Donnmathan

Then again, you have to consider HOW those other stories fell by the wayside - a series of lucky breaks and choice conversions to the new little mystery cult on the block (I'd say the Roman Emporer was fairly important, wouldn't you?) let Christianity come to the fore and spend the next several hundred years preaching that the rest were just stories. A favorite tactic seems to have been the ever popular "convert or die" (with its spin-off, "we've just made your religion illegal"), or to start telling them that their gods are actually representations of "saints" or your major deity, then accepting a few of the local rituals and such into the faith to allow them to ease in. That last is still being done today, by the way - the Cargo Cults were a side effect of one such effort in the 40's.

Seriously, though...that general pattern runs all through myths all over the world - no two are identical, but the pattern is there. Google "Mayan Hero Twins" for a good example from a group that had no contact at all with Christianity until the 1500's. That pattern is so ingrained in us that it's still being used to make blockbuster movies, the best example of which would be Star Wars; try comparing both Luke Skywalker (though he fits the typical Hero archetype as well) AND his dad (Vader requires a bit more metaphor, but it still works) to the Jesus story. I'd lay money that movie is so popular in large part because it is playing on a subconsciously recognized story.

jjramsey

Freke and Gandy's Jesus Mysteries is about as worthless as Kersey Graves' work, and I'm not the only person on the forum to say this. Unless Price has changed his tune in Deconstructing Jesus, he restricts himself to Mediterranean gods, but even here there are problems. This is an interesting and telling quote from his review of Jonathan Z. Smith's Drudgery Divine:

Price glosses over the problem that Smith pointed out, which is that Osiris is in the realm of the dead because by the internal logic of the Egyptian myth, he is considered dead. He is resurrected long enough to beget Horus, but then dies again. He makes the best of this postmortem state by reigning in this realm, but he is still stuck there. This is far different than the stories of Jesus resurrection, where the internal logic of them has Jesus be alive. Note, too, that Jesus' purported resurrection isn't temporary. Note, too, that Price distorts when he describes Osiris and Jesus as judges of the dead. Jesus judges the dead and the living in a one-time event when the end of the age comes and the general resurrection starts. By contrast, Osiris' role as judge is perennial; he judges each person shortly after he/she dies, rather than waiting until a particular time and judging all the dead at once. This is especially disingenuous since the Christian idea of a general resurrection with a once-and-for-all judgment has clear precursors in second-temple Judaism.

Here Price glosses over the problems that Ishtar only gets freed from the realm of the dead when Tammuz takes her place, which is another part of the theme of death being inexorable. And yes, there is a significant difference between a bilocation where someone continually returns to the realm of the dead, and a resurrection which is supposed to be a permanent conquest over death.

One problem I see with these parallels is that aside from the brute fact of having a personage resurrect, they don't have much in common with the Christian story. Not only are the details are vastly different, but the themes are as well. We also have a real shortage of actual dying and rising here. The only god in the above examples who could be said to die and permanently rise is Ishtar. Osiris dies, rises, and dies again. Tammuz rises and dies, rises and dies, rises and dies, ad infinitum. Price, in his "Christ a Fiction" article, also sees Hercules and Asclepius as dying and rising gods, yet in both of these cases, their bodies are burnt up (Herc's by a funeral pyre, Asclepius by thunderbolt) and it's their spirits that become gods. Another problem is that there are much clearer precursors to the Christian idea of resurrection in Judaism. The main difference between the early Christianity and second-temple Judaism here is that Christianity has one man, Jesus, resurrect a little before the general resurrection at the end of the age. So am I supposed to think that the Christians got the idea of a general resurrection from the Jews, but drew the particulars of Jesus' resurrection from separate pagan sources that only vaguely resemble the Christian story?

Roger Pearse

I know that this gets said, and I'm not jumping down your throat here. But is there any ancient evidence of a pagan holiday on this day, I wonder?

The two references known to me are the 30 games on that date listed in the calendar in the Chronography of 354, and the statements about a Heliaia festival following Saturnalia in Julian the Apostate's Hymn to King Helios. Both postdate Christmas being celebrated in Rome, of course.

I know that Aurelian established games of the sun in 274. But the Ludi solis are clearly marked in the Chronography as happening in October.

On the other hand, Thomas of Edessa, De nativitate records in chapter 11 pagans everywhere celebrating a festival of the sun every year on this date, in the early 6th century.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

robto

For an extremely brief introduction to the topic, here's a site that was just pointed out over on Apologetics.org. He's a little over-enthusiastic about the pagan influences for my taste, but he at least gives some good information so that you can decide for yourself, and he gets some things right (like "Mithras wasn't born of a virgin on December 25th...") that a lot of websites get wrong.

Amaleq13

I don't understand the "problem". By the internal logic of Christianity, individuals in heaven are also dead.

If Jesus' resurrection entailed being brought back to life (as you appear to be assuming), then he had to have died again to enter heaven according to Paul (1 Cor 15:50). If it is the beliefs of early Christianity, it makes no sense to look to the later Gospel stories instead of Paul's expressed beliefs.

Agreed but that isn't that only a problem if someone is claiming a total parallel for all details?

Viti

December 25thish is important in many pagan nature-based religions...it is the birth/rebirth of the Sun after winter and therefore cause for celebration.

jjramsey

If they are souls awaiting resurrected bodies, yes, they are dead. But those who are resurrected are no longer dead, period. This means that Jesus isn't dead according to Christianity.

That doesn't follow from 1 Cor. 15:50 at all. Paul says that flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God, and he does this in the context of arguing that the resurrected bodies will not be like the original ones, but will be imperishable (1 Cor. 15:35ff). The implication of this is not that Jesus died, was resurrected, and died again in order to go heaven, but rather that when Jesus died and was resurrected, his new body was incorruptible and not made of flesh.

Amaleq13

According to Paul, they already have resurrected bodies if they are in heaven.

Then nobody in heaven is dead according to Christianity and using the term is misleading for any comparison.

Frankly, it seems fallacious (equivocation) to me to continue to refer to resurrected individuals in heaven as "alive".

Roger Pearse

I wonder if this can be documented from ancient sources? (Pardon me, but it's exactly the sort of thing that gets repeated without ever being checked).

Remember that 25 Dec. is not the Solstice. Julian indeed explains why the later date is celebrated; because the farmers can see the actual change by that point.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

andrewcriddle

Apollonius of Tyana is somewhat later than Paul (he probably died c 98 CE)

Philostratus' account of the life of Apollonius (the source of most of what is claimed about him) is early 3rd century much later than the gospels.

Andrew Criddle