Dispelling Christianity with Homophones: The Son/Sun Conspiracy

I did something last night that I rarely do -- someone had posted a "shocking video" of a lecture that supposedly refuted Christianity, by exposing Jesus as a fraud, invented by Constantine and the Council of Nicaea, and because I'm a fan of early church history, I started the video and went to do some other stuff, listening to it in the background.

The video was, of course, absolute nonsense, a shining example of a non-historian absolutely butchering documented history to fit his biases, but of particular note was the argument, often repeated here on ATS, that Jesus was a refashioned version of Ra, Apollo or Nahundi, because "Son of God" is a clever twist on the real meaning, "Sun of God".

A typical argument:

The bible is for a fact Egyptian text. That is the true religon. So that means that the same Son that the Christians worship, the Egyptian people look upon the true Sun as the most high . They knew that everything that was good on earth came from the Sun. It was the closes thing to the Father. The true seeker will be awakend with research. The true seeker must find out where certain words and terms derive from. As you get deeper into research the seeker will find that Jesus is actually a representation of the True Sun. A Sun God, Before the english language came about the word "Sun" was spelled "Son". Don't believe me, do your own research. (Source)

The Catholics don't even bother hiding the fact -- in their artwork, Christ is almost always depicted with the shining sun behind him:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/img/vh530cab5d.jpg[/atsimg]
Who can deny that Jesus is a hoax, a refashioned sun god, a construction of Constantine?

Sigh.

If you read that, looked at the picture and thought "oh, how clever", not to put too fine of a point on it, but like the members of the audience of the video lecturer who acted astonished at his revelation of the "truth," or the person who wrote the external argument I cited, you're an idiot.

The Bible was not written in English. If you only learn one thing today, please make it this. Any argument against the Bible or Christianity that relies on the English language for its basis, whether the "Son/Sun" nonsense, or the real meaning of the word "Easter", is automatically an invalid argument, because you can't put your case on something that didn't exist until centuries after both Christianity and the Bible were well established.

The Bible was written in Hebrew (Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament). In the New Testament, Christ is referred to as the Son of God, and refers to himself as the Son of Man. The Greek word for "son" is υἱός, transliterated to huios and pronounced hwee-os' (See Strong's Concordance #5207), while the Greek word for the sun is ἥλιος, transliterated to hélios and pronounced hay'-lee-os. Similar, but not really the same thing.

However, Christ's "Son of Man" actually comes from the Old Testament, from the book of Ezekiel primarily, along with a few other places. In Hebrew, the word for "son" is בּן, transliterated to ben, while the Hebrew word for "sun" is שמש, transliterated to shemesh -- not even close to the same thing.

So, no, there was no ancient conspiracy to create a phony sun god, and the refer to him as the "son of God" to let clever observers in on the joke. Sun and son did not become homophones until many centuries after the Bible was written, and in a language that the text wasn't written in.



But what about those Catholics? The ones who depict Christ as the sun?

We do believe that Christ is the bringer of light, but it is a spiritual light, not a physical one -- the world is in spiritual darkness, and it is Christ who brings light into that world. This is from scripture:

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12 NIV)

Christ is not depicted in iconography as the sun, he is depicted as what he declared himself to be -- the light of the world.



If you don't want to believe in Christianity, then just don't believe in Christianity -- there is no need to come up with convoluted "proof" of its lack of validity, particularly when, like the argument made in the "shocking video," it is so ridiculously wrong that the person making it loses all credibility, even on matters that they might actually be right about.

reply to post by adjensen


If they use the homophone as the only argument then that is silly... I have always just seen it as a nice coincidence that they ended up that way, but I still believe Christ has fulfilled the need to have a sun-god.

I would like to start by saying I believe in Jesus Christ but I am not a Christian, nor will I ever be. The proof that the bible was re-written by Constantine and the Council I believe was found in Victorian times, whilst they were hunting for proof that The Bible was the word of God, it just kind of backfired.

However, I will say what I say to any Christian. Don't put your faith in a book that has an extremely questionable history, you know the kind of message Jesus tried to get across, follow what Jesus would have done, and not what a book that has more than likely been tampered with many many times over the course of history tells you to do.

reply to post by iRoyalty

The proof that the bible was re-written by Constantine and the Council I believe was found in Victorian times, whilst they were hunting for proof that The Bible was the word of God, it just kind of backfired.

Not to derail the thread, but that's absolute nonsense. First, the Bible was in general circulation at that point, to "rewrite it" would require finding every copy in existence (from the UK to Africa to India and all points in between,) destroying them, substituting a new version and making sure that there is absolutely no evidence that it was done. That's ridiculous to even contemplate.

Secondly, we know what was discussed at the Council of Nicaea, which was the nature of Christ, not the Bible. How do we know that? Because the documents associated with the Council still exist. You can read them here.

The "Constantine wrote the Bible" rubbish became popular after The Da Vinci Code, but it's long since been debunked.

In fact worshipping the sun is listed as an "abomination" (=idolatrous religion) in Ezekiel ch8, where the prophet is shown the various groups of unfaithful Jews who have been secretly following abominations.

reply to post by adjensen


Well even if that is true, it is not a hidden fact that king's and rulers have made their own version of the bible to fit their rule better. For example King Henry VIII changing the Church so he could marry several more times.

It's not improbable, in fact it's rather probable, that the Bible has been altered by power hungry men. I'm sorry for de-railing your thread, just believing in the bible has always seemed illogical, it can't possibly be the original words of Jesus or his disciples, even if it was then it has definitely been messed around with.

Just be a good person, thank Christ for his sacrifice and love God. You shouldn't pick things out of the bible like they've come from the mouth of God, because they probably haven't.

Anyway, back on track!

The most convincing part about Jesus in the Sun God role, is the story of Jesus, and how he replicates movements in the sky (or so I'm told, I'm open to debunking).

For example, on December the 22nd, the sun stops it's gradual decline into a lower altitude for three days, the highest point being over the star constellation Crux (cross), until it start moving higher in the sky again each day (Death and Resurrection, I recognise the dates are muddled but still interesting). There were also lots about Bethlehem as well, since Bethlehem also means "House of Bread", "House of Bread" also refers to the constellation Virgo.

There are lots of astrological things in the Bible, no wonder, man has always looked at the stars with awe and thought "that's where the Gods are" without any proof other than it's beauty.

Again, these astrological things are where I believe the Bible and thus the story of Jesus was altered, to better fit older religions. This was a common practice for rulers, imagine you are a Muslim conqueror, you conqueror some Jewish land and tell everyone they are now Muslim, it will not work. What the Romans figured out, was that if they went to people and said, hey look, our religion is kind of like yours but we've found out loads of new stuff! People get very interested and listen to them, this meant, no rebellions and an easy transition, which is what you want as a Conquering Empire.

This is also why I believe Constantine had the Bible re-written, he was a leader and a Conqueror. That is enough of a motive. Do you not even think that it's possible that a conqueror would use Christianity?

reply to post by adjensen


Thank you for this. Using homophones that rely on English as a way of explaining something not written in English has always been a pet peeve of mine.

It's bumper sticker philosophy meant to suck in all the people who don't like to dig deeper than a Youtube video.

DISRAELI
In fact worshipping the sun is listed as an "abomination" (=idolatrous religion) in Ezekiel ch8, where the prophet is shown the various groups of unfaithful Jews who have been secretly following abominations.

It's not saying Christians literally worship the Sun, it's saying that the story and life of Jesus was based around movements of the Sun, because his story was taken from older texts who DID worship sun gods.

This is again why I don't believe the Bible to be an accurate series of events, someone used Jesus for whatever reason to spread their won Dogma. Why do Christians need the bible? Just know that he existed and that he sacrificed for the good of man-kind and learn from that... You don't need a questionably sourced book to tell you what's bad and good.

reply to post by iRoyalty

It's not improbable, in fact it's rather probable, that the Bible has been altered by power hungry men.

Historically, that only works until you get back to the earliest copies of the Bible, because we can just go look at them to compare what is being presented in, say, the King James Version of the Bible. I've had people claim that the KJV of the Bible was a "re-write", with all sorts of changes made to suit the King of England. Those claims evaporate when I point out that the KJV is a Protestant Bible, and we can compare earlier, Catholic Bibles, and lo and behold, they're pretty much the same thing.

The only recognized major changes are Protestant Bibles that dropped the Apocrypha (some books from the Old Testament,) the post-resurrection appearances in Mark, and, possibly, the Comma Johanneum, though the last one is very questionable.

For example, on December the 23rd, the sun stops it's gradual decline into a lower altitude for three days, the highest point being over the star constellation Crux (cross), until it start moving higher in the sky again each day (Death and Resurrection).

The church doesn't teach that Jesus was born on 25 December -- the only evidence of his birthday puts it in March or September. Christmas is simply a feast to celebrate his birth, and it was put in December to encourage Roman converts to celebrate Christmas, instead of the Roman festival of Saturnalia, which was on the Solstice.

adjensen
Historically, that only works until you get back to the earliest copies of the Bible, because we can just go look at them to compare what is being presented in, say, the King James Version of the Bible. I've had people claim that the KJV of the Bible was a "re-write", with all sorts of changes made to suit the King of England. Those claims evaporate when I point out that the KJV is a Protestant Bible, and we can compare earlier, Catholic Bibles, and lo and behold, they're pretty much the same thing.

There are currently over 150,000 different version of the Bible, all have variations, some small, some large. How can you be sure that the bible you live by is even remotely close to one that was writen nearly 2000 years a go?


Number of years between original and earliest surviving manuscript - A Number of existing manuscripts - B
Caesar’s Gallic Wars A - 900 B -10 good ones
Tacitus’ Annals A -1,000 B - 2
Thucydides’ History A -1,300 B - 8
History of Herodotus A -1,300 B - 8
New Testament A - 150-200 B - 1 (entire book of John)
A -250 B - 1 (almost entire New Testament)
A - Less than 300 B -2 (complete New Testament)
A - Within first few centuries B - Over 5,000 Greek fragments; 24,000 in other languages

adjensen
The church doesn't teach that Jesus was born on 25 December -- the only evidence of his birthday puts it in March or September. Christmas is simply a feast to celebrate his birth, and it was put in December to encourage Roman converts to celebrate Christmas, instead of the Roman festival of Saturnalia, which was on the Solstice.

Yes I recognise that the dates are skewed! It was just interesting that they are important dates in the Bible, again another change that could have been implemented by bible changes.

The idea is that his life was taken from old sun gods, so that the Conquerors could say, look Dionysus was really Jesus, you have been worshipping him incorrectly!

You also helped prove my point a bit, with the most obvious change to the story of Jesus's life to fit older religions.

10 Christ like figues the pre-date Jesus

reply to post by iRoyalty


We seem to be getting pretty far afield from the topic at hand, but I have written on both the reliability of the Gospels and the hijacking of other religious figures in an effort to discredit Christianity by Christ Mythicists like Kersey Graves and D.M. Murdoch in the thread that prompted this one. Let's leave discussion of those subjects over there, okay?

reply to post by adjensen


See I think any alteration of the Bible is very relevant to your thread, because re-writing it to conform to old sun-god worshipping religions would have been something that would have seemed quite appealing to the ancient conqueror.

This is a direct link to the Son/Sun argument, especially to people like myself who believe Jesus existed and obviously believe he was a man, not a planetary body.

I'm very interested in what is under the hood in the scriptures, because though its not love that its hidden, it is nonetheless Love, and growth in goodness, kindness, integrity. But Christ even on the outer resonates with that inner message.

Whether or not Christianity is metaphor or real, the miracles are real, the goodness of the Catholics in the interior and Okanagan, is real, they're the most humble, good hearted people, grass roots, and share with families in need, not every 2 months, like some organizations, but adopt those struggling and give alot. They have good hearts, caring hearts, and believe intrinsically in values of freedom and equality and strive to (not follow old testament examples) but walk in Christ's footsteps.

Now, one has to question, why this anti Christian position. They themselves are gnostic occultists, though one could say, ancient babylonian dark gnostics, so attacking Christianity doesnt make sense from the point of view of PTB that would want good behavior from enslaved nations, less costs in policing. Im not getting their assault on Love and Goodness at all. Unless its an assault on Love, Goodness, Freedom, Compassion, Equality and Kindness. They must really resent so many having such a wonderful example, real or metaphor, in plain sight.

Many of our laws, and beliefs stem from Christianity. They must be eager to do away with this annoying thing called integrity, morality, and just delve into Mengle style experiments and throw all human rights to the winds. Cause they're very much alligned with Nazi's, and Hitler preferred Banna, a small minority hard lined sharia brotherhood group all those years ago, and they like that kind of harshness.

iRoyalty
reply to post by adjensen

 

See I think any alteration of the Bible is very relevant to your thread, because re-writing it to conform to old sun-god worshipping religions would have been something that would have seemed quite appealing to the ancient conqueror.

This is a direct link to the Son/Sun argument, especially to people like myself who believe Jesus existed and obviously believe he was a man, not a planetary body.

edit on 25-2-2014 by iRoyalty because: (no reason given)

The OP quite clearly debunks the idea that Jesus was the sun god. You don't seem to have grasped that concept.

Also, the idea that Jesus was an "import" of some other previous pagan god is also quite wrong. Many claim this of Mithras, who was a precedent god but the actual attributes of Mithras that are ascribed to Christ did not come into being until Christianity had became a popular and widespread faith.

And the idea of the suffering messiah (a man of sorrows and aquainted with grief) was laid down in prophecy and in Jewish tradition 800 years before Jesus, by Isaiah ben Amoz. Even the death scene (which was out of the control of Jesus) was quite clearly described in a song (Psalm 22) by King David nearly 1000 years previous to it happening.

Jesus life conformed to hundreds (about 351 by the reckonings of some scholars) of Jewish prophecies, all of which were older than 400 years at their fulfillment and most of which He, or others, would have been unable to "stage-manage".

I feel like one more element which would be great to include in your thread is the outright lie that the story of Jesus is borrowed from the egyptians. I found your post in the other thread to be an excellent refutation of that lie:

No, Horus wasn't born of a virgin -- Osiris, the father of Horus, was killed and chopped up into bits by Seth, who scattered the bits around Egypt. Isis, sister/wife of Osiris, gathered the pieces, put him back together, had sex with the remains and conceived Horus, who went on to avenge his father's death. Does that sound like he was born of a virgin?

No, Horus wasn't crucified -- there is only one Egyptian text that says he died, The Legend of the Death of Horus, but in that text, he died from a scorpion bite, not crucifixion.

I've never heard that Horus walked on water, but I'm guessing it's as wrong as the other two.

The injustice in this isn't the attempt to refute Christianity, which can stand up to it, but the intentional perversion of another peoples' stories in making that effort. Horus and his legends meant something to people, people who didn't believe that he was born of a virgin or crucified, because he wasn't.

Anyone who wants to take even a cursory look at history and ancient egyptian mythology can find out for themselves that this commonly peddled farce is pure nonsense. It started with zeitgeist and seemed to take off from there, and for whatever reason people parrot it despite the fact it is easily debunked with a little research. For whatever reason, some will still cling to this dubious conspiracy theory even after it has been shown to have no grounds in reality (when they could easily dismiss Christianity on more reasonable grounds if they so desired).

Reminds me of the magicians of Pharaoh's court trying to constantly one up Moses.

reply to post by adjensen


Santos Bonacci has a much better presentation than the guy from your source.

The Bible is fables based on Zodiacal knowledge. Just as all great myths. This is neither good or bad. People need guidance, but I know that guidance has been hijacked for nefarious and deceptive purpose. The enslavement of powerful beings. Enslavement through compliance and submission to pseudo-authority. Be that authority the Church, the Corporations, or the Government.

We cannot grow spiritually when we have been forced to "believe" that we are unworthy or require permission.

I will leave it at that.

reply to post by DeadSeraph

It started with zeitgeist and seemed to take off from there, and for whatever reason people parrot it despite the fact it is easily debunked with a little research.

Actually, it started with a couple of anti-Christians in the 19th Century, Kelsey Graves and Gerald Massey, who published completely unfounded theories on the non-historicity of Christ. Graves' 1875 book, The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors, formed the basis for Part 1 of the Zeitgeist movie, via D.M. Murdoch. Never mind that the book was exposed as a hoax long before, who needs facts when you have a gullible public?

For whatever reason, some will still cling to this dubious conspiracy theory even after it has been shown to have no grounds in reality (when they could easily dismiss Christianity on more reasonable grounds if they so desired).

That's what I don't get. I don't believe in Bigfoot, but I don't obsess over it to the point that I'm beating Bigfoot believers over the head with obviously fabricated evidence. I just don't believe and let it go at that.

reply to post by adjensen


Nice post....I always love the people that throw around the Sun/Son paradigm but Jesus (Yahshua) was known by many names and terms. Son Of God just being one of them.

"in principio erat verbum" In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. John 1:1
And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. John 1:14

Verse 1 through 4 calls him the Word, calls Him God and calls Him the Light....all in 4 verses.

reply to post by adjensen


Christianity is based on Sun Worship. Many religions are based on Sun Worship. In the end, it's all a bulls*** fairytale.

reply to post by adjensen


If one spend inordinate amounts of time and energy trying to disprove something, it is because they are deeply affected by it but do not want it to be true. Christianity is just one example. It shows me a deep seated conviction but an absolute denial.

If this were not the case they would just ignore Christianity and carry on living.

This is a fact, both psychologically (as explained by experts) and spiritually ( as referenced within the Bible).