12: Legend 1: Dying-and-Rising Gods

12

Legend 1: Dying-and-Rising Gods

Like certain other natural hypotheses, mythical or legendary theses also come in several varieties with multiple subcategories. That is hardly surprising, since embellishment of more than one sort is often expressed in different ways with varieties of tales concerning the same person, mythical or otherwise, often found in various geographical areas. On other occasions, the gods may morph together, taking on characteristics of each other. The purpose in this chapter and the next is to discuss a few prominent alternative views, including some of these additional cognate ideas.

A convenient demarcation is to concentrate on three broad categories. (1) The initial set of fantastic tales from ancient mythology usually consist of individuals who never lived. Many or even most of these cases concern the so-called dying-and-rising gods of the Greco-Roman, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian areas all the way over to the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and even beyond. Though the majority of characters in this group were nonhistorical, some examples might be debatable, as in situations where a person may have lived but where their mythical personae and actions usually dominate the stories. Even when the person(s) in these tales did not exist or were largely unknown, their make-believe portions nonetheless were capable of exerting much influence in the ancient world. This category will be the subject of this chapter on the dying-and-rising god figures. (2) The following chapter treats historical persons who are usually intermixed with myth, where supernatural items such as miracles were often reported. (3) Additionally, chapter 13 also treats the New Testament Gospel cases where it is sometimes alleged that particular accounts grew significantly in subsequent retellings.

Other categories could be mentioned, but these are among the most prominent as well as representative types. As such, these will also serve to indicate potential directions in which treatments of such extra theses may arise in still other situations. The examples from the first category will treat the mythical accounts of the so-called mystery religions and their prominent dying-and-rising god figures, such as Osiris, Adonis, or Attis, some of which were called “vegetation gods” and others “storm gods.” The second group treated in the next chapter is concerned with largely historical persons about whom a good amount of material is available, like Apollonius of Tyana and Sabbatai Zevi. The third species includes examples of what are sometimes challenged as resurrection stories in the canonical New Testament texts that appear to grow in length or detail from earlier to later accounts, as in the Gospels.

Some stories, especially in ancient times, were told in mythical terms. Lofty and seemingly inexpressible ideas were frequently articulated in other than factual terms. Pertaining to the initial group above, Rudolf Bultmann famously defined “myth” as “the use of imagery to express the other worldly in terms of this side,” such as articulating the concept of transcendence in spatial terms. Regarding the second group engaged in the next chapter, a “legend” might be defined as a “narrative, often tied in with a particular place or locality, which tells an apparently historical story which has little basis in actual fact.” In spite of some confusion or overlap here among these notions, more emphasis in group two will be placed primarily on the actual historical nature of the persons, their claims, or influential ideas being treated by or about them.

Mythical Stories

In terms of being the most relevant and popular examples in our initial study cate­gory, arguably the best-known pattern of these ancient stories is “the myth of the dying and rising god, seen in its earliest form in the Tammuz myth” but which moved elsewhere beyond the Near East across the Greco-Roman world. In spite of there being very few specialists (atheist, liberal, moderate, or conservative) who hold that this approach provides a viable alternative thesis capable of explaining Jesus’s resurrection, this area of study has still attracted some of the top researchers in the world.

Arguably one of the most respected specialists in the field of comparative religion, the late Jonathan Z. Smith, defined the dying-and-rising gods as “a generic appellation for a group of male deities found in agrarian Mediterranean societies who serve as the focus of myths and rituals that allegedly narrate and annually represent their death and resurrection.” Before attempting to address the chief issues here, a few crucial questions need to be identified. There is an exceptionally wide range of statements in print pertaining to the identification of the dying-and-rising gods along with related tales. Emanating from the nonscholarly crowd that tends often to question or deny Jesus’s existence, a large number of comments about dying-and-raising gods contain false information regarding these ancient tales.

Even among the experts, however, there is more than one way to view the specifics; hence, the dialogue in this chapter. The chief issue being discussed here concerns whether any of the pre-Christian myths involved stories about ancient gods who were truly said to have been dead and then resurrected. But it always must be kept in mind throughout these discussions that when a specialist argues that this or that myth really did concern a story of a dying-and-rising god, no judgment is being made as to whether these events actually occurred in space-time history. Thus, deciding that “the story in this tale was truly one that concerned a dying-and-rising god” refers to how the mythical story itself taught the matter that is being recounted.

Someone could of course charge that the heroes in these tales truly were historical characters who really rose from the dead, or that even a nonhistorical story still influenced the Christian accounts to teach that Jesus was dead and raised at a somewhat later time. But these are not the scenarios in the discussions here precisely because such alternate scenarios are not considered scholarly theses. Nonetheless, the critiques presented later in this chapter will still apply to these additional claims. But again, it is rare for specialists on any side of the discussions to think that these ancient myths either describe actual resurrected heroes or inspired and served as the basis in some “copycat” fashion for the New Testament teaching of Jesus’s death and resurrection.

Who are the main mythical characters and what is known about their tales? What species of story are they—seasonal vegetation accounts, cloud-riding deities, and so on? Do the approximate time and location of the stories help or hinder these demarcations? More specifically, do the accounts predate the time of Jesus? Is the hero clearly said to have died and, if so, in what manner? Is there anything specifically in these tales that clearly could be called in any sense a resurrection? These last two questions are critical, since many endings of these ancient accounts are missing and, in other cases, particular items must be assumed or interpolated since they are not mentioned directly. How about any similar or related ideas, such as apotheosis or being immortalized in the afterlife in some sense?

One particularly crucial subject needs to be clarified at the outset. The bottom line as to whether there were dying-and-rising gods that predate Christianity has much to do with how the relevant concepts are defined and dated. Another of the recognized experts here is Mark S. Smith, who employs four indicators to identify the presence of this concept. We need “the divine status of the figures”; “their death and their return to life”; the “correspondence” of these themes to “the seasonal cycle”; and “a series of rituals which provides a cultic context for the recitation” of these myths. Smith explains that this sequence is drawn heavily from the famous nineteenth-century work of J. G. Frazer titled The Golden Bough.

It is easy to miss the crucial nature of the “ritual” and “cultic” elements of Smith’s fourfold indicators, especially when other researchers leave them out. But for Smith, the lack of ritual and cultic beliefs and celebrations may hint that any possible accounts of rebirth or rising heroes in these mythological stories would indicate that these portions probably do not occupy the central perspective in these belief systems. In other words, without these two aspects, it would be very difficult to distinguish between a nice story and an essential belief to ground a particular culture’s deepest beliefs.

In response, another specialist, John Granger Cook, implies that following Frazer in these matters may not be the best way to handle this subject, in that Frazer “has not fared well among historians of religion.” Cook thinks that Smith’s first two categories can be fulfilled “in an attenuated sense.” But then, what qualifies as such a weakened or diminished sense? How much of the story can be missing from the ancient accounts and have them still considered virtually the same concept? For example, Walter Burkert qualifies the matter this way: “The evidence for resurrection is late and tenuous in the case of Adonis, and practically nonexistent in the case of Attis; and not even Osiris returns to real life, but instead attains transcendent life beyond death.”

Cook responds that his primary interest is whether there is a death and resurrection element in the ancient accounts comparable to the New Testament concepts, meaning that he “will dispense with the third and fourth markers” preferred by Smith. Thus, Cook maintains that even this “more minimalistic category” still “remains quite useful” for comparison to the New Testament—is there a clear dying-and-rising in these ancient tales? It must be remembered that this is not to say that the mythical accounts actually inspired the Christian teachings. But as will be seen, definitions can and do make a difference in the final outcomes here, including how they are stated.

Some of the Main Characters in the Ancient Literature

The distinctions provided above should assist in providing a path for introducing some of the chief characters in our discussion, including how scholars interpret the distinctions and contradictions between the various religious paths just mentioned. A few of the definitional distinctions here should be kept in view as well.

Dumuzi/Tammuz: Jonathan Z. Smith states, “The assessment of the figure of Tammuz (Sumerian: Dumuzi) as a dying-and-rising deity in the scholarly literature has varied more than any other deity placed in this class.” The ends of both the Sumerian and Akkadian texts are missing and in their current state contain only the death and disappearance of Dumuzi/Tammuz without anything that might be treated as a return to life. But changing perspectives came as the result of later published material indicating more than one potential ending. In one, Dumuzi’s lover Inanna (Akkadian: Ishtar) consigned him to the underworld on her behalf. In an Akkadian version, Ishtar is allowed to get a substitute so that she could go free, but when she finds Tammuz rejoicing over her problems, she has him killed by demons and taken into the underworld!

That there was no celebration of Dumuzi’s return may indicate that such an event was not a central or significant part of the tale. Smith states that any ritual evidence is “unambiguously negative . . . a relentlessly funeral cult. The young Tammuz is dead and he is mourned.” Smith adds, “In the Akkadian version, Tammuz is dead and remains so.” In sum, there is virtually no strong reason to consider Dumuzi/Tammuz and Inanna/Ishtar to be examples of dying-and-rising gods.

Baal: Often considered to be a storm god rather than a vegetation god, particularly in the Ugaritic accounts, there is emphasis in some texts that Baal died and descended to the underworld. But it is very difficult to be specific in the crucial details here because all agree that the relevant accounts are riddled with gaps in the most vital places.

This is one of those instances mentioned above where definitions can make a difference. In a detailed treatment of new manuscript evidence for the Baal Cycle, Mark Smith argues that whatever the known copies of the Baal Cycle may include, the most recent discoveries confirm that the text possesses a heavy ceremonial emphasis having to do with Baal’s “royal funerary rites.” In fact, Smith argues that “the rich indigenous corpus of Ugaritic ritual texts does not contain a single reference to the death and rising of Baal”; hence, “the burden of demonstration for Baal as a dying-and-rising god, with its attendant ritual background, falls on those who argue for it.”

Jonathan Z. Smith seems close to Mark Smith here, at least pertaining to Aliyan Baal (lit. “the lord”) who descends to the underworld “as if he is dead” and then returns later. Smith concludes that “this is a disappearing-reappearing narrative. There is no suggestion of death and resurrection.” Yamauchi leaves the matter open regarding the specifics of the Baal account.

However, while Scandinavian scholar Tryggve Mettinger of Lund University follows Mark Smith in his ordering of the “major lacunae and unreadable passages,” he still disagrees with both Mark Smith and Jonathan Z. Smith in thinking it is clear that Ugaritic Baal dies and his corpse is located. It is also clear that Baal lives afterward, with Mettinger producing and translating a text that seems to state this. Yet, Mettinger speaks straightforwardly concerning the state of the data: “I am painfully aware of the hypothetical nature of the following interpretation, but it is the one I have arrived at” and acknowledges after citing the text that “the passage in question contains a number of interpretive problems, but even so some main points seem to be possible to ascertain.”

Interestingly enough, Mettinger finds two other alternatives to Baal being a dying-and-rising god: either “there was a ruse” and Baal “never actually went down to the Netherworld” or Baal was “rather a god of the vanishing gods type.” Yet, Mettinger concludes against these views that these two alternatives are mistaken, and in spite of the “disturbing gaps in the material,” Baal’s “return is a return to full and active life” connected to seasonal changes, with the autumn rains after the summer drought being “the proof of his return.” Admittedly, cultic ritual motifs are “more difficult to ascertain.” In the end, Mettinger lists Baal as a dying-and-rising god.

In his conclusion, Cook follows Mettinger against Mark Smith. Cook also concedes, “The opposition in the texts between Baal’s death and life may not have a ritual background, but they do indicate that in the myth Baal finally overcomes death.” This includes that the epic “associates rain with Baal’s return to life.” There two elements of the absence of cultic ritual in Baal and the importance of rain as a sign of his being alive will be entertained further below.

Osiris and Isis: Perhaps the best-known names from the dying-and-rising gods genre, especially in an Egyptian context, are Osiris and Isis. There is simply an amazing array of twists and turns to these particular mythical stories, often coming from well before the Christian era. Yamauchi states, “The most complete and coherent account of the myth is narrated by a Greek writer from the Roman period, Plutarch (AD 50–129).” According to an abbreviated summary of this myth, Osiris’s brother Seth tricked him into getting inside a chest, which Seth then deposited into the Nile River. The chest traveled around the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea and ended up in Phoenicia.

Isis, Osiris’s sister and wife, found the chest and brought it back to Egypt. With the assistance of magic, Isis revived Osiris. But not to be outdone, Seth killed his brother, cut his body into fourteen pieces, and dispersed the fragments around Egypt. Isis collected thirteen of the fourteen pieces but had to fashion a new reproductive organ for Osiris, with which Isis got pregnant and bore a son named Horus, who eventually avenged his father’s death by killing Seth. Horus became the god of the living, while Osiris descended into Hades and became the god of the dead in the underworld.

The story of Isis and Osiris had such longevity that it is hardly a wonder that the tale is full of various twists and turns, many of them quite out of the ordinary. Some of the changes include an earlier version of the story where Osiris drowned accidentally or was rescued from the Nile before ending up in Phoenicia. Another popular version involved Isis flapping her wings over her husband’s body, thereby breathing the breath of life back into his nostrils. Ideas involving magic, sorcery, incantations, and the like are often mentioned. Sometimes Isis herself is the hero and sometimes it is her son Horus. Osiris is better known for being the god of the underworld, but he is referred to as a “solarized deity” in some versions, which seems to conflict with his home in what is presumed to be the darkness of the underworld.

According to Mark Smith, Osiris has generally been considered “as a funerary deity” rather than a rising god. Jonathan Z. Smith similarly points out, “Osiris was considered to be the mythical prototype for the distinctive Egyptian process of mummification” and is almost always depicted as a mummy. Then he adds, “In no sense can Osiris be said to have ‘risen’ in the sense required by the dying and rising pattern.”

Rudolf Bultmann was, to some extent, one of the last major supporters of the famous religionsgeschichtliche Schule (at least to a certain extent) of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Frazer’s work The Golden Bough was highly influential in the earlier phases of this movement, such as in teaching that dying-and-rising gods were very common in the ancient world. Yet Helmut Koester, a critical New Testament scholar and former student of Bultmann’s, commented, “To be sure, Osiris died and became the lord of the realm of the dead, but it is never said that he rose.” Besides, Osiris is not the hero of the story anyway. Like Koester, another skeptical New Testament ­professor, atheist scholar Bart Ehrman, agrees: “Osiris does not—decidedly does not—return to life. . . . And so for Osiris there is no rising from the dead.”

The majority scholarly view at present appears to follow the line of thought from Mark Smith, Jonathan Z. Smith, Koester, and Ehrman that whatever happened in the various stories, Osiris was not resurrected in any normal, meaningful way. Mettinger and Cook are worthy representatives among the dissenters.

Heracles/Melqart: These two figures have been combined at least since Frazer’s work at the end of the nineteenth century. For Mettinger and Cook, this is one of the potential cases of a dying-and-rising god where a variety of positive arguments are posed, especially regarding both literary texts and Greek inscriptions. For instance, Josephus (Ant. 8.5.3) uses the Greek noun egersis (a rising up, awakening) in a phrase that has been translated “the awakening of Heracles.”

Many discussions have ensued concerning the best interpretation of the Jewish historian at this point. In a section discussing the achievements of King Hiram of Tyre (e.g., 2 Sam 5:11; 1 Kgs 5), Josephus also mentions that Hiram was the first Tyrian ruler to “celebrate the awakening of Heracles in the month of Peritus.” Mettinger and Cook both acknowledge the serious issues here, since Josephus in his Against Apion (1.119) “gives similar information” yet Josephus is not at all speaking about the awakening of Heracles but is discussing the building of a couple of temples. Admittedly, however, the text in Against Apion is plagued by the reading of just a single imperfect text. At any rate, both Mettinger and Cook conclude that the best solution is still to regard Josephus as addressing “a cultic celebration of the resurrection of Heracles.”

A Greek inscription from Amman-Philadelphia also bears on the situation here. After another difficult discussion, Mettinger concludes that it makes the most sense to refer to a person described in the inscription as the “resuscitator’’ of Heracles. An inscription from Ramleh is similar. Additionally, iconography from the Melquat Stele and a vase from Sidon are interpreted similarly in spite of raising crucial questions, and are also supported by other considerations. This all leads Mettinger and Cook to conclude that Melquat is a dying-and-rising god.

These interpretations are difficult indeed, as admitted on all sides. Are the references to the “raising” of temples or to Heracles’s dying and rising? Mettinger refers to the Josephus issue as the “vexed problem” that had been called “a hopeless case.” He and Cook both acknowledge additional issues that keep this from being as solid as they would like, since the texts can be interpreted differently.

Mark S. Smith similarly recognizes the difficulties here, but he raises a number of problems for the more positive views like those of Mettinger and Cook. These include the exact identity of the god or the person being addressed in more than one place. More serious questions concern the strength of the data that Melquat/­Heracles was actually dead in the first place, especially given the contradictory methods by which this supposedly came about (death and burial versus a body burned on a funeral pyre), though Smith seems inclined to think that the interpretation of death still makes sense. Yet, Smith rejects that there is a clear death account at all, denying that the sources actually affirm this event.

Moreover, Smith also wonders about the material in Josephus, in that it is secondhand, and it is difficult to know its dependability for the material on Heracles. Moreover, the various accounts are diverse enough between the different geographical regions to produce still other questions. Beyond all this, Smith also balks concerning questions as to whether some sort of resurrection is part of the overall accounts. Even on some of these assumptions, there is virtually no information or description on this rising from death. A large problem for Smith is the lack of ritual or cultic connections as well.

As Smith sums up the matter, “There is simply insufficient evidence to prove the case or to dismiss it entirely.” Hence, he thinks that the attempted solution is very difficult and that it is better to conclude that the reconstruction “remains hypothetical.” Thus, if even a few of Smith’s questions obtain, it remains very difficult to prove that a single, major interpretation stands head and shoulders above any other views, particularly when a wrong turn in any of several places could cause much or even most of the entire knot to unravel.

Adonis: Wagner provides the details of one of the two best-known versions of the Adonis myth. Adonis is usually considered to be a vegetation god who, according to the most prominent narrative, was killed by a wild boar while on a hunt. Two goddesses, Aphrodite and Persephone, were both enthralled with Adonis’s beauty and quarreled over whether or not he would be claimed by the underworld or remain in the world of the living. The goddesses settled their dispute by allowing Adonis to spend half of his time with each of them in each of their respective realms. Wagner asks if that qualifies as a resurrection. In the second version, Jonathan Z. Smith relates how, after being killed by the boar, Adonis is commemorated as a flower.

Wagner maintains that none of the forms of the Adonis story contains a resuscitation. Nor are there any explanations that Adonis ate magical food or drank living water or something like that. In fact, in the earliest form of the story from the fifth century BC, Adonis is not even said to have died. In short, there is not even a minor hint of his resurrection in these myths. Jonathan Z. Smith agrees: there is “no suggestion of death and rebirth.” In fact, strangely enough, Adonis’s “alternation between the upper and lower worlds precedes his death.”

Not until the middle of the second century do we find a classical text that mentions a festival commemoration for any resurrection of Adonis. Jonathan Z. Smith notes that these late mentions, which continue into the fourth century and beyond, were “largely influenced by or written by Christians.” It is quite intriguing that with several of these mythological gods in the ancient world, there is a recurrent pattern of an indigenous mythology that contained at most the death of the hero but then that was changed later by Christians inserting or influencing an element of resurrection that is “nowhere found in the earlier native sources.”

Jonathan Z. Smith notes that the reason for Christians seemingly introducing those resurrections into the pagan accounts is difficult to determine. It might be that the believers’ interpretation was to take the non-Christian stories to be precursors to the New Testament accounts, hence representing a sort of general human longing or hope that actually expressed itself in mythical stories but which became historical events in Jesus Christ. Perhaps this sort of fulfillment motif was used as a preaching tool. References to the third day appear periodically but not universally so, and this also could have been introduced by Christians since it was their message. On the other hand, the cultists themselves could have originated the use of the time factor in the form of mimicry of the Christian belief, as was done in other aspects. But commentators remark that the third day element cannot be established for sure from the data alone.

At any rate, the strong consensus is that the ancient accounts of Adonis emphasize his death but do not contain a resurrection or anything like it either in texts or pictorially until very late, post-Christian times. Even Bart Ehrman states, “There is nothing here to suggest either death or resurrection for Adonis.”

Attis: In this case, there is widespread agreement. Jonathan Z. Smith begins his hard-hitting lead paragraph like this: “The complex mythology of Attis is largely irrelevant to the question of dying and rising deities.” In two of the old versions of the Attis myth, Attis is killed either by being castrated or by a boar. In neither case does he return to life. In later accounts he does not even die from his wounds, so there is neither a death nor a rebirth. Then Smith summarizes: “Attis is not, in his mythology, a dying-and-rising deity; indeed, he is not a deity at all.”

Metzger, Yamauchi, Mark S. Smith, Craig Keener, and Günter Wagner are all examples of scholars who join Jonathan Z. Smith in agreeing on the chief point here. There seems to be very little to report by way of a reference to a resurrection for Attis before at least the latter portion of the second century and even much later. A number of scholars note that even Christian writers may have gotten involved in support of the idea of a resurrection here, perhaps as a harbinger to their own claims of resurrection. Keener claims that “there is no possible evidence for [Attis’s] resurrection before the third century CE.” Wagner finds nothing in support of Attis’s resurrection in the classical works up into the post-New Testament times and even into the fourth century. He concludes that Attis is definitely not a “Heilgott”—not a healing god.

Cook and Mettinger, quite often two of the major dissenters on some of these matters, even agree on this topic. Cook states clearly: “The narratives of a resurrection of Attis are late, at best. There is no shred of evidence in classical sources that he returned to life.” Quoting Jan Bremmer, Cook adds, “Attis’ ‘resurrection’ is not mentioned before the third century and seems closely connected with the rise of Christianity, just like the ‘resurrection’ of Adonis is not mentioned before the third century.” Mettinger states, “While the mythological material is broadly silent on a resurrection of Attis, the situation is slightly different when we turn to ritual.” But even the references to the Hilaria or the Day of Joy are “perhaps as late as the third and fourth centuries.” So far, Attis clearly seems to be the least likely candidate for a dying-and-rising god, with this time factor serving to nullify direct questions with regard to Christian beliefs.

Other candidates for rising and dying gods: Among other possible suggestions that have been raised in the past, a few have fallen by the wayside more quickly than Adonis and Attis. Ronald Nash states that at one time, Mithraism “eventually became Christianity’s most serious rival.” It was championed by one of the Roman emperors, Julian the Apostate, who ruled from AD 360–363. But any momentum on behalf of Mithraism lost ground to Christianity, particularly when Emperor Constantine embraced the latter. Very little is known of Mithraism’s doctrine, with no detailed accounts of the cult’s beliefs except that it was apparently dualistic like Zoroastrianism, “promoted an ethical life,” and celebrated a sacred meal as well as a baptism-like ritual. Mithra’s birth came about when he reportedly emerged out from under a rock!

Besides being far too late to have influenced Christianity’s central beliefs and teachings, Mithraism differs in many key areas. Jonathan Z. Smith argues that “there has never been a claim for the ‘rising’ of Mithras in any late Antique document.” Yamauchi points out, “The scholarly consensus today is that Mithraism arose as a Roman phenomenon late in the first century AD at the earliest.” Then he continues: “Given the relatively late formation of Mithraism, there is no possibility that this mystery religion could have influenced nascent Christianity, nor is there any evidence that it did so later.”

In another case, according to Jonathan Z. Smith, Marduk was the “king-god of Babylon,” the “canonical instance of the Myth and Ritual pattern.” However, “there is no hint of Marduk’s death” in the ancient account in the Enuma elish. Rather, Marduk was apparently imprisoned, with this confinement being taken by “an older generation of scholars” to be the “equivalent to his death, and his presumed ultimate release represented his resurrection”! However, “there is no evidence that the Babylonian Marduk was ever understood to be a dying-and-rising deity, that such a myth was reenacted during the New Year festival, or that the king was believed to undergo a similar fate.” In fact, the case for Marduk being a dying-and-rising god “is based on a misreading of the ancient Near Eastern sources.”

Living at the end of the nineteenth century during the heyday of the German religionsgeschichtliche Schule movement, where reports such as these were common, Scottish theologian James Orr even cited A. Jeremias’s comment that there was still no definite evidence for a festival that commemorates the death and resurrection of Marduk-Tammuz. Wagner agrees totally on this general question. Nothing in the text points to any sort of victorious resurrection for Marduk. Hence, such an event should not be spoken of at all.

On the specific question of Marduk, even Mettinger agrees with Jonathan Z. Smith. It was determined that the important text in question “was a propaganda work composed in Assyria and had nothing to do either with the death and resurrection of Marduk or with the New Year festival.” Later Mettinger explained further: “Already by the 1950’s a drastic reduction in the claims for Dumuzi/Tammuz (and Marduk) had thus taken place.” Hence the milieu for dying-and-rising deities had been reduced. But still other candidates besides Mithras and Marduk have been suggested from time to time.

As Mettinger and others have pointed out, these mythical gods were of quite different types, such as Adonis often being identified as one of the famous vegetation gods that “die” like the foliage in the fall or winter, only to reappear or “rise” in the spring. This can be compared to a fertility god, as Dumuzi is sometimes called, or a storm or weather god like Baal, or a sun god like Marduk. There is also a shepherd god like Dumuzi or Eshmun, who “is a god of healing.” Some gods seem to die and rise, but not all who expire live again afterward. For example, “it seems that storm gods are not generically gods who die and rise. Baal of Ugarit was here an exceptional case.” On the other hand, “Adon(is) of Byblos . . . is an independent god”! Mourning and celebration also take place at different times of the year. Hence, the gods definitely should not be cast into a single category.

A Critique of the Various Dying-and-Rising Gods Theses

How should the pros and cons regarding our discussion in this chapter be evaluated? The dialogue was quite detailed at particular points, so we will begin here by providing a brief summary regarding the scholarly consensus, including the reasons for these positions. This will serve the purpose of viewing the current lay of the land. Of course, scholarly views do not “prove” one view or another; they may be mistaken, and new evidence may emerge, especially in the form of ancient manuscripts. Further, entire landscapes are sometimes reversed, as indicated on a smaller scale above when academic positions changed a few decades ago regarding the views concerning both Marduk and Mithraism. Still, the specialists can help direct nonspecialists to carefully access the predominant avenues and implications of the many issues involved. Afterward, some of the major reasons for these positions will also be presented as support for the various positions that are held so that the most likely cases may be established more easily vis-à-vis the data.

Scholarly Views

For our purposes here, at least two primary questions are paramount. First, were there any examples of dying-and-rising gods before the first century AD and the time of Jesus? The minimal required characteristics for these stories of the gods have been developed and debated throughout this chapter. But the candidate must at least, in the same tradition, clearly be reported to have died and then have been seen alive afterward. Second, could any or all of these ancient accounts of dying-and-rising gods, or even the general Mediterranean ethos itself, have influenced in any significant way(s) the many New Testament accounts that report that Jesus did in fact die, clearly followed later by his own resurrection appearances, suggesting that Jesus was some sort of a copycat account?

The popular religionsgeschichtliche Schule of interpretation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries at least thought that the first question could be answered affirmatively: these dying-and-rising cases were indeed thought to exist. On the other hand, today it is probably the case that the majority of scholars who specialize in these subjects have decided negatively on the first question, favoring the notion that there were few, if any, clear cases of dying-and-rising gods before Jesus. Most prominent researchers presently appear to doubt that specific cases may be located and identified with assurance, at least when careful definitions are allowed.

There are numerous possible candidates for ancient dying-and-rising gods, but the chief view appears to be that in every or virtually every case, the clear factual and dating constraints are missing, plus the causal data to bridge the strands between the various arguments are often lacking or just collapse under scrutiny. This results in the breakdown of the hypothesis, making the stories quite susceptible to other cogent explanations.

Many problems here no doubt have emerged due to the presence of several key factors. Many of these stories were told hundreds or even thousands of years before Jesus lived! The scarcity of the available data aside, many of the sources are also mutilated in various places, exhibit missing endings, or contain wording that is indeterminately garbled. After all, literally thousands of years obviously can make a difference.

The second, follow-up question regarding whether these pagan beliefs in the ancient pre-Christian world provided any serious inspiration for the Christian notions of the deity, death, and resurrection of Jesus is solved much more assuredly, and the scholarly majority seems overwhelmingly to line up on the same side. Very few, if any, specialist scholars at present, regardless of their own religious convictions, respond positively that any ancient dying-and-rising ethos inspired the Christian notions of Jesus’s deity, death, and resurrection appearances. This would essentially serve as a naturalistic hypothesis, though scholars almost always agree that such a notion fails to answer many key and known factors.

Hence, the majority of researchers who reject the overall category of ancient dying-and-rising gods itself surely also reject its influence on Christianity, given that then there would be no clear cases with which to make the additional charge. The percentage of scholars who object to the second question, holding that the dying-and-rising god accounts definitely did not inspire the Christian reports of Jesus’s deity, death, and resurrection, is much higher than with the views regarding the initial question. Both general and specific comments will address the reasons for these affirmations and the rejections, hence providing some of the details for these stances.

Major Question One

Were there any ancient pre-Christian accounts of dying-and-rising gods?

With the outlined “battle lines” drawn in this chapter, which arguments enjoy the most support? Why do so many major scholars take such a variety of positions? Most crucially, which notions are supported by the best arguments? To begin, it must be remembered, as mentioned often in this discussion, that the textual artifacts with which these researchers are dealing are quite far from optimum. In fact, they are admittedly quite poor. Often the scholar must render an intelligent guess in order to speculate on where the ancient writer was heading before this or that lapse in the source. This always leaves room for disagreements followed by the guarding of one’s research territory.

Further, another very important consideration that has been kept in view throughout this evaluation was also mentioned from the outset. Namely, these scholars are largely arguing according to their own definitions, as mentioned above, and this is an important source of misunderstanding, according to which they do not always agree.

One example discussed was Mark Smith favoring four indications as best defining an account of a dying-and-rising god. However, Cook disputes these four markers, which he states were drawn from the outdated position taken more than a century ago by Frazer in his volume The Golden Bough. Accordingly, Cook especially disputes Smith’s third and fourth criteria, namely, that the stories in question need to correspond to the seasonal cycles and that the context of these ancient myths should include cultic rituals.

While also being quite critical of Frazer, the last measure regarding the presence of rituals is particularly crucial in that Jonathan Z. Smith and Mark S. Smith use this marker regularly as one of the chief indications that disallows particular stories as being considered as tales of dying-and-rising gods. The lack of ensuing rituals may indicate that these stories were essentially dying funeral and burial tales. However, as noted often, Cook and Mettinger do not require these two criteria.

It is difficult to reach hard-and-fast decisions on this difference. Cook seems to be more correct regarding the third point in Mark Smith’s definition, in that these ancient stories can be quite different from one another with regard to particular aspects, and therefore corresponding to seasonal cycles would seem to limit the consideration of particular accounts. As will be delineated below, these dying-and-rising gods are plainly not exactly of the same vintage; a storm god may be distinct from a seasonal vegetation god. So, it appears too radical to force them all into a single mold typified by the seasonal mystery religions.

On the other hand, it appears that Mark Smith and Jonathan Z. Smith have included a crucial additional consideration regarding the import of ritual celebrations. Our most cherished beliefs often emerge and play crucial roles in our festivals and rituals, especially when these items are religious in nature. It would therefore seem that the presence of rituals that build up around particular beliefs may well serve as important windows into the nature and centrality of these notions in the particular ancient belief systems. Further, the additional point here is that the lack of ritual and celebration may in fact indicate cases of dying alone rather than being followed by an afterlife.

Cook states that he is most interested in comparing the exceptionally ancient dying-and-rising accounts “with resurrection in the New Testament” but to do so analogically by comparing “the NT images of resurrection and similar images in paganism and Judaism” rather than genealogically, which would attempt “to demonstrate pagan influence . . . on Paul and early Christianity or vice versa.” To be clear then, Cook’s aim is a comparison of the similarity between the ideas, not to argue whether the earlier pagan notions gave rise to or otherwise influenced the Jewish and Christian beliefs.

Could it not follow similarly that, in this case, the centrality of the dying-and-rising myths might well be manifest in the ritual patterns of the people? On the other hand, if these stories do not show up in the ancient rituals and celebrations, this may be a means of indicating that those accounts were perhaps more extraneous and superficial within those cultures, or that they predominantly demarcated the processes of dying and burial.

Overall, then, which factors might help to address our first question regarding the viability of recognizing any pre-Christian dying-and-rising accounts? Mark S. Smith begins his best-known essay with the provocative title, “The Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods’ in the Biblical World.” At the outset, Smith acknowledges the death knell with regard to our initial question above: “For historians of religion the death of ‘the dying and rising god’ may have passed.” But was this actually the case?

Next, in his article, Mark Smith cites Jonathan Z. Smith’s doctoral dissertation “The Glory, Jest and Riddle: James George Frazer and The Golden Bough.” Frazer’s famous work stood out as the crown jewel of the religionsgeschichtliche Schule onslaught over a century ago. Then Mark Smith continues by stating his aims in his lengthy essay, which include critiquing Frazer’s late nineteenth-century work on comparative religion, which too often seemed to study chiefly the similarities in these ancient tales. On the other hand, Smith determines to look at the contrasts in these ancient tales. This comment was no doubt meant to counteract the prevalent tendency of the religionsgeschichtliche Schule to overly emphasize these resemblances between ancient accounts when prominent divergences were also present. Smith also wishes “to suggest an alternative interpretation” to the conclusions drawn in the history of religions tradition.

Mark Smith charges that Frazer wove his own textual tapestry in a highly selective way, piecing together various ancient stories and conclusions that were not always what the ancient authors and texts taught. Thus, Frazer erred especially in matters of method and data, since these accounts were often taken unsystematically from across centuries and cultures alike, then mixed and matched along the way with dissimilar and late reports. In the process, “Frazer’s work came at a major cost to the ancient texts.” Frazer invented “his own new mythology of ‘dying and rising gods,’” essentially by manipulating the sources in unnatural ways.

Smith concludes that “Frazer’s driving motivation to ‘explain’ Jesus’s death and resurrection against the backdrop of the category of ‘dying and rising gods’ entirely misses the background of Jewish resurrection. . . . Jesus’s resurrection had little or nothing to do with rituals for a ‘dying and rising god.’” The ancient mystery stories were likely more related to “mortuary traditions” and a possible human afterlife. When these allowances are made, Smith concludes that it is uncertain that any of the dying-and-rising accounts actually taught what Frazer and those who agreed with him thought.

Jonathan Z. Smith similarly reviews the various ancient accounts that purportedly exhibited dying-and-rising scenarios. Some texts are obscure with unknown or even missing “major lacunae at the most crucial points.” Scholars have presented possible reconstructions of these lost portions, but it is impossible to tell if the missing portions have been rendered properly. Later discoveries indicate that some proposed restorations were not only wide of the mark, but that the early accounts actually moved in an opposite direction! Some texts lack the clearly stated death of the hero or heroine, while still others are devoid of anything that could be understood fairly as a resurrection.

Jonathan Z. Smith concludes that some stories, like those about Aliyan Baal, describe “disappearing-reappearing” gods rather than dying-and-rising gods. Others, such as the Adonis and Attis narratives, contain no rebirth until well after the origins of Christianity and are thus “largely irrelevant to the question of dying and rising deities.” Osiris exemplifies the Egyptian process of mummification and the life among the dead, but not of the living. Many of these purported dying-and-rising tales are not the celebration of a new life at all but rather its very opposite—the domination of death and the underworld. As Smith concludes regarding the several options of half-years in Hades followed by half-years on the earth, this “is not what is usually meant in the literature when speaking of a deity’s ‘rising.’”

But all the considerations in this dialogue are far from being just one-sided. Cook and Mettinger are two well-qualified, representative scholars who hold that several of the mystery gods actually do meet the criteria and thereby qualify as dying-and-rising gods. Cook thinks that “Osiris is the closest analogy to the resurrection of Jesus” but also lists Osiris’s son Horus as “a clear analogy.” Dionysus is deemed to be “a fairly close analogy,” as are Heracles and Melqart. The accounts of Dumuzi, Baal, and Adonis “are less useful as comparisons.” The accounts of Adonis and Attis are simply too late, but there are still benefits to be gathered from among the more questionable examples here and there, even from those that do not otherwise provide very strong cases overall.

For Mettinger, the list of possibilities does not seem quite so lengthy as for Cook, but Dumuzi, Baal, and Melqart are singled out for special mention, as well as Osiris to some extent. However, Eshmun, Adonis, and Attis raise other, sometimes serious issues and questions and thus must be considered too. Even so, the parameters of these discussions are not always easy to navigate, and dissenting scholars from multiple and often opposing directions have offered similar and sometimes even original objections, some of which are quite weighty, as we will outline briefly. How are these sometimes direct disagreements to be resolved in the major discussions in this chapter, chiefly those between Jonathan Z. Smith and Mark Smith on the one side, and Cook and Mettinger on the other?

(1) To begin, the negative position argues that there are no clear cases that exhibit all the required aspects which indicate that a positively dead god then also clearly reappeared. As Jonathan Z. Smith asserts, there are “major lacunae” in some of the writings; others exhibiting portions that cannot be deciphered, let alone interpreted. Some clearly lack deaths, whereas others apparently do so as well, and what might be termed “resurrections” are frequently missing too, while other heroes disappear and appear again with neither a death nor a resurrection.

Examples that illustrate these many difficulties are easily located. Though being closer to the Cook-Mettinger side of the dialogue while surveying three prime candidates as significant examples of dying-and-rising figures (Asclepius, Heracles, and Romulus), M. David Litwa admits that there are doubts regarding whether the last two actually died at all. He notes further that whatever the bottom line is here, the deaths of these figures at least are not emphasized. Riley lists more than a half dozen of these figures who descended to Hades “while still alive.” Riley’s observation would clearly disallow resurrections in these cases. In a very crucial summary comment, Jonathan Z. Smith even reports that “it is now held that the majority of the gods so denoted appear to have died but not returned; there is death but no rebirth or resurrection.”

Continuing, atheist New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman goes even further. After commenting that Osiris never “returned to life on earth by being raised” Ehrman states, “In fact, no ancient source says any such thing about Osiris (or about the other gods).” As was noted above, another New Testament skeptic, Helmut Koester, agrees concerning Osiris in particular: “To be sure, Osiris died and became lord of the realm of the dead, but it is never said that he rose.” Summarizing the matter and concluding that Jonathan Z. Smith is correct on the question of the dying-and-rising gods, Ehrman states, “Some die but don’t return; some disappear without dying and do return; but none of them die and return.”

Some may assert that only a few clear cases are needed to hypothesize a general ethos here, with even more examples making the situation all the merrier. But that’s the chief question: Are these perhaps uncommon or even rare examples actually available? Mark Smith’s point should be remembered too that Frazer pieced together a composite picture, creating a makeshift case that brought together elements from many different cases.

(2) An amazing feature in this dialogue appears to be the surprising lack of substantial overlap or major agreement that might be expected between Cook, Mettinger, and others in their general camp when it comes to which cases of dying-and-rising gods each considers to be the strongest instances. This is especially so since they seemingly hold quite similar philosophical positions on these matters, issuing into the position that there are indeed dying-and-rising gods. Cook apparently prefers Osiris, Horus, Dionysus, and Melqart/Heracles. Mettinger favors Dumuzi, Baal, Melqart, and possibly Osiris. Osiris and Melqart/Heracles are the only two major mythical figures shared in common here. But further, Cook states his apparent lack of high regard for Dumuzi, Baal, and Adonis, whereas Dumuzi and Baal are Mettinger’s favorites! Then, Cook elevates Horus and Dionysus, while the other commentators in this chapter, including Mettinger, barely even discuss and evaluate them. Even worse, of a combinational preferred list between Cook and Mettinger, most of their purported dying-and-rising gods are debased or largely ignored by the other scholars here!

The different emphases between these two excellent scholars in regard to their favorite cases is quite noticeable. To be sure, Cook and Mettinger are both straightforward concerning a number of weaknesses in their positions, too. But here is the huge consideration at this juncture: given that Cook and Mettinger are two of the very best researchers on this subject, and assuming that they are tightly matched on their knowledge of the specifics as well as being close in their overall perspectives, why is there the seeming distance between their best-case scenarios? Further, why do the additional differences exist on the examples that Cook almost dismisses while Mettinger readily appreciates? It is of course true that two close scholars can disagree in their positions. Yet this example is a little more direct: the specific cases preferred by one seem frequently not valued as highly in evidential terms by the other, yet they are both so seemingly and firmly convinced of the data regarding their own arguments. This causes one to wonder if Cook or Mettinger actually agrees with the criticisms that have been made by those on the opposite side of the fence?

To restate the matter, if the best cases between these two close positions are presumably the ones that are accompanied by the strongest empirical evidence, then why does a comparison not yield far more common ground between them? Sure, there are always the customary allowances to be made between differing views and interpretations, and that could certainly be the key here as well. But when the overall perspectives are so close, one is inclined to question in a case of this nature if it is primarily the specific data that are chiefly being evaluated somewhat differently. Could the divergent views be due primarily to the force of the criticisms from the two Smiths, Metzger, Wagner, Yamauchi, or others on the “other” side? Of course, this is what we are endeavoring to determine.

(3) It may be helpful to zero in on a specific case of a prominent dying-and-rising god in order to compare the two major sets of interpretations. Melqart/Heracles is one of two major dying-and-rising gods (the other being Osiris) for which both Cook and Mettinger express strong support. In Cook’s defense, simply a plethora of data are presented in favor of this god’s death and resurrection. The many pieces of evidence include writings, inscriptions, and an especially helpful stone vase that Cook describes in great detail. In these multiple sources in the ancient Near Eastern world, Melqart is variously declared, praised, or pictured as being resuscitated or as a “resuscitator.”

As mentioned above, one of Cook’s particularly intriguing arguments in this context is taken from Josephus, who makes more than one relevant comment on this subject. In one instance while speaking about the region of Tyre (where Melqart was thought of as the lord), Josephus refers to the celebration of “the awakening of Heracles.” The language here (especially the use of the Greek verb egeirō) is employed in other contexts by Josephus to indicate “resuscitation” or even “resurrection.” The verb is also one of the major New Testament words used to describe Jesus’s own resurrection. Witnessing this verb being used by the Jewish historian Josephus is particularly helpful too, given the often-stricter language used predominantly in Jewish circles during the time of Second Temple Judaism.

Mettinger reviews much of the evidence as well, using very technical scholarly analysis and ancient language study. His overview includes providing a very helpful depiction of the four-sided vase described by Cook, along with helpful summaries of the arguments and subconclusions along the way. Mettinger also expresses frustrations on a few occasions with various problems regarding either the state of some data itself or with the way critics argue against the case for Melqart/Heracles.

How would the likes of Jonathan Z. Smith and Mark Smith, among other scholars who oppose these arguments, respond to this amassed data? A few of the details mentioned earlier in this chapter should provide the gist of their replies. It is admitted on all sides, including by Cook and Mettinger, that the data are not as clear as the straightforward way the arguments are often presented. Much nuance is absolutely required.

Mark Smith raises an abundance of problems with a positive case here. Sometimes the exact identity of the god or another person being addressed in the particular text must be guessed or assumed, for the subject of the story is too often missing, unclear, or simply unidentified. Mettinger concedes this point of identity, acknowledging that “we must be open to the possibility that an other [sic] deity than Melqart may be envisioned.”

Further, the alternative translation of a number of these references need not be “resurrected” at all, but simply “awakened.” Obviously, then, the latter may refer to sleeping, as when Elijah taunted the prophets of Baal by charging that their god may be asleep (1 Kgs 18:27). Both Cook and Mettinger acknowledge this issue as well.

Concerning Josephus’s seemingly helpful comments regarding the worship of Heracles in Tyre, Mark Smith points out, “The evidence came secondhand to Josephus, and it is hard to know what to make of these texts’ reliability as a source for understanding the cult of Herakles.” Thus, in procuring the information from another source, key ideas could have been confused as well. Besides, when Josephus employs the same Greek root (egeirō) in another work, Against Apion, while discussing Tyre and the cult of Heracles, it is apparently used in reference to the erection of temples. Both Cook and Mettinger admit these issues in Josephus. It was mentioned that Mettinger refers to the Josephus citations as an aggravating puzzle and has even deemed them hopeless.

Still another problem according to Mark Smith is the mixing and matching of various accounts from the ancient Near East and elsewhere: “It is still unknown that the traditions at the opposite ends of the Mediterranean basin were uniform.” But as already mentioned, we cannot assume that the different portions of perhaps diverse accounts can be combined and reconciled in this manner, as if they addressed the same content.

While Cook and Mettinger acknowledge a number of Mark Smith’s critiques, there are a few issues over which there is genuine disagreement. Two major examples concern the death and resurrection of Melqart/Heracles. Smith questions both aspects. Regarding Melqart, Smith claims firmly that “no text provides information about the putative death of the god.” Smith asserts the same concerning Heracles. One problem here is the contradictory reports on how this event supposedly occurred, whether by the more normal process of death and burial or due to the god’s body being consumed on a funeral pyre. While still noting the problems at this juncture, Smith appears to have fewer problems here, since he seems to conclude that the interpretation of death still makes sense.

However, even if a death may be inferred, Smith especially draws the line at the notion of resurrection. He states, “It should not be assumed that any resurrection was involved.” Even on some of the assumptions and suggested reconstructions, there is virtually no information or description on this aspect.

Finally, Smith questions the presence of ritual or cultic connection with Melqart/Heracles. We have seen that at least Cook rejects the ritual aspect of Smith’s definition, while Mettinger disputes it in the case of Melqart/Heracles.

In conclusion regarding this third discussion point, should Melqart/Heracles be considered as a dying-and-rising god? Those who argue affirmatively sometimes point to utilizing a shortened definition that requires fewer information checkpoints. Then, the question turns on whether it can be argued successfully that Melqart/Heracles was considered a god, that he died, and that he then was observed afterward. Scholars like Cook, Mettinger, Litwa, and others have marshaled various sorts of data in support of each of these three criteria of deity, death, and resurrection.

Those who argue negatively, such as Mark Smith, make use of a more detailed definition for a dying-and-rising god, afterward offering numerous critiques of the affirmative proposals in each of the three areas listed above. Scholars like Cook and Mettinger more or less agree with about half of Smith’s critiques while offering rejoinders to the others.

It appears that when the smoke has settled, the result is a fairly even argument, with scholars and other readers then making their own judgments. As Mark Smith states seeming fairly, “There is simply insufficient evidence to prove the case or to dismiss it entirely.” He concludes that the solution is very difficult to ascertain and that it is better to conclude that the reconstruction “remains hypothetical.” According to this route, it is a very difficult task to prove that one argument or interpretation should rank head and shoulders above the other. This is particularly the case when a wrong turn in one or more of several key places for discussion could cause much or even most of the entire knot to unravel.

But it must also be borne in mind that Melqart/Heracles may present the strongest case in the ancient world in terms of the actual evidence on behalf of a particular dying-and-rising god, as mentioned earlier. This was the reason for showcasing this example. If in fact this is the best scenario for the affirmative position, where do the other less-demonstrated examples stand? At the very least, since Melqart/Heracles is certainly one of the very best examples, that may indicate some difficulties for those who wish to make a strong case on behalf either of the dying-and-rising gods in general, or especially so for those who may care to argue that many strong cases obtain. We will continue to push forward for an answer here.

Regarding the overall question of whether there are any cases of pre-Christian dying-and-rising gods, it would seem that the Melqart/Heracles case may serve to determine the path here, at least in the sense of verified examples of these accounts. As mentioned in the very first consideration above, it is difficult to analyze ancient texts, inscriptions, pottery, and so on that are dated several hundred years or even longer before the New Testament period. There are so many lacunae, missing pieces, undecipherable passages, and words that can have multiple meanings that often occur in the very worst places for this research, not to mention modern interpretations of this lost or jumbled material that have been proven false when new data are discovered.

Several of these issues were present in some of the Melqart/Heracles material dealt with earlier, including missing names of the gods, a lack of explicit deaths, contradictory versions of key events, the two apparent meanings of egeirō/egersis used by Josephus, the mixing of geographically and philosophically different texts to obtain a sense of what is being taught, the lack of distinctions in the meanings of terms for “awakened” or “raised,” and so on. These can be exceptionally crucial issues that are not necessarily solvable dilemmas.

Perhaps in large part due to the plethora of individual problems, either these questions or similar scenarios could account for our second perspective above as to why Cook, Mettinger, and other scholars within the same interpretive camp that favors the existence of resurrected gods still disagree about the best and worst examples of dying-and-rising gods. But further, by undercutting the arguments of their colleagues, these scholars can actually showcase the fact that the best cases preferred by others are not necessarily so exemplary!

The bottom line here is quite difficult, to say the least. Whether or not it can be determined on all these various notions of awakenings, rebirths, returns (especially from the underworld), and possibly even resurrections following actual deaths as well as comprising genuine raisings to new lives seems almost impossible to conclude with any assurance. Further, in case there are genuine examples of raisings, do these beings die again like Lazarus or do they become immortal?

All told, it would appear that the best conclusion to our first question is to extend the specific judgment regarding Melqart/Heracles to serve as the overall response to whether or not there are any such examples of dying-and-rising gods. The issue appears to have ended in a stalemate, one that is potentially even unanswerable, largely due at least to the current, often unfortunate state of the ancient data. Moreover, from a different epistemic angle, even if there were some cases of dying-and-rising gods, it seems extraordinarily difficult to demonstrate factually that this was the case. After a highly detailed study, Wagner asserts a potentially helpful observation here: “The mystery religion par excellence has never existed, and quite certainly did not in the first century A.D.” Of course, one may disagree with Wagner at this point, but the alternative argument that avoids all the pitfalls mentioned above would have to be demonstrated clearly. The overall response, then, may lean just slightly to the denial that dying-and-rising gods predated Jesus, but again, this is difficult to ascertain.

Major Question Two

Did any pre-Christian tales of dying-and-rising gods influence seriously the New Testament resurrection and appearance accounts, as per some proponents of the older German religionsgeschichtliche Schule? Are these former views still held by many critical scholars today?

What about this second key inquiry? Could any potential accounts of ancient dying-and-rising gods, or even that general ethos or attitude that surrounded these tales, have influenced the New Testament teaching of Jesus’s resurrection and appearances in whole or in part? Asked from another angle, could any such pre-Christian stories serve as a viable naturalistic hypothesis against the resurrection, as held at the end of the old German liberal heyday under the influence of the history of religions scholars.

It will simply be mentioned at the outset that by far the stance even of critical scholars across the board is to reject the thesis that the apostolic teachings of Jesus’s resurrection were in any way invented or influenced seriously by any dying-and-­rising mythical accounts of the past. For instance, it has already been noted that Bart Ehrman has criticized these scenarios in no uncertain terms in a lengthy response. Numerous other critical scholars have also repudiated these mythical positions, as will be illustrated in more detail below. This general rejection was occasioned by at least ten objections.

First, the historical life, death, and reported resurrection appearances of Jesus stand in marked contrast to the totally, or at least chiefly, mythical characters involved in the dying-and-rising scenarios. Writing less than a century after Jesus’s crucifixion, Plutarch reminded his readers of this very point when composing his story of Isis and Osiris, mainly, that the contrast should be apparent between the lives of truly historical persons and those heroes of the tall tales. As Plutarch states concerning Isis and Osiris, “You must remember what has been already said, and you must not think that any of these tales actually happened in the manner in which they are related.” Later in the same story, Plutarch adds, “We must not treat legend as if it were history at all, but we should adopt that which is appropriate.”

This initial criticism arises time and again throughout these discussions. For instance, former Princeton Seminary Greek scholar Bruce Metzger also leveled this critique rather forcefully: “A most profound difference between Christianity and the Mysteries was involved in the historical basis of the former and the mythological character of the latter.” After all, Jesus was “a real Person on earth only a short time before the earliest documents of the New Testament were written.” Even Cook acknowledges this criticism clearly in what he terms his “major point” concerning the dying-and-rising gods: “None of the figures from the history of ancient Mediterranean religions are ‘live options’ for faith any longer. . . . Dionysus, Osiris, Heracles, and Attis are mythical beings who never existed.”

Second, an additional point follows from this initial objection. There is plenty of evidence for various aspects in the life of the historical Jesus in areas such as his central preaching message of the kingdom of God, his self-reference as both the Son of God and the Son of Man, and his healings and exorcisms. The empty tomb is also supported by many independent pieces of historical data. Moreover, the data that we have identified as the minimal historical facts, which support the reports of Jesus’s resurrection appearances, are also highly significant and are supported by virtually all critical scholars. Many more historical events and nuances can be verified as well.

Third, that no historical evidence to speak of exists in favor of any dying-and-­rising god scenarios goes without mentioning. Even those ancient figures who may just possibly have some partial historical roots are not accompanied by sources temporally close to the events in question to provide adequate evidence whatsoever. Further, the documents are often in terrible enough shape that many of the relevant questions cannot even be answered. What about the mythological stories of living six months of the year in the underworld? Particularly when the claims in question concern the possibility of resurrections and the like, this lack of evidence presents massive differences with the New Testament accounts. There is simply an enormous contrast in the historical disparity between the two positions.

Fourth, phenomenologically, New Testament statements regarding Jesus’s resurrection appearances by their very nature employ the language of sight. In other words, statements or descriptions pertaining to Jesus being present with his followers again after his crucifixion are always explained in terms of those who saw him. Never is the sense given that this doctrine was simply a thought drawn from copying religious teachings garnered from other foreign (especially pagan) ideas or systems. Nor did the conviction arise as merely being due to some inner conviction or insight, to a lie or misunderstanding, or to hearing about some faith healer somewhere.

To the contrary, since this is the unanimous nature of the earliest appearance statements, justice must be done to what was at least claimed. Whether natural or supernatural hypotheses are proposed as explanations for these occurrences, they must account for the statements that human sight was involved, or commentators will be guilty of responding to teachings other than the combined message of the very earliest claims. This is recognized by the majority of both critical and believing scholars alike across a very diverse theoretical landscape.

The significance of this fourth theme cannot be overestimated in terms of this chapter. The more it is known that the sight of Jesus’s disciples and others was involved, the more it is known that the far away stories of dying-and-rising gods fail to fit the conditions here, at least not as any sort of primary causal thesis. It would seem that this critique alone weighs exceptionally heavily in dismissing the naturalistic dying-and-rising gods thesis here. As Wolfhart Pannenberg noted years ago after noting the nature of the historical evidence for Jesus’s resurrection: “Under such circumstances, it is an idle venture to make parallels in the history of religions responsible for the emergence of the primitive Christian message about Jesus’s resurrection.” The point here is that whatever is thought of the dying-and-rising gods theses, since we are dealing with the disciples’ sight as the chief mechanism, ancient stories do not possess the requirements to explain at least the very earliest beginnings of Christianity.

Fifth, an absolutely crucial logical point must also be raised here. Even if some of the comparisons discussed above were tighter than they in fact were, similarities simply do not prove causal connections. In other words, even if the comparisons between the ancient mysteries and Jesus’s life were closer, this is still not the same as demonstrating that some of these similar ideas actually caused the later ones. Too many other possibilities could also explain these related concepts. This requires a far tighter argument than any that has been shown here. This is one of the key reasons why some of the researchers above distinguish between analogy and genealogy. There are various sorts of the former that do not at all indicate the latter. As Jonathan Z. Smith asserts succinctly, “Analogies do not yield genealogies.” In fact, genealogy is specifically stated not to be in view in some of these studies.

Plus, the differences between systems must also be considered, as well—how distinct are the contrasts between them? As Metzger asserts wisely, when specifically comparing the mystery religions and Christianity: “The formal resemblance between the two, however, must not be allowed to obscure the great difference in content.” More recent commentators have remarked that Frazer spun too many of his ancient stories so that the similarities stood out as being more substantial than the differences, causing this oversight to be one of the reasons for the demise of the entire thesis of the religionsgeschichtliche Schule.

These initial five critiques are highly significant in that they probably represent the most crucial and demarcating contrasts between the mystery beliefs and those of the New Testament, arguing that these belief systems are not just different, but actually quite opposed to each other and in the most vital and essential areas as well. Even so, there are still additional considerations that increase the degree of separation here.

Sixth, while researchers almost always single out the initial element above regarding Jesus’s historicity as contrasted with the more or less mythical dying-and-rising heroes, an additional development is that several of Jesus’s individual actions and teachings were quite original. Equally important though, Jesus’s theological and ethical themes were grounded in particular ideas that could be traced to the Old Testament and other ancient Semitic contexts and ideas. At the same time, Jesus’s teachings were often also quite unique in nature, moving far beyond these points. In other words, Jesus’s milieu both originated in the context of his time, as well as being uniquely different from the Greco-Roman and ancient Near Eastern cultures. This could well explain some of his incomparable influence.

The principal thrust of this sixth point is that there is virtually no reason to trace Jesus’s actions or teachings to origins in the mystery religions or as reflecting elements from among the dying-and-rising mythical themes. Discovering the roots of Jesus’s world-changing ideas flows from a far more direct and meaningful source.

Moving in this same direction, Wagner published a study that illustrated these and additional trends. He produced twenty-two theological considerations against the thesis that the mystery religions gave rise to (or affected severely) the New Testament teachings regarding the early Christian practice of baptism, including the death and resurrection of Jesus. The following seven reflections are among the stronger contentions that Wagner concluded separated Christianity from the mystery systems drawn from both Jesus’s life as well as Paul’s teachings: (1) Paul never even utilizes many of the same terms that he is often blamed with adopting from the mystery belief systems. (2) The only key words that do overlap between Paul and the mystery sources are also present in Judaism. Further, when this common language is used, Paul utilizes totally different meanings than those employed in the mysteries, favoring the Jewish sources and their meanings. (3) The New Testament teaching that Jesus’s death paid for sin is never taught of the dying-and-rising gods. (4) The death and resurrection of Jesus were onetime events rather than a “mythisches Drama” (mythical drama). For example, this is a key theme to the arguments in the book of Hebrews, which emphasizes the unique, never-to-be-repeated death of Jesus. (5) The death and resurrection of Jesus are “salvation-events”—nothing like the mystery gods who often died by unrelated incidents, such as being killed on a hunt or by personal emasculation or by the evil gods from the underworld, and so on. (6) Contrary to the initiations in the mystery religions, Christian baptism signified and typified a connection based on real historical events derived strictly from Jesus’s life and the gospel message. (7) The mystery conception of a magical imparting of benefits to those who were baptized is in full contrast to the radical faith-surrender required of Christian believers as they grew utterly committed to God and others while in this world.

Other key distinctions of various sorts could be listed between Jesus and Paul on the one side and the dying-and-rising gods on the other, but these above should be sufficient to make the general point. There are both serious and major contrasts that argue clearly that the very center of the Christian faith, especially at the specific point of the gospel message, is significantly independent and unrelated to the teachings associated with the ancient gods and goddesses.

Seventh, besides Wagner’s theological areas of critique, a ceremonial aspect also needs to be considered. We saw earlier that Cook offered what he termed “an attenuated sense” of the required characteristics of dying-and-rising gods that disagreed with Mark Smith’s definition, in that Cook expunged the last two of Smith’s four markers. The last definitional indicator that is supported by the likes of Mark Smith and Jonathan Z. Smith but rejected by Cook and others concerns the presence of rituals that provide a basis for a cultic recitation of the mystery myths. Although there are various disagreements among the commentators as to the extent to which the dying-and-rising god accounts incorporated these elements, as noted above, the two Smiths charge that rituals were quite often absent from these pre-Christian tales. But a lack of cultic celebrations here may hint that any possible rebirth or rising portions of these mythologies do not occupy the central perspective in these belief systems.

If this is indeed the case, then such a lack of ritual and potentially also the notion of centrality for the dying-and-rising portions of the mystery accounts would of course be a major contrast that is very much unlike the place given to the death and resurrection of Jesus within Christianity, where this message is at the very epicenter of New Testament teaching. This would then serve as another potential indication that these ancient pre-Christian Mediterranean tales were neither the basis for nor a major influence upon the Christian accounts.

Eighth, comparing the roots of major worldview concerns offers a direct challenge to the thesis that ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern myths influenced Christianity in a major way. Important studies by scholars like N. T. Wright and Mark Smith, among many others, charge that the most crucial background for understanding the Christian ideas about bodily resurrection come from Judaism rather than any pagan belief systems.

Ninth, Jonathan Z. Smith (as well as others) has added a last powerful insight. Probably the predominant scene in the dying-and-rising god’s tales is that of a hero or heroine descending to the underworld and returning again after some prescribed amount of time (often for six months) as long as another person had agreed to take their place. As Smith points out, there is no way that these events can be termed resurrections at all. This is because in all of these specific scenarios, hell, Hades, or the underworld is paramount. The rules and requirements are those of hell, not those of heaven. But a hell-dominated return to earth is not to be confused with a heavenly resurrection. And while the persons reside in hell, it is anything but a trip to eternal life, the celestial heights, or even to the Emerald City! If that were not true, why would they care to return repeatedly to the world above in the first place rather than simply staying and seeking to enjoy themselves in the nether realm?

Jonathan Smith describes the problem powerfully in these words: “The myth emphasizes the inalterable power of the realm of the dead, not triumph over it.” Then Smith continues: “Such alternation is not what is usually meant in the literature when speaking of a deity’s ‘rising.’” That this view is neither a resurrection nor an example to inspire Christian teachings to emulate needs to be acknowledged!

Tenth, Metzger reminds his readers that the mystery religions differ from New Testament teachings in the very heart of their notions regarding the philosophy of history. The former were typically concerned with “the cyclical recurrence of the ­seasons . . . leading nowhere.” Conversely, for Christians, “the time-process comprises a unique series of events, and the most significant of these events was the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

Eleventh, we may return to a lesson from history. Even going back to the ­religionsgeschichtliche Schule of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, though some lines of influence were certainly thought to exist, the scholars usually stopped short of thinking that these ancient tales actually gave rise to the key New Testament accounts. For example, the most influential scholar in this school, Wilhelm Bousset, argued that the foundations of the early Christian resurrection beliefs were built, first and foremost, on the unique and incomparable personality and teachings of the historical Jesus. For Bousset, the second basis for resurrection belief was the visions of the risen Jesus that the early disciples thought that they had experienced. Thus, though he was convinced that the pre-Christian tales of dying-and-rising gods clearly existed, Bousset did not conclude that these stories directly caused the disciples’ beliefs and the teachings regarding Jesus’s resurrection appearances, which originated from Jesus’s influence and the postmortem visions.

Likewise, another major religionsgeschichtliche Schule proponent, Otto Pfleiderer, took a position similar to Bousset’s response above. In addressing this subject, Pfleiderer agreed that there were many cases of dying-and-rising gods and deline­ated a large number of them. However, one very serious research problem with the scholars in this era, and for Pfleiderer in particular, is that they too seldom, if ever, differentiate the origin of these myths in terms of the dates or other key markers for each. Hence, post-Christian resurrection stories might be grouped along with earlier accounts. This frequently resulted in a jumbled assortment of heterogeneous stories being indiscriminately lumped together side by side without distinctions of date, culture, geographical location, and so on.

Specifically regarding Jesus’s resurrection, Pfleiderer acknowledged that though there were many such dying-and-rising myths, neither their existence nor this wide-ranging ethos around the Mediterranean world and beyond could explain the resurrection. Like Bousset, the chief overall reason here is because the example of Jesus was situated in history rather than in mythology. Further, the rise of the resurrection belief was occasioned more specifically by Jesus’s postmortem visions, as reported by his disciples, and not by their recitation of copycat scenarios. Pfleiderer summarized very directly: “But the Christian myth is not to be derived from this nature-myth, because it has its most direct source in the historical fact of the death of Jesus, and the following visions seen by his disciples.”

Though the dying-and-rising myths cannot explain Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection visions, Pfleiderer still thought that “those parallels are surely of significance.” Pfleiderer seems to think that the similarities in different religious beliefs indicate that they stem from similar human longings, as foreshadowed in many religions. Likewise, Pfleiderer also acknowledged that the many differences in belief systems need to be studied. The responses of Bousset and Pfleiderer contain a number of similarities here. To this we may also add the testimony of another very prominent German scholar, Ernst Troeltsch.

It should be noted that the views of these religionsgeschichtliche Schule scholars are not being counted here as a critique of this natural thesis, since critical views one way or another do not demonstrate the truth or falsity of a view. Yet, these scholars who support this natural thesis still acknowledge freely that their thesis does not account for the resurrection teachings in the New Testament, especially when some of their reasons are the same or similar to the critiques given above. This is at least a pointer to the evaluation in this chapter.

Hence, even these German liberal scholars realized that the overall foundation of Christianity was built upon history rather than the assimilation of foreign mythologies untethered to history. These mythological tales did not occasion the founding of the church. More specifically and succinctly, these German liberal scholars correctly recognized, as do commentators today, that the New Testament resurrection teaching involved the language of sight—real persons thought that they had actually observed the risen Jesus visiting them in space and time. This has been mentioned many times throughout this chapter. The central point here is that while the naturalistic charge that the disciples were possibly mistaken in their claimed perceptions may still have to be answered, that charge nonetheless involved the early believer’s sight and their observations, but not their having catered to the retelling of pagan mythical myths, legends, and stories.

Of course, it might theoretically be questioned whether some borrowing could still have taken place in spite of all these distinctions along with the critical scholarly opposition to these ideas. But a variety of the conditions just mentioned above make it far less likely than is judged by these previous scholars to be the case. As already pointed out, there is no genealogical evidence that such borrowing took place and much data indicating that it did not. Apparent similarities turn out upon closer inspection not to be so with many differences besides. The Jewish origins for many or even most of these ideas further taught that pagan ideas were an abomination to God, so why look elsewhere when the roots of these ideas were near at hand, such as Old Testament raisings from the dead ? Perhaps most of all, the New Testament language is that of sight and real experiences. Even critics allow that these encounters were truly believed to have occurred rather than representing mythic tales. Something happened to Jesus’s followers, and this has to be accounted for rather than being glossed over in favor of stories from far-off lands. As Ehrman asserts, the disciples’ conviction that they had seen Jesus “eventually turned the world on its ear.”

Conclusion

Returning to our initial comment in the treatment of the second question above, it is clearly the case that very few specialist critical scholars today think that the dying-and-rising god scenarios birthed Jesus’s resurrection appearance accounts in the New Testament. Neither these ancient tales nor the general ethos emanating from them greatly or significantly influenced the Christian accounts in the sense of inspiring or formulating their central gospel message. Whether atheist, agnostic, skeptical, liberal, moderate, or conservative, there are very few, if any, scholars who charge that the ancient mystery tales can actually account completely for the New Testament resurrection data and message. Even critical scholar Robert Price, who at least doubts that Jesus ever existed, rejects the ancient dying-and-rising gods thesis, referring to it as “untenable.”

Obviously, the scholars who were surveyed earlier in this chapter who doubt or even deny that there are dying-and-rising god tales in the first place would not likely think that there is any influence here on the Christian notion of Jesus’s resurrection appearances! Likewise, even the vast number of those critical scholars who think that there were such pre-Christian tales almost always deny such a causal thesis regarding the resurrection of Jesus.

Decades after the fall of German liberalism, specialists across the entire scholarly spectrum generally agree that the dying-and-rising gods, whether or not they predated Jesus, neither created nor otherwise gave rise to the origins of the message that Jesus had risen from the dead and appeared to his followers. This well-researched conviction is the case wherever these scholars are on the personal belief spectrum.

For example, it has been pointed out above that very influential scholars Jonathan Z. Smith, Mark S. Smith, Bruce Metzger, Günter Wagner, Bart Ehrman, Helmut Koester, Edwin Yamauchi, and Ronald Nash are all examples of those researchers who doubt or deny that there were any such pre-Christian dying-and-rising gods in the first place. Add to this other scholars such as New Testament specialist Craig Keener and the former quite influential University of Chicago history of religions professor Mircea Eliade, who agree that while there were pre-Christian mythical dying-and-rising figures, they provide no real parallels to the historical Jesus. Nor did these ancient myths influence the New Testament texts that mention Jesus’s death, resurrection, and appearances. According to this long list of researchers just mentioned, we must look elsewhere for the origins of the Christian resurrection beliefs, specifically to the early creedal and other traditions and teachings in the New Testament.

On the other hand, Tryggve Mettinger and John Cook are two of the best and ablest defenders of the existence of pre-Christian dying-and-rising gods tales. Yet, neither scholar opts for the view that one, many, or all of these stories can account naturally for the origin of the early Christian resurrection message. Nor does a more general Mediterranean ethos fulfill the task. In other words, there is no antecedent naturalistic causal thesis here.

As Mettinger states, “The figures we have studied are deities. In the case of Jesus, we are confronted with a human (for whom divinity was claimed by himself and by his followers). For the disciples and for Paul, the resurrection of Jesus was a one-time, historical event that took place at one specific point in the earth’s topography. The empty tomb was seen as a historical datum.” Then Mettinger continues, responding more directly to our second question: “There is, as far as I am aware, no prima facie evidence that the death and resurrection of Jesus is a mythological construct, drawing on the myths and rites of the dying-and-rising gods of the surrounding world . . . the death and resurrection of Jesus retains its unique character in the history of religions.”

No matter how many pagan analogies there may have been, similarly to so many other scholars, Cook likewise finds that the Jewish background was the central forerunner to the Christian view. When coupled with the historicity of Jesus’s resurrection appearances, whatever one might think of the non-Christian analogies, the resurrection occurred in space and time. This sets off this occurrence as a ­singular event.

Thus, none of the recent, major scholars who participated in the dialogue throughout this chapter would answer our second question positively. None would conclude that the resurrection of Jesus can be explained naturalistically by responding that this central teaching of Christianity was a tale that was totally or mostly inspired by the dying-and-rising myths from the Mediterranean world or the Near East. Beyond that, at least three of the most influential German liberal religions­geschichtliche Schule scholars of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, even in the heyday of this movement, also agreed specifically that such a response would be insufficient to disprove the early church’s resurrection teachings, based as they were on historical lives and events, including most of all the appearances of the risen Jesus.

But we can also move beyond these individual responses from the narrowest specialists on these questions to the evaluations of additional influential scholars in the next most specialized circle. This group of researchers not only concluded similarly that the dying-and-rising gods failed to account for the teachings of Jesus’s resurrection, but additionally that the influence of at least the liberal arm of the religionsgeschichtliche Schule and other similar hypotheses have lost most or all of their influence today.

For example, in speaking about the past attempts to show that “the world of pagan philosophy and mystery-religions” may have influenced Paul (probably the major point of attack for these views), N. T. Wright concluded, “All have failed, as virtually all Pauline scholars now recognize.” In fact, Wright finds the arguments against these views of pagan influence to be “overwhelming.”

One massive study on an aspect of this research is A. J. M. Wedderburn’s specialized tome, Baptism and Resurrection: Studies in Pauline Theology against Its Graeco-Roman Background. Wedderburn charges that the religionsgeschichtliche Schule, as developed further by Rudolf Bultmann and other scholars, failed in its attempt to prove its chief theses. In fact, while being an agnostic on the historical question of Jesus’s resurrection, Wedderburn still asserts that his “purpose” in this volume was to “call into question” the entire enterprise of this movement, in that further advances “in our understanding of the mystery-cults of the Graeco-Roman world” have “fatally undermined” the theological foundations of the religionsgeschichtliche Schule and its conclusions.

Another academic pursuit of these matters, in this case over a lifetime of research, is Larry Hurtado’s exploration of the very early date at which a high Christology burst onto the scene in the earliest church. Pertaining to our vital question here, Hurtado concludes that the combination of this exceptionally early proclamation of Jesus as deity along with this teaching having occurred in Judea, indicates that pagan myths such as the influential ideas of Bousset could not have been what gave rise to these Christian beliefs. Rather, these latter beliefs were based on historical occurrences from locally in the Jerusalem area, rather than Jesus’s disciples and others reflecting on far-away pagan ideas. Therefore, the time frame according to Bousset’s thesis began way too late. But recognizing the earlier date at which these events really did occur would have disproved his hypothesis.

James D. G. Dunn’s emphasis on the epicenter of the Christian message being based on the message of Jesus’s disciples having seen their teacher in some sense after his crucifixion has already been mentioned above. Dunn goes further in order to ground the disciples’ sight in first-century history, namely, in the life of Jesus himself. The center revolved around him, not the disciples, and most of all not distant tales. These early followers reveled in “preserving, promoting, and defending the memory of [Jesus’s] mission.” There is no room or historical place here for emulating pagan myths from far-away lands. The antecedents were much closer at hand, as these views plus similar ideas were grounded in Jewish thought that “should have killed stone dead” the heart of Bousset’s polemic!

Continuing, Luke Timothy Johnson likewise argues, “The best work in Paul in recent years has demonstrated that Paul was not the inventor of the ‘Christ cult’ but was, rather, the inheritor of liturgical and creedal traditions already in place before his conversion.” Craig A. Evans has judged that the Hellenistic approach to Jesus’s historicity, along with its trends, have “been largely abandoned.” Reginald Fuller also mentions a critique similar to the one supported by Wedderburn and other scholars, namely, that the nineteenth-century religionsgeschichtliche movement built its chief theses on “dubious evidence” where the parallels were inexact and the material was insufficiently related to the New Testament. Thorwald Lorenzen is among the many scholars who have been critical of the history of religions school’s repeated reliance on claimed similarities with virtually no concentration on the larger numbers of differences.

Metzger similarly reminds his readers of the extreme differences between the Jewish and Christian notions of philosophy of history that involve linear history as contrasted with the mystery religions’ ideas favoring the cyclical repetition of events. Another intriguing comeback from recent critical scholars like Leon McKenzie and others pertains to those who think that the less than impressive accounts of the dying-and-rising gods may have been precursors to the one truly historical resurrection in history—that of Jesus Christ.

According to recent scholars, still other concerns impede the liberal religion­sgeschichtliche Schule tradition from returning to the front page of critical scholarship. Included in these oft-mentioned criticisms are the general lack of mystery-religion influence in Israel during the first century, that Jesus’s case fits the Jewish and Old Testament pattern rather than a Hellenistic one, the predominant view among scholars today regarding the huge anthropological differences that exist between the Hellenistic and Jewish views of persons, ancient understandings of exactly what sort of body was thought to be raised from the dead, and other similar issues, some of which have been mentioned in the critique above.

Last, it should be mentioned once again that the New Testament texts and early Christian convictions were that Jesus’s resurrection appearances were established by claims involving the recipients’ sight. This alone is a huge hurdle for any view claiming that foreign ideas were actually the primary cause. The two concepts stand quite opposed to one another, constituting a contradiction.

So we close this chapter with a qualified agnostic position on whether there were actual dying-and-rising gods before Jesus, with perhaps a slight edge in the direction of the negative position. But this is admittedly quite a problematic issue to solve definitively. Still, it is clear for a large number of reasons that these ancient tales did not create or even significantly influence the New Testament teachings of Jesus’s death and resurrection. For this conclusion there are many favorable reasons and almost unanimous scholarly agreement. Finally, a large number of recent and often quite influential researchers also agree that the liberal religionsgeschichtliche tradition retains exceptionally little weight today.

Notes

Rudolf Bultmann, “New Testament and Mythology,” in Bultmann et al., Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, ed. Hans Werner Bartsch, trans. Reginald H. Fuller (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), 10n2. Irving Hexham defines “myth” similarly, as “to express in imaginative form a belief” of theological or other importance. Hexham, Concise Dictionary of Religion (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1993), 153.

Hexham, Concise Dictionary of Religion, 135.

Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd, The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), see 133–46, with another breakdown demarcation set out on 136–38.

S. H. Hooke, Middle Eastern Mythology (London: Penguin, 1963), 173. In addressing potential New Testament parallels, Hooke appears to make comments that hint that these mythical considerations may have influenced New Testament writings somehow (148, 173–74) while apparently asserting that this did not occur (16, 174, 176, cf. 166). At any rate, in a subsequent volume on Jesus’s resurrection, Hooke speaks positively of this event as having actually taken place (119–127) while de-emphasizing the need to demonstrate it in historical terms (130). See Hooke, The Resurrection of Christ as History and Experience (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1967). The latter angle is consistent with a similar comment he made in Middle Eastern Mythology, 16.

Jonathan Z. Smith, “Dying and Rising Gods,” in Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade, 2nd ed., 16 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 2005), 4:2535. Henceforth, this author’s name will be shortened to J. Z. Smith.

Mark S. Smith, “The Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods’ in the Biblical World: An Update, with Special Reference to Baal in the Baal Cycle,” Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 12 (1998): 257–313, as summarized nicely on 262. Smith explains that he draws these characteristics from James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1890). Henceforth, this author’s name will be shortened to M. S. Smith.

John Granger Cook, Empty Tomb, Resurrection, Apotheosis (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 57.

Walter Burkert, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual, rev. ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 100–101. Cook also quotes Burkert, though from the first edition, with the same page numbers.

Cook, Empty Tomb, 58, cf. 62.

Cook, esp. 56n1, also 69.

J. Z. Smith, “Dying and Rising Gods,” 4:2535–40, with the quotation on 2538.

J. Z. Smith, 4:2538.

J. Z. Smith, 4:2539.

On these conclusions, cf. J. Z. Smith, 4:2538–39; M. S. Smith, “Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods,’” 310–12; Edwin M. Yamauchi, “Tammuz and the Bible,” Journal of Biblical Literature 84 (1965): 283–90; Yamauchi, “Descent of Ishtar,” in The Biblical World: A Dictionary of Biblical Archaeology, ed. Charles Pfeiffer (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1966), 196–200; Yamauchi, “Did Christianity Copy Earlier Pagan Resurrection Stories?,” in The Harvest Handbook of Apologetics, ed. Joseph M. Holden (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2018), 149–55, 471–74; Bendt Alster, “Tammuz,” in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, ed. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 833; Günter Wagner, Das religionsgeschichtliche Problem von Römer 6, 1–11 (Zurich: Zwingli, 1962), 142, 146–79, 268–69; Cook, Empty Tomb, 57–58, 69–73, esp. 72–73.

M. S. Smith, “Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods,’” 310–11.

M. S. Smith, 290.

J. Z. Smith, “Dying and Rising Gods,” 4:2536.

Yamauchi, “Pagan Resurrection Stories,” 151. This conclusion specifically concerning Baal does not extend to this or any other pre-Christian account influencing the Christian concepts of the death and resurrection of Jesus (153–55).

Tryvvge Mettinger, The Riddle of Resurrection: ‘Dying and Rising Gods’ in the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2013), 57.

Mettinger, Riddle of Resurrection, 68 and 69.

Mettinger, 80–81.

Mettinger, 218.

Cook, Empty Tomb, 74.

Cook, 73. This is reminiscent of Cook’s earlier disagreement with Mark Smith on the notion of including the context of cultic rituals as a crucial factor in the definitional notion of dying-and-rising gods (57–58).

Yamauchi, “Did Christianity Copy Earlier Pagan Resurrection Stories?,” 152.

Yamauchi, “Pagan Resurrection Stories,” 152–53.

Many of these different angles are recounted in R. E. Witt, Isis in the Graeco-Roman World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971), esp. 36–40, 45, 197, cf. 189. The differences between Osiris being described as the solar eye of the sun or the ruler of the netherworld is discussed on 17, 38, 51, 54.

M. S. Smith, “Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods,’” 271.

J. Z. Smith, “Dying and Rising Gods,” 4:2538.

For example, the best-known New Testament representative on this position was Wilhelm Bousset, Kyrios Christos: A History of the Belief in Christ from the Beginnings of Christianity to Irenaeus, trans. John E. Steely (Nashville: Abingdon, 1970), 57–59, 191–94 on the common notions of dying-and-rising gods in the first century. Bultmann himself wrote the “Introductory Word” to the 1964 fifth edition (7–9) and seems already to be acknowledging cracks in the general direction of key religionsgeschichtliche Schule theses. Bultmann states, “Still it must be said that the correctness of Bousset’s total view and of his representation of the cultic Kyrios worship in Hellenistic Christianity is in no way dependent upon the correctness of this thesis.” One issue Bultmann goes on to mention is that “it can be regretted above all that in his presentation, essential motifs of the New Testament, especially of Pauline theology, have not been brought into operation adequately” (8–9). This seems to be an odd comment on Bultmann’s part. Of course, it is possible that Bousset could have been mistaken at any of several crucial points while other important features still remain intact. But it almost sounds more like an attempt by Bultmann to save the overall thesis in spite of some major misses, while still offering a preemptive strike against Bousset’s detractors. Of course, as many have remarked, the Frazer/Bousset thesis has indeed gone on to suffer so many central blows that most scholars at present would probably attest to the overall theory being rendered rather incapable of doing what it was intended to do in the first place. This issue will also be discussed further.

Helmut Koester, Introduction to the New Testament, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 1:190.

Bart D. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (New York: HarperCollins, 2012), 228.

Besides these four scholars, see also Günter Wagner, Das religionsgeschichtliche Problem, 1–11, esp. the strong statement on 273: “Osiris erlebte keine Auferstehung, sondern wurde zum Herrscher der Unterwelt wiederbelebt” (Habermas translation: “Osiris did not undergo a resurrection but was revived as the lord of the underworld [or Hades]”). See also Yamauchi, “Pagan Resurrection Stories,” 152–53. Bruce M. Metzger’s comments seem very close to those of Mark Smith and Jonathan Z. Smith above. See Metzger’s excellent essay, “Methodology in the Study of the Mystery Religions and Early Christianity,” in Historical and Literary Studies: Pagan, Jewish, and Christian (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), 1–24, particularly the critiques and detailed scholarly sources on 20–21.

Mettinger, Riddle of Resurrection, 182, while still admitting questions on 218; Cook, Empty Tomb, 76, 78, but see 80.

Mettinger, Riddle of Resurrection, 88–90, containing the quotations above; also, Cook, Empty Tomb, 127–29.

Mettinger, Riddle of Resurrection, 90–111; Cook argues similarly (Empty Tomb, 129–32).

Mettinger, Riddle of Resurrection, 89, cf. also 109–11; Cook makes similar concessions (Empty Tomb, 130–31).

M. S. Smith, “Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods,’” esp. 279, 282.

M. S. Smith, particularly 279–80, 282, cf. 310.

M. S. Smith, esp. 277–82, with the quotations above on 279.

Wagner, Das religionsgeschichtliche Problem, 187, 190.

J. Z. Smith, “Dying and Rising Gods,” 4:2535–36; cf. Cook similarly here (Empty Tomb, 87–88).

Wagner, Das religionsgeschichtliche Problem, 191: “Sie weiss überhaupt nichts von einem Tode des Adonis.”

Wagner, 190–93. Wagner states, “Der Mythus weiss nichts von einer Auferstehung im Sinne Aktes” (Habermas translation: “The myth knows nothing of a resurrection in the sense of action”).

J. Z. Smith, “Dying and Rising Gods,” 4:2536. For Smith’s much-quoted comments on Adonis and other claims of dying-and-rising gods, see “On Comparing Stories,” in Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990). On 101 we read that the account of Adonis contains “no hint of rebirth.”

J. Z. Smith, “Dying and Rising Gods,” 4:2536.

Besides Jonathan Z. Smith below, Mettinger also mentions this possible theme of Christians who may have wanted to showcase the death and resurrection of Jesus as unique. Mettinger, Riddle of Resurrection, 221.

Metzger addresses this in “Methodology,” particularly 19, along with J. Z. Smith.

J. Z. Smith, “Dying and Rising Gods,” 4:2536; Mettinger, Riddle of Resurrection, 221.

J. Z. Smith, “Dying and Rising Gods,” 4:2536; Wagner, Das religionsgeschichtliche Problem, 205–11; Metzger, “Methodology,” esp. 21; Cook, Empty Tomb, 95–96 (esp. on Frazer’s error at this point), 97n239, 98–110, and the summary statement on 143 all concerning the second century AD and later accounts; Yamauchi, “Pagan Resurrection Stories,” 151; M. S. Smith, “Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods,’” 282–86. Even Mettinger lists the Adonis resurrection as second century but states that, before that, “Adonis’ resurrection is possible but not proved” (Riddle of Resurrection, 218; but cf. 153–54).

Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 227.

J. Z. Smith, “Dying and Rising Gods,” 4:2536; see also J. Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine, 101–4 on Attis.

Yamauchi also confirmed to Habermas that he did not consider there to be any actual resurrections reported in the pre-Christian material (personal email to Habermas, dated May 18, 2019). Keener’s more general point needs some explication. Craig S. Keener does list many examples of pre-Christian dying-and-rising gods in Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 336, along with 582n57. Yet, he is also careful to point out a few times that none of these cases qualify either as resurrections or as parallels to Jesus. As he states, “These are not resurrection appearances” (333), and they are not “parallels” to resurrection appearances because such a definition here “stretches the category of parallel too far to be useful” (334, also 336). Keener’s negative verdict here was further verified in personal emails to Habermas (dated May 18 and 20, 2019).

Metzger, “Methodology,” 20; Yamauchi, “Pagan Resurrection Stories,” 152; Mark S. Smith does not discuss Attis in his lengthy study that we have been discussing, but he cites approvingly the work of Jonathan Z. Smith and P. Lambrechts, concluding that “Attis is said to be dead, but not resurrected; nor is he a divinity.” See M. S. Smith, “Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods,’” 269n46; J. Z. Smith, “Dying and Rising Gods,” 4:2536–37.

Keener, Historical Jesus, 336.

Wagner, Das religionsgeschichtliche Problem, 224–25, 229–31. Short and sweet, Wagner quotes M. P. Nilsson on 229: “Attis starb und tot blieb” (Habermas translation: “Attis died and remained dead”). The “Heilgott” quotation is on 233. Among Günter Wagner’s other direct and hardest hitting comments are those on 230–31, 241.

Cook, Empty Tomb, 110–24, with the two quotations on 110 and 121, respectively.

Mettinger, Riddle of Resurrection, 157–59, quotation on 158.

Ronald H. Nash, Christianity and the Hellenistic World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 143–48; also, Yamauchi, “Pagan Resurrection Stories,” 153.

J. Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine, 101; J. Z. Smith, “Dying and Rising Gods,” 4:2537–38; Nash, Christianity and the Hellenistic World, 147.

Yamauchi, “Pagan Resurrection Stories,” 154; Nash agrees completely (Christianity and the Hellenistic World, 143, 147–48).

J. Z. Smith, “Dying and Rising Gods,” 4:2537–38.

J. Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine, 101.

James Orr, The Resurrection of Jesus (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1908; repr., Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1965), 250, citing the work of A. Jeremias, Babylonishes im New Testament.

Wagner, Das religionsgeschichtliche Problem, esp. 173, also 175. Wagner states clearly on 173, “Nichts im Text . . . deutet auf einen ‘Triumph’ oder eine ‘Auferstehung’ Marduks hin” (Habermas translation: “Nothing in the text signifies [or points to] a ‘victory’ or a ‘resurrection’ of Marduk”).

Mettinger, Riddle of Resurrection, 23. Cf. Jonathan Z. Smith, who also makes a similar comment elsewhere regarding the misunderstanding of the texts (“Dying and Rising Gods,” 2537).

Mettinger, Riddle of Resurrection, 40.

The quotations above are from Mettinger, 218–20; cf. also M. S. Smith, “Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods,’” 310; Wagner, Das religionsgeschichtliche Problem, 169. Though older, S. H. Hooke discusses many of the differences among the ancient myths both concerning the ones discussed here as well as beyond the range of our more specific focus (Middle Eastern Mythology, particularly 19–23, 67–70).

The reason that the death as well as the life afterward must be contained “in the same tradition” is due to a number of ancient stories that, for whatever reason, do in fact include one without the other, or where the latter seems to precede the former, whether or not it was discussed that way. Of course, people can die and people can also walk around and communicate with each other. But unless the latter occurs after the first, and in the same account, we do not know if the intent is to teach a dying-and-rising god. As Jonathan Z. Smith and others have reminded their readers, these sorts of accounts simply cannot be combined automatically on the assumption that they are both teaching the very same ideas. J. Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine, 100–101.

An example from a prominent member of the religionsgeschichtliche Schule is Otto Pfleiderer’s volume The Early Christian Conception of Christ: Its Significance and Value in the History of Religion (London: Williams & Norgate, 1905), 84–133. Chapter 3 treats the related subject of Jesus as a miracle worker.

M. S. Smith, “Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods,’” esp. 262.

Cook, Empty Tomb, 57–58.

Cook, Empty Tomb, compare 58 and 56, also 7, 69. Intriguingly, John Granger Cook refers initially to his two-part definition as a more “attenuated” description than what might emerge when Smith’s four markers are required. Cook’s point is apparently that the first two insignia alone are by far the major ones and are sufficient in themselves to identify an ancient dying-and-rising god, at least on a less-detailed scale, even without Mark Smith’s two remaining considerations (57). Cook follows this up by identifying his chief emphasis as being to compare the ancient dying-and-rising accounts to the notion of resurrection found in the New Testament, referring to this as a “more minimalistic category” (58). Cook’s comments together could actually be taken as descriptions that might be understood as the way to contrast his scaled-down definition with the more robust delineation taken by Jonathan Z. Smith and Mark Smith’s longer list of conditions. Of course, some researchers will prefer Cook’s more minimalistic definition as the stronger one, and more concentrated arguments are sometimes harder hitting. Others will support the more detailed approach of the Smiths as being built on a greater amount of data. On the larger playing field, this sort of back-and-forth set of comparisons is a microcosm of choosing the best options in this entire discussion and may at least partially explain why there are so many differences of opinion among the specialists. Whether one uses an “attenuated” definition or a more detailed one could quite easily account for many of the differences between the interpreters in this chapter. Here’s the chief point to be noticed at this juncture: it would appear to be obvious that a two-tiered bar may produce a longer list of dying-and-rising gods than a four-tiered test with its greater number of hurdles to clear! In the end, the Smiths along with other scholars think that the more detailed qualifications are necessary in order to demarcate the nature of these ancient beliefs, but they may also in fact leave us with no such dying-and-rising gods at all.

Mark Smith’s essay is subtitled “An Update, with Special Reference to Baal in the Baal Cycle,” Journal of the Old Testament 12, no. 2 (1998): 257–313, https://doi.org/10.1080/09018329808585140.

Mark S. Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 104.

Jonathan Zittell Smith, “The Glory, Jest and Riddle: James George Frazer and The Golden Bough” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1969), 366–75. See M. S. Smith, “Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods,’” 257–58.

A prominent example might consist of carefully noting the instances in the ancient world where a mystery god was said to have been raised on or after the third day while largely ignoring those cases where this was celebrated on earlier or later days, especially when the third day references began to appear in sources that were dated later than the emergence of Christianity, as with Adonis and Attis. In those cases, many scholars concluded that the copycat process moved in the reverse direction of what the ­religionsgeschichtliche Schule scholars tended to argue—namely, that Christian views were sometimes mimicked in these sources.

M. S. Smith, “Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods,’” 259.

M. S. Smith, 310. Other scholars besides Smith have made similar critiques of Frazer’s work.

M. S. Smith, 312–13.

M. S. Smith, 288. Some of the more specific details and charges against Frazer are outlined here.

J. Z. Smith, “Dying and Rising Gods,” 4:2536.

J. Z. Smith, 4:2536 and 2539; see also J. Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine, 99–105.

Cook, Empty Tomb, esp. 143 for these quotations.

Mettinger, Riddle of Resurrection, 217–18.

For example, Mark T. Finney has switched the usual theoretical tables in a recent volume, arguing that it was the Greek writers who held to an afterlife view that “insisted on the importance of the physical body whereas a wealth of Jewish texts from the Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Judaism and early (Pauline) Christianity understood post-mortem existence to be that of the soul alone.” Only later, when influenced by Greco-Roman writers, did canonical New Testament authors move toward a bodily afterlife position! See Finney, Resurrection, Hell and the Afterlife: Body and Soul in Antiquity, Judaism and Early Christianity (New York: Routledge, 2016), with the quotation here from the opening abstract in the book. Finney explains that he originally took the more usual position that the Greco-Roman view was disembodied while the predominant Jewish and Christian positions in the Second Temple period were bodily positions. But his more recent study changed the direction of his conclusions, even to the point of holding that Paul embraced the view that the afterlife was about souls but not about bodies (1–5). Especially relevant for our chief questions in this present chapter, and illustrative of his thesis, Finney counts more than ten mortals (Asclepius, Hercules, Memnon, Alcmeme, Melicertes, Castor, Menelaus, Dionysus, Rhesus, Hector, among others) who died and were “resurrected to immortal bodily life” (14, emphasis added).

In support, Finney cites on 13–14 another recent study by Dag Øistein Endsjø, Greek Resurrection Beliefs and the Success of Christianity (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009), who somewhat similarly holds that immortality was essentially a bodily state (see esp. chap. 4 and page 120 for a summary; and chap. 6 and pages 157–58 for a key summation). But see Cook’s review of Finney’s work Resurrection, Hell, and the Afterlife, which covers much ground and offers several insightful objections in The Enoch Seminar Online, February 2, 2017, http://enochseminar.org/review/12675. To these studies, an intriguing essay by Stanley E. Porter also should be added, particularly Porter’s related thesis arguing that bodily afterlife views moved from Greek to Greco-Roman, to Jewish ideas, and then into New Testament thought; see Porter, “Resurrection, the Greeks and the New Testament,” in Resurrection, ed. Stanley E. Porter, Michael A. Hayes, and David Tombs (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 68–70, 80. Still another thesis arguing along related lines is the chapter by M. David Litwa, “We Worship One Who Rose from His Tomb,” in Iesus Deus: The Early Christian Depiction of Jesus as a Mediterranean God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014), 141–79.

In contrast, skeptical New Testament scholar Gregory J. Riley takes what is by far the majority, more traditional view on many of these matters, with Greek disembodied afterlife notions being contrasted with the generally more bodily notions of much Second Temple Judaic thought and New Testament Christian views. Seemingly contrary to Finney’s view above and sandwiched into Riley’s treatment is the comment that mythical heroes like Sisyphus, Odysseus, Heracles, Orpheus, Dionysus, Theseus, and Pirithous, among others, descended to Hades and returned. However, in what appears to be a dramatic shift, Riley points out that rather than occurring after death, these trips to the underworld happened while the hero of the story was “still alive”! See Riley, Resurrection Reconsidered: Thomas and John in Controversy (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 23n46. This introduces yet another potential angle on the views that have been discussed throughout this chapter. Riley’s thoughts from Homer to Plato (Resurrection Reconsidered, 23–34) would present an interesting contrast to Porter’s treatment of Homer and the Greek views (“Resurrection,” 68–71) as well.

Likewise, N. T. Wright argues very strongly over several hundred pages against many of the various aspects of what might be thought of as the reversed-order theses propagated by Finney, Endsjø, Porter, and Litwa above. See Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, vol. 3 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), particularly chaps. 2–5. Other strong critiques of several items found in these newer theses above can be found in Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Academic, 2010), esp. 400–37; Robert H. Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology: With Emphasis on Pauline Anthropology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 159–83; and Cook, Empty Tomb, particularly the detailed introduction and chaps. 1–2, plus Cook’s review of Finney’s volume, as mentioned above. Even Bousset, the best-known representative of the nineteenth-century religionsgeschichtliche Schule, also favored the traditional position in the comparison between the Hellenistic versus the majority Hebrew and nearly unanimous Christian positions in the early church (Kyrios Christos, 256, for one of the examples among many that could be chosen).

Litwa, “We Worship,” 171.

Riley, Resurrection Reconsidered, 23n46.

J. Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine, 100–101 (emphasis added). After noting this, Smith provides several examples as illustrations.

Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 26, also 222.

Koester, Introduction to the New Testament, 1:190.

Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 228–29 (emphasis added).

M. S. Smith, “Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods,’” 310.

As already mentioned above, Cook, Empty Tomb, esp. 143; Mettinger, Riddle of Resurrection, 217–18.

See, for example, Cook’s praise of Mettinger’s major work here: “It is the most comprehensive investigation of the problem since the original study by Frazer. . . . My debt to Mettinger’s analysis will be readily apparent in the references below.” Cook, Empty Tomb, 61, cf. also 57.

It may be recalled above that Litwa also considers Heracles to be one of the better-established dying-and-rising gods in “We Worship,” 171.

Cook, Empty Tomb, 124–27, 131–32.

Cook, 127–29.

Mettinger, Riddle of Resurrection, 83–103, with the representation and description of the vase on 100, with the argument summaries and conclusions on 90–95 and 102–3.

Mettinger, 89, 93. At one point he makes a somewhat humorous swipe at Mark Smith: “He grants the evidence the benefit of maximal doubt” (84).

M. S. Smith, “Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods,’” 279, 282.

Mettinger, Riddle of Resurrection, 109.

M. S. Smith, “Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods,’” esp. 277–79.

Cook, Empty Tomb, particularly 127, also 129; Mettinger, Riddle of Resurrection, 88.

M. S. Smith, “Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods,’” 281–82 in particular.

Cook, Empty Tomb, 127–28; Mettinger, Riddle of Resurrection, 89.

M. S. Smith, “Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods,’” 282.

M. S. Smith, 279.

M. S. Smith, 282.

M. S. Smith, 282.

M. S. Smith, 282.

Cook, Empty Tomb, 57–58; Mettinger, Riddle of Resurrection, 110.

M. S. Smith, “Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods,’” esp. 277–82, quotations on 279.

No doubt some will appreciate and perhaps agree with this conclusion to this third consideration, while others may not. Of course, many will press onward to their own conclusions. That has always been the case with arguments.

Günter Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries: The Problem of the Pauline Doctrine of Baptism in Romans VI.1–11 in the Light of Its Religio-Historical ‘Parallels’ (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1967), 268.

Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 207–30.

See Isis and Osiris 11 (Moralia 355b). Translation from Plutarch, Moralia. Isis and Osiris, trans. Frank Cole Babbitt (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1911).

Plutarch, Isis and Osiris 58 (Moralia 374e).

Metzger, “Methodology,” 13.

John Granger Cook, “Resurrection in Paganism and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ,” The City (Houston Baptist University), September 9, 2016, https://hc.edu/news-and-events/2016/09/09/resurrection-paganism-resurrection-jesus-christ/.

See volume 1 of this resurrection series for dozens of considerations in further support of these comments above.

For details and specific responses, see Gary R. Habermas, “Resurrection Claims in Non-Christian Religions,” Religious Studies 25 (1989): 167–77.

A comparative sample of the wide range of scholars across theological positions and resurrection views who nonetheless acknowledge this point regarding the language of sight include the following: Gerd Lüdemann, The Resurrection of Jesus: History, Experience, Theology, trans. John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 30–31, 177; Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 249, 252, 257–58; Geza Vermes, The Resurrection (London: Penguin, 2008), 121–22, 141–42, 147–49; Dale C. Allison Jr., Resurrecting Jesus: The Earliest Christian Tradition and Its Interpreters (London: T&T Clark, 2005), 249, 343–44, 346; James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, vol. 1 of Christianity in the Making (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 854–57, 861–62; Luke Timothy Johnson, The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), esp. 119–20; Larry W. Hurtado, How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? Historical Questions about Earliest Devotion to Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 30, 36, 48, 192; E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin, 1993), 11, 13, 278, 280; Pinchas Lapide, The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1983), 15–16, 92, 95–99, 125, 127–28; John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 435–36, cf. 407; Crossan, “Dialogue,” in John Dominic Crossan and N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of Jesus: John Dominic Crossan and N. T. Wright in Dialogue, ed. Robert S. Stewart (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 31, 33, 177; Marcus J. Borg, Jesus, A New Vision: Spirit, Culture, and the Life of Discipleship (New York: HarperCollins, 1987), esp. 184–85; Borg, “Thinking about Easter,” Bible Review 10 (1994): 15, 49; Reginald H. Fuller, The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1980), 47–49, 182; Raymond E. Brown, The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus (New York: Paulist, 1973), 78–96; Gerald O’Collins, Jesus Risen: The Resurrection—What Actually Happened and What Does It Mean? (London: Darton, Longman, & Todd, 1987), particularly 118–19, also 100–109; Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 317–29, 476–79; Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 264–71, 307–8; Licona, Resurrection of Jesus, 329–33, 468–69; Paul Barnett, Peter Jensen, and David Peterson, Resurrection: Truth and Reality (Sydney: Aquila, 1994), 23; Keener, Historical Jesus of the Gospels, 342–44.

Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man, trans. Lewis L. Wilkins and Duane A. Priebe, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977), 91.

Similar points are made by Eddy and Boyd, Jesus Legend, 145; Keener, Historical Jesus of the Gospels, 334; O’Collins, Jesus Risen, 103; Thorwald Lorenzen, Resurrection and Discipleship: Interpretive Models, Biblical Reflections, Theological Consequences (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1995), 117–19.

J. Z. Smith, Divine Drudgery, 104.

J. Z. Smith, 47–51, 112–14, 118; Cook, Empty Tomb, 57–58, also 7, 69; Metzger, “Methodology,” 12, 14, 17–18, 24.

Metzger, 18.

M. S. Smith, “Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods,’” particularly 310–13.

Wagner, Das religionsgeschichtliche Problem, 283–84.

Wagner, 287–88.

Wagner, 297.

Wagner, 297.

For instances, see Heb 5:8–9; 7:24; 9:12, 25–28; 10:12.

Wagner, Das religionsgeschichtliche Problem, 297.

Wagner, 298. Wagner adds, “Ist noch kein einziger Text aus den Schriften der apostolischen und der Kirchen-Väter vorgelegt worden, in dem Röm 6 unter Hinweis auf oder im Gegensatz zu ‘analogen’ Riten oder Erfahrungen (symbolisches Sterben und Auferstehen) der Attis-, Adonis-, oder Osirismysten gedeutet worden ist” (Habermas’s basic translation/paraphrase: “Not a single text from the writings of the apostolic community and the church fathers has been produced where Romans 6 was interpreted in terms of analogous rites or experiences from the dying-and-rising cases of Attis, Adonis, or Osiris”). Metzger agrees that the differences on the subject of baptism are the most obvious of all between these belief systems in “Methodology,” 15–17.

Wagner, Das religionsgeschichtliche Problem, 298.

Cook, Empty Tomb, 57–58.

M. S. Smith, “Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods,’” esp. 313, cf. also 279, 310.

Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, particularly chaps. 2–4; M. S. Smith, “Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods,’” 312.

J. Z. Smith, “Dying and Rising Gods,” 4:2539. Cf. Metzger, who points to this problem as well in “Methodology,” 21.

Metzger, “Methodology,” 23.

Bousset, Kyrios Christos, 49–52. Coming close to some of the same differences mentioned above, beyond the foundations that were supplied by Jesus Christ himself and then by the disciples’ postmortem visions of Jesus, the overall background was also gathered from the Old Testament teachings (49). Presumably the Mediterranean dying-and-rising ideas provided some added background impetus here as well.

Bousset, 56–59, 191–194.

See Pfleiderer, Early Christian Conception of Christ, chap. 4.

See Pfleiderer, where Romulus (108), Mithras (121, 133, 155), Adonis (94, 99), and Attis (94–95, 99) are among those who are cited, in spite of serious historical issues like those that have been pointed out above. True, very little of this may have been known in Pfleiderer’s day. However, this lack of knowledge does not apply to the citations of a comet that was deemed to indicate that Julius Caesar had been apotheosized and made immortal, plus another reference to a Roman Senator thinking he may have seen Augustus’s soul soaring through the flames of the funeral pyre (109–10), in spite of souls presumably being invisible and no one else present having mentioned the same, makes Pfleiderer’s judgment seem a little questionable in matters where he did know better. The same might be said of citing Buddhist legends and using them side by side with the Christian accounts such as the Gospel of Luke (43–45). Still another example used by Pfleiderer is the miracle stories concerning Buddha, which are termed “parallels” (65–68, 71), as if Buddha’s miracles were on a level playing field, such as Buddha’s birth and Jesus’s birth (154–55). Perhaps even the worst of the religious cases in terms of the historical data available, Krishna also gets compared to Matthew on the subjects of births (155)! To be sure, Pfleiderer thinks the Buddhist stories are legends (43, 51, 65, 71, etc.), but the closeness of the Christian sources to the events in question as compared to a cited Buddhist text, which apparently dates from close to a millennia after Buddha’s birth, is just one major issue that makes Pfleiderer’s comparisons rather troublesome! For details on these “parallels” from a historical viewpoint, see Edward Conze, Buddhist Scriptures (London: Penguin, 1959), 11–12, 34; Paul Gwynne, Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad: A Comparative Study (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014), esp. 2, 5–6, 18–19.

Pfleiderer, Early Christian Conception of Christ, 157–58, cf. 78, 102.

Pfleiderer, 158–59.

Toward the close of the period of German liberalism, Ernst Troeltsch was sometimes referred to as one of the originators of the religionsgeschichtliche Schule and was certainly another major thinker at the end of this era (as commented by Garrett E. Paul in his introduction to the English edition below, see xv). In what could perhaps be a harbinger or even a forerunner of the later Barthian position just a few years later, Troeltsch commented that history cannot make a judgment on the resurrection: “But no insuperable difficulties stand before those who wish to hold that there was a real spiritual vision” (96). See Ernst Troeltsch, The Christian Faith, Fortress Texts in Modern Theology, ed. Gertrud von le Fort, trans. Garrett E. Paul, Fortress Texts in Modern Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), also 88.

In agreement here is Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 229–31.

Robert M. Price, “Is There a Place for Historical Criticism?,” Religious Studies 27 (1991): 383 (unless of course his position has changed since that time).

One reason for constantly specifying these terms and categories is to make it clear that only those with sufficient training are being referred to here. They of course may hold any positions they choose on these matters, but they must be specialist scholars in relevant areas. The Jesus mythers who do not possess scholarly qualifications often consider themselves to be scholars. This author has been told more than once that his scholarly counts on various historical issues are incorrect because they do not include these generally self-published, untrained mythicists. The note here is not to demean anyone, only to answer this common charge from the mythicists and other nonscholars that they need to be included in these and other counts. For further, relevant details, see Gary R. Habermas and Benjamin C. F. Shaw, “Agnostic Historical Jesus Scholars Decimate the Mythical Jesus Popularists: A Review Essay on Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths?,” Philosophia Christi 18 (2016): 485–95.

This must be considered to be rather amazing in the cases of atheist New Testament scholar Ehrman and his skeptical counterpart Koester, or Jewish New Testament scholar Pinchas Lapide, Resurrection of Jesus, 124.

To repeat some earlier comments, Keener lists many instances of pre-Christian dying-and-rising mythical figures (Historical Jesus of the Gospels, 336, esp. 582n57). Yet he is adamant enough to make a few comments in a relatively brief space that none of these accounts may be termed resurrections. These stories cannot be understood as either parallels or rivals to Jesus. Keener states rather firmly that “these are not resurrection appearances” (333). Nor do they serve as “parallels” to Jesus’s resurrection appearances because such a definition “stretches the category of parallel too far to be useful” (334, also 336; personal emails from Keener to Habermas, May 18 and May 20, 2019).

For Eliade, like Keener, there were pre-Christian dying-and-rising gods, such as Dionysus and Osiris; see Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion (Cleveland: Meridian, 1963), 98–99. However, Eliade refers to these sorts of raisings as “periodic resurrection” (99), clearly differentiating them from Jesus’s resurrection, which had no sense of “periodic” about it! Further, Eliade speaks about some of these ancient mythical personages where each person can “become a ‘sun’” where, like the sun, they rise again every single morning (135–36). Similarly, other ancient notions involve the moon, as it rises anew daily (174–75). Certain views have sometimes been viewed as a variety of pantheism, though Eliade prefers the term “panontism” (459), including some disjunction from reality and even history, while other views embrace at least aspects of history (460–65). It would seem to be a fairly straightforward comment that, from these expressions, the senses of rising from the dead in these ancient mythic contexts where there are “periodic” resurrections and being made alive in the rising sun or in the moon are not in any sense related to the New Testament teachings. In short, there are “raisings” in these myths that seem quite unrelated to anything biblical or literal.

Mettinger, Riddle of Resurrection, 221.

Cook, Empty Tomb, specifically chap. 7 and the conclusion; Cook, “Resurrection in Paganism.”

N. T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 172, cf. similarly 20, 70, 173.

Wright, 77.

A. J. M. Wedderburn, Baptism and Resurrection: Studies in Pauline Theology against Its Graeco-Roman Background (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1987; repr., Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2011), 5–6.

Hurtado, How on Earth, esp. 42.

Hurtado, particularly 30, but also 29–38. Hurtado charges that Bousset “worked with a seriously inaccurate and somewhat simplistic view of earliest Christian history and also of Roman-era Jewish tradition” (17).

Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), specifically 18, cf. 5–18, 24.

Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 185–86, 876.

Dunn, 709n15.

Johnson, Real Jesus, 119.

Craig A. Evans, “Life-of-Jesus Research and the Eclipse of Mythology,” Theological Studies 54 (1993): 18–19.

Fuller, Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 25.

Lorenzen, Resurrection and Discipleship, 117–19, who notes for example that a key group of words in the Hellenistic tales, such as epiphaneia and epiphainesthai, does not even appear at all in the New Testament. A few of the many authors who mention this critique include John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 3:493; Metzger, “Methodology,” 12, 14, 17; O’Collins, Jesus Risen, 103, where O’Collins mentions that this mystery thesis “ignores the radical differences”; cf. Dale C. Allison Jr., The End of the Ages Has Come: An Early Interpretation of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 165–66.

Metzger, “Methodology,” 22–23.

Leon McKenzie, Pagan Resurrection Myths and the Resurrection of Jesus (Charlottes­ville, VA: Bookwright’s, 1997), 58–61; Grant R. Osborne, The Resurrection Narratives: A Redactional Study (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 277. Even Justin Martyr and other early second- and third-century Christian thinkers might be mentioned briefly for some similar ideas (for instance, Justin, 1 Apol. 23.1). Cook appears to take this position too, at least in part; see Cook, “Resurrection in Paganism”; cf. also Cook’s potential hints in this direction in Empty Tomb, 1–2, 143.

See Michael Grant, Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels (New York: Mac­millan, 1992), 199–200; Metzger, “Methodology,” 7; Paul Barnett, The Birth of Christianity: The First Twenty Years (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 70; O’Collins, Jesus Risen, 102–3.

As mentioned earlier in Pannenberg’s pointed comment (Jesus: God and Man, 91).

It should be noticed that the heaviest emphasis here or elsewhere in this study is not weighted in the direction of a scholarly headcount serving as the prime indication of the bottom line. As done elsewhere, the chief emphasis is clearly on the reasons and evidences that determine these overall issues and views. While it is helpful to recognize where the scholarly lay of the land is located, due to these scholars knowing the issues better than nonscholars, this aspect was clearly kept subservient to the available data itself.

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