The Resurrection and Dying and Rising Gods

By Timothy Paul Jones

Could it be that Christians based the story of Jesus on earlier tales of pagan heroes or dying-and-rising gods? This is one of the oldest arguments against the resurrection of Jesus. A philosopher named Celsus made this case in the second century, comparing the resurrection of Jesus to the mysterious disappearance and return of a well-known poet.[1] According to a more recent writer, the stories of Jesus are so similar to the stories of the Egyptian god Horus that early Christians must have ripped off the resurrection from the Egyptians.[2] Might the early church have constructed a tale of resurrection from stories like these?

When I struggled with my faith throughout my first year of college, this question haunted me more deeply than almost any other dilemma. Today, the problem of pagan parallels does not concern me at all. Here is why: First, even if parallels do exist between the myths of the gods and the resurrection of Jesus, that does not require us to reduce the resurrection to fiction. Such parallels might be—as [C. S.] Lewis observed decades ago—expressions of innate human longings for atonement and new life.[3]

Second, the parallels themselves are problematic. In fact, when ancient texts and artifacts are analyzed, the parallels are not as parallel as the skeptics claim. Despite widespread claims that gods like Horus were crucified and resurrected, no such story can be located in any pre-Christian depiction or descriptions. For example, a monument illustrating the story of Horus does not depict him as crucified or resurrected, as some skeptics suggest. Instead, Horus was portrayed by the Egyptians to have been stung by a poisonous creature and revived by his mother and a moon god—a fate very different from crucifixion followed by resurrection.[4] A close examination of the stories of other gods reveals similar gaps.

In the handful of narratives that do describe the spiritual death and return of a deity, the stories typically function as metaphors for the yearly shift from winter to spring that turns fallow fields fertile again. But the story that early Christians told was never that Jesus was raised in a spiritual or metaphorical sense. If such a tale had been told about Jesus in the first century, the story would have been unremarkable, unobjectionable, and quickly forgotten.

The earliest Christian writings told a far more radical story. They depicted Jesus as human and divine, born in Bethlehem during the reign of Caesar Augustus (Luke 2:1–7) and into a family that eventually included siblings who were well-known in the churches (Rom. 1:3; 9:5; 1 Cor. 9:5; 15:5). According to the first generation of Christians, the same flesh of Jesus that entered the world through Mary’s womb died and rose again in the course of ordinary human history (Rom. 6:10; Gal. 1:1; 4:4; 1 Pet. 3:18). The result of this resurrection was a transformed body that could consume a fish fillet, cook breakfast, and be grasped by the trembling fingers of those who loved him (Luke 24:42–43; John 20:17; 21:9). The resurrection of Jesus was nothing like the nebulous ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi appearing to Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back. It was more like Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings returning in the flesh after he died and “strayed out of thought and time” before being sent back—except that unlike J. R. R. Tolkien, the early Christians did not intend their accounts to be read as fiction.[5]

Unlike the metaphorical returns of dying-and-rising gods, the resurrection described by Christians was “a one-time, historical event that took place at one specific point in the earth’s topography,” “unrelated to seasonal changes.”[6] It seems inconceivable that early Christians could have derived this sort of resurrection from seasonal cycles of dying-and-rising gods.

If the dying-and-rising gods can’t explain the resurrection, what about the heroic exploits found in ancient novels and plays, with their heroes and heroines who miraculously cheated death? Could the resurrection of Jesus have been borrowed from stories like these? It is true that protagonists in ancient tales did frequently find ways to escape the domains of the dead. In a story by the playwright Euripides, for example, Hercules dueled death and restored a woman to life.[7] Yet those who saw such stories enacted on stages never supposed a physical resurrection might actually take place.[8] Plato and several other ancient writers did suppose that stars and souls were made from the same stuff—a point of view that made a surprising reappearance in the song “I’m a Star” in Disney’s animated fantasy Wish. Because of the widespread belief in a common origin of souls and stars, the ascent of virtuous souls to the stars was a common theme. Yet astral ascent is very different from bodily resurrection.[9]

Lots of people in the first century believed their spirits could outlast their epitaphs and even ascend to the heavens, but bodily resurrection was not an option ancient Romans seriously considered. In the minds of most, the body could provide pleasures and attain glory while on the earth. Yet, after ridding oneself of the body, no one would want it, or anything like it, back again.[10] The spirits of the dead might descend to Hades or ascend to the stars, but one thing spirits did not do was return to flesh and bone on the earth.

Notes

1. Origen of Alexandria, Contra Celsum: Libri VIII, ed. Miroslav Marcovich (Boston: Brill, 2001), 3.26–27.

2. Tom Harpur, The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light (New York: Walker, 2004), 84.

3. C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1970), 58–60.

4. Emily Teeter, Religion and Ritual in Ancient Egypt (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 175.

5. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Two Towers, pt. 2 of The Lord of the Rings, 1 vol. ed. (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), 484, 490–91.

6. Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, The Riddle of Resurrection: “Dying and Rising Gods” in the Ancient Near East (University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns, 2013), 221.

7. Euripides, “Alcestis,” in Cyclops. Alcestis. Medea, ed. and trans. David Kovacs (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 1123–58. The poet Aristeas was thought by some to have reappeared after mysteriously vanishing, yet some of his reappearances were separated by centuries, and his later reappearances were never clearly physical. See Herodotus, The Persian Wars: Books 3–4, trans. A. D. Godley (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921), 4.13–15.

8. Origen, Contra Celsum 2.55.

9. Plato, “Timaeus,” in Timaeus. Critias. Cleitophon. Menexenus. Epistles (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929), 41d–e. See also Cicero, “De Re Publica,” in On the Republic. On the Laws, trans. Clinton W. Keyes (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928), 6.15–16.

10. N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 60.

— Timothy Paul Jones is vice president for doctoral studies; professor of Christian family ministry; and chair of the department of apologetics, ethics, and philosophy at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Jones is the author of numerous books including How We Got the Bible and In Church as It Is in Heaven. He also serves as a preaching pastor at Sojourn Church Midtown in Louisville, Kentucky, and cohosts The Apologetics Podcast.

Image by Ken Williams from Pixabay

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Excerpted from Did the Resurrection Really Happen? by Timothy Paul Jones (Crossway, 2025). Used by permission.

The entire Christian faith depends on the belief that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead. If there was no empty tomb, Christians have an empty faith. But how can we be confident the resurrection really happened?

In this concise booklet, author Timothy Paul Jones addresses the doubts and questions that arise from Jesus’s resurrection as recorded in the New Testament. Jones argues this story is not a mere repetition of old pagan tales or a fabrication to fulfill Jewish expectations. Instead, it was a historical event that is supported by compelling evidence, including accounts of men and women who were willing to die for what they believed they had seen.

Jones makes a respectful appeal to those who doubt Jesus’s story and provides convincing evidence for his resurrection. In addition, he explores why the resurrection matters for believers today.

Find Did the Resurrection Really Happen? at Crossway, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Christianbook.com.

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