the “pagan christ” correlation and causation really aren’t the same thing

The “Pagan Christ”Correlation and Causation

Really Aren’t the Same Thing

Jesus Mythicist Thesis:

1. There is no evidence that Jesus of Nazareth ever actually lived. • NT is discounted as a source of ANY historical

value with respect to Jesus• Same for external Jewish and Roman sources

(“problematic”)2. Virtually all of the details of the life and

teachings of Jesus originate via the re-purposing of pagan religious ideas from Egypt and Greco-Roman mystery religions, esp. Mithras.

Other Sources

“Zeitgeist: The Movie is a 2007 film by Peter Joseph presenting a number of conspiracy theories. Zeitgeist blends skepticism, metaphysical spirituality, and conspiracy ideas. The film disputes the historicity of Jesus (the Christ myth theory) and claims that the September 11 attacks in 2001 were pre-arranged by New World Order forces, and claims that bankers manipulate world events. In Zeitgeist, it is claimed that the Federal Reserve was behind several wars and manipulates the American public for a One World Government or ‘New World Order.’” (Wikipedia)

Mythicist Thesis

1. There is no evidence that Jesus of Nazareth ever actually lived.

Atheist / Agnostic Opposition

Christian Opposition

Jesus Mythicist Thesis:

2. Virtually all of the details of the life and teachings of Jesus originate via the re-purposing of pagan religious ideas from Egypt and Greco-Roman mystery religions, especially Mithras.

Reason for Similarities

• Supernatural predisposition• Creation, life, death, anomalous experience

explainable via the supernatural• Explaining cycles of life-death-rebirth via the

gods, not science• Geographical proximity and cultural contacts• Adaptation of pagan festivals and

iconography by the early Roman church (“Roman Catholic”) for calendar and teaching.

Mythicist Assertions (Egypt)

“The Christian Jesus is really Egyptian Osiris and Horus”

• Horus was conceived by a virgin (Isis)

• Osiris was killed and resurrected


Summary of Osiris – Isis – Horus myth

The god Osiris was married to his sister-wife Isis, who was also a goddess. Osiris became well known for teaching the people how to sustain life by farming and became revered and popular. His divine Seth was extremely jealous. Seth devised a plan to kill Osiris by trapping him in a coffin and sending it off into the Nile River. He was successful, but didn’t anticipate that Isis would go looking for her husband, Osiris.


The coffin drifted to the country of Byblos and rested by a tree that, over the years, completely overgrew it, so that the coffin became encased in the tree. The tree was cut down and used as a pillar in the nearby palace, with the coffin still inside. When Isis discovered where the coffin was, she retrieved it and attempted to revive Osiris. During her attempts, Seth heard that the pillar/coffin had been discovered, obtained it, and cut it up into fourteen pieces and spread them throughout the Nile River.


Isis searched for the pieces, recovering 13 of 14 (the missing one in some versions = Osiris’ penis, unfortunately eaten by a fish). Still, Isis brought Osiris back to life with the pieces she found and conceived their first child, Horus (by magic or copulation, depending on the version).


Response

• Isis was not a sexual virgin when she conceived Horus. Egyptian texts never claim this.

• Horus was the result of sexual intercourse between Isis and Osiris.• What about the missing penis?• With Thoth's help Isis created a golden penis, and

attached it to Osiris’s body, enabling copulation to produce Horus.


• After Isis re-assembles and re-animates Osiris, he became god of the underworld.

• Osiris was not allowed to return to the land of the living.

• Horus became a god-king (pharaoh was considered the re-incarnation of Horus).

Mythicist Assertions (Egypt)Ward Gasque on Tom Harpur and The Pagan Christ.

“According to Harpur, there is no evidence that Jesus of Nazareth ever lived. He claims that virtually all of the details of the life and teachings of Jesus have their counterpart in Egyptian religious ideas. He does not quote any contemporary Egyptologist or recognized academic authority on world religions nor appeal to any of the standard reference books in Egyptology or to any primary sources. . .

Gasque holds a Ph.D. from Manchester University (UK). A graduate of Harvard University’s Institute for Educational Leadership (1993), he is President of the Pacific Association for Theological Studies

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/6641


Mythicist Assertions (Egypt)Ward Gasque on Tom Harpur and The Pagan Christ.

. . . Rather, [Harpur] is entirely dependent on the work of Alvin Boyd Kuhn (1880-1963) and two earlier writers (Godfrey Higgins [1771-1834] and Gerald Massey [1828-1907]), who argued that all of the essential ideas of both Judaism and Christianity came primarily from Egyptian religion.”




(Gasque)

“Who is Alvin Boyd Kuhn? He is given the title ‘Egyptologist’ and is regarded by Harpur as ‘one of the single greatest geniuses of the twentieth century’ [who] ‘towers above all others of recent memory in intellect and his understanding of the world’s religious.’” As it turns out, Kuhn was a high school language teacher who was an enthusiastic proponent of Theosophy, a prodigious author and lecturer, who self-published most of his books.”


(Gasque)

“Not being myself an expert in Egyptian religion, I consulted those who are about their views of contribution that Kuhn, Higgins and Massey have made to Egyptology and whether they thought some of the key ideas of The Pagan Christ well grounded. So I sent an email to twenty leading Egyptologists — in Canada, USA, UK, Australia, Germany, and Austria. I noted as a sample the following claims put forth by Kuhn (and hence Harpur) … ”


(Gasque)

• That the name of Jesus was derived from the Egyptian “Iusa” [iw-sa] which means "the coming divine Son who heals or saves.”

• That the god Horus is "an Egyptian Christos, or Christ.... He and his mother, Isis, were the forerunners of the Christian Madonna and Child, and together they constituted a leading image in Egyptian religion for millennia prior to the Gospels."


(Gasque)

• That Horus also "had a virgin birth, and that in one of his roles, he was 'a fisher of men with twelve followers.'“

• That “the letters KRST appear on Egyptian mummy coffins many centuries BCE, and ... this word, when the vowels are filled in, is really Karast or Krist, signifying Christ.“

• That the doctrine of the incarnation "is in fact the oldest, most universal mythos known to religion. It was current in the Osirian religion in Egypt at least four thousand years BCE."


(Gasque)• Only one of the ten experts who responded to my

questions had ever heard of Kuhn, Higgins or Massey.

• The responding scholars were unanimous in dismissing the suggested etymologies for Jesus and Christ.

• Ron Leprohan, Professor of Egyptology at the University of Toronto, pointed out that while “sa” means “son” in ancient Egyptian and “iu” means ‘to come,” but Kuhn/Harpur have the syntax all wrong. In any event, the name ‘Iusa’ simply does not exist in Egyptian.


(Gasque)

• While all recognize that the image of the baby Horus and Isis has influenced the Christian iconography of Madonna and Child, there is no evidence for the idea that Horus was virgin born.

• There is no evidence for the idea that Horus was ‘a fisher of men’ or that his followers (the King’s officials were called ‘Followers of Horus”) were ever twelve in number.

• KRST is the word for “burial” (“coffin” is written “KRSW”), but there is no evidence to link this with the Greek title “Christos” or Hebrew “Mashiach”.

Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)

“Jesus is just the pagan god Mithra”

Acharya S. quoting Gerald Berry, Religions of the World:

"Both Mithras and Christ were described variously as 'the Way,' 'the Truth,' 'the Light,' 'the Life,' 'the Word,' 'the Son of God,' 'the Good Shepherd.' The Christian litany to Jesus could easily be an allegorical litany to the sun-god. Mithras is often represented as carrying a lamb on his shoulders, just as Jesus is. Midnight services were found in both religions. The virgin mother ... was easily merged with the virgin mother Mary. Petra, the sacred rock of Mithraism, became Peter, the foundation of the Christian Church."


Alleged Parallels

From May/June 2013 Catholic Answers Magazine

• Mithras preceded Christianity by roughly 600 years.• Mithras was born on December 25.• He was considered a great teacher and had twelve

disciples.• Mithras also performed miracles.• Mithras was called “the good shepherd,” “the way, the

truth and the light,” “redeemer,” “savior,” and “messiah.”

• He was identified with the lion and the lamb.


Alleged Parallels

• Followers were marked with the sign of the cross.• Mithraism had a Eucharist or “Lord’s Supper” that

involved consecrated bread and wine.• Their initiation ceremonies included a baptism to

remove sins.


Response

• The Roman deity Mithras appears in the historical record in the late 1st century A.D.

• Mythicists overcome this by saying Mithras = Persian Zoroastrian deity Mitra.

• Unlike major Greco-Roman deities like Jupiter, no ancient source preserves the mythology of Mithras.

• All information about Mithras comes from depictions on monuments and a handful of comments about the cult in literary sources. • There are no “Mithras texts” produced by

adherents of Mithras.


Temples of Mithras were always an underground in a cave (or a mithraeum). These temples regularly feature the iconography of Mithras killing the bull (known as the "tauroctony“).


Response

(tertullian.org)

• The modern study of Mithras begins just before 1900 with Franz Cumont's Textes et Monuments (TMMM).

• Two volume work that collected all the ancient evidence known at the time.

• Cumont assumed that Mithras was merely the Roman form of the ancient Indo-Persian deity Mitra or Mithra.

http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/mithras/display.php?page=TMMM


Response

(tertullian.org)

• In the mid-1950's Cumont's pupil Maarten Vermaseren published a new collection of monuments, the CIMRM, which added the archaeological discoveries of the last 50 years, but also highlighted how poorly the archaeology supported the Cumontian theory.

• At the 1971 international conference on Mithraic studies, Cumont's theory was abandoned in favour of a Roman origin for the cult.

• Vermaseren himself rejected Cumont's theory in 1975.

http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/mithras/display.php?page=CIMRM


Response

• Mithras did not precede Christianity by roughly 600 years.


Response

• Mithras, Jesus, and Dec. 25

• Mithras and the Roman sun god Sol Invictus are co-identified in inscriptions on candles.

• Other inscriptions distinguish them• In A.D. 274, the Roman Emperor Aurelian gave the cult

of Sol Invictus official status alongside the other traditional cults of the Empire.

• According to the Chronography of 354, the birth of Sol Invictus was celebrated on December 25.


Response

• Christmas wasn't in December for the first 300 years of the Church’s history.

• Some church fathers argued against celebrating the birth of Jesus (Origen; birthdays of gods were for pagans)

• If observed at all, the celebration of Christ's birth was usually part of the feast of Epiphany (January 6).

• Eventually, Church authorities settled on December 25 as the birth of Jesus, knowing that it coincided with existing pagan festivals honoring Saturn (the Roman god of agriculture) and Mithra.


Response

• The idea was that the celebration of Jesus’ birth on the same day would help convince Rome’s pagan subjects to accept Christianity as the empire’s official religion.

• Western Christians first celebrated Christmas on December 25 in 336, after Emperor Constantine had declared Christianity the empire's official religion.

• Eastern churches stuck with January 6 as the date for both Christ's birth and his baptism.

• There is no biblical evidence Jesus was born on any of these dates.


Response

• What about the other claims?

• There is no evidence that Mithras was a historical person (and there are no primary texts), so the idea that he had twelve disciples is unhistorical.

• The idea comes from the zodiac (since Mithra was the sun, the 12 signs of the zodiac = 12 disciples for Jesus mythicists.


Response

• Jesus carrying a lamb on his shoulders?

• There’s no NT verse for this – it’s from art in Christian bookstores.


Response

• On the titles “the good shepherd,” “the way, the truth and the light,” “redeemer,” “savior,” and “Messiah” …

• Only the terms redeemer and savior can be verified as being associated with Mithras.

• But worshippers of Mithras did not use these terms to describe their god; they were used conceptually in regard to following Mithras.

• The nature of redemption and salvation in Mithraism were quite different than Christianity.


Response

• Lion and the lamb?

• There is basically no evidence for the lamb association and Mithras.

• There appears to be some connection between Mithras and Aion, a lion-headed man

• This isn’t the way lion symbolism is used in the Bible• Jesus is described as the “Lion of the tribe of Judah”

(Rev. 5:5), but lion imagery is also used to describe the enemies of the Christians (2 Tim. 4:17, 1 Pet. 5:8).


Response

• Was the Lord’s Supper / Eucharist taken over from Mithraism?

• Ignores parallels from 2nd temple Judaism (Qumran)

• Idea comes from Cumont’s discredited assumptions and from comments by early Christian writer Justin Martyr:


Response

(First Apology, ch. 66):

For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, “This do in remembrance of Me, this is My body;” and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, “This is My blood;” and gave it to them alone. Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated; you either know or can learn.


Response

• The line “Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras” doesn’t mean the Christians copied this from Mithra (again, the Qumran evidence is clear – and was unknown to Cumont)

• Reading the line that way required believing Justin is calling Christians “wicked devils”!

• The line refers to the followers of Mithras imitating the Christian practice.


Response

• What about the baptism?• Many pagan religions had ritual washings.

“Such a theme [baptism] could have been taken directly from one of the esoteric Jewish sects, especially the Essenes, concerning whom the Dead Sea manuscripts have now added sensationally to our knowledge. Indeed, it is not even necessary to suppose that an initiatory theme was “borrowed” by Christianity from some other religion.” (Mircea Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation, p. 116)


Response

• Mithras sacrifices a sacred bull to create life.

• Followers were baptized in this blood.

• But no reference to the atoning of sin, the atoning of sin through blood, or Mithras atoning for sin.


Response

• Followers marked with the sign of the cross?

• Per Beskow, "Branding in the Mysteries of Mithras?", in Mysteria Mithrae, ed. Ugo Bianchi (Leyden 1979), 487-501. He describes the entire idea as a "scholarly myth".


Response

• There is also no reference to Mithras being virgin born or visited by Magi.

• All known Mithras tradition has Mithra being born from a rock• The “rock” / Peter connection?• Jesus wasn’t born from a rock, or Peter.

• Interestingly …

Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)Response

The earliest existing account of Mithras' birth is found in a relief depicting him emerging from a rock with the assistance of men who appear to be shepherds

Interesting because according to Mithraism, the birth of Mithras was supposed to have preceded the creation of humans. Someone forgot that detail.


Response

• There is also no reference to Mithras dying on a cross.

Mythicist Assertions (Dionysius / Orpheus)


Response

• The inscription OΡΦEOC BAKKIKOC should be read as ORPHEOS BAKKIKOS and refers to the mythological Greek musician Orpheus and the Greek wine god Dionysus, whose Roman name was Bacchus.

• Dated 200-300 A.D.


Response

• The “cross” is an anchor• No nails in the feet or

hands

• Because there are no other Christian symbols on it, all comparisons with Christianity constitutes circular reasoning.


Response

• Orpheus was the son of a Muse (goddess) with superhuman music skills

• Joined the expedition of the Argonauts (anchor?)

• Saving them from the music of the Sirens by playing his own

• Orpheus killed by being torn apart by a band of women.

• Mystery religion ca. 6th cent BC


Response

• Many scholars consider the seal a hoax, in part because Orpheus, was not crucified.

• Same for Dionysius.


Other Problems

• No record that Dec 25th significant for Dionysius / Orpheus

• Dionysius not virgin born • parents either Zeus + mortal woman, Semele by

direct copulation, or• Zeus + goddess Persephone


"To this part of the inquiry belongs a mention of the curious and much-discussed seal or amulet in Berlin. The design on this seal [figure right] which is dated in the third or fourth centuries A.D., shows a crucified man. Above the cross are a crescent moon and seven stars, and across and below it is the legend [Orpheus Bacchus]. This has usually been supposed to be the work of some Gnostic sect exhibiting a syncretism of Orphic and Christian ideas. Just as Christ is to be seen in Christian monuments with the attributes of Orpheus, so here, by a tribute from the other side, Orpheus is represented in the attitude of Christ. . . . Kern (German collector of the amulet) recant[ed] and express[ed] himself convinced by the expert opinion of J. Reil and R. Zahn that the [Orpheus Bacchus] gem is a forgery.“

W.K.C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion, 265, 278

Resources• In addition to the books noted, several websites offer useful

summaries of the Zeitgeist errors:

• Alleged Similarities between Jesus and Pagan Deities

• The Skeptic Project: Zeitgeist: Part I

• Students: use the journal databases! (ATLA, JSTOR)

http://www.thedevineevidence.com/jesus_similarities.html

http://conspiracies.skepticproject.com/articles/zeitgeist/part-one/

Concluding Thoughts• Insist on documentation that comes from

primary sources in their original context.

• Understand that, like the hard sciences, scholarship in the humanities really has gotten more accurate since the late 19th / early 20th centuries (i.e., the last 100 years or so).

• When it comes to Jesus mythicism, there’s really nothing new under the sun.

Homepage

www.drmsh.com

www.theunseenrealm.com

http://www.drmsh.com/

http://www.theunseenrealm.com/

the “pagan christ” correlation and causation really aren’t the same thing

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