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Comment by mmyyyy | Hacker News Reader

You seem to have fallen prey to propaganda sources online.

It is undeniable that biblical mythology was affected by other cultures (especially Genesis for example). But other than that you have no idea what you're talking about. What books have you read about this? And by which scholars?

>Early Christian versions of Jesus were basically copies of Eros, and Late Christian versions of Jesus were basically copies of Zeus, and then in the middle ages everyone got depressed so they turned him into a holocaust survivor on a wooden plank.

This claim is just simply false. I challenge you to present a single work that you have read by a professor of Classics, New Testament, Theology, or Ancient history that argues that.

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You don't provide sources for your claim that my claim is false is false because you claim I don't provide sources, so your claim is false.

Read for literally any new testament scholar and you won't find a single trace of that argument that you're presenting.

Bart Ehrman, Robert Funk, Dale Martin, John Dominic Crossan, Mark Goodacre, Gerd Lüdemann, James Dunn, and the list goes on and on.

If books are not your thing, you can find a great Yale course about the subject here: New Testament History and Literature with Dale B. Martin: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL279CFA55C51E75E0

k. But as for my assertion about depictions of Jesus as modeled after Roman or Greek gods, it's more of a fun theory than a fact, as all the depictions were just "What would we like him to look like?" They all just painted or sculpted him however they wanted to, which we know included classical depictions such as heroes, philosophers, and even gods, as well as with eastern influences and various other depictions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depiction_of_Jesus https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft3f59... (also I may have totally fucked up by saying the young Jesus was modeled after Eros, may have been a different youthful god, oops?)

Oh when you're talking about art, sure. People and cultures tend to want to identify with Christ and so end up depicting him in a certain way. Of course we know that Jesus was a Jewish man who lived in the middle east, so he's surely not black or white or hispanic, etc..

But you're original claim about the accounts about Jesus copying from Greek mythology, etc.. is just not viable historically.

I encourage you to delve into the literature actually it's quite fascinating! A good book to start with that I've enjoyed is Did Jesus Exist by Bart Ehrman.

Actually I was claiming the Bible's stories in general copied from other cultures' mythology, not stories about Jesus specifically. Certainly the Old Testament comes from Jewish tradition as well as others.

I'll look into the sources you mention, though. I haven't gotten deep into the study of religions themselves but I'm sure I'll want to at some point.

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