Hello David,

thanks for your email and intriguing challenge.

In my What's So Special About Jesus? pages I've shown that there is not a concept associated with Christ or Christianity that does not run as a common thread through so many other Savior cults and mystery religions and that Jesus, rather than being the genesis of Christianity is a compound of many characters rolled into one, many of whom were personifications and extensions of the solar myths.

At the moment I am updating that section, adding Pagan Christs by John M. Robertson, Studies in comparative Hierology by Dr. David Friedrich  Strauss and trying to reconstruct the works of Celsus from the writings of Origen of Alexandria.

I'll send you the link once the update is finished and will be more than happy to add a page addressing any points you raise or any comments you make.

All the best to you and yours,

John

John,

Since you're the first person to respond to one of my e-mails, I'm wondering what you think of my criteria of what constitutes "evidence". I don't want it to be so loose that I'll take any claim of a parallel on blind faith, but also don't want it to be so strict that I'll end up rejecting a claim that is actually valid. My purpose here is to get to the bottom of the issue, to find out which of these parallels really belonged to a pre-Christian religion or cult, and which were the fabrication of Christ-mythers in the last couple of centuries (as at least a few of them clearly were). Is there anything, in your opinion, that a skeptical person like me should be accepting as evidence that I'm not? Or shouldn't be accepting that I am? What criteria do you use to determine whether a given "parallel" claim is valid?

David

Hello David,

If you were to apply the strict rules of evidence as used in a court of law all gods and goddesses, every single one of them, would be found to have no basis  in fact.

I've collected close on 13,000 various deities and, whilst a believer may say that all except his are false, no one has ever provided solid, concrete and testable proof for any of them.

However, we're not dealing with solid facts and figures but with the intangibles of mythology and no doubt you've found that a lot of what passes for scholarship is actually agenda driven: start with an opinion and pick a methodology that gives the answer they want.

You get them on both sides of the borrowing-no borrowing debate and often these are the ones most widely cited. On one side, you get people like Kersey

Graves, who rarely cites a source and seems to make it up as he goes along, or Acharya S, who is a little more rigorous but tries to make everything, relevant or not, fit her worldview.

On the other side you find people like Ronald Nash and A. D. Nock who are defending their views from a position of faith. They are using a methodology and a criteria that make it impossible to discover Christian borrowing from Paganism.

When I started to write the Christianity and Jesus pages on my site I did what most do: find material that supported my views and used that fairly uncritically.

Now, three years down the line and with close on 20,000 pages of Gods, Goddesses, Ghosts, Ghoulies, Heroes, Villains and Things That Go Bump In The Night from just about every country and culture, I've come to realise that although each ancient religion had its own myths, some striking similar, what these pre-Christian religions shared with each other and with Christianity was not so much the myths but the religious ideas: basic notions about the shape of the universe, the human soul, eternal destiny, the Gods, their powers and place in the universe, divine beings with miraculous powers who cared about them and answered their prayers, had powers of prophesy and had prepared a place for them in the afterlife.

The Christian and older myths are similar because they were made up to fit similar religious ideas.

So, what is the criteria that we can use to decide which ancient stories were new and original, and which ancient stories were myths built up from the religious ideas of the surrounding cultures? Read the ancient sources and what ancient people wrote about their religions then decide for yourself if the Christian stories are similar to the pre-Christian pagan stories.

Mythology index: http://bulfinch.englishatheist.org/

Related Texts: http://bulfinch.englishatheist.org/b/pantheon/

So, what is the criteria that we can use to decide which ancient stories were new and original, and which ancient stories were myths built up from the religious ideas of the surrounding cultures? Read the ancient sources and what ancient people wrote about their religions then decide for yourself if the Christian stories are similar to the pre-Christian pagan stories.

Are you saying that you've read the ancient sources for yourself, and confirmed all, or even most, of the parallels? Where did you find them? Where can I see them for myself?

Because you should know that this is exactly the kind of evidence I'm searching for, the ancient sources for these stories. But every time I ask someone like yourself who is promoting these lists for the sources, they never show them to me. They insult me, tell me to look elsewhere, give excuses, and do just about everything but show them to me. If they exist, why are they hiding them? If they exist, why aren't they sticking them on websites for all of the world to see? Will you?

Sorry if I'm sounding a bit skeptical of the idea that these ancient sources actually exist, but I am. More than a bit, in fact. I don't believe that you, or anyone, has actually read them. Show me the source for even one of these lists, and I'll apologize for my cynicism and give you $1000. As it is, I'm nearly certain that over 95% of the items on these lists don't have a source any earlier than the 19th century. Please prove me wrong.

David

Hello David,

a couple of points: (i) could you please change the background colour of page showing our email exchange to a more subdued, neutral colour? Shocking pink gives me a headache. It really does.

(ii) Could you please add the link I provided to the related texts: http://bulfinch.englishatheist.org/b/pantheon/ because these provide some of the ancient sources, from 2500 BCE to 200 CE, that show many of the parallels. Thanks.

At the moment, I'm compiling pages on pre-Christian pagan parallels in Christianity using such ancient sources as Origen, Celsus, gospels of Matthew and Luke, Hesiod, Apollodorus, Ovid, Lucian of Samosata, Plutarch, Titus, Livius, the Tablets of the Babylonian Legends of the Creation, Herodotus, Gellius, etc,.

I'm ignoring any modern work unless it cites an ancient text or source.

You can see the ancient sources for yourself; a decent sized library or large bookshop should be able to order them for you, either in the original language or in translation. Of course, most are available online. As for the autographs, if still extant, you'd have to find which museum or book collection holds them and see if they have viewings.

Cynicism and skepticism are good to have, especially in matters of faith.

All the best to you and yours, John.

John,

I'll change the color (is the same yellow as on the Challenge site okay?) and add your link back in, and if you have any parallels on that page that aren't already on my Copycat site, I'll adjust the site accordingly. If you have enough ancient sources to prove at least half of any one of the lists, then I'll leave it to you to organize it into a submission, all right? The only reason being that I already have three other people who said they would try to prove a list, and I feel the need to give them as much of a fair shot as I give you.

David

Hello again David,

sorry to take so long to get back to you but it's been a hectic couple of months.

Thanks for changing the page colour and adding the links.

I've started a section on pre-Christian pagan parallels in Christianity which you can see at http://bulfinch.englishatheist.org/da/index.htm

I'm using a holistic approach, citing disparate ancient and modern sources, both the mundane and the esoteric. Many of the sources are on site so you can read them for yourself. There are only a few categories listed at the moment and more will be added as time allows.

All the best to you and yours,

John.