It has been remarked several times in answering arguments in the "did Jesus exist?" debate, that the story of his life is patterned after the dying rising savior gods of pagan mythology. And in fact that forms a basic background to Dhortey's work.

But that whole case is bascially made up. Most of the evidence for it comes out of books specifically written to attack Christianity and to make the case for the Christ mythers. If you read just real old fashioned mythology, form scholars who are not involved in Biblical work, classicists and mythogrophers, you see that hardly any of the suppossed "dying rising savior gods" actually conform to the pattern.

Below I use many of these kinds of sources. They are not all classicists, some are liberal Bible scholars, some are Evangelical, but many are classacists, not Christians and are just doing mythography.

1) Calling them all "saviors" distorts the evidence

None of them are saviors in the manner of Jesus Christ They are all heroes, so they all saved people in some sense. Some of them did offer eternal life to their followers so we can look at that latter. But none of them are saviors in the sense of dying for the sins of the world.
  2) "Presumably lived..." is a big distortion, no proof that they did live.

A few of them may have been based on actual people. In fact the Greek Herakles (Hercules) was probably two people fussed together into myth from two different times in history (Charles Seltman, the Twelve Olympians, Thomas Y. Corwell company: 1962, p.175-177. But there is nowhere near the kind of documentation for this that there is for Jesus. We have no writings of anyone who claimed to have known Herakles, we have no writings that even approximate eyewitness testimony, we have no proof that he existed at all. No body of his teachings, not even one saying by him has come down to us through history. Everything about him is totally speculative or mythological. And this is also true for every single figure mentioned; it is probable that Mithra was a real figure, or based upon a real figure but we have no way of knowing. Osiris was pure mythology and we have no idea who he might be based upon, it may be a good guess that Krishna was a real figure at one time, but we know nothing about any of these characters that is not purely mythological.
 
  3) "They were born of Virgins" actually none of them were. This is a tricky one. Some of these figures were not even claimed to have been produced by Virgins. Others, it depends. That is, none of them were produced without the benefit of sexual contact. For some, such as Herakles that contact came between the mother and god, the mother may never have "known" a mortal man, and so in a technical sense is a 'virgin' but she not conceived without benefit of sexual contact. Jesus Christ was so conceived. The notion of the "Virginal conception" does not say that God was Mary's lover, Mary did not have sex with God, when the Holy Spirit "came upon her" it was more like artificial insemination, not sexual contact. And none of these "saviors" were touted as products of "virginal conceptions" as part of their theological doctrine. In Raymond E. Brown's highly respected work on the Birth Narratives of Jesus, he evaluates these non-Christian "examples" of virgin births and his conclusions are as follows:
 
 
"Among the parallels offered for the virginal conception of Jesus have beneath conceptions of figures in world religions (the Buddha, Krishna, and those of Zoroaster), in Greco-Roman mythology (Presses, Romulus), in Egyptian and Classical History (the Pharaohs, Alexander, Augusts), and among famous philosophers or religious thinkers (Plato, Apologias of Tyana), to name only a few. "Are any of these divinely engendered births really parallel to the non-sexual virginal conception of Jesus described in the NT, where Mary is not impregnated by a male deity or element, but the child is begotten through the creative power of the Holy Spirit? These "parallels"consistently involve a type of hieros gamos (note: "holy seed" or "divinesemen") where a divine male, in human or other form, impregnates a woman,either through normal sexual intercourse or through some substitute form of penetration. In short, there is no clear example of virginal conception in world or pagan religions that plausibly could have given first-century Jewish Christians the idea of the virginal conception of Jesus."[The Birth of the Messiah, by Raymond E. Brown, Doubleday: 1993: 522-523]
 
 

From a much less sympathetic perspective, the history-of-religions scholar David Adams Lemming (writing in EOR, s.v. "Virgin Birth") begins his articleby pointing out that all 'virgin births' are NOT necessarily such:
 
 
"A virgin is someone who has not experienced sexual intercourse, and a virgin birth, or parthenogenesis (Gr., parthenos, "virgin"; genesis,"birth"), is one in which a virgin gives birth. According to this definition, the story of the birth of Jesus is a virgin birth story whereas the birth of the Buddha and of Orphic Dionysos are not. Technically what isat issue is the loss or the preservation of virginity during the process of conception. The Virgin Mary was simply "found with child of the Holy Ghost "before she was married and before she had "known" a man. So, too, did the preexistent Buddha enter the womb of his mother, but since she was already a married woman, there is no reason to suppose she was a virgin at the time. In the Orphic story of Dionysos, Zeus came to Persephone in the form of aserpent and impregnated her, so that the maiden's virginity was technically lost."
 
 
4) "They worked miracles" As mythical figures they did "amazing thing" but none went about healing the sick.


None of the figures that Till mentions above were miracle workers in the sense of Jesus. They did not Rome the country healing people or praying over fish and loaves in order to supernaturally expand one meal into a repast for several thousand people. Mythological events follow them, thus when Mithras kills the Bull wheat springs from its tale. But of course, it is mythology. They were not flesh and blood people whom eye witnesses saw heal the sick. That did not happen in the case of any of these figures.

5) "They died, most of them through crucifixion" This is an outright lie, no credible source shows any of these being crucified.

None of the figures that he names died through crucifixion. Some of them became associated with the cross through pagan borrowing after the time of Christ, but in the pure mythical content of their stories none of them were crucified.

6) "They were Resurrected from the dead" this claim is true of some but not all, and even of those not in the manner of Christ.

None of them were seen by real flesh and blood eye witnesses after their deaths. In stories of Dionysos he does come back to life, but only in a mythology and only in relation to dying rising of nature cycles. see below. And not all of them came back to life.
 
 
 D. Note on Dec. 25 as Birth of "Saviors"


I can find no record of any mention of the date of birth of any of these figures. More importantly, even though Achyra S and Kane both say that every one of these figures was born on Dec.25, it never says that in the Gospels! Therefore, even if it were true, it would contribute nothing to the "Jesus Story" because we know that the celebration of his birth on Dec. 25 came at least three centuries after the Gospels were written. Christmas probably was laid over a Pagan holiday to give former Pagans a change to celebrate something on their old fest day.
 
 
II. Direct Examination of "Saviors" Proves Similarities Nonexistent.
 
Most of the alleged similarities between the Jesus story and pagan dying-rising gods are blown out of proportion for skeptical polemic. The far more sophisticated arguments are made by people such as Kirsop Lake (the 19th century Christian liberal theologian). They consist of little details, minute similarities in wording and phraseology, such as has been dealt with above. But many Internet skeptics are not subtle, they go for the big victory and the cheap analysis. It has been claimed by many of these skeptics (Ferall Till for one) that a host of gods from pagan myth were sons of god, born of virgins, and sacrificed as atonement and rose from the dead. In addition there are some small claims in the telling of the story, such as Christ being laid in a manger, which was supposedly done with Dionysos as well. These claims are, in the main, quite false. Let's examine them.
 
 
Moreover any sort of identities for these figures would be impossible to track, because they are always changing identities; the family members change from story to story, parents and children and their relationships change form store to store, and the gods mereg; Osiris is linked to Dionysos and so on (Marvin M. Meyer, (editor) The Ancient Mysteries : A Source Book , San Francisco: Harper, 1987, pp.170-171).
 
 
Kane says:
the time of Jesus of Nazareth, as for centuries before, the Mediterranean world roiled with a happy diversity of creeds and rituals. Details varied according to location and culture, but the general outlines of these faiths were astonishingly similar. Roughly speaking the ancients' gods:
 
 
1. Were born on or very near our Christmas Day
2. Were born of a Virgin-Mother
3. Were born in a Cave or Underground Chamber.
4. Led a life of toil for Mankind.
5. Were called by the names of Light-bringer, Healer, Mediator, Savior, Deliverer.
6. Were however vanquished by the Powers of Darkness.
7. And descended into Hell or the Underworld.
8. Rose again from the dead, and became the pioneers of mankind to the Heavenly world.
9. Founded Communions of Saints, and Churches into which disciples were received by Baptism.
10. Were commemorated by Eucharistic meals.
 
 
I wont go into every one of these "similarities," but will examine the major ones: Virgin birth (Virginal conception) Crucifixion, Resurrection, and for some special similarities. But don't forget, Till says that everyone of them ere crucified and rose from the dead and that they were all born of virgins. Most of this list Kane seems to take from Achyra S, a very dubious source.

The Mythic Mysteries are very complex, and the only real similarities to Jesus are minute ones.. Most of these alleged similarities are suspect or unimportant. It is often claimed by skeptics on the Internet that "there is so much similarity" but I find very little. Mithra comes from Persia and is part of Zoroastrian myth, but this cult was transplanted to Rome near the end of the pre-Chrsitian era. Actually the figure of Mithra is very ancient. He began in the Hindu pantheon and is mentioned in the Vedas. He latter spread to Persia where he took the guise of a sheep protecting deity. But his guise as a shepard was rather minor. He is associated with the Sun as well. Yet most of our evidence about his cult (which apparently didn't exist in the Hindu or Persian forms) comes from Post-Pauline times. Mythic rituals were ment to bring about the salvation and transformation of initiates. In that sense it could be seen as similar to Christianity, but it was a religion and all religions aim at ultimate transformation. He's a total mythical figure he meets the sun who kneels before him, he slays a cosmic bull, nothing is real or human, no sayings, no teachings.
 
 
  1) no Virginal Conception Mithra was born of a rock, so unless the rock was a virgin rock, no virginal conception for him. (Marvin W. Meyer, ed. The Ancient Mysteries :a Sourcebook. San Francisco: Harper, 1987,, p. 201).
 
  2) No crucifixion or resurrection. There no story of Mithras death and no references to resurrection. The only similarity about him in this relation is that his shedding of the Bull's blood is said by H.G. Wells (Out Line of World History ) to be the prototype for Jesus sacrifice on the cross. But in reality the only similarity here is blood, and it wasn't even his own. It may even be borrowing form Christianity that made the shedding of blood important in the religion.
 
  3) No Savior, no baptism, no Christmas Moreover, one of the major sources comes from the second century AD and is found in inscriptions on a temple, "and you saved us after having shed the eternal blood." This sounds Christian, but being second century after Christ it could well be borrowed from Christianity ( Meyer, p 206). [This source, Meyer, is used by Kane as well, but it says nothing to back up his claims, and as will be seen latter, Meyer disparages the notion of conscious borrowing] (More about this ceremony on Page II)


  "Mithra was the Persian god whose worship became popular among Roman soldiers (his cult was restricted to men) and was to prove a rival to Christianity in the late Roman Empire. Early Zoroastrian texts, such as the Mithra Yasht, cannot serve as the basis of a mystery of Mithra inasmuch as they present a god who watches over cattle and the sanctity of contracts. Later Mithraic evidence in the west is primarily iconographic; there are no long coherent texts".(Edwin Yamauchi, "Easter: "Myth, Hallucination, or History," Leadership University)

D. Osiris
 
 
Osiris was of the most influential families of gods in ancient Egypt. Perhaps in the distant past they were based upon some sort of flesh and blood family, but we know nothing of that. Our knowledge of Orisis is that of a purely mythological family. Isis was the mother goddess, Osiris is the brother and husband of Isis. He possesses generative powers connected to nature, not fertility per se, but to the land so dependent upon water from the Nile for production of crops. Whereas most fertility deities are related to sexual fertility as well as crops Osiris seems to be more connected to crops themselves.
 
  1) no virginal conception is connected to Osiris, they live in a family. They are the product of intercourse of the gods.

Meyer records that Isis and Horus were worshiped as mother and child. Like the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus, Isis was "Queen of heaven" pictured with infant seated on her lap. (159). While that may constitute a pagan influence upon latter Christianity, there was no cult of Mother and Child in the Gospels. Osiris' birth stories come from the Hellenistic period. The Greek Poet Plutarch wrote on Isis and Osiris, in which Osiris is conceived and brought forth from the union between Rhea and Kronos, but there is another tradition that Osiris sprang form the sun. (Meyer, p.161). These figures are purely mythical so even the technical virginity above does not apply to them. If being the product of virginal conception was at all important to the Osiris story, or even was ever mentioned in connection with him, one would think that these stories would respect that view. There is no claim that I can find of his 'vigilant conception.' That is, unless one counts the sun as a virgin.
 
  2) No crucifixion Osirirs is killed by Set, his evil brother, who than sank his coffin in the Nile, "thus Horus as the mythological counterpart of the living Pharaoh, succeeded his dead father and assures the triumph of continuity and order in Egyptian life. Isis meanwhile along with Thoth, Horus, Anubis, and Nephthyts employs her magical powers to mummify Osiris and thereby to restore him from death to life." (Meyer, p.157) So we are not dealing with the restoration of actual flesh and blood life, but a mummified state which is merely in a waiting mode, for a future resurrection, and we don't even know if this will be life as a restored flesh and blood person, or life as a mummy. Moreover, this is a purely mythological scene not something played out in history with historical figures. It seems more likely that it is the prototype and perhaps justification for preserving bodies as mummies. What's more, Osiris was not crucified. One encounters Osiris in the land of the dead waiting to be taken to that afterlife, (Ibid.) no eyewitnesses see him restored to normal huan life.
 
  3) References to baptism far fetched


The language with which scholars sometimes speak of these myths, either purposefully or not, suggests a lot more than does the actual story. Osiris was drowned in a box in the Nile which is spoken of in such terms as: "The dead body of Osiris floated in the Nile and he returned to life, this being accomplished by a baptism in the waters of the Nile." (Joseph Klausner, From Jesus to Paul (New York: Macmillan, 1943), 104.)Wagner suggests that comparing the coffin of Osiris floating on the Nile to baptism is like comparing the sinking to Atlantis to Baptism. (Gunter Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1967), 260ff.)

 4) No resurrection
  Easter: Myth, Hallucination or History by Edwin M. Yamauchi Leadership U. http://www. leaderu.com/everystudent/Easter/articles/yama.html Updated 22 March 1997 (prof. of History at Miami University, Osford Ohio)


"This leaves us with the figure of Osiris as the only god for whom there is clear and early evidence of a "resurrection." Our most complete version of the myth of his death and dismemberment by Seth and his twofold resuscitation by Isis is to be found in Plutarch, who wrote in the second century A.D. (cf. J. Gwyn Griffiths, Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride, 1970). His account seems to accord with statements made in the early Egyptian texts. After the New Kingdom (from 1570 B.C.. on) even ordinary men aspired to identification with Osiris as one who had triumphed over death". "But it is a cardinal misconception to equate the Egyptian view of the afterlife with the "resurrection" of Hebrew-Christian traditions. In order to achieve immortality the Egyptian had to fulfill three conditions: (1) His body had to be preserved, hence mummification. (2) Nourishment had to be provided either by the actual offering of daily bread and beer, or by the magical depiction of food on the walls of the tomb. (3) Magical spells had to be interred with the dead-Pyramid Texts in the Old Kingdom, Coffin Texts in the Middle Kingdom, and the Book of the Dead in the New Kingdom. Moreover, the Egyptian did not rise from the dead; separate entities of his personality such as his Ba and his Ka continued to hover about his body". "Nor is Osiris, who is always portrayed in a mummified form, an inspiration for the resurrected Christ. As Roland de Vaux has observed:


  What is meant of Osiris being "raised to life"? Simply that, thanks to the ministrations of Isis, he is able to lead a life beyond the tomb which is an almost perfect replica of earthly existence. But he will never again come among the living and will reign only over the dead.... This revived god is in reality a "mummy" god [The Bible and the Ancient Near East, 1971, p. 236]".
 
 

E. Tammuz


  In Babylonian Mythology was the consort of the goddess Ishtor. He was also the god who died and rose again continually. This was another crop cycle relationship based upon nature. (Herbert Spencer Robinson, Myths and Legends of all Nations, New York: Bantum Books, 1950, 13-16). This is purely mythological. There is no historical figure that Tammuz is based upon. He did not die and rise as a flesh and blood human, but only as a mythical figure. He healed no real people, only the mythical goddess Ishtar. Since his dying and rising is crop related we can suspect that he is not even faintly based upon a real figure. This was a copy of nature for fertility purposes. He was consort to Ishtar who was goddess of 'love' in the crass sense, related to fertility.
 
  1) No Virginal Birth Thre are no stories of Tammuz as the product of a virgin birth. I suspect that documentation comes from Achyra S.
 
  2) No Crucifixion He was not crucified but killed by a wild bore (Ibid.).
 
  3) No Resurrection
 
  Easter: Myth, Hallucination or History by Edwin M. Yamauchi Leadership u. http://www. leaderu.com/everystudent/Easter/articles/yama.html Updated 22 March 1997 (prof. of History at Miami University, Osford Ohio)


"In the case of the Mesopotamian Tammuz (Sumerian Dumuzi), his alleged resurrection by the goddess Inanna-Ishtar had been assumed even though the end of both the Sumerian and the Akkadian texts of the myth of "The Descent of Inanna (Ishtar)" had not been preserved. Professor S. N. Kramer in 1960 published a new poem, "The Death of Dumuzi," that proves conclusively that instead of rescuing Dumuzi from the Underworld, Inanna sent him there as her substitute (cf. my article, "Tammuz and the Bible," Journal of Biblical Literature, LXXXIV [1965], 283-90). A line in a fragmentary and obscure text is the only positive evidence that after being sent to the Underworld Dumuzi may have had his sister take his place for half the year "(cf. S. N. Kramer, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 183 [1966], 31). "Tammuz was identified by later writers with the Phoenician Adonis, the beautiful youth beloved of Aphrodite. According to Jerome, Hadrian desecrated the cave in Bethlehem associated with Jesus' birth by consecrating it with a shrine of Tammuz-Adonis. Although his cult spread from Byblos to the GrecoRoman world, the worship of Adonis was never important and was restricted to women. P. Lambrechts has shown that there is no trace of a resurrection in the early texts or pictorial representations of Adonis; the four texts that speak of his resurrection are quite late, dating from the second to the fourth centuries A.D". ("La 'resurrection' d'Adonis," in Melanges Isidore Levy, 1955, pp. 207-40).
 
 
 
 
He was not a savior figure, he did not have a cult of salvation seekers founding a mystery religion after him, he was not a savior but a symbol of the crop cycles, the male counterpart to the Greek Procepheny.
 
 

F. Krishna

Actually Krishna is the only one of these figures who bares a striking similarity to Jesus, but not in any of the characteristics mentioned above. This will be dealt with in the argument below (IV) but suffice to say Krinsha is a totally mythological being. There is no real evidence that he ever existed, no record of people who met him, no body of his teachings, no eyewitnesses, and no historical persage to whom he can be related. Within in the context of the myth, he bares no similarity to Jesus. He was not a teacher or a healer but a King and Chariot driver, a warrior and archer. (Robinson, 53).
 
  1) no virgin birth


It simply is not there, it is not part of his story.
 
  2) no crucifixion
 
  Killed by an arrow in battle. (Robinson, 62)  (Achyra S. apparently, and Kane on his website say that he was hung on a cross and then shot with an arrow, but the graphic Kane shows which he says shows him on a cross includes no cross at all. I find no record of a cross any any of the literature I have read of him, and since he was killed in battle one wonders what that cross was doing on the battle field). 3) No resurrection, he does not raise from the dead, no story pictures him doing this.


<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px"> </BLOCKQUOTE>

G. Cyble and Attis
 
"Cybele, also known as the Great Mother, was worshiped through much of the Hellenistic world. She undoubtedly began as a goddess of nature. Her early worship included orgiastic ceremonies in which her frenzied male worshipers were led to castrate themselves, following which they became "Galli" or eunuch-priests of the goddess. Cybele eventually came to be viewed as the Mother of all gods and the mistress of all life." (Ronald Nash,"Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions?" The Christian Research Journal, Winter 1994, p.8) [CRJ:http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/cri/cri-jrnl/web/crjo169a.html


1) No Virgin Birth There is nothing in the story about a Virgin birth. 2) Not Crucified But Self-Castrated!


Cyble loved a Shaped named Attis. Because he was not sufficiently attentive she drove him mad. In response to his madness Attis castrated himself and died (Ibid).
 
 
 
 

2) Supposed "Resurrection" false and related to crop cycles
 
 
>"The presuppositions of the interpreter tend to determine the language used to describe what followed Attis's death. Many writers refer carelessly to the "resurrection of Attis." But surely this is an exaggeration. There is no mention of anything resembling a resurrection in the myth, which suggests that Cybele could only preserve Attis's dead body. Beyond this, there is mention of the body's hair continuing to grow, along with some movement of his little finger. In some versions of the myth, Attis's return to life took the form of his being changed into an evergreen tree. Since the basic idea underlying the myth was the annual vegetation cycle, any resemblance to the bodily resurrection of Christ is greatly exaggerated." (Ibid) [Ouch!]</BLOCKQUOTE>

H. Buddha
 
 
Glenn Miller, Christian Think Tank on the specifics of Buddha, Buddha was born of the virgin Maya. [We have already seen the radical differences here, and the data that his mom was married before his conception counts against the factuality of this. There ARE later traditions, however, that assert that she had taken vows of abstinence even during her marriage (a bit odd?), but it can be understood (so in EOR) to refer only to the time of that midsummer festival. The first and finest biography of the Buddha, written by Ashvaghosha in the 1st century, called the Buddhacarita ("acts of the Buddha") gives a rather strong indication of her non-virgin status in canto 1: "He [the king of the Shakyas] had a wife,splendid, beautiful, and steadfast, who was called the Great Maya, from her resemblance to Maya the Goddess. These two tasted of love's delights, andone day she conceived the fruit of her womb, but without any defilement, inthe same way in which knowledge joined to trance bears fruit. Just beforeher conception she had a dream." (Buddhist Scriptures, Edward Conze,Penguin:1959.:35).]

I. No similarities to Jesus or what he offers


1) Similarities nonexistent

Not only do all of these figures miss on every count that Till mentions but none of them were healers, none of them were moral teachers, and none of them as much as were excited in public; they all died (if they died) through the treachery of friends or the slaughter of enemies in battle or ambush. There are greater similarities with other figures perhaps, but one should check the date of the artifacts and stories, because changes are they are influenced by Christianity, or examine the details because most of the time similarities are exaggerated.

 2) Scholars rule out conscious borrowing

Most scholars rule out any sort of borrowing by Christianity from the mystery cults for their notions of rebirth and salvation. There may have been some linguistic influences, but the most direct would have been Hellenistic, not Persian or Egyptian.(See W. F. Flemington, The New Testament Doctrine of Baptism (London: SPCK, 1948), 76-81.)


3) Careless language and No Critical Distinctions


  The main problem however is that these groups offered nothing that was really like that which Christianity offered. Rooted as it is in Jewish Messianic expectations, it is foolish to try and carry over such superficial similarities as if they are the very essence of religion. Lots of cultures can have religious meals, and abolution rites. There are merely surface things, the mere presence of such rituals tells us nothing about the ideas of the group. Christian baptism offers an image of solidarity with the savior who sacrificed his life for us. The notion of rebirth is centered in that concept, rising to walk in newness of life. Jesus was reinvigorated, he did not merely mimic life, he took on a new life, robust and glorified but every bit like the one he had before, flesh and blood vitality. None of these pagan myths offer that sort of resurrection, nor do they offer the sort of union with God upon which Christianity bases its view of salvation.
 
  Reinhold Neibuhr (Greatest American Theologian) http://www.christiananswers.net/summit/nash2.html The page is titled: "Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions?" "Many alleged similarities between Christianity and the mysteries are either greatly exaggerated or fabricated. Scholars often describe pagan rituals in language they borrow from Christianity. The careless use of language could lead one to speak of a "Last Supper" in Mithraism or a "baptism" in the cult of Isis. It is inexcusable nonsense to take the word "savior" with all of its New Testament connotations and apply it to Osiris or Attis as though they were savior-gods in any similar sense."
<

4) Nash Summarizes differences in Jesus and Pagan "Saviors"
 
  Was The New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions by Ronald Nash from the Christian Research Journal, Winter 1994, p 8 Elliot Miller Editor-in-Chief http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/.../crjo169a.html
 
 


(1) None of the so-called savior-gods died for someone else. The notion of the Son of God dying in place of His creatures is unique to Christianity.[13]

(2) Only Jesus died for sin. As Gunter Wagner observes, to none of the pagan gods "has the intention of helping men been attributed. The sort of death that they died is quite different (hunting accident, self-emasculation, etc.)."[14]

(3) Jesus died once and for all (Heb. 7:27; 9:25-28; 10:10-14). In contrast, the mystery gods were vegetation deities whose repeated deaths and resuscitations depict the annual cycle of nature.

(4) Jesus' death was an actual event in history. The death of the mystery god appears in a mythical drama with no historical ties; its continued rehearsal celebrates the recurring death and rebirth of nature. The incontestable fact that the early church believed that its proclamation of Jesus' death and resurrection was grounded in an actual historical event makes absurd any attempt to derive this belief from the mythical, non historical stories of the pagan cults.[15]

(5) Unlike the mystery gods, Jesus died voluntarily. Nothing like this appears even implicitly in the mysteries.

(6) And finally, Jesus' death was not a defeat but a triumph. Christianity stands entirely apart from the pagan mysteries in that its report of Jesus' death is a message of triumph. Even as Jesus was experiencing the pain and humiliation of the cross, He was the victor. The New Testament's mood of exultation contrasts sharply with that of the mystery religions, whose followers wept and mourned for the terrible fate that overtook their gods.[16]</BLOCKQUOTE>
 [Copyright 1994 by the Christian Research Institute, P.O. Box 7000, Rancho Santa Margarita, CA 92688-7000.]
 

This approach to the pagan gods is refuted in Price's "Deconstructing Jesus" where he points out the difference between similarity and identity. No one says the gospel story is identical to other myths, although I'm sure some skeptics do exaggerate the similarities. The point is that there are some strong similarities. For example, who cares if pagan gods weren't crucified? The point is that many of them were said to have died, which is suspiciously similar enough. That's all Doherty's needs to back up his view on Paul's Christ. Also, just because the records of these dying godmen cults are later than the NT doesn't mean the cults began later than the NT.

This is too easy. Thanks Philip.

Um... when do we see the first evidence that they were thought to have died and risen again? If that happens after Christianity is established, and the NT Canons are written, who do you think is copying whom Philip?

BTW, why did you miss Meta's point that these gods did not die for the salvation of anyone (IOW, they are not saviour gods)?

And what is that? That the mystery religions knew how to copy Christianity?

I hope you weren't serious here Philip, because if you were, this is astonishingly credulous, even for you. Tell me, please, if the NT was largely finished in the 1st Century, and the first written records of the mystery religions is after the 3rd Century, how exactly did Christians copy the mystery cults and not the other way around?

Just curious.

Nomad

P.S. Did you find Price's arguments on Apollonius of Tyana and Sabbatai Sevi to be convincing? Because if you did, then I would love to discuss these examples with you.

[This message has been edited by Nomad (edited May 25, 2001).]

Also, Metacrock makes a big fuss over how the Christian Virgin Birth differs in detail from other divine impregnations and miraculous conceptions; but the overall principle is the same -- a god being a literal, biological father in the fashion of several pagan gods.

As to Jesus Christ's death and resurrection being a historical event, Earl Doherty proposes that it was originally much more like the deaths and resurrections of pagan deities, and that "historicity" was added on later.

lpetrich: Also, Metacrock makes a big fuss over how the Christian Virgin Birth differs in detail from other divine impregnations and miraculous conceptions; but the overall principle is the same -- a god being a literal, biological father in the fashion of several pagan gods.

SWL: And if you had a clue, you'd realize that the Gospels don't portray any such genealogical link, there is no "divine seed" as in the other tales, it is a miraculous conception - its not fornication of the gods.

lpetrich: As to Jesus Christ's death and resurrection being a historical event, Earl Doherty proposes that it was originally much more like the deaths and resurrections of pagan deities, and that "historicity" was added on later.

SWL: Who cares what Earl Doherty says though? Jews already had the conception of resurrection so there's no need to go anywhere else in search of it. But bring forth the parallels...Let's have a look at them...Let's see the quotes from the PRIMARY sources and the dates on those sources.

SecWebLurker

NOMAD: Um... when do we see the first evidence that they were thought to have died and risen again? If that happens after Christianity is established, and the NT Canons are written, who do you think is copying whom Philip?

EARL: Who says the copying had to be of texts rather than traditions, practices, widespread cultural beliefs, and so forth? Who says the traditions couldn't have existed prior to the codification of them in written form?



NOMAD: BTW, why did you miss Meta's point that these gods did not die for the salvation of anyone (IOW, they are not saviour gods)?

[SNIP]

EARL: Why did you miss my point about the difference between identity and similarity? The main point is that purely mythological beings were thought to be capable of dying, not that they all died for the same reason or in the same way.



NOMAD: I hope you weren't serious here Philip, because if you were, this is astonishingly credulous, even for you. Tell me, please, if the NT was largely finished in the 1st Century, and the first written records of the mystery religions is after the 3rd Century, how exactly did Christians copy the mystery cults and not the other way around?

EARL: By copying from non-written forms of popular religious beliefs.



NOMAD: P.S. Did you find Price's arguments on Apollonius of Tyana and Sabbatai Sevi to be convincing? Because if you did, then I would love to discuss these examples with you.

EARL: I don't have time now to get into a serious debate. I'm preparing some essays for publication. One of them is for the Secular Web and includes some points from our earlier debate with Bd on the Argument from Nonbelief.

Earl: This approach to the pagan gods is refuted in Price's "Deconstructing Jesus" where he points out the difference between similarity and identity. No one says the gospel story is identical to other myths, although I'm sure some skeptics do exaggerate the similarities. The point is that there are some strong similarities.

SWL: Let's see them. And let's see them from the primary sources, and let's see the dates on the primary sources, and then let's see the actual evidence that borrowing took place. Given that life after death is pretty much a universal amongst religions, similarities that just amount to post-death survival (bodily or not) are meaningless. Given that gods in other religions could die, the fact that some of them did die is also meaningless.

Earl: For example, who cares if pagan gods weren't crucified?

SWL: I care, especially when rats like Farrell Till are saying they were.

Earl: The point is that many of them were said to have died, which is suspiciously similar enough.

SWL: No, it isn't. The burden of proof as far as the copycat thesis is concerned, goes way beyond pointing out similarities...There are enough religions in the ancient world to find a parallel to pretty much anything. You have to show that there indeed WAS borrowing - not just similarity.

Earl: That's all Doherty's needs to back up his view on Paul's Christ. Also, just because the records of these dying godmen cults are later than the NT doesn't mean the cults began later than the NT.

SWL: Hee hee...But it absolutely undercuts any alleged case for borrowing on the NT - If you can't even establish that they predated the NT, you've got NO grounds to claim borrowing.

SecWebLurker

NOMAD: Um... when do we see the first evidence that they were thought to have died and risen again? If that happens after Christianity is established, and the NT Canons are written, who do you think is copying whom Philip?

EARL: Who says the copying had to be of texts rather than traditions, practices, widespread cultural beliefs, and so forth? Who says the traditions couldn't have existed prior to the codification of them in written form?

SWL: You're missing the point entirely. If they post-date Christianity then we have no grounds to say that there is evidence of borrowing on the part of Christianity. If ANYTHING, the evidence points to borrowing in the other direction. You can invoke all the possibilities you want but it doesn't support a case for borrowing on the part of Christianity. Its possible that a religion literally identical to Christianity in EVERY detail existed in 200 BC and we've just lost all record of it. That doesn't make for a case for borrowing on the part of Christianity though.

NOMAD: BTW, why did you miss Meta's point that these gods did not die for the salvation of anyone (IOW, they are not saviour gods)?

EARL: Why did you miss my point about the difference between identity and similarity? The main point is that purely mythological beings were thought to be capable of dying, not that they all died for the same reason or in the same way.

SWL: I can't seem to figure out whether you're referncing DARGs as support for Paul's language being applicable to a Platonic realm or as support for Paul having borrowed the CONCEPT of a dying/rising savior figure. Can you clear that up? And would you venture to answer the ever-lingering question about falsifiability? What could be said not to have been experienced in a Platonic realm?

NOMAD: I hope you weren't serious here Philip, because if you were, this is astonishingly credulous, even for you. Tell me, please, if the NT was largely finished in the 1st Century, and the first written records of the mystery religions is after the 3rd Century, how exactly did Christians copy the mystery cults and not the other way around?

EARL: By copying from non-written forms of popular religious beliefs.

SWL: Any evidence that this occured or is it on par with my 200 BC pre-Christian Christianity?

NOMAD: P.S. Did you find Price's arguments on Apollonius of Tyana and Sabbatai Sevi to be convincing? Because if you did, then I would love to discuss these examples with you.

EARL: I don't have time now to get into a serious debate. I'm preparing some essays for publication. One of them is for the Secular Web and includes some points from our earlier debate with Bd on the Argument from Nonbelief.

SWL: I'll look forward to responding...

SecWebLurker

Well, how about you offer some actual evidence that Christianity borrowed from anyone in their Canonical texts?

Speculation about what others thought about anything is always fun, but without evidence that is all that it is, speculation. I am curious when you reached a point in your sceptical journey where you came to believe that anything someone can dream up is worth considering as solid reasoning and argumentation.

First, do not answer questions with questions Philip. It is not polite. Second, I asked you specifically about saviour gods because a number of sceptics tell us that there were all kinds of saviour gods running around in antiquity. Of course, the truth is that there weren't any at all, and I want to know why sceptics allow their fellows get away with such misrepresentations.

Umm... what is the evidence that such "uwritten forms of popular religious beliefs exist at all?

Fair enough. I just thought I would ask, since you appear to find Price to be convincing, and I wouldn't mind finding out which specific parallels he uses are convincing in your view.

Nomad

And yet, according to Metacrock's post:
So they include heroes, and some offered eternal life. They saved people from death, therefore they were savior gods. Seems simple enough.

The notion that a god needs to send another god to "save someone from sin" is AFAIK unique to Judaism and its offshoots, but that's only because of the peculiar nature of the "sin" concept in these religions. In other religions there would be no need for this sort of "savior god", there is nothing to "save" people from! That's rather like arguing that Christianity lacks a god who will save people from dragons. In both cases, you're talking about salvation from a mythical monster that's part of the religion.