ancient religions Archives - Page 7 of 11

What Was the Conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity Really Like?

The transition from traditional Greco-Roman religion to Christianity in late antiquity has often been portrayed in terms of the so-called “triumph of Christianity over paganism.” This is an idea that originates from Christian triumphalist accounts of the era that portray Christianity as having eradicated “paganism” within a single generation.

Anti-Christian writers, especially in recent years, have seized upon this propagandistic idea of the “triumph of Christianity” and twisted the Christian propaganda into anti-Christian propaganda by portraying Christians as militant zealots and obscurantists who destroyed classical civilization in the span of a single generation because it was too great for their small minds. Unfortunately, this story is no more accurate than the story Christians have been telling for centuries; indeed, if anything, it is even less accurate.

In reality, the process of the Roman Empire’s “conversion” to Christianity was both far more gradual and far complicated than it has often been portrayed. In many ways, traditional religions were not so much “eradicated” as transformed. In many ways, Christianity and traditional religions melded so that the “Christianity” that emerged from late antiquity was not the same “Christianity” that had gone in, while “paganism” was more domesticated than vanquished.

No, Easter Is Not Named after Ishtar

Around this time of year it is common to see people sharing memes claiming that Easter is really an ancient pre-Christian pagan holiday that was hijacked by Christians. I wrote an article all the way back in April 2017 debunking some of the more general claims that you often hear about various Easter traditions such as the Easter bunny and painting Easter eggs. This year, though, I want to specifically debunk the popular claim that Easter originated as a festival of the ancient Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar.

This is a claim that has circulated ever since the middle of the nineteenth century. Although it was originally only popular among the most die-hard of Protestant fundamentalists, it has, unfortunately, recently become very popular among atheists. It is, quite frankly, a completely ridiculous claim to anyone who knows anything about ancient Mesopotamian religion, but this sadly has not deterred the claim’s popularity.

In reality Easter is—and has always been—a Christian holiday. The only thing about the holiday that is verifiably of ancient pagan origin is the holiday’s name in English, but even the name doesn’t come from Ishtar, but rather from a totally different goddess worshipped half a world away from Mesopotamia.

No, Jesus’s Name Does Not Mean “Hail Zeus”

There is a widespread claim on the internet that the name Jesus literally means “Hail Zeus.” This claim is frequently promoted by Mythicists—people who believe that there was no historical Jesus and that Jesus was invented based on earlier pagan deities. By linking Jesus’s name to Zeus’s, they hope to “prove” that Jesus is a made-up character based on Zeus.

Mythicists have apparently based this particular claim about the supposed etymology of Jesus’s name solely on the phonetic similarity between the name Jesus and the name Zeus in English. Unfortunately for the people out there on the internet, names that sound similar in English are not necessarily etymologically related to each and, in the case of the names Zeus and Jesus, there is simply no etymological relationship whatsoever.

What Did Jesus Really Look Like?

One of the greatest mysteries of ancient history is the true appearance of Jesus of Nazareth. Most people today have an image that immediately pops into their head when they hear the name “Jesus” of a tall, handsome white man with long, flowing hair and a beard and maybe a halo. This is certainly not what the historical Jesus really looked like. In fact, the image we all have of Jesus actually has a quite fascinating origin. In ancient times, Jesus was represented in a wide variety of different ways, some of them downright bizarre, but the standard image we all know and recognize eventually became the canonical one.

We don’t know much about what the historical Jesus looked like, but the gospels and other ancient sources do provide some details that can allow us to reconstruct a very general sense of his possible appearance.

Is Christianity a Mystery Cult?

Over the years, Christianity has often been compared to the mystery religions of ancient Greece and Rome, both by Christians wishing to emphasize the esoteric nature of their religion and by opponents of Christianity who claim that the resemblance between Christianity and mystery religions of antiquity proves that Christianity is not of divine origin.

Christianity certainly has many important features in common with Greco-Roman mystery religions, but there are some crucial differences between Christianity and mystery religions that really set Christianity apart. Perhaps the most notable difference between Christianity and the mystery religions is Christianity’s attitude towards proselytism.

Interestingly, it does seem that some mystery cult-like tendencies did come to dominate Christianity in late antiquity. Nonetheless, Christianity itself is not inherently a mystery religion and I don’t think anyone could accurately describe contemporary Christianity as a mystery cult.

Did Ancient “Pagans” Really Worship Nature?

If you go around and ask a bunch of people what “paganism” is, chances are, most people will tell you something like “nature worship.” It is true that some contemporary Neopagans do indeed worship nature, albeit in various forms and in various ways. Even many Neopagans who do not literally worship nature still hold nature in very high regard. This conception of “paganism” as “nature worship,” however, is, for the most part, not applicable to the ancient world.

The term “paganism” is problematic in a historical context for all kinds of reasons, but it is most often applied to the various polytheistic religions that were practiced in the greater Mediterranean region (i.e., the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe) in ancient times before Christianity. When we look at these religions, we actually find a rather startling absence of nature-worshippers.

For most people in the ancient Mediterranean world, nature was a frightening and dangerous thing that could never really be trusted. Most of the deities worshipped in ancient times by so-called “pagans” were not seen as personifications of nature or natural forces, but rather as supernatural beings governing certain areas of human endeavor. Some deities were associated with aspects of the natural world, but the deities themselves were almost always clearly distinguished from the phenomena with which they were associated. Furthermore, even those deities associated with natural phenomena were usually associated with cultural phenomena as well.

The Shroud of Turin Is Definitely a Hoax

The Shroud of Turin is probably the most famous supposed relic in existence. It is a 4.4-meter-long linen shroud bearing the image of a crucified man. Supporters of the shroud claim that it is the actual burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth and that the image on the shroud is the true image of Jesus, created at the moment of his resurrection.

It is easy to see why this idea is so appealing. If the shroud were authentic, it would be a remarkable source of information about Jesus the human being. Unfortunately, we can be virtually certain that the Shroud of Turin is a hoax that was originally created in France in around the 1350s AD by an artist trained in the Gothic figurative style as part of a faith-healing scam.

We know this primarily because there is no definitive record of the shroud prior to the fourteenth century and the earliest definitive record of the shroud is a letter recording that the forger who made it had confessed, but also because of a wide array of other factors. For instance, the shroud doesn’t match the kinds of funerary wrappings that were used in the Judaea in the first-century AD or the specific description of Jesus’s funerary wrappings given in the Gospel of John. The fabric of the shroud has also been conclusively radiocarbon dated to the Late Middle Ages.

Additionally, the proportions of the figure on the shroud are anatomically incorrect, but they closely match the proportions of figures in Gothic art of the fourteenth-century. The bloodstains on the shroud are not consistent with how blood flows naturally, which suggests the stains have been painted on. Finally, the fabric of the shroud was made using a complex weave that was common in the Late Middle Ages for high-quality textiles but was not used for burial shrouds in the time of Jesus.

Can We Know What Biblical Texts Originally Said?

One of the most commonly asked questions about the Bible is the question of whether we can know what the texts that make it up originally said. This question is of interest to a lot of people. Obviously, Christians want to know what these texts originally said because they believe that the writings included in the Bible are directly inspired by God and that they can teach people the right way to live their lives.

Meanwhile, many of us who aren’t Christians are interested in knowing what these texts originally said as well because we want to know more about the historical development of Christianity and about what the earliest Christians in ancient times believed.

I suppose, then, there’s good news and bad news for everyone. The bad news is that the surviving manuscripts of the texts included in the New Testament contain a wide array of overt discrepancies, errors, and later insertions. The good news is that, in spite of this, in the vast majority of cases, we actually have a pretty good idea of what the texts originally said.

For the purposes of this article, I will be focusing primarily on the texts of the New Testament because I know more about them and they were originally written in a language that I have personally studied (i.e. Koine Greek). Many of the general things I am about to say are applicable to the texts of the Hebrew Bible as well, but I will not be focusing on those texts here.

The Shocking True Origin of the Name “Philadelphia”

You’ve all been taught the name Philadelphia comes from Greek meaning “City of Brotherly Love.” That’s mostly true. What you haven’t been taught is the long, fascinating history behind the name. As it turns out, the name Philadelphia ultimately comes from a nickname given to an ancient Greek ruler of Egypt who gained notoriety for marrying his own full sister. The “brotherly love” in the name originally referred to literal incest.

Carl Sagan Was Really Bad at History

Carl Sagan’s thirteen-episode documentary series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which originally aired on PBS in 1980, is the most watched PBS documentary series in history. The miniseries, which is, broadly speaking, about the history and importance of science, has had a massive influence on both our culture as a whole and on individual people’s lives. Many people say that watching Cosmos growing up was what inspired them to go into STEM.

Unfortunately, while Carl Sagan may have been a brilliant scientist and a great science popularizer, he was an unbelievably terrible historian and, in the show, he gets a boatload of facts about history blatantly wrong. Because Sagan was a scientist with an established reputation, though, many people have assumed that everything he says in the miniseries must be correct and, as a result, these misconceptions have spread and become embedded in popular culture.

Perhaps the most influentially wrong segment in the whole series is a twenty-two-and-a-half-minute segment in the last episode about the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria and the murder of the Neoplatonist philosopher Hypatia. In this one segment, Sagan manages to promote what seems like roughly half of all the misconceptions about the ancient world that I have ever debunked.

I wrote an article in August 2018 debunking misconceptions about Hypatia and another article in July 2019 debunking misconceptions about the Library of Alexandria. In both of those articles, I have noted that many of the misconceptions I debunk originated from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, but, in those articles, I did not address Carl Sagan’s PBS miniseries directly.

I have therefore decided to undertake the ambitious task of going through the entire segment about Hypatia and the Library of Alexandria and correcting all the inaccuracies I come across. This should give you some impression of how historically accurate Carl Sagan’s documentary really is.