The Buddha

Lao Zi

Attis

Heracles

Place

Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, lived in ancient India between approximately 563 BCE and 483 BCE. He was born in Lumbini (now modern day Nepal.
  Buddhism began in India and spread throughout Asia, then the world. 

China is the home of the Taoist faith initiated by Lao Zi, also known as Lao Tzu, Lao Tse or Lao Tze.

Attis was worshipped in Anatolia (modern Turkey).

Attis

Heracles was worshipped in Greece. In the Roman Empire, he was named Hercules.

Time  

 Fourth century BCE.

C. 1400 BCE; cult imported to Rome 204BCE.

C. 800 BCE.

Birth  

The Buddha was of royal descent. Born of the Virgin Maya (“the Queen of Heaven”) on December 25th, announced by a star and attended by wise men presenting costly gifts. At his birth Brahma angels sang hymns. An aged holy woman beseeched the heavens to bless the child.
  "In Buddhism the virgin birth concept occupies a central place and the suggestion of immaculate conception is also made. Buddha's future mother, Mahamaya, refrained form sexual activity and other worldly pleasures during the mid-summer festival and was taken off during a dream to the Himalayas. There she was purified by water to remove every human stain before being placed upon a divine couch ... After the conception, no lustful thought sprang up in the mind of future Buddha's mother ... The meaning usually ascribed to Buddha's birth legend centres on the fact that he chose to be born of a woman so as to become human himself, which would enable him to inspire other humans with the possibility of achieving perfection."   Source

Lao Zi was born of a virgin.

Lao Zi

Attis was born to the virgin Nana on December 25.
  "... a daughter of the river Sangarius, they say, took of the fruit and laid it in her bosom, when it at once disappeared, but she was with child. A boy was born, and exposed, but was tended by a he-goat."
Pausanias (2nd Century BCE Greek traveller), Description of Greece 7.17.9-11

Heracles was born on December 25 to a virgin who refrained from sex with her until her God-begotten child was born.

Life

Buddha taught in temple at age 12 and was able to match the wise religious scholars in their understanding.
  He was tempted by Mara, the Evil One, while fasting, but overcame the temptation, putting the Evil One to flight.
  He was baptized in water with the Spirit of God present. He gained enlightenment under a tree known as the Bodhi Tree.
  He healed the sick; fed 500 from a small basket of cakes; walked on water.
  Ananda, Buddha's disciple, asked a woman at a well for a drink of water but she hesitated because she was of too low a caste to serve him.
  Buddha's disciple wanted to hear his lord preach so he started to cross a stream – he doubted and started to sink but he built up his faith and continued to walk across the water.
  Buddha came to fulfil the law and preached the establishment of a kingdom of righteousness.
  He obliged followers to live in poverty and to renounce the world.
   In his final years, Buddha was said to have 'crushed a serpent's head' and to have been transfigured on a mount ...'
  It was Buddha, not Christ, who first said: 'If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also' (Matthew 5:39).
  These words also were attributed to Lao Zi some 500 years before Jesus.
 

Attis is a life-death-rebirth deity.

Heracles

Names  

Good Shepherd; Carpenter; Alpha and Omega; Sin Bearer; Master; Light of the World; Redeemer; Saviour of the World.

Good Shepherd; the Most High God; Only Begotten Son; Saviour.

Saviour; Only begotten; Prince of Peace; Son of Righteousness.

Death

[Note that there are many Buddhist belief systems with very different views of the events of the Buddha's life and death.] Buddha died  (on a cross, in some traditions, according to Graves, Kersey, The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviours [online free], quoted here, as atonement for sins of others; nb, I have yet to find evidence to support this assertion and I think it unlikely).  buried but arose again after tomb opened by supernatural powers.  Ascended into heaven (Nirvana).  Will return in later days to judge the dead.
  He suffered for three days in hell, and was resurrected: he ascended to Nirvana.
  "And when the Sage entered Nirvana, the earth quivered like a ship struck by a squall, and firebrands fell from the sky. The heavens were lit up by a preternatural fire, which burned without fuel, without smoke, without being fanned by the wind. Fearsome thunderbolts crashed down on the earth, and violent winds raged in the sky. The moon's light waned, and, in spite of a cloudless sky, an uncanny darkness spread everywhere."  Translation by Edward Conze, in Conze (ed.), Buddhist Scriptures (Penguin Books, 1959), pp. 62-4
 Source
  On his burial, Buddha's funeral clothes were said to have 'unrolled themselves, and the lid of his coffin was opened by a superhuman agency, when he ascended bodily into heaven'.

Buddha

Under construction

Attis was depicted as a man nailed or tied to a tree – at the foot of which was occasionally depicted a lamb.
  On March 22 (circa Spring Equinox), in a ceremony called the Entry of the Tree, which was very similar to the Christian Palm Sunday, a pine tree was brought to the sanctuary of Cybele; upon it hung the effigy of Attis. The God was dead; his holy blood ran down to redeem the earth. 
  Two days of mourning followed, but when night fell on the eve of the third day, March 25, the worshippers turned to joy. Source
  "For suddenly a light shone in the darkness; the tomb was opened; the God had risen from the dead ... [and the priest] softly whispered in their ears the glad tidings of salvation.  The resurrection of the God was hailed by his disciples as a promise that they too would issue triumphant from the corruption of the grave." [See Frazer, Sir James George, The Golden Bough, 1922, Ch. 34, 'The Myth and Ritual of Attis'; Ch. 35, 'Attis as a God of Vegetation'; Ch. 36, 'Human Representatives of Attis']

Note that March 25 is nine months (the human gestation period) before December 25; ie, Spring Equinox is nine months before Winter Solstice.
 

Heracles was sacrificed at the spring equinox.
  Darkness descended.

Beliefs 

Attis was considered the saviour who was slain for the salvation of mankind.
  His body as bread was eaten by his worshippers.
  He was both the Divine Son and the Father.
  Attis's worshipers ate a sacramental meal of bread and wine. The wine represented the God's blood; the bread became the body of the saviour.
  Attis's followers believed that "he whom they had buried a little while earlier had come to life again."
Firmicus Maternus, The Error of the Pagan Religions, Ch 3   Source
  They were baptised in this way: a bull was placed over a grating, the devotee stood under the grating.  The bull was stabbed with a consecrated spear. "Its hot reeking blood poured in torrents through the apertures and was received with devout eagerness by the worshipper ... who had been born again to eternal life and had washed away his sins in the blood of the bull." [for more see Frazer, Attis, chapter 1]
  Some accounts said Attis castrated himself beneath the tree giving rise to a priesthood that practiced either self-castration or enforced celibacy. His priests were “eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven”. This occurred centuries before Gregory VII (1073-1085) enforced celibacy on the Roman Catholic clergy.    

Odin

Karna

Adonis

Prometheus

Place

The centre of Odin's cult was Uppsala, Sweden, but Viking culture spread it wide.

Adonis is an Hellenic name adopted mainly in Phoenician and Syrian culture, based on Dumuzu (Tammuz – see above).

Prometheus

Time  

Odin was worshipped in the Viking period (c 700 AD) through to Christianisation (c 1100 AD) and beyond. The Elder Edda (also known as the Poetic Edda) was probably written down circa 1275 by the scribe Saemund. Most of this mythology was passed down orally, and much of it has been lost. Some of it was recorded by Snorri Sturluson and others.

C. 200 BCE (Seleucid period) to c. 400 CE.

This webpage is always under construction (show me one that isn't).

Birth  

"In the Hindu epic 'Mahabharata,' Karna is miraculously conceived and born of the virgin Kunti. Karna's father is the sun god Surya, the light of the Universe, who restores Kunti's maidenhood after the act of conception. Karna is born wearing armour and ear- rings. Like so many other virgin mothers, Kunti hides her child from her family for fear of scandal. The child is placed, like Moses, in a basket in the river and subsequently he is rescued and reared by people of a lower station in life.  Later, Kunti is protected from what would be the defilement of the sacred virginity by a curse that is laid upon her husband. There is a hint here of the idea of immaculate [sic] conception, an implicit suggestion that Kunti receives the divine seed without experiencing carnal desire. There are several such kind of traces of virgin birth in Hinduism."   Source

Adonis' birth is shrouded in confusion. Multiple versions exist. In one version, his mother was Myrrha. See Wikipedia.

Adonis

Life

His Semitic counterpart is Tammuz. His Etruscan counterpart was Atunis. He is a life-death-rebirth deity.

"Prometheus was an Indo-European sun god, as his procurement of the sun's energy as fire shows, and his depiction as Zeus Prometheus at Thurii where he holds a swastika (Sanskrit, pramantha – prometheus), the symbol of the sun and fire – produced by a fire drill (swastika) ..."   Source

Names  

Hangatyr, the god of the hanged.

Odin

Adonis was almost certainly based in large part on Tammuz. His name is Semitic, a variation on the word meaning 'lord' and also used to refer to Yahweh in the Old Testament.

Death

Odin hung on the world tree, Yggdrasil, in his pursuit of knowledge through communication with the dead. The nine days on which he hung on Yggdrasil are known as Odin’s ordeal. The final day of the nine days of his ordeal is the Festival of the Discovery of the Runes, when Odin fell screaming from the tree, having gained the knowledge he sought.

Karna

He was crucified on a symbolic tree, depicted as a post, situated near the Caspian Straits.
  "With shackles and inescapable fetters Zeus riveted Prometheus on a pillar." Hesiod
  "The chaining of Prometheus to the rock was by some ancient writers compared to a crucifixion."   Source

"Force: Seize his hands and master him. 
Now to your hammer. Pin him to the rocks. 
Drive stoutly now your wedge straight through his breast, the stubborn jaw of steel that cannot break. 
Now for his feet. Drive the nails through the flesh."
Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

"A chorus of maidens lament his agony and desolation, weeping in sorrow. Soon we hear the very line that is attributed to Christ addressing Paul (Acts 26:14), proof enough that the author knew the play:

Don't kick against the pricks."
Source

Beliefs 

In Norse mythology (Ásatrú), Odin (or Othin), Nordic (Icelandic) and Germanic, is the supreme god.

Rome wasn't built in one day and God didn't make the Universe in six.

I hope you'll come back again as this page grows.

 
The God Who Wasn't There

The Historical Jesus and the Mythical Christ

Bible Myths and their Parallels in Other Religions

Christianity Before Christ

Tales from the Time Loop

The Dark Side of Christian History

Jesus Christ, Sun of God

Author's cautionary note
Most ancient deities are known to us through more than one source; often these varied sources present different myths and legends, some of them contradictory and even mutually exclusive. These inconsistencies might be reflected in these tables, as might my own errors of fact or interpretation. However, I have endeavoured to provide something of an overview of the fascinating 'pagan Christs' subject, and I welcome corrections, additions and any other information. 

I would also like to add that although there are many similarities, there are also many differences. For example, Zarathustra is said to have been mortal rather than divine, had nine children, and died at 77, so in these matters he is quite unlike Jesus Christ. The tables above are not intended to prove complete congruencies between the people and deities mentioned; rather they perhaps tend to indicate influences of religions upon each other. 

Caution is advised. Much of the above is contentious among scholars, and I am not a scholar but a hobbyist. "The category of dying and rising gods, once a major topic of scholarly investigation, must now be understood to have been largely a misnomer based on imaginative reconstructions and exceedingly late or highly ambiguous texts." – Mircea Eliade, 'Dying and Rising Gods' The Encyclopedia of Religion, Macmillian, 1987.
Pip Wilson, October 4, 2003

The list of Pagan virgin mothers includes the following:

Alcmene, mother of Hercules who gave birth on December 25^th
Athena, dawn goddess
Chimalman, mother of Kukulcan
Chinese mother of Foe (Buddha)
Coatlicue, mother of Huitzilopochtli
Cybele, "Queen of Heaven and Mother of God"
Devaki, mother of Krishna
Hera, mother of Zeus's children
Hertha, Teutonic goddess
Isis, who gave birth to Horus on December 25^th
Juno, mother of Mars/Ares
Maya, mother of Buddha
Mother of Lao-kiun, "Chinese philosopher and teacher, born in 604 B.C."
Nana, mother of Attis
Neith, mother of Osiris, who was "worshipped as the Holy Virgin, the Great Mother, yet an Immaculate Virgin."
Nutria, mother of an Etruscan Son of God
Ostara, the German goddess.
Rohini, mother of Indian "son of God"
Semele, mother of Dionysus/Bacchus, who was born on December 25^th
Shin-Moo, Chinese Holy Mother
Siamese mother of Somonocodom (Buddha)
Sochiquetzal, mother of Quetzalcoatl
Source

Note: The Latin poet, Virgil, who lived just before Christ (70-19 BCE), was a real mortal man who by medieval times had attained a reputation of being divine, or semi-divine. One of the many legends that evolved about the Roman poet was that his mother, Maia, or Magia, was a virgin. Read more at my Virgil page in this Scriptorium.  

Pagan Sources for the Virgin Birth
"The gentile cultures, religions and mythologies during the time of Christian beginnings around the first century CE were filled with stories of divine incarnation. For example in the Greek myth, Perseus was born of the virgin Danae. Danae was conceived by the God Zeus who took the form of a shower of gold ...

"The popular culture also ascribed to many famous men miraculous, divine and, sometimes, even virgin birth. Thus the emperor Augustus, the reigning sovereign during the time of Jesus, was reputedly miraculously begotten when a snake descended upon his mother in the temple of Apollo. So too, Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome, was born of a vestal virgin.

"It was therefore to be expected, in fact inevitable, that Christianity, which vied for converts with these mystery religions, would itself be imbued with such mythological elements. It could happen in many ways."   Source

Life-death-rebirth deity 
"In mythology, a life-death-rebirth deity also known as a "dying-and-rising" god is one who dies and is reborn, in either a literal or symbolic sense. Often, the "death" was simply a visit and return to the underworld. Usually, such deities are worshipped primarily for this reason, and are often the subject of a mystery religion. They are associated with immortality, youth and redemption. Some of the most famous include Jesus Christ, Mithras, and Persephone (the object of the famed Eleusinian mysteries).

Dying and rising god scholarship first began in 1890 when James Frazer wrote 'The Golden Bough', which pointed out that ancient near east gods such as Osiris (consort of Isis), Tammuz and the early middle eastern version of Adonis, had all died and been resurrected. Frazer suggested that as early as the third mllenium BCE, ancient middle eastern cultures had a sort of “dying and rising god” template, used especially for “vegetation gods” that died and rejuvenated in accordance with the food growing seasons."   Source: Wikipedia