Parallels Between Life Narratives of Jesus and Bel

This depiction from a marble plaque dating to the first years of the fourth century C.E. is featured on the cover of a biographical book about Jesus by John Dominic Crossan.

 
 
Author and metaphysical researcher J. Arthur Findlay  (1883-1964) devoted himself to informing the public about the reality of transcendental communication after he witnessed 'Direct Voice phenomena' on many occasions, explaining how the events were known by him to be unquestionably authentic although when he first heard about Spiritualism what he read "seemed too fantastic for serious thought."  Findlay (1, 2, 3, 4) offered his deductions concerning the Christian faith and history of religion for The Psychic Stream (1939).  This blog article presents some of Findlay's commentary about parallels observed between extant accounts concerning Jesus of Nazareth and Bel of Babylonia.  The featured passage is from Findlay's autobiography Looking Back (1955).  The author's personal orientation to religion is expressed in the Appendix as: "The study of Comparative Religion reveals all too clearly how wrong it is for any one religion to make [inspire] claims of a special revelation." 

The following passage is from Chapter VIII of Looking Back.
  

What we are told in the Gospels is not new.  This we discover when we examine the close relations of Christianity, those earlier religions whose beliefs brought the Christian faith into being, namely the eastern Saviour-God religions.  So I told in The Psychic Stream of the beliefs, from virgin birth to resurrection, surrounding the saviour-gods Bel of Babylonia, Osiris of Egypt, Prometheus of Greece, Mithra of Persia, and Krishna of India, all of which produced the Christian faith.  The beliefs draped round all these gods were similar to those which became Christianity.  One instance only shall I give —

The beliefs surrounding Bel were similar to those which came, at a later date, to surround Jesus.  This we know because there has been discovered, engraved on baked clay, the programme of the drama of the arrest, trial, death and resurrection of Bel which was in use at the time when Bel was worshipped in Babylon.  Consequently it was in existence when the Gospels were being compiled and we find, when we consider the compilation of the Gospels, how it was used as the basis for the Christian drama.

This clay tablet is accepted by Babylonian scholars as the programme used by the priests at the drama depicting the death scenes of the life of Bel, known to the Hebrews as Baal.  Its translation was made by Professor Zimmern in 1918 and published at Leipzig.  When I called to discuss it with the Curator of the Babylonian Section of the British Museum, he told me that the translation is accepted as "a list of parallel instances found both in the story of Bel and of the Christ.  Zimmern deduced the incidents of the story of Bel from ritual texts, which seem to describe a primitive kind of religious play."

The foregoing was written out for me by the Curator, when I was in his private room, and I have this beside me now as I write.  The tablet is believed to have been produced about two thousand years before the Christian era, and it was evidently used by the priest who acted as the announcer of the drama.  He would have the tablet before him, and, before each scene, would announce what was about to take place.

What follows is the translation of the tablet giving the programme of the Passion Drama enacted in memory of the sacrifice of the saviour-god Bel, the Christ of Babylonia, just as the Christian Passion Drama is enacted in our time at Oberammergau in Bavaria.  A similar drama was produced in ancient Egypt, the saviour god there being Osiris.  Here follows the Babylonian passion drama, and the corresponding incidents in the Christian drama:—

 Babylonian Drama.          Christian Drama.

 
Bel is taken prisoner.            Jesus is taken prisoner.
 
Bel is tried in the Hall of      Jesus is tried in the Hall
Justice.                                     of Pilate.
 
Bel is smitten.                         Jesus is scourged.
 
Bel is led away to the             Jesus is led away to
Mount.                                      Golgotha.
 
With Bel are taken two         With Jesus two malefac-
malefactors, one of                tors are led away; an-
whom is released.                  other, Barabbas, is
                                                   released.
 
After Bel has gone to the      At the death of Jesus the
Mount the city breaks           veil of the Temple is
out into tumult.                      rent: from the graves
                                                   come forth the dead,
                                                   and enter the city.
 
Bel's clothes are carried       Jesus's robe is divided
away.                                        among the soldiers.
 
Bel goes down into the         Jesus goes down from
Mount and disappears         the grave into the
from life.                                 realm of the dead.
 
A weeping woman seeks     Mary Magdelene comes
him at the gate of                 weeping to the tomb
burial.                                     to seek Jesus.
 
Bel is brought back to         Jesus rises from the
life.                                          grave alive.

The translation of this tablet is ignored by Christians for obvious reasons, but whoever reads what I have to say about it in The Psychic Stream will agree with me that the man of sorrows referred to in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah was probably Bel, or one of the other pre-Christian saviour gods, and it was not a prophecy about Jesus as all Christians believe.  Likewise it is probable that Bel was the living Redeemer, to whom Job refers and, moreover, we can now understand more about the suffering, dying victim, about whom Plato writes, when he pictured the "just man" who was crucified at the hands of his enemies.

So I compared each outstanding incident recorded in the Gospels with their counterparts in these older religions, and thus reached the conclusion that the only difference between them and Christianity is a new name for its god, which change of name was just history repeating itself.  The names of the gods changed, but the legends, myths and beliefs were passed on from one religion to another.

Thus the psychic stream flowed on under different names, but it is wrong to think that the moral teaching of Christianity is higher than in those earlier religions.

 
Something not articulated here by Findlay is how omnipresent 'God' may manifest in unusual ways around an individual with the potential of expanding the metaphysical understanding of others.  

Arthur Findlay's Where Two Worlds Meet (1951) is described on the title page as "The Verbatim Record of a Series of Nineteen Séances with John Campbell Sloan, the famous Glasgow Direct Voice Medium."  The following transcript excerpt is from a 1944 Direct Voice mediumship session when an unidentified male voice was heard to speak about spiritual progress in "the celestial spheres on the spirit side of life."  This inspired a seance participant to ask about Jesus.

 

[A man’s voice] " . . . Progress all the time, until, in God's good time, you reach the fulfillment of a purified soul, that can work in harmony with the Great Spirit of All Life.  Progress will go on until the full theme and completion of the Master's Will is accomplished, and you are able to mix with those Shining Ones, in a glorified condition, whom you hope to join some day."

Mr. Cameron asked: "Are you referring to Jesus?," and received the reply:

"Oh, he is the Great Master, you know.  The influence of Jesus, we know, is embodied in many who are working on the spirit side of life.  Not many, as you know, were called 'Jesus of Nazareth,' but there were many Christs, and there will be many more Christs while many worlds exist.  There is a stage when some of us can know no further.  There is a world inside another world, but we have not progressed to that knowledge, nor will we, until we have advanced to a stage much above our present knowledge."

Mr. Cameron asked: "Have you any further knowledge of God than we have?"

The voice said:

"The Kingdom of God, that inner consciousness which emanates from the spirit of the Great Eternal, is within you, and it is in all of you to raise it to an understanding which will help you and help others.  God bless you, keep you, and help you to understand.  I must go now, but I will come again.  I have to go away just from your immediate surroundings, but I shall deem it a favour to come some other time to greet you all again.  Your earthly experiences are just a stage in your spiritual progress."

 
Many examples of transcendental communication concerning Jesus are found throughout books offering testimonials and transcripts chronicling this phenomena.  One example is Flashes of Light from the Spirit-Land through the Mediumship of Mrs. J. H. Conant (1872).  A July 6, 1869  transcript of 'controlling spirit' 'Cardinal Cheverus'—one of the numerous communicators chronicled to speak through the trance medium—is quoted in response to the specified question.  Other communicators with observations about Jesus quoted in the book are: 'William E. Channing,' 'Father Henry Fitz James,' 'Bishop Fitzpatrick,' 'Joseph Lowenthall' and 'Theodore Parker.'  (article)
 

Q. We find recorded in heathen mythology the history of a prophet almost identical in name and acts with Jesus — his name Chrishna, or Chrisma — and the circumstance of women wiping his feet with their hair is such a remarkable coincidence, that while it shakes the faith of the Christian, it furnishes strong proof to the sceptic of the mythical character of Christ.  Can you give us light on the subject?
 
A. Every nation has its idols — its gods and goddesses — peculiar shrines whereunto the people are called to worship.  Neither Chrishna, nor Christ, were entirely beings of mythology, but so far as a certain portion of their lives are concerned, there is much of the mythic attached to them, and this is the case with all those beings that the nations worship.  The aborigines of the country have their divinities, whose original is in real life, but that original is surrounded with so many mythical figures that the real is almost entirely lost to the human sight.  While contemplating the mythic Christ, we are very apt to overlook the real personality, the spirit.  We are very apt to see only the external paraphernalia that the real has been surrounded with.  It is not at all strange.  It is in accordance with our organization as human beings.  We are growing up through a variety of conditions that determine for us, whether we will or no.  These conditions determine concerning our religious worship, concerning our God even.  It is these conditions that form the image of our God, and determine that we shall worship that God, and none other.  And as intelligence marches on through the ages, as mind becomes more and more enlightened with regard to the history of past nations, and past religious histories, those images that have been invested with divinity begin to assume different shapes, begin to stand out in their real characters, begin to be seen for what they are.  We understand them better as the light is shed upon them — the divine light, that which emanates from the past, which comes to us from the present, and that which is shed to us from the future.  All things conspire to aid the spirit in its search for truth, all kinds of truth.  The knowledge that such an individual as Chrishna lived, does not at all detract from the reality or divinity of the Christian's Christ.  But it only shows, or should show, the Christian that one of the fundamentals of the Christian Church has been borrowed from ancient mythology.  The Christ may be himself pure and intact.  The truth is there, but the clothing has been borrowed.  The rite of baptism is a borrowed rite.  In fact, all the rites of the Christian Church, every one of them, are borrowed — some from Chrishna, some from Vishnu.  In fact, all the gods that preceded the Christian God have loaned of their wardrobe, and the Christians have appropriated it that their Christ may be clothed.  The present age offers great light, and whosoever refuses lo see by it, and learn of it, will refuse to eat that bread which cometh down from heaven, which will nourish the soul for eternity.