So let's discuss what elements of Christian belief were present in pre-Christian pagan beliefs, and the significance of those common elements. Christians might argue that pagan beliefs comprised a premonitory anticipation of Christ; others might assert that pagan religions passed along elements to Christianity in the same fashion that all culture evolves and synthesizes new worldviews from the old.
Let me start with this passage which suggests a far more profane source for the notion (and phraseology) of virgin birth:
Sargon is perhaps the first Babylonian king who was said to have a larger-than-life birth and childhood. He was born in secret to a mother of lowly birth and a father who was a mountain god. In a motif which would later be borrowed and attributed to Horus and Moses, Sargon's mother placed the child in a basket of rushes and sent him down a river to protect him from the god's enemies. The babe was rescued downstream by simple folk and the goddess Ishtar loved and guided Sargon through his early childhood and to his final destiny: the ascension of the throne.
Sargon's biography started a "tall tale" tradition that subsequent kings felt the need to match. The attribute of divine birth and predestination became an important vehicle whereby a mortal king was said to be god-favored; gaining recognition and power during his life which often continued into posterity long after death.
By 1000 BCE, we find this tradition improved upon so that the biography of kings and important men insist that they were not only divinely born, but said to have transcended death to become gods themselves. Zoroaster, the Persian prophet and patriarch who lived and preached in ancient Babylon, was said to have been God-begotten and virgin born. Virgin-birth was the responsibility of the Ishtar priestesses, who conducted fertility rites, prophesied and performed elaborate rituals in the temples throughout Babylon.
The priestesses who administered the temples also managed a lucrative prostitution business that provided a steady stream of financial support for temple activities. Upon their return to Palestine, Hebrews of the Babylonian captivity brought back to the Mediterranean peoples wondrous tales of the priestesses and their blasphemous sexual ministries to the men who visited them. The role of the Ishtar priestess was to act as both mother to the prospective man's child and minister to the child's divine needs:
"Holy Virgin" was the title of harlot-priestesses of Ishtar (and) Asherah. The title didn't mean physical virginity; it meant simply "unmarried." The function of such "holy virgins" was to dispense the Mother's grace through sexual worship; to heal; to prophesy; to perform sacred dances; to wail for the dead; and to become Brides of God."[1]
The Hebrews called the children of these priestesses bathur, which meant literally "virgin-born" as in those children who were born of the holy harlot-priestesses of the temple. The Hellenic world had no equivalent to the bizarre rituals of Ishtar, and mistranslated and misunderstood the literal Hebrew's bathur as parthenioi, also "virgin-born" but in the sense of physical, not spiritual, virginity.
from
infidels.org
And one more bit of grist from the same article:
Zeus was said to have impregnated Danae by visiting her as a ray of sunlight and the dove, sacred to Ishtar, manifests itself as a Holy Ghost to impregnate Mary and announce Jesus as the son of God.
The Bible was written by human authors. IMHO, Christian belief in my neck of the woods has asserted that there are basically two spirits.
1) The Holy Spirit, originating from One God and personified in the character of Jesus Christ.(Who was In The Beginning)
2) All of the "other" spirits that were allowed to become independant of the Holy Spirit, thus setting up a sort of "dualistic" reality in regards to Spirituality.
Now....even
inspired human authors are limited in their expression, just as I am right now as I type this response. Much of the O.T. shows human fallibility as people struggle to know God and what He actually wants for them.
IF my original premise (and belief) is correct, there is undoubtedly a
spiritual war that exists within human behavior and conscience. Early religions would have no bearing on my belief since God predates humanity. However...where did I "get" my beliefs?
Some would say that I learned it through the oral tradition of human expression passed down through the ages. I cannot deny that this is plausible and logical.
I would assert, however, that God
still predates humanity and human explanation, however...based on the impartation of truth as I understand it.
There is little doubt, however, that much of the rituals and stories within
any modern day religion were borrowed from somewhere.
Christianity as a religion did not have the KJV handed to them from a big hand in the sky, any more than God alone spoke to the Jews while the Muslims had deceiving spirits mess with them only!
I honestly think that the cacaphonic scenario was allowed to happen so that humanity would have the chance to put the jigsaw puzzle together again
or tear themselves apart.
I disagree with Jar that everyone on the planet is already saved...except in the sense that Christ has made it possible!
There is nothing, really...that I can teach any of you about Christ that He won't teach you better than I ever can!
Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil. --Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago