Where did the idea of eternal life in Heaven come from?

[atrib]

The following facts seem to not be disputed:

Ideas and longing for Eternal Life existed at least back to 2,000 BC, long before the 1st century AD.

There is no noticeable increase in these ideas during those 2,000 years. By 200 or 100 BC there was no increased interest in it beyond what there was in 2000-1500 BC. It was very rare, if there at all, in the Jewish beliefs. And the interest among Egyptians and Greeks and Romans did not increase toward the 1st century AD.

But then suddenly about 50 AD - 100 AD there is an explosion of interest in this and a sudden claim that one could gain eternal life by just believing in this one character who pops up in 30 AD. There's nothing just prior in any of the literature to explain where this came from.

And there is the claim, in at least 5 1st-century documents, unexplained in anything earlier, that this one was killed and then rose back to life a few days later, seen by many witnesses.

So, why is there a sudden belief in eternal life in heaven, dating from this point in time, with nothing earlier to explain it?

The best explanation is that the reports about this 1st-century resurrected one caused many to start believing this, or giving them hope for this possibility, when before there had been nothing to give them any such hope. And no one can explain why there was such a claim of a resurrected one only at this time and place and not at any other time or place over thousands of years of legend throughout many lands and cultures with their various superstitions and mythologies and religious traditions.

So maybe it's possible that something unusual really did happen here, in Galilee-Judea, in about 30 AD, which uniquely caused this new "Gospel" (euangelion) good news to sprout up and spread as a new eternal life hope such as did not exist before.

Y'think?

But sshhhhhhh, we're not supposed to say this, because it offends some people.

First, I don't agree with your premises - that the idea of being resurrected into an afterlife suddenly expanded exponentially in the first century. You need to cite sources to support this claim if you want them to be considered as a fundamental premise to your argument.

Second, even if we accept the premise as true, at best you are left with an explanation that involves a story of a dead man being resurrected from the grave. There are many naturalistic explanations as to how such a story might have originated; and as you have pointed out yourself, such stories were not uncommon in that part of the world. The existence of the story does not imply the story is true. The vast amount of evidence that speaks against such a story being true makes it extremely unlikely that the story is factual.

Y'think?

You are begging the question here, while desperately trying to cover it up. You don't know whether the story is based on factual events since there is no evidence to corroborate the story. When you are able to rule out all possible naturalistic explanations for the existence of the story, come back and take another stab at it.

 

[Jarhyn]

The following facts seem to not be disputed:

Ideas and longing for Eternal Life existed at least back to 2,000 BC, long before the 1st century AD.

There is no noticeable increase in these ideas during those 2,000 years. By 200 or 100 BC there was no increased interest in it beyond what there was in 2000-1500 BC. It was very rare, if there at all, in the Jewish beliefs. And the interest among Egyptians and Greeks and Romans did not increase toward the 1st century AD.

But then suddenly about 50 AD - 100 AD there is an explosion of interest in this and a sudden claim that one could gain eternal life by just believing in this one character who pops up in 30 AD. There's nothing just prior in any of the literature to explain where this came from.

And there is the claim, in at least 5 1st-century documents, unexplained in anything earlier, that this one was killed and then rose back to life a few days later, seen by many witnesses.

So, why is there a sudden belief in eternal life in heaven, dating from this point in time, with nothing earlier to explain it?

The best explanation is that the reports about this 1st-century resurrected one caused many to start believing this, or giving them hope for this possibility, when before there had been nothing to give them any such hope. And no one can explain why there was such a claim of a resurrected one only at this time and place and not at any other time or place over thousands of years of legend throughout many lands and cultures with their various superstitions and mythologies and religious traditions.

So maybe it's possible that something unusual really did happen here, in Galilee-Judea, in about 30 AD, which uniquely caused this new "Gospel" (euangelion) good news to sprout up and spread as a new eternal life hope such as did not exist before.

Y'think?

But sshhhhhhh, we're not supposed to say this, because it offends some people.

First, I don't agree with your premises - that the idea of being resurrected into an afterlife suddenly expanded exponentially in the first century. You need to cite sources to support this claim if you want them to be considered as a fundamental premise to your argument.

Second, even if we accept the premise as true, at best you are left with an explanation that involves a story of a dead man being resurrected from the grave. There are many naturalistic explanations as to how such a story might have originated; and as you have pointed out yourself, such stories were not uncommon in that part of the world. The existence of the story does not imply the story is true. The vast amount of evidence that speaks against such a story being true makes it extremely unlikely that the story is factual.

Y'think?

You are begging the question here, while desperately trying to cover it up. You don't know whether the story is based on factual events since there is no evidence to corroborate the story. When you are able to rule out all possible naturalistic explanations for the existence of the story, come back and take another stab at it.

I can absolutely attest to the fact that many other completely nonchristian cultures believed in afterlives. In fact the Eddas feature this belief quite pointedly, as well as even referencing earlier flood stories, albeit told from the perspective of people who were not "the ones in the boat", who they called out as Jotun!

I find the whole thing quite insulting, in fact, that people would discount Germanic pre-christian religions!

As to the instance of an after life, can only assume that interest in an afterlife is guaranteed to increase following the proliferation of a cult for whom this is a new and major doctrine.

In fact I find it far more likely not that the cult succeeded because of some series of actual events, but rather that the cult succeeded because it used a very effective lie, and the lie succeeded for the same reasons I detailed up thread

 

[Keith&Co.]

You need to cite sources to support this claim if you want them to be considered as a fundamental premise to your argument.

Ha.
Good one.

 

[atrib]

You need to cite sources to support this claim if you want them to be considered as a fundamental premise to your argument.

Ha.
Good one.

One can always hope for a miracle.

 

[Jarhyn]

You need to cite sources to support this claim if you want them to be considered as a fundamental premise to your argument.

Ha.
Good one.

One can always hope for a miracle.

Strangely enough, there may be a basis for believing in a real afterlife and/or heaven.

So, let's assume for a moment that the universe is a function of math, purely implied as a hidden relationship created by the axioms of math. Let's assume then that there is an equation which could be solved for a given position in time and space to reveal exactly what is at that time and place...

First off, this would mean a lot of things and absolute knowledge of such would massively mutate our society. But beyond the immediate consequences exist the fact that, assuming you knew where and when to look and how to look there, you could just recreate every mind of every person who ever lived.

Assuming yet again, let's assume that earth is in an easily found region of space-time, that there is some event that will happen here that will put earth on a short list of "interesting places in spacetime" or perhaps impugns it's identity in math as "an interesting number".. This implies that every human existence would be under scrutiny. Every human ever would then have to worry about the possibility of being spun back up and questioned about their life, choices, and even held to account for that after their death. Imagine a world not in which you don't die, but in which you cannot ever permanently die because someone keeps spinning you up because your mind happens to be easy to find in spacetime...

I pity the first person to figure out how to do this, how to project the basis of the universe into useful information within it's time and space because they will never be able to just rest. Assuming they are here on earth and reveal their discovery, someone will from then on always know how to find them. They will not be allowed to die. Forever.

 

[DBT]

Dreams, inner visions, out of body experiences, etc, may have given the impression of trancendency, a foundation for a belief in life beyond the physical realm.

And this is precisely the genesis of such fanciful notions as afterlives. Sure, it looks like the Egyptians hold the historical patent but such a claim isn't going to interfere with getting on with life. It's a bit of a luxury expenditure but affordable given circumstances.

I think that's after the fact reconstruction. Because we live in a Christian society where an afterlife is the accepted default position we think it's natural and obvious. But there's no theological support for that it's been a common belief going back much further than Christianity

What about tombs and burial sites, including writing that shows preparation for an afterlife, Egyptian, Sumerian, etc, even during the stone age?

 

[DrZoidberg]

I think that's after the fact reconstruction. Because we live in a Christian society where an afterlife is the accepted default position we think it's natural and obvious. But there's no theological support for that it's been a common belief going back much further than Christianity

What about tombs and burial sites, including writing that shows preparation for an afterlife, Egyptian, Sumerian, etc, even during the stone age?

Yes, that's an interesting question. Initially in Egyptian religious mythology only the king could potentially qualify to go to the "Field of Reeds". This is not Heaven. This is off far in the west, ie the place where the sun comes up over the flat Earth. So it's physically on Earth. But it's a treacherous journey. And it's his actual body that goes. In times of political coups we see that one leg is shattered of mummies and statues, to keep them from being able to take he journey. In Egyptian religious thought they were big on transformation. Anybody could transform into and out of being a god. If you paid the necessary price, ie sacrifice and ritual. Dreaming was seen as actually visiting the realm of the gods. It was something any Egyptian could do. So the Egyptian gods were a hell of a lot closer to human experience than, let's say, the Abrahamic God. In Abrahamic religion God is all powerful and Omniscient. Not so in Egyptian religion. They're just a little bit more powerful than humans. The pharaoh/king being worshipped as a god, to Christians sounds preposterously arrogant and insane. But it really wasn't.

In Abrahamic religion the conceptual gulf between the terrestrial plane and the divine plane is huge. It was not in Egyptian religion. Life in the Field of Reeds was conceptualized as the same as the mortal life. The only difference is that in order to survive in the Field of Reeds you needed your mummy to survive intact and continual offerings to your personal temple. In the Old Kingdom this was reserved only for the king/pharaoh.

It was also a daily thing. At night the person would sleep as a mummy in the tomb. Then in the morning they'd get up and jog around and then go to the Field of Reeds. Come home to the tomb at night. If I've understood how it's supposed to mean. The way to the Field of Reeds were beset by demons, that needed to be fought off, ever morning, (and every night on the way home). The offerings and prayers helped them stave the demons away.

In the Middle kingdom there was a shift in the culture. The ability to go to the afterlife was democratized. Inside shrines to the pharaoh there would now pop up a bunch of other statues. These were top officials and queens. Imhotep is, famously, the first guy to start this trend. For obvious reasons this created a shift in the duties of priests. A priest wasn't exclusive to one temple of a god. Now their duties became to whizz around the enormous plethora of temples to sacrifice to a sea of statues to people nobody could remember who they were or what they'd done. That's why the temple decoration first appeared. It's just a CV, listing the stuff this prominent person had done, and why he deserves daily offerings so the priest understands wtf he's doing all day.

In the New Kingdom this development got evermore elaborate, and practices were streamlined for efficiency. This was also Egypt at the peak of their power and wealth. So this practice put little strain on the economy.

After pharaonic power collapsed and they were placed under the rule of foreign kings then the need to sacrifice to the specific statues became unimportant. Sacrifices at festivals covered all Egyptians needs. This blew the doors of initiation into the Field of Reeds off its hinges. Now anybody able to mummify their loved ones could go to the Field of Reeds.

The cult of Isis is just straight up current Egyptian religion of it's age. It dates to 300 BC and is exactly the same as what later became Christianity. All you needed to do was be a good person and you'd be rewarded by Eternal Life in the Field of Reeds. No sacrifices were necessary after you were dead. As long as you were a moral person and did your religious duties while alive, you were assured a place in the Field of Reeds. Again... the same life as you'd live in the mortal realm, just forever.

So that's a contender. But the vision of Heaven is quite different from the Field of Reeds. As is the Egyptian gods different from Jehova. It's very different theologies.

The pre-pharisaic God Jehova is wholly abstract. It's truly ineffable. The abode of God, Heaven, is never explained in detail. It's ineffable and amaze. It's quite different from Egyptian theology. Nobody was expected to have to have a job in Heaven. And most importantly, it was the home of God, and God alone. Pharisees changed this ca 100 BC. But where did that come from? I don't know.

The Sumerian afterlife is bog standard pagan afterlife:

"The Sumerian afterlife was a dark, dreary cavern located deep below the ground, where inhabitants were believed to continue "a shadowy version of life on earth". This bleak domain was known as Kur, and was believed to be ruled by the goddess Ereshkigal."

So it wasn't that.

It could be from Zoroastrianism? This description sounds awfully similar to Christian Heaven and Hell.

https://www.quora.com/How-are-hell-and-heaven-described-in-Zoroastrianism

Judaism did import Angels and Satan from Zoroastrianism. Why not this as well? Even though it popped up in a period well after Sassanid (Zoroastrianism) rule was replaced by Greek and Roman rule. It could have been something that lingered in the culture for centuries before taking hold?

But centuries is a long time.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Did something new happen with "Christianity"? in the 1st-century?

I.e., the earliest "Christianity" -- not later Council-of-Nicaea "Christianity"

The original question was:

Where did the Christian idea of a soul and it's eternal life in Heaven come from?

A basic problem with this question -- maybe I didn't catch it at first -- is that there is no such thing as "the Christian idea of a soul and its eternal life in Heaven." If you study all the Christian literature, you find no such thing as the Christian idea of a soul etc.

Rather, there are hundreds of Christian ideas about souls and Heaven and eternal life. The new emphasis rather is about how to get to Heaven, which is "the good news" of that time, preached by Paul and others, reporting something which happened, and then because of this there is seen to be a way to gain eternal life which did not exist before. So the real "Christian idea" was not about the nature of "the soul" and "Heaven" and so on, which were accepted much as already believed, in different forms, all having some wish or perception of some afterlife.

So, I plead guilty to slightly altering the original question:

Where did the Christian idea of being saved and gaining eternal life in Heaven come from?

I don't think this changed version turns it into something silly and pointless, because actually it also solves what the original question asks. Because what is different about Christianity is not its ideas about the nature of the soul or Heaven, but its ideas about gaining eternal life, or how the soul is to be saved. --Whatever the exact nature of the soul is.

So, why is there a sudden belief in eternal life in heaven, dating from this point in time, with nothing earlier to explain it?

The best explanation is that the reports about this 1st-century resurrected one caused many to start believing this, or giving them hope for this possibility, when before there had been nothing to give them any such hope. And no one can explain why there was such a claim of a resurrected one only at this time and place and not at any other time or place over thousands of years of legend throughout many lands and cultures with their various superstitions and mythologies and religious traditions.

So maybe it's possible that something unusual really did happen here, in Galilee-Judea, in about 30 AD, which uniquely caused this new "Gospel" (euangelion) good news to sprout up and spread as a new eternal life hope such as did not exist before.

Y'think?

But sshhhhhhh, we're not supposed to say this, because it offends some people.

It's not that it offends people. It's dumb. Jesus dying and resurrected is a standard pagan story on the Middle East.

No, there are no other dying and resurrecting stories from the Middle East. You can't name one and cite a source for it. I know you can rattle off a list of names of supposed resurrected gods/heroes, but you can't quote any source for those, giving the account of it and reporting the alleged event.

It's pretty obvious to anybody accustomed to ancient literature that everything supernatural attributed to Jesus is traditional pagan stories to prove that Jesus was the son of a god.

No, not "everything" -- not the part relevant to our point, which is the Resurrection. Also the miracle healing stories are not from any traditional pagan stories. You could make a case that the virgin birth and the scene of Jesus being tempted by Satan are derived from earlier pagan ideas.

But you cannot cite any earlier pagan or Jewish sources narrating any resurrection event or miracle healings which resemble the miracle acts of Jesus. And it's these which are related to the "good news" eternal life claim which appears in the 1st century AD and cannot be explained unless something unusual happened at this time to cause this new belief in the possibility of eternal life.

Actually, you're 1 or 2% correct in your claim, if you'll make the effort to find such earlier sources, and we could debate whether they really prove your point. There's virtually nothing there. E.g., we could discuss the Asclepius cult, which you might cite.

And it's true that there is one earlier story, not pagan but Jewish, which was used by the Christian storytellers. And that is II Kings 4:42-44, which bears too much resemblance to the later Jesus fish-and-loaves miracle story. However, that is the ONLY Jesus miracle which appears to have been derived from something earlier. Other than that, there is no Jesus miracle story which can be traced back to some earlier legend. So this is the exception which makes the rule: The Jesus "supernatural" stuff was not derived from "pagan stories" or other earlier traditions. You can't give any other example than this one from II Kings.

At the same time, there is probably fiction in the Gospel accounts, in addition to fact, as there is in most or all the ancient writings. And also there are elements borrowed from earlier pagan and Jewish tradition. And maybe you could argue that the Gospel accounts contain a higher percentage of fiction than most other written accounts of the time. But that fiction element would not include the healing miracles and the Resurrection, which show no indication of being fictional, other than the simple dogma that such "supernatural" events are impossible ipso facto and so must be ruled out, regardless of the evidence.

A true scientific skeptical approach does not impose the requirement that all miracle claims must be ruled out a priori without consideration of the evidence. Rather, science and skepticism only requires doubting, as well as a higher quantity of evidence in the case of miracle claims. Which extra evidence we do have in the case of the Jesus healing miracles and resurrection.

In paganism anybody who did anything extraordinary is explained by them being partly by divine parentage.

That would include anyone who really did do something extraordinary. So, if Jesus did in fact perform something extraordinary, like the miracle acts depicted in the accounts, then some would explain it as due to divine parentage.

On the other hand, if he did nothing extraordinary at all, then probably he would not even have made it into the historical record. Nor would Alexander the Great or Socrates or any other noteworthy figure of history. They all did something extraordinary, or they would have been forgotten. So, why is he in the historical record at all? Didn't he have to do something unusual in order to get reported in written accounts? What did he do that made him noteworthy enough to get this recognition?

The story of Jesus is bog standard on the pagan tradition.

If so, we should have some similar pagan legend we know from written sources of the time of the alleged events, rather than only from literature appearing centuries or thousands of years later, which is all we have.

All the pagan myth traditions are legends which emerged over many centuries, or even thousands of years. While the Jesus legend appeared in about 20 years, first in Paul's epistles, reporting that he was crucified and then raised back to life. Then other accounts reported the same during the period up to 100 AD. So the "story of Jesus" developed during a period of 20-70 years after his death, during which we have at least 5 written sources, for which by comparison there is nothing similar in any of the pagan traditions, which are all products of many centuries of mythologizing and legend-building.

If all of these tens of thousands similar Jesus figures didn't make a shift in our beliefs then its silly to think Jesus would do it based on that alone.

If these "similar Jesus figures" really did exist, someone would finally cite one example and quote from the ancient sources of the time which report on them. That no one ever does this is strong evidence that there isn't even one "similar" figure, let alone thousands. If there is another, someone will present him/her and quote from those ancient sources, instead of continuing to falsely claim that they exist, and falsely giving the laundry list of their names, without giving the ancient source for a single one and quoting the part which tells us about their miracle deeds.

Just quoting your favorite modern Jesus-debunker guru is not evidence for the ancient miracle-worker legends. If those legends are not in the ancient literature, your modern guru cannot invent them just to satisfy your demand for it because you need to believe there were other rival Jesus legends.

Theologically the cult of Isis is pretty much a carbon copy of Christianity and predates it by 300 years.

It contains no miracle-worker or resurrection tales.

You could just as easily claim that Christopher Columbus is a "carbon copy" of Odysseus. You might draw analogies here or there. E.g., maybe Christian baptism became something like an initiation rite similar to those of the Isis cult.

But there is nothing in the cult of Isis claiming someone died and was raised back to life, which can explain why the first Christ cults promoted a new hope for eternal life such as didn't exist before the first century AD. There is virtually no reference to "eternal life" in the earlier literature, outside of one reference in the Book of Enoch. And all references to the afterlife are totally pessimistic, emphasizing how difficult or impossible it is to attain to "Heaven" rather than perishing in Hell or in darkness. It's only in Paul's epistles where suddenly there is a kind of magic key to eternal life, which suddenly becomes a free "gift" instead of something difficult to attain through suffering and merit.

There needs to be an explanation why the prospect of eternal life suddenly changed into something optimistic. Where are there writings from the Isis cult preaching any new optimism about the possibility of eternal life, such as we see in the 1st-century NT writings?

I came across this:

https://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Projects/Reln91/Gender/isis.htm Finally, Osiris's promise of eternal life (through his sacrifice) for his followers has clear parallels to early Christian understandings of Christ.

So yes, there is an interpretation that Osiris promised eternal life to his followers. But this is nothing but a modern interpretation of the ancient cult. Where in any of the ancient literature, prior to Christianity, do we see any such promise? All the language about promising eternal life and about a "resurrection" of Osiris or Horus, etc., is nothing but modern Christian interpolations put back into the ancient pagan legends, not really in any original pagan source literature. There is nothing in the ancient sources about Isis or Osiris or Horus which reports any "resurrection" of anyone or any promise of eternal life to the followers of the cult. Other than, later, some threats of damnation and the possibility of earning some kind of salvation, for a tiny few heroes who struggle hard enough and perform enough meritorious deeds to earn their special place with the gods in eternal bliss.

So you could use the Egyptian sources as evidence that "salvation by works" was borrowed from earlier tradition, by some Christians like James. It's true that salvation by merit, by performing diligently the ancient rites, obeying the Law, etc., was a theme borrowed from earlier paganism and Judaism. But none of that can explain the 1st-century belief, unprecedented, that eternal life is offered as a free gift to believers, from someone whose deeds demonstrated unique life-giving power such as we see in the miracle healing acts and in the Resurrection, all originating from the 1st-century only, not appearing in the earlier legends. You can claim falsely that they appear earlier, but you cannot quote from any earlier source for this.

We could discuss the Asclepius cult, if you think Christianity may have borrowed from that, for ideas about miracle healing or salvation or eternal life.

Was extremely popular at the time of Jesus life. Not only that, but the story of Jesus has similarities with the story of Osiris. A prominent figure in the Cult of Isis.

No, Osiris was killed and did not resurrect back to life.

Leaving aside that there is no serious evidence for the Osiris-Isis-Horus story -- like we have serious evidence for Jesus in the 1st century -- the Osiris story is not about a resurrection of a dead person back to life. There is no "resurrection" word used in any ancient literature describing Osiris -- that's just a word used by later Christians drawing analogies to the ancient legend which was not about a resurrection. The story is that Osiris' body pieces were brought back together so that Isis could "have sex" with him somehow, get impregnated and then spawn Horus.

If they really existed, it's reasonable to believe that the king or pharaoh Osiris was killed, and his wife Isis had a child and claimed the offspring was from Osiris who somehow impregnated her before giving up the ghost, which might be a miracle of sorts, and so the son Horus succeeds Osiris. And worshipers of Osiris are glad to have his heir Horus to rule them, so they think of Horus as the new Osiris.

But this obviously is not what "resurrection" means in the 1st-century Christian writings.

It is not a "resurrection" to simply have your seed passed on to an offspring. You could say any human is a "resurrected" version of their parent(s). That is not what the Jesus resurrection is, obviously. Nothing about the Jesus resurrection has anything to do with his parent having died and spawned him through having sex just before dying.

It is ludicrous and nutty to suggest that anyone is a resurrected version of their parent, just as Jesus resurrected. No, the Jesus resurrection is about someone who died and then came back to life a few days later -- the same person returning as he had been before, possibly changed in some way, but not his offspring being born as an infant and a new and different person than the parent who had died. If that was all Jesus did, then his resurrection was nothing unusual at all. Because EVERYONE is an offspring of their parent.

You first have to get serious. It is not serious to say that the Jesus resurrection is nothing different than what happens to everyone who is born, who is the resurrection of their parent. That's all Horus was. He was the OFFSPRING of Osiris, not the RESURRECTION of him.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysteries_of_Isis

Not only do I not think that. I think it's silly and lazy Christian exceptionalism.

But this is only your knee-jerk impulse, for which you have no evidence.

You've offered no earlier example of anyone who reportedly performed miracle acts or resurrected, virtually nothing in any of the legends, fictional or otherwise, and obviously nothing from any evidence, such as written accounts from the time, such as we have evidence, i.e., written sources reporting Jesus doing miracle healings and resurrecting from death.

 

[Jarhyn]

I can't help but think of the Homeric version of The Epic Cycle either. Did that not pointedly feature a forray into the underworld where the dead found their afterlife?

In fact journeys to the land of the dead are a staple of The Epic Cycle, no matter what instantiation you are talking about.

 

[DrZoidberg]

No, there are no other dying and resurrecting stories from the Middle East. You can't name one and cite a source for it. I know you can rattle off a list of names of supposed resurrected gods/heroes, but you can't quote any source for those, giving the account of it and reporting the alleged event.

Yes, I can. Osiris. Well documented Greek myth. Orpheus, the son of a God, comes out of the underworld. Also well documented. There's so many sources I wonder how lazy you are? The Orpheus story can be found in Ovid's Metamorphosis, one of the most famous books in world history. The Osiris myth is literally carved in stone in many ancient Egyptian tombs. The list of these stories is long.

The Jesus myth in the Bible was never intended by its authors to be an accurate account. That's not the kind of book it is. It's not a "report". It's a myth intended to be inspirational. A tweaked reality of a super human person. I'm pretty sure that the authors adding reports of miracles for dramatic effect wouldn't have seen it as lying. It's not that kind of book.

It's pretty obvious to anybody accustomed to ancient literature that everything supernatural attributed to Jesus is traditional pagan stories to prove that Jesus was the son of a god.

No, not "everything" -- not the part relevant to our point, which is the Resurrection. Also the miracle healing stories are not from any traditional pagan stories. You could make a case that the virgin birth and the scene of Jesus being tempted by Satan are derived from earlier pagan ideas.

But you cannot cite any earlier pagan or Jewish sources narrating any resurrection event or miracle healings which resemble the miracle acts of Jesus. And it's these which are related to the "good news" eternal life claim which appears in the 1st century AD and cannot be explained unless something unusual happened at this time to cause this new belief in the possibility of eternal life.

OMG. If you'd go to ANY doctor in the ancient Middle-East you would expect a miracle healing. That's why you'd go. They didn't believe that healing powers was a science. They believe it was ALL magic.

Why this demand to find sources for something this well attested and well known? Are you truly this ignorant, or do you think that I don't have access to Google?



In the meantime, enjoy this picture of a Roman flying penis. Yes, it's a real thing intended to ward off disease... magically.

Faith healing was all over the ancient world. As it is today, in the modern world.

That's as long as I got reading your message. My eyes are straining from all the eye rolling.

All the evidence suggests that all the magical things attributed to Jesus are attributed to him because those are traditional for divine beings and heroes in the pagan tradition. There is NOTHING special or unique about the Jesus miracles. They're so standard and traditional, that to me, it's pretty obvious that they're added in order to jack into earlier preconceptions about divinity to convince pagans of his godly specialness.

 

[funinspace]

That's as long as I got reading your message. My eyes are straining from all the eye rolling.

To the Pain... except you keep your eyes instead of your ears...

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUJccK4lV74[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Why was there increased interest in "eternal life" at around 50 AD?

The following facts seem to not be disputed:

Ideas and longing for Eternal Life existed at least back to 2,000 BC, long before the 1st century AD.

There is no noticeable increase in these ideas during those 2,000 years. By 200 or 100 BC there was no increased interest in it beyond what there was in 2000-1500 BC. It was very rare, if there at all, in the Jewish beliefs. And the interest among Egyptians and Greeks and Romans did not increase toward the 1st century AD.

But then suddenly about 50 AD - 100 AD there is an explosion of interest in this and a sudden claim that one could gain eternal life by just believing in this one character who pops up in 30 AD. There's nothing just prior in any of the literature to explain where this came from.

And there is the claim, in at least five 1st-century documents, unexplained in anything earlier, that this one was killed and then rose back to life a few days later, seen by many witnesses.

So, why is there a sudden belief in eternal life in heaven, dating from this point in time, with nothing earlier to explain it?

The best explanation is that the reports about this 1st-century resurrected one caused many to start believing this, or giving them hope for this possibility, when before there had been nothing to give them any such hope. And no one can explain why there was such a claim of a resurrected one only at this time and place and not at any other time or place over thousands of years of legend throughout many lands and cultures with their various superstitions and mythologies and religious traditions.

So maybe it's possible that something unusual really did happen here, in Galilee-Judea, in about 30 AD, which uniquely caused this new "Gospel" (euangelion) good news to sprout up and spread as a new eternal life hope such as did not exist before.

First, I don't agree with your premises - that the idea of being resurrected into an afterlife suddenly expanded exponentially in the first century.

One way to measure this is the frequency of the term "eternal life" in literature. It's difficult to find references to "eternal life" in the literature just before the period in question (before 30-50 AD). It's hardly to be found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, if at all, and other such literature. It appears once in the Book of Enoch, which probably is in that earlier period, though there are some speculations which date Enoch later.

It's not in Daniel and other apocryphal literature, or it's hard to find it if it's there. It's found in the earlier Egyptian literature and in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and it seems like the latter is where it's found the most, which is very early and probably would not explain the sudden appearance of it in the NT.

(All the above are my findings, as I've looked for references to "eternal life" in that literature and usually could not find them. Maybe I missed them -- they could be there. I just assume it's not there until I learn otherwise.)

So, why does "eternal life" suddenly occur so much in the NT? This is not caused by any apparent increased interest in that subject during the period from 100 BC to 50 AD.

Or, if you see such an interest in it during that time, where do you see it? Where are there references to "eternal life" in the pre-Christian literature, around 200 to 100 BC and later before we see it appear (suddenly?) in Paul and then in the Gospel of John?

It should be obvious to anyone that the term "eternal life" is abundant in the Paul epistles and in the Gospel of John. It also appears a little in the Synoptics, but far less, and perhaps instead is replaced by the "Kingdom of God" or "Kingdom of Heaven" language.

Does an equivalent term appear in Hebrew or Aramaic, or other languages? And does the Latin Vita Aeterna occur anywhere earlier, in Livy or Ovid, etc.? I'm only guessing that it does not. When I googled "vita aeterna" I got some Christian results, but when I added Ovid and Virgil to it, I got the "aren't many great matches" response. Both terms occur -- "life" and "eternal" -- but not together.

So if this term, in whatever language, does occur frequently in that earlier literature -- before 30 or 50 AD -- then that would refute my claim that there's a sudden new interest in "eternal life" with the Christian writings. I admit I don't have the data to prove a less frequent occurrence of it earlier. But I've looked for it there and noticed that it's hard to find. The only occurrence of this term in anything from that period which I have noticed is the one in Enoch. Presumably it's in some other places too, but it seems to be very rare.

To refute my claim you'd need to show some examples of "eternal life" showing up in the literature prior to the Christian literature beginning with Paul in about 50 AD. If you google "eternal life" all you get is Christian results. Other than the Gilgamesh and the Egyptian Book of the Dead mentions, from the much earlier time. So other than that there's a relative lack of interest in it until Paul in 50 AD.

So I can't prove that interest in eternal life increased at this time, but this appears to be the case from the sudden increase in the "eternal life" term in the literature, as we enter the period of the Christian writings beginning with Paul. Why should this term suddenly become so important at this time, appearing so prominently in these two Christian writers?

You need to cite sources to support this claim if you want them to be considered as a fundamental premise to your argument.

I only need to cite the extreme frequent occurrence of "eternal life" in both Paul and in the Gospel of John to make a good case that "eternal life" became a much more serious idea at this time, around 50 AD and after, along with the apparent lack of this term anywhere else since the ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian references. Also, if my premise is false, you should be able to find some other places in the pre-Christian literature where "eternal life" occurs. If it's there, eventually someone will find it and report it. It really does appear to be relatively peculiar to the Christian writings beginning at this time.



παλιγγενεσία (immortality) = ζωὴν αἰώνιον (eternal life)?

"Immortality" appears regularly throughout, with probably no increase or decrease during those earlier centuries. It appears in Philo the Alexandrian, but not the "eternal life" term. Since John and Philo were both influenced by gnostic thinking, why wouldn't they both use the same terminology? Why doesn't John ever use the "immortality" term but instead only the "eternal life" term?

It seems John got caught up in something similar to Paul and different than Philo's "immortality." So this "eternal life" term seems to appear suddenly in Paul and in John, used excessively by both, and there's no apparent explanation, while it's hardly found anywhere else without going way back centuries earlier to the Egyptians and Mesopotamians. Either that or it's there in that pre-Christian literature and I'm just missing it.

Also, how do we know that "eternal life" in the Gilgamesh and the Book of the Dead is really the same as the Greek "eternal life" (ζωὴν αἰώνιον -- John 3:16)? Presumably they have about the same meaning, while the standard "immortality" (παλιγγενεσία) is somehow different -- just trusting the translators. So the ζωὴν αἰώνιον is both an early idea and also relatively new idea reappearing in the Christian writings. And the question is: why does this term appear suddenly at this time, unless there is a new interest in "eternal life" at this time, and this having a somewhat different meaning than the conventional "immortality" of Plato and other Greeks?

Can't we assume Paul and John had something different in mind with their "eternal life" term than the conventional "immortality" of the Greek philosophers?

So it's legitimate to assume some new interest in "eternal life" here, around 50 AD, in the Christian writings, for which an explanation is needed. This is probably a correct premise.

Second, even if we accept the premise as true, at best you are left with an explanation that involves a story of a dead man being resurrected from the grave. There are many naturalistic explanations as to how such a story might have originated;

Some miracle stories can develop in the culture over many generations or centuries of time. Legends about Hercules, Santa Claus, Brunnhilde, Wotan, etc., developed over centuries, not in only 50 or 100 years. Though with the expansion of publishing through the Middle Ages and into modern times, it has become easier for legends to evolve faster. Especially today with the modern media. But none of that can explain how the Jesus "legend" of the 1st century appeared so quickly.

and as you have pointed out yourself, such stories were not uncommon in that part of the world.

No, I pointed out the opposite, that such resurrection stories are nonexistent prior to the Christ death and resurrection story. You cannot cite any other story from the ancient literature about a dead man coming back to life.

The only qualifier might be a story about Asclepius and one or two other heroes reviving someone, or bringing back to life someone who had been dead. Those are extremely rare. There's no narrative account of such a case, but only a brief reference to the legendary hero having performed such a miracle. Except for those half-dozen stories, there are no references whatever to dead persons coming back to life again. The poetic return of someone in the form of their later descendant, like a reincarnation or Osiris-Horus father-son story is not a resurrection back to life from having been dead. No more so than Alexander being a resurrection of Phillip II, e.g. That's not what "resurrection" means.

Nor are the stories of someone being transformed into a spirit the same as "resurrection," or traveling to a different realm, to Heaven or to Hell or to a place to visit the dead, or even being metamorphized into an animal or other form of life (like King Nebuchadnezzar was transformed into a beast which ate grass and grew feathers and claws). The "resurrection" in Paul and in the Gospels means dying, like we know humans normally die, and then coming back to life, as humans normally do not do. Not some crazy transformation into a different life form or transplantation to a different realm or dimension of reality.

The existence of the story does not imply the story is true.

Usually not, for something irregular like miracles. However, it depends on the number of sources, and also on how close the report of it is chronologically to the alleged event. The vast majority of miracle claims are ruled out because there's only one source, or the sources are much too far removed from the date of the alleged event.

The story cannot automatically be ruled out simply because it claims something unusual. Rather, if there are multiple sources close to the event, then it has to be given some credibility, or the doubt is reduced.

The vast amount of evidence that speaks against such a story being true makes it extremely unlikely that the story is factual.

It's OK to say it's "extremely unlikely" for such a story to be true. But that only means that extra evidence is required for any particular such claim to be true. If there is the extra evidence in a given case, from a source close to when the alleged event happened, then it's no longer "extremely unlikely" as the usual case where there is little or no evidence. The general reason to reject such a claim is that it's contrary to normal experience and there's little or no evidence that it really happened. But in the case of the Jesus resurrection there's more than enough extra evidence that it really happened, so that one can reasonably believe it, even though there is still doubt.

You are begging the question here, while desperately trying to cover it up. You don't know whether the story is based on factual events since there is no evidence to corroborate the story.

The 1st-century documents saying it happened are evidence that it happened. As is the case with virtually all historical events, we rely on the reports that it happened as our evidence. Without those reports that the event happened, there is virtually no evidence for our history -- especially for events 1000 or 2000 years ago.

The only evidence to "corroborate" any reported historical event is other reports that the event happened. If there are extra sources saying it happened, that is corroboration of the event. And of course the extra sources also cast doubt on any details where there are discrepancies. So the agreement among the multiple sources helps to corroborate the part where there's agreement, while any discrepancies cast doubt on the details where there's disagreement. Our five sources for the historical Jesus do corroborate each other on the main points, but there are many discrepancies which make the details doubtful.

When you are able to rule out all possible naturalistic explanations for the existence of the story, come back and take another stab at it.

There's nothing ruling out the possibility that the story is true and also has a "naturalistic" explanation. I.e., the Jesus resurrection could be true and also have a "naturalistic" explanation. Claiming it has a "naturalistic" explanation doesn't suddenly make it untrue, or contradict it.

It's reasonable to believe it based on the evidence, or the written accounts saying it happened, but also allow that it has a "naturalistic" explanation. It isn't necessary to know the explanation in order to reasonably believe it based on the evidence or written record saying it did happen.

Believing it does not require that the explanation be non-naturalistic. Rather, one simply believes it, but does not claim that the explanation is or is not naturalistic. Of course some believers do claim the event is non-natural, or "supernatural" or other terminology, but that's their personal perception, which might be mistaken. We don't really know if it's "natural" or "supernatural" or "naturalistic" and so on. All we know is that we have evidence that it happened, whatever is the explanation how it happened.

 

[Tharmas]

Plato in his dialogue Phaedo, several centuries BC, offers four (or three, I can't remember) logical proofs for the immortality of the soul. This would hardly be news to the authors of the New Testament.

 

[DrZoidberg]

What makes the Bible special, really really special. Is the amount of texts that has survived. This due to the unbroken prominence of Christianity throughout antiquity combined with the monastic scribal system. This is awesome. ANY other surviving religious texts are fragmentary and pathetic in comparison with the Bible. We have been able to reconstruct and map some Babylonian, Zoroastrian, and other Middle-Eastern religious ideas through the Bible. There's no other religious text that comes even close to it.

This is awesome, and something I hope Christians today appreciate.

But there's a risk to see the lack of other texts as Christianity being qualitatively different, or special in other regards. The numbers of surviving Bibles is an accident of history.

A Catholic bishop in the 1800's took every single existing ancient Inca holy text and burned them. It's all gone. Which sucks for Inca scholars today.

Another Catholic bishop in Spain in the 1700's took about half of the then existing ancient Bibles and sold them to a fireworks factory. He thought they were too weird. So these were all the surviving Christian Bibles that conformed the least to then current Catholic doctrine.

We're exceedingly lucky to be in the situation we are with the Bibles. Any political upheaval in Rome could easily have destroyed all those Bibles as well.

So the details of the reporting in the gospels doesn't mean we didn't get similar details in the reporting for other religions. It's not proof of anything. It's just evidence that Christian monks are good at copying and keeping alive stuff and the the papal library is damn lucky in dodging all the revolutionary bullets flying throughout history.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Where did the new ζωὴν αἰώνιον "eternal life" idea come from? appearing first in Paul, about 50 AD?

(It's difficult to determine if the ζωὴν αἰώνιον term existed at all before the Paul epistles. The earlier "eternal life" language in the Book of Enoch, in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and in the Gilgamesh legend, were not Paul's ζωὴν αἰώνιον, so this might be a totally new "afterlife" idea in the literature, appearing in the Christian writings from 50 AD.)

I can absolutely attest to the fact that many other completely nonchristian cultures believed in afterlives.

Where are their writings on the subject? If they said little or nothing to promote their belief about it, then they obviously didn't care about it the way the New Testament writers cared about it.

It's not that non-Christian cultures had no belief in afterlife or Heaven or whatever. What's significant is that this particular group of 1st-century writers gave an obvious unique attention to this and emphatically promoted their urgent good news "gospel" about this, believing there was a new offer of "eternal life" to humans, due to a recent historical event they must communicate to the world

They used a new term ("zoe aionios") or "eternal life" as the name for this "afterlife" belief and gave a new importance to such belief, or an urgency and a need to tell others this "gospel" such as we do not see in the other cultures, even though virtually all cultures did have some belief in afterlife, but did not publish anything of such urgency about it.

So, what explains this unusual interest in an "afterlife" idea/belief which they had to publish and spread as "good news" to others with such urgency? Something must have driven them -- the uneducated believers as well as the educated writers who published these accounts. There were no other cultures promoting such an urgent message and publishing written accounts about it. Whatever their beliefs about "afterlives," they saw no need to spread their belief to others as this one particular cult (or group of Christ cults) did.

If the new "afterlives" belief was just another normal belief like all the others, with nothing different, why did they create this new name "zoe aionios" as the new label for it and go to such effort to spread their belief to others?

In fact the Eddas feature this belief quite pointedly, as well as even referencing earlier flood stories, albeit told from the perspective of people who were not "the ones in the boat", who they called out as Jotun!

OK, other writings exist. What is claimed in the Eddas which you think is noteworthy and urgent for people to know about? Are there miracle acts reported from sources near the time a reported miracle hero performed them? a Resurrection account describing the hero reportedly martyred and then returning to appear alive to large numbers of witnesses and preaching salvation of some kind? What is important in the Eddas that would be urgent for the world to know about?

I find the whole thing quite insulting, in fact, that people would discount Germanic pre-christian religions!

Then why are you discounting them? Tell us their urgent message that we need to know. Why are you keeping silent about it if their religions have something important to tell us? If you know something important in those religions but won't tell us about it, then you're the one who is insulting them.

As to the instance of an after life, can only assume that interest in an afterlife is guaranteed to increase following the proliferation of a cult for whom this is a new and major doctrine.

But that "interest in an afterlife" came first, before the proliferation.

This new interest in an afterlife (or "eternal life" -- ζωὴν αἰώνιον) happened long before the proliferation of the cult. It's the proliferation of the new cult(s) which is the RESULT of the new interest in this ζωὴν αἰώνιον, not the new interest resulting from the proliferation of the new cult(s). The new interest begins around 50 AD (or earlier), not after the proliferation. Maybe it increased during 50-100 AD, but the proliferation was mainly following the new interest expressed in the writings. Something caused the interest first, or the spreading this "gospel" or good news, and then the proliferation happened as a result of this. We need to know what caused this initial new interest, for which they adopted the new ζωὴν αἰώνιον terminology.

In fact I find it far more likely not that the cult succeeded because of some series of actual events, but rather that the cult succeeded because it used a very effective lie, and the lie succeeded for the same reasons I detailed up thread

But of all the new "cults" trying to succeed, the new Christ cult(s) were the least able to use the kind of lie you described ("there is a place you live forever after you die, now do what I want or you won't go there."). Because the new Christ cult(s) were saying the "good news" of salvation as a free gift from Christ without any "do what I want or you won't go there" threat. These new cults least of all included demands to "do what I want" or do this and that in its teaching about the "afterlife" possibility. The new saved-by-faith "good news" was more the opposite of the usual salvation-by-works teachings in conventional religion, where followers have rules imposed on them and rituals and commandments to carry out.

So if any cults were using the kind of "very effective lie" you're talking about, it's least likely to be the new Christ cult(s). Obviously any cult could use such lies, not only the Christ cults. You need to explain why those other cults did not succeed even better than the Christ cults by using such an "effective lie" of demanding "what I want" as a price to pay to get to "a place where you live forever" afterlife.

So as yet no one is explaining where these new Christ cults got their "eternal life" idea which was different than the conventional "immortality" beliefs of the Greek philosophers and Alexandrians like Philo, etc., who did not show this new "eternal life in Heaven" idea which we see beginning around 50 AD with Paul's epistles and then the Gospel writings. Plato's "immortality" teachings had already influenced thousands/millions over 3 or 4 centuries but still had not inspired any afterlife "good news" enthusiasm such we see popping up suddenly around 30-50 AD. So, where did this new "eternal life in Heaven" interest come from which eventually became central to the established "Christianity" of later centuries?

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

The cult of Isis is just straight up current Egyptian religion of it's age. It dates to 300 BC and is exactly the same as what later became Christianity.

No, the Isis cult did not have reliable written sources about the actual person Isis (and Osiris and Horus), as the Christ believers had sources about Jesus, written in the 1st century, reporting the Resurrection etc. It matters if the believers have some legitimate evidence for their beliefs, such as written accounts dated near to the time of the reported events they believe.

 

[Politesse]

What makes the Bible special, really really special. Is the amount of texts that has survived. This due to the unbroken prominence of Christianity throughout antiquity combined with the monastic scribal system. This is awesome. ANY other surviving religious texts are fragmentary and pathetic in comparison with the Bible. We have been able to reconstruct and map some Babylonian, Zoroastrian, and other Middle-Eastern religious ideas through the Bible. There's no other religious text that comes even close to it.

This is awesome, and something I hope Christians today appreciate.

But there's a risk to see the lack of other texts as Christianity being qualitatively different, or special in other regards. The numbers of surviving Bibles is an accident of history.

A Catholic bishop in the 1800's took every single existing ancient Inca holy text and burned them. It's all gone. Which sucks for Inca scholars today.

Another Catholic bishop in Spain in the 1700's took about half of the then existing ancient Bibles and sold them to a fireworks factory. He thought they were too weird. So these were all the surviving Christian Bibles that conformed the least to then current Catholic doctrine.

We're exceedingly lucky to be in the situation we are with the Bibles. Any political upheaval in Rome could easily have destroyed all those Bibles as well.

So the details of the reporting in the gospels doesn't mean we didn't get similar details in the reporting for other religions. It's not proof of anything. It's just evidence that Christian monks are good at copying and keeping alive stuff and the the papal library is damn lucky in dodging all the revolutionary bullets flying throughout history.

Now this is actually a vey good point. Perhaps the only equivalent treasures to the in the religious text world are the Gilgamesh epic, the Vedas, and the Tao Te Ching; it is not the norm for a religious corpus to survive for thousands of years, and none of them, the Bible included, have done so without severe edits, translations, and redactions over the centuries.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

I can't help but think of the Homeric version of The Epic Cycle either. Did that not pointedly feature a forray into the underworld where the dead found their afterlife?

In fact journeys to the land of the dead are a staple of The Epic Cycle, no matter what instantiation you are talking about.

Fine. But for clarification, trips to "the underworld" and visitations to the dead, and other mystical excursions and flights to other worlds and universes, etc., have nothing to do with death and resurrection such as we see it in the Gospel accounts and in Paul's epistles. The Christ Resurrection is a reported event (which one might reasonably doubt) in which a living human was killed, as millions/billions have been killed, and who then came back to life, rose up (or was raised up), and left the place of burial to be seen alive in the following days by many witnesses who saw him living similarly as they had seen him earlier before he was killed.

It's not a mystical symbol like the stories of Osiris or Orpheus or Hercules or others who are described in poetry 1000 years later as partying with the gods or living on in some spiritual form.

 

[steve_bank]

The Jesus story is not mystical? Biblical Tales Of The Supernatural and Paranormal, my book soon to be a best seller. Or a TV series.

Jesus in the gospels by any other name is a Greek demigod. Offspring of a god and a human possessing some but not all the powers of the god. Dies in the end and goes up on high with god.

The ancient Hebrews ere influenced by Babylonian myths and stories. The gospels undoubtedly influenced by Greek mythology. It certainly was not Jewish, Jews forbade any image or depiction of god . That would be blasphemous idolatry.

The image of Jesus with a halo.

 

[Jarhyn]

What makes the Bible special, really really special. Is the amount of texts that has survived. This due to the unbroken prominence of Christianity throughout antiquity combined with the monastic scribal system. This is awesome. ANY other surviving religious texts are fragmentary and pathetic in comparison with the Bible. We have been able to reconstruct and map some Babylonian, Zoroastrian, and other Middle-Eastern religious ideas through the Bible. There's no other religious text that comes even close to it.

This is awesome, and something I hope Christians today appreciate.

But there's a risk to see the lack of other texts as Christianity being qualitatively different, or special in other regards. The numbers of surviving Bibles is an accident of history.

A Catholic bishop in the 1800's took every single existing ancient Inca holy text and burned them. It's all gone. Which sucks for Inca scholars today.

Another Catholic bishop in Spain in the 1700's took about half of the then existing ancient Bibles and sold them to a fireworks factory. He thought they were too weird. So these were all the surviving Christian Bibles that conformed the least to then current Catholic doctrine.

We're exceedingly lucky to be in the situation we are with the Bibles. Any political upheaval in Rome could easily have destroyed all those Bibles as well.

So the details of the reporting in the gospels doesn't mean we didn't get similar details in the reporting for other religions. It's not proof of anything. It's just evidence that Christian monks are good at copying and keeping alive stuff and the the papal library is damn lucky in dodging all the revolutionary bullets flying throughout history.

Now this is actually a vey good point. Perhaps the only equivalent treasures to the in the religious text world are the Gilgamesh epic, the Vedas, and the Tao Te Ching; it is not the norm for a religious corpus to survive for thousands of years, and none of them, the Bible included, have done so without severe edits, translations, and redactions over the centuries.

The Eddas are pretty extensive as well. Snorri Et Al did a great job there.