The Zeitgeist movie, released in 2007, makes some controversial claims about Christianity and the Bible. It asserts that many aspects of the Jesus story are borrowed from earlier pagan myths and that Christianity is essentially a rehash of these older religions. The movie also strongly criticizes the historical reliability of the Bible. But is there any truth to these claims? From a biblical perspective, the Zeitgeist movie is flawed in many ways.
Claims about Pagan Influences on Christianity
One major claim made in the Zeitgeist movie is that the story of Jesus is pieced together from myths about pagan gods that predate Christianity. According to the film, Jesus shares a number of similarities with pagan deities like Horus, Mithras, Krishna, and others. However, these alleged similarities are exaggerated or outright fabricated. While it’s true that some pagan myths do have dying and rising gods, the specifics of the Jesus narrative are unique. The Zeitgeist movie oversimplifies things to make inconsistent mythologies appear more parallel than they really are. Most serious scholars do not find any convincing evidence that early Christianity borrowed substantial material from pagan myths.
The movie claims that details about Jesus’s virgin birth, 12 disciples, miracles, crucifixion, and resurrection are all borrowed. But these supposed parallels break down under scrutiny. For example, the film asserts that like Jesus, Horus was born of a virgin. But in Egyptian mythology, Horus was conceived when his mother Isis used her husband Osiris’s preserved body. Jesus’s virgin birth is clearly different. The movie’s comparisons between Jesus and Mithras, Krishna, Dionysus, and other figures also rely on exaggerations and false information. The details don’t match up when you look at the original ancient texts.
While Christianity emerged out of a context filled with pagan myths and borrow some rhetorical language and motifs, the core substance of the gospel story is fundamentally distinct. The Zeitgeist movie’s claim that Jesus is just a rehash of pagan gods relies on fabricated “evidence.” Most serious historians and scholars do not find the movie’s attempts to link Jesus to pagan myths convincing or accurate.
Reliability of the New Testament
The Zeitgeist movie also calls into question the historical reliability of the New Testament, claiming that we can’t really know what happened because the books were altered and corrupted over time. For example, the film claims that the resurrection story was added much later and that there are no first-century non-biblical accounts verifying Jesus’s existence.
But there are good reasons to trust the essential reliability of the New Testament. First of all, we have thousands of ancient New Testament manuscripts affirming the core details about Jesus – crucifixion, resurrection, early followers, etc. The number of manuscripts is orders of magnitude greater than other ancient texts scholars consider historically reliable. There is no evidence of radically altered texts.
While the original manuscripts no longer exist, we can piece together what they contained with a high degree of accuracy. Secondly, there are non-biblical accounts that verify basic details about Jesus within a century of his life, including references by Tacitus, Josephus, the Talmud, and others. Obviously, these extra-biblical sources don’t corroborate everything. But they do affirm he existed, was crucified, and that his followers believed he rose from the dead.
Finally, there are good reasons to think the gospels were written in the first century, within living memory of Jesus. The abundant geographical and cultural details of that era match what we know from archaeology and other texts. The earliest New Testament books date from 20-60 years after Jesus’s death – not centuries later as the movie implies. When the evidence is thoroughly considered, there are no convincing reasons to radically doubt the reliability of the New Testament accounts.
Criticisms of Christianity and the Church
A substantial portion of the Zeitgeist movie is focused on cataloguing the abuses and violence of institutional Christianity over the centuries. It highlights the wars, intolerance, materialism, and hypocrisy found in church history. These criticisms contain truth – unfortunate chapters of corruption and violence have undoubtedly tainted the church at times. However, this dark side of Christian history cannot be fairly used to entirely discredit Jesus or his original message of hope, redemption, and love.
The movie lacks nuance in evaluating Christianity, selecting the worst episodes and stereotypes while ignoring examples of love, charity, justice, and sacrifice inspired by Jesus’s teachings. The film essentially throws the baby out with the bathwater, dismissing the New Testament writings because of the failings of religious institutions. However, we should assess the validity of Christianity based on the person of Jesus and the testimony of his early followers, not solely through the lens of the church’s later failings.
Astrotheology Claims
A major segment of the Zeitgeist movie revolves around “astrotheology” – the claim that Christianity and Jesus are actually coded references to astrological phenomena like stars, constellations, and the sun. Specifically, the movie says Jesus is just a personification of the sun.
It argues things like Jesus having 12 disciples represents the 12 zodiac signs, Jesus crucifixion relates to the sun moving below the equator, and other celestial-themed interpretations. However, these astrotheology claims have no real evidence behind them and require an enormous stretch of the imagination. The movie engages in free-wheeling speculation and conspiracy thinking without grounding things in actual data.
One glaring issue is that astrotheology notions emerged in the 19th century and read later concepts back into the ancient biblical texts. There is simply no indication from history that early Christians saw Jesus as a coded solar deity or astrological metaphor. The movie’s astrotheology analysis says more about modern imagination than any objective truth about Christianity’s origins. Most scholars dismiss these interpretations as fanciful distortions with no factual merit.
The Bible and the God of Love
For Christians, some of the most important perspectives on the validity of our faith come directly from the pages of the Bible itself. While parts of the movie do highlight ugly episodes in church history, the cure is found in adhering more closely to biblical teachings, not abandoning our faith. The heart of Christianity is Jesus Christ, not fallible human institutions.
Jesus said his coming was to fulfill the Hebrew scriptures, not delete them and start fresh (Matthew 5:17). He directly affirmed the authority of the existing Old Testament writings on multiple occasions. The New Testament is filled with quotations and allusions that root Jesus in the ancient prophetic tradition rather than pagan myths. The continuity with Jewish spiritual history is central to the gospel message.
Jesus and the early church also taught that truth and deception would always exist in the world together (Matthew 13:24-30; Acts 20:29-31; 1 Corinthians 11:18-19; 1 Timothy 4:1). The distortions of Christianity, even at times within the church, were predicted. But these things don’t negate the light of Christ shining through the fundamental message of grace, repentance, and restoration.
The New Testament scriptures repeatedly reveal God’s true loving character and his desire for mankind to turn from darkness and walk in righteousness, honesty, compassion and fairness. The biblical God seeks relationship, not control; freedom, not bondage. This diverges starkly from the movie’s simplistic portrayal of Christianity enslaving minds.
In assessing Christianity, the life and teachings of Jesus himself, and the testimony of eyewitnesses preserved in scripture, should always remain the ultimate touchstones of truth and wisdom, standing above any human institutions or leaders. The Bible exhorts Christian believers to love one another and love neighbors as ourselves (John 13:34-35; Matthew 22:37-40; 1 John 4:7-12).
This includes those of any faith or non-faith. The fruits of the Spirit described in Galatians 5:22-23 – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – remain Christianity’s highest ideals though often imperfectly lived out. Any fair evaluation of the ethics at Christianity’s core must grapple with the radiance of these biblical truths.
Messianic Prophecies Fulfilled
Within the pages of the Hebrew Bible, Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection were foretold centuries in advance – strong evidence of biblical reliability. Though the Zeitgeist movie tries to severed any connection between the Old and New Testaments, prophecy fulfillments instead affirm their continuity. The writers clearly had inside information.
Specific predictions about the Messiah fulfilled in Jesus include being born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), entering Jerusalem on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9), being betrayed for 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12), having his hands and feet pierced (Psalm 22:16), having no broken bones (Psalm 34:20), despite the horrific crucifixion, along with many others. The details line up unmistakably.
The probability of one person fulfilling just 8 specific prophecies has been calculated at 1 in 10 to the 17th power. The Old Testament contains hundreds of Messianic prophecies affirmed in Jesus. This provides powerful evidence that the same divine inspiration flowed through both halves of the Bible and that God himself ordained Christ’s story across the centuries.
Historical Genuineness of Early Christian Faith
The New Testament writings give every indication that early Christians sincerely believed Jesus rose from the dead after his very real crucifixion. They were so convinced they were willing to die proclaiming these claims. People may die for a lie they think is the truth, but would they knowingly die for something fabricated? The deaths of the apostles and other early martyrs strongly suggest the gospel accounts contain truth.
Additionally, the New Testament documents contain earmarks of genuine historicity. They include self-incriminating details, embarrassing admissions, gritty realism, and divergent accounts that don’t appear colluded. Christianity’s founder was crucified by Rome in a humiliating public display – not a likely story for fabricators to attach their hopes to. Yet the apostles insisted it was true despite opposition. The internal character of the accounts has the ring of authenticity.
The conversion of skeptics like Paul of Tarsus and James the brother of Jesus, after Jesus’s death and reported resurrection, provides more confirmation. Critical, independent thinkers were convinced by the evidence. Though not mentioned in the movie, many scholars find historical evidence for the empty tomb. In the end, Christianity does not exhibit the characteristics of a religion founded on fables and distortions as the Zeitgeist movie claims.
Jesus and the Golden Rule
During his time on Earth, Jesus elevated the call to “love your neighbor as yourself” as his second greatest commandment, after loving God (Matthew 22:36-40). This ethic, what we now call the Golden Rule, was revolutionary for its time and transcended earlier religious boundaries and prejudices.
The dignity Jesus bestowed on women, children, the poor; the mercy he extended to outcasts like lepers; the courage he demonstrated in opposing religious hypocrisy; and his willingness to sacrifice himself out of love are enduring moral legacies from his life and example. These ethical principles animated social reforms for centuries.
Though the church has not always lived up to Jesus’s standard of selfless love, it remains the measure Christians are called to emulate. Before critiquing defects church history, the Zeitgeist movie fails to recognize just how radical following Jesus’s Golden Rule would be. Because at its origin, Christianity planted seeds of hope, inclusion and compassion that the world desperately needed.
An Ethic of Love
The primary fruits produced by genuinely following New Testament teachings are love, peace, kindness, gentleness, patience, humility and integrity (Galatians 5:22-23). Nowhere does the Bible advocate violence, deception, oppression, greed, pride, coercion or hypocrisy among those seeking to follow Christ, regardless of flaws or blind spots God’s people have exhibited over the centuries.
Gandhi famously observed that, “the message of Jesus as I understand it is contained in the Sermon on the Mount… If then I had to face only the Sermon on the Mount and my own interpretation of it, I should not hesitate to say, ‘Oh, yes, I am a Christian!'” Though +’Gandhi’ rejected Christianity as practiced, he affirmed the profound wisdom in Jesus’s words.
The Nobel-prize winning writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, an atheist and survivor of Soviet gulags, said praise for western freedom, abundance and Christian compassion amazed him. He wrote that “the world had never before known a godliness as complete and devoted as has been exhibited by Christians,” in living out Jesus’s sacrificial love.
Where Christ’s unselfish ethic has spread, it has ennobled minds, elevated human rights, dignity and justice. It has prompted better instincts in society. The Bible’s moral impact worldwide remains immense. And at the center shines Jesus’s penetrating call to treat all people, including enemies, with profound love and respect.
A Trustworthy Revelation of God
Through the cumulative weight of prophecy fulfillments, archeological confirmations, manuscript evidence, extra-biblical attestation, transformative power, and more, the Bible withstands scrutiny as a remarkably reliable ancient text. The New Testament books were composed close enough to events that any fictions would have been easily exposed.
And the character of God Himself, exemplified in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, stands atop pillars of grace, truth, justice and compassion. The Christian scriptures have spawned much good fruit over history, bringing knowledge of God’s plan and purposes despite periodic failings of flawed followers. In assessing the Bible’s validity, we must differentiate the revelation from those receiving it.
The more humanity embraces the light of what Jesus taught and modeled – self-sacrificial service for the wellbeing of others – the more we affirm our Creator’s loving intentions toward us. No other belief system or philosophy rivals the Bible’s power to transform minds and cultures for good. At the center of this impact remains Jesus of Nazareth, the most pivotal person in human history.
The Zeitgeist movie presents selective biases about Christianity while overlooking much substantive evidence for the Bible’s divine inspiration. Our faith faces honest critiques and frequently falls short of biblical ideals. But the solution comes in adhering more completely to the teachings and example of Christ, not abandoning the biblical revelation.
In the end, the Christian scriptures withstand thoughtful scrutiny and provide profound perspectives on the human condition. Flawed vessels throughout history cannot erase the light and truth at Christianity’s origin. For seekers exploring faith’s validity, the way forward shines through engaging the person of Jesus Christ and his revelations of hope and redemption for humanity directly from the source.
