After the ‘Pop Quitz’ yesterday, let’s progress to more serious gambling: Buzzword Bingo.

How can you convincingly claim that someone is a god? Well, it seems that a couple of thousand years ago, humanity was rather unimaginative. People devised a formula, a list of buzzwords if you want, and to be a god you had to check off a laundry list of things that are impossible for humans. In a case of classic irony, the Greek even hung a lantern on this when they told the story of Herakles (Hercules) and the 12 deeds he had to accomplish to become a god.

Bingo! for Jesus and Horus. Image by CF

So what were the classic ingredients to ‘prove’ that you talked a bout a god? The laundry list traditionally contained the following items:

• Born of a virgin 
• Performed Miracles (of course) 
• Raised the dead 
• Was the son of a God 
• Had disciples 
• His birth was foretold
• Fought or wrestled with demons
• was supernaturally wise at young age
• Was brutally killed and subsequently resurrected

Sound familiar? It should. After all, the following gods worshipped well before 400 BC score more than 80% on that list: Horus, Dionysus, Mithra, Zarathustra, and Krishna.

Oh, and so do the Jhonny-come-latelys, Jesus of Nazareth and Appolonius of Tyana.