Apologetics · FaithLogic
Did Christianity Copy Pagan "Dying-and-Rising Gods"? — Osiris, Mithras, Dionysus
A widely repeated claim — traceable to James Frazer's The Golden Bough (1890) and popularised online — says the resurrection of Jesus is recycled myth: Osiris, Mithras, Dionysus, Adonis, Attis and Tammuz were all "dying-and-rising gods," and Christianity simply borrowed the pattern. The category itself has since collapsed in scholarship, and the specific parallels do not hold up.
The Category Has Been Abandoned
"Largely a Misnomer" — the Scholarly Verdict
The historian of religion Jonathan Z. Smith, writing the article "Dying and Rising Gods" for the standard Encyclopedia of Religion, concluded that the category "must now be understood to have been largely a misnomer based on imaginative reconstructions and exceedingly late or highly ambiguous texts." The one serious modern attempt to rehabilitate any of it — Tryggve Mettinger's The Riddle of Resurrection — still concludes that the handful of possible cases are tied to the seasonal vegetation cycle and are different in kind from the Christian claim: no vicarious death for sin, no bodily resurrection presented as datable history.
The Specific "Parallels"
Mithras — No Death, No Resurrection, and Later Than Christianity
Roman Mithraism leaves no myth of Mithras dying or rising at all. Its central image is Mithras slaying a bull. The Roman cult is first attested at the end of the first century AD and flourishes in the second — after the New Testament was written — so any borrowing would run the other way, if at all. The "born of a virgin on December 25" and "baptism" claims are not in the sources; they are modern embellishments.
Osiris — Lord of the Underworld, Not a Man Raised to Life
In Plutarch's account (c. AD 100) Osiris is murdered and dismembered by Set; Isis gathers the pieces; Osiris is revived only to become king and judge of the dead in the underworld. He does not return to ordinary bodily life in this world. It is a myth set in the time of the gods, not a claim about a recent public event with named witnesses — and it is a story about kingship of the realm of the dead, not resurrection out of it.
Dionysus, Adonis, Attis — Vegetation Cycles and Late Sources
Dionysus, Adonis and Tammuz belong to the annual death and regrowth of vegetation — a recurring seasonal pattern, not a once-for-all rising. The claim of an Attis "resurrection" festival is attested only in sources from the later Roman Empire (third to sixth centuries AD), well after Christianity was established and spreading. Where these cults resemble Christianity at all, the resemblances are late enough that influence, if any, ran from the Church outward.
Why the Borrowing Theory Fails at the Root
A Jewish Movement, a Historical Claim, a Bodily Hope
The matrix is wrong. The first Christians were Torah-keeping Jews who regarded pagan myth and cult with contempt. Paul, the earliest writer, was a Pharisee.
The claim is different in kind. The resurrection was announced as a recent, public, datable event — in Jerusalem, within a few years, with named witnesses who could be questioned (1 Corinthians 15:3–8) — not a story from mythic time.
The hope is different. Jewish resurrection meant a transformed body and the beginning of the new creation — as N. T. Wright shows at length in The Resurrection of the Son of God, nothing in the pagan world expected or wanted that. The mystery cults offered union with a cyclical deity; they did not proclaim one man raised, never to die again.
The timeline is too short. The resurrection creed of 1 Corinthians 15 is dated to within a few years of the events — no room for myth to accrete.
The claim is different in kind. The resurrection was announced as a recent, public, datable event — in Jerusalem, within a few years, with named witnesses who could be questioned (1 Corinthians 15:3–8) — not a story from mythic time.
The hope is different. Jewish resurrection meant a transformed body and the beginning of the new creation — as N. T. Wright shows at length in The Resurrection of the Son of God, nothing in the pagan world expected or wanted that. The mystery cults offered union with a cyclical deity; they did not proclaim one man raised, never to die again.
The timeline is too short. The resurrection creed of 1 Corinthians 15 is dated to within a few years of the events — no room for myth to accrete.
💡 "Christianity Copied Pagan Myth" — Complete Response"The 'dying-and-rising god' category was assembled in the 1800s from thin, late evidence, and specialists have abandoned it — Jonathan Z. Smith calls it 'largely a misnomer based on imaginative reconstructions and exceedingly late or highly ambiguous texts.' Mithras has no death-and-resurrection myth at all and the Roman cult post-dates the New Testament. Osiris becomes ruler of the underworld, not a man raised to earthly life. Dionysus and Attis are vegetation cycles, and the Attis 'resurrection' festival is attested only centuries later. Against all this: a Jewish movement led by a former Pharisee, making a historical claim about a bodily resurrection in Jerusalem within a few years, with named witnesses. There is no real pagan parallel to that."
The "dying-and-rising god" category was built in the nineteenth century out of thin and late evidence, and specialists no longer use it as Frazer did. Mithras has no death or resurrection and post-dates the New Testament; Osiris becomes ruler of the dead, not a man restored to life; Dionysus and Attis are vegetation myths whose "resurrection" details are centuries too late. Against all of this stands a Jewish movement making a historical claim about a bodily resurrection within living memory, with witnesses — a claim with no real pagan parallel, as Bruce Metzger and N. T. Wright have both argued in detail.
This is part of the FaithLogic study library — the biblical, historical and manuscript case that Jesus is God, with every claim linked to its source. Open the interactive version for search, cross-references, read-aloud, and the full library.