Plagiarism

Born of a virgin on December 25th having a supernatural father. Three kings lead by a star in the East to meet the child. A wise teacher at the young age of twelve, baptized, and beginning a ministry at thirty accompanied by twelve disciples. Performing many miracles and followers calling him the Lamb of God. Finally crucified and resurrected three days later.

At this point, many readers might think I’m describing the Judaeo-Christian character, Jesus Christ. However, a more in depth and wider breadth of historical research beyond just the Bible will reveal a number of other characters from different cultures during different time periods. Depending on which mythologies you study the not-so-unique characteristics of Jesus might also describe Krishna, Odysseus, Romulus, Heracles, Glycon, Zoroaster, Osiris, or a number of others mythological fictions. The Greek hero, Heracles was the love child of an earthly mother and a godly father. Jesus and the Roman Sun God, Sol Invictus, share the same sacred birthday. Escaping mass infanticide is first told about Moses in the Torah. The cool party trick of turning water into wine was originally done by the god of wine, Dionysus. Asclepius was a great miracle doctor of healing and Plato was a well respected philosopher. Being born of a virgin and walking on water might describe the Egyptian god Horus. Resurrection from the dead was a stunt performed by Tammuz, Adonis, Attis, and others.

Depending on whether you study Greek, Roman, Egyptian, or some other historical fictions, you will find a number of similar Christ-like stories that predate the lifetime of Christ. If you ask the wide variety of Christian and non-Christian historians, the only events in the life of Jesus that most people agree actually happened was his baptism and crucifixion. Unfortunately, having been dunked and later died is not irrefutable proof that Jesus was the legit Savior and Redeemer of all humankind. There was even the Gospel of Thomas that was dropped from the Bible during the Reformation of the 16th Century because the book too closely resembled Greco-Roman fairy tales making Jesus sound too fictional. The fact that the birth narratives between the gospels of Matthew and Luke are different might be due to personal invention. Also, the account of turning water into wine is only found in one account outside the Synoptic Gospels. Did that really happen? Why did no one else mention it? An objective consideration of all the historical stories leads to the plausible claim that the story of Jesus is a stitched together plagiarism of other myths.

Another well known obvious plagiarism found in the Bible is Noah’s story of a global flood. Historians have found a number of other stories with extremely similar details only differing with character names and gods. It wouldn’t be too much of a concern if these other stories didn’t predate the writing of Genesis, but they do. Considering these copycats and the overwhelming scientific evidence, we know that Noah’s Ark is fiction while the Crucifixion is possibly fact. What about the other supposed miracles? Where do they fall along the spectrum of fiction or fact. How can we know the truth? Sorry, we can’t know, we must believe by faith. My main point is to address the idea that these plagiarisms challenge the validity of the Bible and a literal Savior Jesus deity.

Why is it that Christians so quickly and without any thought dismiss every other believed gods from all other cultures, but readily and easily accept Jesus as the only true legit story with unwavering confidence. I find it odd that Christians are Atheist to 99.9% percent of all the historical gods except the one Biblical God based on zero logical evidence. Curiosity unlocks knowledge. Think independently. Be skeptical.