If Jesus had ascended into heaven in full view of everybody, or at least in the circle of his disciples, the news would have spread through the streets of Jerusalem like a forest fire on the very same day, for the people had taken a lively interest in the trial and crucifixion. But not a single Roman or Jewish historian noted down a single word about these earth-shaking events! The evangelists show only the most rudimentary knowledge of them and they were not eyewitnesses. It is a crux interpretum.
I am one of many hundreds of millions of 'Christians', who are dictated to from the cradle and pay taxes for the privilege, but cannot believe in a dictatorial religion. I am not an atheist. I admire the magnificent drama which was written around the central figure of Jesus of Nazareth, I admire the products of Christian culture in painting, sculpture and music. I recognize most of the laws and rules governing human conduct in the codex of the Christian faith (as they are in essence peculiar to all religions, myths and legends).
But I deny the claim of the church into which I was born to be the only one offering salvation, because I - to name only two examples - consider the dogmas and tenets of Buddha and Mohammed to be of no less value.
Millions of devout Christians know nothing or too little of the background of the Bible. Consequently, they accept it as the 'Word of God' from generation to generation: they take Jesus for the original preacher of his doctrine. But it has been proved that he adapted essential parts of it from the Essenes by the Dead Sea. The fact that the Christian doctrines and customs are mostly borrowed from old religions is shown by documentation put at my disposal by Dr. Robert Kehl [27]. From it I take the following details, which are but a fraction of the material available.
The Bible does not contain a single religious or moral idea which was not already contained in some form in the holy scriptures of earlier or contemporary religions. The immediate soil - not to say armoury and arsenal - for the present-day 'Christian', i.e. Pauline religious, communal and cult life was in particular the Hellenistic mystery cults (for their part largely taken over from the Egyptian and oriental cults). Practically everything that forms present-day Pauline Christianity is to be found in the cults of Attis. Dionysus, Mithras and Isis (a). (The letters (a) to (i) are referred to separately in the Bibliography.)
The central figure of the individual mystery cults was always a saviour corresponding to the Pauline Christos, a 'Son of God', who was described as 'the Lord'. The suffering and death of the 'Son of God'
plays a decisive role in these cults, and there is also mention of crucified gods. A god's going down into hell ('... descended into hell') was a widespread idea, just as the ascent into heaven formed part of the salvation story in all mystery cults. The Trinity was known too, as it was in ancient Egypt. The sick were healed in the names of Mithras and Dionysus, the dead woken, the sea calmed, water turned into wine etc. There was also the festival of Easter (celebration of the resurrection), in which the resurrection of the god concerned was conceived of in exactly the same way as in later Christianity
(resurrection on the third day, empty tomb, stone rolled away). The doctrine of salvation, which is considered as peculiar to the Christian religion, is found in all its details in the mystery religions.
Even the basic Christian dogma of original sin was not really new (Mithras). Baptism with fasting and penitential exercises beforehand was known in the Hellenistic mystery religions. The holy supper, also called 'Table of the Lord', 'Meal of the blessed" or 'Meal of the saints', had a great deal in common with the (later) Christian Last Supper. But it is of special significance that according to the mystery religions, too, this meal represented eating the body and drinking the blood of their god (communion).
The bread for the supper was partly prepared in the form of hosts with the sign of the cross. It is demonstrated that this 'Table of the Lord' was also conceived as a bloodless sacramental renewal of the divine sacrifice. Even the words spoken during the tran-substantiation in the present-day Catholic Mass are essentially prefigured: 'Say seven times; thou art wine; thou art not wine, but the blood of Athena. Thou art wine; thou are not wine, but the blood of Osiris, the bowels of Jao.'
The faithful were reborn through this 'meal of the blessed' and, in contrast to the lost, who could expect a miserable fate, were described as 'redeemed, saved, immortal'. The initiates of the mystery religions became 'children of god' through the meal. God took them into his dwelling; they were united with him. The meal is also to be conceived of as actually sharing a meal with god.
The life of the son of god or the founder of the religion shows striking similarities to the life of Jesus, not only in the mystery religions, but also in the Eastern and Far Eastern pre-Christian religions. This begins already with the prophecies as 'Redeemer and saviour of mankind' (b). For example, the followers of the Zoroastrian religion were also told: 'The world is full of expectation of him: he is the prophet Mazda.' Generally there is an account of the supernatural begetting (c) of the saviour god, with the virgin birth being widely known long before Jesus, for example in the case of Buddha and Zoroaster.
With Buddha the begetting is supposed to have taken place by the penetration of a divine ray into the womb of the virgin mother. Even more striking is the concordance in the descriptions of the birth of the religion's founder (d). Other founders of religion, besides Jesus, were born in a manger, put in a crib and wrapped in swaddling clothes: in other religions, too, the birthplace was lit by a bright light; in the case of other founders of religions, too, heavenly choirs singing praise appeared: even the adoration of the shepherds was not lacking.
After the birth of both Jesus and Krishna (eighth terrestrial apparition of Vishnu, one of the main epiphanies of the divine in Hinduism), the slaying of all newly-born male children was ordered by a jealous king. The presentation of the child in the temple is also attested to. In particular all founders of religion were tempted by the devil (e), mostly in the desert where they were fasting. Here too details tally with the Bible, in that the devil first offers food and then worldly dominion if his victim will submit.
When Buddha was baptized, there was an earthquake and god proclaimed: 'Immortality is discovered.'
(With Jesus ... this is my beloved son...'). A striking similarity can also be observed in the deaths of divine figures who are venerated as universal saviours. When Caesar died, there was talk of a terrible darkness and also of the earth bursting open and the dead returning (f). The resurrection of sons of god who were transformed on this earth, are generally known in antiquity well before Jesus. The Risen Apollonius, a contemporary and a kind of doppelganger of Jesus, appeared to his disciples. The mystery religions and the Egyptian and Babylonian cultures before them knew both the concept 'I am the vine' and the pastoral slogan 'I am the good shepherd' (g). The persecution of the adherents of the mystery religions by the priests of the established religion was just as customary as the persecution of the Christians. The mocking of the suffering of Dionysus is staggeringly like the mocking of Jesus.
Most founders of religions and sons of gods known to the classical and Far Eastern world before Jesus were miracle workers just like Jesus (h). The miracle of the turning of the water into wine has its parallel in the Dionysus legend. The sick are healed, old men become sprightly, the hungry are fed, the blind see, cripples walk, the dumb speak. Cures are performed at a distance, as by Jesus. Those who were healed carry their beds, the sea is calmed, 300,00 people are miraculously fed and there are many other instances.