{"collection":"Bible & Christianity","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/bib/cv/wscs/index.htm","path":"bib/cv/wscs/index.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/bib/cv/wscs/index.htm","text":"This is one of the most controversial books about the Christian narrative\nof Jesus ever published.\nGraves tried to gather together all of what was known at the time about\nother similar stories of gods who walked the earth, preached ethical and\nmystical doctrines, and ended up as deicides.\nToday, folklorists have discovered a set of world-wide themes relating\na story of a culture-hero who has a miraculous birth and tragic death.\nThis is one of the archetypal stories which Jung and Campbell\ndiscussed.\nIt is now considered less shocking that incidents in religious\nnarrative could be drawn from the global bank of folklore motifs.\nThis does not lessen the impact, however,\non traditional believers in these narratives as the absolute truth.\nSo is the need for a deathless hero who saves humanity part of\nthe deep structure of our brain?\nIs religion simply filling a psychological need which is part of being\nhuman?\nThis book may be picked apart in its details;\nhowever, it was one of the first to explore this 'big' question, an answer to\nwhich is as pressing today as it was then.\nThe World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors raised a host of questions,\nfew of which have yet been adequately answered, over a century later.\nThere are serious flaws in this book.\nGraves was apparently not working from original sources, with the exception\nof the Bible; he seems to have relied on books such as\nHiggins' Anacalypsis, without necessarily citing them.\nHe muddles Vaishnava Hinduism and Buddhism, two belief\nsystems with fundamental differences.\nThat said, the traditional narratives of Krishna and Buddha do\ncontain motifs in common with the NT stories of Jesus.\nProduction notes. This text first appeared on the Internet\nat another site, in a slightly defective and added-emphasis version\nwith a disclaimer on each page.\nI have corrected the text to reflect the original book as closely as possible,\nas per this sites' standards.\nSome have criticized Graves for excessive typos\n(as if this was an intellectual failing on his part),\nand there are certainly a few in this book.\nHowever, I can state definitively after a\nmodern spell-check of the text that they are not particularly excessive\ncompared to any given book from this period.","title":"The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors Index","type":"page"}