Jesus and similarity to pagan myths

[Mickyd]

This is in responce to an e-mail to Ray in the e-mail section....The question was....

Ray-
Why did ancient myths pre-dating Jesus, have a divine son, crucified, born of a virgin, ascended to heaven, etc.?
Some say that Paul was only recreating Mithraism with the Christ narrative, as do the gospels.

The truth is it didn't.

The original story of Mithrais goes as follows.

Mithras was born from a rock...the result of that birth left a cave. He did battle with a bull and won....as a result there was a feast. He did have twelve deciples ( the twelve signs of the zodiac...which was a blend of Babylonian astrology). That's about the only resemblance that Mithrasim had with Christianity until the 1st and second centuries.

Mithrais was very popular with the roman military....he was a God of war. As the story of Jesus spread throughout the Roman empire, the stories became blended with Mithraism.

There was a very good article about this subject posted on the University of Chicago web site several months ago titled "Mithrasim; The Final Pagan State Religion of the Roman Empire".  I no longer have the link, but I saved the article as a web archive file.

[Kevin]

Thankyou Mickyd for your post on that. People will do anything to try and disprove anything about our Savior.

[Mickyd]

Thankyou Mickyd for your post on that. People will do anything to try and disprove anything about our Savior.

Unfortunately Kevin, many of the traditions of the Church evolved from Mithraism...that's where many people come to believe that Christianity came from pagan myths.

The Romans were masters of adapting other beliefs into their own. Roman-Greek mythology is a perfect example.