kintire said:
I would caution you very strongly against getting your ideas on this kind of thing solely from the internet. This is amyth which is fiercely supported on several websites, but by no scholars, and it is utterly wrong.
This is quite insulting assumption and factually wrong. If it is only a recent myth, then why did early Christian apologists write and speak about the matter? Their best response seemed to be that the other, similar religions are diabolical imitations of the true faith...or that the pagan religions are actually a prophecy proving that Christianity is the only through religion. Not very convincing...
This isn't the place to go into this, but as a few examples, none of the religions you mention above actually have any of the elements you cite. Osiris and Horus both ahve genealogies and were concieved by the union of a god and a goddess. Osiris had to be reanimated to concieve his heir, Horus, post mortem, but he then proceeded to the underworld as usual (in Egyptian tales). He was never resurected, but ruled over the dead. he wasn't a willing sacrifice, he was murdered by treachery. Dionysos doesn't even get that close, until the arrival of the Orphic cult where he does acquire some of these characteristics, but they started in the 3rd century AD. Mithra (who is a different deity from Mithras, by the way) was born from a god and a goddess, and never died. Mithras emerged fully grown from a rock, and never died. Zoroaster was born as normal, was murdered, and styaed dead. etc etc.
You are struck in details. The point is that derived from many sources familiar to the contemporary religious figures, the basic core myths of Christianity exist in far older religions. Even if many anecdotes are known only by sources from 1st - 3rd Century AD, it does not invalidiate them as such. (Especially as modern scholars pretty much agree that the Gospel of Mark was composed somewhere during late first century.) During its first century, Christianity was still a small cult. What is more likely - a small cult borrowing from dominant ones to have easier time converting their believers or a large, dominant cult stealing ideas from an obscure small sect of Judaism?
If we look at Mitra/Mithra/Mithras, the trouble is the multitude of guises that particular divinity has worn. The Persian version is rather different from the Roman one and so forth. However certain things can be said for sure. Mithras was born 25th of December, a virgin birth in the sense that he was not born out of a woman, but rock. His birth was attended by shepherds who brought him gold, pleasant scents et cetera. Less reliable sources state that the faithful enacted rites of death and resurrection and had rites of bread and wine very similar to Christianity. This was a symbolic last meal before the initiate was "slain". I've read claims about Mithraic inscription stating that by eating his flesh and blood one finds a path to salvation - but I've found no reputable sources for this, so I assume it is not true.
Yes, but on to the cult of Osiris-Dionysos. A Greek philosopher whose named I can't recall blamed the Christians as copying from this very cult. In some versions of the story, Dionysos was born 25th of December out of a virgin - though in some stories the date of brith is 6th of January. He is at multiple times pictured riding on a donkey, surrounded by people or satyrs waving branches. He died and returned to life and created wine or turned water in to wine. Horus shares even more similarities regarding the general structure of his myth.
In general, the various death-rebirth deities were always born from a seed of god from a mortal woman or virginally from inanimate elements around the winter Solistice, attended by shephers or mystics, performed miracles, were travelling teachers, had sacrificial, communal meals, joining the cult included a baptism of some form and the deity or hero somehow overcame death. It is just not these two cases, but many others. It is as well only a minor point that none of the myths is exactly the same as Christian myths - it is likely that multiple sources affected writers of the Gospels and like you said, there was a heavy Judaic influence. As an interesting side note, Dennis MacDonald speculates in "The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark" (Yale University Press, 2000) about the Gospels following Homeric patterns and seeking to overdo the Greek heroes much like Jesus overdoes Moses. Then there is the whole mythic hero architype thing..
The most original parts of Christianity are the concept of original sin, the judgement to eternal suffering based on lack of faith alone (or entry to paradise based on faith alone) and its very aggressive evangelism (before Islam). What comes to Judaism..well, the long way from pantheon to monotheism certainly was influenced by other religions on the way, such as the myth of the global flood directly taken from the Babylonians, but that is another topic entirely. Now, a lot of stuff about Christian parallels to other religions are garbled half-truths and outright lies since there is involvement of modern Gnostics and other religious crooks who want to spin the history so it fits better for their beliefs. However the same is very much true about the other side - I wouldn't treat Christian apologists any better.
The main point is that despite all the chaff and smoke about the subject, there are good sources to point out that the similarities of Christian mythology to other mythologies is not only a 19th Century myth. It is something early Christians were involved in explaining in their works for over two centuries, so it must have been apparent to them and a familiarity about the myths of the region are enough for anyone to come to the same conclusion. Whether these myths mingled or not (and which had an effect on which) is pretty impossible to know - but it is naive to presume that any religion would grow its myths out of nothing and they'd just happen to be quite similar to local traditions.
