Jesus and Jesus-like Figures

[ma1ic3]

Some people claim that Jesus may have never existed. They argue that Jesus, Mithra and Krishna are myths that were not based on anyone real.

I am curious about the likenesses between them. Some websites like this one:
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/origen048.html

Make a lot of claims about how alike Mithra and Jesus are. But it has no references. It seems hard to find references. Do people exaggerate their similarities or is there something to all those claims?

 

[Dancing David]

There are other dying gods, as well. Inanna is slain and chained to wall, and then comes back, or alternately Damuzi is slain in her stead.

Dying gods are not uncommon, off topic I am sure.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Do people exaggerate their similarities or is there something to all those claims?

Yes and yes. There is often a great deal of exaggeration, but there are clear parallels amongst many myths.

Most fertility gods or their consorts are killed and raised from the dead. In Egyptian myths this includes Osiris and the latter synchrotized Osiris-Appis bull that became Serapis. In Asia Minor the worship of Cybele/Attis is somewhat similar.

Mithras was closest to some of the myths added onto Jesus -- birth in a cove or from a rock (not that similar) on Dec. 25. Services included a communal meal with the god including wine and bread. He is killed and raised from the dead. But the central cultic figure in Mithras worship was the tauroctomy -- killing of a bull. This is not at all like any of the Jesus myths or his worship.

Appollonius of Tyana is another whose supposed life parallels that of Jesus -- raised people from the dead and performed many miracles. It is easy to carry the parallels too far though.

The bottom line is that many of the things said of Jesus were said of many others -- both human and god.

 

[RandFan]

You would think there would be good documentation on the web.

You could purchase The God That Wasn't There. The trailer has some interesting info but it's not easily backed up.

ETA: The trailer on the website is different from the one I watched before. There's little information in the trailer.

 

[Bikewer]

As stated, the dying/reborn god figure is common in mythology. We know that many of the Hebrew myths were expropriated from other, earlier sources (as in Gilgamesh for the Flood), so it's not unreasonable to think that the idea of a "messiah" stems from much earlier mythology.

 

[Jorghnassen]

Didn't this get discussed to death a million times now? For one thing, you know it's not serious scholarship the moment the December 25th birthdate is brought on as a similarity (Mithras was supposedly born then, Jesus not so much). And some of those "similarities" are conspicuously completely unreferenced...

 

[jjramsey]

Most fertility gods or their consorts are killed and raised from the dead. In Egyptian myths this includes Osiris and the latter synchrotized Osiris-Appis bull that became Serapis.

Osiris rises briefly to mate with Isis but dies again and remains trapped in the underworld. Not that good a parallel.

Mithras was closest to some of the myths added onto Jesus -- birth in a cove or from a rock (not that similar) on Dec. 25. Services included a communal meal with the god including wine and bread. He is killed and raised from the dead.

Actually, Mithras never died. That's another canard that has circulated around the internet.

 

[RandFan]

Osiris rises briefly to mate with Isis but dies again and remains trapped in the underworld. Not that good a parallel.

Actually, Mithras never died. That's another canard that has circulated around the internet.

Cool, references? If the parallels are tenuous or nonexistent I want to know that. I have been circulating the "canard" and I will now stop but if you have evidence please pony it up. Assertions against assertions doesn't resolve anything.

 

[Marc L]

I know this is off topic, but now that RandFan's changed his avatar, I feel twice as chastened whenever he's being serious. I mean, it's just, John looks so serious in that picture that it's just perfect. I feel like I need to apologize for something, even if I didn't do anything.

Marc

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Some people claim that Jesus may have never existed. They argue that Jesus, Mithra and Krishna are myths that were not based on anyone real.

I am curious about the likenesses between them. Some websites like this one:
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/origen048.html

Make a lot of claims about how alike Mithra and Jesus are. But it has no references. It seems hard to find references. Do people exaggerate their similarities or is there something to all those claims?

One of the most complete discussions of Mithra vs JC I have found on the Web is at:
http://www.truthbeknown.com/mithra.htm

Do a search for "Mithra" in the site search box.

Note that "Acharya S" is somewhat controversial. There are a couple of debunkings around for some of the things she claims. But as far as I can tell she is on reasonably solid ground wrt Mithra and does provide references for most of what she says. The early Christian church certainly had problems with Mithraism because its stories are very similar to those about Jesus and the Church fathers had to find convoluted ways to explain this -- "the Devil did it" is mostly the reason provided.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Osiris rises briefly to mate with Isis but dies again and remains trapped in the underworld. Not that good a parallel.

Well, since my point was that there were parallels but that none of them were all that great, I agree. I was never under the impression that Osiris died again though, but that he simply became god of the underworld. There are many stories about Osiris though -- one has him stuck in a huge cedar in Lebanon necessitating Isis' rescue. So it isn't as though we can speak of a single "Osiris convention". Certainly the combination of Osiris and the appis bull to create Serapis contained within it the idea of death and resurrection -- or death of the appis bull that continues to live in power within the god. Not a direct parallel with Jesus at all, but the idea of rebirth was very common in Mediterranean religions.

Actually, Mithras never died. That's another canard that has circulated around the internet.

It is based on differing interpretations of the emergence from the rock/cosmos. Since there are no written records of the Roman cult, folks feel free to project all over it. In other words, this is one of those "who knows?". There are certainly interpretations in which he is dead and is reborn, but that is never a central motif in the cult. It does not hold the importance that Jesus' death and resurrection hold for Christianity.

Again there are parallels but people read too much into them.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Didn't this get discussed to death a million times now? For one thing, you know it's not serious scholarship the moment the December 25th birthdate is brought on as a similarity (Mithras was supposedly born then, Jesus not so much). And some of those "similarities" are conspicuously completely unreferenced...

I'm sure it has been. No one that I know of claims serious scholarship in the matter of debunking Christianity, so I'm not sure where you were going with that reply. The Dec 25th date for Mithras' birth is simply an interesting finding and related to the winter solstice. Jesus' birth being identified with that date in later tradition simply shows the accretion of mythology put onto those stories.

The whole point of this sort of inquiry is not to debunk anyone's religion. Well, there may be some who use it in that way, but they should be ignored. The point is that we now live in a world where if you want to believe, you must sift through an enormous amount of corroborating data that places a veil of suspicion over your faith. Jesus emerged into a world ripe with savior figures at a time when that was important to many people. Could there be mythological overlay onto what really happened? Of course there could be. Does that prove anything? No, of course not.

Gone is the argument that the Jesus story is true because it is so unique. It is not as unique as once claimed by our fathers (this was a common argument in the past). There is always the possibility that the story is largely projection based on human need.

But let me ask a serious question -- does it really matter? At heart, Jesus' story cares nothing for external realities but is deeply concerned with our moral place in the world and the redemption that all of us need as flawed creatures. Why would it matter if there is some mythological overlay covering the story? That wouldn't change the central message and the ethical injunction. Since many of the miracles were written as metaphor in the first place (the stuttering cure of blindness immediately preceeding Peter finally "seeing" that Jesus is the messiah in Mark; the equation of water=wine=blood=water and the repeated motif of water and blood as well as the repeated motif of bread of life, etc. in John -- the whole thing is a friggin communion service), why not focus on the spiritual meaning and forget all these arguments about whether or not there is absolute proof for or against the existence of Jesus? If you choose to believe that God became incarnate to relieve the world of sin, then believe it. There is no reason to care about what is or is not mythological overlay. Believe the message wholeheartedly. There is no reason to debate it. The problem arises when folks try to argue for a particular story or interpretation of a story against external reality. That I won't hold truck with.

 

[jjramsey]

Cool, references? If the parallels are tenuous or nonexistent I want to know that. I have been circulating the "canard" and I will now stop but if you have evidence please pony it up. Assertions against assertions doesn't resolve anything.

Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where the library beats the Internet. A couple good references are The Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and his Mysteries by Manfred Clauss and the Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies. There is a page that debunks some of the myths, but it's written by a neo-Pagan (but he does use Clauss as a reference):

http://www.ceisiwrserith.com/mith/whatmithisnt.htm

 

[Jorghnassen]

I'm sure it has been. No one that I know of claims serious scholarship in the matter of debunking Christianity, so I'm not sure where you were going with that reply. The Dec 25th date for Mithras' birth is simply an interesting finding and related to the winter solstice. Jesus' birth being identified with that date in later tradition simply shows the accretion of mythology put onto those stories.

...snip...

I have no problem with questioning/debating issues relating to whether there was some sort of historical Jesus and connection between myths of similar figures/messiahs.

What annoys me is all those shoddy "look at how similar these figures are" arguments used in attempts to prove that Jesus was completely mythical. Those elements are usually just stated without regards to history. That's why I mentioned the December 25th date of birth. It is well known that Christians borrowed/apropriated pagans holidays to spread their religion, and that they picked the Mithras birthdate as the date for celebrating Jesus's birth (OK, there's also Saturnalia that was around the same time of the year, and countless solstice related celebrations everywhere from which elements have over the years amalgamated and evolved into the various modern Xmas traditions). As evidence for a completely mythical Jesus it is then a non-argument. In some extreme cases, you'll see claims that not only Mithras and Jesus were born on December 25th, but Horus, Buddha, Krishna and a bunch of other mythical figures as well (I do believe even Quetzalcoatl!).

Studying the evolution of myths and religions is fun, as long as you stick to serious scholarship without an agenda (the other side of extreme cases, though not so common because it comes as a response to the first, from the "there is no doubt there was a historical Jesus" camp, is the claim that all those other Christ-like myths borrowed from Christianity). It's also important to take the time to look at the differences between myths too.

 

[grayman]

I always enjoy printing this around Easter and putting on the bulletin board at work to see how long it stays up.

 

[RandFan]

I know this is off topic, but now that RandFan's changed his avatar, I feel twice as chastened whenever he's being serious. I mean, it's just, John looks so serious in that picture that it's just perfect. I feel like I need to apologize for something, even if I didn't do anything.

Marc

Bless you my child, say 3 hail Mary's and 4 our fathers.

I'm not Catholic I just always wanted to say that.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

What annoys me is all those shoddy "look at how similar these figures are" arguments used in attempts to prove that Jesus was completely mythical.

Yes, I agree. There is a serious amount of over-interpretation in many cases (with pretty obvious agendas in most).

 

[Meadmaker]

Mithras' birthday was not December 25. It was the winter solstice. Back in the day, one of the Popes told his followers to replace the birthday of Mithras with the birthday of Jesus. The Bible didn't say when Jesus was born, so the winter solstice was as good as any. The Julian calendar, which drifts a bit, was in vogue then, and the winter solstice fell on December 25. As the calendar drifted with respect to significant solar events, the solstice moved on, getting into January before they changed the calendar, but Jesus' birthday remained planted on the 25th of December.

 

[Jorghnassen]

Mithras' birthday was not December 25. It was the winter solstice. Back in the day, one of the Popes told his followers to replace the birthday of Mithras with the birthday of Jesus. The Bible didn't say when Jesus was born, so the winter solstice was as good as any. The Julian calendar, which drifts a bit, was in vogue then, and the winter solstice fell on December 25. As the calendar drifted with respect to significant solar events, the solstice moved on, getting into January before they changed the calendar, but Jesus' birthday remained planted on the 25th of December.

Technicalities... (yeah, I know they also explain the displaced Orthodox holidays or something, and the fact that Newton was not born on Christmas day, at least from a civilized point of view ).

 

[Merko]

I don't believe Jesus existed. That's based on the solid lack of evidence, not some wacky theory that Jesus would really have been X, Y or Z. Well, the lack of evidence coupled with that, in my reading, the first Christians like Paul seem to have seen Jesus as an ethereal person that appeared in visions, not a physical one. That the more close-to-earth Greeks and other non-jewish new followers were interested in the more physical characteristics of this man would explain the creation of such myths.

But it's funny how some people first acknowledge that there's no real evidence for an historical Jesus, and then builds some even weirder Jesus theory based on the same lack of any evidence at all.