The “Pagan Christ”
Correlation and Causation
Really Aren’t the Same Thing
Jesus Mythicist Thesis:
1. There is no evidence that Jesus of Nazareth
ever actually lived.
• NT is discounted as a source of ANY historical
value with respect to Jesus
• Same for external Jewish and Roman sources
(“problematic”)
2. Virtually all of the details of the life and
teachings of Jesus originate via the repurposing of pagan religious ideas from Egypt
and Greco-Roman mystery religions, esp.
Mithras.
Other Sources
“Zeitgeist: The Movie is a 2007 film by Peter
Joseph presenting a number of conspiracy
theories. Zeitgeist blends skepticism, metaphysical
spirituality, and conspiracy ideas. The film
disputes the historicity of Jesus (the Christ myth
theory) and claims that the September 11 attacks
in 2001 were pre-arranged by New World Order
forces, and claims that bankers manipulate world
events. In Zeitgeist, it is claimed that the Federal
Reserve was behind several wars and manipulates
the American public for a One World Government
or ‘New World Order.’” (Wikipedia)
Mythicist Thesis
1. There is no evidence that Jesus of
Nazareth ever actually lived.
Atheist / Agnostic Opposition
Atheist / Agnostic Opposition
Christian Opposition
Christian Opposition
Jesus Mythicist Thesis:
2. Virtually all of the details of the life and
teachings of Jesus originate via the repurposing of pagan religious ideas from
Egypt and Greco-Roman mystery
religions, especially Mithras.
Reason for Similarities
• Supernatural predisposition
• Creation, life, death, anomalous experience
explainable via the supernatural
• Explaining cycles of life-death-rebirth via the
gods, not science
• Geographical proximity and cultural contacts
• Adaptation of pagan festivals and
iconography by the early Roman church
(“Roman Catholic”) for calendar and teaching.
Mythicist Assertions (Egypt)
“The Christian Jesus is really Egyptian
Osiris and Horus”
• Horus was conceived by a virgin (Isis)
• Osiris was killed and resurrected
Mythicist Assertions (Egypt)
Summary of Osiris – Isis – Horus myth
The god Osiris was married to his sister-wife Isis,
who was also a goddess. Osiris became well
known for teaching the people how to sustain life
by farming and became revered and popular. His
divine Seth was extremely jealous. Seth devised a
plan to kill Osiris by trapping him in a coffin and
sending it off into the Nile River. He was
successful, but didn’t anticipate that Isis would go
looking for her husband, Osiris.
Mythicist Assertions (Egypt)
The coffin drifted to the country of Byblos and
rested by a tree that, over the years, completely
overgrew it, so that the coffin became encased in
the tree. The tree was cut down and used as a
pillar in the nearby palace, with the coffin still
inside. When Isis discovered where the coffin was,
she retrieved it and attempted to revive Osiris.
During her attempts, Seth heard that the
pillar/coffin had been discovered, obtained it, and
cut it up into fourteen pieces and spread them
throughout the Nile River.
Mythicist Assertions (Egypt)
Isis searched for the pieces, recovering 13 of 14
(the missing one in some versions = Osiris’ penis,
unfortunately eaten by a fish). Still, Isis brought
Osiris back to life with the pieces she found and
conceived their first child, Horus (by magic or
copulation, depending on the version).
Mythicist Assertions (Egypt)
Response
• Isis was not a sexual virgin when she conceived
Horus. Egyptian texts never claim this.
• Horus was the result of sexual intercourse
between Isis and Osiris.
•
•
What about the missing penis?
With Thoth's help Isis created a golden penis, and
attached it to Osiris’s body, enabling copulation to
produce Horus.
Mythicist Assertions (Egypt)
• After Isis re-assembles and re-animates Osiris,
he became god of the underworld.
• Osiris was not allowed to return to the
land of the living.
• Horus became a god-king (pharaoh was
considered the re-incarnation of Horus).
Mythicist Assertions (Egypt)
Ward Gasque on Tom Harpur and The Pagan Christ.
“According to Harpur, there is no evidence that Jesus of
Nazareth ever lived. He claims that virtually all of the
details of the life and teachings of Jesus have their
counterpart in Egyptian religious ideas. He does not quote
any contemporary Egyptologist or recognized academic
authority on world religions nor appeal to any of the
standard reference books in Egyptology or to any primary
sources. . .
Gasque holds a Ph.D. from Manchester University (UK). A graduate of Harvard University’s Institute
for Educational Leadership (1993), he is President of the Pacific Association for Theological Studies
Mythicist Assertions (Egypt)
Ward Gasque on Tom Harpur and The Pagan Christ.
. . . Rather, [Harpur] is entirely dependent on the work of
Alvin Boyd Kuhn (1880-1963) and two earlier writers
(Godfrey Higgins [1771-1834] and Gerald Massey [18281907]), who argued that all of the essential ideas of both
Judaism and Christianity came primarily from Egyptian
religion.”
Mythicist Assertions (Egypt)
(Gasque)
“Who is Alvin Boyd Kuhn? He is given the title
‘Egyptologist’ and is regarded by Harpur as ‘one of the
single greatest geniuses of the twentieth century’ [who]
‘towers above all others of recent memory in intellect and
his understanding of the world’s religious.’”
As it turns out, Kuhn was a high school language teacher
who was an enthusiastic proponent of Theosophy, a
prodigious author and lecturer, who self-published most of
his books.”
Mythicist Assertions (Egypt)
(Gasque)
“Not being myself an expert in Egyptian religion, I
consulted those who are about their views of contribution
that Kuhn, Higgins and Massey have made to Egyptology
and whether they thought some of the key ideas of The
Pagan Christ well grounded. So I sent an email to twenty
leading Egyptologists — in Canada, USA, UK, Australia,
Germany, and Austria. I noted as a sample the following
claims put forth by Kuhn (and hence Harpur) … ”
Mythicist Assertions (Egypt)
(Gasque)
• That the name of Jesus was derived from the Egyptian
“Iusa” [iw-sa] which means "the coming divine Son who
heals or saves.”
• That the god Horus is "an Egyptian Christos, or Christ....
He and his mother, Isis, were the forerunners of the
Christian Madonna and Child, and together they
constituted a leading image in Egyptian religion for
millennia prior to the Gospels."
Mythicist Assertions (Egypt)
(Gasque)
• That Horus also "had a virgin birth, and that in one of his
roles, he was 'a fisher of men with twelve followers.'“
• That “the letters KRST appear on Egyptian mummy
coffins many centuries BCE, and ... this word, when the
vowels are filled in, is really Karast or Krist, signifying
Christ.“
• That the doctrine of the incarnation "is in fact the
oldest, most universal mythos known to religion. It was
current in the Osirian religion in Egypt at least four
thousand years BCE."
Mythicist Assertions (Egypt)
(Gasque)
• Only one of the ten experts who responded to my
questions had ever heard of Kuhn, Higgins or Massey.
• The responding scholars were unanimous in dismissing
the suggested etymologies for Jesus and Christ.
• Ron Leprohan, Professor of Egyptology at the University
of Toronto, pointed out that while “sa” means “son” in
ancient Egyptian and “iu” means ‘to come,” but
Kuhn/Harpur have the syntax all wrong. In any event,
the name ‘Iusa’ simply does not exist in Egyptian.
Mythicist Assertions (Egypt)
(Gasque)
• While all recognize that the image of the baby Horus
and Isis has influenced the Christian iconography of
Madonna and Child, there is no evidence for the idea
that Horus was virgin born.
• There is no evidence for the idea that Horus was ‘a
fisher of men’ or that his followers (the King’s officials
were called ‘Followers of Horus”) were ever twelve in
number.
• KRST is the word for “burial” (“coffin” is written
“KRSW”), but there is no evidence to link this with the
Greek title “Christos” or Hebrew “Mashiach”.
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
“Jesus is just the pagan god Mithra”
Acharya S. quoting Gerald Berry, Religions of the World:
"Both Mithras and Christ were described variously as 'the
Way,' 'the Truth,' 'the Light,' 'the Life,' 'the Word,' 'the Son
of God,' 'the Good Shepherd.' The Christian litany to Jesus
could easily be an allegorical litany to the sun-god. Mithras
is often represented as carrying a lamb on his shoulders,
just as Jesus is. Midnight services were found in both
religions. The virgin mother ... was easily merged with the
virgin mother Mary. Petra, the sacred rock of Mithraism,
became Peter, the foundation of the Christian Church."
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Alleged Parallels
From May/June 2013 Catholic Answers Magazine
• Mithras preceded Christianity by roughly 600 years.
• Mithras was born on December 25.
• He was considered a great teacher and had twelve
disciples.
• Mithras also performed miracles.
• Mithras was called “the good shepherd,” “the way, the
truth and the light,” “redeemer,” “savior,” and “messiah.”
• He was identified with the lion and the lamb.
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Alleged Parallels
• Followers were marked with the sign of the cross.
• Mithraism had a Eucharist or “Lord’s Supper” that
involved consecrated bread and wine.
• Their initiation ceremonies included a baptism to
remove sins.
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Response
• The Roman deity Mithras appears in the historical record
in the late 1st century A.D.
• Mythicists overcome this by saying Mithras = Persian
Zoroastrian deity Mitra.
• Unlike major Greco-Roman deities like Jupiter, no
ancient source preserves the mythology of Mithras.
• All information about Mithras comes from depictions on
monuments and a handful of comments about the cult
in literary sources.
• There are no “Mithras texts” produced by
adherents of Mithras.
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Temples of Mithras were always an underground in a cave
(or a mithraeum). These temples regularly feature the
iconography of Mithras killing the bull (known as the
"tauroctony“).
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Response
(tertullian.org)
• The modern study of Mithras begins just before 1900
with Franz Cumont's Textes et Monuments (TMMM).
• Two volume work that collected all the ancient evidence
known at the time.
• Cumont assumed that Mithras was merely the Roman
form of the ancient Indo-Persian deity Mitra or Mithra.
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Response
(tertullian.org)
• In the mid-1950's Cumont's pupil Maarten Vermaseren
published a new collection of monuments, the CIMRM,
which added the archaeological discoveries of the last
50 years, but also highlighted how poorly the
archaeology supported the Cumontian theory.
• At the 1971 international conference on Mithraic
studies, Cumont's theory was abandoned in favour of a
Roman origin for the cult.
• Vermaseren himself rejected Cumont's theory in 1975.
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Response
• Mithras did not precede Christianity by roughly 600
years.
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Response
• Mithras, Jesus, and Dec. 25
• Mithras and the Roman sun god Sol Invictus are coidentified in inscriptions on candles.
• Other inscriptions distinguish them
• In A.D. 274, the Roman Emperor Aurelian gave the cult
of Sol Invictus official status alongside the other
traditional cults of the Empire.
• According to the Chronography of 354, the birth of Sol
Invictus was celebrated on December 25.
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Response
• Christmas wasn't in December for the first 300 years of
the Church’s history.
• Some church fathers argued against celebrating the birth
of Jesus (Origen; birthdays of gods were for pagans)
• If observed at all, the celebration of Christ's birth was
usually part of the feast of Epiphany (January 6).
• Eventually, Church authorities settled on December 25
as the birth of Jesus, knowing that it coincided with
existing pagan festivals honoring Saturn (the Roman god
of agriculture) and Mithra.
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Response
• The idea was that the celebration of Jesus’ birth on the
same day would help convince Rome’s pagan subjects to
accept Christianity as the empire’s official religion.
• Western Christians first celebrated Christmas on
December 25 in 336, after Emperor Constantine had
declared Christianity the empire's official religion.
• Eastern churches stuck with January 6 as the date for
both Christ's birth and his baptism.
• There is no biblical evidence Jesus was born on any of
these dates.
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Response
• What about the other claims?
• There is no evidence that Mithras was a historical
person (and there are no primary texts), so the idea
that he had twelve disciples is unhistorical.
• The idea comes from the zodiac (since Mithra was the
sun, the 12 signs of the zodiac = 12 disciples for Jesus
mythicists.
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Response
• Jesus carrying a lamb on his shoulders?
• There’s no NT verse for this – it’s from art in Christian
bookstores.
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Response
• On the titles “the good shepherd,” “the way, the truth
and the light,” “redeemer,” “savior,” and “Messiah” …
• Only the terms redeemer and savior can be verified as
being associated with Mithras.
• But worshippers of Mithras did not use these terms to
describe their god; they were used conceptually in
regard to following Mithras.
• The nature of redemption and salvation in Mithraism
were quite different than Christianity.
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Response
• Lion and the lamb?
• There is basically no evidence for the lamb association
and Mithras.
• There appears to be some connection between Mithras
and Aion, a lion-headed man
• This isn’t the way lion symbolism is used in the Bible
• Jesus is described as the “Lion of the tribe of Judah”
(Rev. 5:5), but lion imagery is also used to describe the
enemies of the Christians (2 Tim. 4:17, 1 Pet. 5:8).
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Response
• Was the Lord’s Supper / Eucharist taken over from
Mithraism?
• Ignores parallels from 2nd temple Judaism (Qumran)
• Idea comes from Cumont’s discredited assumptions and
from comments by early Christian writer Justin Martyr:
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Response
(First Apology, ch. 66):
For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called
Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them;
that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, “This do in
remembrance of Me, this is My body;” and that, after the same
manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, “This is My
blood;” and gave it to them alone. Which the wicked devils have
imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to
be done. For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain
incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated; you either
know or can learn.
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Response
• The line “Which the wicked devils have imitated in the
mysteries of Mithras” doesn’t mean the Christians
copied this from Mithra (again, the Qumran evidence is
clear – and was unknown to Cumont)
• Reading the line that way required believing Justin is
calling Christians “wicked devils”!
• The line refers to the followers of Mithras imitating the
Christian practice.
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Response
• What about the baptism?
• Many pagan religions had ritual washings.
“Such a theme [baptism] could have been taken directly
from one of the esoteric Jewish sects, especially the
Essenes, concerning whom the Dead Sea manuscripts have
now added sensationally to our knowledge. Indeed, it is not
even necessary to suppose that an initiatory theme was
“borrowed” by Christianity from some other religion.”
(Mircea Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation, p. 116)
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Response
• Mithras sacrifices a sacred bull to create life.
• Followers were baptized in this blood.
• But no reference to the atoning of sin, the atoning of sin
through blood, or Mithras atoning for sin.
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Response
• Followers marked with the sign of the cross?
• Per Beskow, "Branding in the Mysteries of Mithras?", in
Mysteria Mithrae, ed. Ugo Bianchi (Leyden 1979), 487501. He describes the entire idea as a "scholarly myth".
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Response
• There is also no reference to Mithras being virgin born
or visited by Magi.
• All known Mithras tradition has Mithra being born from
a rock
• The “rock” / Peter connection?
• Jesus wasn’t born from a rock, or Peter.
• Interestingly …
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Response
The earliest existing account of
Mithras' birth is found in a relief
depicting him emerging from a
rock with the assistance of men
who appear to be shepherds
Interesting because according to
Mithraism, the birth of Mithras
was supposed to have preceded
the creation of humans. Someone
forgot that detail.
Mythicist Assertions (Mithra)
Response
• There is also no
reference to
Mithras dying on
a cross.
Mythicist Assertions
(Dionysius / Orpheus)
Mythicist Assertions
(Dionysius / Orpheus)
Response
• The inscription OΡΦEOC BAKKIKOC should be read as
ORPHEOS BAKKIKOS and refers to the mythological
Greek musician Orpheus and the Greek wine god
Dionysus, whose Roman name was Bacchus.
• Dated 200-300 A.D.
Mythicist Assertions
(Dionysius / Orpheus)
Response
• The “cross” is an anchor
• No nails in the feet or
hands
• Because there are no other
Christian symbols on it, all
comparisons with
Christianity constitutes
circular reasoning.
Mythicist Assertions
(Dionysius / Orpheus)
Response
• Orpheus was the son of a Muse
(goddess) with superhuman
music skills
• Joined the expedition of the
Argonauts (anchor?)
• Saving them from the music of
the Sirens by playing his own
• Orpheus killed by being torn
apart by a band of women.
• Mystery religion ca. 6th cent BC
Mythicist Assertions
(Dionysius / Orpheus)
Response
• Many scholars consider the
seal a hoax, in part because
Orpheus, was not crucified.
• Same for Dionysius.
Mythicist Assertions
(Dionysius / Orpheus)
Other Problems
• No record that Dec 25th significant for Dionysius /
Orpheus
• Dionysius not virgin born
• parents either Zeus + mortal woman, Semele by
direct copulation, or
• Zeus + goddess Persephone
Mythicist Assertions
(Dionysius / Orpheus)
"To this part of the inquiry belongs a mention of the curious and muchdiscussed seal or amulet in Berlin. The design on this seal [figure right]
which is dated in the third or fourth centuries A.D., shows a crucified
man. Above the cross are a crescent moon and seven stars, and across
and below it is the legend [Orpheus Bacchus]. This has usually been
supposed to be the work of some Gnostic sect exhibiting a syncretism
of Orphic and Christian ideas. Just as Christ is to be seen in Christian
monuments with the attributes of Orpheus, so here, by a tribute from
the other side, Orpheus is represented in the attitude of Christ. . . .
Kern (German collector of the amulet) recant[ed] and express[ed]
himself convinced by the expert opinion of J. Reil and R. Zahn that the
[Orpheus Bacchus] gem is a forgery.“
W.K.C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion, 265, 278
Resources
• In addition to the books noted, several websites offer useful
summaries of the Zeitgeist errors:
• Alleged Similarities between Jesus and Pagan Deities
• The Skeptic Project: Zeitgeist: Part I
• Students: use the journal databases! (ATLA, JSTOR)
Concluding Thoughts
• Insist on documentation that comes from
primary sources in their original context.
• Understand that, like the hard sciences,
scholarship in the humanities really has gotten
more accurate since the late 19th / early 20th
centuries (i.e., the last 100 years or so).
• When it comes to Jesus mythicism, there’s really
nothing new under the sun.
Homepage
www.drmsh.com
www.theunseenrealm.com