The Role of Religion in the Potterverse was Magical Latin

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 186163

> > Shelley:
> > I think she planned that Harry would need to sacrifice
> >> himself. No other religion, save Christianity, has some Savior dying and
> >> then raising from the dead.
> >
> > Magpie:
> > I don't think that story was very uncommon at the time Christianity 
> > started, actually. Saviors dying and then raising from the dead for 
> > humanity etc.--I think Christianty was one of many cults with that idea.
> 
> Shelley:
> Could you, for the sake of this argument (Harry Potter having a specifically 
> "Christian" theme, or just a general "religious" theme), point out, in your 
> words, which other cults have the idea of a Savior dying and then raising 
> from the dead? It is your premise then that only Christianity has survived 
> with that theme, that the other cults which had that theme have melted into 
> obscurity so that in today's time we would only recognize Christianity as 
> having a resurrected Savior? Becuase you really can prove that other 
> religions have a Savior-dead-risen from the dead theme, then you would be 
> adding weight to No.Limberger's argument that it's just a "religious" 
> framework and not a specifically "Christian" one.

Magpie:
I was just disagreeing with the idea that the idea was exclusive to Christianity throughout history since I think it's fiarly established that that many things about the Jesus story--including resurrection--were familiar before Christianity. Someone much more knowledgable than me might have corrections, but I think Osiris and Odin, for instance, died and were ressurrected. I think maybe Horus also?

But I also said that today that story is mostly associated with Christianity. And "resurrection" can mean different things in the context of different religions. Jesus doesn't ever seem to have been like a fertility symbol, for instance, associated with crops dying and coming back each other. I think Harry's "dying" and coming back are pretty clearly echoing the Jesus story rather than, say, that of a harvest lord.

-m