The majority of evidence for Near Eastern dying and rising deities occurs in Greek and Latin texts of late antiquity, usually post-Christian in date.
[Smith, Jonathan Z. Dying and Rising Gods (in Encyclopedia of Religion, M. Eliade ed.),1988, volume 4, pg. 522]

Defense of the Faith #3: Christian and Pagan ideas are similar, but Christian ideas came first—Them varmint Pagans done stole from us!

Big puzzle, small pieces
Yeah, there are some Pagan-Christian similarities for which the direct evidence about which-came-first is unclear. But please don't forget we're talking about a few small pieces of a very big puzzle.

God, soul, sin, heaven, hell, demons, miracles, godmen, sons of God, savior Gods, salvation, eternal life, sacred meals shared with the god, mystery religions with initiations by baptism—all those things are unequivocally older than Christianity by centuries.

"Scholarship" reality check
Now you're maybe thinking Them varmint Pagans done stole from us is a sloppy way to talk about high-class scholarship. You're right. It would be. If we were talking about high-class scholarship. But we're not. This will surprise you, but there really isn't scholarship behind believer's claims that Paganism borrowed ideas from Christianity.  

. So here's your reality check. If you're reading this page hoping to get deep into the facts and reasons behind the theory that Paganism borrowed from Christianity, you can stop after the next little paragraph.
	The theory that Them varmint Pagans done stole from us does not come from a careful analysis of the evidence. Pagan borrowing is the answer TVPDSFU partisans want to find. Their analysis is simply this: In a few specific cases Pagan borrowing is vaguely conceivable. Therefore Pagan borrowing happened. QED. There is no real scholarship behind the theory.

A review of the "scholarship", such as it is, quoting Them Varmint Pagans Done Stole From Us' most famous proponents.

A look at some of the facts and reasons they left out. When you listen to it all on its own Them varmint Pagans done stole from us sounds plausible, vaguely. What isn't obvious maybe is that pounding in one tent stake affects where all the other tent stakes go.Them varmint Pagans done stole from us isn't the only reason holding the believers' story of Christian origins to the ground. Pound that one corner of the theory down and you affect how the rest of the Christian origins reasoning fits.  Following that reasoning through is what this page is about...

How the Them Varmint Pagans Done Stole From Us defense got started
tarting in about 1890 guys like Hatch and Frazer described similarities between Paganism and Christianity. By the 1920s Reitzenstin, Boussart, Lousy, and Bultmann had laid out detailed theories of Christian-Pagan borrowing. Facts were facts; Christian believers could not deny the many deep similarities.  Their problem was: how to explain similarities without admitting borrowing?

In the 1928  Doctor of Divinity, A.D. Nock, a Christian writing for other Christians in a Christian journal, found a way to explain away some similarities.  It turned out Pagan mystery religions' sacraments were sacred secrets. Pagans did not write about them. So even though the mystery religions date back many centuries BC, we have no record of when any of their secret sacraments began (and in many cases even what their sacraments were) until Christians in later centuries wrote about them. And in some cases, particularly Mithras-ism which entered the Roman Empire in the first century AD, even the inscriptions-carved-in-stone evidence dated from the second century and later—after Christianity began.

Doctor of Divinity Nock's defense of the faith was to come up with the theory that maybe the centuries-old Pagan religions developed their sacraments only in the second century. Or the third century. Maybe the fourth. Whenever the first Christian description of them was recorded.

Nock's reasoning convinces Christian believers.  Why?  Because believers already believe—they start with the idea the Christian legends are true; the legends only become not true if you can unequivocally prove that they can not conceivably be true. Second century evidence didn't do that. Fine. We can still be friends.

Believers in their own words
How does Them varmint Pagans done stole from us work in practice? I'll show you. Here are two of the most famous, most cited, most quoted anti-borrowing authors, each writing in his most famous, most cited, most quoted anti-borrowing essay, each putting forward his version of the idea that Christianity didn't borrow from Paganism because the date of some specific evidence about Paganism is "late"—after Christianity was founded.

What I hope you notice is neither author talks about how his version of the 'Paganism is late' reasoning fits into a larger theory of Christian origins. The don't ask, "Well OK, the dates being uncertain and all, how do I know who borrowed from whom?", or "How come the Pagans, who were busy killing Christians on account of their religion, thought it was a good idea to copy the religion of the people they were killing for their religion?", or any stuff like that. They just toss up the Them varmint Pagans done stole from us theory and quick like a bunny scamper off to other stuff.

"Much" of what we know about the Pagan mystery religions dates from the third or forth centuries, asserts Dr. Nock expansively, pointing a finger and slurring his speech ever so little, and by then Paganism was "probably" assimilating Christian ideas.

Dr. Nock apparently doesn't need much—any—analysis to see Pagan borrowing. Borrowing is conceivable; therefore borrowing is "probable" and "obvious." QED.  Who's ready for lunch?

Much of what we know of the mysteries relates to the third and fourth centuries, and at that time some of them were probably assimilated of set purpose to Christianity in the hope of countering its attractions ; this assimilation is very obvious as part of Julian's reactionary movement in the years 362 and 363 ; but it seems to have been practiced earlier by Maximinus Daia and possibly also by Galerius.

But right away Doctor of Divinity Nock lets on that his standard for accepting Christian borrowing is just a teensy bit different. I use "teensy" here in its inter-galactic astronomical sense.

For Christian borrowing we must

	Use the greatest caution
	Demand precisely what character each belief had in the Pagan and Christian camps, to be sure they are really really really really really similar
	Be sure that the borrowed ideas were present in exactly the right time and exactly the right city—and that in exactly that time and place they had exactly the right character.
	Be sure that in exactly the right city at exactly the right time the ideas of exactly the right character were believed in with enough "intensity" (why that matters and how it's measured Doctor of Divinity Nock doesn't say).

And, says Doctor of Divinity Nock, it is impossible to know all those things!!   >>

So, according to Doctor of Divinity Nock himself, his criteria make it impossible to discover Christian borrowing from Paganism.

The greatest caution must therefore be exercised in determining what was the precise character of any particular mystery which might be supposed to have influenced [pg 59] Christianity in the first century ; we need in effect to know its character at the point of contact, since it is unsafe to assume that there would be complete uniformity in any such cult wherever practiced (we know that later this was certainly not so with Mithraism, which varied in details from East to West). Further, we require some means of estimating not merely in what cities a particular mystery was observed, but what the local intensity was, whether it was for instance impossible for any man in those parts to be unaware of its more characteristic features, or at any rate of its existence. To all these questions there cannot be complete and satisfactory answers
[Nock, Arthur Darby. Early Gentile Christianity and Its Hellenistic Background ((1928 / 1964)), pg. 58- 9]

.

	Pagan borrowing obvious Christian borrowing impossible

Doctor of Divinity Nock's analysis uses different criteria to identify Pagan and Christian borrowing. Pagan borrowing that is conceivable is "obvious." Christian borrowing is always—always!—excluded by Doctor of Divinity Nock's analysis.

We've been sitting in a wagon with no wheels. When your analysis makes it impossible to discover borrowing, and then you don't discover borrowing, the only real information in that "no borrowing" result is that your analysis was designed not to work. When you sit is a wagon with no wheels, you always go nowhere.

Doctor of Divinity Nock's analysis fails because it is designed to make Christian borrowing impossible.

Here's professor Jonathan Z. Smith in his famous encyclopedia articl, Dying and Rising Gods, listing four Christian sources confirming Adonis was raised from the dead >>

Considerably later, the Christian writers Origen and Jerome, commenting on Ezekiel 8:14, and Cyril of Alexandria and Procopius of Gaza, commenting on Isaiah 18:1, clearly report joyous festivities on the third day to celebrate Adonis (identified with Tammuz) having been "raised from the dead." Whether this represents an interpretatio Christianis or whether late third- and fourth century forms of the Adonis cult themselves developed a dying and rising mythology (possibility in imitation of the Christian myth) cannot be determined.
[Smith, Jonathan Z.. Dying and Rising Gods (in Encyclopedia of Religion, M. Eliade ed. 1988, volume 4) (1988), pg. 522]

By the way
As far as I know Professor Smith's opinions are not guided by Christian faith. That doesn't mean he doesn't have an agenda. He does..

The possibilities, according to Professor Smith's analysis, are that:
1) when the evidence contradicts his theory, the evidence is wrong, or
2) the Pagans borrowed from the Christians.
3) the Pagans and Christians both developed the idea of resurrection at the same time, only independently of each other.

Which possibility is correct? Professor Smith's analysis doesn't go into that. He doesn't seem to care.

Hey wait ... now that I think about it, is it possible—not certain, not likely, not probable, just possible—is it possible all these multiple accounts from multiple independent sources simply mean what they say, that Adonis did rise from the dead? Sorry. That's the one possibility Professor Smith's analysis doesn't consider. 

It's as if what he's really after is not what happened, it's as if he's just after a reason not to see Christian borrowing.

Professor Smith's theory fails because it ignores exactly the possibility it is supposed to analyze.

Remember, I'm not telling you about Dr. Smith because I think his analysis is weak. I'm showing you what he wrote because on the subject of dying and rising gods Dr. Smith is the most famous, most admired, most cited, most quoted anti-dying-and-rising-gods scholar there is. And this encyclopedia article is the most famous, most admired, most cited, most quoted anti-dying and rising god scholarship going. And it ignores exactly the possibility it pretends to analyze!

Vagueness as strategy
You've just read TVPDSFU's most famous proponents laying out their theory in their most famous, most cited, most quoted works. What you didn't see was evidence of Pagan borrowing.

Did you catch that? They didn't give any evidence. They don't have any evidence. TVPDSFU theorists don't have any evidence of Paganism borrowing from Christianity.

Remember, for the overwhelming majority of Christian - Pagan similarities Paganism undisputedly got there first, generations before Jesus. That means that for all those theologies and sacraments, Pagan borrowing is impossible. The points of similarity available to TVPDSFU theory are few: Mithras' taurobolium baptism, Adonis' resurrection, Attis' resurrection, and a few others.

But with only a few specific points at issue, TVPDSFU stays vague. TVPDSFU theorists don't give you specific facts that support any of the few vaguely possible specific borrowings. They don't give you facts showing that Mithras' taurobolium was borrowed from Christian baptism. They don't give you facts showing that Adonis' resurrection was borrowed from Jesus'. TVPDSFU doesn't give specifics. It's proponents, in their strongest writing, just talk about Pagan borrowing in a general way.

By the way

Don't get me wrong. Doctor of Divinity Nock was a plenty smart scholar of ancient religions. His famous book—Conversion— all about how ancient religions, Pagan and Christian, spread, includes plenty about how Pagan religions copied from each other.

But, according to Doctor of Divinity Nock, real conversion was possible only to Christianity. Pagan religions weren't high class enough.

And in Co version Doctor of Divinity Nock's rules about what evidence indicates borrowing differ from Pagan and Christian.

	Washed in the Blood of the Lamb
	Christianity and Paganism were way way different. Christianity and Paganism were so similar that Christian sacraments could be borrowed and fit right in with Pagan theologies.

So they were similar? One of believers' other favorite defenses to counter the evidence of Christian borrowing is to say that Christianity was way different from Paganism. Our baptism, that was completely different from their baptism. Our Washed in the Blood of the Lamb is completely different from their Washed (literally, in the sacred rite of the cribolium) in the Blood of the Lamb Flip.

In fact, let's talk about baptism. For the Mithraic taurobolium (salvation by bull's blood baptism) and cribolium (lamb's blood) baptisms, the TVPDSFU theory is that Mithras-ism—which was completely different from Christianity—plucked up the central sacrament of Christianity and plopped in down in the middle of their Pagan tomfoolery. And it fit.

It fit. That's a big deal. To see how close religions must be to each other to borrow core sacraments, try some other swaps. Try fitting the Hindu idea of salvation and redemption by way of gradual perfection of the soul through many reincarnations, try fitting that into Christian theology. You can't do it. It doesn't fit. Christianity and Hinduism are deeply different.

Try fitting the Aztec idea of world and tribal salvation by way of cutting up little children and eating their parts into Christian theology. You can't do it. It doesn't fit. Christianity and Quetzalcoatl-ism are deeply different.

Back to the Mithraic blood baptism. According to the TVPDSFU theory, Christian salvation and Christian baptism fit right in with whatever ideas about God, sin, soul, prayer, eternal life, redemption, etc., Mithras-ism already had. Mithras-ism and Christianity were similar. Flop.

The believers' They were different and TVPDSFU defenses contradict each other. They can't both be true. Scholars who put forward both these defenses at once are not reasoning with the evidence, they are using kettle logic to further their agendas. Does that mean they are bad people? No, it doesn't. We can disagree and still be friends.

So Christianity did borrow? At least that's what you have to figure if you apply the same reasoning to the rest if the evidence. Here's what I mean.

Start with the direct evidence for Pagan borrowing. There isn't any. The only evidence for the TVPDSFU claim, the claim that old established Pagan religions borrowed their ideas from upstart Christianity, is that the record about a few particular elements of a few particular Pagan religions dates after Christianity was founded.

That's it. No Pagan ever wrote, "We thieved baptism from those nasty atheist Christians we were burning at the time." No ancient Christian ever wrote, "Them varmint Pagans done stole from us."

When believers make the TVPDSFU claim, all Doctor of Divinity Nock's careful analysis, all his stuff about being sure the ideas have precisely similar characters, and at exactly the right time and in exactly the right city and with exactly the right intensity, all that stuff doesn't apply here. The way the TVPDSFU theory works is, the mere fact that Christian baptism dates before the first mention of the Mithraic taurobolium blood baptism means that the taurobolium was borrowed from Christianity . They're similar (using the new standard), the second one copied.

OK, fine. Now let's apply that they're similar, the second one copied reasoning to other elements of ancient religions. Paganism and Christianity both had: godmen, Sons of God, miracles, prayer, salvation, rising and dying Gods, sacred meals shared with the God, initiations, virgin births, prophesies, eternal life, etc. etc.

And Paganism had all those things first. So Christianity borrowed all those things, right?

Two problems.

First, no one who puts up TVPDSFU as convincing will admit Christianity borrowed all those other things. As it is applied in the real world, the TVPDSFU's they're similar, the second one copied reasoning gives different answers depending on who's borrowing is being analyzed. For Pagan borrowing TVPDSFU's they're similar, the second one copied answers they did, and for Christian borrowing its answer is exactly the opposite: they didn't. TVPDSFU'S answer to "who borrowed?" is not guided by who had what and when they had it. The answer to "who borrowed?" is controlled by one simple fact: who you're talking about. The TVPDSFU analysis fails because all the analysis really analyses is who we're talking about. TVPDSFU is a trick, a way for believers to get to the answer they're after.

Second, even if it's they're similar, the second one copied reasoning does work, the TVPDSFU fails as evidence for Christian uniqueness because it is inconsistent with Christian uniqueness. Here's what I mean. TVPDSUF tries to prove Christianity is unique. But if it's they're similar, the second one copied reasoning is true, then Christianity did borrow all that other stuff from Paganism. That means that generations before the Mithras-ists could borrow the taurobolium and the Adonis-ists could borrow the resurrection of their godman, Christianity was already Pagan. By then Christianity had already borrowed Pagan godmen, Pagan sons of God, Pagan miracles, Pagan initiations, Pagan virgin births, Pagan prophesies, Pagan eternal life, etc. etc. And with Christianity being generally Pagan already, it's unlikely Paganism needed to borrow from Christianity—any more than, say, Christianity in general has ever borrowed key doctrines from the Amish. The TVPDSFU analysis degenerates to pure Paganism, all that borrowing, all those ideas fading back into prehistory.

TVPDSFU is kettle logic whose special purpose "reasoning" is only ever applied to Paganism.When TVPDSFU reasoning is applied to Christianity, the answers it gives contradict the rest of the believers' theory of Christian origins.

TVPDSFU is a trick, a way for believers to get to the answer they're after. We can still be friends.

Hey, wait a minute!
Isn't they're similar, the second one copied exactly POCM's reasoning for Christian borrowing? Well, I imagine POCM's reasoning is a little fancier, but basically yes. Yes it is. The point, of course, is that there is no symmetry to the facts. Christiantiy was unequivocally second -- Christianity developed hundreds of years after Pagan religions.

	Who was really first?
	Do old established religions get their ideas from new religions, or do new religions get their ideas from the old religions, and the culture, around them?

Lets talk about those details.

Who was first?
I can think of several reasons how come the believer's claim that the Christian idea of, say, resurrection, was first isn't true.
1.  Un-ignoring the evidence
2.  Pagan sacred secrets revealed by Christians. Till the lights came on, the room was dark.
3.  Many Christianities
4.  Timing
5. Early apologists give the opposite timing: Them Varmint Daemons Done Stole From Us.

1. Un-ignoring the evidence.
As we've seen, one trick believers use to date Pagan beliefs later than similar Christian beliefs is to ignore the evidence. "Evidence? What evidence? I don't see any evidence," they say, whistling and looking up at the ceiling.

Remember professor Smith writing in his famous essay about dying and rising Gods?  >>

As the professor says, we know about Adonis' resurrection because Origen (185 - 254 AD) wrote about it. So do Jerome (340 - 420), and later Christian writers.

That Jerome in the fourth century, Cyril in the fifth, or Billy Graham in the 20th wrote about Adonis' resurrection is of course irrelevant to the Pagan belief's dating. Origen wrote about Adonis' resurrection in the second or early third century; the belief was certainly around by the second and early third century.

In fact, thanks to Origen at one end and Jerome at the other, we are certain that during all the long generations between the early 200s and the mid-300s AD Pagans celebrated Adonis' resurrection—but we have absolutely no contemporary record that they did. Proof, if anyone really needed it, that the sporadic ancient Christian evidence is a useless way to time-stamp Pagan theologies.

Considerably later, the Christian writers Origen and Jerome, commenting on Ezekiel 8:14, and Cyril of Alexandria and Procopius of Gaza, commenting on Isaiah 18:1, clearly report joyous festivities on the third day to celebrate Adonis (identified with Tammuz) having been "raised from the dead." Whether this represents an interpretatio Christianis or whether late third- and fourth century forms of the Adonis cult themselves developed a dying and rising mythology (possibility in imitation of the Christian myth) cannot be determined.
[Smith, Jonathan Z.. Dying and Rising Gods (in Encyclopedia of Religion, M. Eliade ed. 1988, volume 4) (1988), pg. 522]

Origen's evidence is easy for anti-borrowing scholars to explain. Professor Smith, "Now watch this ladies and gentlemen. Nothin' up my sleeve— interpretatio Christianis. Probably Origen, a Christian, just misunderstood non-Christian stories. Yeah, that's it. Origen didn't know what he was talking about. Ta da."

That's the anti-borrowing scholars' argument. When it came to Pagan ideas, Origen didn't know what he was talking about. Do you buy that? Before you answer, let me mention one teensy factlet Dr. Smith left out of his account: Origen was famous for his classical Pagan learning.

Oops.

(6.19.5) Then, again, he [Porphyry] said, "Let us take an example of this absurdity, from the very man whom I happened to meet when I was very young, and who was very celebrated, and is still celebrated by the writings that he has left; I mean Origen, whose glory is very great with the teachers of these doctrines. (6) For this man having been a hearer of Ammonius, who had made the greatest proficiency in philosophy among those of our day, as to knowledge, derived great benefit from his master, but with regard to a correct purpose of life, he pursued a course directly opposite. (7) For Ammonius, being a Christian, had been educated among Christians by his parents, and when he began to exercise his own understanding, and apply himself to philosophy, he immediately changed his views, and lived according to the laws. But Origen, as a Greek, being educated in Greek literature, declined to this barbarian impudence. To which, also, betaking himself, he both consigned himself and his attainments in learning, living like a Christian, and swerving from the laws; but in regard to his opinions, both of things and the Deity, acting the Greek, and intermingling Greek literature with these foreign fictions. (8) For he was always in company with Plato, and had the works also of Numenius and Cranius, of Apollophanes and Longinus, of Moderatus and Nicomachus, and others whose writings are valued, in his hands. He also read the works of Chaeremon, the stoic, and those of Cornutus.

In fact that Greek education, says Porphyry—did I mention he knew Origen?—was where Origen got his allegorical technique for understanding Christian scriptures.

From these he derived the allegorical mode of interpretation usual in the mysteries of the Greeks, and applied it to the Jewish Scriptures."

(9) Such were the assertions made by Porphyry..."
[Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 6.19.5- 9 (fourth century AD),—which you can find in: Cruse, C. F.. Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History; Complete and Unabridged (1998 / 2001), pg. 209]

In summary: TVPDSFU can't be true if the Pagans had their stuff before the Christians had their stuff. In many cases, the resurrection of Adonis is one, the evidence says the Pagans did have their stuff first. TVPDSFU hold-outs get around that by saying, "Those Christians just didn't understand Paganism."

In the case of Adonis' resurrection the Christian who, according to the TVPDSFU theory, didn't understand Paganism was famous, even among Pagans, for his Pagan learning. Man, I wish I was getting paid by the comma for that sentence.

When it came to things Pagan, Origen didn't know what he was talking about—in fact all those Christians recording Pagan beliefs didn't know what they were talking about. . . is a trick, a way to get to the answer anti-borrowing "scholars" are after.

2. Pagan sacred secrets revealed only by Christians Till the lights came on, the room was dark.
Late tonight go into your living room; keep the lights off. You see a sofa? No you don't. The lights are off.

Quick, turn the lights on. >>

Now you see the sofa. Was the sofa there before? TVPDSFU says it wasn't. Here's what I mean.

Mystery religions' sacraments were sacred secrets. Secrets. Disclosing them to the uninitiated was illegal. Against the law. More than that, disclosing sacred secrets was profane—like masturbating in public. Actually, Diogenes the Cynic was famous for the touching himself in public thing, so: revealing sacred secrets was worse than masturbating in public. People didn't do it.

Except for a handful of oblique hints in one chapter of one book (Apuleius' Metamorphosis) no surviving Pagan text ever tells what the sacred secrets—the ritual, the sacraments, the theology—of any mystery religions were.

Mostly we don't know what the mysteries' rituals and sacraments were. Where we do know, the evidence is from Christian sources.

And, get this, all the Christian evidence dates from after the founding of Christianity! Till the lights came on, the room was dark.

On this lake it is that the Egyptians represent by night his sufferings whose name I refrain from mentioning, and this representation they call their Mysteries. I know well the whole course of the proceedings in these ceremonies, but they shall not pass my lips. So too, with regard to the mysteries of Demeter, which the Greeks term the Thesmophoria, I know them, but I shall not mention them, except so far as may be done without impiety.
[Herodotus, The Persian War, 2.171 (c 440 BC),—which you can find in: Godolpin, Francis. The Greek Historians (1942), pg. 160]

Holy rites of a similar kind were in use also among the Epidaurians, and likewise another sort of holy rites, whereof it is not lawful to speak.
[Herodotus, The Persian War, 5.83 (c 440 BC)]

Till the lights came on, the room was dark. From which believers come up with the theory that maybe the centuries-old Pagan religions developed their sacraments only in the second century. Or the third century. Maybe the fourth. Whenever the first Christian description of them was recorded.

The more likely explanation is that we have no Pagan evidence of Pagan secrets because...they were secrets.