Mithras was a god whose mythology originated in Greece in the 2nd century B.C. and spread to Rome 100 years later. As gods’ bios go, the story of Mithras has a familiar ring:
- Mithras was born of a virgin on December 25th in a cave, and his birth was attended by shepherds.
- He was considered a great traveling teacher and master.
- He had 12 companions or disciples.
- Mithras’ followers were promised immortality.
- He performed miracles.
- As the “great bull of the Sun,” Mithras sacrificed himself for world peace.
- He was buried in a tomb and after three days rose again.
- His resurrection was celebrated every year.
- He was called “the Good Shepherd” and identified with both the Lamb and the Lion.
- He was considered the “Way, the Truth and the Light,” and the “Logos,” “Redeemer,” “Savior” and “Messiah.”
- His sacred day was Sunday.
- Mithras had his principal festival of what was later to become Easter.
- His religion had a eucharist or “Lord’s Supper,” at which Mithras said, “He who shall not eat of my body nor drink of my blood so that he may be one with me and I with him, shall not be saved.”
Mithras ascended into heaven at the age of 64, in 208 B.C.
- Topic: News & Comment, Politics
- Topics: Jesusland
To the writer of “Have a Very Merry Mithras,”
I would like to see where you got your evidence for this Mithras conspiracy. When I researched it I found no evidence from reliable sources for nearly all of the similarities between Mithras and Jesus Christ you listed. One clear example is that Mithras was supposedly born of a rock, not a virgin as you say.
It appears that you got your information from the ArticlesofReason.com blog (I make this assumption of course because this is the only reference you link to the post). Since I’m sure you wouldn’t want Christians taking what their pastors say to be true without reading the Bible for themselves, I hope you did the responsible thing and checked the facts and the history before regurgitating them in your own publication. Please don’t believe everything you read. Go to the sources. Look it up. I think you’ll be surprised by what the little remaining evidence about Mithraism actually says.
I do not buy this Mithras/Jesus conspiracy. It is very dishonest and I hope you will correct your error.
Sincerely,
a Bible-believing Christian, age 19
To read a thorough, well-researched critique of this conspiracy, go to http://tektonics.org/copycat/mithra.html
The conclusion to this study of the conspiracy is that “In not one instance has Acharya (the primary writer of the conspiracy) made a convincing case that Christianity borrowed anything from Mithraism. The evidence is either too late, not in line with the conclusions of modern Mithraic scholars, or just plain not there. Acharya will need a lot firmer documentation before any of her claims can be taken seriously.”
Don’t believe everything you read on such a biased website.
Biased against Jesus?
In response to the above comments. First off, I have my bachelors in Philosophy and currently getting my masters in Systematic Theology and Bible Criticism. In doing so one of the classes I had to take was mythology. Mithra isn’t the only pagan god that the Christ story resembles. There are tons more i.e. Osiris, Dionysus, Tamus, etc,etc. There isn’t one bible story that wasn’t around long before. The Flood story is an example of this kind of adaptation. Its migration from the earliest known occurrence in Sumeria, around 1600 B.C., from place to place and eventually to the Bible, can be traced historically. Each time the story was used again, it was altered to speak of local gods and heroes. The difference between these stories and the stories in the bible is that the authors of the bible acutally set the events in actual history. Meaning they used real historical names and whatnot. For example, King Herod, Caesar Augustus. When you break down the stories, their is no hisorical verisimilitude at all. Chances are you are a christian by default and I’m sorry. You should get the facts and quit believing everything you are told about the bible.
Hello,
I saw by chance that you have on your page here a version of one of the urban legends about Mithras:
‘This quote is attributed to Mithras: “He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood, so that he will be made one with me and I with him, the same shall not know salvation.”‘
You may wish to know that this quote is fictional. It comes from Vermaseren, “Mithras, the secret god”, where it derives by mistranslation from a paper in French by Franz Cumont in which the saying is attributed to Zoroaster, from a provisional Italian translation of an unpublished Garshuni text in Mingana manuscript 142. This was written in the 17th century and contains various fictional sayings attributed to ancient figures.
You can obtain info on all this from this link:
http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/mithras/mithras_myth.htm
I hope this is useful to you.
All the best,
Roger Pearse
It is amazing how many “professional” writers repeat these same fallacious conspiracy theories about the similarities between Jesus and Mithras, Osiris, Dionysus, etc. Of all the supposed “facts” listed above, almost none can be found in any reliable source from ancient times (Acharya S., who can list only one person from whom she gets all her Jesus/pagan god conspiracies, does not count as a source, though she has made a lot of money on this con). Worse yet, many of the so-called similiarities that people push as evidence are flat out lies and fiction. Roger Pearse does an excellent job of pointing out the fiction of the Mithras quote listed at the end of the article. Another fallacy is that MIthras was born of a virgin, as Blair Daly points out he was born of a rock, instead. I have read articles that say Osiris, too, was born of a virgin, when the reality is that ancient Egyptian stories, of which there are many, tell of no such thing.
St. Paul, you need to take your own advice and quit believing everything people tell you. Everyone knows of the similiarities between the various flood myths, but that is not what we’re talking about here, is it?
The only thing that seems to make sense is that Mithras belief system entered Israel.The Jews did to that belief what they did to pickles and rye bread and converted it over to be theirs.They then Created Jesus to sell to the Goyim masses to rile the their Roman occupiers while making a few shekels on the side.Eventualy they were deposed and the christian religion was born.The rest is history………………