{"id":78528,"date":"2019-09-26T22:46:56","date_gmt":"2019-09-27T04:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=78528"},"modified":"2019-09-26T23:09:06","modified_gmt":"2019-09-27T05:09:06","slug":"these-supposed-parallels-are-quite-bogus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/09\/these-supposed-parallels-are-quite-bogus.html","title":{"rendered":"These supposed “parallels” are quite bogus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"From<\/a>
Ani kneeling before enthroned Osiris (facsimile of original dating to roughly 1300 BC)
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image )<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I published the following column in the Deseret News<\/em> back on 17 May 2012:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

From time to time, some triumphant\u00a0atheist or other challenges me with a\u00a0list of supposed parallels between the\u00a0biblical depiction of Jesus and the\u00a0stories of other important religious\u00a0figures (mythical or historical), such\u00a0as Krishna, Tammuz, the Buddha,\u00a0Muhammad, Mithra, Cadmus, Osiris\u00a0and Baal.<\/span><\/p>\n

The biographies of these characters\u00a0are said to resemble each other right\u00a0down to minute details: They\u00a0commonly if not always came into the\u00a0world via a virgin\u2019s immaculate\u00a0conception; were born on Dec. 25;\u00a0were adored as infants by angels, shepherds and visiting sages; performed miracles; taught New\u00a0Testament doctrines; were regarded as divine; were crucified; atoned for human sin; descended into\u00a0hell; rose again from the dead; and ascended into heaven.<\/span><\/p>\n

The point of the list, of course, is to suggest that the story of Jesus is merely fictional, probably\u00a0derived from myths about the death of vegetation in the winter and its miraculous rebirth in the\u00a0spring.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a very impressive catalog of parallels.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s also utterly bogus.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ultimate source for the list seems to be an 1875 book by an American atheist writer named\u00a0Kersey Graves, titled \u201cThe World\u2019s Sixteen Crucified Saviors: Christianity Before Christ.\u201d \u00a0And I\u2019m being accurate when I describe the Graves book as the \u201cultimate source\u201d for these ideas,\u00a0since Graves supplies no references from ancient documents to back up his assertions. He simply\u00a0announces them and then moves on as if he\u2019s proved them true. But they\u2019re nonsense.<\/span><\/p>\n

Space permits only a hasty comparative analysis, and, since I\u2019m the author of a biography of the\u00a0founder of Islam, who is one of the figures identified by Graves as an exact parallel to Christ, perhaps\u00a0I can be forgiven for focusing on Muhammad.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a preliminary note, though, I need to say that the versions of this list that I\u2019ve seen often confuse\u00a0the Immaculate Conception \u2014 traditionally, Mary\u2019s coming into the world as the daughter of\u00a0Joachim and Anna (according to the second century \u201cProtoevangelium of James\u201d) without the taint\u00a0of \u201cOriginal Sin\u201d \u2014 with the Virgin Birth, which is Mary\u2019s conception of Jesus without an earthly\u00a0father.<\/span><\/p>\n

But now on to business:<\/span><\/p>\n

No Islamic text of which I\u2019m aware claims that Muhammad\u2019s mother was a virgin at his birth. \u00a0Muhammad\u2019s father is known in Muslim sources as \u2018Abd Allah, and he, in turn, was the son of \u2018Abd\u00a0al-Mutallib.<\/span><\/p>\n

Muhammad wasn\u2019t born on Dec. 25, but most likely near the end of April. Some relatively late\u00a0legends surround his birth with miraculous events and have him working mighty wonders, but these\u00a0folkloric tales probably arose out of competition with Christians, and neither the Qur\u2019an nor the\u00a0earliest, most reputable Islamic historical materials say anything about them. Muhammad himself\u00a0explained that the reception of the Qur\u2019an, the holy book of Islam, was his only (though sufficient)\u00a0miracle.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many of Muhammad\u2019s doctrines are comparable to those of the New Testament. But this is scarcely\u00a0surprising, since he claimed to be a prophet in the tradition of Abraham, Moses and Jesus. Still,\u00a0many of his doctrines are quite distinctive.<\/span><\/p>\n

Islam has never taught that Muhammad was divine, nor even a son of God. \u201cGod does not beget,\u201d\u00a0says Qur\u2019an 112:3, \u201cnor is he begotten.\u201d To suggest otherwise, Muslims believe, is \u201cshirk\u201d or\u00a0polytheism, the worst possible theological error.<\/span><\/p>\n

Muhammad was most definitely not crucified, atones for nobody\u2019s sins and did not rise from the\u00a0dead.<\/span><\/p>\n

Early stories exist of Muhammad ascending into heaven, and, on that same journey, seeing some of\u00a0the sufferings of the damned in hell. But these stories don\u2019t appear clearly in the Qur\u2019an, they\u2019re\u00a0always placed years before Muhammad\u2019s death, and they play no role in his life or in Islamic\u00a0theology that\u2019s even remotely comparable to the function that the \u201charrowing of hell\u201d and Christ\u2019s\u00a0post-resurrection ascent have served in Christian lore and thought.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s simply false to say that Muhammad\u2019s life precisely parallels that of Jesus. The differences are\u00a0fundamental and far too numerous to be listed here. (Read my biography!) And when the same claim\u00a0is actually examined with regard to Baal, Osiris, Krishna and the like, it fares no better.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re ever confronted with Graves\u2019 list or something like it, demand to see supporting references.<\/span><\/p>\n

Or, if you\u2019re pressed for time, just go ahead and laugh. It\u2019s not to be taken seriously.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 I published the following column in the Deseret News back on 17 May 2012: \u00a0 From time to time, some triumphant\u00a0atheist or other challenges me with a\u00a0list of supposed parallels between the\u00a0biblical depiction of Jesus and the\u00a0stories of other important religious\u00a0figures (mythical or historical), such\u00a0as Krishna, Tammuz, the Buddha,\u00a0Muhammad, Mithra, Cadmus, Osiris\u00a0and Baal. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1014,3799,3832,5580,5583,186,192,5577,5574,1646],"class_list":["post-78528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-atheism","tag-atheist","tag-baal","tag-krishna","tag-mithra","tag-muhammad","tag-muhammed","tag-osiris","tag-parallels","tag-propaganda"],"yoast_head":"\nThese supposed "parallels" are quite bogus<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    I published the following column in the Deseret News back on 17 May 2012:   From time to time, some triumphant\u00a0atheist or other\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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