YES

2006

CONTENT

Table of Contents 2

A Brief Historical Review of Attempts at a Mythological Explanation of Christianity 3

1. The question of the origin of Christianity ....................................... 6

1.1. Attempts at a Natural-Scientific Explanation of the Origin of Christianity 6

1.2. The Method of the Mythological School and Its Main Shortcomings 8

1.3. The Unity of the Human Spirit as One of the Explanations of the Similarity between Christianity and Pagan Religions 11

1.4. The Influence of Christianity on Pagan Religions 13

1.5. Paganism as a positive religious process. Fore-revelation. 16

2. The main differences between paganism and Christianity. …………..20

2.1. Naturalism of paganism and the supernaturalism of Christianity. The Question of the Elements of Naturalism in Christianity 20

2.1.1. The Naturalism of Paganism and the Supernaturalness of Christianity 20

2.1.2. Myth-making in Pagan Religions and the Historicity of the Religion of Revelation 23

2.1.3 The Ethical Character of Christianity and the Immorality of Pagan Religions 24

3. On the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ ................................................... 27

3.1. The Possibility of the Emergence of a "Myth" about Christ in Judaism and Paganism 27

3.2. Historical Evidence of Jesus Christ 29

3.3. The "Female Deity" in Pagan Religions and Attempts to Find One in Christianity 36

4. About God 38

4.1. Possibilities of Human Cognition .....................................38

4.2. The Orthodox Doctrine of God as Love and the Heterodox and Heterodox Ideas of God.......................................................................................38

4.3. God is Love.............................................................................39

4.4. The meaning of the concept of "God's punishment"....................................................... 41

4.5. The Orthodox teaching about God the Trinity and pagan triads (family, Hindu Trimurti, Hellenic Hecate, Neoplatonic ideas, etc)... 43

4.6. Logos-Christ and Pre-Christian Ideas about the Logos (in Ancient Greek Philosophy, the Stoics and Philo of Alexandria)..........................45