Quote:
Originally Posted by RickyMaveety
However, not all academics know what they are talking about .... I once had a religious studies professor sit there with a straight face and try to argue that the story of Apollo was the same as that of Jesus ... no, really ... apparently identical. Not just the idea of the sun's death and rebirth each day, but that Apollo and Jesus were the same figure in his view.
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Actually that is a rather old-fashioned view, which probably derives from Frazer. Sir James Frazer wrote "The Golden Bough" in which he argues that there is a common theme to all the western mythologies and he strongly imples that there is absolutely nothing new in Christianity except for the personality of Jesus. (He was careful not to say this explicitly because he preferred to avoid being harassed by Victorian fundamentalists.) Atonement, resurrection and suchlike can be found in the Mithras cult, in the Attis cult etc. Christianity, according to Frazer, was merely the most successful of the Mystery religions which proliferated in the middle east during the early Roman Empire.