By Jason Smith
From the very birth of Christianity, the church has always believed in the virgin conception of Jesus Christ. It is part and parcel of the gospel message. It is an essential, not merely incidental, component for understanding who Jesus is.
While some skeptics would have us believe that Jesus’ virgin conception and divine nature were late inventions by the church, nothing could be farther from the truth. From the earliest sources on the life of Jesus, the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), we have the testimony of credible and early eyewitnesses who said Jesus Himself claimed to be the great “I Am” or Yahweh God.
One famous historian, Dr. William Ramsay, conducted a thorough investigation of every name and location mentioned in the Gospel of Luke and in Luke’s second volume, the book of Acts. Ramsay was an atheist convinced that Christianity was just one more myth of the ancient world. He planned to catalog all of Luke’s errors in order to make the story of the virgin-born Messiah look as ridiculous as the myths of Zoroaster and Zeus.
To Ramsay’s dismay, however, Luke proved to be a top-notch historian. He triple-checked every name and place Luke mentions against every historical record he could find pertaining to the first century. In the end, Ramsay could not deny Luke’s incredible accuracy. Eventually, Ramsay surrendered his life to the Jesus he had set out to debunk.
As mentioned, the Gospels of the New Testament claim to be based on eyewitness testimony, and the authors express a concern for what really happened in the life of Jesus. Names and places are often mentioned that could only be known by people who were actually there when the events took place. These were people who knew Jesus personally. Most historians agree that Jesus’ mother, Mary, was the primary source for the nativity story found in Luke. The virgin conception was not only based in history, but also a necessary component of the gospel.
Writing at the beginning of the second century, the church father Ignatius wrote:
“For our God, Jesus the Christ, was conceived in the womb by Mary, according to a dispensation, of the seed of David but also of the Holy Ghost.”[1]
The Bible teaches that ever since Adam’s sin, children inherit the sinful condition of their parents.[2] Had Jesus come into this world like you and me, with a mother and father, He could not have been the sinless Savior and spotless sacrifice for sins that we all need. This could only happen if Jesus entered this world through a supernatural conception.
The Myth of the “Jesus Myth”
There are many out there, like comedian Bill Maher, who have tried to say that the virgin birth is just part of the “Jesus myth.” He argues that the Christians plagiarized this idea of the virgin birth from pagan mythologies that had already been around for centuries. But on closer examination, this skeptical claim falls apart. Not only are the pagan stories not really virgin births because they involve a god sleeping with a goddess or woman, but they don’t make any attempt to be rooted in history, as the Gospels do.
In his mockumentary film Religulous, Maher tries to argue that long before the Jesus story, the Egyptians believed that their god Horus, the son of Osiris, was born of a virgin, walked on water, performed healing miracles, died by crucifixion, and was resurrected as savior after three days. Oh yeah, and the film claims this is all recorded in the Egyptian book of the dead written in 1280 BC. This is meant to catch viewers off guard. Wait a minute. The Jesus story sounds just like that!
No doubt, it sounds pretty compelling. The only problem? Almost none of this is based in actual history; this is a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts. As Egyptian pastor Shaddy Soliman said, “If you made this kind of claim in Egypt, people would think you’re crazy.”[3]
The only thing truly accurate about the above description of Horus was that he was indeed supposed to be the son of the Egyptian god Osiris. But before considering the other claims, something needs to be clarified.
With nearly every one of the examples that skeptics like Maher cite, it is painfully obvious that they are mythological. They were not written as historical accounts. In fact, there is really no effort by the authors to root these polytheistic tales in a real historical context. By contrast, consider how Luke begins his Gospel:
“Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.” (Luke 1:1-4, ESV)
Luke talks about his account being based on the testimony of eyewitnesses. He says he did his research, following “all things closely for some time past.” He set out “to write an orderly account” so that his reader would have “certainty” about the Jesus story. This is how you begin a work of history, not mythology. He doesn’t start with “Once upon a time,” but instead gives specific names and times when kings and emperors were reigning, so that there would be no question, this is a carefully researched historical account. As it turns out, the real myth is that there even was a “Jesus myth,” since the Jesus story is based on credible eyewitness accounts of history.
Is Jesus Based on Horus?
So what about Horus?
Was he too said to be born of a virgin?
According to author Rice Broocks, here’s what really happened in the Horus myth (brace yourself, it’s pretty gross):
“Osiris was killed and dismembered, and his body parts cast into a river. Isis retrieved his genitals and then inseminated herself in order to get pregnant and have the son, Horus.”[4]
Oookay then. To call that a virgin birth is a bit of a stretch, to say the least. Well, what about Horus performing healing miracles? Nope, there’s no record of him ever healing anyone. What about Horus being crucified? Again, no, nothing like that is recorded other than his hands being spread apart at death. But no cross. No nails. In fact, crucifixion wasn’t even practiced by the Egyptians. So again, the claim doesn’t fit the facts of history. What about rising from the dead? As Broocks explains, in one account Horus is said to be resuscitated, but that is nothing like the Jewish understanding of resurrection where you are raised to new bodily life in glory.
I would encourage those who have been told that the Jesus story is just a copycat of other ancient religions to actually delve into the accounts themselves. Do the research to see if this claim stands up to historical analysis. Ask critical questions. Does the copycat claim make sense of the facts? Where do certain beliefs or ideas show up in historical records? Don’t just blindly accept the claims of those who are bent on making Christianity look foolish.
In most cases, my guess is that these skeptics don’t want the Jesus story to be true, because if Jesus really did die and rise again, then they are undoubtedly accountable to Him; He’s Lord. But if the Jesus story is just a reshuffled version of what was already out there, and it has no grounding in historical truth, they can shunt it aside as another fable and Jesus could be safely ignored along with Zeus and Thor. But what if this retelling is pure fiction?
In his book, Reinventing Jesus, J. Ed Komoszewski writes:
“Only after the rise of Christianity did mystery religions begin to look suspiciously like the Christian faith. Once Christianity became known, many of the mystery cults consciously adopted Christian ideas so that their deities would be perceived to be on par with Jesus. The shape of the mystery religions prior to the rise of Christianity is vague, ambiguous, and localized. Only by a huge stretch of the imagination, and by playing fast and loose with the historical data, can one see them as having genuine conceptual parallels to the Christian faith of the first century.”[5]
The simple fact is that the vast majority of historians today accept that the basic facts about Jesus’ life are rooted in history, not mythology. Not only that, but no historian or scholar ever tried to argue against the Jesus of history for the first 1,700 years following His life. While some disputed His resurrection appearances, nobody tried to argue that Jesus was not a figure of history or that His story was just cobbled together from ancient mythologies. Even today, no historian worth his or her salt will try to deny that Jesus ever existed.
It wasn’t until the Enlightenment that a handful of historians began to argue that since miracles cannot happen (a premise they assumed a priori based on naturalistic convictions), then the story of the miraculous Jesus cannot be real either.
Komoszewski writes:
“As far back as the 1840s, Bruno Bauer began to publish views that the story of Jesus was rooted in myth. Bauer’s greatest influence was on one of his students, Karl Marx, who promoted the view that Jesus never existed. This view eventually became part of communist dogma.”[6]
The Jewish Context of Christian Origins
A glaring problem with this “copycat theory” is that it ignores the Jewish theological and historical context into which Christianity was born. While many forget this, the first Christians were all Jewish. One thing is clear about the Jews of the first century: they utterly repudiated all forms of polytheistic and pagan worship. That being the case, the early Christians would abhor the idea of borrowing ideas about God or worship from the pagan myths of the Gentiles.
It’s clear from the New Testament that the early Christian leaders saw myths as a dangerous threat, not something from which to learn. The Apostle Paul warned his fellow Christians about those who “devote themselves to myths” (1 Timothy 1:4, NIV). He predicted that many, even in churches, “will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths” (2 Timothy 4:4, NIV). The Apostle Peter said, “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1:16, ESV). The argument that Christians just adopted pagan mythical ideas makes no sense, given their leaders continual warnings to run away as far as they could from myths.
Again, Komoszewski writes:
“The first-century Jewish mindset loathed syncretism. Unlike the Gentiles of this era, Jews refused to blend their religion with other religions. Gentile religions were not exclusive; one could be a follower of several different gods at one time. But Judaism was strictly monotheistic, as was Christianity. As the gospel spread beyond the borders of Israel, the apostles not only found themselves introducing people to the strange idea of a man risen from the dead; they also came face-to-face with a polytheistic culture. But they made no accommodation on this front.”[7]
Is Christmas a Pagan Holiday?
I’ve come across numerous internet bloggers, YouTubers, and conversation partners who try to argue that Christianity so closely parallels the ancient mystery religions that Christians must have just copied them to sound legitimate. This erroneous idea is found on the lips of one of Dan Brown’s characters in The Da Vinci Code: “Nothing in Christianity is original.” The novel claims that everything from Jesus’ virgin birth to His birthday on December 25th to the idea of Him receiving “gold, frankincense, and myrrh” has its origin in pagan mythologies, like that of Mithras.
But this is so inaccurate, it’s almost laughable. None of Brown’s claims stand up to scrutiny. To be as charitable as possible, we’d have to say that he didn’t do his homework when writing the book. More likely, he knew that the sensational sells while the truth is often ignored. It’s simply not true that Mithras was born of a virgin – he was born of a rock![8] Let’s not pretend rocks can be called virgins now. In fact, what you don’t find in any of the mystery religions is anything remotely like the virgin conception in the New Testament – which was also prophesied 700 years in advance in Isaiah 7:14. You have gods like Zeus sleeping with human women and producing beings that are half-man and half-god. But obviously if a god had sex with a woman, then she’s not a virgin.
What about December 25th? It’s true that this was the date chosen by the Emperor Aurelius to dedicate his pagan temple to Sol Invictus, the god of the “Unconquerable Sun,” because it was close to the winter solstice. Since Mithraism was closely associated with the worship of Sol, there is a connection between Mithras and that particular date. But let me explain why that does not mean Christmas itself has pagan origins.
No one knows the actual date of Christ’s birth. The earliest known date for celebrating it was actually January 6th and many Eastern churches still celebrate Christmas on that day. But here’s the important point to be made: The celebration of Christmas preceded the choice of December 25th as the day on which to celebrate. So why do we celebrate it on December 25th? According to historians, we have Constantine, the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, to thank for that. Prior to becoming a Christian, Constantine worshiped Sol Invictus. It seems that in AD 336, the year before Constantine died, he chose December 25th to now be a day for celebrating Christ, not Sol Invictus. In the decades that followed, many popes and emperors argued for appropriating the pagan holidays to demonstrate the redemptive power of Christ.
What about this idea in The Da Vinci Code that gold, frankincense, and myrrh were presented to Krishna at his birth long before the Jesus story? This one is just false. There’s nothing like this found in the story of Krishna’s birth,[9] and I would guess that Brown got this idea from Dorothy Murdock, who has no academic training. While she is a popular writer, many of her claims – such as this one—are roundly rejected by the scholarly community.
The most we could say is that certain cultural practices appear to have overlap between Christianity and ancient pagan religions, but that only makes sense when you consider that by the end of the first century, the vast majority of Christians were former pagans. Nevertheless, there’s good reason to conclude that Christian theology and the Jesus story were not influenced by Mithraism or other pagan mythologies. In the most profound sense, the Christian gospel is both original and unique. The so-called parallels are either gross exaggerations or complete fabrications. All claims to the contrary are evidence of shoddy scholarship and a hunger for the sensational.
Eddy and Boyd make the point well:
“While there are certainly parallel terms used in early Christianity and the mystery religions, there is little evidence for parallel concepts. For example, as we have noted, both Christianity and the mystery religions spoke of salvation—as do many religions throughout history. But what early Christians meant by this term had little in common with what devotees of mystery religions meant by it. To site just one difference, there was in the mystery religions nothing similar to Paul’s idea that disciples participate in the death and resurrection of their Savior and are adopted as God’s children by placing their trust in him.”[10]
So, yes, you’ll find similarities in the general, but you won’t find specific parallels. Christianity is utterly unique in the kind of story it tells. It’s a story of grace – of the one true God coming to the rescue of humanity by being born of a virgin, living a sinless life, dying as a substitute sin-bearer in the place of lost sinners, and rising again bodily. The testimony we find in the New Testament belongs to those who actually saw the risen Christ, felt His nail-pierced hands, and saw Him ascend into the clouds.[11] History records not only His first followers doggedly sticking with the same story from the beginning but also their willingness to die for what they witnessed firsthand. What about the pagan adherents of those other supposed “dying and rising god” myths out there? We don’t have any record of them claiming to see their god in the flesh or being willing to die for this claim. Only Christianity can say this. That’s the power and uniqueness of the Jesus story.
[1] Quoted in Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Answers to Tough Questions Skeptics Ask about the Christian Faith (San Bernardino: Here’s Life Publishers, 1980), 56.
[2] See my previous article “Does the Bible Teach Original Sin?”
[3] Quoted in Rice Broocks, Man, Myth, Messiah, 119.
[4] Rice Broocks, Man Myth Messiah, Kindle edition.
[5] J. Ed Komoszewski, Reinventing Jesus, 234.
[6] Ibid, 318.
[7] Ibid, 233.
[8] Edwin Yamauchi quoted in Lee Strobel, The Case for the Real Jesus, Kindle edition.
[9] https://www.learnreligions.com/the-story-of-the-birth-of-lord-krishna-1770453
[10] Boyd and Eddy, The Jesus Legend, 142.
[11] See John 19:35; 20:26-31; 21:24; 1 John 1:1-4
Lamp and Light 