Jesus · Objection
The resurrection story is a Christian version of common dying-and-rising god myths in ancient religions.
Why people find it persuasive
Parallels such as Osiris, Adonis, Tammuz, and Dionysus are routinely cited in popular books. If similar stories existed earlier, it looks like Christians borrowed a familiar motif.
Important distinctions
- • Genuine parallels versus superficial similarity.
- • Seasonal cycles of nature versus a datable historical person.
- • Date of the sources versus the date of the cult.
Christian response
- • Scholars such as Jonathan Z. Smith concluded that the category of 'dying and rising gods' is largely a modern construction; many of the figures do not rise, or do so only in late sources.
- • Osiris is restored as lord of the underworld, not returned to bodily life; Adonis sources are mostly later than the New Testament.
- • Jewish resurrection hope is bodily and eschatological, a different conceptual world from nature cults.
- • Tryggve Mettinger argues that some dying-and-rising divine figures are real in Near Eastern texts, but even he separates them from Jesus' historical claim.
Strongest version of the objection
The resurrection story is a Christian version of common dying-and-rising god myths in ancient religions.
Christian counterresponse
Borrowing must be shown by sources and plausibility; Jewish disciples would have been unlikely to adopt pagan myths.
Remaining questions
Whether the dying-and-rising category has any explanatory value remains debated.
Related arguments
For further study
Primary and secondary sources on both sides of this question. Reading the strongest opposing case is part of the work, not a concession.
The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach — Michael Licona
The most methodologically careful defense, explicit about historiographical method and the limits of the evidence.
The Resurrection of the Son of God — N. T. Wright
Eight hundred pages on what resurrection meant in the ancient world and why the early Christian claim is historically odd.
Jesus and the Eyewitnesses — Richard Bauckham
Argues the Gospels rest on named eyewitness testimony rather than anonymous community tradition.
How Jesus Became God — Bart Ehrman
The leading skeptical account of the resurrection claim's origin; engage this rather than a caricature.
Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews — Paula Fredriksen
A first-rate secular historian's reconstruction, valuable for testing apologetic claims against mainstream scholarship.