From:    Marilyn Burge
To:      Jesse C. Jones
Subject: Disciples of Christ [sic]

On (20 Jun 93) Jesse C. Jones wrote to Marilyn Burge...

 JC>  -=> Quoting Marilyn Burge to Jesse C. Jones <=-
 JC>
 JC>  MB> Some anthropologists think that the
 JC>  MB> Twelve Disciples are nothing more than the twelve signs of the
 JC> Zodiac.
 JC>
 JC> More likely they correspond to the twelve tribes of Israel.  My own
 JC> pet theory is that "the twelve" is a fictional creation to cover the
 JC> fact that there were _women_ in the inner circle!

 I have read lots of opinions regarding the origin of names, events,
 etc. in the Bible.  There are as many theories as their are people with
 imaginations who have applied those imaginations to the question.
 Ancient Egyptian religions are ripe for the picking in this regard, if
 for no other reason than that they predate Christianity by millennia.
 Jesus could very well be a corruption of the word "Isis."  The Twelve
 Diciples could very well be related to the Signs of the Zodiac, which
 is part of ancient beliefs.

 The flood myth has been told again and again by tribes older than the
 Jews.  Some of the earlier renditions are:

  Culture               Hero            Warned by
  Hebrew                Noah            God
  Babylonian            Utnapishtim     Ea
  Persian               Yima            Ahura Mazda
  Hindu                 Vaivasvata      Vishnu's Avatar
  Chaldean              Xesuthras       Chinos
  Greek                 Deucalion       Prometheus
  Ostyaks               Pairachta       Turin
  Votyaks               Noj             Inmer
  Mexican               Nata            Titlachuhuan
  Algonquin             ----            Glooscap
  Choctaw               ----            The Great Spirit

  As you can see, mythology tends to be worldwide and not be a respector
  of time or place.  Wherever a people have been inundated, they have
  developed a flood myth to tell their children and grandchildren what
  happened on that fateful day.  From the perspective of those telling
  the story, the entire world was flooded (at least the portion of it
  that they are aware of).  The story of Noah is no different in this
  regard.  Those who take the story literally are missing the point of
  the story, and missing what scripture is trying to tell them.

  It doesn't matter if every word in the Bible is a myth, lie, allegory,
  or whatever.  That has nothing to do with whether there is or not not
  a god.  All it would mean if the entire book was fiction is that we
  would have no direct knowledge of the Mind of God.  Would that be so
  terrible?  Not really.  If we live loving lives, we benefit and the
  rest of humanity benefits, so what have we got to lose?

  Tenaciously hanging onto the literalness of scripture is nothing more
  than a subliminal grasping at faith that is so tenuous that it will
  not stand the revelation of one erroneous or illiteral word being
  contained between the covers of the book.  If faith hangs on every
  word being exactly true in the literal sense, then a person is forced
  to deny all knowledge that has been gained by humanity over the last
  several millennia.  That is far too retro for me to even consider.  I
  am not afraid of learning.  In fact, to my way of thinking, one of the
  biggest sins a person can commit is the sin of being afraid to learn,
  regardless of where that knowledge may take them.  To give up learning
  is to die a worse than physical death.