joelr
Well-Known Member
Don't even get me started on Mithras hahaha when your core mythological figure is almost a carbon copy of a pagan god/hero, and you stick with it because "bible," you've gone wrong somewhere.
Definitely pagan influences and there were other dying/rising savior cults, Mithras was not a resurrecting god himself but others did fit the model .
PhD Richard Carrier:
"Not all these savior gods were dying-and-rising gods. That was a sub-mytheme. Indeed, dying-and-rising gods (and mere men) were a broader mytheme; because examples abounded even outside the context of known savior cults (I’ll give you a nearly complete list below). But within the savior cults, a particular brand of dying-and-rising god arose. And Jesus most closely corresponds to that mythotype.
Other savior gods within this context experienced “passions” that did not involve a death. For instance, Mithras underwent some great suffering and struggle (we don’t have many details), through which he acquired his power over death that he then shares with initiates in his cult, but we’re pretty sure it wasn’t a death. Mentions of resurrection as a teaching in Mithraism appear to have been about the future fate of his followers (in accordance with the Persian Zoroastrian notion of a general resurrection later borrowed by the Jews). So all those internet memes listing Mithras as a dying-and-rising god? Not true. So do please stop repeating that claim. Likewise, so far as we can tell Attis didn’t become a rising god until well after Christianity began (and even then his myth only barely equated to a resurrection; previous authors have over-interpreted evidence to the contrary). Most others, however, we have pretty solid evidence for as actually dying, and actually rising savior gods."