Episode 242 – Jesus’ Attributes Were Not “Borrowed” Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. Script Notes: “Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying.” The Gospel of John, Chapter 11, verse 25, New Living Translation “Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” The Gospel of John, Chapter 14, verse 6, New Living Translation ******** VK: Hi! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. I’m here today with RD Fierro, author and founder of Crystal Sea Books, and part-time event planning consultant. He rearranges the chairs in the conference room when we have meetings. Today on Anchored by Truth, as we approach Thanksgiving and Christmas, we want to continue our series where we focus on the life and ministry of Jesus. And we want to continue listening to Crystal Sea’s epic Christmas poem The Golden Tree: The Frost Lion. Frost Lion is the third part of the Golden Tree trilogy. The first installment of the Golden Tree saga was The Golden Tree: Komari’s Quest and copies of it are available from our website which is crystalseabooks.com. Even though we’re playing Frost Lion on our broadcasts and podcasts it has not yet been released for people to get their own copy but that will happen in the near future. Today we’re coming to part five out of seven of the poem. So, we’re getting close to bringing it home, right RD? RD: We are indeed. For any listeners who weren’t able to be with us for our last couple of episodes we should tell them that The Golden Tree: The Frost Lion is a poem that is written in the style of some classic Christmas stories. It was written in seven parts and each part ends in a sort of cliffhanger. So, now that we’re at part five we’re pretty deep into the story. But just as a quick refresher The Golden Tree: The Frost Lion is about a group of small koala bears who live in the Artic in valley that’s green and warm because in the middle of the valley is a Golden Tree that keeps the valley warm and fertile. They’ve been there for several generations but just as Christmas season is approaching two teenage bears, Koest and Kopaul, were on a high hill near their town when the spotted a dark shape crossing the snow and ice. The strange shape turned out to be a bear named Roleb. Roleb came from the village their ancestors had left many generations ago and had travelled with a friend who got lost. Roleb and his friend were travelling to the arctic to search for help for their village which had lost its faith. Thanks to the wisdom of the village elders, Kodan and Kojon, the bears have been able to summon an ice eagle. But what can this ice eagle do? What will this ice eagle do … if anything? VK: Sounds like we’re getting to the good part. So, let’s continue with the story. Here’s part five of Crystal Seas’ Christmas epic poem: The Golden Tree, The Frost Lion. ---- The Golden Tree: The Frost Lion – Part 5 VK: Ok. So, the bears from the village have now found Roleb’s lost friend. But it’s too late. Roleb’s friend has died from the cold. So, it seems as if Roleb’s whole journey to the north has been for nothing. That seems very sad – if that was how the story ended. But, of course, it hasn’t ended yet. So, maybe all hope isn’t lost. And, knowing you, the answer to finding out whether anything can be done for Roleb and his friend is …to tune in next time.

RD: That sounds like a brilliant suggestion. And maybe listeners could gather some family members to join them ... VK: Sounds even better. Listening to Golden Tree as a family could be a great way for parents or grandparents to connect with their kids and help them develop their faith. It would also make a great centerpiece for a home school study group or church youth group discussion about the role that courage and commitment play in the Christian faith – something that’s particularly relevant as we get closer and closer to Christmas. RD: Right. Somebody once said that the Christian faith is so simple that even children can comprehend enough about it to understand the plan of salvation. But even though we can begin with the faith of a child we should pursue the goal of developing a truly mature faith. God will meet us and help us wherever we are in our faith journey but He isn’t satisfied with leaving us at the starting line. Hebrews 12:2 says that Jesus doesn’t just initiate our faith. He also wants to perfect it. And part of perfecting our faith is ensuring that we understand what the Bible tells us about Jesus. VK: Well, so far we’ve seen that there are extra-Biblical sources that confirm that Jesus was a real historical figure who lived and died in Judea during the time period described by the Bible. But we’ve also seen that as helpful as it is to know that there are secular sources that confirm Jesus’ life that those sources aren’t enough to tell us everything that we need to know about Jesus. We can only get a complete revelation about Jesus from God’s special revelation to people, the Bible. And as we saw in our last episode, and again in today’s scriptures, Jesus’ statements about himself tell us something pretty important: that Jesus is not only fully human but also fully divine. RD: Yes. And so that takes us to the next subject that we need to talk about as we are focusing on the life of Jesus in preparation for celebrating his birth at Christmas. VK: And that is... RD: And that is - that because Jesus is the central figure not just of Christianity, but also the entire Bible, one of the criticisms that’s sometimes directed toward Jesus is that the attributes that the Bible assigns to Jesus were borrowed from other cultures or religious sources. So, Christians need to be familiar with some of the assertions that Jesus’ deeds, especially his miracles, were simply drawn from other religious myths or pagan characters. VK: Can you give us an example of what you’re thinking about? RD: Sure. It is has been alleged that Jesus’ miraculous conception isn’t a unique belief. For instance, critics will say that the mythological figure, Hercules, was also supposed to be the son of a divine father – in this case Zeus - and a mortal mother. VK: But, of course, there are significant differences between Hercules purported conception and Jesus. In the Greek legend Hercules mother was named Alcmene (ALK-MEN-EE). Zeus was supposed to have taken on the human form of Alcmene’s husband and deceived Alcmene and slept with her. And that’s how Hercules was conceived. That’s not nearly the same thing as Jesus being born of Mary while Mary was literally still a virgin. RD: The differences are even more pronounced. Hercules was actually the Roman name of a hero the Romans adapted from the Greek Heracles. According to the Greek legend, Heracles’ mother Alcmene was simultaneously pregnant with Heracles by Zeus and his half-brother Iphicles by her husband. And that’s only the beginning of the legendary aspects in Alcmene’s pregnancy with Heracles. So, as soon as you get beyond the superficial similarity and look at the details, the notion that Jesus’ conception was somehow an adaptation of the Heracles/Hercules myth falls apart. But this is a good example of one kind of obviously fallacious attack that’s directed against the historicity of Jesus. VK: So, what you’re saying is that one form of attack that’s leveled at Jesus has to do with a particular attribute of Jesus and then trying to find a parallel somewhere else in a different religion that is obviously false. The critics then try to discredit the life of Jesus by saying that if story A is false, then story B must be false also. RD: Right. But that makes as much sense as saying that if there are two $5 bills on the table and one is counterfeit, the other one must be also which is just silly. So, sometimes the supposed pagan origin of the details of Jesus earthly life and ministry are concerned with specific attributes of Jesus, such as his virgin birth. But sometimes the copycat thesis is less concerned with the specifics of Jesus life and more concerned with generalities that might be associated just about any supernatural figure. VK: Again, do you have any specific examples in mind? RD: For instance, since sickness and disease are obviously a plague on human existence... VK: No pun intended… RD: No pun intended… anyway, the ability to bring miraculous healing would be expected to be a staple of myths or legends. And it is. For example, Asclepius or Asklepios was a Greek demi-god who was the god of medicine. He was supposed to have raised Hippolytus from the dead, though he was killed by Zeus for doing so. Asclepius was supposed to be the son of the god Apollo and a human mother. Buddha was also supposed to have been able to cure the sick. VK: But again, these kinds of general miracle workings of mythological characters vary considerably from the information we have about the miracles that Jesus performed. For instance, in the case of Jesus curing Peter’s mother we have precise details of the location where the miracle was done, the people involved, and even a pretty close approximation to the timing. And many of Jesus’ healings involved specific details that conform to the religious and cultural conventions known to exist. Such as when he healed the lepers and then told them to go show themselves to a priest which was required by Jewish law. And Jesus’ healing miracles weren’t always the cause for celebration the way you would expect of a miracle like when Jesus restored the eyesight of the man born blind. The blind man was rejected by the religious leaders and cast out by them. RD: Exactly. The descriptions of Jesus’ miracles read like historical accounts because they are. Again, the key to drawing distinctions between Jesus’ miracles and those general sorts of miraculous powers that are associated with the pagan sources is in the details. The Bible accounts provide the details and in the majority of cases there are multiple eyewitness accounts. But the case of Buddha provides another way of refuting the claims that the Bible’s descriptions of Jesus are drawn from other sources. The earliest known account of Buddha’s life was written in the 2nd century AD so it came after Jesus and not before it. That’s also true for another supposed religious figure who supposedly served as the source for many of the details of Christ’s life, Mithra. In Mithra’s manifestation during the Roman period he was supposed to have been born on December 25th, had 12 disciples, performed miracles, had a final meal before he died, and rose from the grave after 3 days. VK: And since Mithra was a religious figure that was known to come from the Persian culture, modern day Iran, supposedly he was the inspiration for much of what the disciples taught about Jesus. Right? RD: Right. The earliest mention of Mithra is around 1400 BC so as a religious figure Mithra would pre-date Christ by a considerable time period. But the problem is that the attributes of the Iranian version of Mithra do not correspond to the Roman version. The Roman version of Mithra is best known for slaying a bull whereas there is no known connection to bull slaying in the Iranian version. And a lot of the supposed correspondences between Christ and Mithra appear in the Roman version and the dating of the correspondences is after Christ. VK: So, many scholars believe there might have been some cross pollination between Christ and the Roman version of Mithra but given the timing of the appearance of the similarities it’s far more likely that the legends of Mithra borrowed from Christianity and not vice versa. RD: And that would have been fair because there was one way that Christianity did borrow from Mithraism, in art. In the early part of the 3rd century AD (313), the Roman emperor Constantine issued the edict of Milan which accepted Christianity. Before then the Roman emperors had generally been very hostile to Christians. Within 10 years Christianity had become the official religion of the empire. But by then Mithraism seems to have also gained a strong foothold within the empire as well. In the third and fourth centuries, the Roman church officials seemed to have embarked on an effort to prove that their faith was the superior one, embarked on an advertising campaign. One commentator said their efforts were “reminiscent of our soft drink wars. Mithra was depicted slaying the bull while riding its back; the church did a lookalike scene with Samson killing a lion. Mithra sent arrows into a rock to bring forth water; the church changed that into Moses getting water from the rock at Horeb.” VK: That sounds suspiciously like the law of unintended consequences. The church officials in the 3rd and 4th century went on a campaign to prove that Christianity was superior to Mithraism and 1,600 years later the church now has to defend itself against the claim that Jesus’ life and ministry were the copycat version. RD: I think that’s an excellent observation. And let’s close out with one more, quick example. In Hinduism Krishna was also supposed to have had a miraculous conception so some critics point to that legend as a possible inspiration for the Christian tenant. VK: But in that case, Krishna’s ‘miraculous conception’ is his mom being impregnated by ‘mental transmission’ from his completely human father. Again, not remotely similar to the Bible’s description of how Mary became pregnant. RD: And to add to that – how credible is it that the first Christians, who were largely Jews from Palestine, would have borrowed a legend from a thousand miles away. At a minimum the Jews were fiercely monotheistic whereas Hinduism is distinctly polytheistic. So, this again points to the need to not only examine the varying details of alleged instances of borrowing but also consider the cultural factors that would have been in play. Often either chronological or cultural factors alone will be enough to refute the alleged possibilities. To go back to our earlier example with the money, when new bank tellers are being taught to spot counterfeit dollars they aren’t given lots of counterfeits to study. They’re given lots of real bills to feel and handle. The idea is that if the tellers get so used to touching and handling the real thing, the fakes will become instantly recognizable. That same approach will work when it comes to being able to answer many of the criticisms that are addressed at Christianity and Jesus. VK: And that’s a good lesson for all of us. The more time we spend studying scripture – and developing familiarity with the details of the people, the nations, the geography, the culture – not only will we be able to be confident in our own faith. But we will also be able to point other people to the truth. RD: Precisely. Myths and legends read like myths and legends. They have fantastic details that have little or no correspondence to things in the real world. Good common sense enables us to quickly see elements that don’t make sense in our experience. By contrast, the history contained in the Bible reads like good histories that we see elsewhere. There are specifics about people, places, times, and events and quite often either archeological finds or extra-Biblical records will provide information that helps confirm the Biblical record. VK: Sounds like a great time for a prayer. Today since we’re so close to Christmas let’s listen to a prayer about that special day. ---- Prayer for Christmas VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.” We hope you’ll be with us next time as we continue our discussion of the reality of Jesus’ life. We hope you’ll take some time to encourage some friends to tune in too, or listen to the podcast version of this show. Also, we’d to remind listeners that copies of The Golden Tree: Komari’s Quest are available from our website. If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!”

(Bible Quotes from the New Living Translation) The Gospel of John, Chapter 11, verse 25, New Living Translation The Gospel of John, Chapter 14, verse 6, New Living Translation The Gospel of John, Chapter 15, verse 5, New Living Translation (Sources used for this episode or other in this series) https://creation.com/pagan-copycat-thesis-refuted http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/pagint.php http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/mithra.php