tovarij

Sometimes I see things online claiming that Mithras, an Egyptian deity, and possibly others are very similar to Jesus to the extent of being born of a virgin and being born on the 25th of December.

Those arguments sound pretty ridiculous to me, and I've heard that there are no ancient sources to support them.

But to what extent are pagan deities similar? Were any historical human beings allegedly divine? Did they perform miracles? Did people form a cult around them?

The reason I am asking is trying to understand why people would write the gospels, why Paul would have written his letters. If similar things have been written about other alleged historical human beings, it would be a good argument that nothing divine has to happen for such beliefs to arise.

Chris Weimer

Augustus, as were many kings, especially pharoahs, before him, was thought to be divine. There were attributions of miracles, and there was a cult for their following.

gstafleu

Yes, there is a whole stack of them. Freke and Gandy wrote a book about it (The Jesus Mysteries). Robert Price, in Deconstructing Jesus, dedicates part of the chapter The Christ Cults to it and mentions a "truckload of comparative religion parallels to the miraculous birth of Jesus" (p89).

ApostateAbe

Until you see the evidence, don't believe it. And pay attention to the critics. There is a lot of bullshit floating around. I think it started with Kersey Graves' Sixteen Crucified Saviors, and the bullshit ballooned from there. Graves made up some of those saviors. The people who hate Christianity want to believe it.

sodium

My take on it is that there certainly were pagan deities and god-descendant heroes with similarities to Jesus of the gospels. Often this is exaggerated, though, and you get those unreferenced lists where practically everything is a parallel. But even the early Christians thought there were similarities, and interpreted this as Satan's work in having created counterfeit precedence for Jesus.

More recent apologists tend to argue that pagan similarities are due to pagans copying Christian ideas, and not vice verse. Generally these arguments seem like a stretch, but in arguing against Christians it's no good to try to argue the balance of probabilities, since nothing but the most obvious proof is even going to give a committed believer a moments concern. So, in general, these kind of pagan precedence arguments are of historical interest, but not useful for the kind of counter-apologetic purposes that a lot of people want to put them to.

Some of the New Testament seems explainable in terms of trying to show that Jesus is a worthy replacement for pagan gods. Worried you won't be able to make wine if you stop worshiping Dionysus? Jesus can make wine too. Worried that only Neptune can calm a raging ocean? Jesus can do that too. Worried your crops will fail? Jesus is a great provider, multiplying loaves and fishes. In fact, if, lets say, a fig tree doesn't serve Jesus, he will cause it to wither and die, and Demeter has no say in the matter. I don't think any of this is strictly copying paganism, it's more asserting the theological superiority of savior-based monotheism over polytheism.

A lot of strange biographical elements of the Jesus story are somewhat close to pagan precedence. But the closest precedence is usually in the Old Testament, and in fact, the NT writers will often tell you this is the connection they see. Of course Christians take the view that Jesus fulfilled various oblique OT prophecies, but it's also possible that a lot of the time, the Jesus biography was molded in order to fit with various OT passages.

In reference to the "virgin" and "Dec 25": Certainly in the case of Zeus and Danae, where Zeus impregnates Danae in the form of a shower of gold, it seems like no actual sex has taken place. This may have given inspiration to Christians, although the Christian interpretation of Isaiah 7:14 as implying a virgin birth is probably the main cause of this part of the story. The Dec 25 date for Jesus' birth is not found in the Bible. It may or may not have been added later under pagan influence. It certainly isn't a case where a pagan god has simply been renamed and kept the same birth date. If that were the case, the earliest Christians would have known what that birth date was.

Donnmathan

The whole death-rebirth cycle is very common...usually, the participants are all deities, but not always. Check Celtic (Lugh), Egyptian (Osiris/Isis), and even a few Mesoamerican (Xipe-Totec, in the abstract). On the other end of the stick (aka, the Sacrifice archetype), how about Prometheus? Or Quetzalcoatl? Or how about this quote, out of India?Please note, most of these existed BEFORE 33 "AD", and the one I know didn't (the Mesoamerican) is from a culture with no Old World contacts prior to the myths being recorded. I could name dozens more, though they get more and more abstract - possibly because the "Jesus" character was altered to suit the desires of the religion founded around him. All of the above are unique in some ways, but their general story fits a pattern.

FatherMithras

Mithras was all over the place, NOT Egyptian though. There are similarities out there, and some are kind of freaky actually. MANY are embellished, however, many are not. Sources do exist on them, and looking for them can be a fun challenge.

Skeptical

It is a fact that there were legends that pre-date Christianity that have some parallels to the stories about Jesus. For example, Pythogoras was said to have survived death and Appollonius was said to have performed great miracles and to have "disappeared" at his death. There were many legends about many figures, some actual dieties, some not, that pre-dated Jesus. That doesn't necessarily mean that Christianity "copied" stories, it's just that common stories were told about people that were seen as being great figures.

By the way, you do realize that Dec 25th is not a biblical date, do you not? Dec 25th was chosen as the day to celebrate Jesus' birth because there was a pre-existing Pagan holiday on that day. You can do a goole on "Christmas origin" and find out about the other holiday traditions (decorating trees, giving of gifts, etc.) that pre-dated Christianity. Or just look at Christmas on Wikipedia.

Some of the supposed "copies" are exaggerations, no doubt. But there are stories that undoubtedly predate Jesus that are similar in nature. Some of the rituals of the Pagan mystery religions, such as the rituals of blood and taking common meals, also predate Christianity. There was a lot of non- Jewish religious activity that pre-dated Christianity.

I should note that one of the reasons that a lot of the rituals surrounding Christianity look similar to Pagan rituals is that the church went through a process of "syncretizing" the existing holidays and rituals to bring more Pagans into the fold so to speak. Of course, many of the rituals and "trimmings" of the Roman church are not strictly biblical, but that's another story. Modern Christianity is a synthesis of stories from the NT, Pagan mystery religions and Plato's philosophy ala Aquinas.

Pythagoras had these attributes, including the cult. Appollonius had some of them. Others could point to more I'm sure, but there is no "carbon copy" of Jesus if that is what you are asking.

Why would you think that something "divine" would have to happen for people to have religious beliefs that something "divine" has happened? All peoples in all cultures in the history of the world have held an amazing variety of relgious beliefs and told stories about them. I would imagine that you would not try to explain why the Mayans committed human sacrifice or why ascetics in India choose to live with rats by asking "how could they believe this without something divine happening?"

Humans seem pre-disposed to religiosity of varying degrees, although certainly some are not pre-disposed to it. Saying any particular set of beliefs must be explained by an appeal to some sort of "divine" experience while others do not is nothing more than a cultural bias. I know that may be hard to accept if you have been brought up in a Christian background.

As a simple example, Mormonism is one of the fastest growing religions in the world, yet it started recently enough for us to have records that Joseph Smith was a known charlatan and the story of how the book of Mormon came to be written is comical. Yet, millions follow the religion. And don't get me started on Scientology which has only been around 40-50 years.

Maybe Paul wrote his letters because he truly believed he had had a relgious experience. Maybe he wanted power over the Jesus movement. Maybe he was a charlatan and a fraud. Who knows. Even assuming entirely genuine motives there is no reason to attribute divinity as the source of his letters or any of the gospels. Humans write stories to make sense of the world and our place in it, that's what we do. It's the most common thing in the world. If it hadn't been Paul and whoever wrote the gospels, it would have been someone else writing about other figures.

It's only a mystery if you assume that divinity or fraud are the only explanations. This false dichotomy is continually thrown about by Christian apologists, but the simple fact is that humans write stories about religion and religious experiences. Always have, always will.

I highly recommend taking a look at "The Power Of Myth" by Joseph Campbell.

Loomis

Don’t overlook the possibility that ‘the god-man’ came from within.

There is a character in the OT named Melchizedek who deserves attention. It looks like ‘the Jesus myth’ barrows a lot from ‘the Melchizedek myth.’

Google Melchizedek.

Also, sometimes it seems like the Jesus character is a remix of/ rewrite of/ sequel to, the Moses character.

Keep in mind that people of Jewish faith will not be eager to agree with this. They would rather point the finger at Mithra or Dionysus.

So the next time someone tells you, “Jesus is a remix of Dionysus” the first question to ask them is:

Loomis

Maybe you are forgetting the effect that time might have had on these stories.

Who would the arguer be arguing with?

What if they were written as fiction and everyone knew it?

Arguer: "Jesus is fiction!"

Author: "No shit. God men are a dime a dozen. Get over it. It’s only 50 BCE!"

Only after time did the other stories fall by the wayside and the Jesus stories become accepted as history.