page_title: Jesus in comparative mythology
section_title: Synoptic gospels
hierarchical_section_title: Jesus in comparative mythology / Legendary material in the gospels / Synoptic gospels
context_page_description: The study of Jesus in comparative mythology is the examination of the narratives of the life of Jesus in the Christian gospels, traditions and theology, as they relate to Christianity and other religions. Although the vast majority of New Testament scholars and historians of the ancient Near East agree that Jesus existed as a historical figure, most secular historians also agree that the gospels contain large quantities of ahistorical legendary details mixed in with historical information about Jesus's life. The Synoptic Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke are heavily shaped by Jewish tradition, with the Gospel of Matthew deliberately portraying Jesus as a "new Moses". Although it is highly unlikely that the authors of the Synoptic Gospels directly based any of their stories on pagan mythology, it is possible that they may have subtly shaped their accounts of Jesus's healing miracles to resemble familiar Greek stories about miracles associated with Asclepius, the god of healing and medicine. The birth narratives of Matthew and Luke are usually seen by secular historians as legends designed to fulfill Jewish expectations about the Messiah.
context_section_description: The majority of New Testament scholars and historians of the ancient Near East agree that Jesus existed as a historical figure. While some scholars have criticized Jesus scholarship for religious bias and lack of methodological soundness, with very few exceptions such critics generally do support the historicity of Jesus and reject the Christ myth theory that Jesus never existed. There is widespread disagreement among scholars about the accuracy of details of Jesus's life as it is described in the gospel narratives, and on the meaning of his teachings, and the only two events subject to "almost universal assent" are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and that he was crucified under the orders of the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate. It is also generally, although not universally, accepted that Jesus was a Galilean Jew who called disciples and whose activities were confined to Galilee and Judea, that he had a controversy in the Temple, and that, after his crucifixion, his ministry was continued by a group of his disciples, several of whom were persecuted.
  Nonetheless, most secular scholars generally agree that the gospels contain large amounts of material that is not historically accurate and is better categorized as legend. In a discussion of genuinely legendary episodes from the gospels,  New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman mentions the birth narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke and the release of Barabbas. He points out, however, that, just because these stories are not true does not mean that Jesus himself did not exist. According to theologians Paul R. Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd, there is no evidence that the portrayal of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels (the three earliest gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke) was directly influenced by pagan mythology in any significant way. The earliest followers of Jesus were devout Palestinian Jews who abhorred paganism and would have therefore been extremely unlikely to model stories about their founder on pagan myths.
  Despite this, several scholars have noticed that some of the healing miracles of Jesus recorded in the Synoptic Gospels bear similarities to Greek stories of miracles associated with Asclepius, the god of healing and medicine. Brennan R. Hill states that Jesus's miracles are, for the most part, clearly told in the context of the Jewish belief in the healing power of Yahweh, but notes that the authors of the Synoptic Gospels may have subtly borrowed from Greek literary models. He states that Jesus's healing miracles chiefly differ from those of Asclepius by the fact that Jesus's are attributed to a human being on earth; whereas Asclepius's miracles are performed by a distant god. According to classical historians Emma J. Edelstein and Ludwig Edelstein, the most obvious difference between Jesus and Asclepius is that Jesus extended his healing to "sinners and publicans"; whereas Asclepius, as a god, refused to heal those who were ritually impure and confined his healing solely to those who thought pure thoughts. Scholars disagree whether the parable of the rich man and Lazarus recorded in Luke 16:19-31 originates with Jesus or if it is a later Christian invention, but the story bears strong resemblances to various folktales told throughout the Near East.
  It is, however, widely agreed that the portrayal of Jesus in the gospels is deeply influenced by Jewish tradition. According to E. P. Sanders, a leading scholar on the historical Jesus, the Synoptic Gospels contain many episodes in which Jesus's described actions clearly emulate those of the prophets in the Hebrew Bible. Sanders states that, in some of these cases, it is impossible to know for certain whether these parallels originate from the historical Jesus himself having deliberately imitated the Hebrew prophets, or from later Christians inventing mythological stories in order to portray Jesus as one of them, but, in many other instances, the parallels are clearly the work of the gospel-writers. The author of the Gospel of Matthew in particular intentionally seeks to portray Jesus as a "new Moses". Matthew'
caption: Adoration of the Shepherds (1622) by the Dutch painter Gerard van Honthorst. Modern secular historians regard the birth narrative in the Luke 1:26–2:52 as a legend invented by early Christians based on Old Testament predecessors.[15][43][44]
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