From: gpalo@digi.lonestar.org (Gerry Palo)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Jesus's bloodline mystery and two different Jesus's was (I'm God.)
Date: 15 Oct 92 16:56:10 GMT
Organization: DSC Communications, Plano Tx.

In article <1992Oct15.000818.1@eagle.wesleyan.edu> kmagnacca@eagle.wesleyan.edu writes:
>In article <1992Oct14.175552.13136@digi.lonestar.org>, gpalo@digi.lonestar.org (Gerry Palo) writes:
>> 
>> Kent Sandvik writes:
>> 
>>>Hello again, should we take this one as a good example where the myth
>>>is false, or not? Or are the two different genealogies, just, a myth???
>> 
>> 
>> Consider the possibility that with the incarnation of Christ,
>> not only the prophecies of the Jews but also the archetypal
>> myths of the rest of humanity were fulfilled.  C. S. Lewis
>> noticed this and it led ultimately to his conversion from
>> skepticism to Christianity.
>
>   Consider the possibility that with the rise of Jesus' ministry
>his followers wrote a book that showed him as fulfilling the Jewish
>"prophesies" regardless of what he may have actually done in order
>to make him appear more Messianic.  It's one of numerous things that 
>prevent my conversion from skepticism to Christianity.
>
>   BTW, which "archetypal myths" are you talking about?
>
>Karl

Dionysus, for example, and the god-hero stories like
Gilgamesh and Oedipus. 

Many peoples had such myths and today quite a few 
primitive peoples still have myths which they celebrate
in various enactments of the god or hero who comes 
to become one of us, who dies and rises again.  The
striking similarity of these myths world wide is what
led scholars to conclude that Christianity was just 
another one of them and they attributed them all to
various psychological causes and to wish fulfillment.
The initiations in the mystery temples also carried out
in sacred, secret rites, open only to the few chosen, 
what appeared as historical fact in the life, death and
resurrection of Christ. This is what caused so many pagans
in the first century to be converted just as Jews who saw 
saw the fulfillment of their prophecies.

Not that most modern people would be convinced by this,
since they don't believe in either the prophecies or the
myths or the sacred mysteries. What struck Lewis was that
the gospel accounts of Christ had all the attributes
of the dying god legends and also the mythical hero, they
were written not in mythical form but as acciybts of concrete
happenings in a concrete place and time, quite different
in style from the other myths. I think a friend said
something in jest to him about the Greek gods taking
on human form all the time, and maybe it really happened
in the case of Jesus. The whole tone and style and 
behavior of those who told the story - and were wililing
to die telling it - was that this was not just another
myth (real or fabricated) but the real thing to which
the others were pointing.   The reason why it
never occurred to Lewis before was that the conven-
tional Christianity of his time, which he was very
familiar with as well as with the Bible, regarded and
still regards the ancient folk religions and myths as
being of the devil and at best nonsense.  But now he
saw things hanging together in ways that he hadn't seen 
before.  Modern materialistic science also regards
them as nonsense or at best expressions of psychological
symbolism.  No one had ever suggested that they might
be based on concrete supersensible realities.

As for the Old Testament prophecies fulfilled, this would 
take another longer posting.  But I agree that trying to
prove the divinity or messiahship of Christ by mapping Old
Testament prophecies to passages in the gospels is not a
very good approach for most people, especially when most people
today don't even take the original prophecies seriously let
alone any claim of their fulfilment.  I do not deny their 
significance and their validity, but I don't think that they
were put there by way of presenting ironclad proof to any and 
all of the truth of the gospels.  Actually, people - both pagans 
and Jews - were even more skeptical of anyone who claimed to fulfill
ancient prophecy then than we are now.  They really took them 
seriously.  What was as astonishing about Christ was that the
prophecies appeared to be fulfilled in him but in ways utterly 
unimagined even by the disciples, and yet it led many Jews and
gentiles to become convinced, in spite of the innate conservatism
that prevailed in religious matters in those days.

I don't think the accusation that the stories were made up to
prove the claims for the divinity of Christ holds up under careful 
examination.  For one thing, most of what they relate is so contrary
in overall characteristics to what people were expecting in the Messiah
that they could have done a better job of fabricating it out of whole
cloth if that were their aim. 

The Bible is not written in the form of systematc argument for the
existence of God or the divinity of Christ. (There are elements of that
in some of Paul's letters where he is writing to people who were used
to and expected philosophic discourse.)  As for fulfilled prophecies,
the New Testament passages citing the Old Testament prophecies are there,
in my opinion, to throw light on the greater dimensions of divine
purpose for those who already believe, not to convince unbelievers, even 
though some may, I suppose, be convinced by them. They are a continuing 
source of revelation and, yes, astonishment, and also of puzzlement, that
themselves need to be taken one at a time on their own terms. In my opinion, 
they are somewhat debased when they are used as a club in logical debate to 
persuade unbelievers and can be as much of a stumbling block as a stepping
stone (to mix metaphors).

 I hate to recommend books, but you might want to look at Steiner's "Christianity as Mystical Fact."

Yours,
Gerry Palo