Reading Time: 7 minutes

Sceptics like to cite Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, Attis and Marduk etc. What makes Jesus’ resurrection more credible? 

1. Most accounts tend to be unclear

Justin Martyr tried to parallel the resurrection to the Romans in hope to reduce persecution by citing examples like the roman Emperor Augustus’ funeral—someone swore they saw his spirit ascend in the flames. The stories Justin Martyr tried to parallel critical scholars reject however. While sceptics celebrate the vague similarities, they fail to recognise what great differences exist in these accounts.

Earliest accounts

The first account of dying/rising Gods appears at least 100 years after Jesus’ resurrection. This first account in pagan religions appears in writing around A.150 AD, whereas the creed in 1 Corinthians 15: 3–5 can be dated as early as the early 30s and no later than 51AD (When Paul shared it in Corinth). This is approximately a century before the pagan account appeared. It is possible that the account from 150 is earlier in its oral tradition, but there is no evidence that this is the case. In an article, Habermas writes, “the tale of Isis and Osiris seems to be the only known case among the mystery religions where there exists both clear and early evidence that a dead god was said to be resuscitated, which is dated prior to the middle or late second century AD. As far as is known, the other ‘resurrection’ stories actually postdate the Christian message”.

Adonis

The earliest in Greek mythology of death and resurrection is in 150AD of Adonis,

There are no accounts of resurrection for Attis, the god of vegetation who was responsible for the death and rebirth of plant life until early in the 3rd century AD or later. So the claim the disciples were writing to contemporary literary style and of dying and rising gods is false as there was no such material at the time.

Marduk

Marduk’s pagan resurrection is questionable. There is no clear death nor resurrection of him with Adonis being the first clear parallel. N.T. Wright in the book Resurrection of the Son of God investigates the origins of the Christian belief and over hundreds of pages goes through these comparative accounts and explains why they simply don’t compare.

There are conflicting accounts of Osiris 

Some say Osiris is assigned to the underworld, others refer to him as the sun, but there is no account he rose from the dead. Osiris is the only account of someone surviving death pre-Christianity, even then he doesn’t rise. One version of the story says he was killed by his brother, chopped into 14 pieces and scattered all over Egypt and Isis gathered 13 of the pieces and tried to bring him back to life. She didn’t get all 14 so she failed. Moreover, it’s questionable he was brought back to life considering underworld accounts. Jesus was seen resurrected from the dead by people, no such claims are made for Osiris. This point is not insignificant—Christians, Jews, and Muslims all believe in an afterlife. However, when someone dies and begins to experience that afterlife, he or she is not considered to have risen from the dead. Rather, a transition has occurred. Thus, Osiris did not rise from the dead, since the accounts report that he was assigned a high status in the underworld. Chris Clayton puts it like this:

Osiris’s return to life was not a resurrection but a zombification. Further, the hero of the account is not even Osiris, but Isis or Horus, their son.

Chris Clayton

2. Accounts of miracles and rising gods in other religions lack evidence and can easily be accounted for by opposing theories

For example, Muhammad’s miracles do not appear until 75 years after his death, they are also found in sources Muslim scholars do not deem reliable. Therefore, they were likely influenced by developing legends. Miracles from other religions are not usually multiply attested for and are usually found long after the event happened.

Apollonius

The life of Apollonius by Philostratus not only postdates Jesus by nearly 200 years, but it is also thought by some to be “the product of a conscious reaction against Christianity.” The large majority of accounts talk of events that allegedly happened in the past, long before their personal lifetimes. These stories were not circulated by eyewitnesses that were still alive to discern the truth in these claims. At best, all that’s suggested here is that Christians wrote according to mythical genre which we’ve already dealt with and we know that the theory collapses as well.

3. Other Miracle claims don’t disprove all claims

Miracles of other religions being disproved by opposing theories does nothing to undermine the resurrection, it credits it because no opposing theory can account for it. If the New Testament faithfully reports Jesus’ words, he predicted false Christs and false prophets would come and deceive others. Based on this, competing resurrection claims in non-christian religions should not be surprised. 

In summary, the opposing theories are unclear, lack evidence and fail to explain the historical data concerning Jesus’ resurrection and so we can refute all these comparisons with ease. 

4. A prior claim doesn’t make the later claim non-existent

In 1898, a novel was written about a ship named Titan. It struck an iceberg and had a huge number of features with the real Titanic. See a brief analysis I pulled from Wikipedia below.

• Similar names of the ships
• Both were described as the largest craft afloat and the greatest of the works of men
  • The Titan was 800 feet long, displacing 45,000 tons (in the 1898 edition).
  • The Titanic was 882 feet long, displacing 46,000 tons.
• Described as “unsinkable”
• Had triple screw (propeller)
• Shortage of lifeboats
  • The Titan carried “as few as the law allowed”, 24 lifeboats, which could carry “less than half” of her total complement of 3,000.
  • The Titanic carried only 16 lifeboats (plus 4 Engelhardt folding lifeboats).
• Struck an iceberg
  • The Titan, moving at 25 knots, struck an iceberg on the starboard side on a night of April, in the North Atlantic, 400 nautical miles (740 km; 460 mi) from Newfoundland(Terranova).
  • The Titanic, moving at 22½ knots, struck an iceberg on the starboard side on the night of April 14, 1912, in the North Atlantic, 400 nautical miles (740 km; 460 mi) from Newfoundland (Terranova).
• Sinking
  • The Titan sank, and the majority of her 2,500 passengers and crew died; only 13 survived.
  • The Titanic sank, and 1,523 of her 2,200 passengers and crew died; 705 survived.

Because there are similarities scarily similar, does this mean the Titanic never sank? Of course we don’t conclude that, this is why we care about documentation, written word etc. Even in this case, passengers onboard, temperature could all be fluctuating details between the accounts. 

In many situations, the level of similarities and the level of differences depends on what the subject is. Titan and Titanic are similar, but we know Titanic isn’t based off Titan. The Gospels are similar, but present four different angles of a historical event. If they were word for word the same, we would be suspicious, like in any court of law or exam paper. Jesus, for whatever similarities people give to old pagan deities, differ more than enough to be clearly distinct. More to the point there is no hostile early accusation of such. 

Structured response

1. The comparing accounts are unclear
   1. Today’s scholarly standards do not see resurrection parallels and haven’t done so for over 100 years!
   2. 1st clear comparison 100 years after Christ In 150AD
   3. It’s questionable whether resurrections were reported in earliest versions of these pagan accounts since any who do don’t have a resurrection attributed to them until long after Jesus Christ’s resurrection
2. Accounts lack evidence and can easily be accounted for by opposing theories
3. Accounts of other religions cannot explain the evidence that exists for Jesus’ resurrection and the facts associated with it
4. Even if the claim had been made prior, that doesn’t disprove it didn’t happen when Christianity made the claim
   1. Titan & the Titanic

Video resources

Sources on ‘Resurrection in ‘other religions’

• Justin Martyr, dying and rising Gods — Justin Martyr, First Apology, 21.
• 1st dying and rising God — Gary R. Habermas, “Resurrection Claims in Non-Christian Religions,” Journal of Religious Studies 25 (1989): 167–77. The first account in pagan religions appears in writing around A.D. 150, whereas the creed in 1 Corinthians 15: 3–5 can be dated as early as the early 30s and no later than 51. This is approximately a century before the pagan account appeared. It is possible that the account from 150 is earlier in its oral tradition. But there is no evidence that this is the case. In another article, Habermas writes, “the tale of Isis and Osiris seems to be the only known case among the mystery religions where there exists both clear and early evidence that a dead god was said to be resuscitated, which is dated prior to the middle or late second century AD. As far as is known, the other ‘resurrection’ stories actually postdate the Christian message” (” Replies to Evan Fales: The Appearances of Jesus,” Philosophia Christi, Series 2, 3.1 [2001], 79).
• Adonis & Attis Günter Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1967), 197–201. 21.
• Attis — Günter Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1967), 213, 219, 221, 223–24, 229, 251, 265.
• No Osiris resurrection — Gary R. Habermas. “Replies to Evan Fales: The Appearances of Jesus,” Philosophia Christi, Series 2, 3.1 (2001), 79. In this article, Habermas provides other differences between the accounts of Osiris and Jesus.
• Muhammad — Emory University’s Islamic scholar, Gordon Newby, claims that the first account of Muhammad’s phenomenal birth appeared between seventy-five and one hundred years after his death. He adds that there is no way to know if an oral tradition with an earlier date is responsible for the written account. He adds that the account is not historically reliable for several reasons: There is no Qur’anic base, the line of transmission is weak, and the tradition is not well substantiated by accounts known to be trustworthy (from a conversation with Gordon Newby, 21 October 1997). Another scholar writes the “oldest collections of historical traditions available to us date from about 125 years after the Prophet’s lifetime” (Maxime Rodinson, Muhammad, Anne Carter, trans. [New York: Pantheon, 1980], 44). For this and other accounts, see Michael R. Licona, Cross Examined (Virginia Beach: TruthQuest, 1999), 153–55.
• Reaction to Christianity — Colin Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 94. Hemer cites two sources in support of this conclusion: D. L. Tiede, The Charismatic Figure as Miracle Worker (Missoula, Mont.: SBL, 1972); C. H. Holladay, “Theos Aner” in Hellenistic Judaism (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1977). Gary Habermas offers a number of serious problems with several ancient parallels, especially Apollonius’s narrative in Gary R. Habermas, “Did Jesus Perform Miracles?” Michael J. Wilkins and J. P. Moreland, eds., Jesus Under Fire (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 119–24.
• https://blog.world-mysteries.com/modern-worldhttps://blog.world-mysteries.com/modern-world/insane-coincidences-the-titanic-disaster-story//insane-coincidences-the-titanic-disaster-story/