How much does early Christianity owe to Mithraism?

Question

There are certain fundamental similarities. This is attributed by agnostics to co-optation,by the Church to mere coincidence. But what about the possibility of a common origin? Zoroastrianism spawned Mithraism concurrent to cross-germinating with Judaism,which spawned Christianity. What about the possibilty of a roughly common origin in terms of both Christianity and Mithraism having roots in Zoroastrianism? Has any scholar ever considered a common- orgin proposition?

Answer 1

Christ's message is fundamentally unique and the similarities are superficial. There is no similarity as far as actual teachings are concerned. But there was Zorastrian influence via Judaism during the time of Cyrus.

Answer 2

There is no direct historical evidence that Christianity is anything but an offshoot of Judaism where a division has occurred over whether or not Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah.

Scholars can speculate all they want by making comparisons and looking at the possible influence the Babylonian captivity might have had on the Hebrew religion but it still remains pure speculation.

You certainly won't find any historical record of Jewish people adding to or deriving their sacred writings from other cultures.

As a Christian who believes in the divine inspiration of the Holy Bible I would hypothesize that any similarities come from one of three possible sources.

1. A common background shared between different cultures starting from the days after Noah and the incident mentioned in Genesis 11 at the tower of Babel when mankind was scattered over the face of the earth.

2. Jewish influence on other cultures especially during the time of King Solomon.

3. The Bible seems to indicate that Satan has a goal of copying and supplanting the eternal God of Heaven here on earth and by imitating while perverting the things of God he draws people into false religious systems where he is the "god" behind the altar.

Answer 3

While I don't buy a linear path of Zoroastrianism-->Mithraism-->Christianity, I do think Christianity is sort of the result of mixing lots of religious ideas floating around the region at the time, and I think Mithraism might have come from the same metaphorical glass of Kool-Aid.

I find the link to the Osiris-Dionysus movement very plausible, since that spawned a lot of cults that were a combination of O-D ideas and the local flavor of religion (in this case Judaism).

Answer 4

Nonsense. To accept the idea that early Christianity owes much to Mithraism is to say that Their god was Ahura Mazda.
Jesus said: “The Son cannot do a single thing of his own initiative, but only what he beholds the Father doing. For whatever things that One does, these things the Son also does in like manner.” (John 5:19) Jesus was speaking about His Father Jehovah. Not Ahura Mazda who was viewed as the creator of all good things according to Zoroastrianism.

Answer 5

easily Mithraism turned right into a Greek/Roman secret faith that shaped sometime between the later 1st century ad via likely the fifth Century. I propose that the Greek/Roman Mithras cult easily took a number of the Christian writings and merged them with different previous beliefs to create the cult. that would account for any of the "similarities".

Answer 6

Actually the question should be, "How much does Mithraism owe to Christianity". There are historical documents talking about how the Roman belief of Mithraism often copied Christians, and that the Christians complained about how they closely copied everything that they did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraic_Mysteries

But, ultimately, I don't exactly know the answer to the question. Who does? We can't time travel yet.

Answer 7

Many of the primary tenents of Judaism are the opposite of what is believed in Zaroastianism. Zaroastianism is dualistic, Judaism monotheistic.

Also, Zaroastianism would have been borrowing from Judaism- Judaism dates from 2000 BC, Zaroastianism is a between 500 and 1000 years younger than Judaism.

Answer 8

Zoroastorianism and Roman Mithraism are quite different.


http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/mithra.html


Roman Mithra and Jesus are different too.

Answer 9

Satan tries to counterfeit everything that God does.So it may appear that their are similarities between modern and ancient religions, but it is just the same demonic spirits trying to be worshipped by man through false doctrines.. Jesus annoints His followers with His Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth.

Answer 10

Christian was the name given to those at Antioch who believed in Christ, because people said they were so like him they were little Christs.
Jesus started it. Not anybody else.
Christianity owes nothing to Mithraism