I wouldn't call all of these unique. Virgin pregnancies, for example, are part of many myths, often predating christianity by centuries.
If it was shown to be true, really true(!) that Jesus( and His Father Creator) did exist would you follow Him?
It has been shown that Christian monotheism adopted its theologies, doctrines, etc... from polytheism. An example is provided, the amount of solar language used for Yahweh shown in the Bible in Psalm 84:12: kî šemeš ûmāgēn yhwh, traditionally rendered, “for a sun and a shield is Yahweh.” The divine (Yahweh) is described in solar terms. Psalm 84 also reflects the larger context for the Bible’s application of solar language to Yahweh. Psalm 84 displays the setting of a pilgrim longing for the experience of God in the temple in Jeruslaem. Verse 9b speaks of Yahweh as being “seen in Zion.” The psalm presents a temple setting that explicitly draws on solar language for God to express the motif of “seeing God,” in the psalms an expression for divine presence (Pss. 11:7; 17:15; 27:4, 13; 42:3; 63:3; cf. Judg. 14:20, 22; cf. 1 Sam. 1:22), later transformed into a motif of seeing God or the divine glory in the future (Isa. 35:2; 52:8; 66:5, 18).574 Like Psalm 84, Psalms 42-43 exhibit the setting of a pilgrim longing for the temple in Jerusalem. Like Psalm 84:9b, Psalm 42:3 speaks of “seeing God.”
The solar language in Psalm 84:12 constitutes an expression for divine presence in the Jerusalem temple. Indeed, the setting of Psalm 84 and the explicit reference to the divine presence by the expression of “seeing God” in Psalm 84:9b supports this idea. The eastern orientation of the Jerusalem temple has led to speculative theories regarding the solarized character of Yahweh.575 Psalms of vigil, such as Psalms 17, 27, and 63,576 and Ezekiel 8:16577 similarly suggest that the sun evoked at least the luminescent dimension of the divine presence, perhaps in keeping with a solar interpretation of Yahweh (cf. Zeph. 1:3; Ben Sira 49:7; Baruch 4:24). It might be argued that the simile for the appearance of the high priest in Ben Sira 50:7, “like the sun shining on the temple of the King” (NAB), derived from solar theophanic language in the context of the temple. Other passages, such as Josh. 10:12-13, suggest the sun (and the moon) as deities ultimately subservient to Yahweh. There are other instances of solar metaphor for Yahweh. These include describing Yahweh with the verbal root *zrh, “rise,” in Deuteronomy 33:2, Isaiah 60:1, Hosea 6:3, and once in the Kuntillet ‘Ajrûd inscriptions. This word is the normal verb for the rising of the sun (Judg. 9:33; 2 Sam. 23:4; Nah. 3:17; Jon. 4:8; Job 9:7; Ps. 104:4; Eccles. 1:5; cf. Judg. 5:31). Biblical and extrabiblical Yahwistic names with the elements *šḥr, “dawn,” zrh, “rise,” and *n(w)r, “light,” may point to a solarized Yahwism. Ezekiel 8:16 and 2 Kings 23:5, 11 criticize solar worship in the Jerusalem temple in the final decades of the Judean monarchy. Some scholars argue that these passages point to solar worship, either as an indigenous practice or as a result of Mesopotamian or Aramaean influence.581 Ezekiel 8:16 belongs to a section detailing a number of cultic practices (including worship of idols and women weeping for Tammuz) conducted in the temple precincts:
"And he brought me into the inner court of the house of the Lord; and behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men, with their backs to the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east, worshiping the sun toward the east."
The verse interprets this cultic activity that takes place in the temple as worship of the sun. It is of further interest that the location of the practice points to priests as the culprits, unless this interpretation anachronistically assumes that only priests were permitted in this part of the temple. In its denunciation of various temple practices, 2 Kings 23:11 includes “the chariots of the sun” (markĕbôt haššemeš). The picture is apparently one of chariots carrying the sun on its course, being pulled by horses. Archaeological findings may add to this picture. Horse figurines with a sun disk above their heads have been discovered at Iron Age levels at Lachish, Hazor, and Jerusalem. The uppermost register of the tenth-century stand from Taanach likewise bears a sun disk above the body of a young bull.584 At Ramat Rahel, two seals dating to the Persian period (ca. 587-333) depict bulls with solar disks between their horns.585 Finally, the imagery of divine wings, as in Psalms 17:18, 36:7, 57:1,61:4, and 63:7, invites comparison with the winged sun disk represented on pre-exilic seals (although the imagery could have coalesced with the iconography of the cherubim in the Judean temple). It would appear from Ezekiel 8:16 and 2 Kings 23:11 that either solar worship or worship of a solarized Yahweh took place in the temple during the waning years of the Judean monarchy. Job 31:26-28 refers to an astral rite of some sort, although its precise setting is unclear:
"If I have looked at the light [i.e., sun] when it shone, or the moon moving in splendor, and my heart has been secretly enticed, and my mouth has kissed my hand; this also would have been an iniquity to be punished by the judges, for I should have been false to God above."
Like 2 Kings 23:5, this passage connects solar worship with lunar devotion. Whether an indigenous development or a foreign import, these practices were allowed by the Judean dynasty at times to take place within the cult of its national god. Several scholars situate solar or astral devotion in Iron II Judah within a larger context of the “astralization” of the chief god in a number of Levantine pantheons.587 The criticism of solar cult in the Bible may be approached from a further religious perspective. Following ancient Near Eastern tradition, the procession of divine “glory” (kābôd) described in Ezekiel 43:1-5 perhaps combines language from different realms of nature. The return of the warrior-god Ningirsu to his temple is rendered in both storm and solar language. 588 An enameled tile from the reign of the ninth-century Assyrian monarch Tukulti-Ninurta II also provides an analogue to the description of the divine in Ezekiel 43:1-5. The tile depicts the god Assur590 riding the winged sun disk with drawn bow aimed at the enemies of the king. On either side are storm clouds with rain falling. Enuma Elish 1:101-2, 157, and 11:128-29 apply solar qualities to Marduk, although storm language is more characteristic of him. The combination of solar and storm imagery and iconography in Mesopotamian sources and biblical texts raises an important issue. By combining two types of natural phenomena, Psalm 50:1-3 and Ezekiel 43:1-5 suggest that the divine nature is beyond identification with a single natural phenomenon. In effect, Yahweh is equated metaphorically with natural phenomena, but also has power over and transcends these natural phenomena. Like Ningirsu and Marduk, Yahweh is “supernatural.” This perspective may help to explain criticism of the solar cult in the temple in Ezekiel 8:16. According to this passage, solar rendering of Yahweh reduced the divine to a form of natural idolatry, perhaps identified with the cult of a foreign deity. It may be argued, however, that the “idolatry” was an indigenous form of Yahwistic cult. Psalm 84 and other evidence for solar language predicated of Yahweh militates against interpreting solar worship in the temple as non-Yahwistic. There is no evidence for a separate sun cult, and the explanation of foreign influence remains a matter of speculation. Indeed, the notion that neo-Assyrian rulers imposed their religious practices on their Levantine subjects has been discredited.592 The theopolitical function of Yahwistic solar language may be further understood in the context of solar language predicated of the monarchy, both in Judah and elsewhere.
Yahweh is Baal
We will similarily see Yahweh as Baal in various West Semitic descriptions emphasize Baal’s theophany in the storm (KTU 1.4 V 6-9, 1.6 III 6f., 12f., 1.19 I 42-46) or his role as warrior (KTU 1.2 IV, 1.5 I 1-5, 1.119.26-29, 34-36; RS 16.144.9 334). These two dimensions of Baal are explicitly linked in KTU 1.4 VII 29-35, 1.101.1-4, and EA 147.13-15 as well as some iconography. F. M. Cross treats different descriptions of Baal as a single Gattung with four elements, which appear in these passages in varying degrees. The four components are: (a) the march of the divine warrior, (b) the convulsing of nature as the divine warrior manifests his power, (c) the return of the divine warrior to his holy mountain to assume divine kingship, and (d) the utterance of the divine warrior’s “voice” (i.e., thunder) from his palace, providing rains that fertilize the earth.336 Biblical material deriding other deities reserves power over the storm for Yahweh (Jer. 10:11-16; 14:22; Amos 4:7; 5:8; 9:6). Biblical descriptions of Yahweh as storm-god (1 Sam. 12:18; Psalm 29; Job 38:25-27, 34-38) and divine warrior (Pss. 50:1-3; 97:1-6; 98:1-2; 104:1-4; Deut. 33:2; Judges 4-5; Job 26:11-13; Isa. 42:10-15, etc.) exhibit this underlying unity and pattern explicitly in Psalm 18 (= 2 Sam. 22):6-19, 68:7-10, and 86:9-19.337 Psalm 29, 1 Kings 19, and 2 Esdras 13:1-4 dramatize the meteorological progression underlying the imagery of Yahweh as warrior. All three passages presuppose the image of the storm moving eastward from the Mediterranean Sea to the coast. In 1 Kings 19 and 2 Esdras 13:1-4 this force is portrayed with human imagery. The procession of the divine warrior is accompanied by a contingent of lesser divine beings (Deut. 32:34; 33:2; Hab. 3:5; KTU 1.5 V 6-9; cf. Judg. 5:20). The Ugaritic antecedent to Resheph in Yahweh’s entourage in Habakkuk 3:5 may be KTU 1. 82.1-3, which perhaps includes Resheph as a warrior with Baal against tnn, related to biblical tannînîm.338 Though the power of other Near Eastern warrior-gods was manifest in the storm (e.g., Amun, Ningirsu/Ninurta, Marduk, and Addu/Adad),339 the proximity of terminology and imagery between the Ugaritic and biblical evidence points to an indigenous cultural influence on meteorological descriptions of Yahweh. Israelite tradition modified its Canaanite heritage by molding the march of the divine warrior specifically to the element of Yahweh’s southern sanctuary, variously called Sinai (Deut. 33:2; cf. Judg. 5:5; Ps. 68:9), Paran (Deut. 33:2; Hab. 3:3), Edom (Judg. 5:4), and Teiman (Hab. 3:3 340 and in the Kuntillet ‘Ajrûd inscriptions; cf. Amos 1:12; Ezek. 25:13). This modification may underlie the difference between Baal’s epithet rkb ‘rpt, “cloud-rider” (e.g., CTA 2.4[KTU 1.2 IV].8), and Yahweh’s title, rokeb bāa‘ărābôt, “rider over the steppes,” in Psalm 68:5 (cf. Deut. 33:26; Ps. 104:3),341 although a shared background for this feature is evident from other descriptions of Baal and Yahweh. The notion of Baal riding on a winged war chariot is implicit in mdl, one element in Baal’s meteorological entourage in KTU 1.5 V 6-11.342 Psalm 77:19 refers to the wheels in Yahweh’s storm theophany, which presumes a divine war chariot. Psalm 18 (2 Sam. 22):11 presents Yahweh riding on the wind surrounded by storm clouds. This image forms the basis for the description of the divine chariot in Ezekiel 1 and 10. Psalm 65:12 (E 11) likewise presupposes the storm-chariot image: “You crown your bounteous year, and your tracks drip with fatness.” Similarly, Yahweh’s storm chariot is the image presumed by Habakkuk 3:8 and 15:
“Was your wrath against the rivers, O Yahweh? Was your anger against the rivers, or your indignation against the sea, when you rode upon your horses, upon your chariot of victory? You trampled the sea with your horses, the surging of the mighty waters.”
The description of Yahweh’s horses fits into the larger context of the storm theophany directed against the cosmic enemies, Sea and River. (The horses in this verse are unrelated to the horses dedicated to the sun in 2 Kings 23:11, unless there was a coalescence of the chariot imagery of the storm and the sun ) The motif of chariot-riding storm-god with his divine entourage extends in Israelite tradition to the divine armies of Yahweh riding on chariots with horses (2 Kings 2:11; 6:17). Other features originally attributed to Baal also accrued to Yahweh. Albright and other scholars 344 have argued the epithet ‘ly, “the Most High,” belonging to Baal in the Ugaritic texts (KTU 1.16 III 6, 8; cf. RS 18.22.4’), appears as a title of Yahweh in 1 Samuel 2:10, 2 Samuel 23:1, Psalms 18 (2 Sam. 22):14 and 68:6, 30, 35 (cf. Dan. 3:26, 32; 4:14, 21, 22, 29, 31; 5:18, 21; 7:25), in the biblical hypocoristicon ‘ē/î, the name of the priest of Shiloh,345 and in Hebrew inscriptional personal names yhw‘ly, “Yahu is Most High,” yw‘ly, “Yaw is Most High,” ̔lyhw, “Most High is Yahu,” and ‘lyw, “Most High is Yaw.”346 The bull iconography that Jeroboam I sponsored in Dan and Bethel (1 Kings 12:28-31) has been attributed to the influence of Baal in the northern kingdom. This imagery represented an old northern tradition of divine iconography for Yahweh used probably as a rival symbol to the traditional royal iconography of the cherubim of the Jerusalem temple.347 The old northern tradition of bull iconography for Yahweh is reflected in the name ‘glyw, which may be translated, “Young bull is Yaw,” in Samaria ostracon 41:1.348 The ca. twelfth-century bull figurine discovered at a site in the hill country of Ephraim and the young bull depicted on the tenth-century Taanach stand likewise involve the iconography of a god, either Yahweh or Baal. 349 Newer discoveries have yielded iconography of a deity on a bull on a ninth-century plaque from Dan and an eighth-century stele from Bethsaida. Indeed, evidence for Yahweh as bull appears in Amherst Papyrus 63 (column XI): “Horus-Yaho, our bull is with us. May the lord of Bethel answer us on the morrow.”351 Despite later syncretism with Horus, the text apparently preserves a prayer to Yahweh in his emblem-animal as a bull invoked as the patron-god of Bethel. The further question is whether these depictions were specific to either El or Baal (or both) in the Iron Age. The language has been thought also to derive from El, frequently called “bull” (tr) in the Ugaritic texts. There is some evidence pointing to the application of this iconography to El in the Iron Age. The title, ‘ăbîr ya‘ăqōb, “bull of Jacob” (Gen. 49:24; Ps. 132:2, 4), derived from the bovine imagery of El. The image of Yahweh having horns “like the horns of the wild ox” (kĕtô ̔ăpōt rĕ’ēm) in Numbers 24:8 also belongs to this background. Other Late Bronze and Iron I iconographic evidence might favor a connection with Baal.352 The reference to kissing Baal in 1 Kings 19:18 and the allusion to kissing calves in Hosea 13:2 353 would seem to bolster the Baalistic background to the bull iconography in the northern kingdom. However, the mention of kissing bulls in the apparent context of the Bethel cult in Papyrus Amherst 63 (column V) would point to the Yahwistic background of this practice.354 It is also possible that a number of major gods could be regarded as “the divine bull,”355 as this title applies also to Ashim-Bethel in Papyrus Amherst 63 (column XV).356 The polemics against the calf in Samaria in Hosea 8:5 and 10:5 may reflect indignation at the Yahwistic symbol that was associated also with Baal. Similarly, Tobit 1:5 (LXX Vaticanus and Alexandrinus) mentions the worship of “the Baal the calf” ( te Baal tē damalei) in the northern kingdom. Despite the evidence for the attribution of “bull” to Baal in the first millennium, a genetic solution tracing the imagery specifically to either El or Baal may not be applicable. B. Vawter argues that “bull” means no more than chief “male,”357 a point perhaps supported by the secular use of this term in KTU 1.15 IV 6, 8, 17, 19 and 4.360.3.358 The anti-Baalistic polemic of Hosea 13:2 and Tobit 1:5 may also constitute a secondary rejection of this Yahwistic symbol, because bull iconography may have represented both gods in the larger environment of Phoenicia and the northern kingdom. In any case, the Canaanite tradition of the bull iconography ultimately provides the background for this rendering of Yahweh. Common to both Yahweh and Baal was also a constellation of motifs surrounding their martial and meteorological natures. The best-known and oldest of these motifs is perhaps the defeat of cosmic foes who are variously termed Leviathan, ‘qltn, tnn, the seven-headed beast, Yamm, and Mot. A second-millennium seal from Mari depicts a god thrusting a spear into waters, apparently representing the conflict of the West Semitic war-god with the cosmic waters (cf. the piercing, *hll, of the serpent in Job 26:13 and of tannîn in Isa. 51:9).359 This conflict corresponds at Ugarit with Baal’s struggle with Yamm in KTU 1.2 IV, although Yamm appears as Anat’s adversary in KTU 1.3 III 43. Yamm appears as a destructive force in the Ugaritic texts (KTU 1.14 I 19-20; cf. 1.2 IV 3-4) and a proud antagonist to the divine warrior in the biblical record (Job 38:11; Ps. 89:10 [E 9]). Baal’s victory over Yamm in KTU 1.2 IV 27-34 presents the possibility of Yamm’s annihilation (*kly; cf. KTU 1.3 III 38-39, 46) and then proclaims his death, an image that appears rarely in biblical material (Rev. 21:1; cf. Testament of Moses 10:6). 360 Various biblical texts depict the divine defeat of Yamm with other images: the stilling (*sbhl *rg’) of Yamm (Pss. 65:8 [E 7]; 89:10 [E 9]; Job 26:11); the crushing 361 (*prr) of Yamm (Ps. 74:13; cf. the crushing, *dk’, of Rahab in Ps. 89:11 [E 10]); the drying up (*hrb) of Yamm (Isa. 51:10); the establishment of a boundary (gĕbûl) for Yamm (Ps. 104:9; Jer. 5:22; cf. Prov. 8:29); the placement of a guard (mišmār) over Yamm (Job 7:12); and the closing of Yamm behind doors (Job 38:8, 10); compare the hacking of Rahab into pieces (*hsb; Isa. 51:9); and the scattering (*pzr) of cosmic enemies (Ps. 89:11 [E 10]). A seal from Tel Asmar (ca. 2200) depicts a god battling a seven-headed dragon, a foe identified as Baal’s enemy in CTA 5.1 (KTU 1.5 I).3 (and reconstructed in 30) and Yahweh’s adversary in Psalm 74:13 and Revelation 13:1.362 A shell plaque of unknown provenance depicts a god kneeling before a fiery seven-headed dragon.363 Leviathan, Baal’s enemy mentioned in CTA 5.1 (KTU 1.5 I).1 (and reconstructed in 28), appears as Yahweh’s opponent and creature in Isaiah 27:1, Job 3:8, 26:13, 40:25 (E 41:1), Psalm 104:26, and 2 Esdras 6:49, 52.364 In Psalm 74:13-14 (cf. Ezek. 32:2), both Leviathan and the tannînîm have multiple heads, the latter known as Anat’s enemy in 1.83.9-10 and in a list of cosmic foes in CTA 3.3(D).35-39 (= KTU 1.3 III 38-42). This Ugaritic list includes “Sea,” Yamm//“River,” Nahar, Baal’s great enemy in CTA 2.4 (KTU 1.2 IV). In Isaiah 11:15 the traditions of Sea//River and the seven-headed dragon appear in conflated form:
And the Yahweh will utterly destroy the tongue of the sea of Egypt, and will wave his hand over the River with his scorching wind, and smite it into seven channels that men may cross dry-shod. Here the destruction of Egypt combines both mythic motifs with the ancient tradition of crossing the Red Sea in Egypt. The seven-headed figure is attested in other biblical passages. In Psalm 89:10 the seven-headed figure is Rahab, mentioned in Isaiah 51:9-11 in the company of tannîn and Yamm. The seven-headed enemy also appears in Revelation 12:3, 13:1, 17:3 and in extrabiblical material, including Qiddushin 29b, Odes of Solomon 22:5, and Pistis Sophia 66.365 Yamm appears in late apocalyptic writing as the source of the destructive beasts symbolizing successive empires (Dan. 7:3). J. Day has suggested that this imagery developed from the symbolization of political states hostile to Israel as beasts.366 For example, Rahab stands for Egypt (Isa. 30:7; Ps. 87:4), the River for Assyria (Isa. 8:5-8; cf. 17:12-14), tannîn for Babylon (jer. 51:34).367 This type of equation is at work in a less explicit way in Psalm 18 (2 Sam. 22):4-18. In this composition, monarchic victory over political enemies (w. 4, 18) is described in terms of a storm theophany over cosmic waters (w. 8-17). Because of the political use of the cosmic enemies, Day suspects that a political allusion lies behind the figure of Leviathan in Isaiah 27:1.368
Mark Smith’s volume, The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel.
Also, the divination practiced by John on Patmos shows a few issues in of itself. The book of Revelation seems to reflect life on the island. Weather phenomena like white clouds (14:14), thunder and lightning (11:19; 14:2), great hail (8:7; 11:19; 16:21) and rainbows (4:3; 10:1) are common. From the peak of Mt. Elias, 269 m (883 ft) above sea level, one has a spectacular view of the Aegean Sea islands to the west and the mountains of Asia Minor (Turkey) to the east. There are at least 22 references to the “sea” in Revelation (4:6; 5:13; 7:1, 2, 3; 8:8, 9; 10:2, 5, 8; 12:12; 13:1; 14:2, 7; 15:2; 16:3; 18:17, 19, 21; 19:6; 20:13; 21:1). J.C. Fitzpatrick, visiting the island in the 1880’s, observed:
“The islands to the west stand out darkly against the brightness of the horizon; and the others are lighted up with the glory of the setting sun, whilst the track of its last rays is a “sea of glass, mingled with fire” (Rv. 15:2; 1887: 16).”
In Revelation 6:14 and 16:20 John describes the islands of the Aegean and the mountains of western Turkey disappearing. As of the summer of 1998, I can personally attest they are still there—awaiting future fulfillment. Only one spring exists on the island, at Sykamia on the road from Chora to Groikos. Tradition has it John baptized some of his converts nearby. What a contrast this small spring was to the “pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb” (22:1, NKJV) in the New Heaven and New Earth (21:1). John recognized that he was to worship the One who made heaven and earth and the sea and springs of water (Rv 14:7). It would seem the delusions of John on Patmos are based off weather patterns and much less divination or let alone prophecy. I have some reference to this
The King and I: Exiled To Patmos, Part 2
It cannot be concludes that Biblical prophecy actually works in any manner, or that Christian monotheism is not a cumulative of ancient religious traditions.
