The Dependence Between the Gospels and Pagan Literature

Is there a more academic and responsible way to evaluate and conclude to editorial collusion or authorial borrowing? What if one wants to discern whether there was a significant connection between a figure in one of the most widely read and esteemed pieces of literature in human history and antecedent pagan religio-mythic characters? In this volume, Joe Mulvihill offers a new methodology and uses it to compare Jesus to two of the most referenced pagan exemplars antecedent to Jesus in the attempt to more closely approximate a responsible conclusion to the pagan parallel question. Does Christianity owe the salient features of its narrative to pagan influence in a Hellenized development matrix? What has been a largely abandoned evaluative effort at New Testament causation by many scholars in the relevant fields has been reformulated for contemporary inquiry, that is, the idea that the primary Jesus narratives have been substantially shaped by non-Christian ideas and literature. Mulvihill offers what he believes to be a superior analytic rubric that bypasses the common issues made by those who posit mythic connections of the sort claimed of the gospels.