Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

Pagan religions sees those who bring good into the world by worshiping the One true Triune God of the Bible, as evil, and those who, by biblical standards, do evil, as good, however, paganism is not limited to just one belief. There are, in its meaning (as in the word "religion" itself), many different belief systems that fall within the purview of paganism. All originated in the pits of Hell.

From a Christian viewpoint, pagans are generally identified as those who are ensnared by religious ceremonies, acts, or practices that are not distinctly Christian. Both Jews and Muslims, also, use the term "pagans" to describe those outside their particular brand, even within their own religion. Others define the term paganism as any religion outside of Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity; whereas some argue that a pagan is anyone with no religion at all.

Pagan comes from the Latin word paganus, meaning “country dweller”; paganism can refer to polytheism (the worship of many gods), as in ancient Rome, or within modern Hinduism. A pagan is also considered to be one who, for the most part, has no religious ethics, rather indulging in hedonism: worldly delights and material possessions; someone who revels in sensual pleasures; a self-indulgent individual. Another, more modern term is neo-paganism, referring to the updated contemporary forms of paganism, or more specifically, witchcraft, known as Wicca, Druidry, and Gwyddon.

These modern “pagan” practices are actually similar to their ancient counterparts in that they rely heavily on hedonism—sensual gratification and self-indulgence and the pursuit of happiness and pleasure to the exclusion of everything else. In ancient times, sexual ceremonies were a major part of pagan religions. The Old Testament references these perverted religions in such passages as Deuteronomy 23:17, Amos 2:7–8, and Isaiah 57:7–8.

Though they are numerous and varied in their practices and beliefs, pagans do hold to some similar beliefs. For example:

• The physical world is a good place, not fallen, but one from which pleasure is to be universally derived.
• Everyone is considered to be part of this Mother Earth, i.e., one with the earth, personified as Gaia.
• Divinity reveals itself to be embedded in every facet of the world "All is One, One is All."
• Every fish, man, and animal, river, stone and mountain, are gods and goddesses, all are derivatives of the Divine.
• Most pagan religions do not have gurus or messiahs, as they are unneeded, all are divine.
• Doctrine is superseded by one’s own responsibility, one's own "inner light" of divinity.
• Solar and lunar cycles are observances to be celebrated in pagan worship of the creation, rather than the Creator.

Any form of paganism is false doctrine. Paul addressed this perversion of the truth in his letter to the believers in Rome (Romans 1:22–27). The people Paul described were worldly and materialistic, worshiping created things rather than the Creator. They worshiped trees, animals, and rocks, going so far as to abuse their bodies in deviant sexual practices to revel in their passions. Paul then goes on to tell us why they did this and the end result:

“Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done” (Romans 1:28).

In spite of common assumptions, most pagan worshipers claim they don’t believe in Satan. However, there’s no question that Satan is their chief source of influence and control. Though they will deny it, they deify him in their worldly and sensual practices. Paul tells us plainly how Satan works in the lives of people without God, through his power, his signs, his deceit, and his lies:

“The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness” (2nd Thessalonians 2:9–12).

That Satan is alive and well is powerfully evidenced in these ever more popular pagan practices. This was not only true in the times of the first-century church, but increasingly so in today’s postmodern world. To the faithful Christian believers who know and trust the Lord Jesus Christ, pagan worship is just as it appears — the power and deceit of the prince of this world, Satan (1st John 5:19), who “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1st Peter 5:8).
Paganism is a Satanically designed, deceptive weapon of personal destruction to be avoided and refuted, whatever the cost.


Henry Morris Apologetic Study Bible
https://pantheism.net › earth
https://www.gotquestions.org
www.abuddhistlibrary.com

Michael Rich Loc: Lapine Oregon

Are you trying to say that the laws and ordinances given at Mt Sinai are pagan in any way?

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

Michael, get a clue, I am not "trying" to say anything! I am not only capable of saying exactly what I mean, I "religiously" make it a practice of saying exactly what I mean!

I would, however, be very interested in knowing exactly what, in your words "laws and ordinances" you believe were given by God to Moses at Mt. Sinai - because, there again, I don't believe you have even a teeny clue.

Michael Rich Loc: Lapine Oregon

You've never read the "Whole Exodus Story" (every single word?) Wow!

Have you never read how Moses went up to get instructions from God?two times

The second time Moses had to chisel the 10 main commandments himself.

How silly can you get?

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

Silly is as silly does, Richard.

By the "whole Exodus Story," I must assume you are referring to the biblical book of Exodus, which I have read.

From a self-professed idolator of all things Hebrew, yours is a most uninformed response. It isn't the chiseled ten commandments or the biblical book of Exodus that should concern you.

It is the biblically unsubstantiated Rabbinical claim of modern Judaism that God gave Moses an "Oral Torah" on Mt. Sinai (in addition to the Ten Commandments), unknown, unseen and unauthorized wearisome regulations which they claimed to have preserved mentally for centuries, as they compiled ever more tedious rabbinical rules and regulations, a burden which they imposed upon the Jewish people, insisting they were equally as binding as the written five books of Moses, the written Torah.

What do you think Jesus meant when He said in Mark 7:13, "Thus you make the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down"?

Finally, after rejecting Jesus, their prophesied Messiah, in the 1st century A.D., having the bit in their teeth, and with no intention of relinquishing their temporal power, to anyone else, the Rabbis took it upon themselves in the 2nd century to begin recording all these improvised oral rulings into writing, completing the Jerusalem Talmud, in 350 A.D. a full 1,600 years after Moses was at Mt. Sinai, and in a second longer composition, the Babylonian Talmud completed in 500 A.D.

The Talmud adds a vast number of commandments to the commands of the Torah. What does the Torah mean when it (Ex. 20:10) forbids "work" on the Sabbath? What work is forbidden and what is not? On the basis of explaining what ‘work’ is in relation to the Sabbath, the Talmud has divided work up into 39 classes of work.

There are up to 1,500 laws on the Sabbath alone, comprising over 300 pages of difficult and complex reasoning in the Talmud, all supposedly through instructions received by Moses orally on Mt. Sinai. Since very few people have either the time or inclination to read all of this material, they must rely on the Rabbis to rule on what is or is not permissible on the Sabbath. Regulations applying to modern life forbid switching on light or any electrical appliance, using public transport, driving a car, pressing button on pedestrian crossing, kind of hair brush to avoid inadvertently pulling out a hair, pushing a wheeled chair outside the home on the Sabbath, food you can eat in a refrigerator if you open it and the internal light comes on, etc., on and on.

These unbiblical, uninspired traditions of Rabbinical rulings have constituted the inner workings of Rabbinical Judaism, ever since Biblical Judaism ended as the Holy Spirit left the Jerusalem Temple at the moment of Jesus' death on Calvary's cross in the 1st century.

This is the Rabbinical justification: Rabbi Kaplan, greatly in error, claims that "The Written Torah cannot be understood without the oral tradition. Hence, if anything, the Oral Torah is the more important of the two. Since the Written Torah (Five books of Moses) appears largely defective unless supplemented by the oral tradition, a denial of the Oral Torah necessarily leads to the denial of the divine origin of the written text as well." http://www.aish.com/jl/b/ol/48943186.html

The Rabbis base their claim to God's authority, to teach their oral law as binding, upon one verse of Scripture, although the verse itself dispels their claim as spurious.

Exodus 24:12 "The Lord said to Moses, 'Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.'"

All laws which were derived either from scripture or logic were formally accepted by the Sanhedrin. They then became part of the supposed "Oral Torah" tradition, and were transmitted from generation to generation until written down in the Talmuds.

The Talmud (Rabbinical commentary) goes so far as to claim that God made His covenant with Israel on the basis of the Written Law and the "Oral Law:" "The Holy One, Blessed be He, did not make His covenant with Israel except by virtue of the Oral Law." Gittin 60B.

If this is the case we would expect to find reference to this fact in the written Torah (Five books of Moses). So does the Tanakh (Old Testament) give evidence of the existence of an Oral Torah which was in existence from the time of Moses and was used to interpret the Written Torah throughout the history of Israel recorded in the Bible?

If we examine the text we find that there are a number of passages in the Tanakh which speak of the words which were written and read to Israel, but none about passages which were unwritten. Consider the following:

‘And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord. … Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in hearing of the people. And they said, ‘All that the Lord has said we will do and be obedient.’ Exodus 24.4, 7.

‘Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Write these words for according to the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.’ Exodus 34.27.

The Book of Leviticus concludes with this verse: ‘These are the commandments which the LORD commanded Moses for the children of Israel on Mount Sinai.’ Leviticus 27.34. This refers to the written words found in the book, not any unwritten commands.

At the end of the book of Deuteronomy we read about Moses writing the words of the law and putting it in the Ark of the Covenant, but we find nothing about an Oral Torah. ‘So it was when Moses had completed writing the words of this law in a book when they were finished that Moses commanded the Levites who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord saying, ‘Take this Book of the Law and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God that it may be a witness against you.’ Deuteronomy 31.24-26.

Joshua was told to meditate on the written book of the law: ‘This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate upon it day and night that you may observe to do all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success.’ Joshua 1.8

The Book of Joshua goes on to tell us that Joshua (to whom Moses supposedly communicated the unwritten oral Torah) possessed a written word, which he read to the people of Israel as they entered the Land. This written word contained all that Moses had passed down: “And afterward he (Joshua) read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners who lived among them.” (Josh 8:34-35)

If Joshua read all the words of the law and did not leave out a word of all that Moses commanded, where does that leave the Oral Torah? None of these verses in the books of the Torah or in the book of Joshua speak of an unwritten Oral Torah, which supposedly preceded the written Torah, given by God at Mount Sinai.

Over and over we read in the Tanakh (Old Testament) about what is written in the Law of Moses. The Written Law was the basis of God’s covenant with Israel. Obedience to the commands contained in the law brought God’s blessing on Israel, disobedience brought His judgement. The following verses in the Tanakh bear witness to this: Exodus 24.4-12, Leviticus 26.46, Numbers 36.13, Deuteronomy 17.18-20, 27.2-26, 28.52-62, 29.20-29, 30.8-10, 31.9-13, 24-26, Joshua 1.7-8, 8.31-35, 23.6, 1 Kings 2.1-4, 2 Kings 22.13-16, 23.2-3, 21-25, 1 Chronicles 16.39-40, 2 Chronicles 23.18, 30.5-16, 31.3, 35.12, Ezra 7.1-10, Nehemiah 8.1-18, 10.28-29, Daniel 9.3-13. In not one of these passages and nowhere else in the Bible is there any mention of an Oral Torah.

When the exiles returned from Babylon to Judea, Ezra realized the importance of keeping the commands of the written Torah (five books of Moses). So he read the Torah to them in order to instruct them in the ways of the Torah so that they would keep its commands:

‘Now all the people gathered together as one man in the open square that was in front of the Water Gate; and they told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses, which the LORD had commanded Israel. So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly of men and women and all who could hear with understanding on the first day of the seventh month. Then he read from it in the open square that was in front of the Water Gate from morning until midday, before the men and women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law.’

He was helped by those who explained the Torah to the people. ‘The Levites, helped the people to understand the Law; and the people stood in their place. So they read distinctly from the book, in the Law of God; and they gave the sense, and helped them to understand the reading.’

The reading was completed in eight days: ‘Also day by day, from the first day until the last day, he read from the Book of the Law of God. And they kept the feast seven days; and on the eighth day there was a sacred assembly, according to the prescribed manner.’ There is no mention here of reading or reciting the Oral Torah. If he simply read the words of the Torah with some instruction being given alongside the reading, this exercise could easily have been completed in eight days. If he had given them the Oral Law which in its Talmudic written form is an immense library of books, eight months or eight years would probably have not been long enough.

Dr Dan Grubner has written: "According to the Torah it is the Written Law that comprised God’s covenant with Israel. It is the Written Law that is the guide to proper governance, and the standard by which those who govern will be judged. It is disobedience to the written law that will bring judgement and exile. It is obedience to the written law that will bring restoration. It is the Written Law that is to be taught to future generations. There is no mention of the Oral Law. … If there was an Oral Law given to Moses, Moses never mentioned it, nor did Joshua, Ezra or any other person in the Bible. If it existed it was not part of God’s covenant with Israel. Nor was it relevant to the blessing or judgement of God. No prophet, priest or king either mentions it or demonstrates any concern to know it or obey it. It was not relevant to the governance or required worship of Israel. Nor did it play any part in the instruction of the people or their children. In other words on the basis of what is recorded in the Tanakh (Old Testament), there was no Oral Law given by God to Moses at Sinai."

For a full list of references in the Tanakh to the written Torah and an absence of references to the Oral Torah go to the article ‘Tanakh and the Oral Torah’ at http://www.elijahnet.net/

Yet, contemporary Rabbinical Judaism very firmly hangs their hat on this "Oral Torah," which they created and entrenched in their Talmud, for having rejected their Messiah, they have nothing else.

For this, Michael, you would forsake Jesus Christ, the Jewish Messiah, the King of Glory?

Michael Rich Loc: Lapine Oregon

The Exodus is covered in more than its namesake book.

Peewee Loc: San Antonio, TX

She quoted 11 other books besides Exodus in one paragraph. You didn't quote any except, Exodus.

You also didn't mention Yeshuah means salvation. And that was Jesus's name in Hebrew. A big pretty big clue. And it's in both the Old and New Testaments many times. David even describes the crucifixion in detail and the spear in the side, in Pslams, long before that method of punishment was ever invented. Which was probably thought of by anyone reading about David's son, Absolom's death when found hanging from a tree by his hair and killed. Which is probably where cursed is the man hung on a tree, came from originally. It sounds like something Satan, Baal, or Baphomet the bisexual with a goat head, would think of. Pope Francis put a statue of him at the entrance to the Colosseum in Rome. The symbolism does seem to be their downfall. In poker that's called a tell.

Michael Rich Loc: Lapine Oregon

The piercing the side was a later mistranslation of the Hebrew scriptures.

That's an area that most all Christians can't or just won't accept the fact that that Hebrew scriptures were tampered with to match the pagan theme of a man dying for their sins.

The Greek religion bible was worked on, lied about and make believe prophecies.

Some things match, but the Greek religion is like a poison pie with just enough poison to make it deadly..

It removes the worship of God Almighty and places only on Jesus.

I believe that most Christians are very decent people with well meaning.

They just won't examine their religious beliefs and the origin of it customs.

God the Almighty Father is not a God that would allow Himself to be honored with paganism as the way.

I used to be a bible thumping Christian, myself.

My friend Rose mistakenly says that "I never was", but I was, and was very bitter when I discovered that I had accepted my religion too easily because when I was born, my parents were already attending a very conservative Christian church.

I believe that a good portion of Christians have somewhat blind faith without ever testing their religion for an actual match to the Hebrew.

Judaism and Christianity are two different religions with different sacred days.

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

Did Christianity copy its core doctrines from Pagan myths?

Dr. Mettinger (a Swedish professor at Lund University) has written the most comprehensive account of the dying and rising god motif. “There is now what amounts to a scholarly consensus against the appropriateness of the concept [of dying and rising gods]. Those who still think differently are looked upon as residual members of an almost extinct species… Major scholars in the fields of comparative religion and the Bible find the idea of dying and rising deities suspect or untenable.” For instance, Jonathan Z. Smith (historian from the University of Chicago) writes, “All the deities that have been identified as belonging to the class of dying and rising deities can be subsumed under the two larger classes of disappearing deities or dying deities. In the first case, the deities return but have not died; in the second case, the gods die but do not return.”

Skeptic Matt Dillahunty (of Atheist Experience) writes, “The first third of the film (Zeitgeist) is an unscholarly, sophomoric, horribly flawed, over-simplification that tries to portray Christianity as nothing more than the next incarnation of the astrologically themed religions that preceded it. Like all conspiracy theories, they combine a few facts, focus on correlations and build an intriguing story that seems to fit the pieces together nicely—provided you don’t actually dig below the surface to find out where they might have gone wrong.”

Regarding the Cross and Atonement, atheistic critical scholar Bart Ehrman writes, “Where do any of the ancient sources speak of a divine man who was crucified as an atonement for sin? So far as I know, there are no parallels to the central Christian claim. What has been invented here is not the Christian Jesus but the mythicist claims about Jesus… The majority of scholars agree… there is no unambiguous evidence that any pagans prior to Christianity believed in dying and rising gods.” He adds, “None of this literature is written by scholars trained in the New Testament.”

No causal influence
Even if the myth of parallels between paganism and Christianity were true (which they are not), the skeptic would need to show that these myths had an influence on Christianity in some way. Yet Christian philosopher Mark Foreman writes, “There is no evidence of pagan mystery religions existing in Palestine in the first century… Judaism was an extremely exclusive monotheistic religion and would not have tolerated the syncretism of the mystery religions. Christianity was even more exclusivistic and has often been referred to as the ‘anti-mystery’ religion.”Likewise, atheistic critic Bart Ehrman writes, “Anyone who thinks that Jesus was modeled on such deities needs to cite some evidence—any evidence at all—that Jews in Palestine at the alleged time of Jesus’s life were influenced by anyone who held such views.”

Foreman offers a thought-experiment of living 2,000 years in the future. A handful of documents exist to attest to the American presidents JFK and Abraham Lincoln. David E. Anderson gives several parallels between the two.

Both Lincoln and Kennedy were elected to Congress in ‘46 (1846 in Lincoln’s case, 1946 in Kennedy’s). Both became President in ‘60.
Both had been skippers on boats (Lincoln on the Mississippi river boat ‘Talisman’ and Kennedy on the PT-109)
Both were the second sons in their families. Each lost a sister to death before becoming President. Both married 24-year-old brunettes who had been previously engaged to other men, and who spoke French fluently.
Both had a child die while living in the White House.
Both were related to U.S. Senators, U.S. Attorney Generals who graduated from Harvard, and ambassadors to the Court of St. James.
Both were slain on a Friday before a major Holiday (Lincoln on the Friday before Easter, Kennedy on the Friday before Thanksgiving). Both were shot while sitting next to their wives and in the presence of another couple. Of the other couple, the man was also wounded by the assassin, but neither wife was wounded.
Both were shot from behind and in the head. Both of their wives cradled their husband’s heads after they were shot.
Lincoln was shot while inside the Ford theater, in box 7. Kennedy was shot while inside a Ford automobile, in car 7 in the motorcade.
Both were pronounced dead in places with the initials P.H. (Lincoln in the Peterson House, and Kennedy in Parkland Hospital)
Both of their assassins escaped, and were killed before going to trial.
Both of their assassins were privates in the military. Each was detained after the shooting by a policeman named Baker. Both were eventually killed by a Colt revolver.
Both Lincoln and Kennedy were succeeded by southern ex-senators named Johnson who were born in ‘08. Both Johnsons were in their mid-fifties when they took the office and both suffered from urethral stones (the only presidents to have them). Both Johnsons could have run for re-election in ‘68, but chose not to.

Do these parallels invalidate the existence of John F. Kennedy? Of course not! In order to argue this, we would need to show that one caused or influenced the other. In the same way, even if Christian parallels existed with pagan mythology, the skeptic would need to show how these caused the Christian beliefs.

The pagan worldview despised the concept of resurrection
Neo-Platonism largely influenced Pagan thinking about the resurrection of the body. In the neo-Platonic worldview, the material world was considered evil and repugnant, while the immaterial world was considered pure and enlightened. When someone died, their immaterial and pure soul escaped from the prison of the body on a one-way street to the afterlife. Neo-Platonists were offended by the notion of a physical resurrection, because this meant that the evil and disgusting body would be reanimated after death. Nothing could be more offensive to a Pagan thinker.

The Greeks considered the message of the gospel “foolishness” (1 Cor. 1:23). (The Greek term is morian is the root from which we get our term “moronic.”) Likewise, in Paul’s speech at Mars Hill, the Greek thinkers respectfully listened to Paul’s case for Christianity until he came to the evidence for the resurrection. Then we read, “Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer” (Acts 17:32). Historian N.T. Wright explains, “This same sort of denial of bodily resurrection is also there in Homer, Plato, and Pliny, and it is there consistently through a thousand years of paganism, up to and through the time of Jesus.”

Where did this “copycat” interpretation originate?
The History of Religions School (German Religionsgeschichtliche Schule) was a collection of German theologians from the University of Göttingen in the 1890s. This school of thought sought to interpret Jesus through the lens of paganism, rather than Judaism. For instance, Richard Reitzenstein (one of the major proponent of this school) published this subject in his 1910 book Hellenistic Mystery Religions. Instead of understanding Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, these scholars interpreted him as pagan.

Yet the NT explains that Jesus:
was the ancestor of David and Abraham (Mt. 1:1), from the tribe of Judah (Heb. 7:14), and circumcised on the “eighth day” (Lk. 1:59).
had a regular “custom” of going to synagogue (Lk. 4:16), and taught in the Jewish Temple (Lk. 21:37).
found celebrating Hanukkah (Jn. 10:22) and Passover (Jn. 2:13).
was called a “rabbi” by his disciples (Jn. 4:31), Nicodemus (Jn. 3:2), Mary (Jn. 20:16), and the crowds (Jn. 6:25).
was called “the King of the Jews” (Mt. 2:2; 27:11), said “salvation is from the Jews” (Jn. 4:22), and was quickly recognized as Jewish by the woman at the well (Jn. 4:9).
spoke to Paul “in Hebrew” (Acts 26:14)—even though Paul understood Greek (Acts 21:37).
believed in the entirety of the Hebrew law (Mt. 5:17).

How could these scholars ever conclude that Jesus was pagan, rather than Jewish? How could they misunderstand such a clear interpretive grid like this? Of course, we would be naïve to think that the rampant anti-Semitism in Germany had nothing to do with this entire school of thought! Sadly, skeptics today have bought into this same exact method of interpretation.

Differences between Christ’s resurrection and pagan resurrection
When we do find apparent cases of “dying and rising” gods in Pagan mythology, these always mimic the seasons of the spring and fall harvest. The Pagan cults would perform plays each year to bring in the spring harvest and yearly cycle of the seasons. These were not based in history, nor did they deal with physical resurrection. Mettinger (of Lund University) writes, “The gods that die and rise have close ties to the seasonal cycle of plant life.” Wright explains,

Did any worshipper in these cults… think that actual human beings, having died, actually came back to life? Of course not. These multifarious and sophisticated cults enacted the god’s death and resurrection as a metaphor, whose concrete referent was the cycle of seed-time and harvest, of human reproduction and fertility.[13]

Even James Frazer (the popularizer of this “copycat” view) writes, “Under the names of Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, and Attis, the peoples of Egypt and Western Asia represented the yearly decay and revival of life, especially of vegetable life, which they personified as a god who annually died and rose again from the dead.” There is a big difference between a person dying and coming back to life and the gods “dying” in the fall and “resurrecting” in the spring each year. These weren’t literal reports of corpses coming back to life; they were metaphors for the yearly crop cycle.

Mettinger gives three key differences between the Christian view of resurrection and the pagan myths:

(1) “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).”

(2) “The dying and rising gods were closely related to the seasonal cycle. Their death and return were seen as reflected in the changes of plant life. Their death and return were seen as reflected in the changes of plant life. The death and resurrection of Jesus is a one-time event, not repeated, and unrelated to seasonal changes.”

(3) “The death of Jesus is presented in the sources as vicarious suffering, as an act of atonement for sins… There is no evidence for the death of the dying and rising gods as vicarious suffering for sins.”

Mettinger concludes his book: “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 myths and rites of the dying and rising gods of the surrounding world. While studied with profit against the background of Jewish resurrection belief, the faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus retains its unique character in the history of religions. The riddle remains.”

What about Justin Martyr?
Atheistic websites often quote Justin Martyr (a second century Christian apologist) as comparing Jesus’ death and resurrection with Pagan gods that predate him. Martyr wrote, “And when we say also that [Jesus]… was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Zeus.”

This passage from Justin Martyr appears to claim that Pagans believed in Christian doctrines like resurrection. However, if you read the context of Martyr’s 21st chapter, you will see that he was actually comparing the fact that the Pagan gods had sons with the Christian God having a son. Martyr couldn’t be comparing the fact that Zeus died and rose from the dead, because Zeus never died! In fact, later in chapter 55, Martyr points out that none of these gods were crucified like Jesus. In chapters 22 through 29, he argues for the superiority of Jesus over these myths. Martyr believed that there were some similarities between Christianity and Paganism, but he thought that these could be accounted for by demons misinterpreting Old Testament prophecy regarding Jesus. Of course, these speculations were flat wrong, but at least we have seen that his writing doesn’t support antecedent beliefs in Pagan resurrection.

Poor pagan parallels
Let’s consider several of the proposed examples of “copycat” doctrines from pagan mythology.
Horus was the patron god of Egypt, and the son of Isis and Osiris.
Horus was not crucified. He died by a snake poisoning him in the Delta Swamps, causing his death. In some accounts, he is merely poisoned, but not dead.
Horus did not have 12 disciples. Edward Winston (of the Skeptic Project) writes, “Horus did not have 12 disciples, rather he had four semi-divine disciples… One can also find reference to an unnumbered group of followers called the Mesniu (blacksmiths) who accompanied Horus into some of his battles, but no where can 12 of anything be found.”

Horus was not born of a virgin. His mother (Isis) and father (Osiris) were married. Isis copulated with Osiris’ dead body to produce Horus. In Plutarch’s later account (2nd century AD), we read that Isis and Osiris had a prenatal incestuous relationship: “Isis and Osiris were enamoured of each other and consorted together in the darkness of the womb before their birth. Some say that Arueris came from this union and was called the elder Horus by the Egyptians, but Apollo by the Greeks.”

Attis was a Greek deity, who was worshipped as the god of vegetation.
He was not born of a virgin. Foreman writes, “Attis is conceived when Zeus spilled his seed on the side of the mountain which eventually became a pomegranate tree.” Winston (of the Skeptic Project) writes, “Attis was not necessarily born of a virgin (because it does not say whether or not his mother is a virgin), in fact Attis was born of Nana after she ate the fruit of an almond tree which had been grown from the blood of either Agdistis or Cybele.”
Attis was not resurrected.
Attis was not crucified. Jan Bremmer (associate professor at the University of Utrecht) writes, “Attis cut off [his] sexual organs.” Thus Attis died by castration—not crucifixion. Other traditions claim he was “killed by a boar.”

The continuation of additional information follows.

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

Adonis
He comes from Greek mythology, thought to be incredibly beautiful and the favorite of the goddess Aphrodite.

Adonis was not crucified. He was gored by a wild boar.

Adonis was not born of a virgin. Instead, his mother Myrrha slept with her father twelve times. The gods turned her into the “myrrh-tree.” In The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology, Robin Hard writes, “After the usual time of gestation for a human child, the bark of the tree broke open and Adonis was brought to birth.”

Adonis was not resurrected. Walter Burket (a professor of classics at the University of Zurich) writes, “The evidence of resurrection is late and tenuous in the case of Adonis.” Sappho (7th century BC) wrote a poem about Adonis, containing his death, but not his resurrection. Lucian of Samosata (2nd century AD) writes,

They assert that the legend about Adonis and the wild boar is true, and that the facts occurred in their country, and in memory of this calamity they beat their breasts and wail every year, and perform their secret ritual amid signs of mourning through the whole countryside. When they have finished their mourning and wailing, they sacrifice in the first place to Adonis, as to one who has departed this life: after this they allege that he is alive again, and exhibit his effigy to the sky. They proceed to shave their heads, too, like the Egyptians on the loss of their Apis.

Lucian goes on to say that “a human head comes every year from Egypt to Byblos, floating on its seven days’ journey.” He also notes that the River Adonis is stained with blood “every year” to commemorate Adonis’ death once again. Theocritus (a 3rd century AD poet) explains that Adonis is revived once a year at the turn of the seasons. As you can see, Adonis’ “resurrected” coincided with the seasonal cycles—not resurrection from the dead in the biblical sense.

Krishna
He is one of the most venerated Hindu deities, thought to be the eighth avatar of Vishnu.

Krishna’s birth was not signaled by a star from the East. Edward Winston (of the Skeptic Project) writes, “There is no mention of a star in the east signaling his birth in the literature, [and] was not resurrected upon his death.”

Krishna’s name is not similar to “Christ.” While Krishna and Christ may sound phonetically similar, their names mean entirely different things. Krishna means, “Dark one” while Christ means, “Anointed One.” In our language they have similar transliterations, but these were completely different to the native speakers.

Krishna was not born of a virgin. Foreman writes, “Devaki, the mother of Krishna, had seven children before Krishna.” Edward Winston (of the Skeptic Project) writes, “Krishna was of the royal family of Mathura, and was the eighth son born to the princess Devaki, and her husband Vasudeva.”

Krishna was not crucified. The Encyclopedia Britannica states, “As the god sat in the forest lamenting, a huntsman, mistaking him for a deer, shot him in his one vulnerable spot, the heel, killing him.” The Mahabharata reads, “A fierce hunter of the name of Jara then came there, desirous of deer. The hunter, mistaking [Krishna], who was stretched on the earth in high Yoga, for a deer, pierced him at the heel with a shaft and quickly came to that spot for capturing his prey. Coming up, Jara beheld a man dressed in yellow robes, rapt in Yoga and endued with many arms. Regarding himself an offender, and filled with fear, he touched the feet of [Krishna]. The high-souled one comforted him and then ascended upwards, filling the entire welkin with splendor.”

Dionysus
This Greek god is also called Bacchus, the son of Zeus and Semele, who was worshiped as the god of wine and ecstasy.

Dionysus was not crucified. Some skeptics claim that Dionysus was crucified because of an amulet that was found, depicting his crucifixion. There are at least two problems with this view: The image of this amulet is a drawing—not an actual photograph. The drawing used is itself a drawing of a previous drawing. The amulet itself was said to be lost during WW II. Robert Eisler (a critical scholar) has the drawing in his book Orpheus—the Fisher. He writes that A. Becker reproduced the drawing from plaster impressions of the Hematite seal-cylinder, which itself was an artistic rendition of the original amulet.

The amulet dates several centuries after Jesus of Nazareth. Eisler writes, “The ring-stone, which certainly belonged to an Orphic initiate, who had turned Christian without giving up completely his old religious beliefs, is attributed to the 3rd or the 4th century A.D. It cannot be much earlier in any case considering the late introduction of the crucifixus type into Christian art.”

Dionysus was not born of a virgin. Ovid—the first century AD Roman poet—writes, “The infant Bacchus, still unfinished, is torn from the mother’s womb, and (if it can be believed) is sewn into his father’s thigh to complete his full term.”

Dionysus was not born of an ordinary human woman. Semele (Dionysus’ mother) was Poseidon’s great-granddaughter, who was the great god of the sea.

Dionysus turned water into wine, but the earliest source is after Christ. The earliest primary source is Achilles Tatius, “The Adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon” which dates to the second century AD.

Dionysus was not resurrected. Dionysus was dismembered, eaten, and then sewn into the thigh of Zeus, where he was reborn from Zeus thigh. The comparison here doesn’t at all seem to square with the story of Jesus, and the similarities are vaguely connected at best. Edward Winston (of the Skeptic Project) writes, “Dionysus died each winter and was resurrected in the spring.”

Mithras
He was an ancient Indo-Iranian god of light. The belief in Mithras lasted until the fourth century AD with the Roman emperors Commodus, Julian, and Diocletian.

Mithraism is incredibly difficult to study. Mary Jo Sharp writes, “There are no substantive accounts of Mithras’s story, but rather a pieced-together story from inscriptions, depictions, and surviving Mithraea (man-made caverns of worship).”Much of this “mystery religion” is only known from sculptures.

Mithras did not die for human sin. Instead, in the Roman system of Mithras, he sacrificed a bull. No theological significance is given to this act. Manfred Clauss writes, “We possess virtually no theological statements either by Mithraists themselves or by other writers.” In his book on the subject Hellenistic Mystery Religions (1978), Richard Reitzenstein held that the sacrificing of the bull was similar to the Christian view of the atonement. Yet Christian scholar Edwin Yamauchi writes, “He thought the sacrifice of Christ aligned itself with the killing of a bull by Mithras. Carsten Colpe and others severely criticized the anachronistic use of sources by these scholars.”

Mithras was not born of a virgin. Maarten Jozef Vermaseren (an expert in Mithraic studies at the University of Utrecht) writes, “Neither in the Western world did the authors conceive Mithras as a child procreated from a father or born from a woman or even from a virgin. Both classical literature and inscriptions declare that the god was born from a rock or a stone.”

Mithras did not have 12 disciples. Edward Winston (of the Skeptic Project) writes, “There is absolutely no evidence anywhere that he had 12 disciples or 12 of anything for that matter—no Mithraist scholars seem to know about it.”

Mithras was not resurrected. Edward Winston (of the Skeptic Project) writes, “There is no evidence of a resurrection or that Mithra has ever died. Roman Mithraic evidence dates to at least a century after the time of the New Testament.” Even critical scholar Bart Ehrman writes, “We do not have Mithraic texts that explain it all to us, let alone texts that indicate that Mithras was born of a virgin on December 25 and that he died to atone for sins only to be raised on a Sunday.”

Osiris
He was one of the most important deities of ancient Egypt. He was the god of fertility and the dead. The earliest full account of Osiris comes from Plutarch (“Concerning Isis and Osiris”), which dates to the second century AD. In the account, Osiris’ brother (Set) buries him a sarcophagus, drowning in the Nile River. Set dismembers Osiris’ dead body “into anything from fourteen to forty-two parts.” He goes on to rule in the kingdom of the dead.

Osiris was not resurrected. As argued above, he lived after death in the Egyptian Netherworld—not on Earth. Walter Burket (a professor of classics at the University of Zurich) writes, “Not even Osiris returns to life, but instead attains transcendent life beyond death.”

Conclusion

Some skeptics spout that Christianity was copied from paganism. Yet when we survey the evidence, we discover that this is surely not the case.

This conspiracy theory is:
(1) highly criticized by other atheists and skeptics of Christianity;
(2) not supported by primary documents from paganism;
(3) offers no causal explanation for the disciples’ beliefs about the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth;
(4) doesn’t fit with the neo-Platonic rejection of resurrection; and
(5) is based on an anti-Semitic interpretive school that has been dead for the last century in New Testament studies.

The notion that Christianity copied from pagan myths turns out to be a myth itself.

Resources
Foreman, Mark. “Chapter 11: Challenging the Zeitgeist Movie: Parallelomania on Steroids.” Copan, Paul, and William Lane. Craig. Come Let Us Reason: New Essays in Christian Apologetics. Nashville, TN: B & H Academic, 2012.

Mettinger, Tryggve N.D. The Riddle of Resurrection: “Dying and Rising God’s” in the Ancient Near East. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2001.

Nash, Ronald H. The Gospel and the Greeks: Did the New Testament Borrow from Pagan Thought? Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Pub., 2003.

Sharp, Mary Jo. “Chapter 10: Does the Story of Jesus Mimic Pagan Mystery Stories?” Copan, Paul, and William Lane. Craig. Come Let Us Reason: New Essays in Christian Apologetics. Nashville, TN: B & H Academic, 2012.
Smith, Jonathan Z. Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (1990), University of Chicago Press. 1994.

Strobel, Lee. The Case for the Real Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. 2007.
Lee Strobel was the award-winning legal editor of The Chicago Tribune and is the bestselling author of The Case for Christ, The Case for Faith, The Case for a Creator, and The Case for Grace.With a journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a Master of Studies in Law degree from Yale, Lee has won four Gold Medallions for publishing excellence and coauthored the Christian Book of the Year.

Michael Rich Loc: Lapine Oregon

This opinion piece has altered the facts.

There are many similarities and outright copies of paganism that the Catholic church instituted and most all protestants hold those days, customs and traditions as sacred in their churches.

Sunday as the day of congregating and worship is a blatantly obvious one.

Easter and Christmas are two more that there origins are easily found by the honest student of Christiandom.

Rose42

Nice summation.

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

Thank you, Rose.

I don't believe anyone who has ever seriously studied the Christianity God has revealed in the Bible, the authentic Christianity that was "handed down once for all to the saints" (Jude 3) believes it to be of pagan origin.

IF anyone compares the Christianity "that is written" with pagan religions, with a heart that seeks God, the Holy Spirit will guide them to the truth of God's word.

Michael Rich Loc: Lapine Oregon

If this is just your opinion...well, you know the rest..Yoni....your friend Richard.

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

Michael, "Yoni" the Sanskrit word for female genitalia, is the word with which you have chosen to close your post on my thread addressing paganism?

Source: Google Books: Essentials of Ayurveda
The Yoni (योनि, “female genital tract”, Vagina)

In Romans 1:28-32, God, in His holy word, has expressed His opinion of the person who exhibits the behavior you now display:

"Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful.
They invent new forms of evil; they disobey their parents.
They are senseless, faithless, heartless, merciless.
Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things are worthy of death, they not only continue to do these things, but also approve of those who practice them."