Was Jesus A Copycat Of Krishna?

It is written:

2 Peter 1:16-We told you about the power of our Lord Jesus Christ. We told you about his coming. The things we told you were not just clever stories that people invented. No, we saw the greatness of Jesus with our own eyes.

One of the growing attacks against Christianity is the pagan-Christ theory, which claims that the Bible’s depiction of Jesus is a smattering together of preexisting gods and goddesses. In other words, it is argued that the events applied to the life of Christ in the Bible were actually “borrowed” from older gods and goddesses in mythology.

One of the “gods” that Jesus is said to be based upon is Krishna. Yet what are the facts?

“One of the first candidates mentioned by Bill Maher in his documentary was the deity Krishna, who is one of the most popular Hindu gods. In Hinduism, Krisha is believed to be the incarnation of the god Vishnu. He is commonly depicted in Eastern art as a blue child. As mentioned, Maher listed several specific parallels between Krisha’s story and Jesus, including the virgin birth, working as a carpenter (the actual claim is that Krishna’s father worked as a carpenter), and being baptized in a river. These same assertions have been made by the usual suspects of myth proponents. They also claim that Krishna was crucified, rose from the dead, and shared with Jesus numerous other commonalities. This small circle of writers and fringe scholars promote books without references to any primary sources, which is understandable since none of their claims have any basis in reality. For instance, the birth narrative in the Hindu text states that Krishna’s mother already had seven children before delivering him, so she certainly was not a virgin. The birth stories also do not explicitly mention that the mother was divinely impregnated. 17 Likewise, the claim about Krishna’s being born of a carpenter was simply made up. His father was a nobleman. 18 Nor do any records exist of his being baptized in a river. Likewise, no texts claim that Krishna was crucified or resurrected. He was, instead, killed mistakenly by a hunter named Jara, and then his soul left his body. 19 The only identified parallels of any substance come from texts that were written hundreds of years after the Gospels, when Hindus began copying Christianity. 20 To summarize, the claims about the parallels between Jesus and Krishna match those with Horus, in that they fall into the categories mentioned previously: • Similarities so superficial that they represent characteristics common to many religions, such as the presence of miracles. Therefore, they provide no evidence of copying. • Parallels that are more substantial are based on gross misrepresentations of the original texts or simply made up. • Parallels that are substantial and based on legitimate historical sources were written long after the first century. The only copying would have been pagans borrowing from the Christians….The story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus was not borrowed from pagan mythology. The very fact that something this absurd has to be addressed demonstrates how shallow the discussion has become in terms of the real facts surrounding the gospel and the implications for every person on the planet. The roots of Christianity are in the Jewish faith. Jesus was Jewish and came in fulfillment of the Hebrew prophets who spoke about the Messiah. His miracles were not magic tricks or written in mythological language, but pointed people to the redemptive purposes of God and their opportunity to be a part. Ironically, the copying was not early Christians borrowing from ancient Egyptian, Greek, or Persian stories, but the other way around. The enormous success and growth of early Christianity provoked proponents of mystery religions to retell their story with Christian imagery and themes.” (Rice Broocks, Man Myth Messiah: Answering History’s Greatest Question, 134-135, 139-140 (Kindle Edition); Nashville, TN; W Publishing Group)

The primary difference between paganism and Christianity boils down to one word: proof. The genuineness and credibility of the New Testament has been thoroughly documented. Jesus was not a myth; He was not a mere Man; He is the Messiah.

Don’t be deceived by the pagan-Christ theory.