Is the Easter Story Legend or Myth? Part V

“For we did not follow cleverly devised myths…”  (2 Peter 1:16)

A little over five hundred years earlier in its own history, the Hebrew culture (Israel) heavily involved itself in the idolatrous mythological practices of the other nations that surrounded it.  The word “idol” comes from the Greek word eidon, which means “visible,” or “seen.”  The Old Testament regarded Yahweh as the only true God, standing as He does entirely outside of (transcending) the material order.  Therefore it regarded the neighboring gods (note lower case “g”) within nature (the sky, the wind, the sea, etc.), and represented by wood and stone, to be the product of mere mythological imaginings.  Israel’s participation in the idolatrous practices of its neighbors (Hosea 1:2) during the eight or so centuries previous, ended upon their return to their homeland following a 70-year captivity in Babylon (Ezra chapters 7 -10).  The forced relocation was a humiliating experience.  Israel regarded that captivity as a divine retribution for their sin of idolatry, a punishment they determined never to receive again.

While so-called archaeological “minimalists” challenge the historicity of the Old Testament at every turn, there is in my view very little reason for doubting the integrity of its record of Israel’s history.  Even on archaeological grounds!  Furthermore, given the enormous gap between the holy character of Yahweh on the one hand (Exodus 20:1-20), and the very sorry record of faithless national disobedience on the other, reason must conclude that this is not the kind of record to be invented.  It is rather the kind of shameful story to be repented (of).  And repent they did!

Whatever else historians might say about Israel’s short-comings, the solid truth is that the Hebrew people never again participated in the sin of idolatry after their return to their homeland.  Five and a half centuries later at the time of Christ the Hebrew leaders, in particular, continued their resolute resistance to practices both mythological and idolatrous.  This is one of the most important reasons the Jewish leaders rejected Jesus’ self-claims (Matthew 22:41-46; Mark 2:5-11, Luke 19:45-48; John 8:58; 10:29-33).

It is popular in our day for critics to suggest that Israel borrowed practices from their neighbors.  I have already conceded that this is partly true.  But the theme on the table today is the specific question of whether the Christian account of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is on loan from the mystery religions of Persia, Egypt, the Canaanites, or the Greco-Roman world.  The “heads-up” answer to that question is that such claims are entirely bogus.  The blogs that are to follow will lay out the actual facts of the case more fully.  But for the present consider what has here been established.  Out of all of the possible cultures in the world that might be considered at that time, the single culture into which Jesus was born was by far the most adamantly opposed to consideration of any kind of a mythological savior.  The first converts to what is known today as Christianity were virtually all Jews.  That it was Jews, of all people, who believed from the beginning that Jesus was God the Son-become-human (John 1:1-3,14) and who saved the world by his death on a cross (1 Corinthians 1:18-25), demands a level of inspiration far greater than merely a neighboring pagan mystery.

That such a renowned historian as Will Durant could begin the last paragraph of his chapter, The Apostles, with the declaration that “Christianity did not destroy paganism, it adopted it,” and then close the same with, “Christianity was the last great creation of the ancient pagan world,” [The Story of Civilization III: Caesar and Christ. (Simon and Schuster, 1944), p.595], is both preposterous and absurd.  I am not making the case that Christian theology is immune to seduction by the surrounding culture of a given time in history.  But the account of Jesus Christ that is laid bare in the New Testament is no such example at all.  The Gospels to the contrary speak of a resistant people coming to terms with an immense reality for which they had no innate sympathy (John 1:9-11).  The astonishing reality is that the Creator of the world became flesh in the very culture that was least inclined to consider that very truth.  The notion of mythological development is utterly powerless to account for this happening.