Posted By admin on February 9, 2009

Ancient Christian Coptic

Christians, is this statement true?

Give me some details on your answer please.

At least three of the world’s major religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—can trace their roots and/or early dissemination to the land of the Nile. The religious dogmas and doctrines found in Egyptian religion can be traced to both later Judaism and later still Christianity; albeit often with "altered" interpretations as sifted through these later nations and their histories. These religions, especially the Coptic Church branch of Christianity, can even find parallels between many of their practices and rituals and the ancient religion of the pharaohs. Today, Egypt’s landscape is dotted with the churches, temples and mosques of these religions that stand alongside the temples of Isis, Osiris, Horus and other ancient Egyptian deities.

The Judeo/Christian faith believes that God has always been trying to reveal himself to all races and groups. Some of the Bible heroes, like Noah and Job, were non-Jews who did not live in the area of Egypt nor what have been influenced by there teachings.

Rather, God has been revealing himself to all of mankind as best he can. Since he does exist, and is trying to say the same thing to everyone, it is not surprising that there would be similarities between the various world religions. Especially those who were in close enough physically to interact and learn from each other. But that does not make "God" any less real than it makes "math" less real because different groups shared their concepts of it with each other.

It is like the old story of the blind men who each felt a different part of an elephant, and came away with different concepts of what an elephant was. Each had a piece, that if they all have been put together could have given them the full image of an elephant.

So within the Christian Bible, you have books by over 40 authors (and dozens of more sources) that cover a 1500 year period, from multiple cultures, three different continents, three different languages, and include the stories of hundreds of people who have an encounter with "the elephant" -- God. Yet together they form a single, unified picture of who God is, and how he interacts with man.

Just as there are still blind men debating the nature of an elephant based on a partial picture of what an elephant is - while the elephant itself stand inches away available for them to get a fuller understanding, so today there are still religions (from both before and after the time of Christ) that debate partial pictures of God within inches of where they could get the full revelation through Christ and his church.

Category: Antiques
Tags: coptic, gnosis, gnostic, history, religion