Christianity Among the Myths
by Mary Jo Sharp –
An increasingly popular argument utilized today by skeptics of Christianity is the pagan myth theory (also, “Christ-myth theory”).This theory claims the earliest followers of Christ fabricated Jesus’ story and borrowed language, rituals, and themes from first century contemporary pagan myths. Another aspect of the theory attempts to categorize the Christian religion as mythology through a criticism of the historical methodology used to investigate Jesus’ story. On the surface, the pagan myth theory may appear plausible. If an entire belief system, such as Christianity, can be unquestionably traced point-for-point to another system, then a parental relationship may be possible.
If the criteria used to investigate the truth of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are unacceptable means of historical verification, then the truth about Jesus may be unknowable or untrue. However, neither of these aspects of the pagan myth theory has withstood the light of scholarly scrutiny. In a recent review of Christ-myth proponent Robert M. Price’s work, “Jesus at the Vanishing Point,” theologian James D.G. Dunn comments, “In short, if Price’s essay is a true expression of the state of health of the Jesus-myth thesis, I can’t see much life in it.” 1
In making this argument, the stories of the pagan gods are vital, for they establish the foundation upon which the mystery cults were practiced. The concepts of death, judgment, resurrection, and salvation are aspects of the stories that would directly influence the worship practices and afterlife expectations of their faithful followers. Therefore, if Christian believers incorporated content from the myths, we would expect to find similar concepts in the aforementioned areas; and in other aspects of the stories as well. However, when a comprehensive approach is taken regarding each story, the differences are glaring; offering no evidence to dismiss the Christian story as repackaged pagan myths. Ronald Nash, Christian philosopher, expounded on this matter, “But the alleged similarities, as well as the language used to describe them, turn out to be fabrications of the modern scholar and are not part of the original myth.”2 Also, un-matched, yet important, aspects of the Christian story emerge without a viable explanation from the pagan mysteries.
This article will bring to light several problems with the pagan myth theory and give the reader some help in thinking through modern constructions of the argument. A thorough, comprehensive rebuttal of the pagan mystery argument is not intended, since numerous detailed works on this matter exist.3 Instead the article will briefly address two of the main criteria utilized against the historical investigation into Jesus’ resurrection: the principle of analogy and the criterion of dissimilarity. The bulk of the article will be devoted to a more in-depth look at three of the most commonly compared myths to the story ofu Christ—Osiris, Horus, and Mithras—and the doctrinally important alleged parallels for death, judgment, resurrection, and salvation.
Criteria
The Principle of Analogy
Is historical investigation of miraculous religious claims like Jesus’ resurrection even possible? Some modern historians say this inquiry is not possible because we have no analogy for something like a resurrection today. Author N.T. Wright describes this principle as touted by Ernst Troeltsch: “He argued that we can only speak or write as historians about things which have some analogy in our own experience; resurrections do not occur in our experience; therefore we cannot, as historians, speak of the resurrection….Jesus’ resurrection might have occurred, but we simply cannot say anything about it.”4
The point of the argument is that if a historian does not have direct observation of a kind of event, then the historian cannot speak as to the reality of such an event from prior or ancient reports. No doubt this principle, in full effect, would result in the loss of more than just the claims of supernatural events. As Wright further illuminates,
It is important to note what would follow if we took Troeltsch’s point seriously: we would be able to say nothing about the rise of the early church as a whole. Never before had there been a movement which began as a quasi-messianic group within Judaism and was transformed into the sort of movement which Christianity quickly became. Nor has similar phenomenon ever occurred again.5
While generally, viewing events with a skeptical eye is a desirable practice from the perspective of the historian, the skepticism must also extend to the ability of the applied principle to accurately account for reasonably well-known events.
Troeltsch expanded upon his argument specifically in the area of miracles. He stated that if miracles do not happen today, then miracles did not happen in the past. There is no prima facie reason for why a historian would have to hold to this position. An historian may actually hold to the position that miracles do happen today. If she then applied the principle of analogy, she would be able to explore the historicity of the miraculous event. In other words, this principle seems to originate from a commitment to metaphysical naturalism: the idea that the natural world is all that exists. A philosophical commitment to a worldview such as this generates a control-factor problem for an espoused objective criterion of evaluating historicity. Other criteria must be used in concert with analogy to keep the historian accountable for objectivity (or intellectual honesty) since this principle crosses over into the philosophical realm of the possibility or impossibility of the supernatural.
The Criterion of Dissimilarity
In his essay entitled, “Jesus at the Vanishing Point,” Robert M. Price offers that the criterion of dissimilarity is the second of two historio-graphical commandments (the principle of analogy being the first). He defines the criterion: “The idea is that no saying ascribed to Jesus may be counted as probably authentic if it has parallels in Jewish or early Christian sayings.”6 So the criteria proposes that Jesus’ words were his own words only if they cannot be traced back to similar sayings found in contemporary Judaism or in the teaching of the early church (suggesting the church could have put words “in his mouth”). This criterion leaves precious few sayings in the New Testament as authentic words of Jesus.
One main problem with the criterion of dissimilarity is that, if it is rigidly observed, Jesus does not seem to relate even to his own Jewish culture. Jesus also does not appear to have any impact on his own followers (so much for a heroic mythic figure analogy). James D.G. Dunn, in responding to Price’s use of this criterion states: “Such an extension of the use of the criterion of dissimilarity simply undermines what value it has. It is so a priori obvious that an influential teacher’s teaching would influence his disciples and shape their own teaching and lives in substantial degree that the criterion of dissimilarity does not help us to distinguish one from the other.”7 To the contrary, the criterion of dissimilarity more effectively lends confidence to authenticity than it can determine authenticity. Instead of the using this criterion for making a negative assessment on a saying of Jesus, this argument only can be utilized to confirm the things he said. According to New Testament scholar, Darrell Bock, “…what made scholars look for principles to go with dissimilarity was the historical observation that great figures do interact with and reflect their cultures even if they do so in creative ways. Such a culturally displaced figure makes no sense (even as a creation!).” 8
The Ideal Type
A third “criterion” is suggested when looking at the historicity of religious events such as the death and resurrection of Jesus. This criterion compares a supposed historical person in a religious text, such as Jesus, to mythic hero archetypes (the ideal type) for an explanation of the figure’s historical origin. Price lists twenty-two recurrent features found in the Indo-European and Semitic hero myths, which can be found in “Jesus at the Vanishing Point.”9 He then argues that because of the very little information we know for sure about Jesus (allegedly due to the principle of analogy and the criterion of dissimilarity), a better argument would be that the story of Jesus “parallels myth more than history.”10
Some problems arise with this mythic hero concept. The mythic hero comparison to Jesus is too broad of a generalization to provide substantial evidence for or against the historical reality of Jesus’ existence. In John N. Oswalt’s book, The Bible Among the Myths, he comments, “An elephant is not a table because it has four legs.”11 Another problem Oswalt explains is the different philosophical approach of the mythmakers and the Gospel account authors. The myths may tell stories of heroes, but these heroes are not presented as particular individuals. Instead, the heroes are presented as symbols. “These heroes have been lifted out of time and space so that they can become representative of the race or of the aspirations and limitations of the race. They are only real insofar as they are not particular.”12 By contrast, the New Testament authors consistently ground their accounts in specific dates, times, places, events, and people. One example is found in Luke 3:1-2: “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas…” Though this article will not go point-for-point on Price’s list, it will look at the implications of the comparative themes of death, judgment, resurrection, and salvation.
A Brief introduction to Osiris, Horus, And Mithras
In order to discern whether there is justification for the argument that pagan myths gave rise to Christian teaching, it is necessary to look at the basic myths themselves. A general outline will be given for three mystery religion’s myths: Osiris, Horus, and Mithras. Then each will be examined to demonstrate that they do not—in fact, could not—explain the foundational Christian beliefs about Jesus.
Osiris
One of the main problems encountered with this myth is the evolution of the story line throughout time. Though a basic outline of the myth can be found in the Pyramid Texts (c.2686-c. 2160 BC), the most complete account of the story of Osiris is told by the Greek writer, Plutarch, from the turn of the second century A.D.13 Other information is found piecemeal in Egyptian and Greek sources and in archeological finds.14 One important aspect of the story that Plutarch included in his account is the sexual nature of the worship of Osiris. This aspect, along with the variations found in the overall evolution of the myth will be included in a quick summary of the story.
Summary
The Egyptian god, Osiris, was born of the sky-goddess Nut and her spouse, the earth-god Geb. Plutarch, in his essay, Concerning Isis and Osiris, gives an account of the anger of the Sun upon discovering that Nut had intercourse with Geb, (in some accounts Nut and Geb are married, in Plutarch’s account their relationship is difficult to discern). The Sun lays a curse upon her pronouncing that she will not bear a child in any month or year. Hermes (or Thoth in older Egyptian accounts), the messenger of the gods, who is also in love with Nut, comes to her aid. In order to secure days of the year for Nut to have children, Hermes plays “checkers with the Moon to win from her the seventieth part of each of her periods of light.”15 Hermes combines these periods to create five days, which are the last five days added to the Egyptian calendar year (360 to 365). On these days, Osiris and his brothers and sisters are born. An interesting aspect of the birth story, which only Plutarch appears to mention, concerns Isis and Osiris in their mother’s womb: “…but Osiris and Isis fell in love with each other and had intercourse with each other in the darkness in their mother’s womb; and some say that this is how Arueris was begotten and hence is called by the Egyptians the elder Horus, but by the Greeks Apollo.”16 This account contrasts strikingly with the Holy Spirit conception of Jesus within Mary’s virgin womb.
Sometime later, after they have grown, Osiris mistakes the wife of his brother, Set, for his own wife in the darkness of the night and has intercourse with her. This transgression enrages Set, who plots to take revenge. In order to trap his brother, Set makes a beautiful, sweet smelling sarcophagus that exactly fits Osiris and then dupes Osiris into lying down in the casket to try it out for size. As soon as Osiris gets in, Set nails the casket lid down, solders it shut, and throws it into the Nile before any of the other gods realize what has happened.
Osiris suffocates and dies as his sarcophagus floats down the Nile, out into the Mediterranean Sea, and eventually lands on the Syrian coast in the region of Byblos, where an Erika tree grows up around it.17 At the time of Osiris’ death, Egypt immediately begins to suffer great miseries: parched farmlands, an increase of desert lands, and famine.
Isis searches for Osiris and eventually finds the casket residing in a pillar in the palace of the king of Byblos, who cuts down the Erika tree for its sweet-smelling fragrance and fashions it for his home. Isis retrieves Ithe body from the pillar and places her deceased lover on a barge. As she returns home, she lays upon him, weeping, and conceives a child—Horus. In fact, a drawing found at the Osiris temple has been weighed on the balance of Truth by Anubis and recorded and confirmed by the god Thoth. sis, in the shape of a falcon, approaching him to receive his semen; in other words, to have intercourse with his dead body.18
Isis hides the body of Osiris in the Delta swamps, but Set finds him there during a hunting trip. Set dismembers Osiris into fourteen pieces and spreads the body parts throughout the land. Isis gathers up all the pieces of Osiris, save one—his phallus, which she cannot find—and she reassembles him on an island in the Nile. Isis then makes a model of the missing organ and consecrates it. Plutarch states that the Egyptians “presently hold a festival” in honor of this sexual organ, his phallus.19
Once Isis returns to Egypt, Nephthys, Thoth, and Anubis help her piece Osiris back together, mummify him, and revive Osiris using incantations and magic. Although Osiris is in some sense revived, the understanding gleaned from the texts is that he never experienced a return to his former physical life.20 Osiris instead rose to new life in his son, Horus; and Osiris remained as the “dead father.”21 As N.T. Wright describes in The Resurrection of the Son of God, the use of the term “resurrection” to describe the Egyptian view of the continuance of the life in some bodily form after death (in this case a spiritual body), muddies the commonly understood use of resurrection. Wright explains resurrection as “a re-embodiment and return to a this-worldly life after a period in which the dead person is not alive in this way.”22 Osiris was brought back to “life” in the spiritual realm, but not to return to the land of the living; instead, he was appointed King of the Dead in the region called the “netherworld.”23
Horus: Child of Osiris
The story of Horus is another that is difficult to discern due to the lack of information and amount of variation. There are actually two gods named Horus in Egyptian mythology that are, over the course of time, fused into one (Horus, the sun-god, and Horus the child of Isis and Osiris). However, the predominant story in the Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, and the Book of the Dead is that of Horus, the child of Isis and Osiris. 24 Due to the growing frequency of comparisons between Horus and Jesus, I will address the story of this god as a subset of the story of Osiris, presenting a general outline, including variations, from the E.A. Budge Wallis’ translation of the Book of the Dead, Plutarch’s Concerning Isis and Osiris, Joseph Campbell’s piecing together of the story in The Mythic Image, as well as other noted interpretations of the story.
Horus is the son of Isis and Osiris, born either from the sexual relationship between Isis and Osiris in Nut’s womb or from Isis having sexual intercourse with the dead body of Osiris. When Horus was still a boy, Isis hid him from the wrath of his uncle, Set. However, she could not keep him from all harm. One day, as Isis returned to Horus’ hiding place, she found him poisoned by a scorpion sting. She prayed to the god Ra (later, Re) to help her restore Horus. Ra sends Thoth to teach her spells for removal of the poison and she successfully restores Horus to life. Again, there is no understanding of a resurrection in his story; just a revival of the current bodily form that had been poisoned. In fact, Isis is revered as the protector of all children from illness due to this particular scene in the story of Horus.25
According to Campbell in The Mythic Image, after Isis gives birth to Horus, he grows extremely rapidly and sets out to avenge his father’s death. During the battle between Horus and Set, in a whirlwind of fire, Set transforms himself into a black pig. When Horus looks upon the pig, his left eye burns out.26 Re, the sun god, then says to all the gods, “The pig is an abominable thing unto Horus.” The followers of Horus reply to Re’s statement, “Let sacrifices be made to the the gods, of his bulls, and of his goats, and of his pigs.” It is supposedly this sacrifice of Horus’ eye, when offered up before the mummified Osiris that brings Osiris back to a spirit life in the Netherworld. According to the Hunefer Papyrus (1317-1301 B.C.), it is Horus’ job to introduce the righteous deceased to his father Osiris, after the deceased’s heart has been weighed on the balance of Truth by Anubis and recorded and confirmed by the god Thoth. If the deceased’s heart does not balance the feather of the goddess of Truth, then the Eater of the Dead (who is standing by) will annihilate the deceased.29 Horus is also attributed with reigning on the throne of Osiris, but the actual duties of his reign are somewhat indiscernible. The implications of the story suggest he carried out his father’s role in the fertility of the Egyptian land.
Mithras/Mithra
The story of Mithra is pieced together from inscriptions, depictions, and later texts (mostly after 140 A.D.)30; the actual legend itself has not been fully preserved.31 In Bruce Lincoln’s review of the Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies, entitled, Mitra, Mithra, Mithras: Problems of a Multiform Deity, he proffers that “his form [Mithra’s] seems to differ in certain ways in each area that he is found, and the problems of continuity and discontinuity from one area to another and from one period to another have been studied and debated for more than a century among Western scholars.”32 There are no written accounts of the Mystery of Mithra of any substantive nature.33 The most comprehensive narration of the story can be found in Franz Cumont’s The Mysteries of Mithra, published in 1903; yet even this will be supplemented with more recent findings and hypotheses.
Summary
The god, Mithra (later, Mithras) is born of a rock near the banks of a river under a sacred tree. As he comes forth from the rock, he grasps a dagger in one hand and a torch in the other, which he uses to illumine the depths below (from whence he came). After Mithra’s birth, he tests his strength against the strength of the sun. Through the course of the battle, Mithra and the sun develop a friendship and become faithful allies in all of their adventures. The most extraordinary of these adventures is Mithra’s battle with the first living creature, a bull created by Ormazd (or Ahura Mazda), the highest ‘god’ of ancient Persian worship.34 The bull is grazing on a mountainside when Mithra seizes it by the horns and mounts it. The infuriated bull breaks into a gallop in an attempt to free itself from the god. After having dislodged Mithra from his back, the bull continues to drag him along the ground until the bull finally grows weary and stops struggling. (The content of the story is unclear here. Apparently Mithra captured the bull at some point.) Awhile later, the bull escapes back out into the field. The sun then sends a raven to Mithra, who instructs him to slay the bull. Mithra comes upon the bull in a cave, grabs it by the nostrils, and plunges a knife deep into the bull’s flank. From the body, spine, and blood of the bull come all the useful herbs and plants that cover the earth, the wheat that makes bread, and the wine that is the sacred drink of the Mystery. The seed of the bull, gathered by the Moon, is used to produce all the useful animals. Its soul ascends to the heavens where it becomes guardian of the herds of animals below. Thus, through the sacrifice Mithra makes, all beneficent life comes into being.
When the first humans are called into creation, Mithra is in charge of watching over them and defending them against Ahriman, the evil one. Ahriman attacks the humans by sending a severe drought. Mithra, being an archer god, shoots his arrows into a rock, causing water to spring forth from the rock quenching the dry land.35 Having completed his mission on earth, Mithra partakes of a meal with Helios (the sun) and then ascends to the heavens with all the other gods.36
Major Variations
Cumont presented a seemingly Western or Roman view of the Mithraic story, and described this view as evolutionary from the earlier Vedic texts of Hinduism and Avesta texts of Persian Zoroastrianism. In these texts, there is no mention of a bull-slaying god. Instead, he originates as one of many gods created by Ahura Mazda.37 He is the being who exists between the good Ahura Mazda, and the evil Angra Mainyu; the being who exists between light and darkness. He is also identified with the light and sun, however, the communal meal depicts him as sitting next to the sun, not one with the sun (though a later Roman inscription (c.376 A.D.) hailed him as “Father of Fathers” and “the Invincible Sun God Mithras”).38 His name in Iranian form, Mitra, means “contract” or “compact.” Thus, he is known as the god who upholds agreements and truth. In Persian form, Mithra, means “friendship” or “friend.” Mithra is a friend of the sun and of the people.
One particular aspect of Mithra’s story sets him apart from the other mystery gods: the lack of a death story. Mithra is actually invictus (victorious) throughout his existence having never suffered defeat. He also does not come back from the dead (since he never dies). Like the other mystery gods, though, his story does change over time and location (unlike the story of Jesus). The evolving story makes this divine saga a difficult one to unveil.
Death and Judgment
According to The Book of the Dead, when a person dies he is sent on a journey to the underworld to receive the judgment of Osiris.39 On the way to the underworld, however, the person must pass through the Hall of the Maáti (Double Right and Truth) and answer the questions of the gods properly to get to the dwelling place of Osiris.40 Though there is no specification about what happens to a soul if he cannot properly answer the gods, the Egyptians appear to believe two negative scenarios. One belief is that the soul cannot make its way to the judgment if not given a proper funeral, the implication being that the soul gets lost.41 The other belief about the soul is annihilation (as will be shown in the judgment scene).
Once a soul finds his way through to the underworld, his heart is weighed against a feather. If that person’s heart is heavier than the feather (committed over half of the 42 sins) then he is consumed by the Eater of the Dead, Ammut. According to John H. Taylor in Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt, “This consumption of the heart of an unrighteous person denied him access to the afterlife.”42 The soul is annihilated. The persons who were considered the wicked dead, the mut, could also be condemned to horrible torment in the afterlife. Though seemingly similar to the Christian concept of hell, the torture of the mut resulted in total extinction of these persons; again, the afterlife was denied to them. On the other hand, if the person’s heart is lighter than or balanced with the feather he is eligible for eternal life and introduced to Osiris.
According to Franz Cumont, the initiates of Mithras believe in the conscious survival after death of the divine essence that is within each of them, as well as in punishments and rewards after death. The soul’s judgment is presided over by Mithras after it has been released from its bodily prison. Both the powers of darkness and the powers of light enter into contention over this soul, and a decision is made on its purity or impurity. If the soul is found impure, it is brought down to the darkness by Ahriman to be tortured or to be sent back to dwell in the body of an unclean animal. If the soul is found pure, it travels through eight gates of the heavenly spheres, strippingu away every vice and sensibility until it was an “essence supreme,” bathed in the eternal light of the gods.43 The ultimate fate of the wicked, however, according to the eschatology of Mithraism, is inevitable annihilation.44
The Christian view of death and judgment centers around a salvific experience through which can be found security of eternal life (1 John 5:13). In the Osirian and Mithraic myths, judgment is based on one’s good works. A person has no assurance of blessings or even of survival in the afterlife. Therefore, the focus in their earthly life became living for the now: “…Be not weary-hearted! Follow your heart and happiness! Make your things on earth!”45 In contrast, for the followers of Christ, the practical outworking of Christian assurance of salvation in judgment was a self-less life.
Resurrection and Salvation
Osiris’ rising from the dead to life among the dead can be found prior to Christianity in the Pyramid Texts and the Egyptian Book of the Dead. (The earliest collection is dated 2350 B.C. to 2150 B.C.)46 Isis first revives Osiris, through her tears, or her breath or through piecing him back together and reciting a magical spell over him. His revival takes place in the spiritual realm or the underworld.47 According to T.N.D. Mettinger, Osiris, was worshipped as a god who had passed through death and survived in the sense that he was not destroyed.48 He never returns to life beyond the realm of the dead, although his believers are said to hope for the eternal life that is the same as Osiris. As mentioned above, the salvation of the followers of Osiris relied on their own good works.
Because he has no death story, Mithras has no resurrection story, either. How could he? Due, in part, to this conspicuous lack of a dying-and-rising-god parallel, Gunter Wagner wrote, “Mithras does not belong to the dying and rising gods, and no death and resurrection ritual has ever been associated with his cult.”49 Salvation of the initiate is an ambiguous aspect of Mithraism, but I appears directly related to the ability of the undefeated god to lead his worshipper victoriously through any earthly trials. Cumont explains, “Mithra is…the anchor of salvation for mortals in all their trials, the dauntless champion who sustains his devotees in their frailty, through all the tribulations of life.”50 Mithras offers no salvation for the afterlife, no deliverance from sin, and Mithras’s only salvific work is in relation to his slaying of the bull, which is a creation myth.
The resurrection of Jesus is the basis for a believer’s salvation as a deliverance from sin and for the reality of eternal life. Paul states in 1 Corinthians 15:14, 17 that if Christ has not been raised, then our faith is useless and we are still in our sins. In other words, salvation cannot happen apart from the resurrection. Gary Habermas and J.P. Moreland, in Immortality: The Other Side of Death, conclude, “when connected with the distinctive teachings on the nature of eternal life and immortality by both Jesus and the writers of the New Testament, Jesus’ resurrection from the dead provides Christians with a certainty for and model of their own resurrection, eternal life, and immortality.”51
There is no teaching comparable in the examined pagan mysteries concerning the inseparable connection between salvation and resurrection or concerning the physical, incorruptible example of the resurrected god as the unquestionable reality of eternal life for all believers. Due to these irreconcilable differences, the Christian “borrowing” of resurrection or salvation stories from the pagan myths of Osiris, Horus, and Mithras is not a plausible explanation for the origins of the Christian belief. Rather than showing how Christianity borrowed from the myths, comparisons between Christianity and the myths demonstrate, all the more, the profound uniqueness of Christian beliefs.
Mary Jo Sharp (M.A.) is the founder and director of the apologetics discernment ministry Confident Christianity (www.confidentchristianity.com), and is a certified apologetics instructor with the North American Mission Board.
Notes
1Robert M. Price, “Jesus at the Vanishing Point” in The Historical Jesus: Five Views, eds. James K. Beilby and Paul Rhodes Eddy (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2009), 55-83.
2 Ronald Nash, “Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions?” [online text]; available from http://www.equip.org/site/c.muI1LaMNJrE/ b.2712035/k.AF09/DB109.htm; Internet; accessed 18 November, 2008.
3 See Ronald H. Nash, The Gospel and the Greeks (Dallas: Probe Books, 1992); Craig Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009); N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003). Keener and Wright’s works are not mainly focused on the pagan mysteries. Yet, both thoroughly treat the project of historical inquiry, the historical quality of the Gospels accounts, the philosophical difference between pagan theology and Judeo-Christian theology, and the logic of Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 15 on the resurrection.
4 N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God,16-17.
5 Ibid., 17.
6 Robert M. Price, “Jesus at the Vanishing Point,” 59.
7 James D.G. Dunn, “Response to Robert M. Price,” in The Historical Jesus: Five Views, 95.
8 Darrell Bock, “Response to Robert M. Price,” in The Historical Jesus: Five Views,101.
9 Robert M. Price, “Jesus at the Vanishing Point,” 77-78.
10 Ibid., 55.
11 John N. Oswalt, The Bible Among the Myths: Unique Revelation or Just Ancient Literature? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009), 45.
12Ibid., 43.
13James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, abridged ed. (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1922); Internet; available from http://www.bartleby.com/196/; accessed 3 May 2008.; See also Frederick C. Grant, Hellenistic Religions: The Age of Syncretism, fourth printing, (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1953), 80; Tryggve N.D. Mettinger, The Riddle of Resurrection: “Dying and Rising Gods” in the Ancient Near East (Stockholm: Amqvist and Wiksell International, 2001), 168. Margaret A. Murray, The Splendor That Was Egypt, rev. ed. (Mineola: Dover Publications, Inc., 2004, 1963, 1949), 102: “Though Plutarch is a late writer, his account of Osiris can be checked by the records of Osiris-worship, and is proved to be substantially correct.”
14Grant, Hellenistic Religions, 80.
15 Ibid., 82.
16 bid., 83.
17 Bierlein’s specific mention of Osiris’ suffocation in Parallel Myths is the only one I have encountered thus far.
18 Mettinger, The Riddle of Resurrection, 173. Illustration 6.2. Plutarch also mentions this part of the story in On Isis and Osiris: “Isis had intercourse with Osiris after his death, and brought forth a child prematurely born…” As found in Grant, Hellenistic Religions, 88; cf. G. D. Hornblower, “Osiris and His Rites: I with Plate K,” Man: A Monthly Record of Anthropological Science, vol. 37 (Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland: Oct., 1937), 157.
19Plutarch. Concerning Isis and Osiris. Grant, Hellenistic Religions, 87.
20 In fact, there is no interpretation of the story I encountered where Osiris is explicitly said to have returned to actual physical life on earth.
21 Mettinger, The Riddle of Resurrection, 172. 22 N.T. Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 47.
23 The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Papyrus of Ani. trans. E.A. Wallis Budge (New York: Barnes and Noble, 2005, 1895), 74. cf. T.N.D. Mettinger, The Riddle of Resurrection, 173.
24 The Egyptian Book of the Dead, trans. Budge, CXX-CXXI.
25 Margaret A. Murray, The Splendor that was Egypt, 106.
26Or Horus’ eye is sacrificed to his father to make him “mighty before the spirits.” (Wagner. Pauline Baptism., 118.) Also, in this epic tale, Set loses a testicle; again quite a difference from the story of Jesus. (The Mythic Image, 29.)
27Both quotes: Joseph Campbell. The Mythic Image, 451. I cannot avoid confusion as to who is the sun-god in the story of Horus: Re or Horus. According to the authors quoted in this paper, earlier texts, of which I am unaware, exalt Horus as the sun-god. In the Book of the Dead, Re is the sun-god or highest god.
28Joseph Campbell, The Mythic Image, 29, 450. 29 bid., 31.
30Edwin M. Yamauchi, Easter: Myth, Hallucination, or History (1995-2007); available from http:// www.leaderu.com/everystudent/easter/articles/ yama.html; Internet; accessed on 22 January, 2007. 31Franz Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra (1903) [online text]; available from http://www.sacredtexts.com/cla/mom/index.htm; Internet; accessed on 3 May 2008.
32 Bruce Lincoln, “Mitra, Mithra, Mithras: Problems of a Multiform Diety,” review of John R. Hinnells, “Mithraic Studies: Proceedings of the First
International Congress of Mithraic Studies,” History of Religions 17:2 (Chicago: University of Chicago, Nov., 1977), 200.
33N.M. Swerdlow, “Review Article: On the Cosmical Mysteries of Mithras,” review of David Ulansey, “The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World,” Classical Philology 86:1 (Jan., 1991), 49.
34Franz Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra: the Origins of Mithraism, 1903; Internet; available from http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/mom/index. htm; accessed on 3 May 2008, 16. cf. Roy Willis, ed. “Persian Myths,” World Mythology (Richmond Hill: Duncan Baird Publishers, 1993), 67.
35At this point in the story, Cumont offers a flood narrative similar to the Biblical flood and story of Noah. I have not included this story due to a lack of any mention of Mithra whatsoever as participant in this portion of the story.
36Cumont, Mysteries of Mithra, 138.
37See Cumont, 4-5.
38Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum VI. 510; H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae. II. 1 (1902), No. 4152, as quoted in Grant, Hellenistic Religions, 147. This inscription was found at Rome, dated August 13, 376 A.D. Notice the late date of this title for Mithras; well after Christianity was firmly established in Rome.
39 “The Chapters of Coming Forth by Day,” The Papyrus of Ani: Egyptian Book of the Dead, trans. E.A. Wallis Budge [online text]; Internet; available from http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Books/Papyrus_Ani. html; accessed 5 May, 2008.
40Budge, The Book of the Dead, 345-346.
41John H. Taylor, Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt (London: The British Museum Press, 2001), 31-33.
42Ibid., 38.
43Cumont, Mysteries of Mithra, 143-147. 44Ibid., 146.
45John H. Taylor, Death and Afterlife. 45
46John H. Taylor. Death and Afterlife, 193. 47G. D. Hornblower, Osiris and His Rites: I with Plate K. “Dr. Alan Gardiner has shown in Journ, Egyptian Archaeology, vol. II, pp. 121, ff., in his review of Frazer ‘Adonis Attis, Osiris,’ that Osiris was always for the ancient Egyptians the dead king while Horus was the living one.”153.
48Mettinger. The Riddle of Resurrection, 171. 49Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries, 67
50 Ibid., 143.
51 Habermas and Moreland, Immortality: The Other Side of Death. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc.,
1992) 143.
(First published in Areopagus Journal Vol. 9 No. 6 – Are Biblical Doctrines Stolen from Pagan Myths?)