Was the story of Jesus "stolen" from Apollonius of Tyana?

I recently came across an article about this ancient greek philosopher - APOLLONIUS OF TYANA. Apparently he was born about the same time Jesus was. He was also known as a miracle performer.

I think this is such an interesting article because it makes us wonder if Paul invented Jesus and christianity based on Apollonius life:
www.truthbeknown.com...

However, this other article says that Apollonius cannot be compared to Jesus:
www.tektonics.org...

If you Google Apollonius of Tyana, there are hundreds of other articles you can find. Some say that Apollonius is the real Jesus, some say he is the antichrist, some say he is the incarnation of christ, some say he was a real person as Jesus was and they have nothing to do with each other. I personaly go for the last one.

Have you heard of this name before ?

Oh, there's more than that. A lot more. Jesus isn't an original character by any means. Just look it up. "Jesus-like Figures Throughout History". It's amazing.

reply to post by CosmicDude

I think this is such an interesting article because it makes us wonder if Paul invented Jesus and christianity based on Apollonius life:
www.truthbeknown.com...

What I am getting from that article is that possibly Paul's life was taken from the story of this person, Apollonius.
I think this is quite possible if you consider the Book of Acts in the New Testament as Paul's "life".
I don't trust Acts as being historically accurate and think that the writer did borrow stories from other books, including parts verbatim.

reply to post by AfterInfinity

Oh, there's more than that. A lot more. Jesus isn't an original character by any means. Just look it up. "Jesus-like Figures Throughout History". It's amazing.

Many imitators have come in His Name to usurp the Truth- and it will happen again.

PrimeLight
reply to post by AfterInfinity

 

Oh, there's more than that. A lot more. Jesus isn't an original character by any means. Just look it up. "Jesus-like Figures Throughout History". It's amazing.

Many imitators have come in His Name to usurp the Truth- and it will happen again.

Hmmm, How to you explain the numerous similar saviors who were said to live many years before "Jesus" even existed? You can't imitate something that hasn't even existed yet. It's seems like it's the complete opposite..

reply to post by Lingweenie

I am the Alpha and the Omega are the first words that come to mind..

Just as Abraham, Moses, Noah, and many other characters in this mythology didn't actually exist and in concept are stolen from other cultures, combined into mutated versions with other characters from other stories, thinly re-labelled and re-branded, so too is the Christ character.

As there are a number of similarities with figure described in OP, so too there are with Buddha, where Buddha might hold a stronger claim in existing some 500 years before the creation of the Christ myth, thus giving time for philosophical proliferation and migration to occur in cross pollinating and influencing the creation of, or theft of preexisting doctrine as the Hebrew culture has demonstrated over and over and over.

There's even a website Jesus is Buddha .com

In brief, the entire Abrahabic religious culture is derived from a culture of people similar in behavior to common prejudices against modern gypsies: Filthy Desert nomads that would show up, steal everything, move on, and claim what they stole was theirs to begin with.

The Christ myth is just another offshoot of that culture of theft.

reply to post by PrimeLight

Many imitators have come in His Name to usurp the Truth- and it will happen again

whatever you say.

reply to post by CosmicDude


No it was not.

Actually christ and the book of revelation was created and written by Habakkuk. Stolen by the Assyrians when they invaded Jerusalem. And made a god by the Grecians, the hellenists if you will. Paul was just a simple idiot.

reply to post by AliceBleachWhite

The Christ myth is just another offshoot of that culture of theft.

Tell that to the multitudes worldwide of different faiths that have been visited by Him, especially at times of great hardship and close to death.

reply to post by PrimeLight


...Or something that chose to adopt his image for such occasions. Why? Because that is what they were most receptive to, and the whole truth is not nearly as practical as some truth where our stubborn species is concerned.

reply to post by CosmicDude


There's a lot of speculation about who Paul was and who authored the epistles and when. But there seemed to be a schism within the group about who followed which teacher, Paul or Apollonius.

1 Corinthians 3
4 For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?

5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?

Even the book of Luke is said to have been authored by Plutarch!

There is abundant evidence that supports my thesis that Plutarch wrote Luke's gospel. The
evidence has been available for decades;
www.gottnotes.com...

reply to post by CosmicDude


perhaps we should 'go for the one' that is backed up by some historical Jesus scholarship by experts than guessing

reply to post by AliceBleachWhite

Just as Abraham, Moses, Noah, and many other characters in this mythology didn't actually exist and in concept are stolen from other cultures, combined into mutated versions with other characters from other stories, thinly re-labelled and re-branded, so too is the Christ character.

I would like to see some solid evidence of these bold assertions made backed up by nothing so far.

JesuitGarlic

I would like to see some solid evidence of these bold assertions made backed up by nothing so far.

edit on 4-11-2013 by JesuitGarlic because: (no reason given)

Actually, I'm fairly positive you wouldn't 'like' to see any such. Most are too invested in their faiths, and will willfully ignore the wealth of Historicity we have in favor of a book of lies.

However, because you asked; Sargon of Akkad

... Sargon was the illegitimate son of a priestess (older translations describe his mother as lowly). She brought him forth in secret and placed him in a basket of reeds on the river. He was found by Akki the irrigator who raised him as his own son.

Sound familiar?
Reed basket floated on a river to be discovered by someone else and raised as their own?
This was 22-23 Century BC, some 1000 years BEFORE the biblical character Moses was supposed to have existed, and about 2000 years before the character Moses even 'exists' or pops up in any Hebrew literature.
Moses is a fictional made-up character, amalgamated from stories stolen from real people like Sargon, as well as embroidered with feel-good fantasy.

Abraham?
Indus Valley Vedic tradition have the Brahman. Brahman = Abraham. It's interesting too how the Hebrews not only stole, mutated and warped that into a singular fictional character as an origin figure from which most of Hebrew-ism derived, but, they even stole from Vedic tradition symbology:

Look Familiar?

Noah's Flood? Just read Gilgamesh, and a host of other flood accounts pre-dating any and all Semitic/Hebrew accounting.

We see this all through verified, confirmed, multiple source corroborated History.
Over and over we can trace the overt and shameless theft, mutation, embroidery, mutation and rebranding of pre-existing stories from other cultures all adopted and laid claim to as being Semitic, but, are in fact Semitic lies where the true stories and people referred to existed in entirely different cultures having nothing to do with any contribution to the Hebrew story except as victims of theft.

Don't believe me?
There's far more than that, but, it requires an actual look at HISTORY, as opposed to self-congratulatory dogmatic mythology.

... and, as asserted before, this precedent of cultural theft and rebranding didn't stop with the Old Testament. The Christ character myth is also blatant theft from Buddha and others.
Jesus never actually existed.

As to people claiming to have 'seen' Jesus in near death experiences, well, Psychology and cultural conditioning/programming is a wonderful and amazing thing.

perhaps it is as C.S Lewis stated: He said that these ancient myths, largely the products of poetic imagination, were essentially good dreams sent to the pagans by God foreshadowing the good things to come. What they had seen in these dreams ("through a glass darkly," as it were), God later did clearly and in history when He sent His Son to be our Savior. According to Lewis, the Gospel story about Jesus is "myth become fact." That is, the ancient myth has now become true history in the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This idea, in my opinion, has genuine merit.

from article
www.probe.org...

reply to post by AliceBleachWhite


Sargon's Fraud
Sayce, Oxford Professor of Assyriology, affirms Sargon is the embodiment of a popular tale, not reflecting accuracy or trustworthiness. [Archibald Henry Sayce, Ancient Empires of the East (New York: P. F. Collier & Son Publishers, 1916). p.71.]

Propp agrees, a mid- seventh-century Assyrian pseudo-autobiography that does not antedate the Biblical account. [William H. C. Propp, The Anchor Bible. Exodus 1-18 (New York: Doubleday, 1999). p.155.]

Levin states the Bibles reference to Accad related to Nimrod and cuneiform literature dates the Sargonid empire to 23rd century BCE while it was over a thousand years after this date the Neo-Assyrian kings begin to use Sargon's royal title as 'King of the Universe', and Nimrod and Sargon share identical stories, regarding themselves as the first postdiluvian ruler of the same cities and at the same time. [Yigal Levin, "Nimrod the Mighty, King of Kish, King of Sumer and Akkad," Vetus Testamentum 52, no. 3 (July, 2002). pp.351, 353, 361-2. It should be noted that with the bible flood chronologically being dated around 2,500 BC and Nimrod arising as the 4 generation from Noah, that this 23rd century date for his empire seems appropriate.]

According to Luckenbill, a handful of inscriptions amongst the anonymous reference Sargon with Nimrod are found in Ancient Assyria. [Daniel David Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, 2 vols., vol. 2 Historical Records of Assyria: From Sargon to the End (Chiacgo, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1927). pp.71-73.]

The Exodus in 1450 BCE created instability for Egypt that was not resolved until after the reign over Amenhotep IV who changed his came to Akhenaton, symbolising a change of worship in the country, introducing a monotheistic worship of a Creator God. The Assyrian empire upon hearing the events from Egypt about Moses most likely sought to counteract any negative influence such revelations could have on their power and religion so their priests, like the Babylonian priests of old, made up the story details, creating a new legend manifestation of Nimrod, instead of this time it being about him as Gilgamesh or Marduk they made it about the unnamed mysterious king of Sargon and included his wife Semiramis again, this time as one of her common deified manifestations, Ishtar. The Assyrian god Ashur and Egyptian Osiris are traced back to represent Nimrod's Marduk and it is in this neo-Assyrian setting inscriptions are found referring to Sargon of Akkad, a story that only links the infancy details of Moses, with no further link to other parts in the Exodus. The circumstantial evidence indicates a later story produce for public Assyrian consumption protecting the religious stability of their nation. [Sidney Smith, "The Relation of Marduk, Ashur, and Osiris," The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 8, no. 1/2 (April 1922). pp.41, 43-44.]

---------------------------

The scriptural tradition states that Israel had just spent some 400 years under Egyptian slavery prior to the Exodus and recent archaeology discovered confirms such an acrimonious slave relationship they shared with Egypt in line with Biblical chronologies. The artefact, in the Berlin Museum, dates to the 18th Dynasty or the 15th century BCE and in 2010 Egyptologist published that the hieroglyph inscription on the bottom right refers to Israel. [M. Gӧrg, Theis, C., and Veen, P. van der, "Israel in Canaan (Long) before Pharaoh Merenptah? A Fresh Look at Berlin Statue Pedestal Relief 21687," Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 2, no. 4 (2010). p.17.]

The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia affirms that at the end of the second millennium and beginning of the first millennium BCE, the Israelites themselves understood the Exodus to be in the middle of the 15th century considering the time frames they give in 1 Kings 6:1 and Judges 11:26. ["Exodus, Date of The," in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1982). p.237.]

Tutmoses III reign is identified as from 1504 BC- 1450 BC and James Henry Breasted, America's first noted Egyptologist, using the details written down by Amenemhab, Thutmose III biographer and scribe, was able to produce a specific date of death March 17th 1450 BC, from the details "the last day of the third month of the second season". ["Exodus, Date of The." p.234.]

The March 17th 1450 BC date of death is right in line Biblical chronological year for the Exodus and is a day shortly after with Passover that year, Amenhotep II who was away from Egypt at the time has his first son mysteriously misplaced from history, a contrived succession story is recorded that the second born who would become Tutmoses IV gained the right to being Pharaoh over his older brother by clearing some sand away from between the legs of the sphinx where he was resting one day ["Exodus, Date of The." pp.234-6]

The body in Tutmoses III tomb has been identified as not his but rather substituted with someone who was much younger than he was known to be. ["Exodus, Date of The." p.235.]
-----------------
Do a google search of images of the altar to the golden calf found in Saudi Arabia, and red sea crossing chariot wheels....

Summary for Moses - Sargon of Akkad is a made up story from the neo-Assyrian empire found in ruins which date many centuries after the Exodus of 1450 BC. The neo-Assyrian religion shared the same gods as the ancient Babylonians but under different names and sought to protect the heritage of their religion. If Israelites were to come in number bearing the message about Moses birth and defeat of the Pharaoh they would just react by saying that they had heard that story before, that it really traced back to their own heritage and thus no need to change religions, to see the Jews as embellishing the story by raising the status of the beginnings of their corresponding Moses/Sargon legend, and thus have the lay Assyrian people see the Hebrew story as untrustworthy or unreliable.


Abraham
So your evidence that Abraham is made up is???? The 'star of David', a symbol the ancient Jews never used and is an entirely modern plant upon the Jews.

now some evidence for Abraham. The Bible mentions Abraham and Lot and how they split, with Lot traveling to Sodom I believe and later the city was destroyed by brimstone (aka molten sulfur)

Destroyed cities of Sodom and Gomorrah found along with millions of 97%+ balls of sulfur all around the place when the most pure naturally forming sulfur on earth only comes around 40% pure.

reply to post by AliceBleachWhite


Noah's Flood
Genesis 7-8 talks of a global flood, dated Biblically to occurred around 2500BCE. Is there any evidence for this event? 95% of all fossils are marine invertebrates occurring throughout ever layer and all over the continental landmasses. [John Morris, The Young Earth (Colorado Springs: Master Books, 1994). p.70. Data by Paleontologist Kurt Wise.]

Marine fossils are found on the highest mountain ranges in the world like the Himalayas, so how did they get there? The father of modern geology, Nicolas Steno, understood the strata layers formed by a marine deluge that covered the whole Earth with scripture and nature in agreement. [Nicolas Steno: Biography and Original Papers of a 17th Century Scientist, (Heidelberg: Springer, 2013). pp.654-6.]

The Cretaceous layer extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs is even recognised by competing explanations, like meteorite impact, to produce marine sediments where water that spanned the whole Earth was needed to create the observed tell-tale calcium carbonate chalk layer from ocean algal blooms. [P. I. Premovic, "Distal "Impact" Layers and Global Acidification of Ocean Water at the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary (Kpb)," Geochemistry International 49, no. 1 (January 2011). p.60-2; L. Pomar and P. Hallock, "Carbonate Factories: A Conundrum in Sedimentary Geology," Earth-Science Reviews 87, no. 3–4 (March 2008). pp.134-49, 154-9, 162.]

All the layers below this extinction-level events are likewise water deposited and laced with marine fossils, thus a global Flood is established.

So there is evidence for a global flood.

Location of Noah's ark landing in line with biblical description
You might want to check out the rock art of the different kinds of animal drawn up the mountain in Armenia pre-dating the ancient world.


dating the flood
Population growth rates are perfectly in line with biblical chronologies and accurately calculates the current world population considering 8 people alive after flood 4500 years ago. [Don Batten, "Where Are All the People?," Creation June 2001. pp.52-5 creation.com...; John Heffner, "Population Statistics Support Biblical Chronology," www.kolbecenter.org...]

Extending the time frame massively increases the resultant population away from what is observed.

please propose alternative and credible pop growth rates if mine are in error

Jesus never actually existed.

4 independent historical account’ of Jesus

1st century Jewish historian Josephus writes:

"When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified. . . ."

Josephus, Antiquities 18.64. Josephus in Ten Volumes, vol. 9, Jewish Antiquities, Loeb Classical Library Louis H. Feldman, trans. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981).

Tacitus, considered the greatest Roman historian reports:

"Nero fastened the guilt [of the burning of Rome] and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus."
Tacitus, Annals 15.44 (c. A.D. 115).

Lucian of Samosata, the Greek satirist, writes:

"The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day-the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account."
Lucian of Samosata, The Death of Peregrine, 11-13 (c. mid-second century).

The Talmud reports that:

"on the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged."(12)- Yeshu is Joshua in Hebrew. The equivalent in Greek is lesous (13) or Jesus. Being hung on a tree was used to describe crucifixion in antiquity.(14)

12. Talmud, Sanhedrin 43a (probably late second century). It should be noted that Jewish writings of antiquity never denied the existence, miracles, and execution of Jesus. See John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, 3 vols. (New York: Doubleday, 1991-2001), 1:96-97.

13. Pronounced "ee-ay-soos."

14. Livy 1:26:6ff; Luke 23:39; Galatians 3:13.

Psychology and cultural conditioning/programming is a wonderful and amazing thing.

Habermas surveying trends in scholarly resurrection thought over 30 years to 2005, documents: the early followers of Jesus definitely thought they saw the risen Jesus in some sense, a view holding almost unanimous critical scholarly consent [Gary R. Habermas, "Resurrection Research from 1975 to the Present: What Are Critical Scholars Saying?," Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 3, no. 2 (2005). p.151.];

hallucinations, illusions or similar naturalist proposals are vastly rejected as explanatorily insufficient [Ibid. p.140.];

75% of scholars deduce as historical fact Jesus' tomb empty [Ibid. pp.140-1.];

and women recorded as initial resurrected Jesus witnesses in all 4 gospels is easily the most popular argument supporting the gospels' declarations as 'the Gospels probably would not have dubbed them as chief witnesses unless they actually did attest to the event' with Osiek's contribution cited which establishes compelling historicity in patriarchal settings. [Ibid. p.141; Carolyn Osiek, "The Women at the Tomb: What Are the Doing There?," HTS Theological Studies 53, no. 1&2 (December 1997). p.116.]

William Lane Craig, overlaying McCullagh's framework for justifying historical hypotheses , scrutinizes the rival hypotheses of 'conspiracy' , 'apparent death' , 'wrong tomb', and 'displaced body' showing all logically absurd and summarising the current scholarly position on each respectfully: completely given up; almost completely abandon; garnered virtually no support, dead at conception; and no scholars defend it today. [William Lane Craig, "Accounting for the Empty Tomb," America 208, no. 11 (April 2013). pp.12-4, 15-7.

Developed by Cambridge Ph. D. Christopher Behan McCullagh, the method is the standard tool in historiography to synthesis historical reasoning on the basis of best argument. The framework for justifying historical hypothesis requires: (1) The hypothesis, together with other true statements, must imply further statements describing present, observable date; (2) the hypothesis must have greater explanatory scope (3) and power than rival hypotheses; (4) the hypothesis must be more plausible, (5) less ad hoc (6) and disconfirmed by fewer accepted beliefs than rival hypotheses; (7) The hypothesis must significantly exceed its rivals in fulfilling conditions two through six (Christopher Behan McCullagh, Justying Historical Descriptions, Cambridge Studies in Philosophy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984).p.19.; Licona, "The Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus: Historiographical Considerations in the Light of Recent Debates." pp.72-75.). 'If the scope and strength of an explanation are very great, so that it explains a large number and variety of facts, many more than any competing explanation, then it is likely to be true', McCullagh concludes (McCullagh, Justying Historical Descriptions. p.26).]

reply to post by AliceBleachWhite


continued on resurrection evidence...

Critic Lüdemann acrimoniously concludes, "we can certainly say to be historical is that there were resurrection appearances in Galilee (and in Jerusalem) soon after Jesus' death...these appearances cannot be denied ". [Gerd Lüdemann, What Really Happened to Jesus: A Historical Approach to the Resurrection, trans. John Bowden (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996).p.81. Similar assessments amongst scholars are the norm. Ed Sanders declares that the "equally secure facts [indicate that Jesus' disciples] saw him (in what sense is not certain) after his death... .Thereafter his followers saw him."(E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin, 1993). pp.10, 13.)]

Lee's theses refutes Lüdemann's 'subjective visionary experience' explanation versus resurrection however, through unbiased probability analysis, determining 98.44% probability for resurrection based on the evidence, versus 1.56% epistemic hallucination probability. [Yong-Won Lee, "Resurrection Vs. Hallucination: An Argument for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus in Terms of Probabilistic Analysis" (Dissertation & Theses, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2009). pp.22-33, 146-54.; Richard Swinburne has previously used Bayes' Theorem as well to estimate the probability that Jesus arose from the dead, concluding it then a 97% probability. Swinburne's claim has criticised by Michael Martin (1998), with Stephen Davis (1999) replying to Martin's argument concluding "Richard Swinburne has previously used Bayes' Theorem aswell to estimate the probability that Jesus arose from the dead, concluding it then a 97% probability. Swineburne's claim has critized by Michael Martin (1998), with Stephen Davis (1999) replying to Martin's argument concluding "the probability great but very much greater" (Licona, "The Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus: Historiographical Considerations in the Light of Recent Debates." p.76 + footnote 301.). ]

Also, no documented instance of mass hallucination ever

Do the essence of your conclusions hold weight? It doesn't appear so

reply to post by AliceBleachWhite


Can you provide a date of when the Epic of Gilgamesh tablets was found as I have interesting information from a source that I believe predates its modern discovery which shows its authorship, i.e who wrote it, and roughly when.

reply to post by CosmicDude


One way to explain all these perceived similarities between Christ and other characters is to accept the fact that we are dealing with allegory. Each city, name, and action carries a hidden meaning, so in each incarnation of the “Word” we see metaphors repeated. In some cases the parallels are also intended to serve as allusions to create a context for the initiated reader.

For example, if you read Plato’s Ion, you will get an idea of the metaphoric meaning of Ephesus. Ion was a “rhapsode” from Ephesus who was unable to correctly interpret the works of Homer. This draws a parallel to Philo who dishonestly interpreted the admitted allegory of Moses and this connection makes Philo an “Ion” (or John) also.

Christianity began as Gnosticism which involved the study of this ancient allegory. The Gnostics went too far in their sharing of these secrets and an “Apocalypse” (or uncovering) occurred. To undo the damage, a campaign of disinformation was conducted to alter the interpretations of the Gnostics so that they became less honest and as a result the “Word” became “Christ” and Christianity was born (or born again or resurrected.)

All this information is “hidden in plain sight” if you know how to decipher the allegory.