I can see how a god "who visited the underworld to reclaim his dead love" could be construed as a precursor to Christianity, but the idea that Christianity in any way owes its monotheism to fifth century BC Greek thought would seem to be quite lacking, given that even by history-of-religions interpretations, the Hebrew prophets were proclaiming monotheism well before that.
At most, I would see this as a step in the "preparatio evangelium" that made Christianity palletable to Greek thought.
I agree, the idea that Christianity is simply a religion that simply popped out of mystery cults is a little lacking. I do wonder sometimes though at some of the early Genesis stuff, especially the Sons of God Daughters of Man bit, especially the interpretations that see the SoG's as being Promethius-like and bringing warfare, fire, makeup and so on (all the evil things) to the earth... but I'm getting beyond the present discussion. I think that the idea of Jesus' salvation of us from Death (not to mention Sin and the Devil) seemed less wacky to the Greeks because of Orphius and the like. The question in my mind though is would it have been better if there were no previous myths for converts to hang their theological hats on? Would the mystery of Christ be more jarring? More real? More meaningful? Hmmm.... I'm going to think on that one some.
2 comments:
Interesting find.
I can see how a god "who visited the underworld to reclaim his dead love" could be construed as a precursor to Christianity, but the idea that Christianity in any way owes its monotheism to fifth century BC Greek thought would seem to be quite lacking, given that even by history-of-religions interpretations, the Hebrew prophets were proclaiming monotheism well before that.
At most, I would see this as a step in the "preparatio evangelium" that made Christianity palletable to Greek thought.
I agree, the idea that Christianity is simply a religion that simply popped out of mystery cults is a little lacking.
I do wonder sometimes though at some of the early Genesis stuff, especially the Sons of God Daughters of Man bit, especially the interpretations that see the SoG's as being Promethius-like and bringing warfare, fire, makeup and so on (all the evil things) to the earth... but I'm getting beyond the present discussion.
I think that the idea of Jesus' salvation of us from Death (not to mention Sin and the Devil) seemed less wacky to the Greeks because of Orphius and the like. The question in my mind though is would it have been better if there were no previous myths for converts to hang their theological hats on? Would the mystery of Christ be more jarring? More real? More meaningful?
Hmmm.... I'm going to think on that one some.
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