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September 2009 Solid Ground Cover Letter
Dear Friend,
In 1906, Sir James Frazer published a work entitled The Golden Bough. In it he alleged that ancient mythical deities like Osiris of Egypt, Adonis of Syria, Attis of Asia Minor, and Tammuz of Mesopotamia were all dying and rising fertility gods. Frazer also suggested that the story of Jesus was just a recycled version of these pagan religions.
Now in the age of Google and the internet, the notion has gone viral that the Gospels are sophisticated plagiarisms, pilfering details from ancient myths and cobbling them together to fabricate the story of the dying and rising god/man from Nazareth.
In fact, while fielding questions from a capacity crowd of 1200 students at Purdue University earlier this year, I responded three times to some version of this challenge.
Are the details of these ancient myths accurate? Are there genuine parallels between the dying and rising gods of legend and the life of Jesus of Nazareth? Do the records of these ancient myths predate the time of Christ? Do details in myths before Christ prove that the same details in the Gospel accounts are fictions? Is Jesus just a copycat messiah?
These are the questions I examine in this month’s Solid Ground. As you read, you will discover three serious flaws in this challenge. The first two are debilitating. The final one is lethal. After seeing the evidence I offer, you will never be taken in again by the Jesus-the-recycled-redeemer shell game.
In a very real sense, September has become a second New Year, if you will. School starts back up, colleges and universities begin new terms, and more and more churches gear back up from a summer drop in activities and outreach. Requests for STR speakers ramp up, too.
Have you made any plans to get a little more engaged? Perhaps you’ve decided to take advantage of one of Stand to Reason’s training series. I would encourage you to seize this “new year” opportunity to take on a new study, add to your ambassador training, or open a resource from STR you may have been putting off.
This month’s Solid Ground is a great place to start. And you may want to make a fresh commitment to support our work by sending a gift this September. It will help us meet the new challenges coming our way in coming months, and get a start on the “new year” that awaits us. I’d be grateful if you did.
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Yours for the truth,
Gregory Koukl
President, Stand to Reason |
This letter may be reproduced or forwarded via e-mail without change and in its entirety for non-commercial purposes without prior permission from Stand to Reason. ©2004 Gregory Koukl
For more information, contact Stand to Reason at 1438 East 33rd St., Signal Hill, CA 90755
(800) 2-REASON (562) 595-7333 http://www.str.org/
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