Did the Jesus story come from pagan beliefs, such as Mithraism?
+3 Well that depends. What actually is the Jesus story? What we think of the story of Jesus today is a combination of 5 separate stories. The four gospels and a limited amount from Pauls various letters. None of these 5 stories is the same. Christians generally take everything in all 5 stories to be true and combine them into what is effectively a 6th story which doesn’t match with any one of the other 5 accounts. . For instance in the gospel of John the raising of Lazarus is described but it isn’t in any of the other 4 sources, even though they cover in detail the period when this event is supposed to have happened. Rather than say ‘well if the other 4 don’t mention it then it probably didn’t happen’ Christians take a everything as being true. . If you take the earliest gospel, of Mark, you would conclude that it doesn’t come from Mithraism because there is no virgin birth and no appearances of the resurrected Jesus. The gospel of Mathew however has the whole virgin birth / wise men f
