The Resurrection as Myth: A Rational Look at Christianity’s Central Claim

T he Resurrection of Jesus stands as the linchpin of Christian theology. Without it, the religion’s salvific framework falls apart. As Paul famously writes in 1 Corinthians 15:14 , “If Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith is in vain.” For believers, this is a miraculous and literal event; for many scholars, however, it is better understood as a mythological narrative — one that follows well-worn patterns from the ancient world. Resurrection and the Pattern of Dying-Rising Gods The Resurrection story did not emerge in a vacuum. As Jonathan Z. Smith , a historian of religion at the University of Chicago, points out in Drudgery Divine (1990), the ancient Mediterranean world was replete with stories of dying and rising gods. While Smith was critical of oversimplified comparisons, he acknowledged that early Christians developed their theology in dialogue with prevailing mythic motifs. “Early Christians didn’t invent the category,...