Sorry for the long delay in replying on this subject.
I've discovered there is a lot out on the web expressing the view that Christianity is to a large extent based on Mithraism introduced by Constatine. Here's a google page from a search on constantine and mithra. It's the first of many pages.
Christianity or Mithraism. (Page 1)
... Constantine, a great supporter of the Christian religion, although not converting
to it ... the tally of slain god-men to seventeen, of which Mithra, together with ...
Description: An essay discussing the prevalence of Mithraism at the time of Constantine and the effects of his...
Category: Society > History > ... > Religion > Ancient > Mithraism
members.aol.com/MercStG/ChriMithPage1.html - 7k - Cached - Similar pages
mithras
... When in the beginning of the 4 th century Emperor Constantine has declared the catholic
Christianity as the ... Mithra's birthday is taken over as Jesus' birthday. ...
www.geocities.com/spenta_mainyu_2/mithras.htm - 44k - Cached - Similar pages
Jesus
... This enabled Emperor Constantine to merge the cult of Mithra with that
of Christianity that was developing much. He declared himself ...
www.geocities.com/raqta24/christ.htm - 26k - Cached - Similar pages
[ More results from www.geocities.com ]
Constantine's Church and Empire
... Cumont (in Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans, page 55) explains
that Sol Invictus (Mithra) was the family god of both Constantine's father as ...
www.aleph-tav.org/Constantine-changed.html - 32k - Cached - Similar pages
Note
... Following the battle at Milvian Bridge, Constantine was on his knees--praying to
the sun god Mithra--when he saw a vision of a cross and heard the words, “in ...
www.michaelrood.com/news_sp36.htm - 7k - Cached - Similar pages
View an Article - NeuroAtomik
... It was only when Constantine decreed that Christianity was to be the state ... the religion
followed by those who worshipped the sun god Mithra, originated in ...
www.neuroatomik.com/content/article.php/aid/74 - 14k - Cached - Similar pages
Mysteries of Mithra.
... Constantine the Great was an avid Mithra worshiper and his devoted mother Helena,
a great worshipper of Ishtar, ‘My Lady’ the Queen of Heaven. ...
www.lookandlive.com/themysteriesofmithra.html - 66k - Cached - Similar pages
Mithra
... Even the Roman emperor Commodus was initiated into Mithra's cult. When Constantine
the Great was converted to Christianity in 312 CE, Mithraism started to ...
Description: Encyclopedia article presenting basic information on this old-Iranian god of light, contracts and...
Category: Society > History > ... > Religion > Ancient > Mithraism
www.pantheon.org/articles/m/mithra.html - 7k - Cached - Similar pages
2,000 Years: Part 2...
... Apollo, Mars, Hercules, and Sol (or Mithra), and stated that he was committed to
the invincible sun. Claiming to be a Christian, Constantine recognized the sun ...
www.angelfire.com/pa5/swordours/2000Years2.html - 11k - Cached - Similar pages
Mithra
... The emperor Constantine was a follower of Mithra until he declared December 25 the
official birthday of Jesus in 313 CE and adopted the cult of Christianity as ...
www.atheist-community.org/mithra.htm - 4k - Cached - Similar pages
It sounds pretty convincing and impressive at first examination. But I see an absence of scholarly objective references supporting most of the claims. So while I am convinced many pagan trappings from Mithraism and other religions came into Christianity (like Dec. 25 and so on), it's clear to me the core of the Christian religion was in existence long before Constantine.
Take the New Testament for example. All of it predates Constantine. Here are a couple links displaying pages of NT papyri dated to about the year 200:
Papyrus 66
Papyrus BodmerII (p66) 200 C.E.
This papyrus codex consists of 75 leaves and 39 unidentified fragments and was probably made up of originally 39 sheets of papyrus, folded and arranged in quires to form 78 leaves and 156 pages. The written pages are numbered consecutively from 1 to 34, 35 - 38 are missing, and then from 39 to page 108.
The leaves are nearly rectangular measuring 6.4 inches high and 5.6 inches wide.
The number of lines of text per page varies from 14 to 25. The number of letters in a line of text runs from 18 to 28. The handwriting is a good literary uncial. There is a rudimentary punctuation with a high point at the end of sentences and a double point at the end of sections. The words for God, Jesus, Lord, and Christ are always abbreviated and sometimes also man, father, spirit, and son. There is evidence of corrections, perhaps made by the scribe himself.
Some letters are missing on the right margin because of the deterioration of the edge of the papyrus sheets. Some pages have a vertical strip which was placed on the edge to reinforce the sheet.
earlham.edu
Papyrus 75
Papyrus Bodmer XV (p75)175-2255 C.E.
This papyrus codex with 51 surviving leaves now contains parts of Luke and John. The pages were originally about 10.2 by 5.1 inches and well preserved. Each page is written in a single column of from 38 to 45 lines and each line has 25 to 36 letters. The pages are not numbered. The handwriting is a clear uncial which when compared to other papyri dates the manuscript to sometime between 175 and 225 C.E.
earlham.edu
Another link on NT papyri:
In the 30's and 60's of the twentieth century a number of other, very important manuscripts have become available. We owe this to the efforts of two wealthy book collectors, Chester Beatty and Martin Bodmer. These manuscripts are of a special class for two reasons. They are written on papyrus and date from well before the fourth century. The earliest papyrus manuscripts come very close to the time when the New Testament was written. Of course, manuscripts on papyrus were known before, but these dated from a much later period and tended to be rather fragmentary. For almost all New Testament books we now have manuscripts earlier than the fourth century.
....
For about sixty years now a tiny papyrus fragment of the Gospel of John has been the oldest "manuscript" of the New Testament. This manuscript (P52) has generally been dated to ca. A.D. 125. This fact alone proved that the original Gospel of John was written earlier, viz. in the first century A.D., as had always been upheld by conservative scholars.
We now have early and very early evidence for the text of the New Testament. A classified list of the most important manuscripts will make this clear. Numbers preceded by a P refer to papyri, the letters refer to parchment manuscripts.
ca. A.D. 200 250 300 350 450
Matthew P45 B Sin.
Mark P45 B Sin. A
Luke P4,P45,P75 B Sin. A
John P66 P45,P75 B Sin. A
Acts P45 B Sin. A
Romans-Hebrews P46 B Sin. A
James-Jude P72,B Sin. A
Apocalypse P47 Sin. A
As you can see, from the fourth century onwards the material base for establishing the text of the Greek New Testament is very good indeed. The manuscripts Sin. (Sinaiticus), A (Alexandrinus) and B (Vaticanus) are almost complete parchment manuscripts. With the help of the earlier papyrus manuscripts we have been able to establish that the text of these three great manuscripts is to a large extent reliable. The papyrus manuscript P75 was the latest to be published, but it showed a virtually identical text to manuscript B. This settled the vexed question whether we have in the parchment manuscripts of the fourth and fifth centuries a safe guide to the original text of the New Testament. We have.
scriptorium.lib.duke.edu
Here is a link listing all known Greek NT Papyri:
www-user.uni-bremen.de
Scanning down it, I counted 46 dated as third century or earlier (pre-Constantine in other words).
The New Testatment books are also mentioned in the writings of the "church father", influential Christian theologians, historians, etc. The link following has a table displaying what various church fathers thought regarding the canonicity of various early Christian writings including those which ultimately became part of the NT canon and others which didn't. A number of the church fathers whose opinions are summarized on the table lived during the second century including Ignatius (died ~ 117), Polycarp (died ~ 155), Justin Martyr (died ~ 165), and Irenaeus (died ~ 202). Clearly, the New Testament books these individuals mentioned must have existed during their lifetimes.
ntcanon.org
Summing up, it is obvious the books comprising the Christian New Testament were written sometime within the first two centuries AD. And the religion of Christianity came into being during this period. This is true regardless of whether trappings of other religions were incorporated at later times.
Well, this is the important point I wanted to make. I will add that I am not a fundamentalist and am actually somewhat liberal, I think, when it comes to the Bible. Nevertheless, when I saw statements saying things like Christianity is 2/3 based on Mithraism and Constantine replaced the Christian scriptures with Mithraic, well this just seemed far enough off base to me that argument was in order.
Having made my primary point, regarding the specific things you mentioned in your several posts, I think I'll make a few critical comments. I'll try to keep it brief though. And there is nothing personal about this, if I criticize something its the mistaken idea (as I see it) I'm criticizing, not the person.
Oh one last thing. I think you'd be on stronger ground arguing that Zoroastrianism influenced Judaism back during the Persian empire period and then Christianity through it. I think this issue hasn't been given enough attention by scholars. |
