So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will
crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will
put enmity between
you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your
head, and you will strike his heel.” (Genesis
3:14-15)
There are people who point to certain mythological figures: Mithras, Dionysus (Bacchus), Attis, Osiris, Horus, Tammuz, Adonis, Persephone and Orpheus as parallels to Jesus based on these commonalities:
* death and resurrection around our Easter;
* virgin birth around 25 December;
* association with the seasons and the vegetation cycle (fertility gods);
* called "son of God" and/or a god in human form, who performed miracles
* ritual celebration of their death;
* the offer of salvation to a small community of initiates.[1]
These similarities lead some to claim there is nothing unique about Jesus' claims. The first thing I notice is that nowhere in the list of contenders do I see it mentioned that any of these others were fulfillments of prophecy. Since I have been writing about
prophecies and their fulfillment, I thought it might be interesting to look at
some of the prophecies about the Messiah. Let's test their claim of similarity, starting
with what I believe is the first messianic prophecy in Scripture, today's
passage.
The first thing of note is to whom this prophecy was given.
When God's court convened because of Adam's sin, Adam, Eve and the serpent were all there, but it is to the serpent that God
speaks the first prophecy about the Messiah. What God tells the devil is that
1) Eve's offspring (also translated seed) would crush the devil's head. 2) The
best that the devil would do would be to bruise the Messiah's heel, and 3) Said
offspring would be a singular: and he(or
that) will crush your head and the term offspring
or seed is singular.
While some may argue that offspring/seed can refer to a collection or group,
the issue that cannot be argued away is that the Messiah had to be the
offspring of a woman. Mithras was born of Anahita, a Hindu goddess. Dionysus
(Bacchus) was said to be the son of Zeus and Semele, princess of Thebes. Attis, was the son of either Cybelle or Nana,
both of whom were goddesses. Osiris was supposedly born of Nut and Geb, both of
whom were Egyptian gods. Horus was the son of Osiris and Isis, both of whom
were Egyptian gods. Tammuz's mother was the goddess Duttur, was a
personification of the ewe. Adonis'
mother was Smyrna, daughter of Theias, king of Assyria. She tricked her father
into impregnating her. Persephone was
the daughter of Zeus and the harvest goddess, Demeter. Orpheus' mother was
either the muse, Calliope or the daughter of Pierus, son of Makednos.
Given this first prophecy about the
Messiah, that He would be a descendant of Eve, the only remaining contenders
for Messiah from the list above are Jesus, Dionysus/Bacchus, Adonis and
possibly Orpheus. Tomorrow, we'll continue the Messiah Wars.[2]
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