Upon such a controversial subject I cannot claim that Raphael Vassallo is ‘mistaken’ because I am no authority. However it is a subject which I like to read upon in my little available free time.
As Raphael stated in his reply, scepticism about the uniqueness of Christianity’s resurrection claim can be read in writings such as The Golden Bough by Sir James Frazer (1906), Hellenistic Ways of Deliverance and the Making of the Christian Synthesis by John H. Randall (1970), and Those Incredible Christians by Hugh Schonfield (1968). However, the historical basis of such claims is fragile as upon a closer examination (and not just a ‘cursory look’) of the available source documents, it is shown that much of the written record of the mystery cults comes to us from the second to fourth century A.D. which coincidentally was a time when Christianity was growing exponentially. The appearances of “resurrections” in these myths do not emerge in their writings until after the resurrection accounts of the New Testament.
So again, may I ask, who is copying who? Could it also be that existing cults/mystery religions were feeling the competition from the new belief coming from the Middle East? Indeed, there is inscriptional evidence from the fourth century A.D. that, for example the cult of Attis, far from influencing Christianity, was influenced by Christianity.
I would also suggest to anyone who is interested in the subject to read sources from scholars with verifiable outstanding academic credentials such as: Edwin M. Yamauchi’s Easter: Myth, Hallucination, or History, which is freely available from www.leaderu.com/everystudent/easter/articles/yama.html and Gary Habermas and Mike Licona’s The Case For the Resurrection of Jesus.
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