Posted on 06/19/2007 2:11:54 PM PDT by Jedi Master Pikachu
I’d like to see a link to those sources also.
Most of my work on Paul is from personal research as Paul is a pet subject of mine in fact you may want to wait until my book comes out on the subject. the tenative title is “Paul the original Anti-Christ”. that may be a year or two from now so....
I’ll obilge and give you a few online links to read about Paul and Mithra.
http://www.innvista.com/culture/religion/deities/mithra.htm
http://www.geocities.com/spenta_mainyu_2/mithras.htm
I want to clarify something. I am a follower and believer in Christ however I personally believe that Paul was the original Antichrist spoken of in Revelations. I believe that Paul wasn’t literally struck blind on the road to Damascus but that he had an inspiration where he would unite Mithraism with Christianity to form a new religion which in time became the Catholic Church in fact Church leaders and secular leaders continued to add elements of Mithraism into Christianity until the fall of Rome in the West.
The similarities between catholic dogma and Mithraism are profound. The original Christianity existed only in England where early Roman Christians had migrated but that Christianity (popularly known as the early Celtic church) was suppressed by the greater Catholic majority at the Synod of Whitby.
I was in on that project.
When I left Sudan back near the end of March, the word was the South of Sudan was leaning against referendum for the South to go independent. We’ll find out for sure if it passes in 2011, and then we’ll see if it actually happens then.
There is also Darfur. The Sudanese view of Darfur is that it’s a tribal conflict that goes back hundreds if not thousands of years between settled agricultural tribes and nomadic herders. Basically a battle over land and water like we had in our American old west between ranchers and farmers. It got bad recently after a particularly egregious incident where the agriculturalists targeted some government installations thinking that the government was on the nomad side. After that it went from sticks and swords to AK-47s and Antonov Bombers. I reserve judgment as I’ve never been to Darfur and the only Darfuri I met was a merchant in Kariema. He and I did not speak of Darfur, other than he told me that was where he was from.
Also there’s a Problem with the Manasir. The Manasir are one of the tribes that inhabits the currently unflooded land there at the soon to be fourth cataract dam. They don’t want to move - I think that may have been settled now. The local Ababda, Shaggiya and Rubatab tribe members are moving out peacefully (they should all be gone now, and there’s a good possibility that the Ababda village I stayed in from from January to March is bulldozed over now). Then there’s the Third Cataract dam(s) which are just in the planning and feasibility phases right now. Four people protesting those three dams (all within 10 miles of each other) were killed and 19 wounded last Wednesday when they kind of backed some soldiers into a corner (or rather surrounded the soldiers with roadblocks made of big boulders and palm trees).
As for the gold being flooded, not really. The mine wa a placer deposit. Some gold dust will be lost sure. The actual veins are a good four or five miles inland on the gebels. They won’t be flooded. The lake this dam makes will only be two or three miles wide, even though it’ll be 150 miles long.
Problems or not, I like Sudan, and look forward to going back. Sorry to go on so long.
Pinging the list to point out your post.
That isn’t surprising, the Bible has plenty of accounts of Israelites and Hebrews doing just that—or worshipping idols—and then getting persecuted because of their turning from God.
You didn't point out that the Bible hasn't--but the Bible hasn't been tainted by paganism.
His letters and Acts are part of the Bible.
And while he could have been exposed to Mithrasism, so what? Americans are exposed to Islam, Hinduism, Judaism (including the Talmud), Buddhism, atheism. Yet it would be a stretch to argue that American Christianity has been greatly affected by exposure to those religions (or you could compare Jews in nominally Christian Europe--they haven't been all that influenced by Christianity).
Paul was a very devout Jew (you could consider him a fundamentalist Jewish extremist out to kill Christian infidels) prior to becoming a very devout Christian. And your comments here seem to have crossed the border into libel.
I don't know about your family tree but when Jesus walked the earth, my ancestors were tatooing themselves blue, running naked into battle, hanging the heads of their enemies off the gatepost and practicing human sacrifice.
I would imagine that a lot of Saul’s religious ideas would have been changed on the road to Damascus. After that, he was known as Paul.
Ancient gold unearthed in Sudan: “We found one laughably tiny gold bead in the burials, but that was the only gold we found,” Mr Emberling said.
You also missed the point that I was just screwing with the nutcase, crazy-a$$, lunatic, Arabs trying to get them to blow up their own stuff.
You don't have many friends do you. Tone it down a little bit there genius, and maybe things will go a lot better for you. (btw, genius, you misspelled believe)
My post was deliberate. I do believe the bioble incorporates elements from pagan religions, ad outlined for example in the one book I cited though there is a wealth of work on the subject.
My view is that the bible has been influenced by other religions but that doesn't necessarily from a theological plan undermine it - God may have wanted it that way.
Sorta. You had to be there. The bead was from al-Widay cemetery. Hosh el-Geruf was a literal gold mine. The gold there is in the form of dust mixed with loose sand. We obviously didn’t pan all the sand looking for dust, as it’s not really of interest to archaeologists. The locals still occasionally pan the sand there when they’re hard up. A few years back one of the locals found two gold figurines or idols there.
Heeerrre's your sign.
Let that be a lesson......never spend too many nights in a dark and lonely desert, tending a herd of sheep.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1809330/posts
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-05/uocp-ats051706.php
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