Doesn't the religion of Mithra prove that Christianity is false..?

[Pliny the Younger]

As the subject of our next debate...How do the experts view “this prickly pear”…….no flames please.

Some critics of Christianity teach that the Christian religion was not based upon divine revelation but that it borrowed from pagan sources, Mithra being one of them. They assert that the figure of Mithra has many commonalities with Jesus, too common to be coincidence.
Mithraism was one of the major religions of the Roman Empire which was derived from the ancient Persian god of light and wisdom. The cult of Mithraism was quite prominent in ancient Rome, especially among the military. Mithra was the god of war, battle, justice, faith, and contract. According to Mithraism, Mithra was called the son of God, was born of a virgin, had disciples, was crucified, rose from the dead on the third day, atoned for the sins of mankind, and returned to heaven. Therefore, the critics maintain that Christianity borrowed its concepts from the Mithra cult.
Your thought's gentlemen please.

[Atheist Peace]

As part of a bigger picture, yes it does. The primary reason I am an atheist is because it is clear to me that humans invented it all. Religions have ideas taken from each other and so on, and when it comes down to it, its just a way for people to try and explain what they don't have answers for. Today we have the scientific knowledge that makes religion outdated.

[Nationalist_Cause]

As part of a bigger picture, yes it does. The primary reason I am an atheist is because it is clear to me that humans invented it all. Religions have ideas taken from each other and so on, and when it comes down to it, its just a way for people to try and explain what they don't have answers for. Today we have the scientific knowledge that makes religion outdated.

While I agree with most of what you say, there are still many things about the origin of this planet, the galaxy, and the universe which science hasn't solved yet. There are only limited theories about the origins of all life in the universe. There is no gaurantee that science will find the answers and explanations to such questions, only the hope that it will.

[Zag]

As the subject of our next debate...How do the experts view “this prickly pear”…….no flames please.

Some critics of Christianity teach that the Christian religion was not based upon divine revelation but that it borrowed from pagan sources, Mithra being one of them. They assert that the figure of Mithra has many commonalities with Jesus, too common to be coincidence.
Mithraism was one of the major religions of the Roman Empire which was derived from the ancient Persian god of light and wisdom. The cult of Mithraism was quite prominent in ancient Rome, especially among the military. Mithra was the god of war, battle, justice, faith, and contract. According to Mithraism, Mithra was called the son of God, was born of a virgin, had disciples, was crucified, rose from the dead on the third day, atoned for the sins of mankind, and returned to heaven. Therefore, the critics maintain that Christianity borrowed its concepts from the Mithra cult.
Your thought's gentlemen please.

Short answer, no.

For example:

Mithra was born of a rock, not a virgin.

Mithra sacrifices a bull to "save the world," not himself.

Mithra was not crucified and resurrected on the "3rd day."

[RazorOutlaw]

Thanks for the post, Zag, because my question to the original poster was going to be "where did you hear this?"
If what Zag is true then I can't see how the religion of Mithras proves anything about Christianity, other than they shared a similar idea about sacrifice to save the world.

[GodNeptune]

There are so many similarities between the Mithras and Jesus myths. Both were born from a virgin, had 12 disciples that shared a special meal, were intercessors between god and man, died to save humanity, and were resurrected in three days. And Dec. 25 was celebrated in the Roman Empire as Mithras' birthday before it was taken over by Christ. The image of Mithras slaying the bull symbolizes light over coming darkness, and Christ's death on the cross represents the same idea. Paul, the founder of Chrisitianty, hailed from Tarsus, which was a major center of Mithraic teaching. It is believed that he borrowed many elements from Mithraism and incorporated them into Christianity. Even more similar to Christ is the Egyptian god Horus.

[ThiudareiksGunthigg]

Short answer, no.

For example:

Mithra was born of a rock, not a virgin.

Mithra sacrifices a bull to "save the world," not himself.

Mithra was not crucified and resurrected on the "3rd day."

Well said. This crap has been kicking around for about 150 years. It's loosely based on Kersey Graves' outdated and badly researched book The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviours, published back in 1875. Graves' book is so badly flawed that even the modern crop of 'Jesus was a Myth' advocates admit that he bungled his research, found parallels with pagan myths that weren't parallels at all and just plain made things up.

Despite this, these claims about parallels between, say, Mithraism and Christianity keep on cropping up. As Zag says, they are nonsense. Mithras wasn't crucified, didn't rise from the dead, didn't have 12 followers and wasn't born of a virgin. There are a few parallels between Christianity and Mithraism because both religions borrowed from each other in the period in which they competed for converts and because they both arose from religions with similar theologies. But to pretend that Christianity is just repackaged Mithraism is total nonsense.

There are so many similarities between the Mithras and Jesus myths. Both were born from a virgin,

The Roman Mithras was born, fully formed, from a rock, the petra genetrix. The Persian Mithra was born out of a sexual union between Ahura Mazda and either (i) his own sister or (ii) a mortal woman. There's nothing about virgins, let alone virgin birth, in either version. The Indian Mitra was born of Aditi, the mother of the gods, who was also not a virgin. The claim that Mithras/Mithra/Mitra was born of a virgin is total nonsense.

had 12 disciples that shared a special meal

There no legends or depictions of Mithras with '12 disciples' or 12 followers or companions of any kind. The Persian Mithra had a single companion, Varuna. The Roman Mithras had two, Cautes and Cautopatres. He also had a number of animal companions - a snake, a dog, a lion, a scorpion - but not twelve of them. This claim is also nonsense.

were intercessors between god and man

True, but in nothing like the same way.

died to save humanity

There is no Mithras, Mithra or Mitra legends where he dies at all, let alone to save humanity. This is also nonsense.

and were resurrected in three days.

Mithras didn't die in any myths, so the idea of him 'resurrecting' is also suprious.

And Dec. 25 was celebrated in the Roman Empire as Mithras' birthday before it was taken over by Christ.

And Dec 25th was celebrated by various solar cults before it was taken over by Mithraism. So?

The image of Mithras slaying the bull symbolizes light over coming darkness, and Christ's death on the cross represents the same idea.

And you can find the same idea in all sorts of religions. It's a pretty fundamental religious idea.

Paul, the founder of Chrisitianty, hailed from Tarsus, which was a major center of Mithraic teaching.

And? There is absolutely zero in any of Paul's writings to indicate that he was anything other than a devout Jew and a student of the Pharisaic school of Gamiel. To pretend he was a closet Mithraist is plain silly.

It is believed that he borrowed many elements from Mithraism and incorporated them into Christianity.

Yes, believed by kooks. No genuine scholar of either Christianity or Mithraism believes any such thing.

Even more similar to Christ is the Egyptian god Horus.

Yep - not very similar at all, in other words.

And no, I'm not a Christian. I'm actually an atheist. And one who, with some friends, created my own group of Mithras worshippers at University partly as a joke and partly as a protest against the way the campus Students for Christ group were getting Union funding to preach a brand of fundamentalism that many of us found offensive and stupid.

[PacSubCom]

The Jesus story is derived from a hero story that was repeated throughout history. If you look at the specific elements of these stories, like born to a virgin, son of god, saviour, gave a sermon on a mount, shared a last meal with followers, or even "entered his city on a donkey", you see that a lot of figures share them. On top are Theseus, Oedipus and Jesus, followed by Zeus, Hercules, Romulus, Perseus, Apollo, and even Robin Hood (although he came later, while all the other stories were written before Jesus).

It doesn't matter whether each and every word is the same in these stories, the gist of them is always the same.

Jesus is just a recycled form of all the other heroes and Gods. Combined with the fact that they are no good accounts of a physical Jesus and the belief of the early christians that Jesus never walked the earth, but is a divine figure who never left heaven, the case for Jesus is rather weak.
Jesus Christ never existed. It's just a story. An old story.

[RazorOutlaw]

Well said. This crap has been kicking around for about 150 years. It's loosely based on Kersey Graves' outdated and badly researched book The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviours, published back in 1875. Graves' book is so badly flawed that even the modern crop of 'Jesus was a Myth' advocates admit that he bungled his research, found parallels with pagan myths that weren't parallels at all and just plain made things up.

Despite this, these claims about parallels between, say, Mithraism and Christianity keep on cropping up. As Zag says, they are nonsense. Mithras wasn't crucified, didn't rise from the dead, didn't have 12 followers and wasn't born of a virgin. There are a few parallels between Christianity and Mithraism because both religions borrowed from each other in the period in which they competed for converts and because they both arose from religions with similar theologies. But to pretend that Christianity is just repackaged Mithraism is total nonsense.

Oddly enough this discussion spurred me to look up information on the historical Christ. Although ReligiousTolerance.org is a bit more skeptical with the material than my previous teaching, a lot of what I read there I've seen before.

However they also have a nice paragraph at the bottom talking about the Christ/Mithras connection...

Robert M Price 4 writes: "In broad outline and in detail, the life of Jesus as portrayed in the gospels corresponds to the worldwide Mythic Hero Archetype in which a divine hero's birth is supernaturally predicted and conceived, the infant hero escapes attempts to kill him, demonstrates his precocious wisdom already as a child, receives a divine commission, defeats demons, wins acclaim, is hailed as king, then betrayed, losing popular favor, executed, often on a hilltop, and is vindicated and taken up to heaven." He asserts that there are a number of historical and mythical figures whose life stories contain these elements, including Jesus. But just as we do not regard Hercules as a historical figure, a case can be made that Jesus was also a mythical character.

Some theologians and historians believe that many of the details of Jesus' life were "borrowed" from a competing, contemporary religion, Mithraism.

Mithra was a fictional character who was worshipped as a Good Shepherd, the Way, the Truth and the Light, the Redeemer, the Savior, and the Messiah. A religion in his name was founded in the 6th century BCE. 5 Mithraism one of the most popular of religions in the Roman Empire, particularly among its soldiers and civil servants. It was Christianity's leading rival. 19 Mithra was also believed to have been born of a virgin. Like Jesus, their births were celebrated yearly on DEC-25. Mithra was also visited by shepherds and by Magi. He traveled through the countryside, taught, and performed miracles with his 12 disciples. He cast out devils, returned sight to the blind, healed the lame, etc. Symbols associated with Mithra were a Lion and a Lamb. He held a last supper, was killed, buried in a rock tomb. He rose again after three days later, at the time of the spring equinox, circa MAR-21. He later ascended into heaven. Mithraism celebrated the anniversary of his resurrection, similar to the Christian Easter. They held services on Sunday. Rituals included a Eucharist and six other sacraments that corresponded to the rituals of the Catholic church. Some individuals who are skeptical about stories of Jesus' life suspect that Christianity may have appropriated many details of Mithraism in order to make their religion more acceptable to Pagans. St. Augustine even stated that the priests of Mithra worshipped the same God as he did. 19 Other early Christians believed that Satan invented Mithraism and that he made Mithra's life and the practices of the religion identical to what Christianity would become centuries later. They felt that Satan's purpose was to confuse believers.

I'm not holding what they say up as truth, but I found it interesting that they have the very same information that was presented in this thread.

[ThiudareiksGunthigg]

The Jesus story is derived from a hero story that was repeated throughout history. If you look at the specific elements of these stories, like born to a virgin, son of god, saviour, gave a sermon on a mount, shared a last meal with followers, or even "entered his city on a donkey", you see that a lot of figures share them. On top are Theseus, Oedipus and Jesus, followed by Zeus, Hercules, Romulus, Perseus, Apollo, and even Robin Hood (although he came later, while all the other stories were written before Jesus).

The stories associated with Jesus did pick up some elements of earlier stories – all legends do that. They also gained currency because they paralleled earlier stories in some ways, but ‘parallel’ does not = ‘derivation’. And many of the so-called ‘parallels’ aren’t parallels at all. If you look at the supposed ‘virgin birth’ stories, almost all of them are nothing of the sort – they are ‘miraculous birth’ or ‘supernatural birth’ stories, or just stories of a god impregnating a human. Ditto for the claimed ‘parallels’ of the crucifixion – most of them are nothing like the crucifixion or, like the supposed Mithras ‘dying and rising’ story, they simply don’t exist.

It doesn't matter whether each and every word is the same in these stories, the gist of them is always the same.

The ‘gist’ of them is usually so vague that it’s patently silly to consider them parallels, let alone the origin of the Christian stories.

Jesus is just a recycled form of all the other heroes and Gods.

It’s strange, then, that he seems so much like a Jewish preacher, saying the kinds of things we’d expect a Jewish preacher to say, preaching in the context of Judaism of the early First Century with a Jewish origin and a Jewish message. It’s also odd that devout Jews would (for some unexplained reason) make up a fictional messiah, since the whole point of the Messiah was that he was meant to be a real human. It’s also weird that they’d make up a Messiah who was from a tiny backwater village like Nazareth, a place of no significance, and then find ways to argue that he was actually born in Bethlehem (where the Messiah was supposed to be from). Why not just make up a Messiah from Bethlehem in the first place? Why bring Nazareth into it at all? Unless, of course, he was a real person who was from Nazareth and known to be from there.

Combined with the fact that they are no good accounts of a physical Jesus and the belief of the early christians that Jesus never walked the earth, but is a divine figure who never left heaven, the case for Jesus is rather weak.

Writing less than 20 years after Jesus’ execution, Paul referred in passing to meeting Jesus’ brother. How could a fictional Messiah who never left heaven have a flesh and blood brother? Josephus also refers to the same brother’s execution by the Sadducees. How could the Sanhedrin execute a flesh and blood brother of a fictional person?

Jesus Christ never existed. It's just a story. An old story.

Yeshua bar Yosef existed. It takes some acrobatic back flips and wild leaps through illogical flaming hoops to ignore the clear evidence that a Galilean preacher with a recognisibly First Century Jewish message is the most obvious source of the later stories of ‘Jesus Christ’. This is why this ‘Jesus was a myth’ theory is promulgated by amateur journalists and New Age kooks while real historians, Christian and otherwise, regard it as junk history.

[GodNeptune]

The Roman Mithras was born, fully formed, from a rock, the petra genetrix. The Persian Mithra was born out of a sexual union between Ahura Mazda and either (i) his own sister or (ii) a mortal woman. There's nothing about virgins, let alone virgin birth, in either version. The Indian Mitra was born of Aditi, the mother of the gods, who was also not a virgin. The claim that Mithras/Mithra/Mitra was born of a virgin is total nonsense.

According to myth, Mithras was born in human form from Ahahita, a virgin mother. He was believed to be the savior that Zoroaster had prophecised about. The rock birth is a depiction of his birth at the beginning of time. Like Christ, Mithras was believed to have existed prior to his human birth.The rock is surrounded by the 12 signs of the zodiac, suggesting that Mithras rules over time.

There no legends or depictions of Mithras with '12 disciples' or 12 followers or companions of any kind. The Persian Mithra had a single companion, Varuna. The Roman Mithras had two, Cautes and Cautopatres. He also had a number of animal companions - a snake, a dog, a lion, a scorpion - but not twelve of them. This claim is also nonsense.

Those animals all represent signs of the zodiac. After his death, Mithras shared a meal with 12 of his followers before ascending to heaven. And the initiation into the Mithraic cult consisted of a ceremony in which 12 people dressed up as Mithras' disciples.

True, but in nothing like the same way

As with Christianity, Mithraism offered eternal life to its followers. The remains of a Mithraic temple in Rome has an inscription that reads "He who will not eat of my body, nor drink of my blood, so that he may be one with me and I with him, shall not be saved." And there is also prayer to Mithras that reads "Spirit of Spirit, if it be your will, give me over to immortal birth so that I may be born again - and the sacred spirit may breathe in me."

And? There is absolutely zero in any of Paul's writings to indicate that he was anything other than a devout Jew and a student of the Pharisaic school of Gamiel. To pretend he was a closet Mithraist is plain silly.

It's hard to believe that Paul would not have been quite familiar with the Mithras story living in Tarsus. It's seems likely that he merged Mithraism with Judaism to create Christianity.

The early Christians were quite alarmed at the parallels between Christianity and Mithraism. Justin Martyr wrote that Satan had pre-empted Christianity with Mithraism in order to create confusion. Most of the writings about Mithraism were destroyed along with the temples. The Vatican itself sits on a site that was once occupied by a temple to Mithras.

[totalwar junkie]

Writing less than 20 years after Jesus’ execution, Paul referred in passing to meeting Jesus’ brother. How could a fictional Messiah who never left heaven have a flesh and blood brother? Josephus also refers to the same brother’s execution by the Sadducees. How could the Sanhedrin execute a flesh and blood brother of a fictional person?

And some people say they were abducted by aliens. Big deal.

[ThiudareiksGunthigg]

Robert M Price 4 writes: "In broad outline and in detail, the life of Jesus as portrayed in the gospels corresponds to the worldwide Mythic Hero Archetype

And this is correct. This is largely because stories often change to fit with expected archetypes or adopt elements found in older stories. Or they become and/or remain popular because they parallel older stories. Take the story about how William the Conqueror stumbled as he landed in England. His troops took this as a bad omen, but William recovered by saying that he was embracing his new kingdom. This story was also told about Julius Caesar. And Alexander the Great. And others. Does this mean it was derived from the earlier story? Possibly. Does this mean more than one conqueror has stumbled in the surf and the same story has arisen about them in parallel. That’s also possible.

But it’s quite a leap to go from saying that Christianity picked up some earlier stories, or told (factual) stories which later shaped themselves to conform to archetypes to saying that ALL Christian stories are derived from earlier ones and that Jesus never existed.

in which a divine hero's birth is supernaturally predicted and conceived, the infant hero escapes attempts to kill him, demonstrates his precocious wisdom already as a child, receives a divine commission,

It’s odd that the ‘Jesus Mythers’ go as far afield as Horus, Theseus or Mithras to find parallels for these elements, when the most obvious parallels are in Judaism. Issac was just one Jewish hero who had a miraculous conception, predicted by angels, as did John the Baptist. Moses escapes an attempt to kill him as an infant, many prophets exhibit precocious wisdom as a child, several preachers are acclaimed by the bath qol – a divine voice from heaven. These Jewish archetypes have parallels in pagan traditions, but they are a much more likely source/influence than the pagan versions. And they are also much closer in their details.

He asserts that there are a number of historical and mythical figures whose life stories contain these elements, including Jesus. But just as we do not regard Hercules as a historical figure, a case can be made that Jesus was also a mythical character.

This is a very poor analogy. We have no letter dated to 15 years after Hercules supposed death on Mt Aetna mentioning, quite casually, that the writer had met Hercules’ brother. We also don’t have a whole corpus of literature dating to within 30-90 years of Hercules’ death which talks matter of factly about him as a human being. This also ignores the references to Jesus in Josephus and the rather telling fact that none of Christianity’s many Jewish or pagan opponents even so much as hints at any inkling he never existed. They say he was a fool, a madman, a heretic or a fraud, but they never hint at any idea that he was fictional. Surely, if someone had made him up and went around, in the lifetimes of people who would have known this character, saying he had done certain things and been to certain places, someone would have noticed.

This is why real historians regard this ‘Jesus Myth’ hypothesis as kooky nonsense.


Mithra was a fictional character who was worshipped as a Good Shepherd,

‘Good Cowherd’ actually.

the Way, the Truth and the Light, the Redeemer, the Savior, and the Messiah.

Yes, like thousands of gods worshipped all over the earth over thousands of years.

Mithra was also believed to have been born of a virgin.

Nope. Virgin rock, perhaps.

Like Jesus, their births were celebrated yearly on DEC-25.

Yes, Christianity stole that feast just as Mithraism had before it.

Mithra was also visited by shepherds and by Magi.

He wasn’t ‘visited’ by shepherds – they helped pull the fully grown Mithras out of the rock at his ‘birth’. This is an example of the kind of vague ‘parallels’ this whole theory is based on.

He traveled through the countryside, taught, and performed miracles with his 12 disciples.

Nope – no 12 disciples.

He cast out devils, returned sight to the blind, healed the lame, etc.

There is nothing like this in any Mithras legends.

Symbols associated with Mithra were a Lion and a Lamb.

Actually, it’s a lion, dog, snake and scorpion. But no lamb.

He held a last supper, was killed, buried in a rock tomb.

No, no and no.

He rose again after three days later, at the time of the spring equinox, circa MAR-21. He later ascended into heaven.

No and no.

I'm not holding what they say up as truth, but I found it interesting that they have the very same information that was presented in this thread.

Lots of erroneous information gets repeated on the internet. This is why I’m sceptical of stuff like this when it doesn’t give references or quotes from source material. The reason it doesn’t support these claims is that there is NO evidence for them. They’re simply echoing material which has been parroted elsewhere, without checking its validity.

[Kscott]

Zeus, Hercules, Romulus, Apollo,

Okay I know these arent born of virigns though i know less info on the others..

Sues and Apollo, children of Cronus and Rhea...

Hercules, Zues and some lady..


Romulus, forget his parents, but know he had some, just raised by wolves..


as for chirstmass, it isnt a christian belief that Jesus was ACTUALLY born on that day. Estimates are around march. Early Christians celebrated it on that day to avoid persecution.

[ThiudareiksGunthigg]

According to myth, Mithras was born in human form from Ahahita, a virgin mother. He was believed to be the savior that Zoroaster had prophecised about.

According to the Persian myths, Ahahita had some kind of association with Mithra. It may have been a mother/son relationship or she may have been his consort. Ahahita was also a fertility goddess, so the 'virgin' bit is pretty unlikely. The idea that she was the 'immaculate virgin mother' of Mithra has been kicking around the internet for some time; based largely on an inscription in a temple at Kangavar in Iran. Unfortunately none of the sources which mention this inscription give any references and I've been unable to find any other mention of this inscription or any primary evidence that she was regarded as the 'virgin mother' of Mithra. 'Acharya S' - a New Age writer who seems to be the source of most of this stuff - refers briefly to this supposed inscription, saying it was referred to by an (unnamed) 'recent writer'. That 'recent writer' is unnamed because they were a High School student called David Fingrut, who mentioned the inscription without any reference to where he got this information, in a High School essay written in 1993. See the level of 'scholarship' this theory has?

The rock birth is a depiction of his birth at the beginning of time.

The rock birth is found purely in Roman Mithraism. It is not found in its Persian precursor. Modern Mithraic scholars now agree that there were actually very few direct links between Roman Mithraism and the Persian version, apart from the name Mithras and a few iconographical elements.

Those animals all represent signs of the zodiac.

Possibly.

After his death, Mithras shared a meal with 12 of his followers before ascending to heaven.

Really? References please. From primary sources please. What '12 followers'? Where are they mentioned? Ditto for his 'death' and 'ascending into heaven'.

And the initiation into the Mithraic cult consisted of a ceremony in which 12 people dressed up as Mithras' disciples.

Really? Let me guess - you're getting this from Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy's The Jesus Mysteries: Was the "Original Jesus" a Pagan God?, right? Or indirectly from 'Acharya S'? You do realise that Freke and Gandy are not historians or specialists in this area, don't you? Have you noticed how they regularly state things without backing them up with evidence? Or if they do cite a reference, when you follow up that reference you find it doesn't support what they are saying at all?

So can you give me evidence about this initiation? And then give me evidence that these twelve figures represent some supposed 'followers' of Mithras? Or are you simply repeating assertions by others?

As with Christianity, Mithraism offered eternal life to its followers. The remains of a Mithraic temple in Rome has an inscription that reads "He who will not eat of my body, nor drink of my blood, so that he may be one with me and I with him, shall not be saved."

Yes, I've read about that as well. Strangely, whenever I've gone back to the scholarly material on Mithraism in the Roman Empire, I can find no references to any such inscription. Perhaps you can help - where exactly is this inscription and where is it documented? Or is it yet another piece of unreferenced 'information' spread around the internet by people like 'Acharya S' and accepted uncritically by people who don't check these things?

It's hard to believe that Paul would not have been quite familiar with the Mithras story living in Tarsus.

That would indeed be hard to believe. But there's a vast gap between saying this and saying:

It's seems likely that he merged Mithraism with Judaism to create Christianity.

How does this 'seem likely'? Where is the evidence for such a remarkable hypothesis? Where is ANYTHING in Paul's writings which indicate Mithraic beliefs? Why does Paul refer repeatedly to things Jesus taught and did and refer to meeting Jesus' brother if he simply made Jesus up? Why does Josephus refer to Jesus if Jesus was a figment of Paul's imagination? Why didn't any of Christianity's many opponents notice that this supposed founder of the Jesus sect never even existed?

This whole hypothesis is full of holes.

[ThiudareiksGunthigg]

And some people say they were abducted by aliens. Big deal.

The difference is that it's highly questionable that aliens exist. Paul simply says he met with James, Jesus' brother. Acts also mentions this encounter. The gospels all mention that Jesus had a brother called James. And Josephus mentions how James, 'the brother of Jesus called the Messiah' was executed by the Priest Annas.

So Paul's passing mention of meeting Jesus' brother is hardly remarkable (unlike someone saying they were abducted by aliens). 'Jesus Mythers' have to explain how, if Jesus was a total fiction, he had a flesh and blood brother called James.

[Shawkhan]

...I think the legend of Jesus has more in common with the Legend of Osiris, actually. If one will read a good translation of the Egyptian Book of the Dead one can find various gems such as many of Jesus' purported sayings, including the Lord's Prayer virtually word for word. The whole story of the Resurrection is simply an edited version of the Resurrection of Osiris. Rising three days after and so forth..
...As some of you may already know, the question of Jesus divinity was actually Voted upon at the Council of Nicea in 325AD, several hundred years after his supposed death. During the period of his ministry there were numerous magicians preaching various versions of the same Gospel. John the Baptist, for instance was one of Jesus' greatest competitors. Jesus was baptized by John and actually started out as one of John's disciples. He later left and went into competition with John. Many of Jesus' disciples were actually taken from John's disciples.
...The Council of Nicea formalized which Gospels would be included in the New Testament. Any of you care to guess how many Gospels there actually are? Besides the chosen(voted upon and extensively edited rewritten over the course of over fifty years) there are about 50 other Gospels(including the Gospels of Mary(Magdalene) and Thomas) which didn't fit the official 'party line' the early church was trying to promulgate, so they were simply suppressed. The Four accepted Gospels as written are simply the final product of a long-term propaganda job. If four more people had voted against godhood at Nicea, Jesus would have been seen as a prophet rather than the Son of God.
...All of the 'miracles' he performed were duplicated by other 'Egyptian' magicians of the time. Some authors have determined that his miracle of turning water into wine at Cana, actually took place at the scene of his own wedding to Mary Magdalene.
...Like many of you I have no great interest in organized religion, but I do find it entertaining(subsequent to reading the Da Vinci Code)to find as many historical facts as possible. Unfortunately it is one of those things that many people become irrational about(hence the emphasis on faith rather than logical thinking) so please don't kill the messenger. What I state here is mostly derived from a close reading of 'The Templar Revelation', as I originally was merely looking for some facts on the Templars. If someone starts a thread on them I may have some more things to add that will raise some eyebrows.
...One last point. What was Jesus charged with at his trial? Sorcery.

[Lord Rahl]

All religions have similarities in their early teachings. What some people need to figure out is that not all Christians believe every word in the Bible to be 100% "true". The Bible is a written by man and man cannot explain exactly what God has done.

[GodNeptune]

I think the legend of Jesus has more in common with the Legend of Osiris

Well, I was thinking that the Jesus story sounds almost exactly like that of Osiris's son, Horus. Horus was born from a virgin named Meri, had 12 disciples, raised people from the dead, and died by crucifixion. Osiris, Isis, and Horus constituted the Egyptian trinity. And it was predicted that Horus would return to Earth in the future to rule for 1,000 years. All of these ancient Sun-Gods have basically the same life story, and their myths are loaded with astrological symbolism. Ex. 12 prophets(zodiac), Dec. 25(rebirth of sun after its 3 day death). Jesus was most likely a real person who was considered by most as being just another prophet, but Paul gave him all of the Sun-God attributes after he had his 3 day epileptic fit and was "visited" by him.

[ThiudareiksGunthigg]

...I think the legend of Jesus has more in common with the Legend of Osiris, actually. If one will read a good translation of the Egyptian Book of the Dead one can find various gems such as many of Jesus' purported sayings, including the Lord's Prayer virtually word for word. The whole story of the Resurrection is simply an edited version of the Resurrection of Osiris. Rising three days after and so forth..

These remarkable assertions would carry some weight if you actually backed them up with some references or, better still, some direct quotes. Where, for example, is the Lord's Prayer found in the Book of the Dead? Please quote it.

...As some of you may already know, the question of Jesus divinity was actually Voted upon at the Council of Nicea in 325AD, several hundred years after his supposed death.

This is completely wrong. The vote at Nicea was not about whether Jesus was divine - that was fully accepted by everyone at the Council and by all Christians and had been accepted since at least the early Second Century. The Council of Nicea met to settle the Arian Controversy; ie how did Jesus' divinity stand in relation to the rest of the Trinity, was he separate from but equal to God the Father in his divinity or was he divine and 'proceeding from' God the Father. It was not about whether he was divine.

...The Council of Nicea formalized which Gospels would be included in the New Testament.

This is also wrong. The Council of Nicea did not even discuss the canon of the New Testament. The process of determining which texts were 'scriptural' had been going on since at least 150 AD and the general shape of the New Testament was well and truly already fixed long before 325 AD. The first church meeting to formally ratify this canon was actually the Synod of Hippo in 393 AD, but the canon was not formally recognised by a full ecumenical council until the Council of Trent in 1545. The Council of Nicea never even discussed this question and had nothing at all to do with this process.

Any of you care to guess how many Gospels there actually are? Besides the chosen(voted upon and extensively edited rewritten over the course of over fifty years) there are about 50 other Gospels(including the Gospels of Mary(Magdalene) and Thomas) which didn't fit the official 'party line' the early church was trying to promulgate, so they were simply suppressed.

And this is wrong as well. We have copies of, references to and fragments of about 18-20 gospels dating from the First to the Third Centuries, not 'about 50'. And the ones that were rejected were not rejected because they didn't fit some official 'party line' promulgated by 'the church'. There was no single 'church' in the period in which this process took place (well before Nicea) and gospels etc were accepted or rejected on the basis of whether they were known to be or generally accepted to be genuine, rather than later works written in the names of the first Christian followers.

The Four accepted Gospels as written are simply the final product of a long-term propaganda job.

Nonsense. This conspiracy theory is a total distortion and oversimplification of a much more complex process.

If four more people had voted against godhood at Nicea, Jesus would have been seen as a prophet rather than the Son of God.

More nonsense. The Council of Nicea was not voting on whether Jesus was divine or a mortal prophet. And it was not a close vote at all - the vote was 218 to 2 against the Arian interpretation of the Trinity. It was not a close vote and it was not about wether he was divine anyway.

Some authors have determined that his miracle of turning water into wine at Cana, actually took place at the scene of his own wedding to Mary Magdalene.

Some authors say all kinds of stupid things. The only account of this wedding explicitly says Jesus was invited to it as a guest. What groom is invited as a guest to his own wedding? When they run out of wine, Jesus' mother turns to him and points this out - he replies that it's none of his business. If he was the groom, it would definitely be his business. His mother then quietly tells the servants to do what Jesus tells them. If he was the groom, this instruction would hardly be neccessary. It's completely obvious that Jesus was not the groom at this wedding, he was just as guest.

...Like many of you I have no great interest in organized religion, but I do find it entertaining(subsequent to reading the Da Vinci Code)to find as many historical facts as possible.

Then I'd suggest you look a little more carefully for those 'facts'. The Da Vinci Code is a third rate thriller filled with total errors, misinterpretations of history, misrepresentations of the evidence and total fantasy masquerading as fact. Dan Brown is a high school teacher and a (rather bad) novelist. He sure as hell ain't a historian, which is why his 'history' has been ripped to pieces by real historians since his rather silly novel appeared.

Unfortunately it is one of those things that many people become irrational about(hence the emphasis on faith rather than logical thinking) so please don't kill the messenger.

I'm an atheist, so I have no religious beliefs to protect with irrational thinking. The things you've stated above are simply wrong.

What I state here is mostly derived from a close reading of 'The Templar Revelation', as I originally was merely looking for some facts on the Templars. If someone starts a thread on them I may have some more things to add that will raise some eyebrows.

If it's based on the amateurish, New Age kookery found in Picknett and Prince's book I'm sure it will raise the eyebrows of anyone who knows real history and how it is studied. The reason The Da Vinci Code is so riddled with nonsensical pseudo-history is that he used The Templar Revelation and Holy Blood Holy Grail as his major 'sources' of 'information'. Both books are by amateur crackpots and are regarded as little more than a joke by real historians

...One last point. What was Jesus charged with at his trial? Sorcery.

Wrong, it was blasphemy.