Please do not insult me, and tell me I need to accept Jesus into my heart, I am not telling you to accept Dionysus into yours... This is an educated debate. All I want are similarities between the two, leave all other BS at the door.
Renata
Favorite Answer
Dionysus was the god of wine - Jesus drank wine
Dionysus turned water into wine - Ditto Jesus
Dionysus was virgin-born (kinda) his Mom Semele was impregnated by Zeus, disguised as a lightening bolt - Jesus was virgin-born
In the ancient play, The Bacchae, by Euripides, Dionysus has long hair and a beard - Voila! In many many paintings of Jesus, he is portrayed as having a beard and long hair.
How're we going to have an "educated debate" when Spell Checker prompts me to change Bacchae to backache?
♣Jim♦
I must have spent 200 hours researching similarities between older religions and Christianity, and found a lot of unproven assertions, but NEVER an original document. By original document I mean the mahabarata, original greek mythology, original babylonian documents, etc.
Although, the epic of Gilgamesh from Babylon has the story of noah, the mahabarata has the story of a true virgin birth, zoroastrianism has the concept of Heaven and hell--That's all I ever found for real. Other than that, they were both God-men is the only similarity that I know of.
The first site I list says they are similar, but cites as a source a modern book, which I admittedly never bothered to look at. I want to see original documentation. This is the first of my sources. The second of my sources is the best free original documentation of this nature on the internet.
I also asked a question here on r&s if there were any original documents proving any similarities at all between Jesus and anyone. I didn't get any, I did get an answer that says such claims fall apart when you study them in a scholarly fashion, and this seems to be the case.
Anonymous
I am not aware of any similarities between the two. I have heard, however, of some claiming that Dionysus had a virgin birth (like that of Jesus), but if you look at the mythology that isn't true.
Khalil Ullah
"1. Dionysus was born of a virgin on December 25th and, as the Holy Child, was placed in a manger.
Actually, his birth was always celebrated on January 6th. Also, his mother, Semele, was impregnanted sexually by Zeus. He was never referred to as the "Holy Child" or placed in a manger in any version of the story.
2. His birth was announced with a heavenly display and celestial music.
I can find no reference to either, and there is no "celestial music" in the Jesus story.
3. He was a traveling teacher who performed miracles.
This is true. However, this phrase loses any similarities with Jesus when we deal with the specifics of what Dionysus did. Jesus traveled in a limited area, while Dionysus supposedly traveled to most of the known world (including Greece, Persia and Arabia). Jesus' miracles were healings and such - all positive miracles. Dionysus' miracles were judgments against those who defied him" (The above answer was quoted from http://kingdavid8.com/Copycat/JesusDionysus.html. Please go there for additional details).
?
Who is Dionysus? It's my first time to hear his name and why are you asking his similarities with Jesus? Jesus is the Son of God who knew no sin but died for our sins, including your sins. Through Him every thing was being made. He healed the sicks, resurrected the dead, etc. How about this Dionysus?
I will not tell you to accept Jesus as your personal Savior because I believe you are intelligent enough to understand why you are here on this earth which is part of God's creation through Jesus, His Son.
If you are grateful toward your parents who nurtured you from childhood and stayed in their house. Much more you shall be grateful to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, because He is part of the creation of the whole milky ways, galaxies, stars including the planet earth where the human beings inhabit including yourself.
Do you think the infrastructures, high-ways, low-ways, cars, ships planes, buildings, your parents house or yours and many others will come into existence without the manufacturers, designers, planners, builders, etc? So are the milky ways and galaxies, etc. which were designed and created intelligently to avoid collision with each other. Think about it my friend!