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This website is mostly aimed at providing arguments and evidence for the non-Christian, the Christian who may be struggling with what he or she believes, or those Christians who are interested in reaching out to others.
My opinions may contradict what other Christians believe, but many of my arguments are also based on arguments given by a variety of Christian sources. I especially owe a debt of gratitude to the writings of Glenn Miller, J.P. Holding, Paul Maier, Grant R. Jeffrey, Lee Strobel, and Gerald Schroeder.
Please feel free to borrow ideas or arguments of mine (since many of them were not mine to begin with). I do ask that if you quote from my site directly, to please credit me.
Re: Justin Martyr
First off, I just want to say that your site is fantastic, and has really helped with all that copycat stuff.
However, I recently read an article by Acharya in which she quotes early Christian apologists practically admitting the similarities between Paganism and Christianity. She quoptes Justin Martyr as saying-
"And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter"
and
"As to the objection of our Jesus’s being crucified, I say, that suffering was common to all the aforementioned sons of Jove [Jupiter] . . . As to his being born of a virgin, you have your Perseus to balance that. As to his curing the lame, and the paralytic, and such as were cripples from birth, this is little more than what you say of your Aesculapius."
Could you help with this? I would really be very grateful if you could, as it would ease the doubts i've been having recently. The page is-http://www.truthbeknown.com/origins.htm .
Thank you so much,
My Response:
It appears that the quotes are legitimate, but Acharya is taking them out of context to some extent.
When Justin Martyr said, "And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter", he was responding to charges made by followers of Jupiter that virgin births and resurrections were impossible, by saying that they are no more impossible than the things they claimed about Jupiter and his descendents. He didn't mean that the sons of Jupiter were also virgin-born and resurrected.
When he said, "As to the objection of our Jesus’s being crucified, I say, that suffering was common to all the aforementioned sons of Jove [Jupiter] . . .", it is true that suffering was common in most legends. What story doesn't involve suffering to some extent? It's a parallel, but not a significant one.
"As to his being born of a virgin, you have your Perseus to balance that." Yes, it is true that Perseus, in some versions of the story, was born of a virgin, though the exact story was far different than that of Mary and Jesus (I talk about this on my Jesus vs Perseus page)
"As to his curing the lame, and the paralytic, and such as were cripples from birth, this is little more than what you say of your Aesculapius." This is a parallel I admit on my Jesus vs. Aesculapius page, but since Jesus healed by faith and Aesculapius by medicine, it's not much of a parallel.
Hope this helps,
David