# Origins of the Christ Myth **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [August 28, 2006, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-the-christ-myth/370581 "2006-08-28T21:48:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2006, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-the-christ-myth/370581/1 "2006-08-28T21:48:29Z")
I decided to dig up the article series _Who Wrote the Bible?_, after having come across information recently on the history of very early Christianity. Of particular interest is [article #4](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mbible4.html). The other sources I’ve been reading/listening to: - The documentary [The God Who Wasn’t There](http://www.thegodmovie.com/) - The book/web site [Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth](http://www.medmalexperts.com/POCM/) - [The “Bible Geek” Bob Price](http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/) on [The Infidel Guy](http://www.infidelguy.com/) podcast. These sources all make the points that: - There is zero contemporaneous mention of Jesus from when he was alive. - The gospels, the first of which is from Mark, was written around AD 70 or later, decades after Christ, if he really existed, died. - The only references we have about Christ in those decades between his death and the gospels is from Paul of Tarsus, who wrote voluminously about Jesus, penning many if not most of the books of the New Testament. - Paul wrote about Jesus as having existed in a purely mythological realm, and never mentioned any of the things we think of as making up Christ’s story, such as Mary, Joseph, Bethlehem, Pontius Pilate, the sermon on the mount, etc., except that he does mention the resurrection and ascension, but speaks of it as if it happened in this mythological realm. He seems wholly unaware even of the concept that Jesus supposedly walked the earth as a man. - The stories of Jesus’s life from the Gospels all happened to other characters in pagan mythology, long before they happened to Christ, in quite a bit of detail. These characters were Osiris, Dionysus, Mithras, etc., and their stories indicate that somewhere along the line in the intervening decades, pagan mythology got mixed in with Christianity, and became what most people know as Christ’s life. By the way, the Church’s explanation for how these pagan myths were integrated into Christianity is that the devil planted those other stories hundreds of years in advance of Christ to discredit him. This is mostly a different topic from the existence of Christ, which Cecil wrote about, but I was expecting to see these kinds of things addressed more in this SD article. Are the sources I referenced above pretty credible, and is my summary pretty well accepted by scholars? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2006, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-the-christ-myth/370581/2 "2006-08-28T22:41:01Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > - The stories of Jesus’s life from the Gospels all happened to other characters in pagan mythology, long before they happened to Christ, in quite a bit of detail. These characters were Osiris, Dionysus, Mithras, etc., Yes, absolutely. > [@CurtC](#): > > . . .and their stories indicate that somewhere along the line in the intervening decades, pagan mythology got mixed in with Christianity, and became what most people know as Christ’s life. No, almost definitely not. The myths about Jesus are far more likely to have arisen organically within the Christian community than to have been borrowed wholesale from existing pagan religions. Not that they arose in a vacuum, either, but the process of mythogenesis is complex, and a lot of people seem to think they just said, “Hey, look, why don’t we change ‘Mithras’ to ‘Jesus,’ that’ll bring in the converts!” Or “Duh, was that about Mithras or Jesus? I can’t remember. Jesus, I guess.” You asked about scholars, and with regard to this question it varies somewhat by field. Religious Studies scholars tend to have a bias toward text-based religions like Judaism and Christianity, which have a core group of texts and a tradition of scholarly exegesis. They tend to see any cross-fertilization as text-based. Mythologists (e.g. me) have a bias toward oral tradition, and we see no reason why Christianity couldn’t borrow the motif of turning water into wine from the Whosisites, independently invent the virgin birth (quick, what’s the most unusual conception you can think of for your god, excluding animals?), and transferred some of the more important common Semitic mythological inheritences from Old Testament stories. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2006, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-the-christ-myth/370581/3 "2006-08-28T23:49:02Z")
Link? ---
**Author:** ![SiXSwordS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-the-christ-myth/370581/4 "2006-08-29T03:04:16Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > This is mostly a different topic from the existence of Christ, which Cecil wrote about, but I was expecting to see these kinds of things addressed more in this SD article. Are the sources I referenced above pretty credible, and is my summary pretty well accepted by scholars? Two comments: Yours seems to be a question better suited for GD or maybe GQ. The series about “Who write the Bible” was obviously a major undertaking and it doesn’t surprise me that the question of Jesus’ existence isn’t covered in the detail you’re looking for. It seemed to me, when I first read the series (I haven’t re-read them) that many of the issues you bring up _were_ addressed, if somewhat less specifically. If the question is _who_ wrote these things, **Dex** and **Eutychus** did an incredible job. The question of _why_ they wrote the things they did and about _whom_, is a topic for debate. The historic background is more of a GQ. IMHO. I had a philosophy section where we discussed Nietzsche. The TA made some interesting points by asking that we consider the claims, “Santa Claus is dead.” or “Buddha is dead.” or even “Jesus is dead.” in place of the claim, “God is dead.” I have to wonder what difference it makes if you substitute terms such as, Newton, Einstein, Lao-Tzu or even Osiris or Mithras for Christ. Can’t you just as easily talk about the origins of the Darwin myth as the origins of the Christ myth? ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-the-christ-myth/370581/5 "2006-08-29T03:32:26Z")
> [@Dr. Drake](#): > > …and a lot of people seem to think they just said, “Hey, look, why don’t we change ‘Mithras’ to ‘Jesus,’ that’ll bring in the converts!” Or “Duh, was that about Mithras or Jesus? I can’t remember. Jesus, I guess.” I think you’re over-simplifying things here. As stories get retold over the decades, it’s easy for me to imagine them gradually incorporating these myth themes, just by way of thinking they overheard someone else say that, then they retell it. Like a giant, decades-long game of telephone. > [@](#): > > Mythologists (e.g. me) have a bias toward oral tradition, and we see no reason why Christianity couldn’t borrow the motif of turning water into wine from the Whosisites, Dionysus changed water into wine, hundreds of years before Christ. > [@](#): > > independently invent the virgin birth (quick, what’s the most unusual conception you can think of for your god, excluding animals?) They didn’t need to invent the god/human-virgin birth story, it already existed from Alexander the Great, Romulus, Augustus, Dionysus, Attis, Danae, Melanippe, Auge and Antiope. All before Christ’s time. > [@SixSwordS](#): > > If the question is who wrote these things, Dex and Eutychus did an incredible job. The question of why they wrote the things they did and about whom, is a topic for debate. Good point. ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Norder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-the-christ-myth/370581/6 "2006-08-29T03:42:41Z")
> [@Dr. Drake](#): > > No, almost definitely not. The myths about Jesus are far more likely to have arisen organically within the Christian community than to have been borrowed wholesale from existing pagan religions. How is that any different from what was already said? > [@Dr. Drake](#): > > Mythologists (e.g. me) have a bias toward oral tradition, and we see no reason why Christianity couldn’t borrow the motif of turning water into wine from the Whosisites, independently invent the virgin birth (quick, what’s the most unusual conception you can think of for your god, excluding animals?), and transferred some of the more important common Semitic mythological inheritences from Old Testament stories. So you are “mythologists” then? Groovy. I thought I was one, but you are saying things that make no sense to me, and if you are all of them then I must have been reading the wrong books. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-the-christ-myth/370581/7 "2006-08-29T03:56:21Z")
**CurtC** , I don’t think I was clear in my post. I was trying to separate two different ideas that you had expressed together as one. The existence of earlier parallel myths does not mean that those parallels are the sources for the Christian myths. The fact that Dionysios turned water into wine is interesting, but it does not, in and of itself, mean that the Christian story comes from the Greek story. The Christians might have borrowed it directly or indirectly, they might have got it from some ancient Anatolian legend about someone else entirely, or it might have been polygenesis (independent invention). The existence of a parallel does not imply a connection unless the story or its wording is very specific. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-the-christ-myth/370581/8 "2006-08-29T03:58:22Z")
> [@Dan Norder](#): > > So you are “mythologists” then? Groovy. I thought I was one, but you are saying things that make no sense to me, and if you are all of them then I must have been reading the wrong books. “E.g.” means “for example.” I’m not claiming to be more than one. ---
**Author:** ![SiXSwordS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-the-christ-myth/370581/9 "2006-08-29T04:21:31Z")
> [@Dr. Drake](#): > > **CurtC** The fact that Dionysios turned water into wine is interesting, but it does not, in and of itself, mean that the Christian story comes from the Greek story. I’m not sure which way to go with this, but in the spirit of the OP, let me try this. What if there was a Jesus and he turned water into wine? It may have been done before, but that’s not really a mitigating factor when you’re performing miracles. Ten, twenty or thirty years later, people are going to remeber that that skiny guy did something out of the ordinary and either write it down or recognize that it happened. Going on the assumption that Jesus _didn’t_ exist, it’s easy to talk about the way the _myths_ evolved, but we haven’t gotten there yet, right? ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-the-christ-myth/370581/10 "2006-08-29T11:29:19Z")
Moderator interjects: Actually, the question of whether Jesus really existed has been addressed (if only tangentially) by Cecil Himself: [Did Jesus really exist? and what about the Shroud of Turin?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_275.html) Also touching on historical basis of gospel writings: [What did the census at the time of the birth of Jesus accomplish?](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/maugcensus.html') url=“[http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mjesuskill.html](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mjesuskill.html)”]Who killed Jesus? However, while agreeing that this question could go in GQ, or GD, or CoCC, I’m going to leave it here: when there’s ambiguity, leave things alone. (And thanks to those kind words about the sequence on biblical authorship that **Eutychus** and I wrote.) Now, taking off the Moderator Hat and speaking as an ordinary poster: The main premise of all those “Jesus never existed” works is that there’s no contemporary account. However, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There is very little existing documentation about anybody in those times below the top-level politicians. IIRC, we have only one document that mentions Pontius Pilate, and the gospels name his as prefect (resident governor) over all Judea. There is no reason on earth to expect that some small-bit rabble-rousing political trouble-maker would be mentioned in any written records. Executions and crucifixions were common-place, the poor didn’t pay much taxes so didn’t appear in tax records, and births/deaths weren’t accounted for then as we do today. In short, the absence of contemporary documentation is not surprising. Most of what we know about the ancient Roman Empire is not from contemporary recoreds, but from later writings that were preserved by Christian scribes copying them for centuries. No one would have bothered to copy things like tax rolls, personal letters, etc. We have lots of writings from ancient Egypt, but that’s because the desert climate preserves things. The more temperate climate of Rome or Jerusalem doesn’t. Now, imagine someone had written a letter to a cousin: “Dear Fred, my cow gave birth last week, and by the way, I heard Jesus speak about political corruption.” Such a document wouldn’t have been copied over, and so wouldn’t have been preserved. Copy the gospels, sure, but not some letter written by someone unimportant. And, finally, even if there had been any records, they would almost certainly have been destroyed when the Romans pillaged Jerusalem in 70 AD. So, the basic premise of these authors is that absence of contemporary evidence is somehow tellling. And it’s just not. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-the-christ-myth/370581/11 "2006-08-29T11:31:36Z")
Oh, one more point: the earliest Christians (the people who might have actually seen and talked to Jesus) didn’t bother to write down the stories. They told them orally, but they expected Jesus to return at any minute and bring about the Kingdom of God. Why bother to write stories down, if Jesus will re-appear at any moment and set the whole world straight? So the gospels weren’t written down until decades after Jesus died, as the (presumed) eye-witnesses were dying out and felt the need to transmit the stories. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-the-christ-myth/370581/12 "2006-08-29T13:08:36Z")
> [@SiXSwordS](#): > > Going on the assumption that Jesus _didn’t_ exist, it’s easy to talk about the way the _myths_ evolved, but we haven’t gotten there yet, right? Right - I don’t think anyone reputable claims that Jesus didn’t exist for sure. The most they say is that we really don’t know that Jesus _did_ exist. I tried to separate my OP from the existence question, I realize that’s a whole 'nother topic. What’s more interesting to me is the question of the reliability of the gospels when describing Jesus’s acts here on earth. I had always assumed (I was raised Southern Baptist, became an atheist at around 19 or 20, and now I’m 45) that the accounts in the gospels were written pretty much by people who were there. Maybe the tales of healing the sick were exaggerated, but I thought at least the general outline had something to it. After reading the sources I linked to in the OP, it now seems most likely that there may very well have been a Jesus, but the stories of his life evolved by an urban legends-like blending of his existence and pre-existing myths. I came here to get other opinions from people whom I know to be knowledgeable. > [@](#): > > Ten, twenty or thirty years later, people are going to remeber that that skiny guy did something out of the ordinary and either write it down or recognize that it happened. Maybe ten or twenty years, maybe even thirty. But 40, 50, 60? Or more? When virtually all of these stories already existed, sometimes in astonishing detail? I know a little about folklore (largely from reading Brunvand books and hanging out at alt.folklore.urban), and this idea is completely plausible to me. In fact, Barbara Mikkelson of snopes fame was in the movie _The God Who Wasn’t There_, talking about the similarity these stories and modern email glurges. Thanks for everyone’s comments. ---
**Author:** ![SiXSwordS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-the-christ-myth/370581/13 "2006-08-29T15:12:56Z")
> [@CurtC as edited by me](#): > > I had always assumed (I was raised Southern Baptist, became an atheist at around 19 or 20, and now I’m 45) that the accounts in the gospels were written pretty much by people who were there. … After reading the sources I linked to in the OP, it now seems most likely that there may very well have been a Jesus, but the stories of his life evolved by an urban legends-like blending of his existence and pre-existing myths. > > I came here to get other opinions from people whom I know to be knowledgeable. Sorry, I can’t help you too much on that last count. I understand your point better and I will have to look into your links some more. I suppose I could re-read the SD articles too. I think a lot of people make assumptions about Gog, Jesus, the Bible and even “the Church” (to use an oversimplified short hand). When they find those assumptions are wrong they feel cheated. I don’t know if “the Church” actively or tacitly encourages those assumptions, but either way, I’m not sure that existence of a ‘fairy tale version’ of the life of Christ undermines the message. Consider the story about Newton getting bonked in the orchard. (I don’t think he ever had sex so, of course I refer to the apple falling on his head.) Did you stop adhering to Newtonian physics when you found out the story was hooey? > [@CurtC as edited by me](#): > > In fact, Barbara Mikkelson of snopes fame was in the movie _The God Who Wasn’t There_, talking about the similarity these stories and modern email glurges. This looks like an interesting movie, I’ll have to track it down. But, you did lose me at this point. Maybe I’m not hep 'nough to understand what you mean by glurges. Are you saying that the Bible contains Pagan stories and myths using Jesus as the protagonist (again oversimplifying) and that the proof thereof is contemporary techomalaise? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-the-christ-myth/370581/14 "2006-08-29T15:56:29Z")
> [@C K Dexter Haven](#): > > Now, taking off the Moderator Hat and speaking as an ordinary poster: > The main premise of all those “Jesus never existed” works is that there’s no contemporary account. However, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There is very little existing documentation about anybody in those times below the top-level politicians. IIRC, we have only one document that mentions Pontius Pilate, and the gospels name his as prefect (resident governor) over all Judea. There is no reason on earth to expect that some small-bit rabble-rousing political trouble-maker would be mentioned in any written records. Executions and crucifixions were common-place, the poor didn’t pay much taxes so didn’t appear in tax records, and births/deaths weren’t accounted for then as we do today. In short, the absence of contemporary documentation is not surprising. > > Most of what we know about the ancient Roman Empire is not from contemporary recoreds, but from later writings that were preserved by Christian scribes copying them for centuries. No one would have bothered to copy things like tax rolls, personal letters, etc. We have lots of writings from ancient Egypt, but that’s because the desert climate preserves things. The more temperate climate of Rome or Jerusalem doesn’t. > > Now, imagine someone had written a letter to a cousin: “Dear Fred, my cow gave birth last week, and by the way, I heard Jesus speak about political corruption.” Such a document wouldn’t have been copied over, and so wouldn’t have been preserved. Copy the gospels, sure, but not some letter written by someone unimportant. > > And, finally, even if there had been any records, they would almost certainly have been destroyed when the Romans pillaged Jerusalem in 70 AD. > > So, the basic premise of these authors is that absence of contemporary evidence is somehow tellling. And it’s just not. The absence of contemporaneous corroboration for the existence of a Historical Jesus is not _de facto_ evidence that one never existed, however, the nature of the writings that do exist are so compromised by lack of eyewitness testimony, lack of sourcing, factual error, contradictions and demonstrably fictive elements (the obviously ahistorical material including, but by no means being limited to supernatural claims), that they cannot be relied upon to tell us much (if anything) authentic about what he did or said. While I agree that this would not represent proof of a purely mythical origin for Jesus, it’s also not really the core argument for Jesus Mythicists. Those who argue for a mythical Jesus tend to rely more on the seeming silence of Paul on any description or understanding of Jesus as a historical person to drive their theory. Paul says virtually nothing about what Jesus said or did before the crucifixion and, most curiously, only quotes him once (that once being a eucharistic formula which could just as easily play into theories of a so-called “sub-lunar”, i.e cosmic rather than historical, event). Mythicists like Doherty would argue that the development of the Christ mythos develops in the reverse of what should be expected from an HJ – that this is a case where a non-temporal “Christ” comes first and the historicization second. Mythicists further bolster this case by pointing out that while Paul describes “appearances” to apostles (in a chronology that is inconsistent with any Gospel), that he provides little detail of the _nature_ of these appearances. H doesn’t say it was a physical resurrection, he doesn’t mention an empty tomb, he does not distinguish the appearances to the apostles from his own visionary experiences and claims that he got all his information “not from any man,” but from Christ. Having said all that, I still don’t personally think it proves there couldn’t have been an HJ (my views would mirror pretty much exactly thos of **Dr. Drake** ), but it’s a little more sophisticated than a simple argument from absence of contemporary records. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-the-christ-myth/370581/15 "2006-08-29T15:58:20Z")
I think he’s saying it’s analogous, not evidence. The question of how the stories about Jesus might have evolved (or been borrowed) from earlier mythologies is an interesting one, but it does belong more properly in the Great Debates forum (or in General Questions, for that matter.) And, of course, calling something a mythology doesn’t mean it’s not true: modern America has a vast mythology about how the country was founded, for instance. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-the-christ-myth/370581/16 "2006-08-29T16:06:07Z")
> [@SiXSwordS](#): > > This looks like an interesting movie, I’ll have to track it down. But, you did lose me at this point. Maybe I’m not hep 'nough to understand what you mean by glurges. Are you saying that the Bible contains Pagan stories and myths using Jesus as the protagonist (again oversimplifying) and that the proof thereof is contemporary techomalaise? Burton Mack thinks that the Q sayings were developed along similar lines. Essentially he argues that some of the sayings pericopes have similar precursors in Cynic stories and anecdotes (particularly when it comes to the use of irony. Stories in which a clever teacher or philosopher turns the tables on a question which would seem to put him in a box for instance (the question usually coming from a pompous philosophical or religious authority figure). Mack believes that at least some of the Q pericopes were modified Cynics’ stories re-attributed to Jesus (similar to the way you sometimes see certain pieces of writing misattributed to certain celebrities in glurge, for instance). ---
**Author:** ![SiXSwordS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-the-christ-myth/370581/17 "2006-08-29T17:13:16Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > … (similar to the way you sometimes see certain pieces of writing misattributed to certain celebrities in _ **glurge** _, for instance). …are you _mocking_ me!? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-the-christ-myth/370581/18 "2006-08-29T17:29:58Z")
> [@Dr. Drake](#): > > [independently invent the virgin birth (quick, what’s the most unusual conception you can think of for your god, excluding animals?)] Uhh, that’d be “in the butt,” Bob. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-the-christ-myth/370581/19 "2006-08-29T17:43:22Z")
> [@Dr. Drake](#): > > **CurtC** , I don’t think I was clear in my post. I was trying to separate two different ideas that you had expressed together as one. > > The existence of earlier parallel myths does not mean that those parallels are the sources for the Christian myths. The fact that Dionysios turned water into wine is interesting, but it does not, in and of itself, mean that the Christian story comes from the Greek story. The Christians might have borrowed it directly or indirectly, they might have got it from some ancient Anatolian legend about someone else entirely, or it might have been polygenesis (independent invention). The existence of a parallel does not imply a connection unless the story or its wording is very specific. You can’t ignore the fact, however, that John’s Gospel (which represents the first appearance of a water-to-wine story in Christian literature) was written in a largely Hellenistic culutural context where Dionysus’ miracle of the vine was already well known. The most economical explanations of John’s story would have to include a strong possibility that John was comparing Jesus to Dionysus. That’s not to say that he was doing a Photoshop number with the myth (placing Jesus’ head on Dionysus’ body), but that there is a strong possibility that he was trying to show that Jesus had the same capabilities as a popular pagan deity. ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-the-christ-myth/370581/20 "2006-08-29T19:38:19Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > You can’t ignore the fact, however, that John’s Gospel (which represents the first appearance of a water-to-wine story in Christian literature) was written in a largely Hellenistic culutural context where Dionysus’ miracle of the vine was already well known. The most economical explanations of John’s story would have to include a strong possibility that John was comparing Jesus to Dionysus. That’s not to say that he was doing a Photoshop number with the myth (placing Jesus’ head on Dionysus’ body), but that there is a strong possibility that he was trying to show that Jesus had the same capabilities as a popular pagan deity. **DtC** , I’ve taken a look at a few sources, and I can’t find any mention of a story where Dionysus turns water into wine. In fact, in Euripedes _Bacchae_, when Pentheus receives reports of the miracles Dionysus and the Bacchanals are performing (a place where you might expect the story to occur), there is no mention of it (to be fair, they do use the _thrysus_ to draw all sorts of liquids–milk, water, wine, honey–from things like rocks and the earth). [This site](http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/dionysus.html)–which I admit I’ve only just looked at–seems to strongly refute the idea that water-into-wine miracles predate the account in John. I can’t vouch for the rest of what’s written there, but let me quote a relevant portion: > [@](#): > > …in the ancient literature Plutarch says that there was a spring at Haliartus with clear, sparkling, wine-colored, very pleasant-tasting water in which the newly born Dionysus was bathed. Also, Pliny says that at Andros, on the festival known as Theodosia, a spring in the temple of Bacchus flowed with wine. Pausanias says that at Elis the priests of Dionysus placed three large empty cauldrons in a sealed room to find them filled with wine when they returned the next day. And Ovid says that Liber, the Italian god identified with Bacchus, gave the daughters of the Delian king Anius the power to turn things into wine, a story associated with Dionysus…However, from these references it is obvious that there are significant differences between the Dionysus legend and the story in John 2: the spring at Haliartus flowed with water, and the one at Andros flowed with wine, not water that had once been wine; and the empty cauldrons in the Elis temple were filled with wine rather than water subsequently changed into wine, key elements in John’s story. Certainly the Hellenized author of John would know about Dionysus, but given the above I don’t think its reasonable to argue the story of the wedding at Cana is deliberately meant to echo the pagan man-god. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-the-christ-myth/370581.md?page=2)