That reminds me:
<img src='http://z.about.com/d/altreligion/1/0/0/5/mary.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
(from http://altreligion.about.com/library/graph...bl_madonna8.htm )
The image itself is called mary.jpg
Though Jesus' left hand has two fingers curled inwards, Mary's left hand is far more tell-tale. And look at the entire style of the image: look at Mary's right foot, how it is resting on something and what it's resting on.
Jesus' and his surrounding characters' depiction was always made to match how the popular deities in the area were depicted. For instance, the Vatican contains images of Jesus as Mithras, there are images of him as Helios (Greek Sun God), as Apollo, as Dionysus who had long been depicted crucified on a cross, as Buddha and Indian Gods. Many examples at
http://www.medmalexperts.com/POCM/gettin..._pocm.html
Others are discussed or linked off from
http://freetruth.50webs.org/B1c.htm#MorePreChristian
http://freetruth.50webs.org/B1b.htm#PreC...nSymbolism
The copy-cat depiction of jeebus was for several reasons:
- in the first place, there never was a jesus of the gospels (neither of the canonical nor of the apochryphal gospels). He was made up and could therefore metamorphose easily into whatever form was the current trend ('orthodoxy'). And that's why today's WASPys have an Oryan-looking jeebus and why 'dalit theology' teaches that jeebus was 'a dalit too'. Yech, more christian marketing.
- in line with their wishes to make christianity 'catholic', they needed to make jeebus and his religion appeal to as many people of the old world as possible. So they needed jeebus to look like the personal Gods of the unconverted. Often this only angered the adherents of the Old Religions, just like today's inculturation by the Catholic Church angers us.
- after the forcible conversion of the empire, vast numbers of those who had superficially converted went back to the old traditions and real Gods and so these traditions had to be appropriated as being Christian and these Gods were made into Saints.
Hence the sacred Roman day of celebrating Love (15 Feb, the religious festival of Lupercalia) had to be taken over by Christianity, since the Christos couldn't stop the Romans from cherishing their former traditions. Christos therefore invented another lame saint 'Valentine', and then pretended it had nothing to do with Lupercalia by moving it to 14 Feb. Nevertheless, the love-letters, the flowers - all of it was done by Romans for centuries before the plague of christianism.
And many of the Roman and Greek Gods were renamed as Saints because they people would not give them up, just like the christoterror later did with the rest of Europe's Gods. (Examples at http://freetruth.50webs.org/C1.htm )
<img src='http://z.about.com/d/altreligion/1/0/0/5/mary.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
(from http://altreligion.about.com/library/graph...bl_madonna8.htm )
The image itself is called mary.jpg
Though Jesus' left hand has two fingers curled inwards, Mary's left hand is far more tell-tale. And look at the entire style of the image: look at Mary's right foot, how it is resting on something and what it's resting on.
Jesus' and his surrounding characters' depiction was always made to match how the popular deities in the area were depicted. For instance, the Vatican contains images of Jesus as Mithras, there are images of him as Helios (Greek Sun God), as Apollo, as Dionysus who had long been depicted crucified on a cross, as Buddha and Indian Gods. Many examples at
http://www.medmalexperts.com/POCM/gettin..._pocm.html
Others are discussed or linked off from
http://freetruth.50webs.org/B1c.htm#MorePreChristian
http://freetruth.50webs.org/B1b.htm#PreC...nSymbolism
The copy-cat depiction of jeebus was for several reasons:
- in the first place, there never was a jesus of the gospels (neither of the canonical nor of the apochryphal gospels). He was made up and could therefore metamorphose easily into whatever form was the current trend ('orthodoxy'). And that's why today's WASPys have an Oryan-looking jeebus and why 'dalit theology' teaches that jeebus was 'a dalit too'. Yech, more christian marketing.
- in line with their wishes to make christianity 'catholic', they needed to make jeebus and his religion appeal to as many people of the old world as possible. So they needed jeebus to look like the personal Gods of the unconverted. Often this only angered the adherents of the Old Religions, just like today's inculturation by the Catholic Church angers us.
- after the forcible conversion of the empire, vast numbers of those who had superficially converted went back to the old traditions and real Gods and so these traditions had to be appropriated as being Christian and these Gods were made into Saints.
Hence the sacred Roman day of celebrating Love (15 Feb, the religious festival of Lupercalia) had to be taken over by Christianity, since the Christos couldn't stop the Romans from cherishing their former traditions. Christos therefore invented another lame saint 'Valentine', and then pretended it had nothing to do with Lupercalia by moving it to 14 Feb. Nevertheless, the love-letters, the flowers - all of it was done by Romans for centuries before the plague of christianism.
And many of the Roman and Greek Gods were renamed as Saints because they people would not give them up, just like the christoterror later did with the rest of Europe's Gods. (Examples at http://freetruth.50webs.org/C1.htm )