Jesus Mythicists will often claim that the death of Jesus is just like the death of pagan gods and heroes. They will often go so far as to claim that they were crucified, even though the means of death may be very different from that of a Roman crucifixion.
I won’t go into the details of those various death here.
Aside from how these figures were killed, there is another major difference between the death of Jesus and those found in the myths. The death of Jesus in the Gospels is not described as just a terrible crime against an innocent person. The death of Jesus was always seen as the means of salvation.
Something happened when Jesus died that directly dealt with the sin problem between humanity and God. There are a variety of theories on how the cross deals with sin, but they all agree that Jesus’ death on the cross did something radical.
We just don’t see that kind of interpretation with the pagan gods and heroes. Even when worshippers find some sort of hope in the return to life of the god, the death itself does not save.
The death of Jesus plays a unique role in Christianity that is nothing like what we find in mythology.
