I was searching for hebrew related texts on jewish history andculture when google recommended this book, probably due to the book having the tags religion, cristology etc. What got my attention was not only the title but some of the claims made in the description such as “Nothing is new or original in Christianity. That is the important thesis demonstrated in Christianity Before Christ. The least important features, as well as the most important components, were all well developed in cultures that flourished before the time that Christ is alleged to have walked the parched paths of Roman Palestine.”
So i guess my question is what does Christianity bring new to the table and what traditions from before has it adopted?
P.s. the latter part of the description seems to be an attempt at reeling people in with propaganda maybe fear mongering? Tbh i am not sure what to call it but thought it was interestibg nonetheless.
There is something immediately obvious in the synopsis that goes against any current serious scholarship and immediately dissuades me from going any further: “before Jesus is alleged to have lived.” There was a discussion here recently that mentioned that the historicity of Jesus’ existence is not in question. The author’s bias is pretty blatent and destroys his trustworthiness right there. The Wikipedia article on him shows him to be very much an antitheist and not particularly well qualified. Sorry, it’s not going to get any more of my time.
Man i bet you have some stories, but to answer you i am 21. I often post things like this and as of recently pertaining to things such as the history and culture of judaism.
P.s. you are younger than my grandmother so you are still young in that sense
Well as Dale had pointed out i do sense some bias in the latter part of the books description but i do find the claims made in the former part of the description interesting in the sense that i dont know as to what christianity has “borrowed” from other cultures and what new things it has brought to the table. All this and things that are similar has led me to start researching the church, judaism, religions that were before either, etc. Though pertaining to this book i have stumbled across i dont think much of it, I’d figure that i share it due to its claims in its description.
Yeah. It’s hard to sort through stuff that’s just popular junk that titillates and offers “special insight” that no real thoughtful person has (that was sarcasm, btw), and the polemic stuff (“Yay! for our team!”) to get to serious scholarship.
Are you familiar with the Oxford University Press (OUP) series of Very Short Introductions? While I would prefer the ones on Christianity to be more in favor of my views, my experience with books on other topic in the series is that they are dedicated to serious academic study. There are a number of them on topics related to Christianity and other religions. Overall, I think they’re a good place to start. Be warned, though, some of them are as dense as they are short. But very worth the work of reading them.
Now I’m going to click on that link and that’ll take me here: Christianity Before Christ
Now you do it yourself. And when you get to the page that has this at the top,
Besides, as an attack on Christianity, this is pretty lame. So are we to doubt Christianity because God was teaching all the same things before Jesus? Help me out here. What does that prove? At most it proves that this wasn’t a religion all invented by one man. Right?
So… no authentic scholarship and no real significance either… Why should we give this any of our time?
No, not at all. I posted simply because i thought it was an interesting claim… well the former part of the description anyway. In retrospect i can see now how this post is a waste of time and i should probsbly delete it all together.
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