Its not uncommon when trying to discuss early Christianity to observe the sensationalism of the Jesus myth hypothesis. from books to movies such as Zeitgeist. parallels are drawn from Egypt to Greece, and the elements in the life of the Christian savior are compared to the motives of pagan gods such as Dionysus (Bacchus), Mithras and Osiris.
The hypothesis leans on the claim that the early Jews who were devoted to Jesus were subject to Hellenic influence, and deities which were celebrated in the Roman world influenced the emergence of Jesus in the form of Christianity.
Jesus and Dionysus:
In order to understand the possibility of religious Hellenic influence on those early Jews who were devoted to Jesus we need to understand how these Jews themselves viewed the religious rites of the pagan gods.
Roman sources from the era tell us that the early Christians refused to worship the pagan gods. we find Pliny the Younger who served as governor of Bithynia under Trajan telling the emperor in a letter (at around 112 CE) about the devotion of these people to Jesus and their refusal to honor the image of the emperor or to take part in pagan rites.
In contrast to the explanation that the supreme position of Jesus in the Christian tradition was born out of pagan influence in the Roman empire, when we examine the Pauline epistles, which were written in the mid first century we see that they express the divine importance of Jesus among Christian Jews even before Paul promoted this devotion. the letters of Paul give us an indication that Jews in the Roman province of Judea expressed this devotion before its possible to dicuss foreign pagan influences on later Christian institutes, such as the churches that Paul established.
The claims that the deification of Jesus was a process that gradually developed lean on the assumption that this happened as the number of gentile Christians increased and was a process that took place in the frame of the geographical regions that were subject to Hellenic religious influence
While Christianity in the second century was mostly practiced by gentiles, it has began in Judea, and was initially practiced by people who were devoted to the Jewish tradition. we need good reasons to consider that these early Jewish Christians were opened to embrace pagan influence which was at odds with their Jewish faith. pagan practices such as applying an apotheosis (deification) to various human figures was frawned upon by Jews.
When we examine the influential figures in the beginning of the Christian movement we see that they were Jews, we have no indication that these people have turned their back on Judaism or that they embraced pagan practices. One of the motives in the letters of Paul in the New Testament is the contrast he makes between the multiple gods of the Roman environment and between the God which everything springs out of. what we see is the strong sentiment that the God of the Christians is not one god out of the polytheistic pantheons, but he is the one true God of a monotheisic faith.
The strong basis against arguments of Hellenic influence over Christianity are thus, that the Christian movement emerged in Judea among Jews, these people expressed devotion to Jesus before this devotion can be attributed to geographical reasons, and a scenario in which the pagan environment in places such as Antioch has made its impression on early Christianity, this devotion among people in Judea who were practicing Jews, also demands an examination of the claims that the deification of Jesus was a result of the gentile conversion into Christianity and the lack of strict monotheistic tradition among these gentiles.
Tags: christianity, dionysus, hypothesis, Jesus, myth, paganism
