Christianity and Ancient Mythology

Sun in Greek is ήλιος (helios) and son is γιός (gios). In Latin, Sun is sol and son is filius.

Anyone who thinks word play is going on because of English doesn't know what they're talking about.

mathinspiration said:

Are the words son and sun the same words in ancient Egypt, Hebrew, Arabic, Latin or Greek or rhyme like they do in English?

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No. English is unique.

Whenever someone makes the claim that it's based on some pagan myth ask them to lay that out in specific detail. 5/10 they will hand you a book to read that barely deals with the content, 4/10 they will pretend to know the content.

Silmarien said:

Sun in Greek is ήλιος (helios) and son is γιός (gios). In Latin, Sun is sol and son is filius.

Anyone who thinks word play is going on because of English doesn't know what they're talking about.

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Sounds just like Dawkins to me.

The Christ Myth theories are held by a vanishingly small fringe group of crackpots that are not taken seriously by academia or anyone who has actually read the sources they allude to. So Christ based off of pagan sources can be safely dismissed.
Judaism clearly works out of a Semitic religious context, but so? The Bible itself is clear on this, how the Israelites adopt or adapt usages of their neighbours and built high places and Asherah poles, so this really says very little.

The supposed Son, Sun linguistic connection is frankly silly as others have pointed out. However, a solar representation of Monotheism is fairly common. A good example is the Aten of Akhenaton, or the solarisation of the YHWH cultus from the 8th century BC as can be seen in Psalm 104 or Chariots of the sun in Kings, or the use of solar Scarabs in the southern kingdom.
When Constantine adopted Christianity, he had been a devotee of Sol Invictus before, so a lot of solar imagery was used. After all, the vision before the battle of the Milvian bridge was solar in nature perhaps.
Regardless, the use of Roman iconography to represent Christian concepts is common and it makes sense to use symbols people are familiar with, to better explain new concepts. Examples here is the staff of Asklepios used to represent the Brazen Serpent, the Cornucopia, or Roman gods as personfications of ideas used in Christian art. Solar depictions work from this tradition, hence Christ depicted with a heliacal crown or driving the solar quadriga, were made. This is more a symptom of a little truth being taken out of context and made ridiculous.

Lastly, the Flavian Emperors is confusing. There were two Flavian Dynasties: Vespasian and his sucessors and Constantius Chlorus and his. The former destroyed the Temple in 70 AD; and the latter converted the Empire to Christianity and Constantine called the Council of Nicaea to establish doctrine. Neither created Christianity or doctrine, although certainly their activities influenced the way the Church developed.

This web page is pretty cool, it shows some of the names of God from the Old Testament. That refutes any attempt at correlating sun gods to God of the Old Testament:

EL, ELOAH [el, el-oh-ah]: God "mighty, strong, prominent" (Nehemiah 9:17; Psalm 139:19) – etymologically, El appears to mean “power” and “might” (Genesis 31:29). El is associated with other qualities, such as integrity (Numbers 23:19), jealousy (Deuteronomy 5:9), and compassion (Nehemiah 9:31), but the root idea of “might” remains.

ELOHIM [el-oh-heem]: God “Creator, Mighty and Strong” (Genesis 17:7; Jeremiah 31:33) – the plural form of Eloah, which accommodates the doctrine of the Trinity. From the Bible’s first sentence, the superlative nature of God’s power is evident as God (Elohim) speaks the world into existence (Genesis 1:1).

EL SHADDAI [el-shah-dahy]: “God Almighty,” “The Mighty One of Jacob” (Genesis 49:24; Psalm 132:2,5) – speaks to God’s ultimate power over all.

ADONAI [ˌædɒˈnaɪ; ah-daw-nahy]: “Lord” (Genesis 15:2; Judges 6:15) – used in place of YHWH, which was thought by the Jews to be too sacred to be uttered by sinful men. In the Old Testament, YHWH is more often used in God’s dealings with His people, while Adonai is used more when He deals with the Gentiles.

YHWH / YAHWEH / JEHOVAH [yah-way / ji-hoh-veh]: “LORD” (Deuteronomy 6:4; Daniel 9:14) – strictly speaking, the only proper name for God. Translated in English Bibles “LORD” (all capitals) to distinguish it from Adonai, “Lord.” The revelation of the name is given to Moses “I Am who I Am” (Exodus 3:14). This name specifies an immediacy, a presence. Yahweh is present, accessible, near to those who call on Him for deliverance (Psalm 107:13), forgiveness (Psalm 25:11) and guidance (Psalm 31:3).

YAHWEH-JIREH [yah-way-ji-reh]: "The Lord Will Provide" (Genesis 22:14) – the name memorialized by Abraham when God provided the ram to be sacrificed in place of Isaac.

YAHWEH-RAPHA [yah-way-raw-faw]: "The Lord Who Heals" (Exodus 15:26) – “I am Jehovah who heals you” both in body and soul. In body, by preserving from and curing diseases, and in soul, by pardoning iniquities.

YAHWEH-NISSI [yah-way-nee-see]: "The Lord Our Banner" (Exodus 17:15), where banner is understood to be a rallying place. This name commemorates the desert victory over the Amalekites in Exodus 17.

What are the different names of God, and what do they mean?

The sun was a false idol God.


The Egyptians believed that the sun was god, obviously, that's all it was, so yes based, inspire Jews scripture back in those day; so it is actually a huge oxymoron in actuality and I believe is the asserion of these claims. I don't know if it is outright against Christians, but perhaps attempting to challenge them.

All of history, language and culture ismconnected and related to each other, it all comes from the same source, or at the very least is influenced by each other. So um, if you look at language, much of it goes back and has root syallables, pronounciations in early past languages.

mathinspiration said:

Many atheists and non- christians claim that Christianity and Judaism is based on ancient pagan myths. Christ is based on Greek gods and Egyptian ones among others. The renowned atheist Richard Dawkins says that the Son of God prefers to the sun myth word play: son means Sun. Are the words son and sun the same words in ancient Egypt, Hebrew, Arabic, Latin or Greek or rhyme like they do in English? I know they don't in Spanish? Son= Hijo. Sun=Sol. There is even a theory going on that Roman emperors made the Jesus story up to keep the Jews and the Roman citizens in line. It is called the Flavius emperors or something or other.

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Copycat claims are a dime a dozen, but don't have any merit. For example, there are many lists circulating around the internet that draw comparisons between Jesus and Horus, but they don't cite any sources, and when you look at what actual ancient historians, such as Plutarch, had to say about Horus, you that those those similarities and made up full cloth. If there are similarities, then they are superficial, or they come from sources that postdate the Bible, so if any copying would have been done in the other direction, or they come from source that can't be established that was even heard about in 1st century Israel. For instance, Quetzalcoatl wasn't even heard about by Christians until the 16th century.

Soyeong said:

Copycat claims are a dime a dozen, but don't have any merit. For example, there are many lists circulating around the internet that draw comparisons between Jesus and Horus, but they don't cite any sources, and when you look at what actual ancient historians, such as Plutarch, had to say about Horus, you that those those similarities and made up full cloth. If there are similarities, then they are superficial, or they come from sources that postdate the Bible, so if any copying would have been done in the other direction, or they come from source that can't be established that was even heard about in 1st century Israel. For instance, Quetzalcoatl wasn't even heard about by Christians until the 16th century.

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It's taken forever for anyone to adequately translate Egyptian hieroglyphics, or at least ancient Egyptian language and have only until recently really close as well. I saw something that refuted it a bit but I cannot remember where

Here, guy talking about the difficulty translatjng ancient Egyptian language. They understand hieroglyphics though.

BlackSabbath said:

Here, guy talking about the difficulty translatjng ancient Egyptian language. They understand hieroglyphics though.

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Interesting I've always wondered if the Pharaoh during the time of the Exodus wasn't the Pharaoh before Akhenaten. Because that would explain why they suddenly switched theology from their pantheism to a monotheistic god the Aten.



So I guess that would be Amenhotep III. And notice that Tye is listed in the genealogy of the pharaohs suggesting Amenhotep died and she became interim pharaoh.

Doulosiesou said:

Interesting I've always wondered if the Pharaoh during the time of the Exodus wasn't the Pharaoh before Akhenaten. Because that would explain why they suddenly switched theology from their pantheism to a monotheistic god the Aten.

So I guess that would be Amenhotep III. And notice that Tye is listed in the genealogy of the pharaohs suggesting Amenhotep died and she became interim pharaoh.

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I haven't watched the whole thing yet .

I generaly get a sense that the whole history of Egyptian is a little mysteries, or they won't fully explain or say what they know either.

Like the whole thing with the pyramids, pyramids in general (what?) And the Sphinx. There are some interesting documentaries on Netflix, some believe the Egyptians actually had some advanced technology and propose the pyramids were ancient energy conductors and as well had something to do with the Niles rivers or something, water ducts or something?

The energy conduits were believed to provide light and perhaps heat and such. Some of the pyramids were all giant energy conductors, that generated from water and electricity or something and they were, illuminated witj light. They also say they were all tombs but couod have been buildings too. I guess they're all ancient ruins who knows.

BlackSabbath said:

I haven't watched the whole thing yet .

I generaly get a sense that the whole history of Egyptian is a little mysteries, or they won't fully explain or say what they know either.

Like the whole thing with the pyramids, pyramids in general (what?) And the Sphinx. There are some interesting documentaries on Netflix, some believe the Egyptians actually had some advanced technology and propose the pyramids were ancient energy conductors and as well had something to do with the Niles rivers or something, water ducts or something?

The energy conduits were believed to provide light and perhaps heat and such. Some of the pyramids were all giant energy conductors, that generated from water and electricity or something and they were, illuminated witj light. They also say they were all tombs but couod have been buildings too. I guess they're all ancient ruins who knows.

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My theories are out there, I think the pyramids were actually mock up Tesla Towers. That is the civilization before the flood, Atlantis, had large scale power generators, Tesla Towers, but there are all underwater now because the sea level before the flood was a lot lower, perhaps up to a thousand feet.

After the flood the technology was lost but the memory of the towers was retained, so the generations after the flood created mock ups that sort of worked, like they could produce enough electricity to charge batteries.

Doulosiesou said:

My theories are out there, I think the pyramids were actually mock up Tesla Towers. That is the civilization before the flood, Atlantis, had large scale power generators, Tesla Towers, but there are all underwater now because the sea level before the flood was a lot lower, perhaps up to a thousand feet.

After the flood the technology was lost but the memory of the towers was retained, so the generations after the flood created mock ups that sort of worked, like they could produce enough electricity to charge batteries.

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This is fantasy.

This is interesting: 9 Things You May Not Know About the Ancient Sumerians

It is also interesting to search Sumerian in youtube.

Christians borrowed some from pagan iconography but otherwise there isn't any connection.

FireDragon76 said:

Christians borrowed some from pagan iconography but otherwise there isn't any connection.

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I believe a lot of history was happening and being chronicled before Moses wrote genesis. And this is why much of the accounts in the old testament actually match stories contained within ancient civilizations.

I think Campbell's Hero's Journey describes how some Christian traditions tend to interpret Christ more than others: you can especially see that in Eastern Orthodoxy but in the western tradition, Jesus is much more nuanced than simply a conquering hero. Shusaku Endo's Silence brings this dimension of Christ forward in a startling way.