Happy Easter, Rife With Contradiction At The Source!
Best, perhaps, to stick with the bunnies and eggs.
(Link only because the graphic is a monster page-gobbler.)
(Link only because the graphic is a monster page-gobbler.)
The contradictions aren't such a big deal for non-fundamentalist, non evangelical types, since source criticism has known about the variations since the days of Rudolf Bultmann. In fact the variances show something about each author (or community) each Gospel was written by and for; and the earliest oral traditions that are sort at the center of the onion. Bultmann would shred the New Testament to ribbons in his day job; and he would still have family prayers at bed time. I suppose Bultmann was between a 3 and 4 on that chart.
The chart doesn't mention there are ten of thousands of variations between the received texts. In other words, out of 1000s of copies of the New Testament from 200 - 1000 AD, you can't find two that are the same. Fundamentalists claim this is not a big deal since it's the general concept of the passages that's "inspired" not each word itself. I can't remember where the link is, but there is an ongoing project to catalog all them into a database that is available for scholars and enthusiasts.
The weakness of the chart are the rhetorical questions, which are odd because some of the "answers" are known from form criticism which the chart's authors seem to know (e.g. the chart notes that only Matthew has Pilate washing his hands, and that the crowd calling down a for a curse on their descendants. But most scholars think the community responsible for Matthew was likely an early Jewish-Christian community that was having a lot of conflict and antagonism within the broader Jewish community of Palestine during that period. There apparently was a Hebrew version of Matthew that was subsequently lost. since several early sources mentioned a Hebrew version of this gospel.
Bart D. Ehrman, a prolific writer on New Testament studies, agnostic; and he will also shred the New Testament, questioned the divinity of Jesus, said he never got so much hate mail as he did from the "Jesus was a fairy tale" crowd when he took on the "Jesus was only a myth" notion (the level 5 crowd on the chart) with his book Was Jesus a myth?
http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/yji71b/bart-ehrman
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Personally, I give not one whit what people do with their supernatural lives. It doesn't matter to me if someone worships the common god of choice or puts their faith in the 75 million year old alien power Xenu or a bunch of flying pasta.
What does fascinate me is the vehemence, the venom of believers (and certain non-believers as well) when the cores of their chosen faiths are challenged.
O. Henry had a story ("The Cosmopolitan"*, maybe) where a man declared himself a citizen of the world, and regarded all places as the same. Later, he was involved in a fistfight over someone criticizing the metropolitan sewer system (IIRC) of his small hometown in Nowhere, Maine.
Same motivation, different expression.
*Just looked it up. "A Cosmopolite in a Cafe," it's called. Haven't touched that book in 20 years except to shelve it. Who said having a private library isn't useful?
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Yep, I that's why I liked the honesty of the chart. Its reasonable in classifying reactions to inconsistencies in the non-biographical nature of the Gospels.
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The stories found in the gospels add to and draw from a larger collection of mythologies. Jesus myth bears resemblance to others, Horus, Mithras, Dionysus-Bacchus, Krishna, Buddha, etc. This informs my reaction.
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And a lot of the assumptions about the "similarities" and they don't really stand up to scrutiny (some are even mentioned in your link). There are many of them and I don't want to get into a long drawn out thing, but because this movie is relatively popular with the anti-religion crowd, it's worth noting at least one part of it:
The Zeitgeist movie makes these claims about the Egyptian god Horus:
• He was born on December 25 of a virgin (Isis Mary)
• A star in the East proclaimed his arrival
• Three kings came to adore the new-born “savior”
• He became a prodigious teacher at age 12
• At age 30 he was “baptized” and began a “ministry”
• Horus had twelve “disciples”
• Horus was betrayed
• He was crucified
• He was buried for three days
• He was resurrected after three days
First, no where in the Bible is Jesus' birth date given. Even the day used to celebrate the birth of Jesus is know to have been picked at random by 4th century Christians in Rome. And in Eastern churches, January 8th was the day to celebrate it. In fact, it still is. Examining each point in detail is quite revealing. First, it is true that Egyptian legend has Horus being born to Isis. But where did the trailing name of “Mary” that is used in the movie come from? No mention in any Egyptian literature links the name Isis to the name Mary. Isis was also not a virgin. No account of Horus’ birth makes this statement. Rather, Isis was the widow of Osiris, another Egyptian god with whom Isis conceived Horus. Finally, Horus was supposedly born during the month of Khoiak (Oct/Nov), and not on December 25, a fact which does not help their claim of marrying the stories of Horus and Jesus,
Next, the film states that a star in the East announced Horus’ birth and that three kings came to bring gifts to the “savior.” However, when stories detailing the birth of Horus are examined, there is no star or three kings who come to visit him. Trying to link this to Christianity fails in any event, as the account of Christ’s birth in Matthew has magi (wise men, not kings) coming to Jesus with their actual number not being stated. Clearly, the movie is using the traditions of December 25 and three wise men, not the Bible, to link Jesus and Horus. Finally, the movie calls Horus a “savior.” There are no descriptions of Horus being a savior to anyone or serving in that capacity.
http://www.academia.edu/2580620/Spirit_of_Paranoia_A_Critical_Analysis_of_Peter_Joseph_s_Zeitgeist_
That's why I like this chart so much, and I think it's fundamentally fair in how it describes the issues within the texts and how people react to them There's a wide range, and it doesn't misrepresent those views in my opinion. Even though this chart doesn't cover it, form criticism has opened the door on many similar issues in the Torah since the 19th century, with a lot of the same reactions.
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I thought it was a contemporary conspiracy theory movie. I didn't know it was about religion. I didn't see it.
What did you think of Joesph Cambell's, "a hero with 1000 faces" work?
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It is, but it also covers Christianity within the context of a conspiracy. But the ideas that informed it are not unique to the movie (e.g. the Wikipedia article you link covers some of them)
What did you think of Joesph Cambell's, "a hero with 1000 faces" work?
I know the concept but never read the book. There are similar ideas in Ethnomusicology: the idea basically every song originated from a single source or a group of songs. Since I know you love music as much as I do, I thought you would appreciate a musical allusion :P
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Who was it who said music was originally inspired thunder, volcano, and birds?
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