Christianity copied its story from pagan dying-and-rising gods

Where the idea came from

This view became popular through James Frazer's The Golden Bough in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Frazer grouped many ancient myths into a category of "dying-and-rising gods" linked to the cycle of the seasons. The idea has had a long life online and in documentaries, and it's an understandable suspicion: if similar stories existed, maybe Christianity is just one more.

What scholars now think

Most scholars of ancient religion today are skeptical of Frazer's category. Jonathan Z. Smith, writing in the Encyclopedia of Religion, argued that "dying and rising gods" is a misleading label and that the supposed examples don't really fit. Tryggve Mettinger, a Swedish scholar, argued in The Riddle of Resurrection (2001) that a few ancient myths do involve gods who die and return, but he concluded that there is no clear evidence that the resurrection of Jesus was modelled on them.

The parallels are vague

When you look closely, the differences are huge. Osiris is murdered and dismembered, then reassembled and becomes ruler of the underworld; he doesn't return to bodily life on earth. The myths of Adonis and Attis are tied to vegetation and seasons, repeating every year. Many of the alleged parallels to Mithras come from sources written after Christianity began, so if there was borrowing, it may have gone the other way.

A very Jewish story

The earliest Christians were Jews, deeply suspicious of pagan religion. Their belief in resurrection came from Jewish hope, found in texts like Daniel 12, that God would raise the dead at the end of history. What surprised them was that one man had been raised in the middle of history. N.T. Wright argues in The Resurrection of the Son of God that this belief makes sense against a Jewish background, not a pagan one.

Real history, real place

Pagan myths are set in a mythical, timeless past. The Gospels place Jesus in a specific time and place, under named rulers like Pontius Pilate and Herod, and the earliest resurrection reports (1 Corinthians 15) appeared within a few years of the events. That's not how myths develop.

Could similarities point somewhere?

C.S. Lewis, who loved ancient mythology, suggested that if Christianity is true, we might expect some echoes in other stories. He described the Gospel as "myth become fact": the deep human longing for death and rebirth finally happening in history.

A fair concession

There are some general similarities between Christianity and other religions, as there are among all human stories. Similarity alone doesn't prove borrowing either way.

How to explain this to a friend

Friends often encounter this idea online. A good response is to ask which parallel they find most convincing, then look at it together. The details usually turn out to be much weaker than the headline. You can also mention that most scholars of ancient religion no longer accept the copycat theory, which tends to surprise people.

The bottom line

Most scholars today reject the copycat theory. The supposed parallels are vague or later than Christianity, and the resurrection belief fits a Jewish setting. Explore the evidence at Is Christianity true?