Is Jesus Repackaged Mythology?

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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December 15, 2020

00:03: Hello, welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.
00:07: This is a daily conversation about scripture, culture and media from a Reformed perspective.
00:15: Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to engage today's topic.
00:20: Here's your host, Pastor Keith Foskey.
00:24: Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.
00:26: My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist.
00:29: Today is December 16th, 2020 and we are now less than 10 days from Christmas.
00:37: Do you hear that sound? That is the sound of a collective gasp of all of us going, how in the world has this come so quickly? How is Christmas here already? And I know I'm not ready.
00:52: I know I'm not ready to celebrate Christmas just yet.
00:55: I've been going through a lot.
00:57: Our family has just moved to a new home.
01:01: We are now living in a small city right outside of Jacksonville, Florida, which is where our church is.
01:08: Sovereign Grace Family Church is located on the north side of Jacksonville and we're now living in a small town just north of the north side of Jacksonville, a little town called Callahan.
01:18: This is where I grew up.
01:20: This is where I am looking forward to raising the remainder of my children and I do want to publicly thank the ones who sold us our house.
01:34: I know that Richard listens to the program and Richard and Crystal were very gracious to us in selling us this wonderful home and this land that we now have and we're excited to begin our new journey.
01:46: But it has been a long few days and certainly doing it right here at Christmas time has been a lot of work and put us a little bit behind when it comes to our celebration of the season.
01:58: We haven't even got our tree up yet, but Lord willing, we will have our tree up in just a couple of days.
02:06: Now what I want to talk about today on the program, I've been continuing with this Christmas theme and one of the things I want to talk about today is the subject of mythology around Christmas and now I'm not talking about things like Santa Claus or anything like that because I addressed Santa on a previous episode.
02:27: What I want to talk about today is the subject of people who argue that the story of Jesus, in particular, the virgin birth of Jesus is not authentic to Christianity.
02:44: Some people believe that the virgin birth is a pagan myth that was taken by the Christians and applied to Jesus and therefore it is inauthentic.
02:58: It is not biblical.
03:01: I was reminded as I was going to Lowe's, I've been going back and forth to Lowe's for the last few days as we've been preparing our home, our previous home rather, that we are no longer living in.
03:16: We had to get it prepared for renting it out, which we're going to be doing.
03:21: So I've been going and buying paint and doing things at Lowe's and as I was going to the checkout at Lowe's I looked down and I saw a magazine on the magazine rack and if I remember correctly it said, Searching for the Historic Jesus.
03:37: I was reminded that every year around the Christmas season and every year around the time of the resurrection, around Easter season, there are documentaries on the History Channel, there are videos that pop up on the internet, and there are magazines that hit the magazine rack claiming that what Christians believe about Jesus can't possibly be the actual true story about Jesus.
04:01: There has to be some myths involved.
04:05: There have to be some extra things that have been added to the story or some things that have to be explained from a different perspective or simply untrue things that have been said about Jesus.
04:19: The idea is not only are these things about Jesus untrue but they are inauthentic to Christianity.
04:25: They come from other religions and they've been stolen from other religions.
04:31: Maybe you've heard of these things, maybe you've been exposed to these things, maybe you have unbelieving family and friends who have said to you, Hey, Jesus is just a repackaging of Mithra or Jesus is just another expression of the god Attis.
04:53: These are ways that people who do not believe try to justify their unbelief by saying Jesus is nothing different than these other pagan gods of the mythologies of the ancient world.
05:13: If you don't believe in those mythological gods, why would you believe in Jesus? His story isn't any different or any more authentic than theirs.
05:22: There is a Greek word for that and it is baloney.
05:28: The Greek word for all of that is absolute baloney because none of it's true, none of it's accurate and to argue that the narrative of the Lord Jesus Christ is in any way, shape or form to be compared to the narrative of Mithra or Attis or anyone else is absolute hogwash.
05:53: I'm going to share some things about this just to clarify but before I do that I want to plug another show.
06:02: Some of you have heard about this show, some of you have seen the videos but there is a YouTube channel called Lutheran Satire and if you go to YouTube and you look up Lutheran Satire, I'm going to do it right now just so I can tell you what you'll see.
06:22: If you look up Lutheran Satire you will see their latest video that says Hallelujah is not a Christmas song.
06:31: I'm actually going to be referencing that video in a later podcast because we're going to be talking about Christmas music with the Caffeinated Calvinist Roundtable hopefully later this week we'll get those recordings done and have those available to you next week.
06:44: But if you look up Lutheran Satire and you begin going down the list of videos you'll see one that says Horace ruins Christmas and Horace ruins Christmas is probably the best video on the internet in regard to this silly argument that Jesus is a repackaging of ancient mythologies and so I don't know the people who, I think it's a Lutheran pastor who puts together Lutheran Satire but it's a very good site to go and the stuff is great, it's funny and it's packaged in a funny way but it's serious topics packaged in a funny way and Connell and Donald, the two Irish chaps who have discussions with St.
07:37: Patrick and others, their conversations are hilarious.
07:40: So again I don't know this person who does this but I do encourage you to go if you have a moment go and listen or go and watch the video Horace ruins Christmas at Lutheran Satire and that goes along with what I'm saying today.
07:56: But I know not everybody's going to do that so let me just give you a quick rundown.
08:02: Is Jesus simply a repackaging of Mithra? And the argument usually goes well Mithra was born of a virgin, Mithra died and was risen from the dead and so Jesus is just a repackaging of the Mithra story and first of all let's consider the argument right away.
08:23: The argument is this that Mithra was born of a virgin, Mithra died and Mithra rose from the dead therefore when Jesus is said to have been born of a virgin, when Jesus is said to have died and be risen from the dead this is not authentic to Jesus this is just a repackaging of the story of Mithra.
08:43: But the problem is none of this is true about Mithra or the beliefs that those who held to Mithraism actually believed.
08:56: The belief of Mithraism taught that the god Mithra was not born of a woman at all he was rather birthed out of a rock and that's hardly a parallel to Christianity hardly a parallel to the virgin birth.
09:11: Furthermore, and I want to read something quickly, Edwin Yamaguchi, a scholar who specializes in the mysterious religions of the ancient world and one of the foremost authorities on Mithraism, okay so this guy will know what he's talking about, he said this quote, We don't know anything about the death of Mithras.
09:31: We have a lot of monuments but almost no textual evidence because this was a secret religion but I know of no references to a supposed death and resurrection.
09:43: End quote.
09:44: Alright so we have Yamaguchi here who has said there is no example of his death and certainly no example of his resurrection no references to this and as we said earlier there's the virgin birth of Mithra was him being birthed out of a rock not exactly the same thing as a true virgin birth is described about Jesus in the scriptures and so the point I'm making is to say that Jesus is repackaging a Mithra doesn't make sense.
10:23: There is no connection between the two.
10:26: In fact Yamaguchi goes on to say this, he says quote, There's no evidence that Mithraism influenced first century Christianity.
10:32: Far from assimilating Mithraism, the church fathers from Justin Martyr to Tertullian denounced Mithraism as a satanic imitation.
10:41: Some scholars have suggested Christianity may have consciously or unconsciously borrowed minor practices much later which could be true but this has no impact on Christianity's foundational beliefs.
10:54: That's the key.
10:55: The foundational beliefs of the virgin birth, the foundational beliefs of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ has nothing to do with Mithraism, has nothing to do with a connection at all to this false religious system and someone will say well there's another, there's Attis.
11:14: Attis was born of a virgin, Attis rose from the dead but the thing is that's again it's not correct.
11:21: Attis was a young man in love with the great mother goddess and Attis was unfaithful so the mother goddess drove him mad and he castrated himself and died.
11:36: And that's why the priests are eunuchs in that religion.
11:41: And the belief in a resurrection of Attis cannot be translated or excuse me cannot be traced until around the year 150 which means it could not have had any influence on Christian belief about the resurrection because it came 150 years after Christ.
12:00: And so the idea that these stories have created the Jesus narrative are simply false.
12:09: As I said they're hogwash, there's no good reason to believe them.
12:16: Even if you hear Bible teachers talk about these things.
12:20: I remember a few years ago Rob Bell posted a video where he was basically saying that you know Jesus is really no different than Mithra or Attis and that his story is basically mythology and one of the things he said if I remember correctly in the video was all religions have dying and rising gods so why is Christianity any different? And again this is a guy who claims to be a Christian pastor.
12:47: So my point is to simply say today that Jesus and the narrative of Jesus particularly regarding his virgin birth which we celebrate at Christmas and his death, burial, and resurrection which we celebrate at Easter time, these things, these foundational truths about Jesus are not repackaging of myths and the false gods of the ancient world.
13:15: But they are the true account of the God who loved this world so much that he sent his son in, so that whosoever believes in him will not perish but will have everlasting life.
13:28: That is the truth and to compare Jesus with the other mythological false gods is, there is no comparison between the two and it's an ungodly thing to even attempt to do so.
13:48: And so as I begin to wrap up the video I just want to make this very important statement.
13:56: When we think about Jesus we are not thinking about a myth, we are not thinking about a story even though his life is often called the greatest story ever told.
14:07: We're talking about a person, the God-man Jesus Christ who came in this world, born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died a substitutionary death, and three days later he rose again demonstrating that he had victory over death, hell, and the grave and he offers and provides salvation to all who believe in him.
14:37: And this is not a myth but this is a truth worth living for and for many it was a truth worth dying for.
14:46: Think about in the first century, many men and women went to their deaths because they saw Jesus alive and they continued to proclaim that resurrection even in the face of great personal tragedy and even the threat of death because they knew it was the truth.
15:07: They knew they weren't following Mithra, they knew they weren't following Horus, they knew they weren't following Attis, they knew they weren't following any false God but that they were, they were dying for their faith in the one true and living God who sent forth his son born of a woman, born under the law that he might redeem us who are under the law and give us the adoption as sons.
15:36: And so that's the reminder for today, Jesus is not a myth and not to be compared there to.
15:44: Thank you for listening today to Coffee with a Calvinist.
15:47: My name is Keith Foskey and I've been your Calvinist.
15:51: May God bless you.
15:53: Thank you for listening to today's episode of Coffee with a Calvinist.
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16:03: We love to receive your comments and questions and may even engage with them in a future episode.
16:10: As you go about your day, remember this, Jesus Christ came to save sinners.
16:16: All who come to him in repentance and faith will find him to be a perfect Savior.
16:22: He is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through him.
16:29: May God be with you.