Pagan Resurrection Myths

Was Jesus Resurrection Made Up?

Noah Myers

Resurrection of Jesus

August 5, 2017

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One of the more popular theories to explain away the Resurrection of Jesus is the Christ

Myth View. It argues that Jesus never existed, not simply that He was not divine, but that there is

no actual historical person called Jesus. One of the ways Jesus Mythists try to argue their case is

saying Jesus resurrection was based off Pagan myths. Popularized today by a documentary called

“Zeitgeist” from Peter Joseph, the origin of the theory is nothing new, dating back to at least to

1890 from a book by James Frazer called “The Golden Bough: A Study on Comparative

Religion”, or Gerald Massey’s work called “Natural Genesis”.

Zeitgeist gives a long list of the supposed ‘parallels’ between Jesus and other pre-

Christian Pagan or mythic deities. For the sake of our paper we will only talk about the claimed

resurrection parallels. The myths that Zeitgeist claims have resurrection stories are, Horus, Attis,

Krishna, Dionysus, and Mithra. The claim within Zeitgeist, and other Jesus Mythist theories, is

that the stories about Jesus were based not on history, but an attempt to mimic these pagan

stories to gain popular acceptance. There are several problems with this theory.

First, it makes a grand assumption that because two stories sound similar that they must

both be false. There is no reason within logical argument that this can hold water. It is possible

that there exists a person from history that sounds very much like myths or stories we know to be

false, but still existed. If Jesus sounds a lot like myths that we know of, it does not in turn mean

that Jesus never existed. In order to prove that Jesus story is made up one must examine the

actual historical evidence for him; but many Jesus Mythists just present the parallels as if they

have closed the case already. They feel that if Jesus is similar enough to these ancient myths than

he also must be a myth. The logic simply does not work. I could not say that lumberjacks with

flannel and an axe do not exist because they parallel the myth of Paul Bunyan. In the same way

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Jesus could still be a real character even though he sounds like folk mythology, which we know

is not true.

To give a better example we could make a very strong case for Presidents Abraham

Lincoln and John F. Kennedy never existed. Notice some of the odd similarities that the

presidents shared: 1) Lincoln became a congressman in 1846, Kennedy in 1946. 2) Lincoln

became President in 1860, Kennedy in 1960. 3) Both served presidencies concerned with Civil

Rights 3) Both had a child die while in serving presidency. 4) Both were shot in the head. 5) the

assassins of each President was killed before they were brought to tria.l 6) Lincolns assassin was

born in 1839 Kennedy’s assassin was born in 1939. 7) Both were succeeded by a Johnson who

were born in 1908 and 1808 respectively. 8) Lincolns assassin shot him in a theater and was

caught in a warehouse (barn). 9) Kennedy’s assassin shot him from a warehouse and was caught

in a theater1. If we say that two stories sharing many similarities must be false then I have just

presented a case for Lincoln and Kennedy never existing! But of course, that is absurd, and so

the whole Christ Myth argument falls apart before we even examine the data. Stories being

similar in no way means that one or both stories must be false. All of that to say even if it turned

out that Jesus shared some strangely or even eerily similar characteristics or events with one of

these myths, it does nothing to prove that Jesus never existed or that his story is in any way false.

Another large problem with the Jesus Myth Theory is that it does not account for the

known character of the Jewish people of the time. Judaism had existed for over a thousand years

alongside the myths of Egypt, Canaan, Persia, Babylon, Greece, Rome and others and had never

once given in to their Polytheism or any other pagan doctrine. Judaism had proven itself to be

quite resistant to assimilate, or merge its culture with those around it, especially in regards to

religious doctrine. Peter Kreeft points out when speaking of the Jews from that time, “They were

1 http://www.snopes.com/history/american/lincoln-kennedy.asp

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already more “demythologized” than any other people. The orthodox Jews were adamantly, even

intolerantly, opposed to the polytheistic myths of paganism and to any attempts to reconcile their

religion with others. Nor would anyone be less likely to confuse myth and fact than a Jew” 2 So,

if Judaism had sustained itself so long without converging with the religions around it in what

had made this new shift after the time of Christ? Why assimilate now? What had changed? The

Jesus Mythist must provide an answer to these questions, and they do not.

Furthermore, many of the changes that Judaism went through by way of Christianity

moved it further from pagan doctrines. Animal sacrifice was no longer needed, something still

happening among the pagans. Abstaining from certain foods was rejected, something that would

have only been reinforced had Jesus come from the myth of Attis, or other myths since they

abstained from eating pig because Attis was killed by a boar. Similar dietary restrictions were

common among pagan religions but Christianity moved away from that rather than toward it.

Jesus Mythists give no explanation for why suddenly Jewish culture which had so

adamantly resisted giving into the culture around them suddenly caved. The idea that Jews were

wanting to gain popularity is unfounded, and frankly shows a lack of knowledge of Jewish

history, both before and after the time of Christ. Jews never were focused on proselytizing

though they were never afraid to share their faith and stand by it they were not focused on

bringing more and more people into Judaism. In fact, the Jews at the time of Christ were aloof to

the Samaritans and Gentiles in a way of trying to distance themselves rather than get close to or

assimilate with them.

As we dive into seeing if any of the Pagan narratives parallel Jesus resurrection story we

need to have a clear grasp on what characteristics would make a parallel. The most

2 Peter Kreeft, Ronald Tacilli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics, (Downer Groove, IL: Monarch Publications, 1995)

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common characteristics Jesus Mythists bring up seem to be a crucifixion as the mode of

killing, and being dead for three days. A few other characteristics are worthy of mention

that Mythists typically don’t bring up. Jesus died for a purpose, the greatest purpose of all

in fact, bringing salvation to all mankind. If Jesus is a parallel we should expect that the

Pagan myths that Jesus is based on, have the deity dying for some greater good of, and at

the very least a portion of mankind. Jesus was also wrongly accused when he was

brought to trial. So, we should expect in some way that parallels of Jesus should include

some sort of trial in which the deity is condemned to death for unjust reasons.

This is not to say that in order for a pagan myth to parallel Jesus they must share all these

characteristics, but it is hard to say that it is a parallel if it does not share a fair amount of them.

Musicians Patsy Cline, Buddy Holly, John Denver, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Lynyrd Skynard all

died in plan crashes, that is not enough to say their lives are parallels of each other. Death has

always been dreaded and feared by mankind, so it is very natural that any myth should have a

resurrection story. A deity that simply resurrected does not share enough commonality with Jesus

to be the story which Jesus is supposed to be based upon.

So, as we evaluate these myths we will specifically look for five characteristics: 1) Did

they resurrect? 2) Did they die by crucifixion? 3) Were they dead for three days? 4) Did they die

for a purpose or cause? and 5) Was an unjust trial connected to their death?

Osiris and Horus

Osiris and Horus are both Egyptian gods that different Jesus Mythists believe also have

resurrected from the dead or even were crucified. The first problem with this is that Egyptians

did not believe in resurrection in the same way that Jesus is believed to have risen from the dead.

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While Christians talk of Jesus rising from the dead in the same physical body that he was

crucified in and living on the same earth, clearly seen when he shows his hands and feet to

Thomas, the Ancient Egyptians believed in a life after death in a realm of the dead with new or

no bodies at all. Horus becomes alive again after death and rules over the dead, but he is no

longer in the same place as before, and by some narratives he has no body at all. In that sense

then Horus did not rise from the dead but is experiencing or even ruling in a life after death not a

resurrected life as it is with Jesus.

As for the specific stories of the Osiris and Horus rising from the dead there seems to be

little evidence to back up such a claim. Horus for instance is claimed to have even been crucified

according to Zeitgeist, but even Frazer says that Horus was killed by a scorpion and his

resurrection was brought out by his mother Isis pulling the venom from him thru the utterance of

a spell. As far as our other characteristics is no indication of Osiris being dead for three days,

dying for a cause, or an unjust trial.

With Osiris, we have a similar problem, in that again the narrative has no real

familiarities to that of Jesus death and resurrection. Osiris is murdered by another god, Set,

though the reasons vary this already puts Horus in a different category of death of Jesus, since

Osiris’ death has no foreseen purpose to mankind. Furthermore, according to Frazer and other

sources after Osiris dies he is chopped up into multiple pieces while in a coffin and then brought

back together by Isis, Horus, and Anubis but only in the sense that he rules over the dead in the

land of the dead. So though one might argue Horus has the same body he had when he died, he

does not live on earth again Jesus resurrection. Again, there is no information to declare that

Horus was resurrected in three days, no purpose in his death, and no trial.

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Finally, it should be noted that Horus is believed to be a manifestation of Osiris which

though one might try to construe as a parallel to the trinity would be a clear misunderstanding of

what the trinity is falling under the heresy of Modalism which was condemned by the first

conference of Constantinople in 381 AD3.

Overall we can probably give Horus one out of five and Osiris a half out of five, making

neither a real parallel of Jesus since the only thing they somewhat share is a resurrection story.

Attis

Attis according to Jesus Mythists was crucified, was dead for three days and then rose

from the dead just like Jesus. Unfortunately, for the Jesus Mythists this description does not fit

what we know from sources we have about him. Frazer’s own recording of his death and

‘resurection’ is a clear stretch on the parallels of Jesus and Attis’ story. Frazer writes, “The story

of his death by the boar may have been told to explain why his worshippers, especially the

people of Pessinus, abstained from eating swine. In like manner the worshippers of Adonis

abstained from pork, because a boar had killed their god. After his death Attis is said to have

been changed into a pine-tree”4. So Attis was not crucified but killed by a boar, and he was not

resurrected, but instead turned into a tree. It’s hard to see any parallels to Jesus in this narrative,

and to call Attis ‘resurrected’ isn’t simply a play on words but really a flat out lie.

3 Greg Turon, “Council of Constantinople”, http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0426/_PA.HTM4

James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion Kindle Locations

7681-7683 (Enhanced Media Publishing, 2017) Kindle Edition: Locations 7681-7683

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There is no mention of an unjust trial, no purpose of Attis death and no mention of his being

dead for 3 days. So, for Attis we can give him a resounding zero out of five.

Krishna

Krishna according to Jesus Mythists also rose from the dead and therefore parallels Jesus

resurrection. Like Osiris, Horus, and Attis, Krishna’s death is not sacrificial like that of Christs,

and so his supposed resurrection already knocks hollow for a parallel to Jesus’. The story like

many of the other pagan myths has multiple versions. In one interpretation Krishna is killed as a

result of quarrel with Gandhari who curses him. Later Krishna is killed by a hunter, Jara, who

mistakes him for a sleeping deer. It is probably assumed that the accidental death of Krishna was

the result of the curse. Another version of the story says that Krishna is killed in some battle or

other known danger he chose not to escape. That narrative explains that Krishna did bring safety

to women and children but he could have escaped death, but went rather without reason to accept

his own death. That being known, Krishna’s death doesn’t really serve a purpose like Jesus’.

From my research, I found that the story of Krishna being shot by a hunter seems more widely

accepted. Still, upon trying to find the actual ancient text that references the his death supposedly

in the Mahabharata, I found no reference to Krishna’s death.

That being said it seems Krishna does not die and even if he did, his death is nothing

purposeful like that of Christs’.

Furthermore, Krishna’s ‘resurrection’ is actually him being reborn. Krishna is literally

born a second time as a baby, but this time as a God rather than a man. So not only is he not in

the same body, he is a child making this a reincarnation rather than a resurrection.

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Other traditions give no real indication of Krishna dying at all, but him being death itself.

In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says “I am immortality I am also death personified”5 and “I am all-

devouring death, and I am the generating principle of all that is to be”6. So Krishna does not die

but he is death itself/

With all of this information we see that Krishna was not crucified, no indication he was

dead for three days, no unjust trial, no purpose for his death and even in the closest versions of

his story no real resurrection. Krishna then shares really no parallels with Jesus, giving him a

zero out of five.

Dionysus

According to Jesus Mythists Dionysus is one of the clearest parallels to Jesus. Mythists

will note that Dionysus is the son of God (Zeus), followers drink wine and bread to remember

him, he was crucified, was dead for three days, was put on trial, and rose from the dead. At first

blush this of course seems to parallel the story of Christ extremely well. For the sake of our essay

we will only be focused on the claimed parallels connected with our characteristics of Jesus’

resurrection.

Dionysus death as recorded in almost every narrative is the result of the Titans ripping

him to pieces. Frazer records the narrative, “Scarcely was he born, when the babe mounted the

throne of his father Zeus and mimicked the great god by brandishing the lightning in his tiny

hand. But he did not occupy the throne long; for the treacherous Titans, their faces whitened with

chalk, attacked him with knives while he was looking at himself in a mirror. For a time he

evaded their assaults by turning himself into various shapes, assuming the likeness successively

5 A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Bhagavad-Gītā, (Los Angelos, The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1983), 405.6

Ibid, 406

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of Zeus and Cronus, of a young man, of a lion, a horse, and a serpent. Finally, in the form of a

bull, he was cut to pieces by the murderous knives of his enemies.”7 So Dionysus was not

crucified but was stabbed to death.

Dionysus ‘resurrection’ under several narratives fits more of a rebirth then a resurrection.

Frazer records two narratives where Dionysus heart is either eaten by Zeus or Semele and then

Dionysus is then reborn8. Frazer also claims in some narratives “it is simply said that shortly

after his burial he rose from the dead and ascended up to heaven;”9 but there seems to be no

evidence of the narrative he is speaking of here. It would be a good parallel but there is no

evidence of it.

The assertion that Dionysus went to trial comes from The Bacchae, which depicts

Dionysus going back to get revenge on the city that ruined his mothers name which mocked her

for saying Dionysus was the son of Zeus. Dionysus goes to trial for some of the trouble he makes

for the city, by making women go crazy over him, and he does not go meekly like Christ, but has

victory over his captors, to whom he went willingly at first. Dionysus is not crucified, and there

is no indication that his captors even intended such an end for him. So, the trial in the end has no

connection to Dionysus death so not really fitting the trial characteristic that we are looking for.

As far as the claim that Dionysus was crucified it appears to come from two lines of

reasoning. One is that Dionysus was believed to be the ‘God of the tree’ or other similar names

7 James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, (Kindle Locations 8554-8558).

8 Ibid. Kindle Locations 8577-8579.

9 Ibid. Kindle Locations 8576-8577

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indicating he was the god of trees. There is no indication with that that he was in any way hung

on a tree like Jesus.

The other argument comes from the Orpheus Amulet. It depicts Dionysus being crucified.

The depiction has been soundly proven as a fake, most obviously seen in the relaxed posture of

the victim on the cross which is a later style of depicting a crucifixion10. Even Jesus Mythists

Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy admit that the Amulet does nothing to prove their theory despite

using the Amulate as the front cover of their “The Jesus Mysteries: was the “Original Jeus” a

Pagan God?”11.

In the end, even Dionysus even seems to ring flat of a parallel to Jesus. Under any

documented sources, he is reborn rather than resurrected, he has no unjust trial resulting in his

death, he is not crucified, he is not dead for three days, and he dies not for a purpose but the

result of his stepmoms, the Goddess Hera’s, jealousy. Dionysus falls short of fitting even one of

our characteristics.

Mithra

According to Jesus Mythists the Babylonian God Mithras was dead for three days and

then resurrected, and some, like Frazer, even try to make the claim that Mithras death and

resurrection happened at the same day in the year as Jesus. The problem with this theory is there

is absolutely no evidence that Mithras ever died. The best source that can be found claiming of

any sort of resurrection comes from Kersey Graves ‘The Sixteen Crucified Saviors’, which has

10 James Hannam, The Orpheus Amulet from the Cover of Jesus Mysteries, Bede’s Library, December 2009. http://www.bede.org.uk/orpheus.htm

11

Ibid.

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been viewed as wholly unreliable and not well researched. Richard Carrier, a Jesus Mythist

himself even finds the book completely unreliable saying, ““The World's Sixteen Crucified

Saviors: Or Christianity Before Christ is unreliable, but no comprehensive critique exists. Most

scholars immediately recognize many of his findings as unsupported and dismiss Graves as

useless.”

That being said, Mithra is not crucified, did not have an unjust trial, did not die for a

purpose, was not dead for three days, and was clearly not resurrected. Mithra gets then a clear

zero out of five.

Final Points

After examining a few of the best examples Jesus Mythists give to claim that Jesus is a

copy of pagan myths we see that they have absolutely no grounding to stand on. Even the best

examples like Horus and certain versions of Krishna only really share one characteristic with

Jesus’ resurrection.

To drive the point home a bit more I think there a few more things that we can point out

as some of the flaws of Jesus Mythists.

Another indication that the Jesus Mythists are not presenting a strong case is how

ridiculous some of the parallels are. Freke and Gandy conclude their chapter of the parallels

between Osirus-Dionysus with some very surface level parallels, “Jesus is portrayed as a quiet

man with long hair and a beard; so is Osiris-Dyonysus”. Beards were the norm in that age, so

that he had a beard would be almost like saying two men must be the same in this age because

they both have a car. Freke and Gandy calling Jesus ‘quiet’ we must ask if they are familiar with

Jesus tossing the tables on multiple occasions, quiet does not really fit that story. “Jesus is born

in Bethlehem, which was shaded by a grove sacred to Osiris-Dionysus”. This isn’t a parallel at

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all, but would only show they existed in the same area. “Jesus is betrayed for 30 pieces of silver,

a motif found in the story of Socrates”. Now they are not creating parallels to gods, which is the

grounding of the whole Jesus Mythist theory. Furthermore, Socrates was not betrayed for any

sum of money, but there is mention of a 30 minaue (not silver) bribe to free him. So the money

for Socrates is to save him and the money for Jesus condemns him making no parallel at all.

Another problem is that the idea of Crucifixion is believed to have been invented by the

Persians. With that understanding the idea that Krishna, Horus or Osiris are crucified is

automatically ruled out since their civilizations predate the Persian Empire.

Finally, putting a final nail on the coffin, Jesus Mythists have given no account to the

eyewitness accounts of Jesus death and resurrection. Even by the some of the most liberal

skeptical scholars it is well accepted that that the writers of the New Testament were

eyewitnesses or knew eyewitnesses to the events they are recording. Jesus Mythists have to give

an explanation for the eyewitness records of Jesus death and resurrection but they have simply

avoided the subject altogether.

Conclusion

In summation, we have found that the Jesus Mythist theory that Jesus did not actually rise

from the dead because Jesus was based on pagan myths, falls short on almost every count that we

can think of. Parallels of Jesus story from older mythologies would not disprove that Jesus did

rise from the dead. We have no reason to think Jews would suddenly want to assimilate with

other religions or modify their religion to gain followers. No mythologies resurrection parallels

the resurrection of Jesus to any significant extent. Jesus Mythists have grasped at straws to find

parallels, and been found wanting. Finally, they have simply ignored the clear evidence which

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point to Jesus rising from the dead. In the end, there is no reason to believe that Jesus

resurrection was made up based off of pagan mythologies.

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Drews, Arthur. The Christ Myth (New York: Prometheus Books 1998)

Freke, Timothy; Gandy, Peter. The Jesus Mysteries: Was the “Original Jesus a Pagan God?, (New York: Three Rivers, 1999)

Hannam, James, “The Orpheus Amulete From the Cover of Jesus Mysteries”, Bede’s Library (December 9, 2014) http://www.bede.org.uk/orpheus.htm

Komarraju, Sharath, “The Death of Krishna and His Rebirth as a God” Sharath Komarraju, (July, 2014) https://sharathkomarraju.com/2014/07/15/the-death-of-krishna/

Kreeft, Peter. Tacilli, Ronald K.. Handbook of Christian Apologetics, (Downers Grove, Illinois, 1994).

Murdok, D. M., S. Achayra. “Dionysus: Born of a Virgin Devember 25th, Killed and Resurrected after three days”, Truth Be Known, (August, 2017) http://www.truthbeknown.com/dionysus.html

Oswalt, John N. The Bible Among Myths, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan 2009)

Seigal, Eli, “The Poem of Catallus About Attis”, Aesthetic Realism Online Library, (1968) http://www.aestheticrealism.net/poetry/Attis-Catullus.htm

Srivastava, Ravi “Epics of India: How did Sri Krishna and Sri Rama Die?”, Quara (November 16, 2016) https://www.quora.com/Epics-of-India-How-did-Sri-Krishna-and-Sri-Rama-die

Wilson, Emily. The Death of Socrates, (Cambridge, Massachusets, 2007) https://books.google.com/books?id=aZPF1y5gPVoC&pg=PA141&lpg=PA141&dq=30+pieces+of+silver+socrates&source=bl&ots=eUrFx2gTW6&sig=yn1Llutv9PDyjGdn4wJ2zvzp7iw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj7h7GW2rbVAhVl6oMKHRsKCVwQ6AEILjAB#v=onepage&q=30%20pieces%20of%20silver%20socrates&f=false

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http://www.jrbooksonline.com/pdf_books/16crucifiedsaviors.pdf https://kshetrapuranas.wordpress.com/2009/02/19/the-death-of-krishna-adapted-from-the-mahabharatha/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImOE3fNkjEY

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