian pantheon in all regions entering Latin Europe. The present collection explores the links between local sanctity and the making of national myths in medieval historical writing. By bringing together specialists in history and literature of the European periphery in question, the case is made that the writing of history and saints lives from this pioneering period should been analysed together as mainly successful attempts at creating cultural foundation myths.
Book Synopsis Exposing Myths About Christianity by : Jeffrey Burton Russell
Download or read book Exposing Myths About Christianity written by Jeffrey Burton Russell and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2012-05-15 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Renowned historian, Jeffrey Burton Russell, famous for his studies of medieval history, sets the record straight against the New Atheists and other cultural critics who charge Christianity with being outdated, destructive, superstitious, unenlightened, racist, colonialist, based on fabrication, and other significant false accusations.
Download or read book Zealot written by Reza Aslan and published by Random House. This book was released on 2013-07-16 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A lucid, intelligent page-turner” (Los Angeles Times) that challenges long-held assumptions about Jesus, from the host of Believer Two thousand years ago, an itinerant Jewish preacher walked across the Galilee, gathering followers to establish what he called the “Kingdom of God.” The revolutionary movement he launched was so threatening to the established order that he was executed as a state criminal. Within decades after his death, his followers would call him God. Sifting through centuries of mythmaking, Reza Aslan sheds new light on one of history’s most enigmatic figures by examining Jesus through the lens of the tumultuous era in which he lived. Balancing the Jesus of the Gospels against the historical sources, Aslan describes a man full of conviction and passion, yet rife with contradiction. He explores the reasons the early Christian church preferred to promulgate an image of Jesus as a peaceful spiritual teacher rather than a politically conscious revolutionary. And he grapples with the riddle of how Jesus understood himself, the mystery that is at the heart of all subsequent claims about his divinity. Zealot yields a fresh perspective on one of the greatest stories ever told even as it affirms the radical and transformative nature of Jesus’ life and mission. Praise for Zealot “Riveting . . . Aslan synthesizes Scripture and scholarship to create an original account.”—The New Yorker “Fascinatingly and convincingly drawn . . . Aslan may come as close as one can to respecting those who revere Jesus as the peace-loving, turn-the-other-cheek, true son of God depicted in modern Christianity, even as he knocks down that image.”—The Seattle Times “[Aslan’s] literary talent is as essential to the effect of Zealot as are his scholarly and journalistic chops. . . . A vivid, persuasive portrait.”—Salon “This tough-minded, deeply political book does full justice to the real Jesus, and honors him in the process.”—San Francisco Chronicle “A special and revealing work, one that believer and skeptic alike will find surprising, engaging, and original.”—Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power “Compulsively readable . . . This superb work is highly recommended.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Book Synopsis Christians and the Holy Places by : Joan E. Taylor
Download or read book Christians and the Holy Places written by Joan E. Taylor and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a detailed examination of the literature and archaeology pertaining to specific sites (in Palestine, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Memre, Nazareth, Capernaum, and elsewhere) and the region in general. Taylor contends that the origins of these holy places and the phenomenon of Christian pilgrimage can be traced to the emperor Constantine, who ruled over the eastern Empire from 324. He contends that few places were actually genuine; the most important authentic site being the cave (not Garden) of Gethsemane, where Christ was probably arrested. Extensively illustrated, this lively new look at a topic previously shrouded in obscurity should interest students in scholars in a range of disciplines.
