Copyright © By Dr. Adel Elsaie, Book Title: "Please Revise the Bible, Again"

Chapter 2

 

Ancient and Christian Trinities

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Polytheism is defined as a multiplicity of individualistic divinities having human and/or animal forms and feelings. According to Islamic traditions, the first idols on Earth were during the time of Noah (Pbuh i.e. Peace be upon him). Noah was the tenth grandson of Adam (Pbuh). The names of these idols were Wadd, Sawaa, Yaguth, Yauq, and Nasr. They were righteous people, and everyone used to love and listen to them. When Wadd died, his followers missed him, and became very sad. Satan encouraged the people to make a picture of Wadd so they can keep it in their places, and remember this spiritual leader. They accepted Satan’s offer and became heavily involved in the pictures. When Satan saw what they did, he extended his offer to give them a statue of Wadd. Once again, they accepted Satan’s offer. Their following generation saw how their parents glorified those statues. Eventually, those statues were treated as gods, and during Noah’s time there were five idols, and that is why God caused the great flood that destroyed all that associated other gods with Him.

 

This story explains how Satan takes human beings step by step towards every sin, even when the intention, of the people that accepted the pictures, might have been sincere. That is why the Islamic laws prohibit all actions that may lead to major sins.

Moreover, this story indicates that Man did not invent polytheism out of nothing. Adam believed in One God. His children followed satanic steps, and converted monotheism to polytheism. As time passes, religious beliefs and traditions were adulterated and contaminated from one generation to another. That explains why most polytheistic beliefs or philosophical notions still have some elements of the monotheistic religion, and perhaps, most of the ancient mythical gods were simply monotheistic righteous people or even prophets.

 

Many gods as well as the embodiment of Gods in human form (incarnation) characterize polytheism. Because of their human forms and the multitude of gods, they usually fight with each other, and they marry and get children who are also gods. Since the beginning of time, knowledge and wisdom were always transmitted from parents to children. Thus, the ancient relationships of gods to humans were as close as fathers and sons.

Man's ingenuity and inventiveness strives continually towards attaining a state of affairs where he could achieve a satisfactory result without too much effort on himself. In other words, being the weakest of creations, man has always tried to adopt the line of least resistance. The pagan or the polytheist mind, too, functioned along this line. The primitive man had always invented a religion that did not impose many requirements on his side. Feeling his own weakness, he always strove to shift the responsibility on to the shoulders of another – a common human trait - without any exhausting effort on his part, to pacify the deity that might have become angered. In Christianity, man is considered sinner not because of what he does, but because of what Adam did! In believing that, man managed to shift the responsibility of his sins to the shoulder of Adam and his salvation to the shoulder of Jesus.

As a Muslim, I do not dare to even think that Jesus was mythical, just like what some authors suggested. However, the New Testament has irreconcilable differences in the crucifixion, resurrection of Prophet Jesus (Peace be upon him), the earthquake, the resurrection of the dead and their walking in Jerusalem as mentioned in Matthew. Moreover, the theological additions that were introduced by Paul and the writers of the Gospels make the careful reader of the Bible extremely suspicious.  Christianity recognized God, but stripped Him from His attributes and gave it to Jesus, as the savior, the judge in the Day of Judgment, the Loving God …etc.

 

Moreover, the more knowledgeable Christian who is familiar with pagan gods in the Mediterranean area before and after the time of Jesus realizes that the early Christian missionaries compromised with the surrounding gentile pagans in order to achieve their support and conversion. Paul abolished the Law of Moses to satisfy the pagan gentiles against the saying of Jesus.  Paul exempted the pagan gentiles from circumcision and eating pork, which Jesus never advocated. Paul emphasized the concept of son of god that was prevailing in this whole area while Jesus referred to himself as the son of man. Paul stressed the event of death-resurrection that was already established in the minds of gentile pagans, regardless of its conflicting details in the Gospels. Paul achieved all that by claiming that he received “visions” from Jesus, and he was speaking under the authority of the “Holy Ghost” according to his “own gospel.” And all of that was against the beliefs of the original Jewish-Christians who actually saw, lived with, and listened to Jesus.

 

Many early Christian theologians and historian noted the extreme similarity between Christianity and Pagan gods such as Osiris, Attis, Mithras, etc. Eusebius of Caesarea (283-371 CE) wrote:

"The religion of Jesus Christ is neither new nor strange."

St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE) wrote:

"This, in our day, is the Christian religion, not as having been unknown in former times, but as having recently received that name."

Celsus, late second century, commenting on the similarities between Pagan and Christian beliefs:

"...are our..[Pagan beliefs] to be accounted myths and theirs [the Christians'] believed? What reasons do the Christians give for the distinctiveness of their beliefs? In truth, there is nothing at all unusual about what the Christians believe...”

There are two principal savior-gods recognized by mythologists, namely: vegetation-gods and sun-gods. Ancient man realized the crucial effect of vegetation and sun on his life. He recognized that both sun and vegetation continuously provided him with his own life. He looked at them as saviors of his own existence. Consequently he worshiped his eternal saviors.

The vegetation theory has been brilliantly developed by Sir James George Frazer, in his Golden Bough, and by Grant Allen in The Evolution of the Idea of God. This viewpoint is concisely summarized by the noted psychologist Dr. David Forsyth:

“Many gods besides Christ have been supposed to die, be resurrected and ascend to heaven. This idea has now been traced back to its origin among primitive people in the annual death and resurrection of crops and plant life generally. This explains the world-wide prevalence of the notion. Among still more primitive tribes, as Grant Allen showed, it is not yet understood that sown corn sprouts because of the spring sunshine, and they attribute the result to divine agency. To this end they are accustomed at seed time to kill their tribal god—either in human or animal form—and scatter the flesh and the blood over the sown fields. They believe that the seeds will not grow unless the god is sacrificed and added to them in this manner. When, therefore, the crops appear, they never doubt that it is their god coming to life again. It is from this erroneous belief of primitive tribes that Christianity today derives its belief in Christ's Death and Resurrection.”

According to the advocates of the solar myth theory, the ancient crucified saviors were personifications of the sun, and their life-stories were allegories of the sun's passage through the twelve constellations of the Zodiac. The astronomical elements in the Christian Epic are pointed out by Edward Carpenter’s Love's Coming of Age with characteristic eloquence:

“The Passover, the greatest feast of the Jews, borrowed from the Egyptians, handed down to become the supreme festival of Christianity, … is, as well known, closely connected with the celebration of the Spring Equinox and the passing over of the Sun from south to north of the equator, i.e., from his winter depression to his summer dominion. The Sun, at the moment of passing the equinoctial point, stood three thousand years ago in the Zodiacal constellation of the Ram, or he-lamb. The Lamb, therefore, became the symbol of the young triumphant god. … At an earlier date—owing to the precession of the equinoxes—the Sun at the spring passage stood in the constellation of the Bull; so, in the older worships of Egypt, and of Persia and of India, it was the Bull that was sacred and the symbol of god. … In the representation of the Zodiac in the Temple of Denderah (in Egypt) the figure of Virgo is annotated by a smaller figure of Isis with Horus in her arms; and the Roman Church fixed the celebration of Mary's assumption into the glory at the very date (15^th August) of the said constellation's disappearance from sight in the blaze of the solar rays, and her birth on the date (8^th Sept.) of the same constellation's reappearance. … Jesus himself … is purported to have been born like the other sun gods, Baccus, Apollo, Osiris, on the 25^th day of December, the day of the Sun's rebirth, i.e., the first day which obviously lengthens after the 21^st of December.”

From time immemorial, the sun has presented the same phenomenon everywhere. It has the same phases that occur on the same date in each country. The same effect is created by its rise and its decline. The appearance, disappearance and reappearance of the glorious sun must create the same notion in the mind of ancient man inhabiting the various corners of the globe. The sun, therefore, was worshipped in many parts of the globe.

The New Testament states that Jesus had 12 disciples, though accounts vary about their identities in the Gospels according to Matthew 10:2-4 and Luke 6:13-16. 12 is also the maximum number of spheres of a fixed size which can be placed simultaneously in contact with a sphere of equal size. Splitting the heavens into such spheres around the central sphere containing the solar system caused the Ancient Greeks to define the zodiac to have 12 parts. Some ancient cults, for example one of the many forms of Horus, was considered to have 12 followers, both as 12 is the maximum possible simultaneously in contact with the central, and due to the alleged origin of some of these cults as astronomical observations. Some scholars postulate that this is also the reason that the authors of the bible chose there to be 12 apostles - a combination of the idea of Jesus as an astronomical figure being surrounded by the zodiac, and that there cannot be more than 12. The New Testament also states that there were 72 disciples (known as "the 72"). According to the Old Testament, the number 72 is also the number of races supposedly resulting from Noah (even though the counting is arbitrary and ignores the descendents of Peleg, but counts fathers with sons), and the number of those receiving the spirit with Moses (including the 2 absentees -Eldad and Medad), and the number of languages at the tower of Babel.

            Jesus Christ represents the central figure in Christianity. The crucifixion and resurrection of God’s body was introduced to save humanity and wash away the original sin of Adam. The Church advocates, and millions of Christians believe that the One and Only God sacrificed his blood and flesh so the believers could live happily ever after with Jesus in the Kingdom of God. However, there is a real crisis in this central story of Jesus, his crucifixion and resurrection. The Church insists that this story is unique only to Jesus. However, ancient history and mythology books reveal that this same story happened many times all over the globe in a span of time of about two thousands years before Jesus. You do not hear the stories of the dying resurrecting mythical gods in the Sunday classes, but they are an established part of mainstream Christian schools. The Church then added a powerful attractive incentive to the believers of this story “if you forget previous religious commandments and rituals and just believe this story, then you are guaranteed the shortest and easiest path to kingdom of God.” On the Day of Judgment, Jesus will conduct the reward and punishment of humans and his chief apostle Peter will hold the keys of Heaven.

 

Christianity was intended to be an extension of Judaism. Jesus came to fulfill the religion of God and not to destroy it, and the mission of the Christians was to get the Jews to accept Jesus as the promised Messiah and to reform Judaism. Jews were marked out by circumcision and abstinence from pork. After Jesus, small group of apostles formed a Jewish sect that remained faithful to the form of worship practiced in the Jewish temples. Some Christian missionaries went to Antioch in 49 CE, and told the Gentiles "Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved." (Acts 15:1). Paul and Barnabas were against this teaching. When converts from paganism presented their case to the apostles in the council of Jerusalem in 49 CE, a "special system" was offered to them that exempted them from circumcision and the Mosaic Law. Many Judeo-Christians rejected this concession. This conservative group was separated from Paul. For Paul, the circumcision, Sabbath, and rituals of worship practiced in the temple were old fashioned, even for the Jews.

 

Another important position of the early Christian missionaries was to present Christianity in a way that the pagans could identify with.  The concepts of the son of god, savior, crucifixion and resurrection were not new in old civilizations, and certainly were not new during and after the time of Jesus. This makes one suspicious about the true origin of existing Christianity and its doctrine.

 

The ‘death’ and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as told in the gospels, retells the ancient myth of the death and rebirth of the previous human-gods. The difference was that no pagan had seen his mythical god, but the early Christian missionaries had seen and talked to their Lord Jesus. They emphasized that Jesus was real while pagan gods might not be real. This made the Gentile receptive to the message of Christianity, and the Judeo-Christians hostile to many of the innovations that were added to the message of Jesus.

At the time of Christ's advent, there were many temples at the Mediterranean and neighboring world that had been the scene of a vast number of pagan creeds and mythical gods. There was Osiris, god of the Underworld and Judge of the dead in coastal Egypt and Sinai, Baal and Astarte (Biblical Bel and Ashtaroth) among the Babylonians and Carthaginians Bacchus god of the wine, in Rome, Apollo or Dionysius in Greece, Adonis in Syria, Attis in Phrygia (Western Turkey), Antiochus in Samaria (Mesopotamia), and so on.

These deities were all sun-gods. Their stories are close, with some variations, which suggest that their origins were the same as the oldest trinity: Osiris, Isis and Horus in Egypt. Edward Carpenter stated in Pagan and Christian Creeds that nearly all these deities, it was believed that:

• They were born on or very near Christmas Day.
• They were born of a Virgin-Mother.
• And in a cave or underground chamber.
• They led a life of struggle for mankind.
• And were called by the names of Light-bringer, Healer, Mediator, Savior, and Deliverer.
• They were, however, vanquished by the Powers of Darkness.
• And descended into hell or the underworld.
• They rose again from the dead, and became the pioneers of mankind to the heavenly world.
• They founded Communions of Saints and Churches into which disciples were received by baptism.
• And they were commemorated by Eucharistic meals.

Also Freke and Gandy suggested that:

• For thousands of years before Christianity Pagans had also worshipped a son of god.
• This Pagan savior was also born of a virgin on the 25th of December before three shepherds, turned water into wine, died and resurrected at Easter, and offered his body and blood as a Holy Communion.
• Pagan myths had been rewritten as the New Testament.
• The truth has been kept from us by the greatest cover up in history.

These ancient mythologies can be checked by anyone who cares to search for the truth and who is sufficiently interested to trace the source of the doctrine of world saviors in world.

It is extremely easy to show those doctrines that the Christian church teaches today and that forms a central part of Christianity did NOT come from Jesus. The doctrines that are declared as "necessary to salvation" were brought into the religion of Jesus by converted gentile monks and priests during the first few centuries after the time of Christ. These dogmas were not invented by the clergy, but were ready-made essentials of Paganism, the various effects of many cults spread from Persia to Britain.

The best and the easiest way for a man to calm down an angry god was to offer sacrificial human blood. A willing or unwilling victim was readily found and his or her blood was religiously spilt on the altar. Or as in the case of the bride of the Nile, a female was thrown into the Nile as a sacrifice to seek refuge from a destructive flood.  When the sacrifice was offered, man went home in the secure belief that this action pleased his mythical god and that its wrath is warded off, until some further misfortune or affliction overtakes him. So the game of the ancient priests was first to frighten people from an impending disaster and then offer a way out by asking for a human sacrifice.
            This, then, has been the universal belief and it formed the central code of religious conduct of the uncivilized man. As time passed, the dying victim at the altar himself came to be looked upon as a deity - god himself that came on the earth to suffer for the sins of man. It is thus easy to see that the idea of reconciliation by these barbaric methods became the characteristic feature of every creed that was professed and practiced in countries near the birth-place of Jesus at the time of his advent. Following the ancient pagan religions, the Church created an enormous terror by insisting that every human is a sinner, and as such everyone is condemned to hellfire. The only way out of this gigantic shock should be a sacrifice of unprecedented magnitude: God himself.

In my Father's house there are many mansions (John 14:3)

In the list below, six savior pagan-gods in the Mediterranean and surrounding area are given - from amongst tens in many parts of the world - who were all believed by their followers to have died for the sins of the world, together with their countries of origin and approximate dates: