Search -
The verity of Christ's resurrection from the dead
The verity of Christ's resurrection from the dead Author:Thomas Cooper Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE WORN-OUT SUN THEORY. 19 FIVE THEORIES HAVE BEEN DEVISED TO ACCOUNT FOR THE EXISTENCE OF CHRISTIANITY, AND FOR THE STORY OF THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS, WITH... more »OUT GRANTING EITHER TO BE TRUE. i. "npHERE is the old Sun Theory : the theory - which would persuade us that no such person as Jesus of Nazareth ever existed : that he is only a personification of the Sun, like the Sun-gods of the old Hindoos, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks and other ancient nations. It is the old fable of Nature remodelled, this theory asserts. The fable which is so old that no one knows who devised it, or when it began to take possession of the rude minds of early men. The fable which is still mixed up with all religious beliefs, and will continue to be mixed up with them, even when the maturer human mind should disregard all fables. 20 SCURRILITY OF THE OLD DEISTS. The Sun sets and rises again; and so, allegori- cally, Christ is represented as dying and rising again from the dead. The divine child was born on Christmas-day, at mid-winter, during the shortest days : another personification of the Sun, which is born and re-commences his yearly course from the shortest days. I need say no more to you about the Sun Theory; for many of you have heard me expose its fallacy, again and again. And those among you who have never heard my lectures on the Historical Evidences of Christianity, can learn how I treat the worn-out Sun-theory, by reading my little book, entitled ' The Bridge of History over the Gulf of Time.' 2. I mention the theory of Woolston, Morgan, and other 'old English Freethinkers,' as they are usually called, with a sense of shame. They did not hesitate to pronounce Christ to be a wandering impostor—a vagabond pretender—who went about professing to heal diseases; and affirmed tha...« less