
How an obscure cult grew to become the dominant religion of the Western world - Thevet
https://aeon.co/essays/how-an-obscure-oriental-cult-converted-a-vast-pagan-roman-empire
======
cconcepts
Very well written article. On a social note, it does feel as though (and I
could be wrong) the seeming uptick in discussion about Christianity is because
it is associated with the Trump/Republican/"How on earth did so many people
vote for him?" question regarding US politics. As the article alludes:

> How Christianity went on to become not just a state religion, but the
> central fact of political life, and how Christian institutions of the Middle
> Ages both maintained and distorted the legacy of the ancient world, is
> another, different story.

That Christianity and its adherents are manipulated for political ends is a
sad fact of life. This doesn't change whether or not Christianity is true, it
simply confirms the biblical assertion that people are potentially naive

As a reflective person who reads Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam
Harris and has become a follower of Jesus (Christian) I find the political
association of Christianity and certain spheres of politics disheartening for
the cause of logical discourse about the matter. In considering whether or not
Christianity is true it is hard to ignore the actions of those who claim to be
its adherents.

Yes, it seems an unusual number of people who support Trump identify as
Christian - isn't that more likely to do with recent demographics than
hypotheses about the lack of reliability of the biblical narrative about Jesus
of Nazareth?

Where I am from (New Zealand) a lot of Christians I have spoken with are
appalled by Trump and don't buy into the whole "Gawd Bless Americuh" narrative
that Trump seems to use to persuade a certain demographic into voting for him.

No political agenda can encapsulate who Jesus of Nazareth was and what he came
to do. If it could, that would render the notion of Christianity absurd in the
first place.

EDIT: Clarity

~~~
nvahalik
> ... In considering whether or not Christianity is true it is hard to ignore
> the actions of those who claim to be its adherents.

Yes, but the key word here is _claim_. If someone calls themselves a vegan and
yet eats veal then you, as someone who understands what a "vegan" is, you can
call them out for their hypocrisy.

There are a few problems here:

1) Many, many people have no idea what an actual Christian is or what we
believe.

2) Furthermore, nobody wants to know because their worldview is justified much
more easily by fighting against a straw man rather than objective truth.

3) We as a society don't value objective truth. So I can call myself whatever
I want even if I don't really believe in the key doctrinal points.

4) Going down that same path, the people who actually stand up for what is
truth and calling out those who are not, get labeled as rabble-rousers and are
chastised as being "judgemental."

In any case, what we have here is a big heaping helping of nobody knowing
anything anymore... and nobody seems to care.

FWIW: I am a Christian and I did not vote for Trump.

~~~
tps5
If you want to define Christianity as a set of precepts derived from the
teachings of Christ then you must define the teachings of Christ. This seems
like an impossible task to me.

Not only is there the issue of discovering what's been lost in translation,
but also the existing texts have been heavily edited over the centuries.
Entire books could have conceivably been lost. Forgeries could have been
adopted. Even if you disregard all that, is there really an objectively
correct way to read Christian (or any) scripture? I'd say no.

My view is that religions are like languages. What defines a language is what
is widely spoken and widely understood within some community. It doesn't
matter whether a word has been recorded in a dictionary. It can be said to be
part of the language if it is used and understood.

By the same token, I would define religions as they are practiced, not based
on some interpretation of what has survived from the texts. Based on that
view, there isn't (and never has been) a monolithic Christian religion.
Instead there are many fragmented communities that have varying
rituals/practices. Some of these practices are quite widespread (mainstream)
and some are not.

I understand the desire to base our understanding of religions on the texts.
But I can't see any coherent way to do it.

~~~
learc83
> but also the existing texts have been heavily edited over the centuries

There has actually been surprisingly little editing mostly because there are
thousands of very old NT manuscripts, with copies of most of the NT dating
from just 100 years or so after its writing.

There are scribe errors and even some editing, but the sheer number of ancient
examples is enough to reach consensus.

~~~
y4mi
"surprisingly little editing"

"Just 100 years after its writing"

... Because a verbal recollection about a controversial topic is so
trustworthy and surely haven't been 'edited'. Remember how many 'facts' there
are about Holocaust deniers? And this is happening with actual evidence to the
contrary around.

~~~
learc83
The OP was referring to editing over the centuries. Implying that there were
many changes over time. The early sources show that this isn't the case.

Yes, there is no way to prove that something wasn't edited in the intervening
century. However we do have many early sources. If there were large edits made
during this time we would expect to see more variation in the early sources we
do have.

~~~
flukus
> If there were large edits made during this time we would expect to see more
> variation in the early sources we do have.

This assumes there was no selection bias in what was preserved. If they agreed
so well then how would you explain the huge variety in early christian sects?

~~~
learc83
>This assumes there was no selection bias in what was preserved.

Yes it is possible that alternative versions of the books of the New Testament
existed, but were destroyed or not preserved. However, it is likely that if
this were the case, we would have references to these alternate versions. We
have many writings from early church leaders discussing canonical and
heretical texts. These writings don't mention that there were heavily edited
versions of the New Testament texts when discussing heretical texts. They do
mention that there were additional texts that they considered heretical.

>If they agreed so well then how would you explain the huge variety in early
christian sects?

There are hundreds of protestant sects today, yet nearly everyone uses
identical copies of the Bible. There is plenty of room for variety from
different interpretation of the same text.

Various heresies arose and were condemned as heresies, but they were mostly
based either on differing interpretations or a different view was to what
texts they considered canonical. No early Christian heresy that I'm aware of
depending on an alternative version of the books of the New Testament.

~~~
flukus
> There are hundreds of protestant sects today, yet nearly everyone uses
> identical copies of the Bible.

Protestantism came about long after the bible, early christian sects didn't
have a bible.

There are many books that never got accepted as canon:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel#Non-
canonical_gospels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel#Non-canonical_gospels)
, possibly many differing versions of the same books. And there were many
early sects
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_in_early_Christian_t...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_in_early_Christian_theology)
. The further down you go the messier things get but there was more diversity
in early christianity than modern christianity.

~~~
learc83
>Protestantism came about long after the bible, early christian sects didn't
have a bible.

You argued that the variation between sects was evidence of multiple versions
of the New Testament texts. I offered the number and variation of protestant
sects _despite_ using the same text as a counterexample.

>There are many books that never got accepted as canon:

Yes that is true. There are many non canonical books. That was however, not
the original argument. We have no arguments from early church leaders that
heretical sects were using an alternate version of various books. We have many
arguments that heretical sects were using different books entirely.

That being said, the modern canon was decided very early on --probably by the
latter half of the 2nd century, and the books there are very good arguments as
to why certain books were omitted.

>possibly many differing versions of the same books

There is little evidence for this. Again we have plenty of evidence for
competing books. Not much evidence for differing versions of the books that we
have.

> And there were many early sects

Most of the sects mentioned on the wikipedia page were offshoots of the
mainstream church that were quickly declared heretical. You can obviously
argue that the winner writes history, but this argument does nothing to
support the claim that the books we have today are heavily edited versions.

>The further down you go the messier things get but there was more diversity
in early christianity than modern christianity.

This makes no sense. Obviously as you go back to the source there were fewer
followers and thus fewer versions. Thousands of years of schisms produced much
more variation, not less.

~~~
flukus
> There are many non canonical books. That was however, not the original
> argument. We have no arguments from early church leaders that heretical
> sects were using an alternate version of various books.

The marcionites
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcionism#Marcionite_canon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcionism#Marcionite_canon))
for one had different versions Luke and the pauline epistles.

> This makes no sense. Obviously as you go back to the source there were fewer
> followers and thus fewer versions. Thousands of years of schisms produced
> much more variation, not less.

It makes perfect sense, early schisms had much more genetic material to draw
there variations from and no centralized authorities. Are there any sects
today as diverse as the Ebionites and Marcionites?

------
caublestone
Isaac Asimov was inspired to write "The Foundation" series after reading "The
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". He borrowed Constantines strategic use
of Christian ideology to thwart his enemies by applying the ritualistic
methods of religion to protect science in a fictional universe 50k years into
the future. If you have the time, read Decline and Fall and then "The
Foundation" series.

~~~
gens
From what i remember it was but a part of one book. Funny enough Warhammer 40k
tech priests were probably inspired by this.

------
antognini
For anyone interested in the very early origins of Christianity (first century
AD) I recommend reading some of the work of Margaret Barker. In particular, An
Introduction to Temple Theology is very good for someone who doesn't know much
about the subject, and it's not very long, either. Barker is an old testament
scholar and has done a lot of work trying to understand the way that Judaism
was practiced in the time of Christ, and why Christianity was as successful in
that environment as it was.

Most of us in the modern West only understand the religion ancient Israel
through the texts that have survived in the Bible, but there are a number of
other surviving works, fragments, and archaeological evidence that provide
clues about religious practice in that time. (For example, one prominent text
that Barker frequently draws on is the Book of Enoch, which was considered
canonical by many Jewish communities in the time of Christ --- and actually
still is by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church --- and was cited in the Letter of
Jude.) Of course, a lot of this research is necessarily somewhat conjectural,
but it was fascinating to read about why exactly there was so much messianic
fervor in the Levant in the time of Christ.

~~~
notacoward
Also, anything by Elaine Pagels - Gnostic Gospels, Origin of Satan, etc.
Really opened my eyes to what Christianity could have been if not for the
toxic influence of Paul.

~~~
camperman
About the best you can hope for when reading Elaine Pagels is getting her
opinion on what Gnostic authors may have thought of Paul's letters. She makes
the same mistake as the author of this article makes: that Christianity just
started because a small bunch of men decided to worship Jesus as divine,
instead of being confronted with him alive and well somehow after had been
executed.

~~~
notacoward
She does no such thing. Whether Christ was _actually_ divine, or even existed,
has nothing to do with the evolution of the church and its doctrines a hundred
or more years later. If you think the Bible as we know it isn't the product of
human politics more than anything else, you need to educate yourself.

~~~
camperman
"Whether Christ was actually divine, or even existed, has nothing to do with
the evolution of the church and its doctrines a hundred or more years later."

I see that modern gnostics are just as stupid and ignorant as the original
ones. On your side are a few fragments written far too late to be eyewitness
testimony, let alone containing anything of worth. On mine are thousands of
copies that appear fully formed, the earliest ones with negligible distance
from the events they describe, with boatloads of references to history and
geography that we can check out. These accounts move through history
unchanged. Within a generation or two church authors are vigorously defending
their authenticity and core teachings against sceptics and gnostics.

> If you think the Bible as we know it isn't the product of human politics
> more than anything else, you need to educate yourself.

Yeah right. Here's this marginal peasant from a scummy town in an unknown
corner of the Roman empire with an extremely questionable birth narrative. He
says and does outrageous things that are hard to understand, mixes with the
lowest of society and is eventually executed in the most shameful way possible
for blasphemy. And this rural redneck claims to be God in human form? That's
real convincing I must say.

~~~
notacoward
You got that exactly backwards. Biblical historians generally agree that most
of what we know as the New Testament were written 50-100CE. Many of the
gnostic gospels were pretty clearly written earlier, by people closer to
Jesus. Why were they excluded, while all of Paul's crap thrown in? Politics.
His was a vision of Christianity suitable to those in power in 367CE. Again,
instead of violating the rules by calling people stupid, please learn the
actual facts.

~~~
camperman
"Many of the gnostic gospels were pretty clearly written earlier"

Says you. The textual evidence says otherwise. The gospel of Judas for example
has a sole surviving copy dated ~300AD. Irenaeus mentions it around 180AD as
being the usual gnostic load of shite. So we don't even know whether we have
the original text. It's about as reliable as my personal eyewitness account of
the French Revolution that I wrote last week, that is to say, not at all. The
gospel of Thomas leaves an equally pathetic mark on history and was only
discovered in the 1940s. Clearly a divine text for the ages! Or perhaps not.

"by people closer to Jesus."

History seems to be silent on who these people actually were. Any ideas? In
fact, history seems to be really, really quiet on the gnostics in general.
They clearly scuttled away and didn't say much when their faith was
challenged.

"Why were they excluded, while all of Paul's crap thrown in? Politics."

No, because they weren't eyewitnesses, clearly borrowed FROM the canonical
gospels and not the other way around, and have nothing new to add that isn't
the moronic mystical mutterings of idle urbanites.

"His was a vision of Christianity suitable to those in power in 367CE."

Gnonsense. There was no "vision" of Christianity when Paul was around - it was
a very simple call to worship the resurrected man Jesus and obey what he
commanded. How did it grow from twelve followers to become the official
religion of Rome in just a few hundred years? The article deliberately avoids
the real reason: early believers were convinced that their teacher had risen
from the dead and could prove it. If not, Christianity would not have survived
a few months, let alone become one of the foundations of Western civilization
on Earth.

"Again, instead of violating the rules by calling people stupid, please learn
the actual facts."

Point me at the two thousand years of gnostic-driven civilization, science and
culture and I'll think about it although I see you've carefully not answered
my earlier points so my hopes aren't high.

------
geofft
> _Quite a few people believed them, including Saul of Tarsus, who took the
> message on the road, changing his name to Paul as a token of his
> conversion._

This is common folklore, but the claim does not appear in the Bible, and
everything in the Bible or in any other source implies that "Saul" was his
Hebrew name and "Paul"/"Paulus" was his Greek/Latin name, each used when
around people who spoke that language. It just so happens that before his
conversion, he basically was only ever around Israel, and afterwards, he
preached to the other parts of the Roman Empire.

Taking two names in two languages was a common practice at the time, and
_remains_ a common practice; nobody claims that Piyush Jindal took the name
Bobby when he converted to Christianity.

~~~
helthanatos
What Bible have you been reading? Many times throughout, people's names were
changed to indicate change. "And there came a voice saying, “Saul, Saul, why
persecutest thou Me?” And from that time, Saul was changed to Paul and become
a real believer and a worker in the church"

~~~
freditup
geofft is likely right, and it doesn't seem to be a particularly controversial
topic amongst different strains of Christianity topic at that. (I've seen
conservative and more liberal sources that think Saul/Paul was a sort of dual
name.) The most concrete verse on the matter seems to be Acts 13:9:

    
    
      > But Saul, who was also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, fixed his gaze on him
    

That's not to say that name changes are never indicative of internal change in
the Bible, and it's possible that Saul started using the name Paul more
intentionally to represent his change. But there doesn't seem to be much
concrete evidence of that.

~~~
JackFr
Very clear explanation:

"Many mistakenly assume the Lord changed Saul's name to Paul sometime after
Saul converted from Judaism to Christianity, which happened during his
encounter with Christ on the Road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-19). Unlike the
instance of Jesus changing Simon's name to Kepha (Gk. Petros) as a way of
signifying the special role he would play in the Church (Mt 16:18, Jn
1:41-42), in Paul's case there was no name change.

Saul of Tarsus was born a Jew, "circumcised on the eight day, of the race of
Israel, or the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrew parentage, in observance
of the law a Pharisee" (Phil 3:5). The Hebrew name given him by his parents
was Saul, but, because his father was a Roman citizen (and therefore Saul
inherited Roman citizenship), Saul also had the Latin name Paul (Acts 16:37,
22:25-28), the custom of dual names being common in those days. Since he grew
up in a strict Pharisee environment, the name Saul was by far the more
appropriate name to go by. But after his conversion Saul determined to bring
the gospel to the Gentiles, so he dusted off his Roman name and became known
as Paul, a name Gentiles were accustomed to."

[https://www.catholic.com/qa/why-did-god-change-sauls-name-
to...](https://www.catholic.com/qa/why-did-god-change-sauls-name-to-paul)

------
fusiongyro
Another great book on this topic is Rodney Stark's _The Rise of Christianity_
[https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Christianity-Marginal-
Religious-...](https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Christianity-Marginal-Religious-
Centuries/dp/0060677015/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486480140&sr=8-1&keywords=the+rise+of+christianity)

Stark is mostly interested in the period of time between Jesus and Constantine
and brings a ton of historical and sociological evidence to bear on the
question. A really amazing book. Learned a lot about Rome from it.

~~~
camperman
I was going to recommend this book but you beat me to it. Christians were much
longer lived because of their social practices more than anything else.

------
vondur
One interesting fact. Constantine was being held as a prisoner at the court of
Galerius in Nicomedia. He asked Galerius if he could leave to join his Father
in York. Apparently Galerius was inebriated and allowed him to go. And the
rest is history.

------
defen
Based on the headline I thought this was going to be about Quakers - you can
map current Western elite beliefs onto Quakers fairly straightforwardly

~~~
wcummings
How so?

~~~
defen
Religious tolerance

Abolitionism

Women's rights

Prison reform

Radically elevated role of individual conscience (inner light)

They were into all those things way before it was cool.

I see modern day divestment campaigns, ethical sourcing of goods and
materials, and even "socially conscious" business in general ("Effect change
in the world" / "make a difference") as direct descendants of the Quaker
approach to abolitionism - "It is beginning to be seen that they must despise
the gain of oppression, and deny themselves the blood-bought sweets and the
blood-stained cotton that has come through this corrupt channel."

Look up the Quaker approach to capitalism.

~~~
flukus
> Women's rights

From a bit of reading it seems like their definition of womeens rights was
quite different to how most people today would use the term. Quite
controversial at the time too. A quote from wikipedia:

> Also particularly within the relatively prosperous Quaker communities of the
> eastern United States, the focus on the child and "holy conversation" gave
> women unusual community power, although they were largely excluded from the
> market economy. With the Hicksite–Orthodox split of 1827–1828, Orthodox
> women found their spiritual role decreased, while Hicksite women retained
> greater influence.

Correct my if I'm wrong, I know very little about quakers, but that sounds a
lot like women were expected to remain barefoot and pregnant.

------
guard-of-terra
I have this notion that Abrahamic religions are the worst single thing that
happened to Homo Sapiens to date.

And that they're also trying to appropriate human progress for themself, but
now we know the real achivements of Greeks and Romans, surpassed only by early
XX century. They managed without.

My wife says: "But you personally have no other culture to belong to". That
doesn't make me happier.

> in 324, he extended similarly pro-Christian policies to the eastern empire,
> where he not only favoured Christians, but actively discriminated against
> non-Christians, restricting their ability to worship or fund their temples.

And it mostly went downhill from that.

~~~
Mikeb85
Nah, religion is just repackaged tribalism. Not like we wouldn't replace it
with something equally stupid, like rioting and fighting each other over
politics... At least religion includes a sort of morality as part of the deal.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Nah, religion is just repackaged tribalism.

No, it's not. Religious identity may be a focus of tribalism, but religion is
more than identity.

> Not like we wouldn't replace it with something equally stupid, like rioting
> and fighting each other over politics... At least religion includes a sort
> of morality as part of the deal.

So does politics; every political ideology, like every religious ideology, is
exactly a "sort of morality". Actually, there's often a content overlap
between political and religious ideologies (and often a political ideology
subsumes an expressly religious one, or vice versa.)

~~~
Shorel
Religion is more "good intentions" than "a sort of morality".

Disregarding facts is and should considered to be immoral.

But you can very well have "good intentions" while doing so.

~~~
dragonwriter
Leaving aside for the moment whether your implicit generalization about what
religion _is_ accurate, the fact that a system of morality is one that you
disagree with does not stop it from being a system of morality.

Of course, followers of different sorts of morality often view it as immoral;
that's inherent in conflict between moral systems.

------
known
Religion was born when the first con-man met the first fool;
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_earth)

------
posterboy
I like the title, although - or because - obscure could imply _weird,
mysterious_ rather than _secluded, hidden in secrecy_.

------
edblarney
Reasonably written from a historical perspective, but it's missing a few
points:

1)

The 'monotheistic' religions, particularly Christianity and Buddhism (though
Buddhism is not exactly 'monotheistic' it's not 'pantheist' in the classical
sense) - represented a fundamental shift from pantheism.

It's wrong to claim that 'Pantheism = many gods' and 'Monotheism = one god'.
This the literal meaning, but it's not remotely accurate.

Pantheistic gods were almost always a soap opera of 'super human like' people
who loved, fought and interacted with each other like a superior cast of
beings.

'Pray to me and I'll smote your enemy'

'Give me offerings or I'll hurt you'.

Montheism wasn't just about having 'one god' \- monotheistic religions were
about _ideas_ not so much _rites and rituals_ (as mentioned in the article).
Particularly - monotheistic religions required _moral and conscientious_
behaviour.

Jesus had only two commands: 'Love God and love one another'. In a more
secular sense that could be 'Recognize the divine and knowing that - do your
best with what you have to make the world a better place'.

Buddhists are required to be 'more enlightened' and more civilized people lest
they be reincarnated as animals, if they want to 'escape the cycle of
reincarnation'.

Christian and Buddhist religions centre around moral philosophies at least in
terms of how they apply to the real world.

The Christian God is not a 'bearded buy in the sky' (even though he is often
presented as such). He's 'unknowable' and completely transcends our
understanding. 'I am that I am'. This is not like the Greek gods who all have
very tangible attributes and are mostly interested in human like things - i.e.
power.

Similarly, though Buddhists are technically 'atheists' in that they don't have
a 'God' per say - they do have a kind of 'monotheism' in that they present
very specific ideals of 'nothingness' etc.. They definitely present a
metaphysical construct for us. And it's not a bunch of angry super-dudes.

Monotheism is a huge leap forward in terms of our metaphysical evolution.

2)

It's not fair to use the word 'exclusive' so many times in this text.

The most powerful element of Christianity is that it was open to anyone. For
the first time _slaves were equal to kings_. This was a very, very powerful
idea, and obviously scared the bananas out of the elite.

Status and class were clearly delineated in terms of class in Greek mythology.
Higher status = more 'godliness'. That's an artifact of human culture ... but
it's rejected in Christianity (and Buddhism).

Your 'status' in Christianity is dependant on how _good_ you are, not 'how
much money you have'. For the first time, you couldn't just buy your way out
of bad deeds (at least in theory, obviously not in practice, quite often).

Christians were the first international solidarity movement. They were the
first 'social movement of equal peoples'. The first to feed the poor as moral
action, not just a political action. Moreover - they were organized. What the
article failed to mention was that Constantine had a political motivation to
be Christian because he could leverage the international network of organized
and efficient non-state bureaucracy that the Christians had. Their 'system'
had efficiency on some level - and authenticity.

A strict historical articulation of the facts, I think fails to illustrate
what it was that made Christianity so widespread.

I think the key to understanding is that 'common era' religions such as
Christianity and Buddhism are completely unlike their predecessors.

~~~
acqq
> The Christian God is not a 'bearded buy in the sky' (even though he is often
> presented as such). He's 'unknowable' and completely transcends our
> understanding. 'I am that I am'. This is not like the Greek gods who all
> have very tangible attributes and are mostly interested in human like things

'I am that I am' was said by Jesus who ate, defecated and did everything else
like any other human being, and he is considered being the God by Christians,
so he's very much like the Greek gods walking around the Earth all the time,
eating with humans. Read the Odyssey.

Even more so, the act of Jesus' mother being impregnated by the God is
something that Zeus did in many many occasions (producing god-children with
the human mothers) and was retold for centuries before Christ exactly in the
areas where the Christian myths started to spread. The impregnation story is
obviously an one-upmanship one (well my God is a son of God too!) and not
present in the earliest Gospel.

Once that simple one-upmanship trick got to be popular, there was a need to
explain the logic of God producing a child who's still himself while not
directly being involved in the sex act (which would be too dirty for the God),
and the Trinity was invented: the God is at the same time the father, the son
and the holy ghost, the third one, the most 'transcendental' one, the only one
being involved in the sex act.

Learning about the ancient Greek gods helps making sense of a lot of weird
Jewish and Christian stories. Also learning about the Mesopotamian and
Egyptian gods and stories.

~~~
edblarney
"'I am that I am' was said by Jesus who ate, defecated and everything else
like any human being, and he is considered God by Christians, so he's very
much like Greek gods walking around the Earth all the time. "

First - "I am that I am" is God - to Moses. Not Jesus.

And by the way - that very line betrays your argument: the Monotheistic 'God'
is nothing like Zeus, who would never say something so abstract :). Zeus was
knowable. 'God' is a metaphysical concept.

And no - Jesus not 'like the Greek gods because he 'ate and defecated'.

Zeus was a powerful war lord, who ran around screwing women, got pissed off at
others, demanded offerings - he was not a moral example, nor did he demand
morality. He was like a superhuman Chieftain.

Zeus was the Donald Trump of religions. (Bad joke).

Jesus wanted his followers to 'have faith and love one another' \- and not
necessarily make offerings, worry about money, or get too involved in rituals.
All are equal before God, and are judged for their actions - not their power,
money or social status. Yada, yada, yada. Nothing like the Zeusinator.

There are really few if any theological similarities between Zeus and Jesus.
They are 'far apart' on the religion scale :)

"earning about the ancient Greek gods helps explaining a lot of weird Jewish
and Christian stories. Also learning about the Mesopotamian and Egyptian gods
and stories."

Yes - some bits of narrative are similar, and the 'nativity' bit is a rather
common theme in the era. But it's not about the 'magic tricks' :).

Put another way: Greek pantheism is about the Greek Gods. Christianity is
about _the teachings_ of a man (or son of god, or god incarnate, depending on
...)

And finally - a lot of formal Christian groups that do not believe Jesus was a
God. That's been a big debate since the beginning i.e. Nicaeae etc. :)

~~~
acqq
"I am" is said by Jesus seven times in the Gospel of John, that's more
important for a Christian:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_am_(biblical_term)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_am_\(biblical_term\))

> There are really few if any theological similarities between Zeus and Jesus.
> They are 'far apart' on the religion scale

To properly compare you have to compare Yahweh, the god from Jewish scriptures
(a.k.a the Old Testament for the Christians, for who Yahweh is a father-god)
and Zeus, the Greek father god. Both are hungry for the animal sacrifices. The
God personally visits Abraham who prepares a meal (freshly baked bread and
flesh) for him and the God eats, under a tree. Not "transcendent" at all.

For their children: Jesus, the son of the God and a human mother, and
Heracles, the son of the God and a human mother. Heracles rises to Olympus as
he dies, unlike the other mortals, just like Jesus rises to heaven.

And both Jesus and Heracles visit Hades (Hell) only to get out of there:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrowing_of_Hell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrowing_of_Hell)

Learning about the Greek gods is really enlightened.

By the way, the name of the Jewish father-god is Yahweh, and "Jesus" comes
from the Greek "Iesous" rendition of a Hebrew common name "Yehoshua" (Joshua)
which means "Yahweh is salvation." Also a convenient element for the later
"the father is also a son" idea. Only, there were a lot of Joshuas living
around for more centuries.

~~~
edblarney
"I am" \- and - "I am that I am" are two different things. :)

And yes, I agree - 'Yahweh' from Jewish antiquity is more comparable to Zeus,
for sure. (Though Yahweh evolved a lot over time, and was something else by
the time Jesus came)

But you were comparing Jesus to Zeus. Those two are not very comparable.

Zeus belongs in the Egyptian/Roman/Mesopotamian camp. a little bit like
Yahweh.

Jesus belongs more with Buddha, and Mohammed.

The former were 'myths to believe that explained things', the later were
'historical figures' and 'teachers' of 'how we ought to be as moral and
spiritual beings'. These are very different eras, different kinds of
religions, is my whole point.

FYI - that's why in 2016 there are tons of Buddhists, Muslims and Christians,
and basically zero followers of 'Zeus'. Which further validates 'how different
Jesus is to Zeus & Co'

~~~
acqq
> 'Yahweh' from Jewish antiquity

The Christians actually call that what you call "Jewish antiquity" "the Old
Testament." And they don't pronounce the name of the God, just like Jews
stopped doing that, but only after names like "Yehoshua" (Joshua and Jesus)
and "Yohanan" (John) (both constructed from Yahweh) already became common.

This simple "his name can't be told" rule is the primary spark for the whole
"transcendental" buildup and people naming "the only" "God" for any formally
unrelated belief. And the Jews got that idea (keep the name secret) from the
Egyptians.

> But you were comparing Jesus to Zeus.

No, check for yourself, I have explicitly compared the father of Jesus with
Zeus, Zeus being the inseminator just like Jesus' father.

> Jesus belongs more with Buddha, and Mohammed.

No, Mohammad was a jealous supremacist murderous warlord, killing hundreds of
people even after they surrender, torturing the captives, taking the female
slaves as sex slaves, ordering the killings for revenge to somebody making
some funny poems about him, ordering stonings of others for having
extramarital sex, but for himself organizing "legal" sex with a 9-year old,
inventing special messages from God to allow him having more wives than other
Muslims etc (all documented in the religious texts). Jesus was just an
apocalyptic religious hippie announcing that "the end is coming soon" who died
once he tried to cause the change in the middle of Jerusalem, the
governmental, financial and religious center of Judea at the peak of its
yearly activity (overturning the tables in the "banks" there effectively(1)).

Buddha is not comparable to both Jesus and Mohammad, as Buddha was the one who
recognized that he can chose to _not_ believe in the religious dogma of his
environment (Hinduism) and be free and happy instead, not ending in the Hindu
equivalent of Hell (which was for them "being reborn again") but simply dying
(which is called the "nirvana" \-- simply ending being "blown out" like a
candle, that's the meaning of that word). But the Buddhists, conveniently for
them, made a new religious dogma out of Buddha.

\----

1) The term "bank" actually comes from Italian "banca" which simply means "the
table" \-- the tables were used as "the banks" to perform the money
transactions in the old times. Jesus actually disrupted the banks in the city.
Which were very stressed at the Passover, the time he decided to do it. But it
wouldn't be enough to sentence him to death, the reason for that was that
there were the witnesses who confirmed him claiming to be the "King of the
Jews" \-- he was sentenced for leading the "regime change" during the times of
the festival. By the oldest Gospel, Jesus, poor believer, didn't understand
why the God didn't intervene then ("Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to
say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?")

~~~
edblarney
"'I am that I am' was said by Jesus who ate, defecated and did everything else
like any other human being, and he is considered being the God by Christians,
so he's very much like the Greek gods walking around the Earth all the time, "

1) You were comparing Jesus to the Greek gods, not 'The Father of Jesus'.
That's your quote right there.

2) You're a little off on your 'comparative religion'.

Jesus, Mohamed and Buddha were human beings, who were spiritual teachers, not
quite 'gods' (although many people consider Christ 'God incarnate' \- he was
ultimately human as well.).

We follow Jesus, Mohamed and Buddhist teachings, and spiritual which are all
'monotheistic' \- or in the case of Buddhism, not quite 'theist' but
nevertheless a singular presentation of a 'higher concept'.

This is fundamentally different from Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek and Roman
religions.

I am not saying that 'Jesus is the same as Mohammed and the Buddha' \- I am
saying that they are all basically Common Era religions which are in a
different category than the others.

Your comments about Mohammed are incomplete to the point of misrepresentation.
Yes - he did some crazy things, but he also said many more good things, and
his writing is in fact quite beautiful.

Finally - you picked a very poor example of how Jesus is different than
Buddha: "as Buddha was the one who recognized that he can chose to not believe
in the religious dogma of his environment"

Jesus indeed, asked his followers to _not get caught up in dogma_ as well and
simply 'have faith'. In a manner of speaking, that's pretty close to accepting
divine notions of 'nirvana'.

Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and
greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as
yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Basically he is saying 'all the other religious stuff doesn't matter' \- this
two things are what matters.

There are many other similar quotes where he calls out the 'hypocrisy' of
certain Pharisee acts.

So in fact - Jesus and the Buddha are pretty similar at least on that point.

Summary:

Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed - Common Era human beings who are Spiritual Teachers:
followers do as they say.

Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Mesopotamian polytheistic Gods and myths - a soap
opera of 'super humans' doing various things. There's no moral philosophy or
spiritual premise, though you do get some metaphysical ideals I guess.

~~~
acqq
I'm comparing there Jesus, who's for the Christians "THE God." One part of the
"one God in three Divine Persons", the "central mystery" of Christianity for
most of its existence.

Your claim that Jesus is "ultimately human" and at the same time that Mohammad
"wrote" "beautiful" things leaves me wondering how much you actually know
about the religions.

Even if you belong to, for example, Jehovah's Witnesses, you have to be aware
that a) your denomination didn't exist before 1870s and the rest of the
Christians believe in Jesus the God for at least 17 centuries b) your beliefs
are distinct from the mainstream Christianity and c) your number is minute
compared to all other Christians.

Can you please specify which Mohammad's "writing is in fact quite beautiful"?
What have you read that Mohammad wrote? Thanks.

------
senior_james
Why focus on just Christianity? Islam started as an 'obscure cult', like most
religions.

~~~
GavinMcG
Why... not? It's an article. It doesn't preclude other articles on related
subjects.

I guess I'm a little confused about what you think a good answer to your
question would address, beyond the obvious fact that the author didn't decide
to write about Islam.

~~~
senior_james
It was a rhetorical question. If He wrote about Islam, he would get death
threats.

My point is that the current trend is to shit on Christianity and praise
Islam.

------
phs318u
a. I honestly thought this was going to be about the alt-right or neoliberal
orthodoxy or similar.

b. Synchronicity -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13585873](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13585873)

