Amazon.co.uk Review
For anyone who is not familiar with historical and biblical scholarship of the last half century or so,
The Jesus Mysteries will come as something of a shock. Believing Christians will find it disturbing; Evangelicals will be horrified by it; Fundamentalists will no doubt ascribe it to the devil. And yet much in the book will be familiar to scholars.
Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy demonstrate clearly and unambiguously that much of Christian belief and practice, rather than being (as the Church has always claimed) a vast contrast with the Pagan ideas of Greece and the Middle East 2,000 years ago, actually draws on those traditions. It's not just virgin births that were two-a-penny in pre- Christian religions, but baptism, communion, and the very concept of a dying and rising God–man. December 25th was the birthday of Mithras long before Jesus came along. Other gods turned water into wine, stilled stormy waters, healed the sick and raised the dead. Even the teachings of Jesus on love, moral purity, humility and poverty were not wholly original; while Christian beliefs on heaven and hell (and the Catholic Church's purgatory) owe far more to Paganism than they do to the Judaism from which Christianity grew.
All of this, to a greater or lesser extent, has been known for decades; much of it, for example, can be found in a 1920s book called Pagan and Christian Creeds: Their Origin and Meaning. Where Freke and Gandy develop their theory, though, is more contentious. They conclude that the Christian religion was actually designed as another version of the Pagan religion, that Jesus was simply another variant on Osiris, Dionysius, Mithras and other earlier gods, invented for the Jewish people. This controversial thesis will be dismissed by many readers, but the meticulous footnoting of sources, both ancient and modern, will cause others to wonder if this book ought to be taken more seriously than many recent rewritings of history. --David V. Barrett
Synopsis
An extraordinary book that looks at one of the greatest cover-ups in history. The myth of Dionysus bears startling resemblances to the the story of Jesus Christ. It compares with the biblical story in the following ways: * Dionysus is God made flesh and is hailed as the 'Saviour of Mankind' and the 'Son of God' * His father is God and and his mother is a mortal virgin who afterwards becomes worshipped as the 'Mother of God' * He is born in a cowshed * He drives out demons, turns water into wine and and raises people from the dead * He rides triumphantly into town while people wave palms to honour him The date revered by the first Christians as Jesus' birthday was originally that of Dionysus, also the three day Spring Festival of Dionysus celebrating his death and resurrection coincides with the Christian festival of Easter. The last Supper and the Eucharist are also parallel Dionysian rites. This is not common knowledge as the story was a closely guarded secret of the Pagan mysteries. Secondly the evidence of Christianity's pagan roots were systematically covered up the Roman Church.
The comparisons between the the Christian story and the Dionysian myths have been mentioned by many scholars. Tim Freke and Peter Gandy have taken the next step and thought the unthinkable -- that Christianity was a Jewish Mystery School modelled on the ancient Pagan mysteries. In writing this book the authors are in no way wishing to diminish the Christian tradition, but are placing it within its true spirtual context. This book does challenge the views of the Christian fundamentalists, but it will be welcomed by many others Christians who have have known of the interconnectedness of Christianity with other ancient spiritual traditions.
by Timothy Freke
by Acharya S
by Timothy Freke; Peter Gandy
