Did contemporary historians mention Jesus?

[AMbomb]

As an atheist, what do you do with your guilt?

I don't do anything with it. As an atheist, I don't believe in a deity who will forgive my sins. When I do something wrong, I have to live with it. In a way, it's harder for us. But, then again, maybe it encourages us to be better people. Christianity is a quick fix religion. Place your problems in God's hands. That's partly why it's the dark side of the Force.

[AMbomb]

You're wrong, Jay. Every single concept of Christianity except the concept of a messiah is pagan in origin. That includes monotheism. Click on this link: http://www.medmalexperts.com/POCM/pagan ... arted.html
Even if it wasn't, the stories would still be far too similar to have arisen simply out of a "sense of eternity", whatever that is, which leaves us with the following explanations:
1. Jesus, for no apparent reason, decides to cause his story to be propogated thousands of years before it occurs.
2. The story came true by pure coincidence thousands of years after it was first propogated.
3. This situation involves time travel (and possibly a flying DeLorean).
4. The Jesus story is simply a retelling of the earlier godman myths.
Now you tell me, which one of these explanations makes the most sense?

[jcr4runner]

As an atheist, what do you do with your guilt?

I don't do anything with it. As an atheist, I don't believe in a deity who will forgive my sins. When I do something wrong, I have to live with it. In a way, it's harder for us.

That's an amazing and honest answer. I'll give you credit for being truthful on that one. I thought you would say: "I am not guilty of anything."

But you admit that you are guilty.

So here's the next question:

Where does your sense of guilt come from?

[jcr4runner]

You're wrong, Jay.

You know, I am enjoying this exchange in part because you provide the exact antithesis to my beliefs and it forces me to "show myself approved" as the scripture says.

The one thing though that I find objectionable is that you think you can argue by writing: "You're wrong ... Click on this link."

You use again the either/or fallacy: "This leaves us (only?) with the following explanations. No, it doesn't leave us with only these explanations. And especially not number 4. Since you are a champion of links, there are thorough refutation of the POCM's contention that the there was a "simple retelling of pagan myths" in the Gospel stories.

If you haven't found it yet, http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/copycathub.html is my friend J.P. Holding's series on "pagan godmen" and he also has http://www.tektoonics.com/parody/pocemo ... humyth.htm as a remedy to that POCM stuff.

If you insist on going through each one of these articles, I may have a year or two of patience left.

[jcr4runner]

Some notes on alleged parallels between Christianity and pagan religions

http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/pagint.html

(The author is a historian based at one the world's leading universities. He specialises in and is currently developing a publication record on ancient and modern myth. Note that the author is not a professing Christian.)

***********************

An argument frequently advanced against Christianity runs roughly like this: there are many features of Christianity that resemble features of other religious, particularly ancient pagan religious; therefore, Christianity has copied those features; therefore, Christianity is not true. It is the purposes of these notes to establish that this argument rests upon unwarranted premises and that its logic is fallacious.

1. Do many features of Christianity resemble features of other religions?

Obviously, on one level the answer has to be 'yes'. Christanity posits the existence of a personal god who takes an interest in humanity. It teaches that the individual does not cease to exist after biological death. It has a series of sacred texts which are used as a guide to doctrine and ethics and play an important role in public worship. The pre-Reformation branches of Christanity, moreover, have priesthoods, a developed theology of sacrifice and strong sacramental and ritualistic traditions.

Recognising this, however, doesn't get us very far: very many religions across human time and space exhibit and have exhibited the same characteristics. What we need are specific parallels in matters of detail. To meet this challenge, non-Christians generally advance two sets of parallels, which are not necessarily mutually incompatible but do not go particularly naturally together.

The first involves the construct of the dying-rising god. A full scholarly study of the history of this concept has yet to be written, but suffice it to say here that it was popularised by the Scottish anthropologist Sir James Frazer in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. Frazer believed that primitive peoples linked the annual cycles of agriculture with 'corn spirits' (a concept which he borrowed from the German scholar Mannhardt). In its developed form, the theology of these primitive agriculturalists posited that the corn spirit died and was reborn annually, typically in the form of the divine king in whom it was incarnated. Frazer believed that the religions of the ancient Near East provided several examples of dying-rising gods who had emerged from primitive belief-systems similar to these, most notably Attis, Adonis and Osiris.

Frazer's theory is loaded with problems. Whole papers, even books, criticising his theory have been written, and nowadays it is extremely difficult to find any recognised, reputable anthropologists who will accept it even in a modified form. Here are some of the major difficulties with it:
1. Frazer's sources were frequently inaccurate or irrelevant, or else he interpreted them in tendentious ways.
2. Frazer himself subscribed to discredited nineteenth-century ideas such as the evolutionist model of human societal development (which has nothing to do with the theory of biological evolution and is today firmly rejected by experts) and the notion that present-day primitive tribesmen can be studied as a means of finding out what things were like at the dawn of civilisation.
3. Evidence which has emerged since Frazer wrote has not merely failed to back up his hypotheses: it has fatally undermined them. For interesting critiques of Frazer's work, see e.g. Sir Edmund Leach's articles in Daedalus 90 (1961) and Current Anthropology 7 (1966); also (in much greater detail) J.Z.Smith, 'The Glory, Jest and Riddle', Diss. Yale 1969 (by one of the greatest living historians of religion).

The greatest problem with Frazer, however, is that construct of the dying-rising god is simply a fantasy. The distinguished scholar J.Z.Smith, a man who most certainly cannot be regarded as a defender of Christianity, wrote an important article for Mircea Eliade's 'Encyclopedia of Religion' (New York 1987) in which he took every alleged example of a dying-rising god and showed that none of them actually fit the category. (My own researches lead me to believe that the Phoenician god Melqart, whom Smith does not discuss, is the one exception - but he *is* very much the exception.) Certainly, Frazer's star witnesses of Attis, Adonis and Osiris suffer from the fatal flaw in each case of dying and then failing to be resurrected.

Even if Frazer and his followers were right about the dying-rising god, the relevance to Christianity would be doubtful. The Christian story makes no connection whatever between Christ and the agricultural year or the rhythms of the natural world. Moreover, Frazer's followers who elaborated his work with particular reference to the ancient Near East made it clear that their dying-rising gods and kings were tightly enmeshed in a series of bizarre annual rites with no conceivable parallels in Christianity.

The second 'copycat' model advanced by sceptics involves the prototypical schemas of the life of the hero sometimes drawn up by scholars.

The sceptic will typically appeal to the work of Lord Raglan, even though it's now 70 years out of date and a number of different schemas have since been proposed. There are serious problems with Raglan: in order to get mythical figures to fit his schema, you often have to cheat quite blatantly; and, in any case, real-life historical figures such as Hitler and Napoleon fit the pattern just as well as the ancient heroes whom he adduced.

In general, the 'monomyth' schemas are of limited usefulness. They prove a certain amount about the patterns followed by the lives of heroes in different cultures, but they don't prove very much, and what they do prove isn't always very comforting to the sceptic.

To begin with, if one puts all the schemas that have been proposed together and looks for common elements, the results that emerge are often vague or unhelpful. For instance, the hero will typically have a miraculous conception or birth - but it's hardly legitimate to compare the story of the virgin birth recounted in the Gospels with (say) Zeus' rape of Leda in the form of a swan simply because both involve some sort of supernatural element. What such 'similarities' boil down to seems to be the earth-shattering revelation that supernatural things happen to supernatural figures, which is essentially a tautology.

Secondly, where hero-stories do concur, they often concur in ways which question the utility of applying them to the story of Jesus. Incest and parricide are recurrent themes of the schemas, for example, as is the link between the hero and kingship (you can get out of this by suggesting that Jesus was the heir of King David, or that he heralded the Kingdom of God, but this is just the sort of cheating that drains the schemas of their credibility). Even Raglan's schema falls down on this point, most obviously because Jesus didn't marry a princess (a motif which appears in other schemas too).

2. Even if they exist, what do the parallels prove?

Many non-Christians seem to believe that, in order to be true, Christianity must be unique. This is utterly fallacious - if anything, the precise opposite is the case. If Christian doctrine were strange and deviant and had no similarities at all to that of other religious systems, it would be *more* likely to be a weird, aberrant construct, not *less*. To take one obvious example, a simple and economical explanation for the widespread human tendency to posit supernatural figures who, like Christ, mediate between man and God, is that humans correctly realise that we *do* need such a mediator. (Hence, ironically, some of the scholars most eager to prove the existence of dying-rising gods in the ancient Near East and elsewhere were *Christians*. One thinks here especially of the scholars behind the three volumes of essays 'Myth and Ritual' (Oxford 1930), 'The Labyrinth' (Oxford 1935) and 'Myth, Ritual and Kingship' (Oxford 1958).)

Points of contact between Christianity and other religions are damaging to Christianity's truth claims only if actual borrowings can be proven - not if the parallel features have simply sprung from the same psychological source common to all humans - that is, from the innate religious instinct which Christians regard as a gift of God.

I cannot think of a single case in which Christianity can be shown to have borrowed a core doctrine from another religion. This does not include minor borrowings which everyone admits, such as the dating of Christmas to 25th December (an old Roman sun-festival), or the use of holy water and incense in worship, or the wearing of wedding rings, or dedicating churches to named saints (just as pagan temples were dedicated to different deities). In such cases, the borrowings were not clumsy or furtive: rather, they were deliberate and unashamed. A good example is the Pope's use of the old Roman chief priest's title 'Pontifex Maximus', a title which the Christians deliberately appropriated to emphasise that their religion had defeated and replaced Roman paganism.

Conclusion

None of the attempts made by sceptics to demonstrate that Christianity is false because it contains alleged pagan elements is credible or convincing. There are admittedly many good arguments against Christianity, but this simply isn't one.

[revrosado]

AM said, "OK, Jay, I have one for you. Let's assume for a moment that there was such a thing as God. Why would he cause the propogation of the story thousands of years before it occured? All that would do is make people think that the story was just a retelling of the earlier story and that it didn't really happen. According to Christian belief, Jesus wants people to believe in him so badly that he sends them to Hell if they don't. Causing the propogation of this story thousands of years before it occured would be counterproductive to what he wants. So, even assuming the existence of an omniscient god, you're assertion is illogical."

The answer simply is so man can learn. Which obviously does not occur with everyone in class...

If man is learning it follows then that he learns empirically within a chronological context (he learns over time). It IS logical that God would start the teaching process from man's earliest days and SLOWLY progress man through the ages of man's own blindness and ignorance until the race was ready for college and the full manifestation of God's salvation of man in the form of Jesus the Christ. Science Domain: Education

But just like in school, some do not keep up with the lessons nor do the homework and still most do not glean the higher cognitive constructs that basic information (myths) point toward. Science Domain: Education / Cognitive Thinking

In all of the arguments I have read from atheists, they abandon reason and logic espoused by the sciences and the universe in one way or another. I have never heard a scientifically sound argument by an atheist. Their arguments sound true to the unlearned mind, but in fact they rip up the fabric of scientific empiricism and reasoning when making them. Its not enough to know science - you must understand science. That's where the difference is had. We may know science but we do not think the science. So in essence we become jugglers of scientific thoughts and concepts, but we do not possess inherently the constructs of the sciences cognitively. This is the crux of man's problem and an atheist's shining glory. They juggle arguments to our amusement: yet to many and themselves - amazment. The court jester juggled oft. (I do not infer that anyone is, rather to the way reasoning is manifested).

So though I partake also with others in throwing out views about this matter, some may catch them only to keep up their momentum and rythym. ...............Can anyone sing and dance? I fear I shall grow weary of that too!

[AMbomb]

You're wrong, Jay.

You know, I am enjoying this exchange in part because you provide the exact antithesis to my beliefs and it forces me to "show myself approved" as the scripture says.

The one thing though that I find objectionable is that you think you can argue by writing: "You're wrong ... Click on this link."

You use again the either/or fallacy: "This leaves us (only?) with the following explanations. No, it doesn't leave us with only these explanations. And especially not number 4. Since you are a champion of links, there are thorough refutation of the POCM's contention that the there was a "simple retelling of pagan myths" in the Gospel stories.

If you haven't found it yet, http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/copycathub.html is my friend J.P. Holding's series on "pagan godmen" and he also has http://www.tektoonics.com/parody/pocemo ... humyth.htm as a remedy to that POCM stuff.

If you insist on going through each one of these articles, I may have a year or two of patience left.

Instead of relying on what your friend says about The Jesus Mysteries, why don't you read it yourself? By the way, your second link is a joke. The author of that site claims to refute Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth but produces not one shred of evidence supporting his arguments.

[AMbomb]

AM said, "OK, Jay, I have one for you. Let's assume for a moment that there was such a thing as God. Why would he cause the propogation of the story thousands of years before it occured? All that would do is make people think that the story was just a retelling of the earlier story and that it didn't really happen. According to Christian belief, Jesus wants people to believe in him so badly that he sends them to Hell if they don't. Causing the propogation of this story thousands of years before it occured would be counterproductive to what he wants. So, even assuming the existence of an omniscient god, you're assertion is illogical."

The answer simply is so man can learn. Which obviously does not occur with everyone in class...

If man is learning it follows then that he learns empirically within a chronological context (he learns over time). It IS logical that God would start the teaching process from man's earliest days and SLOWLY progress man through the ages of man's own blindness and ignorance until the race was ready for college and the full manifestation of God's salvation of man in the form of Jesus the Christ. Science Domain: Education

But just like in school, some do not keep up with the lessons nor do the homework and still most do not glean the higher cognitive constructs that basic information (myths) point toward. Science Domain: Education / Cognitive Thinking

In all of the arguments I have read from atheists, they abandon reason and logic espoused by the sciences and the universe in one way or another. I have never heard a scientifically sound argument by an atheist. Their arguments sound true to the unlearned mind, but in fact they rip up the fabric of scientific empiricism and reasoning when making them. Its not enough to know science - you must understand science. That's where the difference is had. We may know science but we do not think the science. So in essence we become jugglers of scientific thoughts and concepts, but we do not possess inherently the constructs of the sciences cognitively. This is the crux of man's problem and an atheist's shining glory. They juggle arguments to our amusement: yet to many and themselves - amazment. The court jester juggled oft. (I do not infer that anyone is, rather to the way reasoning is manifested).

So though I partake also with others in throwing out views about this matter, some may catch them only to keep up their momentum and rythym. ...............Can anyone sing and dance? I fear I shall grow weary of that too!

So man can learn what? The followers of the pagan mystery religions knew their godmen didn't really exist. These people didn't take the story literally. It was just an allegory that was supposed to reveal mystical teachings of the mystery religions. Are you saying God wanted people to learn the mystical teachings of pagan mystery religions?
Atheists abandon reason and logic? Yeah right. It's totally logical to believe in an omnipotent being who created the entire Universe who hasn't furnished one shred of evidence of his existence. There are no Christians on Vulcan.

[revrosado]

There is only Truth and Error. These two comprise the whole of the universe. What you are not realizing along with your mystical religions is that of your own faith! There have always been unbelievers since before creation. Your religion is as old as the old serpent himself who denied God and indeed desired to enthrone himself in His stead. Nothing new then nor now. In fact - your religion is older than all the rest! So since your religion (ATHEISM) is the oldest of all the pagan (non-Christian) myths - why then do you defend a myth?

Science has not discovered how the stuff of the universe became. But science itself alludes to the reality than things are "constructed" from smaller and lesser elements and energies. There must have been an origin to the structure of the universe. Some say that we see structure only because we ourselves are part of that structure and classify or identify with it. Yet is a square not a square? Do we ride in squares, live in squares, learn in squares, etc? Are not ourselves circles, and move in circles, relate in circles, live on a circle, rotate in circles, procreate to circles, etc? Definite building structures to some may be proof.

But science agrees that the original energy of the universe is eternal. There is an eternal force that is the engine of the universe. Can you see it? Does it make itself known dramatically? Not to you but it cannot be denied.

There is only one proof required for Atheism - that Atheist prove that the universe started from and by absolutely nothing. Science has disproven Atheistic theory and belief - Eternity is real and the spark of the universe is eternal - that is not religion or opinion, it is science!

But the battle is not against religious though, but between light and darkness.

I am not criticizing your belief system. Just pointing out that Truth is truth and Error is Error as Light is light and darkness is darkness.

The simple reality is that darkness is not a thing - but is only lack of light. Science therefore shows that TRUTH exists and is Eternal - error is the denial of truth.

[AMbomb]

There is only Truth and Error. These two comprise the whole of the universe. What you are not realizing along with your mystical religions is that of your own faith! There have always been unbelievers since before creation. Your religion is as old as the old serpent himself who denied God and indeed desired to enthrone himself in His stead. Nothing new then nor now. In fact - your religion is older than all the rest! So since your religion (ATHEISM) is the oldest of all the pagan (non-Christian) myths - why then do you defend a myth?

Science has not discovered how the stuff of the universe became. But science itself alludes to the reality than things are "constructed" from smaller and lesser elements and energies. There must have been an origin to the structure of the universe. Some say that we see structure only because we ourselves are part of that structure and classify or identify with it. Yet is a square not a square? Do we ride in squares, live in squares, learn in squares, etc? Are not ourselves circles, and move in circles, relate in circles, live on a circle, rotate in circles, procreate to circles, etc? Definite building structures to some may be proof.

But science agrees that the original energy of the universe is eternal. There is an eternal force that is the engine of the universe. Can you see it? Does it make itself known dramatically? Not to you but it cannot be denied.

There is only one proof required for Atheism - that Atheist prove that the universe started from and by absolutely nothing. Science has disproven Atheistic theory and belief - Eternity is real and the spark of the universe is eternal - that is not religion or opinion, it is science!

But the battle is not against religious though, but between light and darkness.

I am not criticizing your belief system. Just pointing out that Truth is truth and Error is Error as Light is light and darkness is darkness.

The simple reality is that darkness is not a thing - but is only lack of light. Science therefore shows that TRUTH exists and is Eternal - error is the denial of truth.

This message has nothing to do with whether or not Jesus existed. It looks like it's more appropriate for my "Question" thread on the Christian Reconstructionism board.

[FaithnJC]

So man can learn what? The followers of the pagan mystery religions knew their godmen didn't really exist. These people didn't take the story literally. It was just an allegory that was supposed to reveal mystical teachings of the mystery religions. Are you saying God wanted people to learn the mystical teachings of pagan mystery religions?
Atheists abandon reason and logic? Yeah right. It's totally logical to believe in an omnipotent being who created the entire Universe who hasn't furnished one shred of evidence of his existence. [b]There are no Christians on Vulcan.

All throughout this thread you keep repeating the same mantra, there were earlier pagan accounts of Godmen.

Christians borrowing from these mystery religions was a very popular argument at the beginning of the last century, but it generally died off because it was so discredited. jc has done an excellent job at dealing with these false assertions but allow me to elaborate some more.

Lets use the story that is most similiar to Jesus shall we? It has been said that Christians stole the story of the god apollonius of Tyana. Of course there is no merit in comparing Jesus to these false pagan gods. You know the story as well as I do. Here is someone from the 1st century who was said to have healed people and to have exorcised demons; who may have raised a young girl from the dead; and who appeared to some of his followers after he died. Now, if you do the historical work calmly and objectively, you find the alleged parallels just don't stand up. First, his biographer, Philostratus, was writing a century and a half after apollonius lived, whereas the gospels were written within a generation of Jesus. The closer the proximity to the event, the less chance there is for legendary development, for error, or for memories to get confused.

Another thing is we have four gospels, corroborated with Paul, that can be crossed-checked to some degree with nonbiblical authors like Josephus and others. With apollonius and these others, we're dealing with one source. Plus the gospels pass the standards tests used to assess historical reliability, but we can't say the same for these other stories.

On top of that, Philostratus was commissioned by an empress to write a biography in order to dedicate a temple to apollonius. She was a follower of apollonius, so Philostratus would have had a financial motive to embellish the story and give the empress what she wanted. On the other hand, the writers of the gospels had nothing to gain--and much to lose--by writing Jesus' story, and they didn't have ulterior motives such as financial gain.

Also, the way Philostratus and these other false god stories writes is very different than the gospels. The gospels have a very confident eyewitness perspective, as if they had a camera there. But Philostratus and these others include a lot of tentative statements, like "It is reported that..." or "Some say this young girl had died; others say she was just ill." To their credit, they back off and treat stories like stories.

Also, the mystery religions were do-your-own-thing religions that freely borrowed ideas from various places. However, the Jews carefully guarded their beliefs from outside influences. They saw themselves as a separate people and strongly resisted pagan ideas and rituals.

While it is true that some mystery religions had stories of gods dying and rising, these stories always revolved around the natural life cycle of death and rebirth. Crops die in the fall and come to life in the spring. People express the wonder of this ongoing phenomenon through mythological stories about gods dying and rising. These stories were always cast in a legendary form. They depicted events that happened "once upon a time."

Contrast that with depiction of Jesus Christ in the gospels. They talk about someone who actually lived a few decades earlier, and they name names--crucified under Pontius Pilate, when Caiaphas was high priest, and the father of Alexander and Rufus carried his cross, etc., for example. That's concrete historical stuff. It has nothing in common with stories about what supposedly happened "once upon a time."

And Christianity has nothing to do with the life cycles or the harvest. It has to do with a very Jewish belief--which is absent from the mystery religions--about the resurrection of the dead and about life eternal and reconciliation with God.

[AMbomb]

So man can learn what? The followers of the pagan mystery religions knew their godmen didn't really exist. These people didn't take the story literally. It was just an allegory that was supposed to reveal mystical teachings of the mystery religions. Are you saying God wanted people to learn the mystical teachings of pagan mystery religions?
Atheists abandon reason and logic? Yeah right. It's totally logical to believe in an omnipotent being who created the entire Universe who hasn't furnished one shred of evidence of his existence. [b]There are no Christians on Vulcan.

All throughout this thread you keep repeating the same mantra, there were earlier pagan accounts of Godmen.

Christians borrowing from these mystery religions was a very popular argument at the beginning of the last century, but it generally died off because it was so discredited. jc has done an excellent job at dealing with these false assertions but allow me to elaborate some more.

Lets use the story that is most similiar to Jesus shall we? It has been said that Christians stole the story of the god apollonius of Tyana. Of course there is no merit in comparing Jesus to these false pagan gods. You know the story as well as I do. Here is someone from the 1st century who was said to have healed people and to have exorcised demons; who may have raised a young girl from the dead; and who appeared to some of his followers after he died. Now, if you do the historical work calmly and objectively, you find the alleged parallels just don't stand up. First, his biographer, Philostratus, was writing a century and a half after apollonius lived, whereas the gospels were written within a generation of Jesus. The closer the proximity to the event, the less chance there is for legendary development, for error, or for memories to get confused.

Another thing is we have four gospels, corroborated with Paul, that can be crossed-checked to some degree with nonbiblical authors like Josephus and others. With apollonius and these others, we're dealing with one source. Plus the gospels pass the standards tests used to assess historical reliability, but we can't say the same for these other stories.

On top of that, Philostratus was commissioned by an empress to write a biography in order to dedicate a temple to apollonius. She was a follower of apollonius, so Philostratus would have had a financial motive to embellish the story and give the empress what she wanted. On the other hand, the writers of the gospels had nothing to gain--and much to lose--by writing Jesus' story, and they didn't have ulterior motives such as financial gain.

Also, the way Philostratus and these other false god stories writes is very different than the gospels. The gospels have a very confident eyewitness perspective, as if they had a camera there. But Philostratus and these others include a lot of tentative statements, like "It is reported that..." or "Some say this young girl had died; others say she was just ill." To their credit, they back off and treat stories like stories.

Also, the mystery religions were do-your-own-thing religions that freely borrowed ideas from various places. However, the Jews carefully guarded their beliefs from outside influences. They saw themselves as a separate people and strongly resisted pagan ideas and rituals.

While it is true that some mystery religions had stories of gods dying and rising, these stories always revolved around the natural life cycle of death and rebirth. Crops die in the fall and come to life in the spring. People express the wonder of this ongoing phenomenon through mythological stories about gods dying and rising. These stories were always cast in a legendary form. They depicted events that happened "once upon a time."

Contrast that with depiction of Jesus Christ in the gospels. They talk about someone who actually lived a few decades earlier, and they name names--crucified under Pontius Pilate, when Caiaphas was high priest, and the father of Alexander and Rufus carried his cross, etc., for example. That's concrete historical stuff. It has nothing in common with stories about what supposedly happened "once upon a time."

And Christianity has nothing to do with the life cycles or the harvest. It has to do with a very Jewish belief--which is absent from the mystery religions--about the resurrection of the dead and about life eternal and reconciliation with God.

The story of Jesus is the pagan godman myth, as is the story of Mithras, Osiris, Dionysus and many others. It's the same myth told over and over again with different names. Mind you, the myths I'm talking about aren't the myths of the state religions. They're the myths of the mystery religions, which is what Christianity started out as. If you think the story of Jesus doesn't revolve around the seasons, would you care to explain to me why Easter's in early spring? As for the argument that the story of Jesus takes place in an actual period of history with actual historical figures, see the third message from the top of page 5.

[FaithnJC]

The story of Jesus is the pagan godman myth, as is the story of Mithras, Osiris, Dionysus and many others. It's the same myth told over and over again with different names. Mind you, the myths I'm talking about aren't the myths of the state religions. They're the myths of the mystery religions, which is what Christianity started out as. If you think the story of Jesus doesn't revolve around the seasons, would you care to explain to me why Easter's in early spring? As for the argument that the story of Jesus takes place in an actual period of history with actual historical figures, see the third message from the top of page 5.

First things first. Were you plugging your ears while reading my posts? It is apparent that you are encountering cognitive dissonance. I've noticed this about you while reading through this entire thread. You don't address the central issues one brings up and keep repeating the same thing, "The story of Jesus is the pagan godman myth." Perhaps this is why JC has stopped corresponding with you on this?

Now then, Jesus was not just a "god man." He was much more than that.

Some of my information is from Kyle Butt, M.A. and Bert Thompson, Ph.D. just as yours is from The Jesus Mysteries by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy.

History is filled with examples of those whose lives—real or imagined—share certain traits with the well-documented life of Jesus of Nazareth. Lets go with one you mentioned, Dionysus.

The usual story of Dionysus' birth relates that he was the offspring of Zeus, the immortal leader of the Greek gods who impregnated a human female by the name of Semele, the daughter of Cadmus, King of Thebes. Dionysus is said to have descended to the underworld and conquered death, ultimately bringing his dead mother back to the land of the living. He also is said to have died and been raised again. His followers called him Lysios or Redeemer, and grape juice commonly was used to symbolize his blood.

Of course, contemporary skeptics like Freke and who use the argument that it's the same myth told over and over again with different names in attempts to debunk the uniqueness and deity of Christ cannot take credit as its originators. History records that almost two thousand years ago the early Christian apologists were busily engaged in responding to the exact same argument. For example, Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-426) stated in his Christian Doctrine:

"The readers and admirers of Plato dared calumniously to assert that our Lord Jesus Christ learnt all those sayings of His, which they are compelled to admire and praise, from the books of Plato—because (they urged) it cannot be denied that Plato lived long before the coming of our Lord."

Augustine refuted the argument by suggesting that Plato had read the prophet Jeremiah and then conveniently incorporated Jeremiah’s teachings into his own. The point, however, is clear: as early as A.D. 400, skeptics and enemies of the Cross were launching fiery darts of alleged plagiarism at both Christ and His followers.

Further investigation into the history of Christian apologetics manifests something even more startling. The earliest apologists not only recognized that the story and teachings of Jesus bore striking similarities to ancient mythological accounts, but even emphasized these similarities in an attempt to get pagans to understand more about Jesus and His mission. Justin Martyr (A.D. 100-165) set forth an argument in his First Apology that was intended to put Christ at least on an equal playing field with earlier mythological gods.

"And if we assert that the Word of God was born of God in a peculiar manner, different from ordinary generation, let this, as said above, be no extraordinary thing to you, who say that Mercury is the angelic word of God. But if any one objects that He was crucified, in this also He is on a par with those reputed sons of Jupiter of yours.... And if we even affirm that He was born of a virgin, accept this in common with what you accept of Ferseus. And in that we say that He made whole the lame, the paralytic, and those born blind, we seem to say what is very similar to the deeds said to have been done by Æsculapius" (Chapter 22).

Tertullian (c. A.D. 160-220) observed that the story of Romulus, another character from ancient Greek mythology who was seen after his death, was quite similar to the story of Christ being seen after His death. However, Tertullian went on to note that the stories of Christ were much more certain because they were documented by historical evidence (Apology, 21).


While ancient pagans saw, and modern skeptics still see, such similarities as militating against the originality and uniqueness of Christ, the writings of such men as Augustine, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and others document the fact that early Christians could see obvious—yes, even welcome—similarities between the story of Jesus and the accounts of mythological, pagan gods. Furthermore, some of those early Christians even seized upon those very similarities to defend Jesus’ position as the unique Son of God. The apologists’ point, of course, was two-fold: (1) men of the past had searched for a unique savior-god and, finding none, resorted to inventing him and bestowing upon him certain distinct characteristics; and (2) that Savior—who, although in the past had been endowed with unique traits of their own feeble creation—actually had come!

So you see AM, early apologists acknowledged these facts because they were, and are, quite indisputable. And that leads us back to the issue of this thread, how, in light of such facts, can we affirm that Jesus Christ is the unique, authentic Son of God—when stories similar to His circulated decades or millennia before He ever came to Earth?


The truth of the matter is that many stories over the course of history resemble that of Jesus of Nazareth in one way or another. And why should this surprise us? After Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, man became keenly aware of both the presence and the consequences of sin. From the time of Cain and Abel, God had established sacrifices and decreed specific rules regarding those sacrifices. Since that time, all humans have had at least some perception—however slight or flawed—that they needed to “do something” to stand justified once again before their Creator. One way to do that was to invent a “stand-in”—someone who could take their place—as the epitome of sinless perfection to plead their case before the Righteous Judge of all the Earth.

Additionally, however, it can be argued that the similarities are only similarities, not exact parallels. It further can be argued that Jesus’ story, even though it seems similar to some others, is not exactly the same and, in fact, differs substantially in the minute details. For example, Krishna allegedly was crucified via an arrow through his arms, while Jesus was nailed to the cross. Confucius offered the negative form of the so-called “golden rule” (“Do not do to others”), while Jesus stated the positive (“Do unto others”). Dionysus’ mother, Persophone, reportedly had intercourse with Zeus, while Mary was a virgin. This line of reasoning possesses some merit, because it certainly is true that none of the ancient stories sounds exactly like Christ’s.


A closer look at the Egyptian legend of Osiris provides a good example of the many important differences between the account of Jesus and other stories. Legend says that Osiris was killed by his evil brother Seth, who tore Osiris’ body into fourteen pieces and scattered them throughout Egypt. Isis, the goddess-consort of Osiris, collected the pieces and buried them, thus giving life to Osiris in the underworld. Afterward, she used magical arts to revive Osiris and to conceive a child (Horus) by him. After fathering Horus, Osiris remained in the underworld, not really ever rising from the dead (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1997, 8:1026-1027). This legend, taken as a whole, provides few (if any) real parallels to the story of Jesus. Furthermore, when all the stories about characters who supposedly were similar to Christ are told in their entirety, it is obvious that each of them contains only a few characteristics that come anywhere close to resembling those contained in the life story of Jesus. Additionally, some of the alleged parallels rest upon tenuous documentation and may even be fabricated.

In the early part of the twentieth century, Joseph McCabe, one of the most outspoken atheists of his day, published several works, including The Myth of the Resurrection (1925), Did Jesus Ever Live? (1926), and How Christianity “Triumphed” (1926). McCabe painstakingly documented the similarities between the story of Jesus and pagan stories such as those of Osiris, Adonis, Tammuz, and Attis, yet specifically noted: “It is a most important feature of our story that this legend of a slain and resurrected god arose in quite different parts of the old civilized world. Tammuz, Attis, and Osiris are three separate and independent creations of the myth-making imagination”

Hmm...here is where it gets interesting AM, are you paying attention? JC already pointed where we are going with this out to you and it seemed to go right over your head. Now then, McCabe thus acknowledged that these pagan stories with similar themes did not copy either one another or some earlier, predominant story. Rather, they arose separately—and even independently—of each other. McCabe admitted: “For some reason...the mind of man came in most parts of the world to conceive a legend of death and resurrection.... In fact, in one form or other there was almost a worldwide belief that the god, or a representative [king, prisoner, effigy, etc.] of the god, died, or had to die every year” (pp. 52,53, emp. added; bracketed material in orig.). In his conclusion, McCabe wrote: “In sum, I should say that the universal belief in a slain and resurrected god throws light upon the Christian belief by showing us a universal frame of mind which quite easily, in many places, made a resurrection myth” (p. 63, emp. added). McCabe—even as an infidel—willingly acknowledged that numerous (but different) resurrection myths arose from various regions around the globe, each similar in its facts yet original in its derivation. These stories apparently arose because of what he referred to as a “universal frame of mind.”

This is very interesting and we are getting warmer...People around the world—due to a “universal frame of mind”—independently concocted stories that revolved around a god dying and then rising again. These stories span both time barriers and geographical limits; they are—in a very literal sense—“worldwide” and “universal.” In truth, man does have a religious instinct—one that is keener than even many theologians would like to admit. In speaking of God, the writer of Ecclesiastes remarked: “He hath made everything beautiful in its time: he hath set eternity in their heart” (3:11). Paul said that mankind always has been able to understand God’s “everlasting power and divinity” (Romans 1:20). God did not place man on Earth to abandon him. Instead:


He made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons and bounds of their habitation; that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after him and find him though he is not far from each one of us; for in him we live, and move and have our being; as certain of your own poets have said, for we are his offspring (Acts 17:26-28).

God has indeed “set eternity” in the hearts of men and given them a universal instinct that is intended to cause them to seek Him. How, then, did the instinct to worship God lead to the concoction of numerous stories about a virgin-born savior-god who dies as a sacrifice for mankind’s wrongdoings? First, it started with the idea of sacrifice. From the moment Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden of Eden, man was acutely aware that he was a sinful being in need of redemption. Humans also understood that some type of atoning sacrifice was required to absolve them of sin. Oddly, skeptics seem to understand this point quite well. In the late eighteenth century, T.W. Doane caustically attacked the doctrines of Christ and the Bible. His work, Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions (1882), gnawed at every mooring of Christian doctrine. Yet even he understood that mankind always has realized its own sinfulness and its need for an atoning sacrifice. He wrote: “The doctrine of atonement for sin had been preached long before the doctrine was deduced from the Christian Scriptures, long before these Scriptures are pretended to have been written” (p. 181).

Those who might wish to challenge this assessment can examine any book on world history or world religions and see that it is correct. Abel offered the first of his flock, and from that day forward, humanity began offering live sacrifices to a deity in the hope of absolving anger and forgiving sin. In fact, mankind has sacrificed living things to a deity from the beginning of time. But which particular sacrifices did humanity think had the power to forgive sins? The general rule for the atonement value of a sacrifice was: the more costly and perfect the sacrifice, the more sins it would absolve.

When God initiated the ritual sacrifice of animals for the religious ceremonies of His chosen people, He laid down strict rules. In Leviticus 22:19-20, God told the Jews: “You shall offer of your own free will a male without blemish from the cattle, from the sheep, or from the goats. But whatever has a defect, you shall not offer, for it shall not be acceptable on your behalf ” (NKJV). The Lord always has demanded that blood be shed for the remission of sins. Hebrews 9:22 reiterates that point: “And according to the law...all things are cleansed with blood, and apart from shedding of blood there is no remission.” This should not be at all surprising, since “the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh atonement by reason of the life” (Leviticus 17:11).

Men and women of ages past knew all too well God’s commandments regarding atonement by blood. It began with Cain and Abel, was reaffirmed by Noah (Genesis 9:1-6), was regulated by Old Testament law, and was carried through to fulfillment by Jesus. When God instituted the Law of Moses, He did not introduce animal sacrifices as an innovation never before seen by the Israelites. Rather, He showed the Israelites the proper manner in which to sacrifice such animals, until the time that the fulfilling sacrifice of His Son would bring to a halt the need for any further blood atonement via animal sacrifices. In showing them the proper way, God made strict provisions to keep the children of Israel from turning from God-approved sacrifices to sacrificing their own innocent children like the pagans around them. In Leviticus 18:21, God told the children of Israel: “And thou shalt not give any of thy seed to make them pass through the fire to Molech; neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am Jehovah.” God went to great lengths to warn the Israelites against offering their children as sacrifices because it was well known that the nations around them took part in such infanticide. The question arises, “What in this world could convince a mother or father to offer their children to a god?” Let us investigate this matter further.

Wendy Davis writes for Widdershins, a self-proclaimed journal of unadulterated paganism. In an article on the World Wide Web, As Old as the Moon: Sacrifice in History, she stated: “The act of ritual murder is probably as old as we [humans—KB/BT] are. Throughout the ages, people sacrificed when they needed something. Our ancestors often gave the best they had, their first-born, to save themselves” (1995, emp. added). The most precious possession of a mother or father would be their first-born child. That child, however, would be not only precious, but also sinless. Sacrifice of anything less than that which is spotless and pure diminishes the inherent value of the sacrifice. Thus, it was believed that a sinless and pure sacrifice of such magnitude could wash away the sins of the parents (or, for that matter, the sins of an entire village!). Therefore, corrupt, perverse religions sprang up around the sacrifice of children, one of the most famous of which was that of Molech (see 2 Kings 23:10).

Yet even though the sacrifice of infants fulfilled the sinless aspect of a perfect sacrifice, it was lacking in other areas. For example, an “ordinary” infant born of peasant parents was not the most costly sacrifice available; a royal child of a king would be even better. Thus, as Davis went on to observe, kings ultimately sacrificed their own children to appease “the gods.”

But the sacrifice of a king’s child still did not represent the perfect sacrifice, because the child did not go of his (or her) own free will. A free-will sacrifice of royal blood would come closest to the perfect offering. In an article titled No Greater Sacrifice, which appeared in Widdershins, one writer suggested: “Willing sacrifice is more interesting. Why does someone want to sacrifice himself or herself for what they believe in? Historically speaking, we must consider the sacred kings who sacrificed themselves for the Land” (see Andy, 1998). Yes, a king who offered himself of his own free will would be almost the perfect sacrifice. The only problem with such a concept was the fact that no king ever had lived a perfect life. As the Widdershins writer correctly observed, in an attempt to solve this, “Finally someone came up with the idea of one final sacrifice. One sacrifice to count for all the rest for all time. But who could be offered? It had to be someone very important; even kings were not good enough. Clearly, only a god was important enough to count as the last one” (Andy, 1998). Thus, it becomes clear why even the pagan world demanded a sacrifice that was sinless, royal, and higher in stature than other humans. Doane stated: “The belief of redemption from sin by the sufferings of a Divine Incarnation, whether by death on the cross or otherwise, was general and popular among the heathen, centuries before the time of Jesus of Nazareth” (1882, pp. 183-185).

Once we comprehend the need for the death of the savior-god, it is not difficult to see why humanity would want (and need) to see him defeat death. The writer of the book of Hebrews addressed this very point when he wrote that Christ allowed Himself to be sacrificed so that He “might deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (2:15). Death holds more terror for man than perhaps anything else on Earth. It was for this reason that the Greeks invented Hercules—half man and half god—to conquer the Underworld, and the Egyptians formulated Osiris. Surely a savior-god who offered himself voluntarily as the sacrifice for all humanity could defeat mankind’s dreaded enemy—Death. So, the idea of a sacrificial savior-god who victoriously defeats death through his resurrection came easily to the minds of people who knew that they needed forgiveness, and who desperately wanted to live past the grave.

And so, from a “universal frame of mind” different tribes and religions—spanning thousands of years—formulated their personal versions of what they thought a resurrected savior-god should be and do. Some said he was torn into fourteen pieces and scattered throughout the land of Egypt (e.g., Osiris). Others said he would look like a man but would possess superhuman physical strength and descend to the underworld to conquer Hades (e.g., Hercules). Yet one thing is certain: tales about a hero who saved mankind were on the lips of almost every storyteller. Trench stated correctly:


No thoughtful student of the past records of mankind can refuse to acknowledge that through all its history there has run the hope of a redemption from the evil which oppresses it; and as little can deny that this hope has continually attached itself to some single man (n.d., p. 149).

But how can it be maintained, then, that the one savior for whom all humanity waited was, and is, Jesus?

One important fact that cannot be ignored is that Jesus is the only historical figure Who fulfills the criteria necessary to justify, sanctify, and redeem mankind. No human’s creative mind concocted the narrative of Jesus of Nazareth. Human eyes saw Him, and human ears heard Him. He walked and talked—lived and loved—on the streets of real cities and in the houses of real people. His life is the only life of any “savior-god” that can be (and has been) thoroughly documented. As Stephen Franklin remarked: “[T]he specific character of Biblical religion and, thus, of Christianity stems from the priority given to the historical-factual dimension of the Bible’s basic teachings and doctrines”

Therefore, the story of Jesus Christ does not occupy a place amidst the pages of Greek mythology or ancient religious legend. Indeed, skeptics would delight in being able to place the story of Jesus on the same playing field as the stories of other legendary savior-gods, because then the parallel stories easily could be relegated to myth, due to the fact that the stories cannot be verified historically. Trench wrote of such skeptics:


"Proving, as it is not hard to prove, those parallels to be groundless and mythical, to rest on no true historic basis, they hope that the great facts of the Christian’s belief will be concluded to be as weak, will be involved in a common discredit."

If infidels were able to create a straw man that could not stand up to the test of historical verifiability (like, for example, pagan legends and myths), and if they could place the story of Jesus in the same category as their tenuous straw man, then both supposedly would fall together. However, the story of Jesus of Nazareth refuses to fall. The stories of other savior-gods are admitted to be—even by those who invented them—nothing but fables (e.g., the Greeks realized that their fictitious stories were merely untrue legends that were totally unverifiable; see McCabe, 1993, p. 59 and you AM have also admitted as such). But the story of Jesus demands its rightful place in the annals of human history. Osiris, Krishna, Hercules, Dionysus, and the other mythological savior-gods stumble back into the shadows of fiction when compared to the documented life of Jesus of Nazareth. If the skeptic wishes to challenge the uniqueness of Jesus by comparing Him with other alleged savior-gods, he first must produce evidence that one of these savior-gods truly walked on the Earth, commingled with humanity, and impacted people’s lives via both a sinless existence and incomparable teachings. Humanity always has desired a real-life savior-god; but can any of the alleged savior-gods that have been invented boast of a historical existence any more thoroughly documented than that of Christ?


In addition, Jesus has a monopoly on being perfectly flawless. He lived life by the same moral rules that govern all humans, yet He never once made a mistake. The writer of Hebrews recorded: “For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (4:15; cf. also 1 Peter 2:21-22). Renowned religious historian Philip Schaff wrote:


In vain do we look through the entire biography of Jesus for a single stain or the slightest shadow of his moral character. There never lived a more harmless being on earth. He injured nobody, he took advantage of nobody. He never wrote an improper word. He never committed a wrong action (1913, pp. 32-33).
Bernard Ramm commented in a similar vein when he stated of Christ:


There He stands, sinless. Whatever men may claim for being great, this is one thing they cannot. They may be brilliant or strong, fast or clever, creative or inspired, but not sinless. Sinless perfection and perfect sinlessness is what we would expect of God incarnate. The hypothesis and the facts concur (1953, p. 169, emp. in orig.).
Examine the stories of other savior-gods. See if they subjected themselves to the same rules as humans. See if they learned human nature and suffered unjustly, all the while never sinning with either their lips or their hearts. Try to find a savior like Christ who lived 30+ years on the Earth and yet never committed one shameful act. Norman Geisler summarized the situation as follows: “All men are sinners; God knows it and so do we. If a man lives an impeccable life and offers as the truth about himself that he is God incarnate we must take his claim seriously” (1976, p. 344). Jesus did “offer as the truth about himself that he is God incarnate.” As John Stott noted:


The most striking feature of the teaching of Jesus is that He was constantly talking about Himself.... This self-centeredness of the teaching of Jesus immediately sets Him apart from the other great religious teachers of the world. They were self-effacing. He was self-advancing. They pointed men away from themselves, saying, “That is the truth, so far as I perceive it; follow that.” Jesus said, “I am the truth; follow me.” The founders of the ethnic religions never dared say such a thing (1971, p. 23).


More can be said of this but it really has already been said. I quote JC:

" Just because a fictional story existed prior to a similar historical event does not prove that the record of the historical event was copied from the fictional story.

What is more likely is that the theme of sacrifice and atonement for sin is a universal truth."

[AMbomb]

The story of Jesus is the pagan godman myth, as is the story of Mithras, Osiris, Dionysus and many others. It's the same myth told over and over again with different names. Mind you, the myths I'm talking about aren't the myths of the state religions. They're the myths of the mystery religions, which is what Christianity started out as. If you think the story of Jesus doesn't revolve around the seasons, would you care to explain to me why Easter's in early spring? As for the argument that the story of Jesus takes place in an actual period of history with actual historical figures, see the third message from the top of page 5.

First things first. Were you plugging your ears while reading my posts? It is apparent that you are encountering cognitive dissonance. I've noticed this about you while reading through this entire thread. You don't address the central issues one brings up and keep repeating the same thing, "The story of Jesus is the pagan godman myth." Perhaps this is why JC has stopped corresponding with you on this?

Now then, Jesus was not just a "god man." He was much more than that.

Some of my information is from Kyle Butt, M.A. and Bert Thompson, Ph.D. just as yours is from The Jesus Mysteries by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy.

History is filled with examples of those whose lives—real or imagined—share certain traits with the well-documented life of Jesus of Nazareth. Lets go with one you mentioned, Dionysus.

The usual story of Dionysus' birth relates that he was the offspring of Zeus, the immortal leader of the Greek gods who impregnated a human female by the name of Semele, the daughter of Cadmus, King of Thebes. Dionysus is said to have descended to the underworld and conquered death, ultimately bringing his dead mother back to the land of the living. He also is said to have died and been raised again. His followers called him Lysios or Redeemer, and grape juice commonly was used to symbolize his blood.

Of course, contemporary skeptics like Freke and who use the argument that it's the same myth told over and over again with different names in attempts to debunk the uniqueness and deity of Christ cannot take credit as its originators. History records that almost two thousand years ago the early Christian apologists were busily engaged in responding to the exact same argument. For example, Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-426) stated in his Christian Doctrine:

"The readers and admirers of Plato dared calumniously to assert that our Lord Jesus Christ learnt all those sayings of His, which they are compelled to admire and praise, from the books of Plato—because (they urged) it cannot be denied that Plato lived long before the coming of our Lord."

Augustine refuted the argument by suggesting that Plato had read the prophet Jeremiah and then conveniently incorporated Jeremiah’s teachings into his own. The point, however, is clear: as early as A.D. 400, skeptics and enemies of the Cross were launching fiery darts of alleged plagiarism at both Christ and His followers.

Further investigation into the history of Christian apologetics manifests something even more startling. The earliest apologists not only recognized that the story and teachings of Jesus bore striking similarities to ancient mythological accounts, but even emphasized these similarities in an attempt to get pagans to understand more about Jesus and His mission. Justin Martyr (A.D. 100-165) set forth an argument in his First Apology that was intended to put Christ at least on an equal playing field with earlier mythological gods.

"And if we assert that the Word of God was born of God in a peculiar manner, different from ordinary generation, let this, as said above, be no extraordinary thing to you, who say that Mercury is the angelic word of God. But if any one objects that He was crucified, in this also He is on a par with those reputed sons of Jupiter of yours.... And if we even affirm that He was born of a virgin, accept this in common with what you accept of Ferseus. And in that we say that He made whole the lame, the paralytic, and those born blind, we seem to say what is very similar to the deeds said to have been done by Æsculapius" (Chapter 22).

Tertullian (c. A.D. 160-220) observed that the story of Romulus, another character from ancient Greek mythology who was seen after his death, was quite similar to the story of Christ being seen after His death. However, Tertullian went on to note that the stories of Christ were much more certain because they were documented by historical evidence (Apology, 21).


While ancient pagans saw, and modern skeptics still see, such similarities as militating against the originality and uniqueness of Christ, the writings of such men as Augustine, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and others document the fact that early Christians could see obvious—yes, even welcome—similarities between the story of Jesus and the accounts of mythological, pagan gods. Furthermore, some of those early Christians even seized upon those very similarities to defend Jesus’ position as the unique Son of God. The apologists’ point, of course, was two-fold: (1) men of the past had searched for a unique savior-god and, finding none, resorted to inventing him and bestowing upon him certain distinct characteristics; and (2) that Savior—who, although in the past had been endowed with unique traits of their own feeble creation—actually had come!

So you see AM, early apologists acknowledged these facts because they were, and are, quite indisputable. And that leads us back to the issue of this thread, how, in light of such facts, can we affirm that Jesus Christ is the unique, authentic Son of God—when stories similar to His circulated decades or millennia before He ever came to Earth?


The truth of the matter is that many stories over the course of history resemble that of Jesus of Nazareth in one way or another. And why should this surprise us? After Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, man became keenly aware of both the presence and the consequences of sin. From the time of Cain and Abel, God had established sacrifices and decreed specific rules regarding those sacrifices. Since that time, all humans have had at least some perception—however slight or flawed—that they needed to “do something” to stand justified once again before their Creator. One way to do that was to invent a “stand-in”—someone who could take their place—as the epitome of sinless perfection to plead their case before the Righteous Judge of all the Earth.

Additionally, however, it can be argued that the similarities are only similarities, not exact parallels. It further can be argued that Jesus’ story, even though it seems similar to some others, is not exactly the same and, in fact, differs substantially in the minute details. For example, Krishna allegedly was crucified via an arrow through his arms, while Jesus was nailed to the cross. Confucius offered the negative form of the so-called “golden rule” (“Do not do to others”), while Jesus stated the positive (“Do unto others”). Dionysus’ mother, Persophone, reportedly had intercourse with Zeus, while Mary was a virgin. This line of reasoning possesses some merit, because it certainly is true that none of the ancient stories sounds exactly like Christ’s.


A closer look at the Egyptian legend of Osiris provides a good example of the many important differences between the account of Jesus and other stories. Legend says that Osiris was killed by his evil brother Seth, who tore Osiris’ body into fourteen pieces and scattered them throughout Egypt. Isis, the goddess-consort of Osiris, collected the pieces and buried them, thus giving life to Osiris in the underworld. Afterward, she used magical arts to revive Osiris and to conceive a child (Horus) by him. After fathering Horus, Osiris remained in the underworld, not really ever rising from the dead (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1997, 8:1026-1027). This legend, taken as a whole, provides few (if any) real parallels to the story of Jesus. Furthermore, when all the stories about characters who supposedly were similar to Christ are told in their entirety, it is obvious that each of them contains only a few characteristics that come anywhere close to resembling those contained in the life story of Jesus. Additionally, some of the alleged parallels rest upon tenuous documentation and may even be fabricated.

In the early part of the twentieth century, Joseph McCabe, one of the most outspoken atheists of his day, published several works, including The Myth of the Resurrection (1925), Did Jesus Ever Live? (1926), and How Christianity “Triumphed” (1926). McCabe painstakingly documented the similarities between the story of Jesus and pagan stories such as those of Osiris, Adonis, Tammuz, and Attis, yet specifically noted: “It is a most important feature of our story that this legend of a slain and resurrected god arose in quite different parts of the old civilized world. Tammuz, Attis, and Osiris are three separate and independent creations of the myth-making imagination”

Hmm...here is where it gets interesting AM, are you paying attention? JC already pointed where we are going with this out to you and it seemed to go right over your head. Now then, McCabe thus acknowledged that these pagan stories with similar themes did not copy either one another or some earlier, predominant story. Rather, they arose separately—and even independently—of each other. McCabe admitted: “For some reason...the mind of man came in most parts of the world to conceive a legend of death and resurrection.... In fact, in one form or other there was almost a worldwide belief that the god, or a representative [king, prisoner, effigy, etc.] of the god, died, or had to die every year” (pp. 52,53, emp. added; bracketed material in orig.). In his conclusion, McCabe wrote: “In sum, I should say that the universal belief in a slain and resurrected god throws light upon the Christian belief by showing us a universal frame of mind which quite easily, in many places, made a resurrection myth” (p. 63, emp. added). McCabe—even as an infidel—willingly acknowledged that numerous (but different) resurrection myths arose from various regions around the globe, each similar in its facts yet original in its derivation. These stories apparently arose because of what he referred to as a “universal frame of mind.”

This is very interesting and we are getting warmer...People around the world—due to a “universal frame of mind”—independently concocted stories that revolved around a god dying and then rising again. These stories span both time barriers and geographical limits; they are—in a very literal sense—“worldwide” and “universal.” In truth, man does have a religious instinct—one that is keener than even many theologians would like to admit. In speaking of God, the writer of Ecclesiastes remarked: “He hath made everything beautiful in its time: he hath set eternity in their heart” (3:11). Paul said that mankind always has been able to understand God’s “everlasting power and divinity” (Romans 1:20). God did not place man on Earth to abandon him. Instead:


He made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons and bounds of their habitation; that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after him and find him though he is not far from each one of us; for in him we live, and move and have our being; as certain of your own poets have said, for we are his offspring (Acts 17:26-28).

God has indeed “set eternity” in the hearts of men and given them a universal instinct that is intended to cause them to seek Him. How, then, did the instinct to worship God lead to the concoction of numerous stories about a virgin-born savior-god who dies as a sacrifice for mankind’s wrongdoings? First, it started with the idea of sacrifice. From the moment Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden of Eden, man was acutely aware that he was a sinful being in need of redemption. Humans also understood that some type of atoning sacrifice was required to absolve them of sin. Oddly, skeptics seem to understand this point quite well. In the late eighteenth century, T.W. Doane caustically attacked the doctrines of Christ and the Bible. His work, Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions (1882), gnawed at every mooring of Christian doctrine. Yet even he understood that mankind always has realized its own sinfulness and its need for an atoning sacrifice. He wrote: “The doctrine of atonement for sin had been preached long before the doctrine was deduced from the Christian Scriptures, long before these Scriptures are pretended to have been written” (p. 181).

Those who might wish to challenge this assessment can examine any book on world history or world religions and see that it is correct. Abel offered the first of his flock, and from that day forward, humanity began offering live sacrifices to a deity in the hope of absolving anger and forgiving sin. In fact, mankind has sacrificed living things to a deity from the beginning of time. But which particular sacrifices did humanity think had the power to forgive sins? The general rule for the atonement value of a sacrifice was: the more costly and perfect the sacrifice, the more sins it would absolve.

When God initiated the ritual sacrifice of animals for the religious ceremonies of His chosen people, He laid down strict rules. In Leviticus 22:19-20, God told the Jews: “You shall offer of your own free will a male without blemish from the cattle, from the sheep, or from the goats. But whatever has a defect, you shall not offer, for it shall not be acceptable on your behalf ” (NKJV). The Lord always has demanded that blood be shed for the remission of sins. Hebrews 9:22 reiterates that point: “And according to the law...all things are cleansed with blood, and apart from shedding of blood there is no remission.” This should not be at all surprising, since “the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh atonement by reason of the life” (Leviticus 17:11).

Men and women of ages past knew all too well God’s commandments regarding atonement by blood. It began with Cain and Abel, was reaffirmed by Noah (Genesis 9:1-6), was regulated by Old Testament law, and was carried through to fulfillment by Jesus. When God instituted the Law of Moses, He did not introduce animal sacrifices as an innovation never before seen by the Israelites. Rather, He showed the Israelites the proper manner in which to sacrifice such animals, until the time that the fulfilling sacrifice of His Son would bring to a halt the need for any further blood atonement via animal sacrifices. In showing them the proper way, God made strict provisions to keep the children of Israel from turning from God-approved sacrifices to sacrificing their own innocent children like the pagans around them. In Leviticus 18:21, God told the children of Israel: “And thou shalt not give any of thy seed to make them pass through the fire to Molech; neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am Jehovah.” God went to great lengths to warn the Israelites against offering their children as sacrifices because it was well known that the nations around them took part in such infanticide. The question arises, “What in this world could convince a mother or father to offer their children to a god?” Let us investigate this matter further.

Wendy Davis writes for Widdershins, a self-proclaimed journal of unadulterated paganism. In an article on the World Wide Web, As Old as the Moon: Sacrifice in History, she stated: “The act of ritual murder is probably as old as we [humans—KB/BT] are. Throughout the ages, people sacrificed when they needed something. Our ancestors often gave the best they had, their first-born, to save themselves” (1995, emp. added). The most precious possession of a mother or father would be their first-born child. That child, however, would be not only precious, but also sinless. Sacrifice of anything less than that which is spotless and pure diminishes the inherent value of the sacrifice. Thus, it was believed that a sinless and pure sacrifice of such magnitude could wash away the sins of the parents (or, for that matter, the sins of an entire village!). Therefore, corrupt, perverse religions sprang up around the sacrifice of children, one of the most famous of which was that of Molech (see 2 Kings 23:10).

Yet even though the sacrifice of infants fulfilled the sinless aspect of a perfect sacrifice, it was lacking in other areas. For example, an “ordinary” infant born of peasant parents was not the most costly sacrifice available; a royal child of a king would be even better. Thus, as Davis went on to observe, kings ultimately sacrificed their own children to appease “the gods.”

But the sacrifice of a king’s child still did not represent the perfect sacrifice, because the child did not go of his (or her) own free will. A free-will sacrifice of royal blood would come closest to the perfect offering. In an article titled No Greater Sacrifice, which appeared in Widdershins, one writer suggested: “Willing sacrifice is more interesting. Why does someone want to sacrifice himself or herself for what they believe in? Historically speaking, we must consider the sacred kings who sacrificed themselves for the Land” (see Andy, 1998). Yes, a king who offered himself of his own free will would be almost the perfect sacrifice. The only problem with such a concept was the fact that no king ever had lived a perfect life. As the Widdershins writer correctly observed, in an attempt to solve this, “Finally someone came up with the idea of one final sacrifice. One sacrifice to count for all the rest for all time. But who could be offered? It had to be someone very important; even kings were not good enough. Clearly, only a god was important enough to count as the last one” (Andy, 1998). Thus, it becomes clear why even the pagan world demanded a sacrifice that was sinless, royal, and higher in stature than other humans. Doane stated: “The belief of redemption from sin by the sufferings of a Divine Incarnation, whether by death on the cross or otherwise, was general and popular among the heathen, centuries before the time of Jesus of Nazareth” (1882, pp. 183-185).

Once we comprehend the need for the death of the savior-god, it is not difficult to see why humanity would want (and need) to see him defeat death. The writer of the book of Hebrews addressed this very point when he wrote that Christ allowed Himself to be sacrificed so that He “might deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (2:15). Death holds more terror for man than perhaps anything else on Earth. It was for this reason that the Greeks invented Hercules—half man and half god—to conquer the Underworld, and the Egyptians formulated Osiris. Surely a savior-god who offered himself voluntarily as the sacrifice for all humanity could defeat mankind’s dreaded enemy—Death. So, the idea of a sacrificial savior-god who victoriously defeats death through his resurrection came easily to the minds of people who knew that they needed forgiveness, and who desperately wanted to live past the grave.

And so, from a “universal frame of mind” different tribes and religions—spanning thousands of years—formulated their personal versions of what they thought a resurrected savior-god should be and do. Some said he was torn into fourteen pieces and scattered throughout the land of Egypt (e.g., Osiris). Others said he would look like a man but would possess superhuman physical strength and descend to the underworld to conquer Hades (e.g., Hercules). Yet one thing is certain: tales about a hero who saved mankind were on the lips of almost every storyteller. Trench stated correctly:


No thoughtful student of the past records of mankind can refuse to acknowledge that through all its history there has run the hope of a redemption from the evil which oppresses it; and as little can deny that this hope has continually attached itself to some single man (n.d., p. 149).

But how can it be maintained, then, that the one savior for whom all humanity waited was, and is, Jesus?

One important fact that cannot be ignored is that Jesus is the only historical figure Who fulfills the criteria necessary to justify, sanctify, and redeem mankind. No human’s creative mind concocted the narrative of Jesus of Nazareth. Human eyes saw Him, and human ears heard Him. He walked and talked—lived and loved—on the streets of real cities and in the houses of real people. His life is the only life of any “savior-god” that can be (and has been) thoroughly documented. As Stephen Franklin remarked: “[T]he specific character of Biblical religion and, thus, of Christianity stems from the priority given to the historical-factual dimension of the Bible’s basic teachings and doctrines”

Therefore, the story of Jesus Christ does not occupy a place amidst the pages of Greek mythology or ancient religious legend. Indeed, skeptics would delight in being able to place the story of Jesus on the same playing field as the stories of other legendary savior-gods, because then the parallel stories easily could be relegated to myth, due to the fact that the stories cannot be verified historically. Trench wrote of such skeptics:


"Proving, as it is not hard to prove, those parallels to be groundless and mythical, to rest on no true historic basis, they hope that the great facts of the Christian’s belief will be concluded to be as weak, will be involved in a common discredit."

If infidels were able to create a straw man that could not stand up to the test of historical verifiability (like, for example, pagan legends and myths), and if they could place the story of Jesus in the same category as their tenuous straw man, then both supposedly would fall together. However, the story of Jesus of Nazareth refuses to fall. The stories of other savior-gods are admitted to be—even by those who invented them—nothing but fables (e.g., the Greeks realized that their fictitious stories were merely untrue legends that were totally unverifiable; see McCabe, 1993, p. 59 and you AM have also admitted as such). But the story of Jesus demands its rightful place in the annals of human history. Osiris, Krishna, Hercules, Dionysus, and the other mythological savior-gods stumble back into the shadows of fiction when compared to the documented life of Jesus of Nazareth. If the skeptic wishes to challenge the uniqueness of Jesus by comparing Him with other alleged savior-gods, he first must produce evidence that one of these savior-gods truly walked on the Earth, commingled with humanity, and impacted people’s lives via both a sinless existence and incomparable teachings. Humanity always has desired a real-life savior-god; but can any of the alleged savior-gods that have been invented boast of a historical existence any more thoroughly documented than that of Christ?


In addition, Jesus has a monopoly on being perfectly flawless. He lived life by the same moral rules that govern all humans, yet He never once made a mistake. The writer of Hebrews recorded: “For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (4:15; cf. also 1 Peter 2:21-22). Renowned religious historian Philip Schaff wrote:


In vain do we look through the entire biography of Jesus for a single stain or the slightest shadow of his moral character. There never lived a more harmless being on earth. He injured nobody, he took advantage of nobody. He never wrote an improper word. He never committed a wrong action (1913, pp. 32-33).
Bernard Ramm commented in a similar vein when he stated of Christ:


There He stands, sinless. Whatever men may claim for being great, this is one thing they cannot. They may be brilliant or strong, fast or clever, creative or inspired, but not sinless. Sinless perfection and perfect sinlessness is what we would expect of God incarnate. The hypothesis and the facts concur (1953, p. 169, emp. in orig.).
Examine the stories of other savior-gods. See if they subjected themselves to the same rules as humans. See if they learned human nature and suffered unjustly, all the while never sinning with either their lips or their hearts. Try to find a savior like Christ who lived 30+ years on the Earth and yet never committed one shameful act. Norman Geisler summarized the situation as follows: “All men are sinners; God knows it and so do we. If a man lives an impeccable life and offers as the truth about himself that he is God incarnate we must take his claim seriously” (1976, p. 344). Jesus did “offer as the truth about himself that he is God incarnate.” As John Stott noted:


The most striking feature of the teaching of Jesus is that He was constantly talking about Himself.... This self-centeredness of the teaching of Jesus immediately sets Him apart from the other great religious teachers of the world. They were self-effacing. He was self-advancing. They pointed men away from themselves, saying, “That is the truth, so far as I perceive it; follow that.” Jesus said, “I am the truth; follow me.” The founders of the ethnic religions never dared say such a thing (1971, p. 23).


More can be said of this but it really has already been said. I quote JC:

" Just because a fictional story existed prior to a similar historical event does not prove that the record of the historical event was copied from the fictional story.

What is more likely is that the theme of sacrifice and atonement for sin is a universal truth."

I don't address the central issue?! You gotta be kidding me! The central issue is the similarity of the Jesus story to earlier pagan godman myths. That's the reason for my conclusion that there was no Jesus. Getting other people to address it has been like pulling teeth! That's why I've had to repeat myself so damn many times! And if you think the life of Jesus is well documented, go look through the Roman archives and see if you can find any mention of him. And when you're finished, you can go through the writings of the 27 pagan writers who lived within a century of when Jesus is said to have lived and see if any of them mention him. That'll take you a while, though. Their writings could fill a library. I know you're a Christian. What you need to do is divorce yourself as much as possible from that and think about what I wrote in the third message from the top of page 5 if you actually read it. And if you didn't, read it.

[FaithnJC]

I don't address the central issue?! You gotta be kidding me! The central issue is the similarity of the Jesus story to earlier pagan godman myths. That's the reason for my conclusion that there was no Jesus. Getting other people to address it has been like pulling teeth! That's why I've had to repeat myself so damn many times! And if you think the life of Jesus is well documented, go look through the Roman archives and see if you can find any mention of him. And when you're finished, you can go through the writings of the 27 pagan writers who lived within a century of when Jesus is said to have lived and see if any of them mention him. That'll take you a while, though. They're writings could fill a library. I know you're a Christian. What you need to do is divorce yourself as much as possible from that and think about what I wrote in the third message from the top of page 5 if you actually read it. And if you didn't, read it.

Ah yes, the similarity of the Jesus story. I am acutely aware of your mantra. As I am acutely aware of your cognitive dissonance. While I understand that you cannot seperate yourself from your presuppositions and therefore will wrongly conclude that Jesus is a myth, I still enjoy this debate.

Let me shed some additional light on this subject. If you care to open up your mind to the possibility that the Biblical gospels are the truth, then read through this link:

http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/tex ... j0169a.txt

Some highlights from the link:

RECONSTRUCTING THE MYSTERIES_*

It is not until we come to the third century A.D. that we find
sufficient source material (i.e., information about the mystery
religions from the writings of the time) to permit a relatively
complete reconstruction of their content. Far too many writers use
this late source material (after A.D. 200) to form reconstructions
of the third-century mystery experience and then uncritically
reason back to what they think must have been the earlier nature of
the cults. This practice is exceptionally bad scholarship and
should not be allowed to stand without challenge. Information about
a cult that comes several hundred years after the close of the New
Testament canon must not be read back into what is presumed to be
the status of the cult during the first century A.D. The crucial
question is not what possible influence the mysteries may have had
on segments of Christendom after A.D. 400, but what effect the
emerging mysteries may have had on the New Testament in the first
century.


Mithraism_*

Attempts to reconstruct the beliefs and practices of Mithraism
face enormous challenges because of the scanty information that has
survived. Proponents of the cult explained the world in terms of
two ultimate and opposing principles, one good (depicted as light)
and the other evil (darkness). Human beings must choose which side
they will fight for; they are trapped in the conflict between light
and darkness. Mithra came to be regarded as the most powerful
mediator who could help humans ward off attacks from demonic
forces.[8]

The major reason why no Mithraic influence on first-century
Christianity is possible is the timing: it's all wrong! The
flowering of Mithraism occurred after the close of the New
Testament canon, much too late for it to have influenced anything
that appears in the New Testament.[9] Moreover, no monuments for
the cult can be dated earlier than A.D. 90-100, and even this
dating requires us to make some exceedingly generous assumptions.
Chronological difficulties, then, make the possibility of a
Mithraic influence on early Christianity extremely improbable.
Certainly, there remains no credible evidence for such an
influence.

STRIKING PARALLELS?_*

Enough has been said thus far to permit comment on one of the
major faults of the above-mentioned liberal scholars. I refer to
the frequency with which their writings evidence a careless, even
sloppy use of language. One frequently encounters scholars who
first use Christian terminology to describe pagan beliefs and
practices, and then marvel at the striking parallels they think
they have discovered. One can go a long way toward "proving" early
Christian dependence on the mysteries by describing some mystery
belief or practice in Christian terminology. J. Godwin does this in
his book, _Mystery Religions in the Ancient World,_ which describes
the criobolium (_see_ footnote 6) as a "blood baptism" in which the
initiate is "washed in the blood of the lamb."[10] While uninformed
readers might be stunned by this remarkable similarity to
Christianity (_see_ Rev. 7:14), knowledgeable readers will see such
a claim as the reflection of a strong, negative bias against
Christianity.

Exaggerations and oversimplifications abound in this kind of
literature. One encounters overblown claims about alleged
likenesses between baptism and the Lord's Supper and similar
"sacraments" in certain mystery cults. Attempts to find analogies
between the resurrection of Christ and the alleged "resurrections"
of the mystery deities involve massive amounts of
oversimplification and inattention to detail.

The Risen Christ and the "Rising Savior-Gods"_*

Which mystery gods actually experienced a resurrection from the
dead? Certainly no early texts refer to any resurrection of Attis.
Nor is the case for a resurrection of Osiris any stronger. One can
speak of a "resurrection" in the stories of Osiris, Attis, and
Adonis only in the most extended of senses.[17] For example, after
Isis gathered together the pieces of Osiris's dismembered body,
Osiris became "Lord of the Underworld." This is a poor substitute
for a resurrection like that of Jesus Christ. And, no claim can be
made that Mithras was a dying and rising god. The tide of scholarly
opinion has turned dramatically against attempts to make early
Christianity dependent on the so-called dying and rising gods of
Hellenistic paganism.[18] Any unbiased examination of the evidence
shows that such claims must be rejected.

Christian Rebirth and Cultic Initiation Rites_*

Liberal writings on the subject are full of sweeping
generalizations to the effect that early Christianity borrowed its
notion of rebirth from the pagan mysteries.[19] But the evidence
makes it clear that there was no pre-Christian doctrine of rebirth
for the Christians to borrow. There are actually very few
references to the notion of rebirth in the evidence that has
survived, and even these are either very late or very ambiguous.
They provide no help in settling the question of the source of the
New Testament use of the concept. The claim that pre-Christian
mysteries regarded their initiation rites as a kind of rebirth is
unsupported by any evidence contemporary with such alleged
practices. Instead, a view found in much later texts is read back
into earlier rites, which are then interpreted quite speculatively
as dramatic portrayals of the initiate's "new birth." The belief
that pre-Christian mysteries used "rebirth" as a technical term
lacks support from even one single text.

Most contemporary scholars maintain that the mystery use of the
concept of rebirth (testified to only in evidence dated after A.D.
300) differs so significantly from its New Testament usage that any
possibility of a close link is ruled out. The most that such
scholars are willing to concede is the _possibility_ that some
Christians borrowed the metaphor or imagery from the common speech
of the time and recast it to fit their distinctive theological
beliefs. So even if the metaphor of rebirth was Hellenistic, its
content within Christianity was unique.



SEVEN ARGUMENTS AGAINST CHRISTIAN DEPENDENCE ON THE MYSTERIES_*

I conclude by noting seven points that undermine liberal
efforts to show that first-century Christianity borrowed essential
beliefs and practices from the pagan mystery religions.

(1) Arguments offered to "prove" a Christian dependence on the
mysteries illustrate the logical fallacy of false cause. This
fallacy is committed whenever someone reasons that just because two
things exist side by side, one of them must have caused the other.
As we all should know, mere coincidence does not prove causal
connection. Nor does similarity prove dependence.

(2) 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.

(3) The chronology is all wrong. Almost all of our sources of
information about the pagan religions alleged to have influenced
early Christianity are dated very late. We frequently find writers
quoting from documents written 300 years later than Paul in efforts
to produce ideas that allegedly influenced Paul. We must reject the
assumption that just because a cult had a certain belief or
practice in the third or fourth century after Christ, it therefore
had the same belief or practice in the first century.

(4) Paul would never have consciously borrowed from the pagan
religions. All of our information about him makes it highly
unlikely that he was in any sense influenced by pagan sources. He
placed great emphasis on his early training in a strict form of
Judaism (Phil. 3:5). He warned the Colossians against the very sort
of influence that advocates of Christian syncretism have attributed
to him, namely, letting their minds be captured by alien
speculations (Col. 2:8).

(5) Early Christianity was an exclusivistic faith. As J. Machen
explains, the mystery cults were nonexclusive. "A man could become
initiated into the mysteries of Isis or Mithras without at all
giving up his former beliefs; but if he were to be received into
the Church, according to the preaching of Paul, he must forsake all
other Saviors for the Lord Jesus Christ....Amid the prevailing
syncretism of the Greco-Roman world, the religion of Paul, with the
religion of Israel, stands absolutely alone."[21] This Christian
exclusivism should be a starting point for all reflection about the
possible relations between Christianity and its pagan competitors.
Any hint of syncretism in the New Testament would have caused
immediate controversy.

(6) Unlike the mysteries, the religion of Paul was grounded on
events that actually happened in history. The mysticism of the
mystery cults was essentially nonhistorical. Their myths were
dramas, or pictures, of what the initiate went through, not real
historical events, as Paul regarded Christ's death and resurrection
to be. The Christian affirmation that the death and resurrection of
Christ happened to a historical person at a particular time and
place has absolutely no parallel in any pagan mystery religion.

(7) What few parallels may still remain may reflect a Christian
influence on the pagan systems. As Bruce Metzger has argued, "It
must not be uncritically assumed that the Mysteries always
influenced Christianity, for it is not only possible but probable
that in certain cases, the influence moved in the opposite
direction."[22] It should not be surprising that leaders of cults
that were being successfully challenged by Christianity should do
something to counter the challenge. What better way to do this than
by offering a pagan substitute? Pagan attempts to counter the
growing influence of Christianity by imitating it are clearly
apparent in measures instituted by Julian the Apostate, who was the
Roman emperor from A.D. 361 to 363.


*_A FINAL WORD_*

Liberal efforts to undermine the uniqueness of the Christian
revelation via claims of a pagan religious influence collapse
quickly once a full account of the information is available. It is
clear that the liberal arguments exhibit astoundingly bad
scholarship. Indeed, this conclusion may be too generous. According
to one writer, a more accurate account of these bad arguments would
describe them as "prejudiced irresponsibility."[23] But in order to
become completely informed on these matters, wise readers will work
through material cited in the brief bibliography.

You have already been informed of the Roman and pagan writers who mentioned Jesus in their writings. Not only Jesus but His brother James, John the Baptist, etc. As far as your demand for contemporaries: there aren't as many surviving Roman records as you claim. In addition, do you really think a Roman historian would give a hoot for Jesus? Jesus was a peasant, running around a dreadful Palestinian outpost, teaching other Jews in the desert about the Jews' God, and this peasant Jesus was on the scene for a mere 3 1/2 years?