Is Christianity based on older myths?

[SteveII]

If you believe there was a vast conspiracy, and we, for argument's sake, say that the early church had a library of world religions in which to copy its myths, do you have a reasons why someone would go through all that trouble?

That's really an easy one, since the jews took their holy books from regional myths. Gilgamesh, the culture of Ugarit, Babylon and Egypt. Early christians on the other hand were dominated by Greece and Rome and took their myths accordingly.

Add to the mix campfire tales that have been collected and embellished and you have the story. Regardless if a person named Jesus existed, he draws heavily from the Greek and Roman Pantheon. Even Bart Ehrman writes, whom you quoted earlier, writes about the fallacies entering the story. And he totally leaves out the political element, which was one of the main driving forces behind early christianity.

And then there's politics. When christianity became the state religion of what was left of the Roman empire, they tried to appeal to the masses. So Jesus' supposed birth date coincides with the Saturnalia, churches were built on pagan sites. The list of borrowed tidbits from other cults could be continued at nauseum.

So all that to say it was politics that caused Paul (or whomever was part of the conspiracy) to come up with a fairly complicated system. I guess the early Christians were playing the long game since it didn't become a political force for over 300 years. I am amazed at how clever these people were who, at best looked down on and at worst persecuted, for over 7 generations with that long game in mind--what dedication.