There are many similarities between the Gospel narrative and other ideas from around found in and around the Mediterranean in the first century CE and earlier. I previously mentioned that the teachings of Jesus closely match those of the Jewish Rabbis, but they are also quite similar to the teachings of Buddha.

Jesus had a divine father and human mother, so did the Greek man-god hybrids Achilles, Aeneas, Ascelpius, Heracles (Hercules), Alexander the Great, Theseus, and Perseus and the Hindu’s Yudishtira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, Sahadeva and Karna.

In one version of the Jesus myth he was a man who became god, so did the Hindu gods Hanuman, Garuda, Maduria, Veeran, Karuppu, and Sami.

Jesus was a man and/or god who died and rose again, just like the Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian, and Persian gods Asclepius, Orpheus, Osiris, Horus, Tammuz
Zalmoxis, Dionysis, Odin, Ishtar, Persephone, and Mithra.

Some of the closest narrative parallels with Jesus are found in Osiris, Horus, Vishnu, and Mithra.

All of these mythical characters (and in a few cases mythical modifications of historical figures) predate the time of Jesus. The rise of Mythraism is especially interesting since it’s origin is debatable (ranging from second century BCE in Persia to late first century CE in the Roman Empire), but its rise to popularity closely mirrored Christianity. Looking at the popularity of these two religions in the first two or three centuries CE shows how the disenfranchised elements of the empire had become quite dissatisfied with the traditional religions.

While this doesn’t prove that Jesus is fictitious, it does clearly show that the idea of a man being fathered by a god, a man becoming a god, or a man/god dying and coming back to life were readily available to those who were writing the Gospels and the culture was ripe for rapid growth of a new religion.

The apologetic explanation is that either God was trying to make it easier for people to accept Jesus by having parallels in their own culture or that Satan read the prophecies and created counterfeits.

The skeptical explanation is that material from nearby religions was likely added to the Jesus myth to fill in some of the gaps.