From my Catholic perspective, evidence of a Jesus character in other religions only further supports our premises of Jesus. "Catholic" means universal, and this idea can be applied in many different ways. Generally speaking, if it's "true" it's "true." In other words, if the buddhist, the Catholic, and the Agnostic believe that it isn't right to steal, then this is good. If there is a flood story in many other cultures outside of the Bible, then this helps support truth in that story. If there is a "Jesus character" in other religions, then this helps support truth in our "Jesus character" as well.
You seem here to be supporting the Perennial Philosophy (first coined by Leibniz, and first popularized by Huxley) --- which, if so, would make many of your "Catholic" claims very
interesting, to say the very least.
WADR, when deciding whether a Jew meets the Jewish criterion for the Messiah, other religion's views, especially the religion that is founded on the person being the Messiah, is not relevant. You make statements that Jesus was the Messiah, but the Jews at the tme just did not want to accept it, and I'm just telling you that it wasn't so much a refusal to acept, as much as a lack of credentials.
It could be a mess of other things, too.
There is, as far as I know, no Jewish commentary on Jesus dating to within a few centuries of his supposed historical existence (unless you count the likes of Josephus). Thus, any "Jesus was not the Messiah" comments by later Jews could have just been commentaries on the Christian presentation of Jesus (as within the Gospel story), rather than actual historical commentaries.
As such, I still maintain that Jesus most likely did not exist historically. Thusly, it would only make sense that he would not meet the criterion of Messiah-hood.
The problem with this is that the stories of Bacchus and Dionysus predate the Jesus stories by 500 years.
Much more than that, actually --- the
Bacchus by Euripides predates the Jesus story by about 500 years, but the actual myths do not. The myths predate the Jesus story by well over a thousand years.
In an odd way, it's quite right to say that in Christian theology, the Bacchus (or Balder or whover) story can help confirm the truth of the Gospels. Basically, the idea is that everything in nature--and in human culture--points to the central event of Christ. So, the Bacchus story points forward to the plain revelation of the real thing, just as (for example) the story of Abraham and Isaac in the Old Testament points forward to the Crucifixion.
Yes, that was brilliantly put. This is exactly why it is not a problem for me (and most Catholics/Christians who understand their faith) that Dionysus predates Christ.
This is, of course, extremely biased and lopsided thinking.
Such arguments were originally created as a less 'extreme' form of the inane Diabolical Mimicry (in which all evidence contrary to the Scriptures, such as evolutionary fossil records, are relegated to deceptions on the part of Satan), but the thinking is the same.
Originally, to combat accusations that the Christ story was based (in part or in whole) on previous Pagan myths, Christian apologetics like Justin Martyr resorted to Diabolical Mimicry: namely, that the Devil -- knowing the exact details of Christ's life on earth to come --- created all these 'Pagan' philosophies, religions, and myths to pre-mimic the Jesus story as closely as possible. This was apparently done for the express purpose of deceiving Christian believers centuries later.
The Christ Prefigurement idea is little different. The notion is to take all existing evidence that supposedly contradicts or questions the Christ story as history (such as the details of the Dyonisian myth), and turn it upon itself. Instead of relying on the
much more logical and believable notion that the early Christians based some of their ideas and beliefs on the popular religions of the time, the believer instead turns it around and claims all evidence that seems to disprove the historicity of the Jesus story actually
proves it.
This is, of course, a double-standard of nearly unparalled proportions. This would be like using fossil records to 'prove' evolution doesn't actually happen, or using the rotations of the earth around the sun to 'prove' that the earth is really the center of the universe. Namely, what you are doing is taking evidence and claiming it proves the
exact opposite of what it claims to prove.
We notice, also, that there is the recurrent ethnocentrism of the idea, as well --- all religions in the world actually point to the truth of our religion. Translation: we're right, everyone else is wrong.
Who is to say that the Jesus story was not
also a part of this 'mythical prefigurement' seeking to prove the historicity of a later god-man, like Manes in the 3rd century?? Why is the Christian story so special?? Why is it not that the Christ story is itself not part of the same trend of 'mythical prefigurement'??
The only answer to such questions, of course is "because its our religion". Cultural bias and ethnocentrism at its worst. People probably made similar claims about Osiris' story "prefiguring" Dionysus' story in the 2nd century BCE. And, it was equally dubious then, as well.
So, the double-standard of 'mythical prefigurement' is twofold:
1) It attempts to 'throw out' all evidence questioning the historicty of the Jesus story by turning it against itself.
2) It bases its claims on the special 'rightness' of the Christian religion over the others, with no evidence for this other than cultural ethnocentrism.
This isn't anything 'perennial' or 'catholic' here. This is an attempt to see the faiths, religions, and myths of
all other peoples but one's own as actually 'proving' the Christian one. A perennial approach would to say that all religions and faiths point to a universal experience of human spirituality, not that they point to the rightness of a particular culture's historical and religious claims.
Laterz.
