From: ercn67@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Holmes)
Subject: The Original Easter
Date: 20 Jul 90 15:01:34 GMT

From "Freethinker" magazine:



 A Babylonian Passion Play - R.J.Condon

 There was a time when it was fairly easy to acquire old books of
 biblical criticism, and many a curious volume found its way on to my
 shelves. One I still have is "The Sources of Christianity", by the
 Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din, Imam of the Woking Mosque which published it in
 1924.As Muslims do, the author believes in a man Jesus who was a prophet
 of God, but he dismisses the gospels with contempt as so much astral
 mythology. His knowledge of the Babylonian play comes from the January
 1922 issue of "Quest", a quarterly publication probably now defunct.

 The Imam writes: "The passion play of Baal, the babylonian sun-god, was
 in existence centuries before the birth of Jesus. It was acted as a
 popular mystery drama. The Jews were taken as prisoners by
 Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon, where they remained for generations. They saw
 the mystery drama acted every year at the beginning of spring on Easter
 Day. The captives, on their return, brought with them many traditions of
 sun-worship which one can easily trace in Jewish literature. They could
 not fail to have vivid memories and impressions of the passion play of
 Baal. The main features of the play have recently been deciphered from
 some tablets discovered in Babylonian ruins. There are two tablets, says
 "Quest", belonging to the cuneiform documents which were discovered by
 German excavators in 1903-4 at Kalah Shargat, the site of the ancient
 Assur. They belonged to the library of Assur, formed in the ninth
 century BC or even earlier. They are however, copies of still earlier
 Babylonian tablets.

 The tablets disclose astounding facts, perturbing thousands of honest
 minds in Christendom. It is not the similarity of some features of the
 stories of Jesus and Baal that excites their astonishment; the two are
 one and the same. The evangelical records are complete plagiarism. Let
 readers decide the point for themselves.

 Here is the synopsis of the play as given by "Quest":
 Bel, like Jesus, is taken prisoner. He is tried in the House on the
 Mount, as Jesus is tried in the House of the High Priest. Bel is
 smitten, Jesus is scourged. Bel is led away to the Mount, Jesus is led
 away to Golgotha, a mount. With Bel a malefactor is led away and put to
 death, while another is released. With Jesus two malefactors are put to
 death. Another, Barabbas, is released. After Bel goes to the Mount, the
 city breaks out into tumult. At the death of Jesus the earth quakes, the
 graves open, and the dead come forth.

 Bel's clothes are carried away. Jesus' robe is divided among the
 soldiers. A woman wipes away the heart's blood of Bel, flowing from
 where a weapon has been withdrawn; cf the lance thrust in Jesus' side
 and the flow of water and blood, together with the women washing and
 embalming his body.

 Bel goes down into the Mount and is held fast as a prisoner; Jesus
 descends into Hell (Apostles' Creed). Guards watch over Bel; guards are
 set over the tomb of Jesus. A goddess sits with Bel, as women sit before
 Jesus' tomb. A weeping woman seeks Bel at the Gate of Burial. A woman
 weeps before the empty tomb of Jesus.

 Bel is brought back to life (as the sun of spring). He comes out of the
 Mount. His chief feast, the Babylonian New Year at the vernal equinox,
 is celebrated as his triumph over the powers of darkness. Jesus rises
 from the grave, on a Sunday morning. His festival, approximately at the
 vernal equinox, is also celebrated as his triumph over the powers of
 darkness."

 For the authority behind this translation we turn to another odd book,
 "The Rock of Truth", by Arthur Findlay. Findlay was chairman of Psychic
 Press Ltd. who have kept his book in print since it was published in
 1933. It consists of a fierce attack on Christianity followed by
 quasi-scientific apology for Spiritualism, which need not detain us.

 When Findlay learned of the Babylonian play he called on the curator of
 the Babylonian section of the British Museum to confirm its existence
 and correct translation. he writes: "I was told that the
 particulars....can be correctly considered as 'a list of parallel
 instances (which was drawn up by the late Professor Zimmern) found both
 in the story of the god Bel and of the Christ. Zimmern deduced the
 incidents of the story of Bel from ritual texts which seem to decsribe a
 primitive kind of religious play'". Heinrich Zimmern was Professor of
 Assyriology and Semitic Languages at the University of Leipzig, and a
 contributor to the "Encyclopedia Biblica".

 Herodotus, says Findlay, tells of an Egyptian play about the sufferings
 of Osiris. The Greek historian gives no details, but the play can be
 reconstructed from references to it in Egyptian religious literature.
 The raising of Asar (Osiris) in Het Annu, the temple of Heliopolis, has
 been reproduced virtually intact in John's gospel as the Raising of
 Lazarus in Bethany. But more of that another time.