Resurrection Myths and Shoddy Scholarship
How unique is the Christian resurrection archetype?
Is the archetype of the crucified and resurrected God present in religions other than Christianity— particularly in religions predating Christianity?
I wondered this while listening to William Lane Craig’s contention on the resurrected Christ in a debate with self-proclaimed anti-theist Christopher Hitchens. According to Craig, an analytic philosopher and Christian apologist, there are three historical evidences supporting Jesus’s resurrection. These three evidences— for which Craig asserts there is no probable naturalistic explanation— are as follows:
On the Sunday after his crucifixion, Jesus’ tomb was discovered empty by a group of female followers.
On separate occasions, different groups and individuals (believers, nonbelievers, and enemies) experienced appearances of Jesus alive after His death.
The original disciples suddenly came to believe in the resurrection of Jesus despite Jewish beliefs to the contrary.
One way of countering Craig’s assertion— particularly if one cannot build a strong historical case against these evidences— is to nullify their specialness. The skeptic might say that resurrection, and the conditions of Jesus’ resurrection, are unremarkable; they have been met elsewhere. Therefore they do not lend credence to a divine miracle nor to the Christian God. Even worse, their appearance in older texts might suggest that they are unoriginal or intentionally copied.
The Uniqueness of the Resurrection
I offer three statements in response to this skepticism. First: spiritual events observed outside Christianity don’t necessarily suggest the existence of a different god, merely the existence of a spiritual realm. Even the Bible offers examples of “magicians” and evil spiritual beings capable of deceit with what appear to be miracles. Second: there are many archetypes, such as the self-sacrificial hero or the virgin birth, which appear across multiple myths independent of time or place. One may view the appearance of these archetypes in Christianity as unoriginal and therefore copied; or one might view them for what they are, patterns of truth recognized by humanity over and over again, independent of cultural influence.
Poor scholarship + wide dissemination = trouble
Third: the resurrection myth isn’t as common as one might think. It’s even less common when combined with the attestation of multiple observers, the later conversion of those observers, and a recording of the resurrection event within one generation of its occurrence. Nonetheless, I combed the internet for the most common resurrection myths applied in apologetic debates; many of them derive from a list compiled by the popular author Kelsey Graves in his book 16 Crucified Saviors: Christianity Before Christ.
My research into Graves’ list, which has travelled surprisingly far and wide amongst those questioning Christ’s resurrection, is a cautionary tale for readers to recognize shoddy scholarship by non-academic, non-conscientious folks like Graves. As you read through these examples, I hope to have saved you several frustrating hours in finding primary sources to refute what Graves has boldly asserted.
“The oldest crucifixion myth”
Before we discuss pre-Christian resurrection myths, I’d like to debunk the oldest crucifixion myth according to Graves, for the crucifixion archetype is intertwined with that of the resurrection. This crucifixion myth is said to derive from King Thoulis of Egypt and dates to approximately 1700 B.C. Our first whiff of trouble comes from the fact that Thoulis’ story is recorded long after his supposed death: the first record of Thoulis is from c.500 A.D. work Khronographia by John Malalas, who identifies Thoulis as the 8th King of Egypt. Classics professor Dr. Benjamin Garstad states that the Thoulis account is likely fiction modeled off Sesostris, Osiris, and Alexander the Great. Even the name “Thoulis” is meant to sound Egyptian, but is likely a corruption of a Greek name. Funny enough, Dr. Garstad also proposes that the Thoulis narrative was likely contrived as a “straw man” to prophesy the Trinity and “to advance the Christian position.”1 In either case, Thoulis likely does not exist, and there is no record of his crucifixion.
Pre-Christian Resurrection Mythology
So what about Osiris, one of the alleged inspirations for Thoulis? He appears in the Pyramid Texts, or the earliest Egyptian funerary texts (c. 2400 B.C.). Osiris is said to rule Egypt alongside Queen Isis and is killed by Set, the god of violence, chaos, deserts, and storms. Different versions of the myth differ in the mechanism of Osiris’ death: Set takes the form of a wild animal, drowns Osiris, or cuts him into pieces and scatters them across Egypt— but none refer to a crucifixion.2 After Osiris’ death, Isis and the goddess Nephthys find and resurrect him, but there are no mortal observers present to “verify” his resurrection.
Regardless of its truth, could the Osiris myth have influenced Jesus’s disciples and rural Galilean Jews? Agnostic New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman says that this is unlikely; these men would not have been familiar with Egyptian culture or the Osiris myth. Further, Ehrman notes that Osiris “is not raised physically” like Jesus; his body remains a corpse, and it is his soul which lives on in the underworld.3 The Osiris myth differs from the Christian story in that 1.) no mortal observers were present at the “resurrection” event, and 2.) Osiris was not resurrected bodily.
Let’s tackle one more resurrection myth: Krishna, the Hindu deity, who is depicted earliest in the Mahabharata. Similar to Osiris, Krishna did not physically rise from the dead, nor was he crucified to begin with. Rather, Hindu texts depict a near-immediate spiritual ascension following a death caused by a hunting accident: “the hunter, mistaking Keshava [Krishna], who was stretched on the earth in high Yoga, for a deer, pierced him at the heel with a shaft […] The high-souled one comforted him and then ascended upwards.”4 In section 8 of book 16 of the Mahabharata, we see that “Krishna, has, with Rama, cast off his body and ascended to Heaven.”
The Christian resurrection account is more unique than the average layman may give credit for. It is unique in nature— a bodily resurrection, not just a spiritual one— and in its verifiableness. The accounts of Jesus’ resurrection offer a multitude of real observers who lend credence— and provide opportunities for verification.
For those doubting not the uniqueness of the resurrection but the trustworthiness of the Gospel accounts, we shall discuss that topic another time; in the meantime, I suggest beginning with Can We Trust the Gospels? by Peter Williams.
Garstad, Benjamin. "The account of Thoulis, king of Egypt, in the Chronographia of John Malalas" Byzantinische Zeitschrift, vol. 107, no. 1, 2014, pp. 51-76. https://doi.org/10.1515/bz-2014-0004
Griffiths, J. Gwyn (1960). The Conflict of Horus and Seth. Liverpool University Press.
Ehrman, Bart. “A full reply to mythicist Richard Carrier. Most-commented blog post: #4" https://ehrmanblog.org/a-full-reply-to-mythicist-richard-carrier-most-commented-blog-post-4/
Ganguli, K. M. “Mahabharata,” Book 16: Mausala Parva. https://sacred-texts.com/hin/m16/m16004.htm