Was the Resurrection Story of Jesus borrowed from Pagan Mythology?

Was the resurrection story of Jesus borrowed from pagan mythology? Well, despite having popular appeal on the internet, such as in movies, such as Zeitgeist, the idea that the resurrection story of Jesus was borrowed from pagan mythology has been abandoned by the vast majority of critical scholars today.

In fact, one noted resurrection expert named Gary Habermas said he could count on one hand of the 2 ,000 or so publications that he surveyed in French, German, and English written during 1975 to about 2005 of how many scholars actually attribute the story of the resurrection of Jesus as being borrowed from pagan mythology.

So there's probably less than 10 actual scholars that actually make that claim or 10 sources among thousands of references to the resurrection among critical scholars. Interestingly, Jesus predicted that there would be false Christ.

He predicted that in Matthew chapter 24 verse 24 and Mark 13 22. So it's not surprising that there should be other dying and rising God claims in other religions. However, the idea that the resurrection of story of Jesus is based on pagan mythology is unconvincing for a number of reasons.

The alleged pagan parallels to Jesus's resurrection are one unclear, two, they have late testimony that postdates Christianity actually, third, they may not be referring to an actual resurrection at all, and fourth, many of them lack historical evidence for their claims.

Fifth, they misunderstand the Jewish influence on early Christian beliefs in the resurrection, and finally, sixth, they fail to explain the positive evidence for Jesus's resurrection. So let's look at some of this evidence that speaks against this pagan dying and rising Christ idea.

Unclear Pagan Parallels to the Resurrection

First, there are unclear parallels. The first problem is that accounts of dying and rising gods in other religions are unclear. Justin Martyr, an early Christian apologist, records some of these parallels in an attempt to convince the Roman Emperor that the Christians teaching were not that dissimilar from other Roman religions, which were favored by the Empire.

Justin appealed to various examples, including Asclepius, who was struck by lightning and ascended to heaven, also Bacchus and Hercules, and a few other sons who rose to heaven in the horse Pegasus after having died violent deaths, and Ariadne, who was set among the stars, and finally the cremation of the Emperor Augustus, in which someone claimed that he saw Augustus's spirit ascend towards heaven.

However, Justin's parallels are extremely unclear. As Habermas and Lacona note in their book, if we were to consider these as parallels to Jesus's resurrection, we would have to basically consider every ghost story.

Late Pagan Parallels That Postdate Christianity

Secondly, these pagan dying and rising parallels postdate Christianity. Their testimony to their existence actually postdate Christianity. So the first clear dying and rising God parallels to the resurrection story of Jesus occur at least a hundred years after the reports of Jesus's resurrection.

For example, the earliest visions of the deaths or earliest versions of the death and resurrection of Adonis appear after 150 AD. The counts of Attis, the Phrygian god of vegetation, who was responsible for the death and rebirth of plant life, are not until the 3rd century AD, which would be like 200 AD or later.

Therefore, the Christians did not follow the genre of dying and rising God, since such parallels basically did not exist during that time period. Well, third, it's questionable that these pre-Jesus pagan resurrection accounts are actually referring to a resurrection at all.

Whether the Pagan Stories Even Describe a Resurrection

In the accounts of Marduk, for example, there is no clear death or resurrection even mentioned. Adonis in the earliest version contains no death or resurrection reports. His first death and resurrection accounts do not occur until after AD 150.

Likewise, Osiris has conflicting accounts. Some accounts say that he is assigned to the underworld and others refer to him as the son. However, there are no accounts or claims that Osiris rose from the dead.

The only account of a god who survived death that possibly predates Christianity is found in Osiris. However, as mentioned above, there are actually several versions of this story. In one, he is killed by his brother, cut in 14 pieces, and scattered in Egypt.

The goddess Isis then collects his parts and brings them back to life, but she was only able to find 13 of the 14 in parts, unfortunately. Furthermore, it is questionable whether Osiris was brought back to life on earth or seen by others like Jesus.

Osiris descends and was given status of the underworld as god of the mummies. Interestingly, it is more of a zombification rather than a resurrection. Finally, the hero in the story is not Osiris, but Isis or Horus, their son.

This is extremely different from Jesus, who is the heroic risen prince of life, who was seen by others on earth before his ascension into heaven. Fourth, the accounts of dying and rising gods and other religions lack historical evidence and can be accounted by opposing theories such as legendary embellishment or lack of historicity.

Lack of Historical Evidence for the Pagan Myths

Interestingly, these dying and rising vegetation gods like Osiris and Adonis are not real people in history like Jesus. You can look at my video, Did Jesus Ever Exist?, where there's over 42 textual sources for the life of Jesus within a few years to as many as 150 years after the death of Jesus.

Furthermore, these accounts of dying and rising gods are not attested by multiple sources, and the first available manuscript is far removed from the event that is described. For example, the life of Apollonius by Philostratus postdates Jesus by 200 years, and it's thought to be a product of conscious reaction against Christianity.

Therefore, these pagan parallels are late and not around the time when eyewitnesses should be questioned. And also, it's debatable whether these pagan dying and rising myths, at least some of their clarification or teaching, could have been influenced by Christianity rather than vice versa.

The Jewish Context of Early Christian Belief in the Resurrection

Fifth, another important thing to note is that early Christianity was birthed by in a Jewish cultural context. The early Christians, in fact, worshipped in the Jewish temple. That's found in Acts 2 46 and then 5 42, also in other references in the New Testament, and they believe that Christ's resurrection fulfilled Old Testament prophecy.

That's found in 1 Corinthians 15 3 through 4, which is a very early pre-Pauline Creed. In light of this, these Jewish Christians believed in a physical resurrection, which was a view that was not accepted by the Greco-Roman culture, who ridiculed such an idea.

It's found in Acts, it's found in Luke, it's found in Numerus and John, it's found even in Paul's writings, where he has some notion of a physical resurrection of Jesus. And you can find other references on karm .org that support that idea.

Therefore, it is unlikely that these Jewish Christians would adopt pagan mythology. Also, I think the sixth reason, this is the most important reason, is that there's positive evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.

The Empty Tomb and Early Eyewitness Testimony

Sixth and finally, the idea of the resurrection story of Jesus being borrowed from pagan religions is unconvincing for several other reasons, since it does not explain the empty tomb, the early belief of the disciples in the resurrection of Jesus, due to eyewitness testimony, the transformation of the disciples, the conversion of Paul, and the conversion of James.

First, the empty tomb of Jesus contains strong historical corroboration due to the unreasonableness of the disciples to preach an empty tomb in Jerusalem, when the critics of Christianity would have uncovered the tomb.

The fact that early polemics between Christians and Jews presupposed the empty tomb, and finally the fact that women were not regarded highly in ancient history, in ancient society, and they are the chief witnesses to the empty tomb.

That's remembered by the acronym JET, which I discussed in one of my other videos. So, the idea that Jesus' tomb was empty is actually very solidly supported in ancient history. If the resurrection story of Jesus was borrowed from pagan mythology, then there would be no need for an empty tomb.

Second, we have extremely early testimony to the disciples' belief that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them. A pre-Pauline creed in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 3 -8, it may even contain two creeds, some scholars debate to what extent those verses contain a creed, but it does contain one, and virtually all scholars believe that it does contain a creed, and that it predates Paul.

1 Corinthians 15, verses 3 -8, has been dated by critical scholars to the early 30s AD, and these include scholars such as the Jesus Seminar, which is a bunch of scholars, Gerd Lunemann, who's an atheistic New Testament scholar, and Bart Ehrman, who date this creed in 1 Corinthians 15 to the early 30s AD, or within, say, three to five years after the death of Jesus.

This does not allow enough time, basically, for legend and embellish to corrupt the core story of the text. In fact, the events upon which the creed are based, this resurrection creed, points back to the early 30s.

Possibly only a year or even months from the resurrection event itself. This would indicate that there was really no significant gap or time in legendary embellishments to explain the disciples' core belief in the resurrection of Jesus.

So you have this creed, it's formulated, say, in the 30s, and the events upon which the creed is based go back even earlier. So that would date the creed, or the beliefs in the resurrection of Jesus, essentially to the time early 30s.

So this leads some scholars to even claim that there really never was a time when the Christians did not believe in the deity and resurrection of Jesus. The early nature of the resurrection appearance accounts points to at least one, and possibly multiple, eyewitness testimonies.

In fact, Paul in AD 55, in 1 Corinthians, mentions his own eyewitness resurrection account in 1 Corinthians 15 .8. In fact, the atheistic historian Michael Martin states that Paul is the only eyewitness that we have of the resurrection.

It is also quite possible that 1 Corinthians 15 .3 -8 creed also contains eyewitness material from the Twelve, all of the Apostles, Peter, James, and even 500 Brethren. Third, as part of our sixth sub-point, the third point of this sub-point, is the disciples were radically transformed from despairing doubters to persevering proclaimers of the gospel.

Is it really realistic to think that a pagan resurrection story is going to inspire pious Jews to adopt pagan ideology, change their worship from Saturday to Sunday, radically alter their views about their Messiah, change from despair about their dead Messiah, and then be willing to die for their faith and start proclaiming this gospel with conviction to hostile monotheistic audiences?

Is that really likely that these pious Jews are going to borrow from pagan sources and make all these changes when they despise pagan ideas? Fourth, Paul converted to Christianity as a result of what he claims was an eyewitness appearance of the risen Jesus, as found in 1 Corinthians 15 .8, and he endured much persecution as recorded in Acts and various of his epistles, and was willing to even die for his faith.

Is it really reasonable again to believe that he became a Christian due to adopting pagan mythology when he was a pious Pharisee, and he would actually be willing to die for his belief in a pagan dying and rising God?

As an educated Pharisee, he would have seen through the unhistorical claims of the pagan mythological parallels. I mean, Paul was very well educated. I think a lot of these people that think that they would just willy-nilly borrow from pagan mythology really don't give these early Christians any sanity or any notion of distinguishing between mythology and actual history, which they did.

They knew how to distinguish between that. The fifth sub-point is James, the brother of Jesus, was also converted to Christianity as a result of an appearance of the risen Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15 .7, and he was willing to die for his faith.

We see this in Josephus and Hegesippus and Clement of Alexandria for some various sources. Before this appearance, James, the brother of Jesus, was a skeptic and did not believe that his brother was the Messiah.

That's found in Mark 3 .21 and John 7 .5, which says that even his brethren did not believe in him, in reference to Jesus. So, like Paul, it's extremely improbable that as a pious Jew, these pagan parallels would have motivated him to believe in Jesus and be willing to die for his faith.

So, in conclusion, for these reasons, among others, the vast majority of scholars today reject the notion that the resurrection of Jesus was borrowed from pagan mythology. Instead, the best explanation for the available data is that Jesus, in fact, rose from the dead.