JESUS AND THE MYTHS

Some say that Jesus is borrowed from myths—that His story is nothing more than a retelling of ancient tales, recycled from dying-and-rising gods and fanciful legends. But the Gospel whispers a very different truth, one rooted not in imagination but in history, in flesh and blood, in a time and place we can name.

Jesus is not a creation of human fancy; He is God entering the world He made.

Myths are timeless stories, shaped to teach lessons or explain the unknown. They exist outside history, untethered to the soil of a particular land or the reality of human events.

But Jesus is born in Bethlehem, walks the hills of Galilee, speaks to fishermen and tax collectors, and dies under Pontius Pilate. He intersects with history, not imagination (Luke 2:4-7; John 19:16-18). He is anchored in real life, among real people, witnessed by eyewitnesses willing to die for the truth of His resurrection (Acts 2:23-24). No myth inspires martyrdom; no legend calls hearts to lay down life for a crucified Savior.

Many people today repeat the idea that the story of Jesus was “borrowed” from earlier pagan gods—figures like Horus, Mithras, Osiris, Dionysus, Attis, and others—with claims that these deities had virgin births, miracles, death, and resurrection long before Christianity.

But when historians and scholars look at the actual ancient sources rather than modern lists of supposed similarities, the parallels do not hold up. Many of the alleged pagan stories either don’t contain the specific elements claimed, or the elements are fundamentally different in meaning and context from the Gospel accounts.

For example:

• Virgin birth — Careful research shows that pagan religions did have miraculous or unusual birth stories, but not a pre‑Christian narrative of a virgin conception in the same sense as Matthew and Luke describe about Jesus. There are myths of gods born under unusual circumstances, but most involve sexual unions between gods, symbolic births, or fully adult emergence (like Mithras coming from a rock), rather than a literal virgin conceiving and giving birth. Scholars note that there is no precise analogue in ancient Near Eastern mythology to the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ virginal conception.

• Resurrection — Some pagan mythologies include themes of death and rebirth, often tied to seasonal cycles or symbolic metaphors for nature, but not a historical, once‑for‑all bodily resurrection of a human figure.

In the Osiris myth, for instance, Osiris does not return to earthly life in bodily form but becomes ruler of the underworld, and Horus’s story is not a straightforward dying‑and‑resurrecting narrative matching the Gospel’s claim.

Many experts conclude that there is no unambiguous example in ancient religions of a deity literally dying and rising again in the exact historical way portrayed in the Gospels.

• Other “parallels” — Many of the supposed similarities are either later developments after Christianity had already spread, or simple misunderstandings. For instance, claims that Horus had twelve disciples, walked on water, or was born in a stable with shepherds and wise men are not found in the authentic ancient Egyptian sources.

Most historians—not just Christian scholars, but also secular ones—reject the idea that the story of Jesus was constructed from pagan myths. They point out that the supposed parallels are often superficial, taken from later sources, or distorted to look similar only when reshaped by modern imagination. And importantly, the Gospel accounts of Jesus are grounded in historical context: they name real people, places, and events within first‑century Palestinian Judaism, not vague cosmic cycles or mystical vegetation gods.

So the claim that Jesus was “based on myths” doesn’t stand up to the evidence. At best, what we see in ancient religions are themes—such as suffering, death, and renewal—that reflect universal longings of the human heart.

But the historicity of Jesus, the particular claims of incarnation, atoning death, and bodily resurrection, and the specific way these are presented in the Gospels are not simply lifted from pagan mythology. They arise from a distinct Jewish context and are documented within a historical time and place—something myths, by definition, do not provide.

Christ stands in a Jewish context, fulfilling prophecies long spoken, entering the world at a precise moment ordained from eternity (Micah 5:2; Isaiah 53). Myths reflect longing; Jesus fulfills it. Myths tell of imagined redemption; Jesus redeems in reality.

The Gospel testifies that Jesus is both divine and historical. He is the Word made flesh (John 1:14), the fulfillment of promises spoken centuries before, the Redeemer who bears our sins and triumphs over death.

Unlike myths, which comfort the imagination, Christ meets us in our weakness, speaks into our history, and transforms our lives. Where myths leave only symbolism, Jesus leaves salvation, alive and present.

To believe in Him is not to entertain a story—it is to enter reality. It is to stand where heaven touches earth, to know that history itself bends toward grace.

The world may offer legends, the imagination may spin tales, but only Jesus stands, crucified and risen, fulfilling the deepest truths we have ever hoped for.

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Lord Jesus, let me never mistake stories for reality. Open my eyes to Your truth, that I may see You not as a legend but as the living God who walks in history and dwells in my heart. Strengthen my faith to trust You in all things, and let every longing find its rest in Your presence. Amen.

BDD