Christianity originated as an amalgamation of earlier pagan religions

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A traditional scene of Mithras slaying a bull.
Osiris

Some writers have argued that Christianity is primarily based on or a continuation of pagan religion. It is one of the views about the existence of Jesus and is often considered to be a Jesus myth theory, which considers Jesus to be ahistorical, although not all versions deny the existence of Jesus. The view originally comes from the 1790's works of Constantin-François Volney and Charles François Dupuis. While both said that Christianity was based on pagan religions they differed in the existence of Jesus as an actual human being. The theory identifies, often by questionable means, similarities between Christianity and other pagan religions and then argues such an occurrence could not be a coincidence.

"The incarnation of Gods in human form by virgin birth was common place myth; their death, resurrection, transition to and fro between heaven and earth, and the like, were articles of faith of many pagan creeds and of all mythologies. [...] True, practically every tenet and ceremonial of the Christian religion has its counterpart in, and was adapted from, the beliefs and ceremonies of the pagan religions which preceded it and for centuries lived alongside it. [...] Paganism, too, had become corrupt in many of its practices; the time was ripe for a reform in religion, and for a purer system based on belief in one God. One of the many pretended Messiahs of Israel served as the occasion for this reform. His own people did not largely accept him; his propaganda found readier acceptance among the pagans, who had a freer form of worship and were very prone to believe in any god and in every fable. So the new cult made its way slowly through the pagan Roman world.[1]"
"Our conclusion [...] is that Christianity was not a new revelation. It was a continuation of Paganism by another name. The gospel story of Jesus is not the biography of an historical Messiah. It is a Jewish reworking of ancient Pagan myths of the dying and resurrecting Godman Osiris-Dionysus, which had been popular for centuries throughout the ancient Mediterranean.[2]"
"In fact, from the odd coincidences between his life and that of Jesus, it has been suggested by not a few people that Jesus Christ is a fictional character based in large part on Apollonius of Tyana [...][3]"

The theory has largely fallen out of favour because it is weaknesses in scholarship and the difficulty in explaining how pagans adopted Jesus into their beliefs. The most common view among historians is that Jesus existed as a historical man, who had later legends and myths added to his biography.

Main advocates[edit]

Dupuis held that there was no human being involved in the New Testament account which he saw as an intentional extended allegory of solar myths while Volney allowed for confused memories of an obscure historical figure to be integrated into a mythology that compiled organically.[4]

The Christ myth theory would continue along these parallels line of thought up to the present day.

In fact, most Christ Mythers of the late 19th to early 20th century (such as Arthur Drews, John M. Robertson, James George Frazer, and John Remsburg) didn't dismiss the possibility that an actually human preacher had been involved in the creation of Christianity but also said the Gospels told us nothing real about that man (putting them in the Volney camp). Frazer and Remsburg both accepted the idea that Jesus had existed as human being and yet their ideas were called "Christ Myth".

The Dupuis camp "hit rock bottom" with Joseph Wheless' 1930 Forgery in Christianity[5] which portrayed Christianity as this huge Illuminati sized conspiracy.

Shared religious ideas[edit]

Dying and rising gods[edit]

"It is absurd to insist that there is no parallel [with Osiris] to what would later be claimed for Jesus. Jesus is clearly very much like Osiris: both die and both get raised in improved bodies and both end up living as lords in heaven (not on earth).[6]"

While there are some superficial similarities, Christ and Osiris also have some big differences. Firstly, Christ preached salvation by faith in Him as the "substitute" for the punishment we deserve, whereas the Ancient Egyptian religion, like most, taught that good works would get you to paradise. Also, Osiris isn't shown as being completely omnipotent (Set hacked him to pieces), or entirely omniscient; and Christ is God incarnate, with infinite power, wisdom, intelligence, understanding, and omniscience. He was only crucified as the Bible depicts because He allowed it to happen (saying he could've called 10,000 angels), so we could all have an easy, simple chance at getting to Heaven.

Mystery religions[edit]

Early Christianity has often been categorized a mystery religion, involving secret knowledge and ceremonies known only to initiates of the religion. Many other mystery religions existed throughout the Greek-Roman world. Christianity shares the concept of a savior god that experiences sufferings often including death and resurrection, salvation through rituals, baptism to wash away sins to be reborn, and ritual meals, with the other mystery cults. Mystery cults often merged concepts from neighboring cultures to arrive at their specific theology (i.e. syncretism). They also tended towards monotheism, an emphasis on individual salvation and allowed followers from all backgrounds.[6]

Richard Carrier agrees that Christianity is a mystery religion but points out it is not exactly like the other mystery religions.

"Often when scholars deny that Christianity was a mystery religion, they really mean it wasn't just one of the already-existing mystery religions superficially overhauled with Jewish concepts. Christianity wasn't 'Osiris Cult 2.0'. Which is certainly true. But that's all that anyone's evidence can prove. [...] Even the earliest discernible form of Christianity emulates numerous cultic features and concepts that were so unique to the Hellenistic mystery cults [...] And any theory of historicity that fails to account for it cannot be credible.[6]"

Virgin birth[edit]

Horus is said to be born of a virgin, when he was born (in one telling of the story) of Hathor and sex with the reassembled body of Osiris. Hathor already had other children. Another variant points to the fact Isis was merged with version Greek/Roman deities like Artemis/Diana

  • As Irenaeus documents there was a sect of Christianity that "represented Jesus as having not been born of a virgin, but as being the son of Joseph and Mary according to the ordinary course of human generation"[7]
  • Paul in Romans 1:1-3 states that Jesus came "from the seed of David, according to the flesh" (the belief at the time was that women were the earth into which men planted their seed so here Paul expressly states that Jesus link to David is through the male line ie Joseph) and in Galatians 4:4 stated “God sent his Son, born of a woman” using the word gune (woman) rather than parthenos (virgin).[8] Both these points show that Paul not only did not know of a virgin birth but expressly denied it.
  • Virgin birth seems to be the ancient equivalent of being born with a silver spoon in one's mouth and signified the "extraordinary personal qualities exhibited by an individual"[9] as well as being an "attempt to explain an individual's superiority to other mortals. Generally Mediterranean peoples looked at one's birth or parent-age to explain one's character and behavior" and "veneration of a benefactor."[10] Caesar Augustus, Alexander the Great, Plato were all stated as being born of virgins and we know they were actual historical people; so the term 'born of a virgin' was never meant to be taken literally.

Mithras is said to be born of a virgin and to have died and been resurrected.

  • Richard Carrier points out that Mithras is not a dying and rising god though he was a god of salvation.

"For when they tell that Bacchus, son of Jupiter, was begotten by intercourse with Semele, and that he was the discoverer of the vine; and when they relate, that being torn in pieces, and having died, he rose again, and ascended to heaven; and when they introduce wine into his mysteries" [11]

"And when they tell that Hercules was strong, and traveled over all the world, and was begotten by Jove of Alcmene, and ascended to heaven when he died" [11]

  • Romulus is almost certainly a mythic person with Plutarch describes having a historic biography.[6]

The birthday in common with pagan religions[edit]

The December 25 date for Christmas was by decree of the Roman emperor to compete with the popular Sol Invictus worship and first appears on a Roman calendar in 334 CE. Luke tells us that shepherds were tending their sheep in the fields when Jesus was born, something that shepherds did June until November. In fact, before the decree there was much debate regarding when Jesus was born. Tertullian (c 160–220 CE) and Hippolytus (c 170-235 CE) said March 25; Clement (c 150-215 CE) gave 25th day of Pachon (May 20) and the 24th or 25th of Pharmuthi (April 19 or 20)[12], while others were saying January 6 (the birthday of Osiris), and still others pointed to the Essenes whose couples had sex in December so their child would be born September (the holy month of Atonement). [13]

In reality this was a very late comer to the story of Jesus.[14] This means any argument that Jesus was a myth based on the December 25 date is doomed from the start because that part of the story isn't even in the Bible and didn't appear until well into the 4th century.

Lord Raglan hero pattern[edit]

Main Article: Rank-Raglan mythotype

Jesus's biography fits Lord Raglan's hero pattern remarkably well, with Jesus having a score of 18[15] to 20[16] out of 22. This makes him comparable with several legendary heroes, like Romulus and King Arthur (both 19). Well-documented heroes typically score much lower; Lord Raglan could not find real person with a score greater than 6 or 7. [17]

Obsolete or inaccurate arguments[edit]

Most modern Christ Myth theories borrow from Volney and Dupuis and throw in various amounts of Wheless. Because much of their information has been refuted (even by later Christ Mythers) this immediately kicks the whole argument in the head. The principle culprit of this is Graves' 1875 book The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors [18]

Much is made of Justin's Dialogue of Justin and Trypho (the Jew) (69-70) where he said:

"Be well assured, then, Trypho, that I am established in the knowledge of and faith in the Scriptures by those counterfeits which he who is called the devil is said to have performed among the Greeks; just as some were wrought by the Magi in Egypt, and others by the false prophets in Elijah's days. [11]"

Yes it is nonsensical but it isn't the smoking gun some people make it out to be. It explains a sub set of Christianity not the whole movement and as Against Heresies (c. 180 CE) shows there were many divisions of Christianity.

Counter arguments[edit]

Christianity was influenced but did not originate in pagan religion[edit]

Main Article: Jesus began as a myth and was later historicized

Christianity contains elements that are striking similar to other religions of the time. However, this does not mean that Christianity originated as a cult based on pagan religion. Given the relatively sparse evidence, it can be difficult to reconstruct the order in which ideas were adopted into a early Christianity.

"[...]the Jesus stories and the first members of the Jesus sect are completely and fundamentally Jewish, so fantasies about Egyptian myths or Greek Middle Platonic philosophy are not going to work as points of origin for them.[19]"

No influence of mystery cults on early Christianity[edit]

Not all historians agree with mythicists on the influences on early Christianity, e.g. Bart D. Ehrman[20] Many theories do not address how pagan beliefs were incorporated to form Christianity, or how pagans adopted Jesus into their belief system. Mere similarities are not enough to support a historical theory.

"[...] there was no causal connection between pagan myths and the origin of Christian beliefs about Jesus. [...] It boggles the imagination to think that the original disciples would have suddenly and sincerely come to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was risen from the dead just because they had heard of pagan myths about dying and rising seasonal gods.[21]"
"We just know too little about any of these [mystery cult] precedents to know how much they may have led to or influenced Christianity.[6]"

No pre-existing myths are parallels to Jesus[edit]

Apologists argue that there is little similarity between pre-existing myths and the story of Jesus.

"[...] scholars came to realize that the alleged parallels are spurious. The ancient world was a virtual cornucopia of myths of gods and heroes. Comparative studies in religion and literature require sensitivity to their similarities and differences, or distortion and confusion inevitably result. [...] The Gospel stories of Jesus' virginal conception are, in fact, without parallel in the ancient Near East. [...] None of these is [resurrection myths] parallel to the Jewish idea of the resurrection of the dead. [...] In fact, most scholars have come to doubt whether, properly speaking, there really were any myths of dying and rising gods at all![21]"
"[T]here are serious doubts about whether there were in fact dying-rising gods in the pagan world, and if there were, whether they were anything like the dying-rising Jesus.[22]"
"Working from late nineteenth and early twentieth century theosophist claims which exaggerate parallels between the Jesus stories and pagan myths, she makes the typical New Age logical leap from “similarity” to “parallel” and finally to “connection” and “causation”.[19]"

This criticism is broadly justified. It is not enough to simply show similarities between religions to produce a viable historical theory.

Jews would not have accepted this belief to become Christians[edit]

"One of the many problematic aspects of mythicism is that it makes much of vague parallels to non-Jewish religions, while failing to do justice to the unambiguous evidence that what we now refer to as Christianity arose in a Jewish context that was committed to monotheism, observant of the Jewish Law, and unlikely to create a fictional Messiah based on pagan myths. [23]"

This is a fairly weak argument since we know many Jews did in fact convert to Christianity (or were members of a precursor to Christianity). Christianity did not originate in orthodox Jewish belief but instead among fringe groups.[6] The problem is this theory doesn't plausibly explain how this occurred.

References[edit]

  1. Joseph Wheless, Is It God's Word?, 1926
  2. Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, The Jesus Mysteries: Was the 'Original Jesus' a Pagan God?
  3. Acharya S/D.M. Murdock, Apollonius, Jesus and Paul: Men or Myths?
  4. Wells, G. A. "Stages of New Testament Criticism," Journal of the History of Ideas, volume 30, issue 2, 1969.
  5. Joseph Wheless' 1930 Forgery in Christianity [1]
  6. 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 Richard Carrier, On the Historicity of Jesus, 2014
  7. Against Heresies Book 1 chapter 26 paragraph 1
  8. "Mary Was a Virgin" Jesus Police (Internet Archive)
  9. Tucker, Bob (2009) "Was Jesus Virgin Born?" Foundation of Contemporary Theology- Internet archive
  10. Talbert, Charles H. (2006) “Miraculous Conceptions and Births in Mediterranean Antiquity.” Pp. 79-86 in A.J. Levine, D.C. Allison and J. D. Crossan (eds.), The Historical Jesus in Context. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press
  11. 11.0 11.1 11.2 Ante-Nicene Fathers (1885) "Chapter LXIX.—The devil, since he emulates the truth, has invented fables about Bacchus, Hercules, and Æsculapius."
  12. John James Bond (1887) Bond's Handy-book for Verifying Dates pg 22
  13. "Born on December 25th" Jesus Police (Internet Archive)
  14. Richard Carrier, Why I Think Jesus Didn't Exist: A Historian Explains the Evidence That Changed His Mind
  15. Hero Pattern
  16. http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa4.htm Life events shared by Yeshua (Jesus) and the "Mythic Hero Archetype" ReligiousTolerance.org
  17. The Hero, pp. 184-85
  18. Kersey Graves and The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors (2003)
  19. 19.0 19.1 [2]
  20. [3]
  21. 21.0 21.1 William Lane Craig, #90 Jesus and Pagan Mythology, January 05, 2009
  22. Bart D. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 2012
  23. [4]