Do we have an unnecessary Hellenistic view of Christ?

[Mormon Red Death]

Originally Posted by Solon

It's a Roman novel about a young man who is turned into a donkey by a witch. He wanders around Greece getting into adventures, etc. At the end he regains his human form through the intervention of the Egyptian goddess Isis, and the story concludes with his initiation into her mystery cult.

So was he the precursor to Kane from Kung fu?

[BarbaraGordon]

Originally Posted by Solon

So, as I wax verbose, I would guess that the New Testament was "adjusted" in the third and fourth centuries to incorporate or eliminate 'correct' philosophy rather than popular religion.

Do we have any evidence that the docetists were involved in the creation/transmission of the Gospels?

My thought: If the character of Christ has been sanitized (to use Archaea's term) it was due to the work of the docetists. They would have been emphasizing the spiritual, rather than physical, nature of Christ.

This does, however beg the question: did docetism arise from Hellenistic thought? In trying to get some clues on that, I found this passage from the Catholic Encyclopedia, which is rather archaic in its wording, but addresses the origins of gnosticism. (For Wikipedists, there's also an article here.)

These passages refer to the theory that gnosticism is rooted heavily in Platonic thought.

Assuming that the theory is correct then, Platonic thought led to gnosticism and later docetism.

So if all that is accurate then yes, the aseptic version of Christ was inspired by Hellenic tradition.

What does this mean for our understanding of Christ? I have no idea.