Chapter 10
Chapter 10
Does the Story of Jesus Mimic Pagan Mystery Stories?
Mary Jo Sharp
Three years ago, an Islamic apologist expressed interest in a public debate with me. I suggested we center the debate on the theory of the mythological origins of Christ's resurrection. His response was that since most scholars consider this a "dead subject," such a debate probably would not be very fruitful. These kinds of sentiments are not isolated. Two years prior to that exchange, while I was researching for my master's thesis on this very topic, several colleagues responded similarly: "Why are you researching this topic? No one still argues from the perspective that Jesus' story was a myth." Even more recently, biblical scholar James D. G. Dunn satirically exclaimed, "Gosh! So there are still serious scholars who put forward the view that the whole account of Jesus' doings and teachings are a later myth foisted on an unknown, obscure historical figure."1 Dunn concludes that he cannot see much life in the argument at all. However, in surveying the most influential communication media—the Internet, television, and movies—the accusation of mythological origins is one of the most utilized arguments against belief in Jesus Christ. While not much scholarly work in the past 20 years has been focused on this argument, at the popular level the argument is alive and kicking.
The Argument
Basically, the argument is this: the biblical narratives of Christ's life and teachings are mythological in nature and origin rather than actual historical accounts. Many offshoots of this overarching theme have cropped up over the years: (1) Christian dependence on mystery religions to explain baptism and the Lord's Supper, or (2) the doctrine of salvation evolving from mystery religions, or (3) Christianity as just another Hellenistic mystery religion, or (4) Christian beliefs and practices dependent on similar beliefs and practices in the mysteries.2 However, more recent work in this area has focused on the last two arguments, in which the mystery religion stories are thought to be source material for the authors of the Gospels. Our focus will be on this more specific argument with regard to borrowing elements of the mystery religion stories. (This chapter complements the subsequent chapter, in which Mark Foreman discusses the Zeitgeist movie.)
First, we must understand what is meant by "pagan mystery religions." These were religious cults that were named "mysteries" because of the vow of secrecy taken by followers concerning the cult's teachings and the wisdom these teachings imparted. The late theologian and philosopher Ronald Nash explained, "The reason these mystery religions were called mystery religions is that they involved secret ceremonies known only to those initiated into the cult. The major benefit of these practices was thought to be some kind of salvation."3
The purpose of this chapter is not to provide a comprehensive response to each accusation related to Christianity's supposedly borrowing mythic elements, but rather to offer the reader a method of investigating these kinds of arguments and to point out some excellent resources on the topic. Most people who are impressed by the mystery-cult-influence argument have not scrutinized the claims meticulously enough, probably not going any further than watching a television show, viewing a few YouTube clips, or glancing through an article or two on random blogs. The person who lacks a solid grounding in Christian doctrine and knowledge of history can easily fall prey to confusion and doubt induced by poor arguments left unchallenged. Thus, to avoid this predicament, I suggest three steps as a minimum guideline in considering whether or not the story of Jesus is a copy of contemporary or preexistent pagan mysteries.
Step #1: Get the Whole Story
A fundamental aspect of engaging any argument is an investigation into the credentials of the sources. While I don't commend intellectual snobbery, I do suggest challenging a person who has confused "catch phrases" with facts, preferably before these ideas begin to engender doubt. For example, one of my family members once stated that "radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam." The first thing I asked was, "Where are you getting that from?" Since she couldn't remember, I told her, "You are getting that from Rosie O'Donnell. Why would you trust an actress's statement on philosophy of religion when she hasn't done any studying in this area?" O'Donnell has a right to her own opinion, but to promote her opinion as a convincing fact, she should be able to reference some relevant scholarly sources.
Asking the Right Questions
So to ascertain whether or not proponents of the copy-cat argument have attempted intellectually honest research in forming their conclusions, keep these kinds of questions in mind:
Primary sources, the actual text or depictions, are the most important sources. A source that is farther removed should be interacting with some of the primary and secondary sources, at the very least. Through interaction with these sources, the person making the argument is more likely to have dealt with the whole story and not just a cherry-picked version which makes it appear much more like the story of Christ. As we move into the next section and read summaries of the three gods from two pagan mysteries—the Cult of Isis and Osiris and the Cult of Mithras—we will uncover the Achilles' heel of the Jesus-myth approach.
A Tale of Three Deities
1. Osiris. While some critics of Christ's story utilize the story of Osiris to demonstrate that the earliest followers of Christ copied it, these critics rarely acknowledge how we know the story of Osiris at all. The only full account of Osiris's story is from the second-century AD Greek writer, Plutarch: "Concerning Isis and Osiris."4 The other information is found piecemeal in Egyptian and Greek sources, but a basic outline can be found in the Pyramid Texts (c. 2686-c. 2160 BC). This seems problematic when claiming that a story recorded in the second century influenced the New Testament accounts, which were written in the first century. Two other important aspects to mention are the evolving nature of the Osirian myth and the sexual nature of the worship of Osiris as noted by Plutarch. Notice how just a couple of details from the full story profoundly strain the comparison of Osiris with the life of Christ.
Who was Osiris? He was one of five offspring born of an adulterous affair between two gods—Nut, the sky-goddess, and Geb, the earth-god.5 Because of Nut's transgression, the Sun curses her and will not allow her to give birth on any day in any month. However, the god Thoth6 also loves Nut. He secures five more days from the Moon to add to the Egyptian calendar specifically for Nut to give birth. While inside his mother's womb, Osiris falls in love with his sister, Isis. The two have intercourse inside the womb of Nut, and the resultant child is Horus.7 Nut gives birth to all five offspring: Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis, and Nephthys.
Sometime after his birth, Osiris mistakes Nephthys, the wife of his brother Set, for his own wife and has intercourse with her. Enraged, Set plots to murder Osiris at a celebration for the gods. During the festivities, Set procures a beautiful, sweet-smelling sarcophagus, promising it as a gift to the attendee whom it might fit. Of course, this is Osiris. Once Osiris lies down in the sarcophagus, Set solders it shut and then heaves it into the Nile. There are at least two versions of Osiris's fate: (a) he suffocates in the sarcophagus as it floats down the Nile, and (b) he drowns in the sarcophagus after it is thrown into the Nile.
Grief-stricken Isis searches for and eventually recovers Osiris's corpse. While traveling in a barge down the Nile, Isis conceives a child by copulating with the dead body.8 Upon returning to Egypt, Isis attempts to conceal the corpse from Set but fails. Still furious, Set dismembers his brother's carcass into 14 pieces, which he then scatters throughout Egypt. A temple was supposedly erected at each location where a piece of Osiris was found.
Isis retrieves all but one of the pieces, his phallus. The body is mummified with a model made of the missing phallus. In Plutarch's account of this part of the story, he noted that the Egyptians "presently hold a festival" in honor of this sexual organ.9 Following magical incantations, Osiris is raised in the netherworld to reign as king of the dead in the land of the dead. In The Riddle of Resurrection: Dying and Rising Gods in the Ancient Near East, T. N. D. Mettinger states: "He both died and rose. But, and this is most important, he rose to continued life in the Netherworld, and the general connotations are that he was a god of the dead."10 Mettinger quotes Egyptologist Henri Frankfort:
Osiris, in fact, was not a dying god at all but a dead god. He never returned among the living; he was not liberated from the world of the dead, . . . on the contrary, Osiris altogether belonged to the world of the dead; it was from there that he bestowed his blessings upon Egypt. He was always depicted as a mummy, a dead king.11
This presents a very different picture from the resurrection of Jesus, which was reported as a return to physical life.
2. Horus. Horus's story is a bit difficult to decipher for two main reasons. Generally, his story lacks the amount of information for other gods, such as Osiris. Also, there are two stories concerning Horus that develop and then merge throughout Egyptian history: Horus the Sun-god, and Horus the child of Isis and Osiris. The major texts for Horus's story are the Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, the Book of the Dead, Plutarch, and Apuleius—all of which reflect the story of Horus as the child of Isis and Osiris.12 The story is routinely found wherever the story of Osiris is found.
Who was Horus? He was the child of Isis and Osiris. His birth has several explanations as mentioned in Isis and Osiris's story: (1) the result of the intercourse between Isis and Osiris in Nut's womb; (2) conceived by Isis's sexual intercourse with Osiris's dead body; (3) Isis is impregnated by Osiris after his death and after the loss of his phallus; or (4) Isis is impregnated by a flash of lightning.13 To protect Horus from his uncle's rage against his father, Isis hides the child in the Delta swamps. While he is hiding, a scorpion stings him, and Isis returns to find his body lifeless. (In Margaret Murray's account in The Splendor That Was Egypt, there is no death story here, but simply a poisoned child.) Isis prays to the god Ra to restore her son. Ra sends Thoth, another Egyptian god, to impart magical spells to Isis for the removal of the poison. Thus, Isis restores Horus to life. The lesson for worshippers of Isis is that prayers made to her will protect their children from harm and illness. Notice the outworking of this story is certainly not a hope for resurrection to new life, in which death is vanquished forever as is held by followers of Jesus.14 Despite this strain on the argument, some still insist that Horus's scorpion poisoning is akin to the death and resurrection of Jesus.
In a variation of Horus's story, he matures into adulthood at an accelerated rate and sets out to avenge his father's death. In an epic battle with his uncle Set, Horus loses his left eye, and his uncle suffers the loss of one part of his genitalia. The sacrifice of Horus's eye, when given as an offering before the mummified Osiris, is what brings Osiris new life in the underworld.15 Horus's duties included arranging the burial rites of his dead father, avenging Osiris's death, offering sacrifice as the Royal Sacrificer, and introducing recently deceased persons to Osiris in the netherworld as depicted in the Hunefer Papyrus (1317–1301 BC). One aspect of Horus's duties as avenger was to strike down the foes of Osiris. This was ritualized through human sacrifice in the first dynasty, and then, eventually, animal sacrifice by the eighteenth dynasty. In the Book of the Dead we read of Osiris, "Behold this god, great of slaughter, great of fear! He washes in your blood, he bathes in your gore!"16 So Horus, in the role of Royal Sacrificer, bought his own life from this Osiris by sacrificing the life of others. There is no similarity here to the sacrificial death of Jesus.
3. Mithras. There are no substantive accounts of Mithras's story, but rather a pieced-together story from inscriptions, depictions, and surviving Mithraea (man-made caverns of worship). According to Rodney Stark, professor of social sciences at Baylor University, an immense amount of "nonsense" has been inspired by modern writers seeking to "decode the Mithraic mysteries."17 The reality is we know very little about the mystery of Mithras or its doctrines because of the secrecy of the cult initiates. Another problematic aspect is the attempt to trace the Roman military god, Mithras, back to the earlier Persian god, Mithra, and to the even earlier Indo-Iranian god, Mitra. While it is plausible that the latest form of Mithraic worship was based on antecedent Indo-Iranian traditions, the mystery religion that is compared to the story of Christ was a "genuinely new creation."18 Currently, some popular authors utilize the Roman god's story from around the second century along with the Iranian god's dates of appearance (c. 1500–1400 BC).
This is the sort of poor scholarship employed in popular renditions of Mithras, such as in Zeitgeist: The Movie. For the purpose of summary, we will utilize the basic aspects of the myth as found in Franz Cumont's writing and note variations, keeping in mind that many Mithraic scholars question Cumont, as well as one another, as to interpretations and aspects of the story.19 Thus, we will begin with Cumont's outline.
Who was Mithra? He was born of a "generative rock," next to a river bank, under the shade of a sacred tree. He emerged holding a dagger in one hand and a torch in the other to illumine the depths from which he came. In one variation of his story, after Mithra's emergence from the rock, he clothed himself in fig leaves and then began to test his strength by subjugating the previously existent creatures of the world. Mithra's first activity was to battle the Sun, whom he eventually befriended. His next activity was to battle the first living creature, a bull created by Ormazd (Ahura Mazda). Mithra slew the bull, and from its body, spine, and blood came all useful herbs and plants. The seed of the bull, gathered by the Moon, produced all the useful animals. It is through this first sacrifice of the first bull that beneficent life came into being, including human life. According to some traditions, this slaying took place in a cave, which allegedly explains the cave-like Mithraea.20
Mit(h)ra's name meant "contract" or "compact."21 He was known in the Avesta—the Zoroastrian sacred texts—as the god with a hundred ears and a hundred eyes who sees, hears, and knows all. Mit(h)ra upheld agreements and defended truth. He was often invoked in solemn oaths that pledged the fulfillment of contracts and which promised his wrath should a person commit perjury. In the Zoroastrian tradition, Mithra was one of many minor deities (yazatas) created by Ahura Mazda, the supreme deity. He was the being who existed between the good Ahura Mazda and the evil Angra Mainyu—the being who exists between light and darkness and mediates between the two. Though he was considered a lesser deity to Ahura Mazda, he was still the "most potent and most glorious of the yazata."22
The Roman version of this deity (Mithras) identified him with the light and sun. However, the god was not depicted as one with the sun, rather as sitting next to the sun in the communal meal. Again, Mithras was seen as a friend of the sun. This is important to note, as a later Roman inscription (c. AD 376) touted him as "Father of Fathers" and "the Invincible Sun God Mithras."23 Mithras was proclaimed as invincible because he never died and because he was completely victorious in all his battles. These aspects made him an attractive god for soldiers of the Roman army, who were his chief followers. Pockets of archaeological evidence from the outermost parts of the Roman Empire reinforce this assumption. Obviously, some problems arise in comparing Mithras to Christ, even at this level of simply comparing stories. Mithras lacks a death and therefore also lacks a resurrection.
Now that we have a more comprehensive view of the stories, it is quite easy to discern the vast difference between the story of Jesus and even the basic story lines of the commonly compared pagan mystery gods. One must only use the very limited, general aspects of the stories to make the accusation of borrowing, while ignoring the numerous aspects having nothing in common with Jesus' story, such as missing body parts, sibling sexual intercourse inside the womb of a goddess-mother, and being born from a rock. This is why it is important to get the whole story. The supposed similarities are quite flimsy in the fuller context.
Step #2: Take the Parallels Head to Head
It is necessary when encountering this argument to take a detailed look at the parallels in question. The suggested parallels between the story of Christ and the stories of Osiris, Horus, and Mithras are built on superficial comparisons and logical fallacies. First, some of the similarities are those that are common to most religions, such as belief in the afterlife or in salvation for mankind.24 These are not incredible new insights discovered by modern scholars, nor were scholars throughout history afraid to mention them or make conclusions because of mere religious "taboo."25 In reality, the similarities have been noted for years in the study of comparative religions and in studies of human nature.26 Second, proponents have committed the logical fallacy of special pleading by ignoring aspects of the story that do not support their position. Let's look at some examples.
Payam Nabarz, author of The Mysteries of Mithras, writes that Mithras and Jesus were both "born of a virgin," even while noting that the Roman Mithras's birth involved springing forth from the underworld by way of a rock; no human female virgin gave birth to him. Nabarz's second explanation for Mithra's birth comes from the Zoroastrian goddess, Anahita, who conceived Mithra (the Persian version of the name) with the seed of Zoroaster as preserved in Lake Humum, Iran.27 Nabarz quotes one inscription at a dedicatory temple in Iran from 200 BC: "Anahita, the Immaculate Virgin Mother Goddess of the Lord Mithra." However, he fails to show which Anahita traditions resemble the human virgin Mary, the mother of Christ. Also, Mithra was not only her child but became her loving partner in Zoroastrian tradition: Mithra was the god who presided over wide pastures, and Anahita was the goddess who presided over the waters.
Nabarz states that both Mithras and Jesus were savior gods. Two problematic aspects of this comparison present themselves. First, Nabarz does not explain in what sense Mithras was considered a "savior"—an important subject since the earliest stories of Mithra (Mithras's Persian antecedent) provide no such title.28 Second, Nabarz does not include the historical dating of Mithras's association with the terms "savior" or "salvation"; both are found only in later first-century to second-century Mithraic dedicatory and monumental records—again, after the influence of Christianity on the Roman Empire.29 In addition to cherry-picking, Nabarz does not explain what exactly is similar about the "virgin birth" or "savior" stories. For example, being born out of a rock, being born of a goddess with the seed of a man, and being born of a virgin human female are not similar births. This is an important detail to include. Further, Mithras's bull-slaying said to have "saved us by blood shed"30 is not comparable to Jesus' sacrifice of Himself as payment for the sin of all mankind.
In The Jesus Mysteries, Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy also use special pleading in their comparison of the resurrection stories of Jesus and of Osiris: "After his death, Jesus descends to hell, then resurrects on the third day. Plutarch tells us that Osiris, likewise, is said to have descended to hell and then arisen from the dead on the third day."31
Again, we encounter several problems with such parallels. First, the argument is anachronistic, in that Freke and Gandy use a second-century Greek magical papyrus of the same time frame as Plutarch's Concerning Isis and Osiris in order to obtain the language similar to the creed of the Christians concerning the rising on the third day.32
Second, no attention is given to what exactly the term "resurrection" meant to the hearers. The "resurrection" was a renewal of the spirit life, the KHU and the SEKHEM, in the place where Osiris ruled as king of the dead—not a renewal of the KHAT, or physical body.33 Plus, the Egyptian believer hoped Osiris would give him a place of permanence in the netherworld, as evidenced in the Book of the Dead: "Grant thou [Osiris] to me a place in the nether-world, near the lords of right and truth, my estate may it be permanent in Sekhet-hetep."34 Also, Freke and Gandy completely leave out ancient Egyptian concepts of the body, spirit, and soul. Budge comments on this:
We may then say that a man consisted of body, soul, and spirit. But did all three rise, and live in the world beyond the grave? The Egyptian texts answer this question definitely; the soul and the spirit of the righteous passed from the body and lived with the beatified and the gods in heaven; but the physical body did not rise again, and it was believed never to leave the tomb. . . . Already in the [fifth] dynasty, about B.C. 3400, it is stated definitely:—"The soul to heaven, the body to earth''; and three thousand years later the Egyptian writer declared the same thing, but in different words, when he wrote:—"Heaven hath thy soul, and earth thy body."35
Third, in the story of Osiris, the deceased must pass judgment, based on the merit of his own earthly works, before he can be introduced to Osiris and receive the hope of spiritual renewal in the netherworld (or the place of the dead).36 Contrarily, "resurrection" in the story of Christ meant bodily resurrection—a transformed physicality—as evidenced in the physical nature of the appearances of Jesus (1 Cor 15:35–49).37 In addition, the hope for an individual Christian's resurrection to new life is not based on judgment of his earthly works but in the work of Jesus Christ.
Thus, we find that the similarities offered as proof positive of Christian borrowing are irreparably strained. By the same fallacious methodology, anyone can nearly equate almost anything with anything else. Everything in the universe has at least one property in common with everything else in the universe. If nothing else, there is the property that I can conceive of them both in my mind. Vague similarities accomplish nothing to show causal historical influences. Note the alleged parallels in the chart on the next page:
Step #3: Set Everything in Context
After a thorough look at the stories and a comparison of any parallels, the next step is to go deeper into the historical-cultural and linguistic context of each story. We must understand what the terms and stories meant to the people receiving them rather than basing interpretations of the stories on a modern perspective. Terminology such as "resurrection" should be set strictly within the cultural conception of the term for the time and place in which it was utilized. As noted earlier, the Egyptian conception of Osiris's rising from the dead was an entirely spiritual conception. The Egyptians did not plan to return to physical life; neither did the Greeks. Ante-Nicene church father Athanasius makes this clear: "For although the Greeks have told all manner of false tales, yet they were not able to feign a Resurrection of their idols,—for it never crossed their mind, whether it be at all possible for the body again to exist after death."38 They wanted to be free of the flesh and unite with their god in a spiritual land.
Click here for the Four Alleged Parallels Compared table.
N. T. Wright explains that the Christian view of resurrection was different from the pagan view of the afterlife in The Resurrection of the Son of God:
"Resurrection" denoted a new embodied life which would follow whatever "life after death" there might be. "Resurrection" was, by definition, not the existence into which someone might (or might not) go immediately upon death; it was not a disembodied "heavenly" life; it was a further stage, out beyond all that. It was not a redescription or redefinition of death. It was death's reversal.39
In the ancient pagan world, death was a one-way street.
It is misguided to say, therefore, that the early Christians borrowed the idea of resurrection from pagan stories. These Christians did not end up with a view of resurrection consistent with the pagan view. To the contrary, Paul's teaching on the resurrection of Jesus was considered a foreign concept by the Gentiles to whom he preached. According to Acts 17:18,
Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, "What does this babbler wish to say?" Others said, "He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities"—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. (ESV)
Paul was teaching resurrection as transformative, as something that would not leave a corpse behind (cf. 1 Cor 15:51; Phil 3:21).40 This teaching struck the pagans and Gentile philosophers in Athens as odd since it did not match their own conception of death and the afterlife.41 Such problematic modern analyses that read Christian concepts back into the texts and stories of pagan writers and artists must be addressed in every area—including salvation, virgin birth, judgment, death, afterlife, communal meals, baptism, and sacrifice. All of these allegedly borrowed aspects of the Christian story have been addressed thoroughly in the refutations by twentieth-century scholars, whose work should be considered before coming to any conclusions.42
The pagan mysteries we have investigated offer precious little to ground their stories in history—a marked contrast with what we find in the New Testament. The story of Jesus includes many historical dates, places, people, and events. For example, Luke 3:1–2 reads:
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene—during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert. (NIV)
These two verses offer a specific time and place in history that can be utilized to verify the historicity of the events. Do we find the same type of material in the two pagan mystery stories? No. The Roman mystery cult of Mithras has no substantive written record; therefore there is no way of checking for accuracy of dates, people, places, events, and such. The Osirian myths do mention the Nile River, some cities in Egypt, and a few persons, but most of the events have no date and most of the characters in the stories are gods. A comparative analysis of New Testament dates, locations, places, people, and events with the same material available from the pagan mysteries will show a cavernous gap in the amount of historical grounding. The mysteries are not solidly placed in human history. Instead, they are cosmic epics in heavenly realms. The stories reference earthly places infrequently, if at all, and with indifference to historical setting. While not arguing here for the historical validity of the New Testament claims, there is a marked difference from the pagan mysteries.
Finally, while some may argue that the chronology of the stories proves Jesus' story is a copy, and therefore untrue, this argument cannot stand alone. First, some of the arguments from chronology are counterproductive because of not only the previously mentioned problems of context but also because of the actual order of appearance of the terminology. For example, it is claimed that Mithras was called a savior, but this title is known from an inscription dating later than the early Christian testimony to Jesus as "Savior." Hence, when faced with the chronology argument, it is wise to go back to the question of sources and ask, "Where are you getting this from?" This practice will clear up poor scholarship such as that found in Zeitgiest: The Movie.
Second, chronology does not establish genealogy. The chronology of the stories cannot be the sole consideration for influence on the development of the Christian story. Such an argument amounts to nothing more than a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy: assuming one event caused another event simply because the second event followed the first—and not taking other factors into account that may rule out the connection. Other possible influences require at least as much investigation as the chronology of the stories: (1) Christianity as developed within first-century Jewish monotheism, (2) the effect of the failed Hellenization of the Jews by Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the second century BC, and (3) the beliefs of the earliest Christian authors, such as Paul, as evidenced in their own writings. Larry Hurtado in One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism offers: "early Christian devotion did not result from a clumsy crossbreeding of Jewish monotheism and pagan polytheism under the influence of gentile Christians too ill-informed about the Jewish heritage to preserve its character."43
Conclusion
Does the story of Jesus imitate pagan mystery stories? No. There is too much left untouched in this assertion to conclude reasonably that Christianity is another pagan mystery religion. As we have seen, the argument superficially relates one story to the others without consideration of comprehensiveness or context. The proponents read context back into the stories rather than appeal to the actual historical context of the mystery religions themselves. To respond to the problematic paralleling of the Jesus story and the pagan mystery stories, take three important steps: (1) get the whole story, (2) take the parallels head to head, and (3) set everything in context. In so doing, we can show how merely asserting a claim is inadequate; it must be substantiated. Because of the popularity of such false claims in the media, we should be prepared to offer a well-researched, thoughtful, and scholarly response.
1 James D. G. Dunn, "Response to Robert M. Price," in The Historical Jesus: Five Views, ed. James K. Beilby and Paul Rhodes Eddy (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009), 94.
2 Ronald Nash, The Gospel and the Greeks (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2003), 106–7.
3 Ronald Nash, "Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions?" Christian Research Journal (Winter 1994): 8.
4 Plutarch, "Concerning Isis and Osiris," in Hellenistic Religions: The Age of Syncretism, ed. Frederick C. Grant (Indianapolis: Liberal Arts Press, 1953), 80–95.
5 In some depictions, Nut and Geb are married. Plutarch's account insinuates that they have committed adultery because of the anger of the Sun at Nut's transgression.
6 Plutarch refers to Thoth as Hermes in "Concerning Isis and Osiris."
7 Plutarch's "Concerning Isis and Osiris" appears to be the only account with this story of Horus's birth.
8 This aspect of the story, which was a variation of Horus's conception story, is depicted in a drawing from the Osiris temple in Dendara.
9 Plutarch, "Concerning Isis and Osiris," 87.
10 T. N. D. Mettinger, The Riddle of Resurrection: Dying and Rising Gods in the Ancient Near East (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2001), 175.
11 Henri Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1962), 289; cf. 185; cited in Mettinger, Riddle of Resurrection, 172.
12 For the purposes of this chapter, I use the following sources and translations: E. A. Wallis Budge's translation of the Book of the Dead; Plutarch's "Concerning Isis and Osiris"; Joseph Campbell's piecing together of the story in The Mythic Image; as well as other noted interpretations of the story.
13 The latter two versions of Horus's birth can be found in Rodney Stark, Discovering God: The Origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief (New York: Harper Collins, 2007), 204. However, Stark does not reference the source for these birth stories.
14 The development of Isis's worship as a protector of children is a result of this instance; Margaret A. Murray, The Splendor That Was Egypt, rev. ed. (Mineola: Dover, 2004), 106.
15 Joseph Campbell, The Mythic Image (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974), 29, 450.
16 Murray, The Splendor That Was Egypt, 103.
17 Stark, Discovering God, 141.
18 Roger Beck, "The Mysteries of Mithras: A New Account of Their Genesis," Journal of Roman Studies 88 (1998): 123.
19 Roger Beck, M. J. Vermaseren, David Ulansey, N. M. Swerdlow, Bruce Lincoln, John R. Hinnells, and Reinhold Merkelbach, for example.
20 More contemporary Mithraic scholars have pointed to the lack of a bull-slaying story in the Iranian version of Mithra's story: "there is no evidence the Iranian god ever had anything to do with a bull-slaying." David Ulansey, The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 8; see Bruce Lincoln, "Mitra, Mithra, Mithras: Problems of a Multiform Deity," review of John R. Hinnells, Mithraic Studies: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies, in History of Religions 17 (1977): 202–3. For an interpretation of the slaying of the bull as a cosmic event, see Luther H. Martin, "Roman Mithraism and Christianity," Numen 36 (1989): 8.
21 "For the god is clearly and sufficiently defined by his name. 'Mitra' means 'con-tract', as Meillet established long ago and D. [Professor G. Dumézi] knows but keeps forgetting." Ilya Gershevitch, review of Mitra and Aryaman and The Western Response to Zoroaster, in the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 22 (1959): 154. See Paul Thieme, "Remarks on the Avestan Hymn to Mithra,"Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 23 (1960): 273.
22 Franz Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra: The Origins of Mithraism (1903). Accessed on May 3, 2008, http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/mom/index.htm.
23 Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum VI. 510; H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae II. 1 (1902), No. 4152, as quoted in Grant, Hellenistic Religions, 147. This inscription was found at Rome, dated August 13, AD 376. Notice the late date of this title for Mithras—well after Christianity was firmly established in Rome.
24 J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace, Reinventing Jesus: How Contemporary Skeptics Miss the Real Jesus and Mislead Popular Culture (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2006), 236.
25 Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, The Jesus Mysteries: Was the "Original Jesus" a Pagan God? (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999), 2.
26 These aspects are discussed by ancient Greek philosophers, early Christian writers, medieval philosophers, and Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment philosophers.
27 Payam Nabarz, The Mysteries of Mithras: The Pagan Beliefs That Shaped the Christian World (Rochester: Inner Traditions, 2005), 19.
28 Ibid., 48.
29 Beck, "The Mysteries of Mithras: A New Account of Their Genesis," 123. "The great innovation, the primary 'invention' of the Mysteries, was the bull-killing of Mithras construed as a mighty act of 'salvation.'" In a footnote, Beck writes: "The reason that we hear no hint of a bull-killing Mithras prior to the late first century A.D. is, quite simply, that he did not exist until shortly before that time" (n153, my emphasis).
30 Roger Beck, "Merkelbach's Mithras," Phoenix 41 (Autumn 1987): 301.
31 Freke and Gandy, The Jesus Mysteries, 56.
32 Ibid., 270. At n251, they write: "Plutarch, op.cit. 39 and 42. A Greek magical papyri of the same period records: 'At the port of Bousiris I'll cry the name of him who remained three days and three nights in the river, Osiris the drowned one,' see Linday, J. (1970), 172."
33 For resurrection as a netherworldly event, see Campbell, The Mythic Image, 41; Mettinger, The Riddle of Resurrection, 172–73. Also, The "Khu" as labeled by Budge can also be called the "Akh." The Khat is also the "Kha." Also, the KHAT was thought to be tied to certain spiritual bodies of a man, and these spirit bodies would not survive without the KHAT.
34 The Egyptian Book of the Dead, trans. E. A. Wallis Budge (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2005 [1895]), 74.
35 E. A. Wallis Budge, Egyptian Religion (1899; repr., New York: Arkana, 1987), 167. Budge mentions that there were "no doubt" ignorant Egyptian people who believed in the resurrection of the corruptible body, which would entail an afterlife that was very much a continuation of the current life. However, he states that the people who were following the teaching of the sacred Egyptian writings knew that these beliefs were inconsistent "with the views of their priests and of educated people in general." He then goes on to demonstrate the generally accepted Egyptian view of the soul and body as stated above. Since my case is built on comparing available texts, I must use the textual evidence available, not an indefinite reference to a group of people who "no doubt" existed. Budge's references for his quotations are: Recueil de Travaux, tom. iv. P.71 (l. 582); and Horrack, Lamentations d'Isis (Paris, 1866), 6.
36 John H. Taylor, Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt (London: The British Museum Press, 2001), 36, figure 17.
37 See N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003).
38 Athanasius, "On the Incarnation," in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Second Series, vol. IV, Athanasius: Selected Works and Letters, ed. Philip Schaff (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, 1997), S. 64.
39 Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 83.
40 Craig S. Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels (Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2009), 346.
41 See Acts 17:20; cf. 19:23–41 on the pagan reaction to Paul's teaching in Ephesus. However, financial motives, at least in part, are factors in their response.
42 Cf. Ronald Nash, The Gospel and the Greeks: Did the New Testament Borrow from Pagan Thought? (Phillipsburg, NJ:P&R, 2003); Arthur Darby Nock, "Introduction," in William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902; repr., London: Fontana, 1971); Gunter Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1967). Also see, in addition to works cited in this chapter, the work of Bruce Metzger, Edwin Yamauchi, and J. Gresham Machen.
43 Larry Hurtado, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism (New York: Continuum, 1998), 100.