Jesus Christ/Relationship to Quetzalcoatl

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Criticism

• Critic claim that LDS scholars believe that Quetzalcoatl was Jesus Christ. However, Quetzalcoatl's association with a "feathered serpent" constitutes "snake worship," and is therefore inconsistent with worship of Jesus Christ.

Source(s) of the criticism

• Richard Abanes, Becoming Gods: A Closer Look at 21st-Century Mormonism (Harvest House Publishers: 2005). 77 369 n.150-153. ( Index of claims )

Response

Critic Richard Abanes claims that "what LDS apologists tend to not mention are a few additional aspects of Quetzalcoatl, none of which seem very consistent with Jesus Christ."

Snake worship associated with Jesus Christ?

Critics claim that since Quetzalcoatl is associated with a "feathered serpent," that this constitutes "snake worship," and therefore could not related to Jesus Christ. In order to examine this claim, one has to look no further than the Bible:

Numbers 21꞉6-9

6 And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.

7 Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.

8 And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.

9 And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.

This incident foreshadowed the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and how one had to look to Him in order to be saved. Note that the people were not commanded to worship the serpent, but rather to simply look at it. Amazingly enough, many did not even have the faith to look upon the serpent and live.

There is no doubt that Mesoamericans worshipped the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl, and one could certainly agree that "snake worship" has nothing to do with Jesus Christ. What must be kept in mind is that this represents traditions of a people that apostatized from the teachings of Jesus Christ over a period of many hundreds of years. The real question is where and how the legend of Quetzalcoatl originated.

Endnotes

None

Further reading

FAIR web site

• FairMormon Topical Guide: Queztlcoatl FairMormon link
  

External links

• Joseph Allen, "The White god Quetzalcoatl," Meridian Magazine, 2003.

1. REDIRECT Template:Hunt:Moses Brazen Serpent As It Relates To Serpent:JBMS:1993

• Jeff Lindsay, Overlooking the Obvious? Legends of Quetzalcoatl and Ties to the Book of Mormon
• John L. Sorenson, "The Decline of the God Quetzalcoatl" from Pressing Forward with the Book of Mormon, pp. 234-236
• Diane E. Wirth, "'Quetzalcoatl, the Maya Maize God, and Jesus Christ'," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 11/1 (2002). [4–15] link

Printed material

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