Mythology

Refuting the claims the disciples copied mythology

One of the arguments I regularly come across when discussing the Gospels and New Testament scriptures is that much of the writings of the Apostles were in fact just copies of mythology and other pagan religions. Many Christians do not know how to respond to the challenge that ancient mythology is full of dying saviors’, resurrections, virgin births and baptismal initiations.

Did the early church make up the story of Jesus being divine and His miracles with all the supernatural elements that are also found in the mystery religions of the day?

An alleged example of resurrection in the mystery religions is the familiar story of the Egyptian cult of Isis and Osiris. The myth actually has Osiris being murdered by his brother Seth who buries his brother’s body in a coffin in the river Nile. Then Isis the wife of the murdered god finds that her husband has been murdered, she then returns it to Egypt. Seth then obtains the body again and cuts it into fourteen pieces sending all the pieces around out of Egypt. Isis then goes and collects all the pieces of her husband and puts them together. Now at this point the skeptic will say see we have a resurrection of gods and the disciples copied this mythology. The only problem with this is that Osiris is put back together to live like a zombie in the shadowy underworld; he is not raised again in all his glory to finally rule the world.

Another myth often mentioned in universities is the myth that Dionysus the Greek god of wine actually turned the water into wine and the disciple’s of Jesus copied this mythology from the pagans. That’s all good and well the only problem is that Dionysus never turned any water into wine, the skeptic who ever mentions this is either a liar or has never read this myth story in his life. What actually occurred in the myth is that some mortals one evening left empty jars inside the temple of Dionysus and came back in the morning to find them full of wine; this is hardly turning water into wine.

There are several fallacies in the thinking that there is a link between Christianity and mystery religions, at first glance it may look like there is similarities but often the skeptics don’t know about certain facts or are withholding these facts which often gives the impression there is a similarity between Christianity and mystery religions.

The Apostle Paul and Barnabas could have one the crowd over in the city of Lystra, when the crowd were praising them for healing the paralyzed man shouting the gods have come amongst us and calling Barnabas, Zeus and Paul, Hermes. What an opportunity if the Apostles were in fact copying mythology they could have won the crowd over and more converts, however the Apostles tore their garments and showed the crowds they were human trying to convince the people they were not gods but only men as they were, the crowds then got angry and stoned them almost killing them both the next day.

Another problem is the idea that all the pagan mythology from 1500 BC to the fifth century AD was one big religion and combining all the fragments of information and creating a kind of universal mystery religion which never actually existed.

Another problem is that all too often when a skeptic is trying to convince you that the disciples and Apostles copied mystery religions they will use Christian language and terms to describe pagan beliefs and practices a good example of this is describing a criobolium as a “blood baptism” if one did not know any better they would be thinking that this pagan ceremony is similar to Christianity in Revelation 7:4. References to this practice also postdate Christian sources.

A final error in the thinking of skeptics who pose this challenge is that Christianity actually copied mythology when it is very likely it is the other way round. One has to understand that Christianity was explosive and even Decius in AD 249 when he was the Roman Emperor seen that the pagan cults were diminishing and started to force the Christians to sacrifice to their pagan gods, this actually started a great persecution of Christians. This would indicate that pagan cults adopted Christian teaching to try and win back coverts to Christianity.

Though many people write that Christianity copied pagan myths to try and present their gospel story the tide is changing in scholarly circles. A primary reason why these mystery religions died out is because Christianity taught and proclaimed a real living person in history, the mythology of the mystery religions just could not compete.

Acts 14:11-14

Schweitzer, Albert. Paul and his interpreter. London: 1912

Metzger, Bruce M “Mystery religions and early Christianity.” and  “In historical literary studies” Leiden, Netherlands: EJ Brill, 1968

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