Jesus Christ in comparative mythology

The study of Jesus in comparative mythology is the examination of the narratives of the life of Jesus in the Christian gospels, traditions and theology, as it relates to Christian mythology and other religions.

For over a century, various authors have drawn a number of parallels between the Christian views of Jesus and other religious or mythical domains. These include Greco-Roman mysteries, ancient Egyptian myths and more general analogies involving cross-cultural patterns of dying and rising gods in the context of Christ myth theory.

A number of parallels have been drawn between the Christian views of Jesus and other religious or mythical domains. However, Eddy and Boyd state that there is no evidence of a historical influence by the pagan myths such as dying and rising gods on the authors of the New Testament.Paula Fredriksen states that no serious scholarly work places Jesus outside the backdrop of 1st century Palestinian Judaism, which is not the same as saying Christianity lacks Pagan influence.

Scholars have debated a number of broad issues related to the parallels drawn between Jesus and other myths, e.g. the very existence of the category dying-and-rising god was debated throughout the 20th century, some modern scholars questioning the soundness of the category. At the end of the 20th century the overall scholarly consensus had emerged against the soundness of the reasoning used to suggest the category.Tryggve Mettinger (who supports the category) states that there is a scholarly consensus that the category is inappropriate from a historical perspective. Scholars such as Kurt Rudolph have stated the reasoning used for the construction of the category has been defective.

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