Christianity and Mythology..

[Lyfing]

Christianity and Mythology, by J.M. Robertson.. (http://books.google.com/books?id=dPqDy6FFO68C&dq=christianity+and+mythology&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=KYLevFPhmj&sig=EvY1cOd_Fi_pT-z57fk-XNr4QR4&hl=en&ei=rGBaSs3qK6KxmAePy_GHAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6)


Robertson was an advocate of the Jesus-Myth theory, and in several books he argued strongly against the historicity of Jesus. According to Robertson, the character of Jesus in the New Testament developed from a Jewish cult of Joshua, whom he identifies as a solar deity. Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare wrote a book The Historical Christ directed specifically against Robertson and two other Jesus-myth advocates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._Robertson

For a quote about Balder see this thread.. (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5736)

Later,
-Lyfing

[Cato]

Even if a Galilean teacher named Yeshua did exist, he's so far removed from the fictional character of Christ as to be non-existent. Jesus Christ has more in common with the old myth of the dying and rising fertility deity than he does with Israelite religion. Jehovah's utterings in the Torah (Old Testament/Jewish writings) indicates that he considered himself to be the sole, true deity of the Jews (and later, the entire world, much like the Canaanite patriarch deity, El, was also considered to be the same thing). Jewish religion was henotheistic, that is they worshipped Jehovah, but also seemed to identify him with other deities, such as Baal and El- which is interesting because one variation of the old religion of Canaan looks like this (that of the city-state of Ugarit):

El, father God, who had many sons (the elohim, who appear in the bible as angels/divine beings).

Two of El's sons were:

Baal and Jehovah. It is Jehovah who outlasts both his brother, Baal, and his father, El, by absorbing their attributes. For example, some of Baal's titles were also later applied to Jehovah: Rider of the Clouds and Almighty.

Look at this webpage for information that might be of interest:

http://www.theology.edu/ugarbib.htm

If anything, Jesus Christ is a composite characer combining ancient near eastern/Mediterranean mythological themes. Whilst a rabbi Yeshua may've lived, Jesus Christ certainly never did.

The reason why ancient Israelite religion, in its earliest forms (forget the written account, which came much later), resembles ancient Canaanite religion is simple: the Israelites were Canaanites. A hint, I think, is to be found thusly:

I believe in the Book of Joshua or thereabouts, where the conquest of Canaan is being undertaken, the number of Canaanite tribes is revealed to be twelve. How many tribes of Israelites were there supposed to have been? Twelve! The story of the captivity and enslavement is a political fiction and the story of the exodus and conquest of the promised land is a heroic origin story, like Aeneas' flight from Troy to found the Roman nation.