Jesus and Moses and Dionysus

This video here has a few good points.

Jesus vs. Dionysus
InspiringPhilosophy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq8fFw-oV3w

I am only contradicting some detail in the following:

Hans-Georg Lundahl

2:34 I would suggest, the greeting of Roman generals may owe sth to the greetings of Dionysus far earlier and shown on that Attic vase.

I would also suggest that Our Lord in calling Himself the vine was making a point related to wine. Otherwise he would have chosen another plant.

I would further suggest that another mythicist parallel, namely about Moses being a copy of Dionysus, was a very true parallel reversed : Dionysus is based on Moses.

Also, Hebrews were considered as Dionysus worshippers by Greco-Roman Pagans.

Note, I just came from the Krishna video, and there is some probability Dionysus - precisely as being the wine god - was considered as making wine of water even before the events in Cana : this would suggest to me, Dionysus, while in fact a pagan and as such false and unclean deity, was also being used as a preparation of certain pagans for the coming of Christ.

And, one more, there is no Pagan tradition I know which identifies Dionysus and Aesculapius. But Jesus fulfilled the miracles of both, by historic and well documented ones. This means, Jesus has too many parallels in myth to be borrowed from one of them.

InspiringPhilosophy

Why don't you read John 15 and tell me where the subject of "wine" is talked about.

There is literally no evidence Dionysus is based on Moses. Justin Martyr implied it but had no real evidence and scholars disagree with his assessment. Hebrews were never considered as Dionysus worshippers... What primary source says this?

What source shows Dionysus turned water into wine?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The subject of wine is as such not talked about in John 15.

But the choice of the plant vine (vitis vini) implies something about his attitude to wine, as does of course the miracle in Cana.

"There is literally no evidence Dionysus is based on Moses."

Any speculation about a character being based on another one is speculation.

No what one can call hard evidence, no primary source actually stating things like "hey Grigs, this Moses sounds cool, but how about us changing him a bit ... would a god of wine be acceptable?"

There is circumstantial evidence.

Pentheus opposing Dionysus, precisely about letting Maenads celebrate parallels Pharao opposing Moses on what Pagans with Calvinistic Work Ethic could have considered about an equally irresponsible proposal.

Pentheus' daughter becoming a Maenad is parallel to another, earlier, Pharao's daughter taking Moses from the reeds.

Pentheus' daughter sacrificing her own son (in "divinely" imposed madness) is parallel on the divinely imposed slaughter of the firstborn of Egypt.

If this part had not been part and parcel of a story about sn known to have been a god to his worshippers (a false god, obviously), it could easily have been the story of a demon : and of the kind of demon Egyptian pagans would have equated Moses with.

If Hyksos taking Egypt came in after Exodus, if they were Amalekites, it is possible that the Pharaos who chased them were trying to get the "divine favours" of Moses, which means one could no longer treat him as a demon menace to Egypt. This could be the point at which demonisation of Moses turns into worship.

One pagan author considers Dionysus was Egyptian, and was originally called Mises (confer Moyses, Moishe).

After that, you have looser parallels. Death threat to Moses in his child parallels death threat to Dionysus as a child. Dionysus taken by pirates is more like what happened to Joseph.

If I am correct in Joseph being Imhotep, Rohl's identification for Joseph would have been one taking on Joseph's given Vizeer name, and Moses could have done that in his time at Egyptian court.

Egyptians had very little continuous narrative historiography, except the kinglists, and therefore a confusion between Joseph and Moses could have easily contributed to these traits of Dionysus.

Finally, Greco-Roman pagans were sticklers about finding equivalents among their own gods to who this or that Barbarian people were worshipping. Jews got ... Bacchus. Yes, in a way it could have been a way of preparing reapplications of the Senatusconsultum de Bacchanalibus "sei quis velitod Bacchanal habuisse" and so on. Which law or decree (one could say : senatorial administrative order, since senate were not a legislative body in Roman constitution, on their own) was part of the "legal" ground for persecuting Christians, at least early on.

I think this is prima facie some evidence Dionysus could be based on Moses with some admixture of Joseph, precisely as Deucalion and Pyrrha are based, mainly on Noah, but some admixture of Abraham and Sarah and of Lot and his daughters. And even easier than his not being so based.

"What source shows Dionysus turned water into wine?"

According to your video, the source we have in writing is one posterior to Christ.

This could be an indication Pagans never thought of Dionysus turning water into wine, before hearing Christians tell Christ did so.

But it could also be that the Pagan writer was reusing an older, oral, material about Dionysus, or from a lost writing, which had become more relevent in face of the Gospel.

If you are right that Dionysus never did this in Pagan imagination until Christ did so in reality, it was at least foreseeable which Pagan deity that act would be attributed to - in isolation, considering others would be closer to Aesculapius (god of healing).

InspiringPhilosophy

"But the choice of the plant vine (vitis vini) implies something about his attitude to wine,"
- Conjecture. There are plants that have vines that are not used to make wine. You are reading into the passage. He doesn't even bring up wine.

"Any speculation about a character being based on another one is speculation."
- I don't care what you speculate. I care about evidence to back up your speculations. If you don't have it your hypothesis is nothing more than an opinion.

"If Hyksos taking Egypt came in after Exodus, if they were Amalekites"
- It would have happened long before the Exodus in 1446 BC. And most Egyptologists now regard the Hyksos invasion as a gradual migration, not an invading army. Due to famine (like what happened to Joseph's family) many Canaanites migrated to Egypt. Over several decades their numbers grew and they just took over northern Egypt. When the Thebans kicked them out they enslaved the remaining Canaanites (Israel), lest they take up arms against them, as Exodus 1 says. Moses was no worshiped in Egypt, especially before the new kingdom. His name is a Semitic version of an Egyptian New kingdom name, anyway.

If all you have is speculation and no evidence, I am really not interested.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"There are plants that have vines that are not used to make wine"

Only one vine is used in vineyards, which He brought up in other passages, and you are playing on the English word "vine" regardless of fact that this extended usage was hardly the Classical one, either in Greek or on Hebrew.

I recall Greek has "ampelos" which means vine of the vitis vini.

"If you don't have it your hypothesis is nothing more than an opinion."

We have parallels to argue one is based on the other.

We have as Christians the Bible as hard core evidence it was not Biblical characters who were based on Dionysus.

And your caring is your opinion.

"It would have happened long before the Exodus in 1446 BC."

Sorry again, but Exodus was in 1510.

Also, Hyksos invasion (by implication from main Kyksos city) carbon dated to 1600 BC would mean a misdating of only 100 years - meaning that carbon levels were approaching those we have today.

If you feel inclined to deny that there was a rise in carbon levels, I suggest you try to explain why Abraham in Genesis 13 and 14 matches a Proto-Dynastic Egypt and an Elam, and Chalcolithic in En Gedi carbon dated to 1400 before he lived.

"Moses was no worshiped in Egypt, especially before the new kingdom."

Perhaps not according to Egyptologists, but we have the Greek myth investigators who considered Dionysus as Egyptian and originally named Mises.

We also have two Pharaos in the post-Hyksos era called names with Moses in it.

Also, you can hardly expect Pagans to worship a Biblical character straight off as He [or in the case of Moses, he, lower case h] is. New Agers may worship "Jesus Christ Superstar" of a certain musical, but they don't worship the Christ of the Bible.



Update

Monday

"There are plants that have vines that are not used to make wine."

Like passiflora edulis? Not known in Old World previous to Columbus.

Or like ivy? Poison ivy? Clematis?

I think there was some reference in John 15 to bearing fruit [confer verse 2]. Makes sense with vitis vini, and makes sense with passiflora edulis. Does not make sense with ivy, and passiflora edulis was not the issue in 1st C Holy Land.