Well, it is a word-concept fallacy only if it is used assertively rather than a fortiori. That is, a fortiori one can exclude cases “just to be safe” without positively asserting they definitely should be excluded. So it depends on how you take him to mean this. If it’s “absolutely on no way was Asclepius a dying and rising God” then, it’s a fallacy. But if it’s, say, “Asclepius isn’t in the narrow subset of dying and rising gods I’m talking about, but may be in a broader set thereof,” then, no.

You are right that vocabulary cannot be determinative because that’s not how language works. Wittgenstein 101: you can say the same thing in endless different ways (not just with a variety of words, but with allusions and pleonasms); there are no dictionary nazis with a gun to every literate person’s head ensuring no one speaks parabolically or poetically or creatively about the same thing (though Plato wanted that to exist, it never did, nor ever has; even literal Nazis couldn’t pull that off, and not for want of trying).

So, yes, it would be folly to say that unless specific exact vocabulary is used, it’s not the same thing. But it would not be folly to say, “We can be sure it’s the same thing in that case, so I will stick to that subset, but only so as to avoid having to get into the weeds explaining why variant language can mean the same thing case after case.”

I would also question the selection of vocabulary. Those words are actually allusive; there are more literally descriptive words, like palingenesis, used in Matthew, and of Osiris by Plutarch, and other words literally meaning “return to life” and not just “stand up/wake up” which are poetic terms, metonyms rather than actual words for resurrection (like saying “ascended the throne” for “became king”). But this just reverts to the same point: narrowing the set to only certain words is problematic unless you are arguing a fortiori.

Good find. Thank you. I’ll add that to the Osiris section.

Um. Marvin. Psalms is Jewish. Christianity did not exist then. So even by your own argument afterlife beliefs predate Christianity. You just refuted yourself. But of course the evidence of afterlife beliefs the world over going back thousands of years is vast and thus insane to deny.

But your argument is also confused.

Psalm 16 means God will not let David die. It does not refer to life after death. Nor resurrection. Nor does it talk about someone else (much less Jesus). It’s David singing about himself (or whoever the author is, writing lines for David as a literary character). It was much later reinterpreted as messianic, but only by ignoring every relevant historical fact about its original composition and its actual context and grammar.

And that Psalm is hyperbole. The author is not literally claiming they will never die. They are exaggerating the continuance with which God will keep rescuing them from death, unlike the pagans (v. 4). But they well know they’ll die of old age eventually.

You are also mistranslating it (by relying on distorted translations of biased Christians, rather than of Jews in whose language and tradition it was written).

The rest is just a delusion.

Hello, the statement made by Dr Carrier that Christianity was not the first to believe in life after death is NOT TRUE. It is Dr Carrier’s lack of understanding of the Bible that gets him in trouble. Ps 16:10-11, written by King David 3000 years ago tells of Christ’s resurrection. He was not left in Hell. His body did not see corruption speaks of Jesus in the grave for three days. Corruption of the body happens in four days. It was the message that Peter preached on the day of Pentecost where thousands were saved. Only Jesus can save you…none of those fake gods have any power.

Aurel, I am not syre that’s what Steven was asking about. And that isn’t any source I have ever used even for this topic.

Steven never answered. But if he was asking about sources for dying and rising gods, they are already listed in the article here. More are listed now in my list of controversial subjects now mainstream.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/dying-and-rising-gods

The earliest dying and rising god we know of is Inanna and possibly Tammuz (dates back almost 4000 years). Other early ones are Baal, Osiris, Adonis, and Zalmoxis, and possibly Dionysus (dating back around 3000 years). At that time these were not savior deities.

Savior cults start to build around these (and some other) gods sometime between the Trojan War and the rise of Athenian Democracy (c. 1000 to 400 BC). We do not know exactly when as records are not well preserved. But the earliest confirmed version is Dionysus.

Within a century of Alexander the Great’s conquests (probably by no later than 200 or 100 BC), savior cults had arisen around all the others just listed. They were a global fad by the time Christianity began. In fact, Christianity was late to the party: it was the last dying-and-rising savior cult developed. The others each merged Greek with local religion (e.g. Osiris is Egyptian, Adonis Syrian, etc.); Christianity was at long last the Jewish version.

As for the “purpose” that depends on what you mean. The trajectory was that early dying-and-rising cults reflected the salvation of the community as a whole through agricultural renewal. So their “purpose” was to keep crops returning each year through emulation and worship of a god capable of ensuring restoration of life (Spring) from death (Winter).

The earliest savior cult we know (there may be earlier ones or others as early, but we can’t check for lack of records) converted one of these gods (Dionysus) into a personal savior using the same logic (if the god’s death and resurrection can restore a planet to life, surely it can restore a person to life), under the influence of Greek ideas of citizenship ensuring salvation.

So the concept grew with cosmopolitanism: since one could gain citizenship in multiple places, one could also gain salvation multiple places, and the “mystery cults” bloomed everywhere the Greek model gained purchase (Alexander the Great spread a lot of this; but the cults were evangelical, and thus were already spreading to Italy and the Baltics on their own). Their “purpose” then was to assure members of a place in paradise after death, while also selling them on a basic package of brotherhood and social morals, and sometimes charity (e.g. these could become associated with burial insurance clubs).

Who started the dying resurrecting savior and what is the purpose?