I found Brian's essay here instructive in several ways, but the most interesting was his claim that I am demanding that he prove the Gospels were plagerized. In fact, I was demanding nothing of the sort. I made one version of this clarification at his blog in the meta, but I'll make a different version here as my readers are plainly of a lower brow.
In 1897, a fellow named Edmund Rostand wrote a fairly-amazing drama called Cyrano de Bergerac, which has had many incarnations since then. Rostand's drama was a verse drama, and it was written in French.
About 90 years later, a rather sad comedy (even though it had a happy ending) by the name of Roxanne was produced in Hollywood and starred a fellow named Steve Martin. It was not a verse drama, but in fact a little bit of a goofball comedy. Some might be willing to admit it wasn't even very good.
The reason I bring this up is because anyone can tell you that the latter was strictly derivative of the former. The plot line is nearly identical -- except for the obvious absense of a rather catastrophic war, and the rather moronic dumbing down of the end where the protagonist gets the girl (in the latter version) rather than dying without her. In that, understanding the latter in more than a popcorn-and-coke sort of way requires some understanding of the former.
Now, why bring that up? It is because it is central to Brian's point that the "older" and "other" saviors influenced the creation of the Jesus stories in some way.
If all Brian is saying is, "Hey: that Jesus reminds me of Attis," then what does that have to do with his thesis that Jesus is a pure fiction? I could say, "Hey: that Dave Foley reminds me of Alred E. Neuman," but in order for that to be evidence of anything, I have to do more than play free association.
I agree 100% with Brian that there is a clear distinction between similarity, derivation, and plagerism. Sadly, Brian has not even provided the basis for calling Jesus and Mithra, or Jesus and Attis, or Jesus and Jove "similiar" -- let alone establishing that one is derivative of the other. And in that, his assumption of "probability" is badly flawed -- unsubstantiated.
He may have a final question for me; he also has a very busy schedule. If he declines at this point, at least he can point to this exchange as one where he had the opportunity to have his say without having been cut off.
This is centuri0n, aka Frank Turk, who has been an internet apologist for about 10 years and has never really gained anything for himself through it but a handful of friends and a lot of ill-will. Most people, honestly, do not like to argue with him because he doesn't know how to let it go. He's a blogger of some minor note, and he's a "calvinist".
Posts
