The Death and Resurrection of Christ?

[Minimalist]

People get crazy trying to push the details to make them fit, Pad. The fact is that the dying/resurrected god was a common motif in the ANE.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/582039/Tammuz

the myth ends with Inanna decreeing that Tammuz and his sister may alternate in the netherworld, each spending half of the year among the living.

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/d/dionysus.html

Dionysus, also referred to as Zagreus in this account, is the son of Zeus and Persephone, Queen of the Underworld. Hera gets the Titans to lure the infant with toys, and then they rip him to shreds eating everything but Zagreus' heart, which is saved by either Athena, Rhea, or Demeter. Zeus remakes his son from the heart and implants him in Semele who bears a new Dionysus Zagreus. Hence, as in the earlier account, Dionysus is called "twice born." The latter account formed a part of the Orphic religion's religious mythology.

http://www.godchecker.com/pantheon/greek...ity=ADONIS

ARES was furious, and being of a boorish disposition, changed himself into a boar and killed ADONIS in a hunting accident. This resulted in much hair-pulling and scratching and shrieking in Olympus.

Eventually ZEUS decided it was time for a bit of peace. He declared that ADONIS was not totally dead, but could spend six months with each of them.

http://bet-ilim.blogspot.com/2011/11/dei...shmun.html

However, the young god bled to death as a result of his action. Astart carried the dead god into a nearby cave and restored him back to life with her power. Arisen once more, Eshmun became an underworld god.

The point of all this is that a dying and resurrected god would have been old hat to the populations of the region. There is an incessant desire on the part of some to want to reconcile every detail but sometimes you don't have to look past the major theme.

Jesus was merely the last incarnation of the dying/resurrected god. He was nothing special.