Dear Isabel,
I saw a list of the “miraculous figures of antiquity,” saying that the Egyptian god Osiris was also born on December 25, that the Buddha and Zoroaster were born of virgin mothers, that Dionysus was miraculously resurrected, etc.—all of them having at least one, and sometimes several, similarities with the miracles connected to Jesus. It claimed that this means that Jesus is only a myth too. I don’t know what to think. Can you help?
Disillusioned
Dear Disillusioned,
The first thing to know is that a lot of those lists have taken hold of a small truth and greatly exaggerated it. Most of those “facts” about other religions are fabricated. For example, the Buddha is not said to have been born of a virgin, and I don’t even know what the person was smoking who came up with Osiris’s being born on December 25. (The ancient Egyptians did not use the Roman calendar, for a start, but in any case: as far as I can discover, it’s pure invention.) So if you see a list like that making the rounds, let its travels around the internet stop with you.
There is a nugget of truth at the heart of this claim, though. Zoroaster was said to have been born of a virgin (as were Romulus and Remus in Roman lore, and Huitzilopochtli in Aztec lore, and other figures). Dionysus was said to have been resurrected after his death. The Buddha’s birth story does have miraculous components: for example, he is said to have taken seven steps immediately after his birth. In other words, yes, when a religion forms around a historical figure, or when the tales of gods are told, miracles tend to accumulate around the story. It’s a way that we humans say “Look at this person! They were really extraordinary!” And we tend to come up with certain details over and over. Sometimes it’s because one story copies a motif from another, sometimes it’s because they are both copying from the same source, and sometimes it’s because human minds turn in certain directions, so that two cultures may come up with almost identical ideas independently. In evolutionary biology, it’s called convergent evolution, and culture has the same phenomenon.
And of course, if you believe that miracles happen, such as a young woman giving birth without ever having had a sexual encounter, then the miracle could happen more than once, right?
I balk at the phrase “only a myth,” though. Myths are some of the most powerful shapers of culture, our way of telling ourselves, our neighbors, and our descendants who we are. They convey what matters to us and call us back to our ethical center. There is nothing “mere” about a myth.
If what we mean by “only a myth” is “not a historically accurate account of facts,” which I suspect is the point of these lists, then yes: a myth is not a historically accurate account of facts. It is a fiction meant (like most fictions) to express something true via a story. That doesn’t bother us in the realm of literature. If someone said, “There was never any such person as King Lear!” we would say, “Um, right. What’s your point?” And it doesn’t bother us in the realm of other people’s religions, where we comfortably label the scriptures “myths.”
Siddhartha Gautama (known as the Buddha), Jesus of Nazareth, Zoroaster, and many other such figures were almost certainly historical people. And along with the historical fact at the center of these and many other religious stories, there are almost always embellishments, legends, and myths, that didn’t happen, but were their followers’ ways of saying “Pay attention! This person was important and amazing.” Maybe the followers weren’t even expecting anyone to take them literally—in some cases, these embellishments are conventions of storytelling.
Where does this leave you or any Jesus-follower? That depends. Do you follow Jesus because of the miracles? Or would you follow his teaching if he were just a poor boy born to a woman and her carpenter husband, and if he were executed and never heard from again? If the latter, you can enjoy the miracles as embellishments and not worry about whether they really happened.
Or if the miracles are important to you, does it matter whether he was the only person in history to have miracles accompany his birth, life, and death? Or can you follow him and believe in the miracles, accepting that God works all around the world and all through time, and that that means that Aztecs have Aztec miracles, Persians have Persian miracles, etc.?
I can’t tell you what to believe. All I can say is that even if various elements of your religion have been presented to you as a package deal, you can disentangle them and decide which matter to you.
Wishing you well,
Isabel
Next week’s question: I’m not Jewish. Should I have worn a kippah when attending a Jewish funeral?
Note to readers: I have recently learned that Substack provides a platform to neo-Nazis, and presumably profits from them. Some Substack authors have asked the company to change its policy. While content moderation is a complex and nuanced question, I share their concern. I am looking into the issue, and when I learn more, I will address it with the company and also here—or, if need be, on another platform. Thanks so much to reader Sarah who brought this important question to my attention. I welcome any further information and opinions from you.
About "free speech": maybe it's because I live so close to Canada, but I think Americans make a fetish of free speech, I like the Canadian attitude better in that In Canada, Hate Speech is not included in free speech.