Does anyone else know that the legend of the virgin birth of jesus is a lot like a greek legend?

Question

In the Greek Legend (much older than Jesus) a man named Attis was born to a virgin mother. When he was older he was killed, and ressurrected 3 days later. What are your thoughts on this? Seems to me that most stories in the Bible are just bits and pieces of other legends all put into Christian form.

This was told to me during my Early British Literature class in college by my Christian professor. She was explaining the origin of a lot of holidays, and the origin of Easter was this myth, as well as fertility celebration. (Of course it wasn't always called Easter)

Answer 1

Thats exactly right. There is a bunch of scholarly work regarding this very subject.

Answer 2

In the Mediterranean region of two to three thousand years ago, it was part of the job description for any god that he be born of a virgin. Those who cobbled together the new religion which was called "Christian" understood that they had to offer all the goodies of the competition. And Osiris offered a mediator, a redeemer, a resurrection, and the meal of bread and wine.

Attis of Phrygia provided a Christmas Day birth and an Easter resurrection. Christianity had to absorb these ideas, in order to remain appealing. So all these features of the older religions were grafted onto the life of Jesus long after his life and death.

It is true that many Bible stories are knockoffs of older tales, mostly Babylonian. The Hebrews were illiterate until they went to captivity in Babylon. They learned to read and write and they picked up a lot of Babylonian mythology. The Noah flood story is just a retelling of the Epic of Gilgamesh. The story of Moses in the Nile is just an adaptation of the story of King Sargon of Akkadia in the Euphrates. The Ten Commandments are pretty much all found in the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

It's fine for Christians to enjoy their religion today, as people have for thousands of years. But it's good to be honest and face the reality that Christianity is just the latest manifestation of much older traditions in religion, and developed from its predecessors. The ancient ideas keep recurring in new forms. There is not much special or unique in the new religion of Christianity.

And the silliest notion of today's Protestant fundies is to worship a book while ignoring the simple call of Jesus, "Follow me."
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Answer 3

easily, i trust it may well be rendered as both. The word, of someone being the seed of a lady (see Genesis financial ruin 3) is amazingly unusual. Later, Jesus’ virgin beginning would supply which means to this verse and educate that certainly, it grow to be a prophecy of that some distance destiny adventure. also, a “youthful unmarried female” conceiving would no longer regularly be a demonstration of a few thing holly, activities like that take position fairly often in this international. --------------- extra.(Jeremiah 31:22) "How lengthy wilt thou bypass about, O thou backsliding daughter? for the LORD hath created a sparkling aspect in the earth, a lady shall compass a guy." "This “new aspect” would properly be no longer some thing decrease than the arriving awesome idea and virgin beginning of the promised Savior. The note for “compass” means “enclose,” and no different interpretation of this promise would contain a “new aspect.” be conscious the reference also to a “virgin of Israel” in the former verse. the following verses deliver about the excellent promise of the “new covenant” in Jeremiah 31:31 and following HMM."

Answer 4

Truth vs dogma? Which one you gonna pick?

The Bible does not mention Mary's early life does not present an exact genealogy of Mary.

Mary is described as 'a virgin', a term in the Greek which not only implies what it says but also that she was a young woman in her mid to late teens. Young girls were married off to much older men in the Bible.

Answer 5

The entire Jesus story resembles a Greek Tragic Drama which were based upon myths and legends. The character Jesus is also similar to Asclepius who was also a demigod, revered as the founder of medicine and had powers to raise the dead using the Gorgon's blood and to save life. He was struck dead by a Zeus thunderbolt because he was accepting money for performing resurrections, his rod was entwined with a serpent

Answer 6

i'm not xtian, i'm jewish - i don't take my stories so literally. if it was included in my books, the reason was that there were lessons and deeper meanings hidden in the stories, esp. true for the ones found in many cultures. my faith is pretty open about the fact that most of our holidays are based on pagan harvest holidays. i think making and coming to terms with these connections is a healthy part of spiritual growth. i don't think people should throw away any idea that helps them feel closer to g-d, but they should be able to look at it objectively. maybe if more xtians were willing to do this without getting all defensive, they would stop trying to convert others and be content with the fact that they found their own spiritual truth.

Answer 7

MORE than just Greek legend. There are LOTS of instances of this in other mythologies:

http://englishatheist.org/indexd.shtml

Answer 8

I'm Greek and I never heard this legend... I have to go do some research now lol

Answer 9

Noahs Ark was also in Greek mythology only the names were different. It was basically the same story.

Answer 10

I wikipedia it, but I find only small piece of similarity.
the story of noah's ark is also based on greek deucalion mythology.
so the history always repeat itself, right?

Answer 11

* that is correct, most of the bible is direct from paganism. I always say that Christians are just as pagan as I am, but the difference is they do not know they are pagan, but just say that christimas and Easter is pagan, and they gt real defensive and brag that they took those holidays away from us, but neglect to read the bible where it says to not do as pagans do nor learn our ways.*