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Prometheus, (Detail) by Gustave Moreau [19th cent.] (Public Domain Image)

Pagan Christs by John M. Robertson [1911]

Talk about your red pills. J.M. Robertson herein challenges not only the historical authenticity of the canonical accounts of the founding of Christianity, but also Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, and Judaism. He answers the question implicit in Kersey Graves' 1875 screed, The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors. Why so many similar stories of savior figures in world religion?

At the dark heart of this mystery, according to Robinson, is a prehistoric drama involving human sacrifice (particularly, of children), cannibalism, and regicide. The purpose: to implore the gods, or to expiate collective sin. As time passed, the rituals were softened, and turned into symbolic equivalents (such as the scapegoat and the eucharist), while retaining the tragic end of the narrative. A culture hero, born under portents, dies, often under torture, in order to save all humanity. These and other tropes ended up embedded in our tales of the founders of major religions, from Buddha to Jesus.

Robertson pulls in historic, ethnographic and folklore data from hundreds of carefully cited sources. He covers examples from antiquity such as Mithraism, Manichaeism, and Apollonius of Tyana. In the final section he universalizes his study and focuses on Native America, particularly the Aztec. The conclusions of this book remain highly controversial, but the sheer mass of evidence accumulated demands consideration. This will be a thorny book for believers, but a revelation for free-thinkers.

--J.B. Hare, Feb. 10, 2008.

Part I. The Rationale of Religion

Chapter I. The Naturalness of all Belief

Chapter II. Comparison and Appraisement of Religions

Part II. Secondary God-Making

Chapter I. The Sacrificed Saviour-God

Chapter II. The Teaching God

Part III. Mithraism

Part IV. The Religions of Ancient America

Appendices