Persia and the Myths It Didn’t Mean to Create (Part 2) Christianity: The Messiah Myth Goes Mainstream
https://x.com/Farz_Zaad/status/1937067544642244704
Persia and the Myths It Didn’t Mean to Create (Part 2)
Christianity: The Messiah Myth Goes Mainstream
Fast-forward to the 1st century CE, and a Jewish carpenter named Jesus steps onto the stage.
His followers, steeped in post-Persian Jewish thought, saw him as the Messiah, the one to fulfill those apocalyptic dreams.
Early Christianity was collectivist, much like Cyrus’s Persia—shared meals, communal prayers, and a vision of God’s kingdom on earth. But as the faith spread to the grain-based, individualistic lands of the Roman Empire, it started to shift. Wheat fields, unlike rice paddies, reward solo effort, and Sapolsky would note this breeds “me” over “we.”
By the time Christianity hit Europe, personal salvation was stealing the spotlight.
The Persian myth of a final reckoning morphed, too. The Book of Revelation, with its dragons, horsemen, and cosmic showdown, reads like a Zoroastrian fanfic with a Christian twist.
Jesus would return, judge the living and dead, and usher in a new heaven and earth.
Yet, the collectivist heart of early Christianity—love thy neighbor, share thy bread—began to clash with the West’s growing obsession with the self.
By the Middle Ages, the Church was less about community and more about who’s getting into VIP heaven.
Then came the Reformation in the 16th century, when Protestants like Martin Luther turned faith into a DIY project.
No more priestly gatekeepers; it was you, your Bible, and your soul.
The communal wine of Jewish and early Christian rituals became a personal sacrament, sipped in solitude with God.
This individualism set the stage for a peculiar offshoot—one that Cyrus could never have predicted.
Written by Grok and Farz-zaad
posted by Satish Sharma at
04:14
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home