Anyone wishing to read more about this, I suggest this website:
http://www.answering-christianity.com/abdullah_smith/cross_pagan_origins.htm
It's very informative.
It's always good to keep an open mind. I find the sun god theory very believable, when it comes to explaining the origins of christianity.
The basic outlines were used by many cultures and have evolved different characteristics over time and cultural backgrounds.
This concept seems so clear to me.
Scholarly response to the Jesus Myth Hypothesis: "There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church's imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that any more."
Burridge, R & Gould, G, Jesus Now and Then, Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2004, p.34. The classical historian Michael Grant writes:
"To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ myth theory. It has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars.' In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary."
Michael Grant does not see the similarities between Christianity and pagan religions to be significant. Grant states that "Judaism was a milieu to which doctrines of the deaths and rebirths, of mythical gods seemed so entirely foreign that the emergence of such a fabrication from its midst is very hard to credit."
Grant, Michael (1995). Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels. Scribner, 199. ISBN 978-0684818672 . R.T. France points out that Christianity was actively opposed by both the Roman Empire and the Jewish authorities, and would have been utterly discredited if Jesus had been shown as a non-historical figure. He argues that there is evidence in Pliny, Josephus and other sources of the Roman and Jewish approaches at the time, and none of them involved this suggestion.
In response to Jesus-myth proponents who argue the lack of early non-Christian sources, or question their authenticity, R. T. France counters that "even the great histories of Tacitus have survived in only two manuscripts, which together contain scarcely half of what he is believed to have written, the rest is lost" and that the life of Jesus, from a Roman point of view, was not a major
event.
R.T France disagrees with the notion that the Apostle Paul did not speak of Jesus as a physical being. He argues that arguments from silence are unreliable and that there are several references to historical facts about Jesus's life in Paul's letters, such as that Jesus "who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David" (Romans 1:3, TNIV).
France, RT (1986). Evidence for Jesus (Jesus Library). Trafalgar Square Publishing, 19-20. ISBN 0340381728. Supporting a historical Jesus Bovon, François (2006). The Last Days of Jesus, trans. Kristin Hennessy; Louisville: Westminster, John Knox. ISBN 0664230075.
Burridge, Richard A. (2006). Four Gospels, One Jesus? A Symbolic Reading, 2nd edn., Grand Rapids:Eerdmans. ISBN 0802829805 .
Charlesworth, James H. (ed.) (2006). Jesus and Archaeology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. ISBN 080284880X.
Grant, Michael [1977] (1999). Jesus. London: Phoenix. ISBN 0-75380-899-4.
Komoszewski, J. Ed ; et al (2006). Reinventing Jesus. Kregel Publications. ISBN 082542982X.
Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, 3 vols., New York: Doubleday.
(1991) The Roots of the Problem and the Person. ISBN 0-385-26425-9 .
(1994) Mentor, Message, and Miracles. ISBN 0-385-46992-6 .
(2001) Companions and Competitors. ISBN 0-385-46993-4 .
Sanders, E. P. (1993). The Historical Figure of Jesus. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 0-7139-9059-7.
Theissen, Gerd; and Annette Merz (1998). The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide , trans. John Bowden, Minneapolis: Fortress Press. ISBN 0-8006-3123-4.
Wright, NT (1996). The New Testament and the People of God. Augsburg Fortress Publishers. ISBN 0800626818.
