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Originally Posted by TheHeroOfTime  First off I'd like to say I'm new here (Hello to everyone!), but extremely interested in the things I recently read.
I searched the forums to see if I could find anything regarding Christianity being a mythology. I found a few posts, but nothing to which I would like to debate.
I'm here to ask everyone what they think of this idea. Personally I believe that all religions are based on some sort of mythology. I recently struck a debate with a decently devout Christian. This person wholly believes that Christianity is not a mythology. I argue however, that all stories in the old testament (Noah's Ark, Sodom and Gamorrah, Jesus turning water into wine, curing the blind, etc...) are all mythology (you cannot prove them true, hence myth). What do you think?
My second question is, this Christian believes that what Jesus did throughout his life (turning bread into more bread, curing the blind, etc) was not magic, but rather miracles. I however see no difference between Jesus' "miracles" and someone who claims to practice sorcery (a magus, if you believe these sort of people exist). What do you think?
Thanks for any replies and I realize that these are extremely open ended questions; so nothing is out of the question when debating! |
About Christianity-as-mythology: Christianity
contains mythology, yes, but it is more than "just" a package of
mythology. It has ritual components, moral and ethical directives, and much more. Of course, one can define the term "mythology" so broadly as to make almost
everything "mythology" -- and as great as he was, Campbell (especially toward the end of his life) tended to do just that. This position can be, and often is, overstated.
About Christians' beliefs about who Jesus was and what he did: While a majority of Christians probably believe he did most of the things attributed to him in the gospels, I'm betting you'll find that a significant number are willing to accept that the stories are just that,
stories that make a point or teach a lesson, and that they are not all that concerned with whether or not they're precise history of true events which really took place exactly as described. In short, not all Christians are fundamentalists or literalists.
As for Jesus being a
magus, that term in the 1st century Near East had a specific meaning, and it referred to "sorcerers" or "wise men" or "sages" or priests of a
Zoroastrian type. While it's vogue among some, now, to posit that Jesus was actually a closet Zoroastrian, or a Buddhist, or what-have-you, this is not suggested by the record we have; these are anachronistic interpretations. They're especially complicated by the fact that we don't even know, with certainty, if there was a "Jesus" in the first place.
Early Christianity had many overlaps with many other religious traditions in the eastern Roman Empire; one can look back, from our 21st century viewpoint, see many "linkages," and draw conclusions about it, but the reality is far more muddled than most would like to admit. Christianity as we know it is a product of intense and profound syncretism, or an admixture of many religious notions, large and small. Boring in on one or another would be a mistake.