Agama Kristian dan Agama Pagan

shalom

"Nothing in Christianity is original. The pre-Christian god Mithras - called the Son of God and the Light of the World - was born on December 25, died, was buried in a rock  tomb, and then  resurrected in three days. By the way, December 25 was also the birthday of Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus. The newborn Krishna was presented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh."
- The DaVincicode.

Salah satu kritikan terhadap agama Kristian adalah dakwaan bahawa agama kristian dipengaruhi oleh unsure-unsur Hellenism  dan agama-agama pagan.

Kritikan ini biasanya datang dari :

a. Sarjana-sarjana pada abad ke-19 dan awal abad ke-20 yang meletakkan keseluruhan system kepercayaan Kristian, termasuk NT adalah dipengaruhi sepenuhnya pemikiran Hellenism dan agama Pagan

b. Penulis-Penulis Kristian yang beraliran sepihan dari arus perdana seperti JW, Twoness. Menurut dakwaan kumpulan ini , sesetengah ajaran agama Kristian seperti Trinity, Kristmas, Easter terutamanya elemen-elemen yang selalu dikaitkan dengan Gereja Katholik adalah dicedok dari agama pagan

c.  Penulis-penulis Islam yang terpengaruh dengan kumpulan a dan b diatas, terutamanya yang melihatkan isu ketuhanan Kristian seperti Trinity dan ketuhanan Yesus Kristus.

Mari kita melihat beberapa contoh kritikan tersebut :

1.Sebuah risalah  Jehowah  Witness mendakwa :

Throughout the ancient world, as far back as Babylonia, the worship of pagan gods grouped in threes, or triads, was common. That influence was also prevalent in Egypt, Greece, and Rome in the centuries before, during, and after Christ. After the death of the apostles, such pagan beliefs began to invade Christianity. . . . While [Plato] did not teach the Trinity in its present form, his  philosophies paved the way for it.

(Should You Believe in the Trinity? (New York: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1989), p. 11.)


2.Penulis Islam, Muhammad 'Ata'ur-Rahim and Ahmad Thomson :

"Thus as the teaching of Jesus spread out beyond the Holy Land, it came into contact with other cultures and into conflict with those in authority. It began to be assimilated and adapted by these cultures and was also altered to diminish persecution by the rulers. In Greece, especially, it became metamorphosed, both by its being expressed in a new language for the first time, and by its realignment with the ideas and philosophies of that culture. It was the many-gods viewpoint of the Greeks which largely contributed to the formulation of the doctrine of the a Trinity, together with the gradual elevation of Jesus . . . from being a prophet of God to somehow being a separate yet indivisible part of God."

(Jesus Prophet of Islam, 2nd ed. (London: Ta-Ha Pub., 1996), p. 2.

3. Sementara wakil sarjana dari abad ke-19 (yang paling terkenal) adalah tidak lain tidak bukan adalah Sir J.G.Frazer dalam bukunya 慣he Golden Bough

shalom

Pertama : Hampir semua sumber tentang agama pagan ini terutama yang melibatkan kepercayaan menyamai Kristian adalah pasca Kristianity dan tidak sempurna serta sukar untuk ditafsirkan.

Menurut Barrett :

揟he evidence upon which our knowledge of the so-called mystery religions rests is for the most part fragmentary and by no means easy to interpret擺/font]
( 揟he New Testament Background

shalom

Mari kita melihat beberapa contoh :

1. Perayaan Day of Blood (24 March) dan Day of Joy (25 March) bagi merayakan kebangkitan dewa Attis selalu dikaitkan dengan perayaan Good Friday dan Easter Sunday yang juga pada hari orang Kristian merayakan kematian dan kebangkitan Yesus. Walaubagaimanapun kedua-dua perayaan ini, Day of Blood dan Day of Joy hanya muncul pada abad ke-15 di dalam biografi Isidore Dialectician yang ditulis oleh Damascius, dimana menurut Damasciuc, Isidore telah mendapat mimpi dimana dewa Attis meminta perayaan tersebut dirayakan untuk memuliakannya. Jadi perayaan ini yang selalu dikaitkan Good Friday dan Easter Sunday hanya muncul pada abad ke-15 setelah agama Kristian.

2. Kebangkitan Adonis dari kematian hanya tercatat di dalam teks penulisan yang pasca Kristian, iaitu di dalam penulisan Lucian (Syrian Godness 6-7) yang bertarikh pada abad kedua. Berdasarkan sebuah puisi yang menceritakan kematian Adonis,yang bertarikh abad ke-7 BC tidak lansung menyentuh berkenaan kebangkitan Adonis dari kematian. Begitu juga bedasarkan sebuah eksiklopedia kuno Greek, yang mengkisahkan dewa-dewi mereka, iaitu 慙ibrary

shalom

Terdapat beberapa perkara lagi di dalam agama Kristian yang selalu dikaitkan dengan agama Pagan (seperti kelahiran, kematian dan kebangkitan Yesus) . Antaranya adalah :


1. Kelahiran Yesus oleh Virgin Mary

Adonis juga dikatakan dilahirkan oleh perawan. Menurut Timothy Freke dan Peter Gandy dalam The Jesus Mysteries, 揑n Syria, Adonis' virgin mother is called Myrrh

shalom

Nota Tambahan : Di bawah saya memetik secara lansung kehidupan dewa-dewiyang pernah dikaitkan dengan agama kristian (terutamanya kelahiran, kematiandan kebangkitan Yesus). Terpulang kepada pembaca untuk membuat perbandingansendiri

1. Dionysos (Bacchus).

"Philandering Zeusfell in love with Semele, princess of the house of Thebes and daughter of thePhoenician immigrant king Gadmus . Zeus came to her disguised as a mortalman, and Semele was soon pregnant. Hera, Zeus's queen, inflamed withjealousy, disguised herself as an old woman and hurried to Semele's door; herhair was straggly and her skin furrowed with wrinkles. For a while the twowomen chatted. When Semele revealed her affair with Zeus, the disguised Herasuggested that his claim to be king of the gods might be only a ploy; perhapshe was an ordinary mortal who made up the story to bring Semele to his bed.The old woman departed, and Semele doubted. When Zeus next came, she asked forjust one wish. Zeus swore by the underworld river Styx that he would givewhatever she asked. "Appear to me as you appear to Hera, when you makelove to her!" Semele asked. Sorrowful, yet true to his word, Zeus appearedin all his glory, burning Semele to a crisp. Hermes saved the fetus andcarried it to Zeus, who sewed it into his thigh. Three months later he removedthe stitches, and Dionysus was born again. He was the twice-born god."

"Another myth told about hisbirth even more clearly established him in this role as a god of the mysteries.Zeus mated with his daughter Persephone, who bore a son,Zagreus, which is another name for Dionysus. In her jealousy, Hera thenaroused the Titans to attack the child. These monstrous beings, their faceswhitened with chalk, attacked the infant as he was looking in a mirror (in anotherversion, they beguiled him with toys and cut him to pieces with knives). Afterthe murder, the Titans devoured the dismembered corpse. But the heartof the infant god was saved and brought to Zeus by Athena; Dionysus was bornagain--swallowed by Zeus and begotten on Semele. Zeus was was angry withthe Titans and destroyed them with his thunder and lightning;  but fromtheir ashes humankind was born."


(Classical Myth (3rd ed). BarryPowell. PrenticeHall:2001.)


2. Mithras.

"Francis comments:"Cumont's systematic description of Mithraic liturgy in Christian terms isnow seen to be misleading, not to say mischievous. In particular, hisdescription of the Mithraic meal as 'communion' has been called inquestion." After a detailed examination of the subject, Kane concluded:But once again I remind the reader that in all this we have not yet found acult meal, a meal in which all the initiates can participate.... On the otherhand I have found no support for a "haoma ceremony," the existenceof which is the basic assumption of Cumont's theory of a sacramental Mithraicmeal. Nor can I find any support for Vermaseren's assumption that Mithraicinitiates ate the flesh of a bull and drank its blood so as to be born again,whether from Mithraic iconography and archaeology, Avestan texts, or the Greekand Graeco-Roman milieu.'"

(dalam Persia and the Bible,Edwin Yamauchi, Baker:1990/1996.)

3. Adonis

"When Adonis was aninfant, Aphrodite put Adonis in a chest and gave it to Persephone tokeep. Persephone looked inside; and once she saw the beauty of the boy, sherefused to give him back. Zeus settled the quarrel that ensued by deciding thatAdonis would stay with Persephone below one part of the year and withAphrodite in the upper world for the other part."

(Aphrodite sees the dead body ofAdonis, killed by a boar while hunting) "she rushed down...she complainedagainst the Fates, crying: 'But still everything will not be subject to yourdecrees; a memorial of my grief for you, Adonis, will abide forever. The sceneof your death will be recreated annually with the ritual of my griefperformed. But your blood will be transformed into a flower. OPersephone, you were allowed at one time to change the limbs of the maidenMentha into the fragrant mint--will I be begrudged then the transformation ofmy hero, the son of Cinyars?'...With these words she sprinkled fragrantnectar on his blood which, at the touch of the drops, began to swell just likea gleaming bubble in the rain. In no longer than an hour's time a flower sprangfrom the blood, red as the thick skin of the fruit of the pomegranate thathides the seeds within. Yet the flower is of brief enjoyment for the winds(which give it its name, anemone) blow upon it; with difficulty it clings tolife and falls under the blast and buffeting."

( dalam Classical Mythology (6thed), Mark Morford and Robert Lenardon. Longman:1999.)

shalom

Kesimpulan :

Sebagai kesimpulan untuk bahagian pertama ini, saya akan merujuk kepada kesimpulan yang dibuat oleh Nash berkenaan kepercayaan Kristian berbanding dengan agama pagan ini.

1.Tidak ada seorangpun dewa-dewi pagan ini mati untuk menyelamatkan orang lain seperti Yesus. Konsep kematian Yesus untuk menebus dosa dunia merupakan konsep UNIK yang satu-satunya terdapat dalam agama Kristian sahaja.

2.Hanya Yesus sahaja yang mati kerana menanggung dosa dunia. Seperti mana yang disimpulkan oleh Gunter Wagner , 搉one of the pagan gods "has the intention of helping men been attributed

shalom

Kedua : Disebalik dakwaan agama Kristian meniru agama Pagan, sebenarnya apa yang terjadi adalah sebaliknya : Agama Pagan meniru agama Kristian!

Dengan mengambil kira kebanyakan persamaan agama Pagan dan Kristian, dimana kebanyakan rekod bertulis ini yang mencatatkan persamaan tersebut adalah bertarikh selepas zaman Perjanjian Baru, maka tidak mustahil agama pagan inilah yang sebenarnya meniru agama Kristian.

Rekod sejarah sendiri mencatatkan terdapat usaha dikalangan tokoh-tokoh pagan ini cuba mencedok ajaran agama Kristian bagi menarik perhatian  semula masyarakat kepada agama Pagan . Sejarah menunjukkan, dengan kedatangan agama kristian, ia telah menarik banyak pihak untuk menganut agama baru tersebut. Ini telah memberi persaingan yang sengit kepada agama-agama Pagan yang sedia ada.

Selain itu, sarjana yang mengkritik agama Kristian seperti Franz Cumont, James Frazer, dan Kersey Graves sendiri melakukan 憄lagiat

just want to ask you shalom,as i maybe not clear about certain things..why jesus(peace be upon him) die for sin of all other human (umat manusia)..

why that all people according to christianity born with sin(in other word,people born to this world come with the sin people b4 them)..and unless he or she baptised,he/she will remain in sin..or maybe if they die before baptised..they will go to hell..

shalom

Kajian Kes Pertama: Agama Pagan Meniru Agama Kristian

Kita akan merujuk kepada satu kes bagaimana agama Pagan ini telah meniru beberapa elemen di dalam Agama Kristian. Agama Pagan yang dimaksudkan ini adalah agama yang menyembah Dewa Apollonius. Saya akan memetik secara lansung tulisan sarjana yang membincangkan isu ini, dan pada akhirnya terpulanglah kepada pembaca sendiri untuk membuat kesimpulan dan cerapan.


"[Philostratus] wrote with full knowledge of Xenophon's romantic biography of Cyrus the Great as the ideal ruler, of the Greek novels of war and adventure, of the Greek love romances...and of the Christian Acts with a saint for a hero. [In view of all these possibilities] Philostratus chose to present a theos aner, a divine sage, a Pythagorean philosopher, as the center of his story. To make the life of his hero interesting and to promulgate his philosophy, he used every device of the Greek and Latin novels of the second and third centuries."

(More Essays on Greek Romances, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1945, p. 111f dalam Documents for the Study of the Gospels, Cartlidge and Dungan (eds.), Fortress: 1994 (2nd ed).


"In the case of the phrase 'divine man,' scholars cannot point to one clear and coherent concept--or collection of concepts--connected with the phrase 'divine man' that was current in Greco-Roman literature before or during the time of Jesus. To construct their concept of a 'divine man,' scholars of the 20th century have culled ideas from a vast array of Greek and Roman works from Homer up until the writings of the late Roman Empire. While the vague constant in the phrase "divine man" is divine power as revealed or embodied in some human being, the exact human referent ranges widely over priest-kings of Asia Minor and Egypt (including kingly magicians and law- givers), monarchs whose vast power on earth was believed to extend over nature itself (especially the Roman Emperors), and various kinds of prophetic philosophers (including ecstatics, magicians, miracle-workers, apostles, hero-sages, founders and leaders of religious groups, shamans, and charlatans). In many of the reconstructions, scholars rely heavily on works like The Death of Peregrinus and Alexander or the False Prophet by Lucian, the satirist of the 2d century A.D., and The Life of Apollonius by Philostratus, the rhetorician of the 3d century A.D. Lucian almost certainly knew the Christian Gospels, and Philostratus probably did as well."

(A Marginal Jew--Rethinking the Historical Jesus, John P. Meier, Doubleday: 1991)



"There is also another factor which should be taken into consideration as one assesses Philostratus' Vita: the possibility that at some points the portrait of Apollonius has been influenced by the Gospels. In spite of the doubts of G. Petzke, there is reason to believe that such may have occurred. The strength of the Christian movement in the empire is amply attested by Celsus' True Discourse, written at the beginning of the last quarter of the second century. That Philostratus may have intended his work, at least to some degree, as anti-Christian polemic would also cohere well with the recent research of J. Buchli, who has made a cogent case for dating Poimandres around the middle of the third century (thus just a few years after the composition of the Vita Apollonii), and has argued that it "zeigt...sehr weitgehende christliche Einflusse," ['shows very pervasive Christian influences'] and should be regarded as a "paganisiertes Evangelium" ['pagan gospel']. One should therefore approach the Philostratean work in question with the acknowledgment that Christian influences may well have also been at work here."

(Theios Aner and the Markan Miracle Traditions: A Critique of the Theios Aner Concept as an Interpretive Background of the Miracle)

bersambung...

shalom

Kajian Kes Kedua : Perayaan Kristmas pada 25 Disember

Kritikan terhadap merayakan perayaan Kristmas pada 25 Disember yang secara tradisinya dipercayai sebagai tarikh kelahiran Yesus, bukan sahaja datangnya dari tulisan bukan Kristian, malahan dari sesetengah orang Kristian sendiri. Ada yang melihat ini sebagai satu bukti bagaimana agama Kristian, lebih tepat lagi gereja Katholik mencedok kepercayaan agama pagan.

Dakwaan perayaan Kristmas meniru agama pagan iaitu "birthday of Sol Invictus" merupakan kesilapan anakronim. Tradisi Kristian di dunia barat telah mentarikhkan perayaan Krismas pada 25 Disember  dan rekod bertulis yang paling awal terdapat dalam penulisan Hippolytus  yang hidup sekitar  165

kuda_itam77

Originally posted by thrasher115 at 9-6-2007 07:27 PM
....unless he or she baptised,he/she will remain in sin..or maybe if they die before baptised..they will go to hell..

Errrmmm........
Baptisme rasanya tak berkait sangat kot soal surga or neraka...
Ntahla kuda nie cetek jugala pengetahuan....

casejulia

Originally posted by thrasher115 at 9-6-2007 19:27
just want to ask you shalom,as i maybe not clear about certain things..why jesus(peace be upon him) die for sin of all other human (umat manusia)..

why that all people according to christianity born with sin....

The presence of sin

When Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden, sin invaded the human race.
"Wherefore, as by one man (Adam) sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:" Romans 5:12
". . . for there is no difference. For all had sinned and come short of the glory of God;" Romans 3:22b-23
"If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and his word is not in us." 1 John 1:10
"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourself, and the truth is not in us." 1 John 1:8

The penalty of sin

"For the wages of sin is DEATH; . . ." Romans 6:23a
Not just physical death, but something far more serious -spiritual death-  in hell!
"But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable,and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and allliars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire andbrimstone: which is the second death." Revelation 21:8

The payment of sin

To cover the sin of Adam and Eve, The Blood of an innocent lamb was shed. (Gen. 3:21)
" . . . John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world."  John 1:29
"Who his own self bare OUR SINS in his own body on the tree,. . ." 1 Peter 2:24
" . . . Unto him that loved us, and washed us from OUR SINS in his own BLOOD," Revelation 1:5b

I'ts not baptisam that can wash away our sins but the Blood of Jesus
" . . . without shedding of BLOOD is no remission." Hebrews 9:22 "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yetsinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by hisblood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." Romans 5:8-9