thought of the day.392

“Elements that were common in Pagan mystery religions include much of the religious content of Christianity. All elements of Jesus' life such as the events around his birth and death and ministry were also said of other god-men of the time. Peripheral elements such as there being twelve disciples were similarly present in other more ancient religions and sometimes with an astonishing amount of duplication. First century critics of Christianity voiced these accusations that Christianity was nothing but another copy of common religions, they are not new accusations.

All the actual sayings and teachings of Jesus were also not new, and much of the time speeches attributed to Jesus are more like collections of Jewish and Pagan sayings. Even distinctive texts like the Sermon on the Mount are not unique. If we remove all the content that Jesus could not have heard and repeated himself, there is nothing else left. If we remove the supernatural elements of Christianity that are copies of already existing thought and religion, there is nothing left which is unique! Even much of the sayings of subsequent Christians is not unique; Jesus appears to not have taught anyone anything that was not already present in the common culture of the time. This shows us that not only did Christianity follow on, as expected, from previous thought in history but that we do not even need to believe in God or supernatural events in order to account for the history of Christianity. Stephen Hodge very usefully lists many of the similarities found in the Dead Sea Scrolls to the teachings and organisation of Jewish Christianity. He also concludes that these Jewish documents make the teachings and appearance of Jewish Christianity less revolutionary.”

~ Vexen Crabtree, "History of literalism"