Why do Christian beliefs mimic the mystery religions?

Question

like the Great Goddess, Isis, and Mithra. the stories are almost identical. Why is that?

Answer 1

No one has the slightest physical evidence to support a historical Jesus; no artifacts, dwelling, works of carpentry, or self-written manuscripts. All claims about Jesus derive from writings of other people. There occurs no contemporary Roman record that shows Pontius Pilate executing a man named Jesus. Devastating to historians, there occurs not a single contemporary writing that mentions Jesus. All documents about Jesus got written well after the life of the alleged Jesus from either: unknown authors, people who had never met an earthly Jesus, or from fraudulent, mythical or allegorical writings. Although one can argue that many of these writings come from fraud or interpolations, I will use the information and dates to show that even if these sources did not come from interpolations, they could still not serve as reliable evidence for a historical Jesus, simply because all sources derive from hearsay accounts.

Hearsay means information derived from other people rather than on a witness' own knowledge.

Courts of law do not generally allow hearsay as testimony, and nor does honest modern scholarship. Hearsay provides no proof or good evidence, and therefore, we should dismiss it.

If you do not understand this, imagine yourself confronted with a charge for a crime which you know you did not commit. You feel confident that no one can prove guilt because you know that there exists no evidence whatsoever for the charge against you. Now imagine that you stand present in a court of law that allows hearsay as evidence. When the prosecution presents its case, everyone who takes the stand against you claims that you committed the crime, not as a witness themselves, but solely because other people said so. None of these other people, mind you, ever show up in court, nor can anyone find them.

Hearsay does not work as evidence because we have no way of knowing whether the person lies, or simply bases his or her information on wrongful belief or bias. We know from history about witchcraft trials and kangaroo courts that hearsay provides neither reliable nor fair statements of evidence. We know that mythology can arise out of no good information whatsoever. We live in a world where many people believe in demons, UFOs, ghosts, or monsters, and an innumerable number of fantasies believed as fact taken from nothing but belief and hearsay. It derives from these reasons why hearsay cannot serves as good evidence, and the same reasoning must go against the claims of a historical Jesus or any other historical person.

Authors of ancient history today, of course, can only write from indirect observation in a time far removed from their aim. But a valid historian's own writing gets cited with sources that trace to the subject themselves, or to eyewitnesses and artifacts. For example a historian today who writes about the life of George Washington, of course, can not serve as an eyewitness, but he can provide citations to documents which give personal or eyewitness accounts. None of the historians about Jesus give reliable sources to eyewitnesses, therefore all we have remains as hearsay.

Answer 2

That is a good question. I believe that a lot of the beliefs in the bible came from earlier Pagan religions. It is evident if you do your research. Like you mentioned, Isis, if you do an internet search on "Horus and Jesus" together you will find the similarities documented, (Horus was Isis son). The similarities are monumental. Just a few, they were both a god, both son's of god, both born of a virgin, star appeared at their birth, they both preformed miracles, healed the sick and the blind, walked on water, born on December 25, raised Lasuras from the dead, dies on a cross between 2 thief’s, descended into hell (Jesus did this in non canonized scriptures), then ascended to heaven on the 3rd day and are both supposed to have a second coming.

I have heard a theory that Jesus was a real person as someone else posted here that was crucified by Pontus Pilate but that after his death the true story was upgraded to reflect the old myths that were commonly known among these ancient peoples of those times. Horus was not the only Pagan god that had a similar story as that of Jesus.

I have also heard a theory that all of the old Pagan gods were Jesus in different incarnations testifying to all of the cultures of the past times. If this is true, which I would like to hope it is, it would lead a lot more credibility to the gospels than wondering if it is true because we are aware of the far older myths. I would think that any logical person would have to assume that the older myths that have been documented by science as being far older that than the gospels would have to be the ones that were copied by the Christians.

I know I have told you before on other posts about the similarities between many of the Genesis stories and the old Sumerian and Babylonian texts. I have recently found out that the Mayans even had a Tower of Babel story that is very very similar to the Genesis story and is documented by their artifacts as being older than the written bible version.

I have read about another theory that Moses was actually an Egyptian prince Tuthmosis that was the nephew of the Pharaoh Amenhotep Iv who changed his name to Ankenaten and was the one that forcibly changed the Egyptian religious beliefs from Polytheism to monotheism to worship only the god Aten. Which didn't go over very well and after he died his name was expunged from the Egyptian history and polythiesim returned. This theory seems to have a great deal of evidence and if it is true would explain the egyptian influence that is in the bible.

I have read the Eyptian book of the dead and beleive that much of the biblical beleifs of the afterlife may have come from this. The egyptians believed that when you die you go to the underworld or the DWAT. There you walk through the 9 lakes of fire and are judged for your sins. If you are found worthy your proceede through the lakes unharmed and ascend to heaven. If you are judged a sinner you die a second death in the lakes of fire and then are buried in the Valley of the Shadow. I can't help but make the comparison the the prayer in the Bible, Yeah as a walk through the Valley of the Shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me. My rod and my staff (Egyptian rod and staff?), comfort me...

Answer 3

All the particular points that are similar between some of the mystery religions and Christianity are present not only in the mystery religions but within the Judaic tradition as well: that included both beliefs and symbols. Therefore as a local cult tied to Palestine it is more probable that it drew from what was clearly the source than from systems that its founders would have regarded as pagan.

Answer 4

The early Roman church knew it couldn't completely wipe out the old religions, so they just adapted them. Gee, you're celebrating the birth of a god on December 25? It's really Jesus' birth. You like the Great Goddess or Isis, she's really the Virgin Mary in another form. That way, they could go on with their old practices, but they at least mouthed the fact that they were Christians. Over time, as memories faded, they just became intermixed.

Answer 5

Mystery Cults were a part of Greek and Roman religion alike that were primarily concerned with the afterlife. If you look at the body of both religions, most every form of sacrifice, prayer, and ritual was concerned with more of a patron-client relationship (Roman) or guest friendship (Greek, "xenia") relationship.

The two things mystery cults shared in common were concern with the afterlife (salvation, damnation, ect.) and secret initiation. When it comes down to it, Christianity did fit the bill. They wanted to keep themselves in secret communities at that point, as in comparison, the Christian religion seemed asocial and weird to the Greeks and Romans.

While Christianity did piggyback a good deal of its ideology, iconography, and even holidays off of current traditions (Saturnalian, for instance, ended right on Dec. 25th, a holiday where the restricted god Saturn was devested of his chains and things were exciting and upsidown), calling it "stealing" would be unnecessary villification due to connotations. It wasn't something that was just stealing, but rather a way to consolidate and peacefully integrate different belief systems together that has been going on as early as there have been religions. Just because it is often used to judge and devalidate the religion today doesn't mean that it's right to judge an ancient culture by modern societal standards and beliefs. It helped the religion to survive, and whether or not you consider that a good or bad thing, it was not an immoral or unacceptable thing to do, and in fact allowed for many people to co-exist. Persecution of Christians was most often political after all, and concerned their direct challenging of the position of the emperor (calling Jesus names analagous and directly conflicting with the titles of the Emperor). It had nothing to do with anything but scapegoating and politics.

Answer 6

Christian beliefs had to take from the past to make millions of people fall into the trap.

Just because Christianity is more widely forced upon the general population does not mean that the other religions are mysteries. Just do some research.

Answer 7

In order to completely dominate all of the pagan religions, the early Christians "borrowed" (a nice word for stealing) all of the most famous pagan festivals, and turne them into Christian festivals, and even included some of the pagan practices. I hope you don't think that Jesus was really born on Dec 25? That was the old Yule Solstice, and from the pagan festival, we get Christmas trees and the exchange of gifts. Neither was a Christian practice. Other so called Christian practices are also derived from the old pagan festivals. Christians never were very creative

Answer 8

Because it was common practice back then to adapt stories about gods off one another. More religions of the ancient Near Eastern area, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Canaan, have religious stories that closely resemble one another. Christian beliefs originiate in the Near East, so the beliefs resemble those of the other religions found there.

Answer 9

Because Christianity evolved, up to a point, from the Greek and Roman traditions who had their own mythology (the Romans in fact borrowing a lot from the Greeks, barely changing the names of dieties. Same for temples and festivals and Holy days to mark the change of season. A lot of the Christian tradition evolved from "pagan" background.

Answer 10

Actually it is the opposite, Judaism was the first religion, and Christianity branched off of that. And everyone else just simply did the same with their idol worship and satanism, wallowing in their sins and ignorance. Judasim and Christianity were the first though.

Answer 11

well Christian beliefs mimiced Pagan tradition and belief systems and in order to convert the masses to christanity they had to make it easy to swallow and meld their new way of thinking into the stories and legends of the Old Religion.