Proving The Resurrection By the Minimal Facts Approach

[Redbeard The Pink]

Randy, Jesus is not unique. Jehovah is not unique. While many of what I call "The Zeitgeist Claims" are a bunch of historically dubious, half-baked bullshit, stripping them away still leaves us with plenty of ammo to say that the Jesus character could have been influenced by other stories that came first.


Christianity shows up during a historical period when a series of Hellenistic Mystery Cults were forming up in the Greco-Roman area. These cults had various things in common, and many of them predate Christianity.


For one thing, virtually all of these cults share the trait that they borrow extant characters from other mythologies (Persian, Egyptian, or Jewish gods, for example).


Second, many of the gods these groups chose were dying-and-rising gods, and virtually all of them are characters who experience and overcome a struggle of some variety. Generally these were agricultural gods, and their struggles, dying, and rising usually symbolised some kind of seasonal transition (i.e. the death and rebirth of the Sun at the Solstices).


Despite centering around agricultural gods that were originally believed to relate to a community as a whole (rather than individuals), the Hellenistic Mystery Cults generally repurposed these gods to lend personal salvation and personal relationships with one's deities.


Finally, it was common practice during this time period to rewrite purely celestial characters as humans with stories that place them amongst historical figures.


The point is that your deity is not a special snow flake, especially in the context of the historical period during which he arises. There is no religious theme or idea that is truly original or unique to Christianity.