My Reply:
I've heard of some of these stories while talking with a professed-atheist friend of mine, and I'd not only suggest them as "copy-cats" of events in the Bible, but I'd also say that just the fact that such stories even exist shows that so many people, for so long, so strongly desired a savior to come and rescue them from the events of their time.
First of all, we have to remember that Moses predicted Christ's first coming way back, what, 4000-5000 years ago? Then we have Jesus being mentioned in the Psalms, which are thought to have been written about 3000 years ago, Jesus' virgin birth mentioned about 2500 years ago, the prediction of the coming of the Holy Spirit about 2800 years ago...I mean, everything was promised through the prophets of old.
So you figure, the Israelites mingled with other nations, and no doubt shared their prophesies, which gives reason to believe that others may have taken (copied) such stories as their own. But either way, Jesus Christ is the ONLY one to have fulfilled EVERY prophesy about Him, and the ONLY one who was risen from death 3 days later. The Jews admit Jesus lived, died on the cross, and that His tomb was empty 3 days later; the Muslims even acknowledge that Jesus raised up into Heaven; and the Christians (as well as 500+ other people who saw Jesus alive 3 days after they saw Jesus die on the cross at the hands of the Romans) all spread the news.
Also, not many have heard of these other stories you talk of (you don't even have examples or details...sounds more like word of mouth). Yet practically everybody knows of Jesus Christ.
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3 comments:
This argument of the Jesus story just rehashing other myths has two good answers. First, most of the so-called connections made to other religions not only prove false (in that, for example, there aren't actually other religions with resurrected Messiahs, virgin births, etc.) but the religions that supposedly come before Christ turn out to only show up in historical record after Christ lived. People also want to equate the virgin birth of Christ our savior with things like Athena hatching out of Zeus' head. There is no logical connection here. Likewise, they associate Osiris as a dying and rising God, though Osiris died and never came back to life. And Persephone, the other popular "dying and rising" god doesn't die or rise, but simply lives in the underworld and comes above for 1/4 of the year. Neither of these even hints at a dying savior raised from the dead in a physical body, never to die again.
Second, Greg Koukl has an excellent presentation on this when he talks about how, 25 years before the Titanic sank, a novel was written about an unsinkable ship named Titan that hit an iceberg and sank. The similarities are so strong as to seem prophetic. Yet no one says that because the novel came out 25 years earlier we aren't justified in believing the historical account of the sinking of the Titanic.
In other words, to say that Jesus didn't live, die, and rise again just because there are other mythical stories circulating doesn't let the atheist off the hook. We have substantial historical evidence for Christ, so just because there might be similar stories doesn't undo the actual historical evidence we have for Jesus.
Michael: Wow, great info! Thanks for your comment.
Andy said:
I've heard of some of these stories while talking with a professed-atheist friend of mine...
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You have reason to doubt he doesn't really disbelieve in gods?
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