Going Pagan: The Forgotten Prefigures of Jesus Christ: Tracking the similarities between the historical Jesus and pre-existing pagan gods

Given a parallel so precise that it is unlikely to be coincidental, in two literary traditions from civilizations that were known to have been in contact with each other, originality should be given to the historically earlier instance. If it can be demonstrated that the gospel writers were already familiar with stories that parallel the gospel accounts of Jesus Christ from contemporary mythologies (such as Attis, Orpheus, Mithras, Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, Dionysus, or Asclepius), it is very likely that Christianity adapted or assimilated portions of these mythologies into their own literary creations. This idea is not at all challenged by academics today, who, as we have seen, agree that in order to discover what was unique about Christianity (and thus might have come from a historical founder), we must first identify what was obviously borrowed or included.

However, at the same time, conservative biblical scholars or Christian apologists have been careful to refute claims of similarity that can weaken the supremacy and historical validity of Jesus Christ. This defensive position is somewhat justified, as Christ-Myth researchers have sometimes taken unfounded, sweeping liberties and minimized all differences in order to fit their theories. Nevertheless, these criticisms are usually leveled against the idea of similarity, rather than any particular similarities, and are invariably founded on the same set of (flawed) arguments.
The first is simply the reiteration of the historical Jesus. Taking support from the academia’s continued pursuit of a historical founder for Christianity, potential similarities (when used to question the Jesus of history) are immediately repudiated because “no serious scholar doubts the historical Jesus.” However, this merely ignores the otherwise very troubling evidence, and is no improvement from Justin Martyr’s original argument dealing with the same similarities: Jesus was real, while all other instances (of crucified saviors) were symbolic, and thus not equal. The only explanation ever put forward by Christians as to why pagan mythology and earlier saviors are so similar to the later, actual, life of Jesus is Justin’s concept of “Diabolical Mimicry,” which blames the similarities on wicked demons who were commissioned by Satan to spread similar stories throughout the world in a sort of pre-emptive attack against Christianity