Group Leader: Paul Greenway
| Status: | Active, open to new members |
| When: | Monthly on Thursday mornings 10:00 am-12:00 pm 1st Thursday |
| Venue: | Carlisle |
Contact Information:
| Members: | Members Portal on Beacon |
| Non Members: | Please see Membership page |
Using works of historical enquiry, aided by some linguistic analysis, to look at contributions from the Mystery Religions, particularly the Egyptian variant and from northern India into early Christianity. Recent scholarship supports a view of strong cultural influence along the Silk Routes which rose to a peak between 200 BC approx. and 200 AD approx. The flow was two-way but possibly stronger from East to West.
Using sceptical enquiry not hagiography (biography of saints) it is hopeful that this study group will offer adventure to the mind. We will try to use historical probability rather than belief to link speculative probing to an emerging groundwork of historical fact.
We will study a well researched work as a basic starting text: The Original Jesus: The Buddhist Sources of Christianity by Gruber and Kersten (Element Books 1995). Group members read a chapter of this book before each monthly meeting, which we then discuss as a group.