The Copycat Theory of Christianity: Jesus and Pagan Parallels

The notion that Christianity was virtually plagiarized from pagan sources is commonplace among atheists on the internet, as any quick search can attest. Is there any truth to this claim? That's what I'd like to find out. If Jesus was copied from pagan myths, what myths? How similar are they to Christianity? Are there any differences? How did the similarities, if any, come about?

What I propose is a deity-by-deity analysis, considering the plausibility of plagiarism as an explanation. I hope the result will be a more sophisticated understanding of how myth and history interact, and how the world's most populous religion came to be.

I personally think a historical Jesus did exist, for reasons I've explained in the Christian thread. However, I don't believe in miracles, so I think those aspects of Christianity must have come from somewhere: the minds of Jesus' followers, the scriptures and traditions of Judaism, Jung's collective unconscious, or pagan religions. Personally, I think all of the above, but probably the pagan stuff ranks near the bottom. Of course, another explanation is that it's all true, but this is the atheist thread, so I'll leave that option out. I hope I can get somebody to join me in exploring this interesting topic.

 

The Bible did not appear out of thin air, along with the Ten Commandments, and somebody who knew how to write had to write something about something. You might actually research the history of the Bible, just a little. I recommend Asimov's Guide to the Bible.

 

The pagan religions comparable to Christianity fall into basically three categories: (1) astral religions centered on worship of heavenly bodies, especially the sun and the moon; (2) dying-rising god fertility cults geared to seasonal changes and the crop cycle; (3) wonder working humans who became supernatural or demigods who lived among us.

Astral Deities. Sun gods, Sky gods and moon goddesses were prominent in the pagan pantheons in the ancient Middle East and Mediterranean worlds. The most frequently mentioned “models” for Jesus in this category were Horus, the Egyptian sky and solar god; Mithras (Mithra, Mitra), the Vedic/Persian/Roman god of the rising sun and enemy of darkness; and Sol Invictus/Helios/Apollo, the Greco-Roman sun god.

Fertility Deities The leading candidates among the fertility deities were Osiris; Tammuz (aka, Dumuzi); Attis; Adonis; Dionysus (Bacchus); and the Ugaritic Baal. We could add the goddess Persephone, who was central to the Eleusinian mystery cult. These deities are examples of the dying-rising god pattern identified in the nineteenth century by the late Sir James Frazer. This notion that this phenomenon was pervasive withered under scholarly scrutiny, but there seem to be some viable examples. Critics say they differ from the resurrected Jesus in that they keep dying and rising annually instead of staying resurrected, or never did fully return to the land of the living.

Wonder-working mortals and demigods. The principal examples in this category are Asclepius, Apollonius of Tyana, Romulus, Heracles (aka , Hercules, Melqart); and Zalmoxis. I’ll put Krishna in this category, too. Although he was a god and an incarnation of a deity in the Hindu Trimurti, Vishnu the sustainer, he is depicted as taking human form and living among humans. I’ll even include a couple of real-life Greco-Roman emperors, Alexander the Great and Octavian (Caesar Augustus) who became legends in their own time.
Can anyone think of any others?

 

That would be a whole other thread, and I'm sure would raise similar issues. The Tanakh (Hebrew Bible; Old Testament) is essentially an anthology of 39-51 books (depending on whose version we go by), written by many different authors with different agendas, in different periods of history. Scholars and theologians still debate whether the Pentateuch (first five books) was written by Moses, or by P,J, E, and D, and/or others. Pretty much the same with the New Testament: we have Paul, Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, etc.--each with a somewhat different take on Jesus. Interesting stuff, but probably way above my pay grade! I've debated folks on these forums who think God wrote the whole thing, or if challenged would concede at most that He was giving dictation. I find that hard to believe. If an omnipotent, omniscient deity chose to communicate to us directly in a book like the Bible, it would prove the adage that "God moves in mysterious ways".

 

Before getting into the weeds, we might consider how similarities in religions might arise without outright copying. Jung posited a "collective unconscious" governing human ideas, culture, and religion: "a segment of the deepest unconscious mind (that) is genetically inherited and is not shaped by personal experience" .How the Collective Unconscious Is Tied to Dreams, Beliefs, and Phobias Freud also believed that human behavior was guided by unconscious needs and drives, such as the struggles emanating from the Oedipus complex and father figures (like gods and goddesses). Joseph Campbell drew on these theories in his Hero With A Thousand Faces, arguing that all mythologies are variations on a mono-myth in which the hero "ventures forth from the world of common day into the region of supernatural wonder", where he encounters "fabulous forces" and wins "a decisive victory" , and then returns to "bestow boons on his fellow man". (p. 23) Jesus fits the archetypal subcategories of "World Redeemer", returning as "an emissary/prophet preaching the truth of the spirit father, or as an embodiment of that truth. ' I and the father are one.' " Critics think Campbell may be placing his heroes on a Procrustean bed and shaping them to the needs of his theory.
I hope I can get somebody to join me in exploring this interesting topic.

Other "Jesus myth theorists have been accused of the practice that Sandmel calls paralleomania; seeing parallels where none are there or where differences are more important—a tendency toward over-generalization, false equivalences, exaggeration and, unfortunately, fabrication. Admittedly, Jesus, as a figure presented as divine in a major world religion, is going to have some things in common with divinities of other religions, and similarities might result from other things besides copying. Jesus was a male who was said to have a miraculous birth and special powers. He attracted a following and is credited with teachings. Having such general attributes doesn’t make him a carbon copy, of other deities or sages. Such similarities are general enough to be almost tautological. The devil is in the details. I’ll go over each of the candidates and see how similar the alleged parallels are. Since I’m not a believer in miracles, I assume that the ones credited to Jesus were things his followers either made up or got the idea elsewhere. Where I differ from the Christ mythicists is that : (1) I think there is a distinctive core that sets the Christ myth apart from the others; and (2) the “elsewhere” that is the primary source of Christian legends is Judaism, not pagan tradition.

 

I believe there was a man known to us now as Jesus. Was his mother a virgin? Impossible. Joseph got played with that one

 

Actually, virgin birth did happen on December 25, in England as recently as 2006! In fact, the mother gave birth, not just to one, but to eight offspring. Her name was Flora. She was a komodo dragon. Virgin birth by Komodo dragons I hope they've kept an eye on those kids. Dragons, virigin birth, on Christmas--that's got to be connected to the Antichrist! Like you, I tend to be skeptical of claims of virgin birth in humans. I'm persuaded by Hume's maxim (or was that Carl Sagan?): that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and if the alternative is that witnesses were lying or hallucinating, we should go by that explanation, since there's nothing extra-ordinary about that at all! Anyhow, miraculous births of some sort are par for the course in legends about gods, heroes and sages, as we'll see in the course of the discussion. The only question is whether the Jesus story borrowed its from some other figure, and if so, which one--and how we define virgin. I think of a virgin as a woman who has never had sex before and conceives a child without the need of sexual intercourse. Being born from a rock (Mithra), impregnated through one's rib cage by an elephant (the Buddha), or impregnated by the use of a magic golden dildo (Horus) doesn't count in my book, although some Christ mythicists are more broad minded. Seutonius tells us that the Roman Emperor Octavian (Caesar Augustus) was conceived when his mother Attia fell asleep in the temple of Apollo (a notorious womanizer) and "a serpent glided up to her." A serpent is a phallus symbol, but I'll give her a pass on the conception. Anybody familiar with the Rome series on TV, however, would have serious doubts about her previous virginity.

 

I appreciate your input, as always. I agree there can be pagan influence without carbon copying. But being copycats is exactly what various authors and bloggers have accused Christians of being. Peter Joseph's Zeitgeist documentary, and S.Acharya (aka Dorothy Murdock) from whom he got his information, Freke and Gandy and others in the army of Jesus mythicists have made exactly that charge in great detail. People who are at all familiar with ancient myths know that this is B.S. They stretch, misinterpret or simply fabricate details to make their case. Apparently, some folks, right here on HF, believe it. Our brother Sexwise wrote on another thread: "The earliest writings about the alleged Jesus were between 100 to 400 years after his alleged crucifixion. There are almost identical writings about a Jesus type entity copied by the Christian religion from Babylon, Egypt, Sumaria, India. The plagiarism is an indication that they are just stories." Plagiarism is a serious charge and implies a lot worse than just indirect influence. So I'm here to set the record straight. Because I'm interested in exploring the real origins of Christianity, and I think the copycat thesis is a red herring. Looking for pagan parallels with Horus, Attis, and Dionysus distracts attention from what I think are far more promising parallels in Jewish scripture and traditions. But I won't rule out pagan influence. After all, Gentiles were a key audience for the New Testament, and pagan modes of thinking were pervasive in that milieu. Since I don't believe in miracles, I think those tales of wonders must have either come from someone's lively imagination or have been borrowed from somewhere.

 

I''m glad you brought this up. It illustrates a problem we encounter in the quest for parallels. Mithra was born from a rock. I don't think we agree that's not a virgin birth, although it's certainly a miraculous and no sex was involved. I think a female, i.e., a virgin,. has to be involved before it becomes virgin birth. I also wouldn't accept Athena springing from Zeus's head fully clothed as a virgin birth either, although once again it is miraculous. If we accept that level of equivocation, we might as well say that any miraculous happening is evidence that another miraculous happening was a copy.

Then we move from a birth narrative to the rock in Deuteronomy, describing the character of God. Birth, character trait, whatever? But they're on a very different plane. "Rock" is a pretty generic metaphor--something hard and firm--not the sort of thing that's specific enough to permit an inference that one reference influenced another. But that's exactly the sort of game the Jesus mythicists play. Is there a record of Mithra being called a rock? "He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just." Now Mithra, as the enforcer of contracts, had something to do with justice, but I think it would be hard to conclude on the basis of Deuteronomy that the Jews got their idea of a just God from him. That wouldn't be a rational inference. And when somebody alleges that something was an influence on something else, it's incumbent on the person making the assertion to prove it.

At some level, lots of parallels among different religions would be expected, since religion performs similar functions for humans around the world, and the symbols and metaphors that make up various myths probably have a basis in the human collective unconscious--at least that's what Jung and Joseph Campbell would have us believe. Christianity deals with sacrifice; Aztec-Toltec theology deals with sacrifice. But there are noteworthy functional differences between the two, and it would be absurd to suggest that one must have influenced the other.

 

This illustrates another issue with the copycat theorists. The Zeitgeist documentary makes much of the fact that Jesus had the same birthday as every other god and his dog. And that is one instance in which it's reasonable to conclude copying did go on. But it happened long after Christianity was under way and was never considered an important part of Christian doctrine--because the Bible isn't clear when Jesus was born, and the date chosen was understood to be somewhat arbitrary. For the first two centuries of its existence, Christians were content with not knowing or caring. By the turn of the third century, though, Christians began to speculate. One Christian who thought he had it figured out was the Christian apologist Tertulian. He thought the Bible gave a pretty good indication of when Jesus was crucified: the fourteenth day of the month of Nisan in the Jewish calendar, when the Passover lambs were slaughtered. Skeptics might note that it seems a bit fishy that Jesus would be slaughtered at that time, and might suspect the date was concocted to reinforce Paul's powerful metaphor that Jesus was the Paschal lamb. But Tertulian took it at face value. Then Tertulian reasoned that Jesus, like any good prophet, would have been conceived on the same date he died (obviously a bizarre assumption, but one that was believed at the time). Add nine months to that (the normal human gestation) and we get some time around December 25. Other Christians used a similar methodology, but got a different result--January 6-- because they used the Greek instead of the Jewish calendar. Armenian orthodox Christians still use the latter date for Christmas. December 25 also had going for it the fact that Jesus was supposed to have been born 6 months after John the Baptist, who was supposed to have been born on the day his father Zechariah performed priestly duties in the Temple, which was supposed to have been June 24. So add six months to that. (Skeptics mightdoubt that John the Baptist was born exactly six months before Jesus. but that's the way it was to early Christians.) How December 25 Became Christmas

Subconsciously, Tertulian and his followers might have been influenced by the fact that all the pagan solar religions were celebrating their god's birthdays around the same time, fitting for a sun god: the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, at the end of their Saturnalia festivities. Emperor Aurelian declared the birthday of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun) in 274 C.E When Constantine became emperor, he favored the Christians but continued to worship the solar deities until his deathbed conversion. Christians had a desire to fit in with the majority, especially if it seemed likely that could have been correct as Jesus’ real birthday. Adopting a holiday pagans were used to made it easier for them to convert. As Saint Ambrose, Christian Roman governor, put it in the fourth century, Christ is the true sun who outshines the other gods, so picking a day sacred to solar cults made sense. Pope Julian I made it official around 350 C.E. Educated Christians know this. And yes, it was copying. But the Christians say "so what?" December 25 makes as much sense as any day. It's the thought that counts.

 

Comparisons of Christianity to the Astral religions by the Christ mythicists is a particularly eggregious example of false equivalences. I'm no expert in this area, but it doesn't take one to spot the fallacies. For Egyptian myths, I'm relying mainly on Pat Remer's Egyptian Mytholodgy from A to Z , Richard Wilkerson's The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt., and Don Nardo, Egyptian Mythology.

Astral Models for Jesus #1: Horus

Those of you who have seen Bill Maher's Religulous or Peter Joseph's Zeitgeist documentary are probably familiar with the claim that Jesus is the spittin' image of the ancient Egyptian God Horus. As Maher explains to a hapless Christian:: "the Jesus story wasn’t original....Written in 1280 B.C., the Book of the Dead describes a God, Horus. Horus is the son of the god Osiris, born to a virgin mother, Isis-Meri. He was baptized in a river by Anup the Baptizer who was later beheaded. Like Jesus, Horus was tempted while alone in the desert, healed the sick, the blind, cast out demons, and walked on water. He raised Asar from the dead. “Asar” translates to “Lazarus.” Oh, yeah, he also had twelve disciples. Yes, Horus was crucified first, and after three days, two women announced Horus, the savior of humanity, had been resurrected." Zeitgeist , in the opening section entitled "The Greatest Story Ever Sold", adds the claims: that both were born on December 25; his human stepfather was Seb (sounds like Joseph); the birth was accompanied by a star in the east; His birth was announced by an angel, attended by shepherds, and he was adored by three kings; he was a teacher at the age of 12; he walked on water; he was known as "Lamb of God", "The Truth", "God's begotten(?) Son", "The Light", and "The good Shepard". Wow! If all this is true, those Christians are plagiarists for sure!

But practically none of it is true! If there is dishonesty, Maher and Joseph should be blamed, but actually it's their source(s) that are the problem. We don't know what Maher's are, but Joseph's is the late S. Acharya (aka, Dorothy Murdock), who in turn was relying mainly on the British poet and self-taught amateur Egyptologist, Gerald Massey, whose Ancient Egypt The Light of the World was published in 1907. Massey might charitably be described as eccentric. For example, he tells us that the character Herod the Great, the Jewish tyrant responsible for the massacre of the innocents in the New Testament, was borrowed from the Egyptian myth of the hydra-headed serpent Herrut. Actually, of course, Herod is a rather well-documented as a real historical figure, installed as client king of Judea by the Romans in 36 BCE. What Massey says about Horus is in a similar vein: mostly nonsense. The Horus myth has been around for millennia, allowing people like Massey to cherry pick details that seem similar to Jesus. For the others, let’s say he had a lively imagination. Massey claims 200 points of similarity between Jesus and Horus, although some seem to be continuations of the same incident and others seem pretty generic .

Let's take the claims from Zeitgeist and Religulous one by one: (I’m certainly no expert in this area, so I’ll be drawing mainly upon Pat Reimer, Egyptian Mythology from A to Z; Pascal Verns, The Gods of Ancient Egypt, Richard Wilkerson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt; and Kathryn Hinds, Religion and Life in Ancient Egypt.)

• Son of the God Osiris. That one is true. Of course Horus was himself fully a god. Egyptian theology is complicated. At one point, Horus semi-merged with the sun god Ra of which Pharaoh was the incarnation--the combined entity being Ra-Horakhty (Ra who is Horus of the Two Horizons). It was accepted that Pharaoh was Horus while alive. After that, the deceased Pharaoh became Horus' Dad, Osiris. Even more confusing that being your own grandpa! Of course, Jesus was "one with the Father"; so if incomprehensible relationships are the point of similarity, they're probably tied.
  
• Horus called Krst. No he wasn’t. Krst is the Egyptian word for burial, which is why it appears on Egyptian tombs, coffins and sarcophaguses. Nothing to do with Christ, which means “anointed one”.
• Born to a virgin mother. Not the way "virgin" is usually defined--a woman who hasn't had sex and gives birth without sexual intercourse. Osiris' father was dead at the time, and his penis was missing, so his mother, the goddess Isis, used a magic golden dildo to bring about his conception while hovering over Osiris.
• His mother was named Isis-Meri and his stepfather was named Seb. Meri was not part of her name. Meri, meaning beloved in Egyptian, was a generic term of endearment that could be used for any female deity, just as Merit, the masculine equivalent, could be used for any male god. As for Jesus' mother, her Aramaic name was Mariam after the Hebrew Miriam, sister of Moses. It is conceivable that the term had remote Egyptian origins in the pre-Exodus period of Israel's existence. By Jesus' time, it was the name of about one-fifth of Jewish girls. Horus had no human father or stepfather. Seb was the Egyptian god of the earth, and if he had any relationship to Horus, he was Horus’ grandfather (Osiris’ father).
• Baptized in a river. Nothing I could find in Egyptian mythology indicating this happened to Horus, although the Egyptians did have a tradition similar to Christian baptism. Baptism for Christians is more than getting wet. It's a symbolic one-time ritual involving immersion in water symbolizing passage from an impure existence to a new purified state of being, oneness with the divine, and admission to a new community. The Nile's waters were thought to be regenerative, but immersion in them wasn't part of a rite of passage or admission to the religious community. Interestingly, for the Egyptians, baptism was done in the Nile, and the deity involved was not Anpu but Osiris, god of the Nile, Horus' dad, along with Hapi and Khnum. Maybe John the Baptist got the idea from the Egyptians, but I think it’s more likely that he got it from the Essenes in his own backyard (who probably got it from the Persians.) There was an episode in the Horus legends in which Sobek, the crocodile god, rescues Horus's children from the Nile. Falling into the water isn't the same as baptism. And if Egyptian baptismal practices influenced
  
• By Anup the Baptizer, who was later beheaded. There is no Anup the Baptizer in Egyptian history or mythology, but there was an Anpu (aka, Anubis).(Massey was perhaps dyslexic?) The jackal-headed god who presided over mummification of the dead. The closest he comes to "baptizing" anybody was to wash the bodies with palm oil before wrapping them up. Here we run into the common problem of false equivalence. Washing a dead body isn't comparable to Christian baptism, which is a rite of passage symbolizing beginning of a new life by a living initiate. To heighten the bogus similarity, Acharya makes the analogy to John the Baptist, a voice crying in the wilderness and the fact that Jackals live in the wilderness and howl. That's pretty farfetched. John the Baptist was echoing the words of the Prophet Isaiah: "A voice of one calling: "Prepare the way for the LORD in the wilderness". and Anubis, although he had the head of a jackal, wasn't known to act like one and howl in the wilderness. Nor was he ever beheaded.
• Angels, Shepherds and Kings. Horus was born in a swamp; no angels, shepherds, no kings. Angels were from Persian religious tradition—and Jewish! The three kings are inferred by Acharya from the Orion constellation—any relationship to Horus being a mystery.
• Teacher at Twelve. There is no record of Horus being a teacher at any age. He was a sky god. If he had “teachings”, what were they?
• Tempted in the Desert. The closest we come to that is a seduction scene from The Contendings of Horus and Seth. Horus’ uncle Seth, god of the desert, tries to rape him in order to disqualify him from competition to succeed Osiris. Horus intercepts the semen with his hand and throws it into a swamp. Meanwhile, his mother, Isis manages secretly to smear Horus' semen onto some lettuce which her-brother-in-law Seth eats. When the Ennead (council of deities) get word that one of them has been raped (the victim would be disqualified, a classic instance of “blame the victim”) they call for the semen to show itself. Seth’s cries out from the swamp, and Horus’s appears in the form of a solar disc in the middle of Seth’s forehead. Does that sound like anything you learned about Jesus in Bible study? Needless to say, the Jesus story in the Bible is not a carbon copy of this one!
• Cast out demons, healed the sick, raised the dead, gave sermon on a mount. No record of Horus doing any of these things. Horus was solar deity, not into teaching, healing or giving sermons.
• Known as "Lamb of God", "The Truth", "God's begotten(?) Son", "The Light", and "The good Shepard".Nope. None of those things.
• Walked on water. The closest we come to that is a picture of Horus standing on the backs of crocodiles (see "Cippi of Horus” or 'Stelae of Horus on the crocodiles) , which is admittedly impressive and miraculous—but not quite the same as walking on water.
  
• Raised Asar from the Dead. Asar translates to Lazarus in Latin. Asar in Egyptian actually translates to Osiris in Greek. That was Horus’s Dad. His Mom, Isis, not the embryonic Horus, resuscitated Osiris. We’ll get to that when we get to the fertility cults.
• Had twelve disciples. This is a conclusion Massey draws from a picture of twelve reapers on the wall of a tomb. Horus isn’t in the picture. Massey had a lively imagination. Horus according to legend had four demigod retainers, the Heru-Shemsu (Shemsu Hor) (Sons of Horus), sixteen temporary followers and an unnumbered group called the mesnui who fought on his side in battle.
• Horus was crucified and resurrected. Horus was never crucified. Crucifixion is a form of execution. As recounted in the Metternich stele, Horus was bitten by a scorpion. Not the same thing! He did die, and was resuscitated by the god Thoth. Egyptians invoked this incident and associated spells to help to ward off bites from scorpions and snakes.
• Born on December 25. One thing Jesus and Horus had in common was that probably neither of them was born on December 25. Horus was supposedly born (depending on the version) either in the month of Koiak (Oct,/November) or on the fifth day of Epogomenal Day, between August 24 & 28.. The Bible isn’t clear when Jesus was born. December 25 was chosen to commemorate the event, for reasons I already discussed. (See Post #13).

So I think it’s unlikely that Horus was a model for Jesus—certainly not to the point of plagiarism.

 

Before going further, I have a confession to make. I'm a closet Jesus mythicist myself, only I don't think the Christians were "copycats", and I doubt that Greco-Roman models were that influential. Instead, I look to Judaism. And if I had to identify a particular source of "pagan" influence on that tradition that affected Christianity, I'd pick Zoroastrianism. Palestine was a Persian protectorate, part of the fifth Persian satrapy during most of the 5th and 4th centuries BCE, and Zorastrian influence seems to have made its imprint. Zoroastrian concepts like the Kingdom of God, Last Judgment, Heaven and Hell, Satan, Resurrection (Rastakhiz), angels, the Saoshyant (final savior), and the Cosmic Battle between Light and Darkness, are all parallels to late Judaism and Christianity. They were absent from Judaism earlier, and seem to have entered it afterward. The apocalyptic eschatology (revelation about End Times) expressed in the Books of Daniel and Enoch reflect this mentality during the period of Roman rule.

The Jewish sects that seems to have been particularly impacted by these ideas were the Essenes and Nasoreans (a branch of the Essenes)--the latter being the designation for John the Baptist's followers and of course the Jesus movement. I don't think Jesus was an Essene, since they outdid the Pharisees in legalism and preached a doctrine of "hate your enemies". But he was definitely in the neighborhood geographically, and curiously the Essenes are one sect who are not criticized in Christian scriptures. Anyhow, this is all highly speculative, but it's one reason I tend to be skeptical of all the claims about plagiarism by Christians from pagan myths instead of influence from home-grown sources affected by the Persian occupation. I'll be taking up Mithraism next, which supposedly derives from Persian religion but was heavily Romanized at the time Christianity made its debut. If Mithra enters the picture, it's as the model for the Jewish Archangel Michael, not Jesus. Of course, Jehovah's Witnesses think Jesus was the Archangel Michael, but I'm not a Jehovah's Witness. These are, I should stress, suspicions on my part. I'm no expert on this stuff by any means, so I welcome correction. I still believe that Jesus was a real person, but I suspect that he and his disciples were influenced by these Persian-influenced Jewish ideas that were current at the time he preached and was crucified. And I think they may have helped shape the interpretation of him by the various writers of the New Testament.

 

I just wonder what God was before Jesus as it relates to the Holy Trinity.

I think about God, Jesus, & the Holy Spirit and it occurs to me that Jesus was a man on earth of His divine origin... and so, what before Him was the Trinity?

Perhaps BC, there was only God & the Holy Spirit.


And anyway, it makes me smile. Not really a pagan parallel though.

 

The standard Christian theologians' answer is that before Jesus was on earth, He pre-existed as some kind of supernatural being. Paul in Phil 2:6-11, or whatever hymn he was quoting, seems to suggest that, and the prologue of John makes ir explicit. In Judaism, there was only one God. Christian theologians would argue that there has always been that one God, but he has always had three persons, one of whom, the Son, became incarnated as Jesus. The doctrine of the Trinity hadn't been formulated yet. That was proposed by Tertullian in Adversus Praxeas (c. 210 A.D.) and carried forward by Athanasius at the Nicene Council (325 CE), where it was adopted. Hindus similarly believe that Brahman is the one divine presence but has three primary manifestations, one of which (Vishnu) had an avatar (Krishna) who became incarnated as Vāsudeva-Krishna and was raised by cowherds. (No, I don't think Christians copied from Hindus; I'll take up that subject later, if I live that long.)

 

Getting back to the Christian copycats, let's look at another candidate for Jesus lookalike, Mithras (aka Mithra, Mitra).

Astral Model for Jesus #2. Mithra/ Mitra/ Mithras

As was the case with Horus, Mithra is presented on the blogosphere and popular literature as a ringer for Jesus, and any similarities are due to Christian copying. Dan Brown, for example, tells us in The Da Vinci Code that: "Nothing in Christianity is original. The pre-Christian god Mithras --called the Son of Gd,and the Light of the World" --was born on December25, died, and was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days. " Well, Dan is writing fiction, so I guess he's entitled to some poetic license, but this statement is largely false.. Typical though of stuff that's out there on the internet. D.R. Morse (1999). J. Relig.& Psychic Research, drawing partly on the dubious authority of S. Acharya, lists several alleged similarities between Mithraism and Christianity:

1. Mithras was a god incarnated into human form;
2. Mithras was born on December 25th (Sol Invictus' birth date);
3. Mithras was born through a miraculous virgin birth witnessed by shepherds (Murd
4. Mithras was born in a cave;
5. Mithras was viewed as a Savior God who redeemed believers through his death
and resurrection
6. Mithras was known as the "light of the world";
7. Mithras was believed to have performed miracles;
8. Mithraism preached a dualistic doctrine of good and evil and of heaven and earth;
9. Mithras was a chaste god who remained celibate throughout his earthly life;
10. Baptisms were performed as a ritual of initiation into the Mithraic cult;
11. Mithraic initiations were celebrated with a Eucharistic meal
12. Mithras was worshiped on Sunday (the day of the Sun God), the same day of the
week eventually chosen for the worship of Jesus.

Casual readers might be inclined to assume these authors must know what they're talking about. That would be incorrect. Virtually every one of those "facts" is false, misleading, or trivial. The problem is, explaining why this is so is impossible without getting into the weeds of ancient history, which normal folks may find boring and/or irrelevant. It’s much easier to accept those assertions as true or reject them as false and go on with our lives, which is why debate on this issue goes on So with full awareness that I’m probably talking to myself, I’ll try to explain why I think the aforementioned accusations about Christians copying from Mithra are B.S.

Briefly, any glib recitation of such alleged similarities is likely to be untrustworthy because: (1) there were four radically different versions of Mithraism, in different places and times, making it hard to tell which one Christianity is supposed to have borrowed from and whether it is truly similar; (2) little is known with certainty about Mithra before Jesus’ time, because Alexander the Great and the Muslims destroyed the writings and they were reconstructed after Jesus, so it is often difficult to determine whether a Christian or Mithraist idea came first; (3) the Mithraism of Jesus’ time (Roman Mithraism) was a secret mystery cult without known writings, so what we know about it must be guessed from artwork and the perceptions of outsiders. I'll try to explain this background as briefly as I can,and then take up the alleged instances. of plagiarism.

 

Four Phases of Mithrais

Phase 1: Vedic Mitra (no “h”). In this phase, he was Mitra. The first record of Mithra is in a treaty between Mitanni (Land of Mitra) and the Hittites in 1450 BCE, in which the god Mitra is invoked along with Varuna and Indra, as guarantors of the covenant. You may recognize these as Hindu gods from the Rig Veda. The same Indo-Iranian (AKA Aryan) people who brought the Vedas to northern India moved westward into Northern Mesopotamia, Syria and Turkey and became overlords of the local Hurrians. In both India and Mitanni There was no separate cult of Mitra, so references to Mithraism may be inappropriate. (Boyce,2001). Mitra was the Vedic of of daylight, practically inseparable from his sidekick, Varuna, the god of twilight. He was also the god of friendship and pacts. The term Mitra seems to have both of those meanings. Light, friendship and covenants are all associated with Jesus, but are so generic that attributing them to copying from Mithra would be unwarranted.

Phase 2: The Zoroastrian Mithra ("h" added). In this phase, Mithra was incorporated into Zoroastrianism, a religion with an elaborate theology. The earliest Zoroastrian writings,
the Gathas, don’t mention Mithra (note the slight modification in spelling). He enters big time into the later scriptures, the Avesta, and inscriptions of the Achaemenian Persian empire the greatest of Yazatas (angels), lord of light and truth, and ally of the supreme god, Ahrua Mazda (Ormuszd), the forces of Light, in his struggle with the powers of Darkness led by Ahriman.

This phase is of interest because it was the dominant religion of Persia during the time Palestine became a Persian protectorate of Yehud Medinata , part of the fifth satrapy of the Persian empire. As mentioned in Post #15, Judaism, especially certain sects, changed during this period, developing features that seemed similar to Zoroastrian religion: Last Judgment, Heaven and Hell, Satan, Resurrection (Rastakhiz), angels, the Saoshyant (final savior), and the Cosmic Battle between Light and Darkness. My suspicion would be that there was Zoroastrian influence. Note, however, that: (a) I didn’t say Mithraism. Mithra didn’t have a separate cult, and was thoroughly integrated into Zoroastrian theology; (b) I said Judaism, not Christianity. If Mithra affected Christians by this route, it was indirect. I mentioned that I think the Archangel Michael might have been influenced by the Mithra model. Jehovah’s Winesses believe Jesus was the Archangel Michael. .“Light” is a pretty generic metaphor, so I don’t think references to Jesus as “Light of the World” or the Light Among Your are determinative. Since I’m not a JW, I’m skeptical; (c) all this is entirely speculative on my part, since the Avestas were destroyed by Alexander and we’re going by partial records reconstructed by the Sassanian empire that succeeded the Achaemenian in 224 A.D Since this was over two centuries after Christ, it’s impossible to tell for sure who influenced whom, or what the original Zoroastrian beliefs were. For example, there is a tradition that Mithra was conceived after the water goddess Anahita bathed in a lake in which the high god Ahura Mazda deposited his semen. Whether or not that would count as virgin birth is debatable, but it should be noted that the story itself appears after Christianity in the third century AD., so it is hard to say Christians copied it instead of vice versa.

Phase 3. Hellenistic Mithras (with an “s”) (Μίθρας ). After Alexander the Great overthrew the Achaemenian empire in 331 BCE, and particularly
after his death in 324 BCE, syncretism between the Persian and Greek religions was increasingly common. This seems to have occurred in Anatolia In the mid-first century BCE, in the neighboring kingdom of Commagene, King Antioochus I developed a syncretic Greco-Persian religion featuring Mithra equated with the sun Greek god Helios.(Beck, 1989). Similar developments were underway in neighboring Cilica.

Thanks to the diligent scholarship of Ulamsey, (1959:67-76) we have an idea how the synthesis took place in Tarsus, Cilicia. Tarsus had been a center for Mithra worship under the Persians but subsequently came to accept a Greek demigod, Persius, as the city patron. Apparently, the synthesis between Mithra and Perseus was made by a group of Stoic philosophers, who were devotees of Mithra but were also into astrology. They were impressed by the astrological dominance of Perseus over other constellations and the newly discovered phenomenon of the "procession of the equinoxes". http://www.mysterium.com/sciam.html That discovery was in 125 BCE,, and the revised syncreitic Mithras seems to have made his appearance sometime in the following decade. It caught on with the Cilician pirates who were based in Cilicia , who also embraced Mithraism while working for Mithridates VI (Gift of Mithra) of Pontus against Rome. A prominent feature of the new Mithraism, differing from the Persian Mithra, was the slaying of the bull which seems to have been inspired by another Greek deity, Theseus’ slaying of the Minotaur and by the ancient Babylonian epic in which Gilgamesh slays the Bull of Heaven. This got connected to the Perseus myth by the astrological dominance of Perseus over the constellation Taurus (the bull).

Tarsus in Cilicia may ring bells, since according to Acts Paul (Saul of Tarsus) was born there. Was he exposed to Mithras and did this influence his Christian teachings? That would be a matter of pure speculation. Paul’s big contribution to Christianity seems to be the notion that Jesus died for our sins. Mithras didn’t die for our sins, but he did kill a bull. It seems to be a stretch from the bull to Jesus. Paul himself used an analogy from Jewish tradition: the Paschal lamb. Jewish tradition instead of Cilician religion seems the more likely source.

Phase 4. Roman Mithras.. Mithras Goes Underground.


Roman Mithraism soon became a mystery religion, holding services in underground caves or buildings adapted to resemble caves, called mithrea. The religion was organized as a typical mystery religion which became popular in Rome after Rome became an empire, introducing foreign cultural influences . These new religions were secret societies in which secret knowledge was transferred to initiates through rites of passage. As a result, what we know of Roman Mithraism is gleaned largely from murals and sculptures. Mithraism was the quintessential guys’ religion—open only to men and from what we can tell, resembling in many respects a modern masonic lodge. There were secret handshakes, a hierarchy of seven grades that members attained through initiation ceremonies involving hazing or ordeals, and group activities featuring feasting and drinking. Many of the members were military or veterans, but also merchants and bureaucrats attracted by opportunities for camaraderie and networking. Obviously, there were spiritual benefits, as well, but we don’t know what they are because of the secrecy. Pallas and Eubolis wrote about Mithras, but their works are lost. It's clear the Romans took over the Cilician emphasis on bull-slaying and the Commagean linkage between Mithras and Helios. The rest is a mystery.

Apparently, two Mitraic rites were sufficiently similar to the Eucharist and baptism to attract the attention and criticism of two early Christian apologists, Tertullian and Justin Martyr. Tertulian notes the use of water in cleansing rituals, and complains that the Mithraists were constantly sprinkling everything with water—clothes, furniture, etc. De baptismo (5.1). Tertullian should have known better than to equate this with Christian baptism, which is a one-time rite of passage. Of course there was the taurobolium, involving bathing in bull’s blood. But the earliest recorded instance of that practice dates to 160 A.D., which means the idea could have come from Christianity. Also, although sacrificing a bull sounds like something the Mithraists came up with, the earliest and principal practitioners were devotees of the god Attis. If Mithras worshippers engaged in it at all, it was by participating in the Attis rituals.

As for Justin Martyr, he mentions that the Mithraists had a ritual meal involving bread and water, and attributes this to the Devil trying to imitate Christian rituals
It’s doubtful he ever attended a Mithraist service, and he was writing in the second century, when Christianity and Mithraism were both well-established, making it difficult to determine who copied what from whom, if either did. Jesus modeled the Eucharist after the Jewish celebration of the Passover. Ritual meals are rather generic practices, and we have no mention of the significance of the ritual for devotees of Mithras.
According to Plutarch, Mithraism came to the Roman world in 67 BC through contact with the Cilician pirates, when Pompey’s legions were sent there to suppressed them. Roman soldiers were further exposed to the religion in the 70s AD, when Rome expanded into Asia Minor under Vespasian. Note: that’s 70s AD. Paul had already written his epistles, and Mark had written or was in the process of writing, the first gospel. Most Mithrea, houses of worship, date from 100 to 300 BC. Cassius Dio tells us that Nero worshipped Mithras in 63 AD. The earliest Mithraic monument in Rome dates to 98-99 AD, although there are plaques dating from 50 B.C. to 50 AD. The legionnaires brought the religion back with them to Rome, where it underwent significant modifications.

 

Mithras and Other Sun Gods and Their Birthdays
There is one more issue to clear up while we're doing background: how does Mithra relate to the other Roman solar deities: Helios, Sol Invictus, and Apollo? And how does Jesus relate to these pagan deities? Mithras was one of several solar deities worshiped in the Roman Empire. As mentioned is frequently shown in the company of Helios, the Greek Sun God (aka, Sol in Roman religion). In Rome, he was increasingly identified with Apollo. At the outset, Mithra was clearly a distinct from the others. He is shown dining with Helios in celebration of the taurectony (bull slaying). "Invictus" (Unconquered") was an epithet given to Mithras on inscriptions, but it was also given to other gods like Hercules. In later statuary, Helios is shown kneeling to Mithras. And when Julian (the Apostate) tried to restore paganism in 361 AD he made it official that Mithras, Helios, and Sol Invictus were one in the same.

How did Jesus get into the Act? Roman pagans back then were about as inclusive as Christians were exclusive, and some didn't get the idea you couldn't have your Jesus and your Sol Invictus, too. One of these was Constantine, who continued to worship the sun while he promoted Jesus up until the time of his deathbed conversion. There is even evidence that some Christians might have been of similar mentality. A mosaic from a third century vatican cemetery in Rome shows Jesus depicted as Helios in his chariot with characteristic rays protruding from his head, perhaps indicating that Christianity had replaced this god. Bishop Clement of Alexandria in the early third century describes Jesus as driving the chariot of the sun across the sky. As another church father, Saint Ambrose, put it c. 350 AD: Christ is the "true sun who outshines the fallen gods."

In 274 AD, Emperor Aurelian thought it would be a good idea to promote civic unity by having a god all Romans could worship in common, and he decided the Sun God would be appropriate for this purpose, since most pagans worshiped the sun among other gods. So he proclaimed December 25 the official birthday of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun) which Romans could identify with whatever sun god they were worshiping. December 25 was chosen because the Julian calendar identifed it as the winter solstice and the traditional end of the winter festival of Saturnalia Dec 17-23. No ancient source explicitly mentions the date for Mithras’ birth, and because Mithraism was a secret mystery cult, his birthday technically wasn't identified as part of the public celebration until the fourth century AD. I'm willing to go out on a limb here and say yes, December 25 was Mithras' birthday.--at least eventually

As for Jesus, I previously discussed how his birthday was similarly conventional. The Bible doesn't mention it explicitly, and Tertullain's calculations based on the date of his crucifixion seem irrational. Tertullian, as also mentioned, was a Christian apologist and outspoken opponent of Mithraism which he though were stealing Christian ideas--so maybe he was consciously or unconsciously influenced by that. Other Christians using somewhat different assumptions arrived at January 6. And calculations from John the Baptist's birthday strike skeptics as tenuous. Pope Julius made it official in 350 AD. December 25 would be celebrated as Christ's birthday.

What about Sunday? Was that copied from Mithra or the other solar deities? No. Sunday had no special significance in any other religion. The pagans had no sabbath or special day of the week they held sacred or used for religious services. They had seasonal but not weekly festivals. The seven day week wasn't introduced to Rome until the 3rd century AD, and probably came from Judaism. The names of the days had astrological instead of religious significance, each named after a celestial body: Sunday, the sun; Monday, the moon; Tuesday (Latin, Martius, for Mars); Wednesday, Mercurii, for Mercury, etc.) Sunday was supposedly the day on which Jesus rose from the grave, three days after his death. The Old Testament tells us that's how long Jonah was in the belly of the whale. In the Zoroastrian religion, it was also the length of time the soul remained on earth before moving on to its final destination. If Christianity was influenced by Zoroastrianism on this matter, it would have been the Persian instead of Roman version, and the influence probably would have come from apocalyptic Judaism, influenced by exposure to Persian culture during the Yehud Medinata period.

I apologize for the somewhat lengthy exposition, but it’s hard to convey that background in a few breezy sentences. Now, at the risk of some repetition, I can consider the particulars raised in accusations that Christianity copied from Mithraism.

 

Ok, now let's look at the specific charges:

Dan Brown: Mitra/Mithra/Mithras was:

-- "called the Son of God". FALSE He was a god. Nothing in the legend about him having parents! Who were the parents supposed to have been? There is one Armenian tradition that they were Ahura Mazda, the great god, and Anahita, the water goddess. But that was a localized tradition dated three centuries after Jesus. So if anything, the Armenians copied it from the Christians!

--"And the Light of the World". Mitra/Mithra/ Mithras was supposed to be the god of light , so I guess you could say that.

--"Was born on December 25". As previously discussed, he and Jesus ended up with the same birthday on the winter solstice by convention: Emperor Aurelian and Pope Julius I, respectively.

--"Died, and was buried in a rock tomb". FALSE. That's ass backwards! Mithras never died. He was born from a rock.

--"And then resurrected in three days". FALSE. Since he never died, he was never resurrected!

D.R. Morse;

--"Incarnated into human form." FALSE. He was, like most dieties, presented in anthropomorphic form nothing in the Mitra/Mithra/Mithras legend says he ever became incarnated: flesh and blood.

-- "Born through a miraculous virgin birth". In the standard Roman version, he was born fully grown from a rock; in the Armenian variant, three centuries after Jesus, he was born when Ahura Mazda's semen in a lake impregnated the water goddess.

--"Witnessed by shepherds". FALSE. Major source of confusion. They weren't shepherds. They were his attendants Cautes and Cautopates, "mini-me" torchbearers.

--"Born in a cave". CORRECT. But nothing in early Christian tradition except the non-canonical letter of Barnabas says Jesus was.

--"Was viewed as a Savior God who redeemed believers through his death." As previously mentioned, he didn't died. He was called a savior. An inscription in the Santa Prisca Mithraeum reads: "And us, too, you saved by spilling the eternal blood." However, "salvation" meant something different in Mithraism than in Christianity. It wasn't his own death, but the bull's death that saved people. And it wasn't to save people from sin, but to give them regenerative powers.

-- "Was believed to have performed miracles." Believed by whom? Name one miracle!

--"Mithraism preached a dualistic doctrine of good and evil and of heaven and earth." Zoroastrianism preached that. Since Mithra had a role in the Zoroastrian Pantheon, it could be said that he went along. But calling it Mitrhaism before the Roman era would be misleading, and we don't know what it preached then, because it was a secret mystery religion.

--"Was a chaste god who remained celibate throughout his earthly life." He had no earthly life, to anyone's knowledge, and we know nothing at all about his sex life, if he had one.

--"Baptisms were performed as a ritual of initiation into the Mithraic cult." Depends on what you're calling baptism. They sprinkled things with water a lot. That's different from Christian baptism, which is a one-time rite of passage, confined to dunking or sprinkling humans. Baptism is bull's blood didn't happen before 160 A.D., the reign of when Antonius Pius was emperor. Christians had already been baptizing people for over a century and a half, so maybe the Mitraists stole it from them. Besides, the tauroboleum (bull's blood baptism) then and later was done by worshipers of the Magna Mater Cybelle, not Mithras!

--"Mithraic initiations were celebrated with a Eucharistic meal." "Eucharistic" is a Christian term meaning "thanksgiving" and representing ingestion of the body and blood of Christ. This led to accusations by Romans that Christians were cannibals. The Mitrhaists , according to Justin Martyr, had a ritual involving ingestion of bread and water, but it didn't represent ingestion of Mithras. Probably, the bull--but we don't know that because the ritual was secret. Besides, once again, the first mithrea in Rome are second century, so the Mithraists might have been copying from Christians.

--"Sunday (the day of the Sun God), the same day of the week eventually chosen for the worship of Jesus." Sunday had no special religious, as opposed to astrological, significance for Mithraists, and was chosen by Christians because it was thought that's when Jesus rose from the dead, having died before the Jewish sabbath.

Is that all ya got? Next!

 

FERTILITY DEITY MODELS FOR JESUS: DYING AND RISING GODS

The category "dying and rising gods" used to be considered prototypical of ancient religion as a result of the work of the leading anthropological guru of the late nineteenth century, Sir James Frazer. His monumental book, The Golden Bough , published in 1890, curled the hair of our Victorian forebears by showing them patterns behind the savage customs of primitive peoples and pagan civilizations , and including Jesus in the mix as just another same old, same old. Apparently, lots of atheists still believe it. Frazer pointed out that Neolithic and early Bronze Age civilizations were fertility cults in which the death and revival of gods mimicked the changes of seasons. Jesus' sacrifice was said to be reminiscent of the archetypal grim ritual of the "corn king", "harvest lord", or "rex nemorensis", in which a male would be honored and then sacrificed, letting his blood fertilize the soil of Mother Earth, leading to renewal of life. More generally, the fertility cults were geared to a seasonal cycle based on the dying and rebirth of vegetation.

Time has not been kind to Frazer's thesis and reputation. Written at a time when bold sweeping generalizations based on Imaginative insights were the "in" thing for social scientists, Frazer faced a backlash from a newer, more cautious, generation of anthropologists with more nuanced perspectives. Frazer didn't do much traveling himself, and relied on reports from travelers and missionaries who weren't always the most reliable sources of information. These newer anthropologists tended to see differences instead of similarities, and were cautious about generalizing across cultural boundaries. They accused Frazer of reductionism (ignoring pertinent differences) and parallelmania" (finding parallels where none were there), and of using Christian terminology misleadingly to describe practices which were really un-Christian. They pointed out that some of the dying gods didn't really rise, and others didn't really die but just went away for awhile. The coup de grace was delivered in Jonathan A.Z. Smith's 1987 article in Encyclopedia of Religion, which dismisses the category as "largely a misnomer based on imaginative reconstructions and exceedingly late or highly ambiguous texts". Since then, Frazer's thesis, like the deities it described, has undergone a partial rebirth thanks to the research of Mettiger (2001) and Corrente (2012), who find it applicable precisely to some of the Near Eastern gods in vogue at the time of Jesus: Tammuz, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, and Dionysus.

Two additional features of these fertility cults are noteworthy: (1) they dwell on the suffering of their male deities; and (2) they emphasize the role of a formidable female goddess. In most of them, the male is a kind of adjunct to the female, who is the cult's main focus of attention. Modern feminists view these as reminiscent of the days when religion was mainly about goddesses and the barbarian male Sky Gods hadn't taken over yet.The important difference to Christians is that the dying and rising gods were cyclical. They would die and be reborn annually with the changing seasons. Jesus' resurrection was a once and for all event.
Two additional features of these fertility cults are noteworthy: (1) they dwell on the suffering of their male deities; and (2) they emphasize the role of a formidable female goddess. In most of them, the male is a kind of adjunct to the female, who is the cult's main focus of attention. Modern feminists view these as reminiscent of the days when religion was mainly about goddesses and the barbarian male Sky Gods hadn't taken over yet.The important difference to Christians is that the dying and rising gods were cyclical. They would die and be reborn annually with the changing seasons. Jesus' resurrection was a once and for all event.