Mystery Religions
Samuel Angus’ Mystery Religions is an older but still interesting book on ancient mystery religions. One of the things that I like about this book is that it does not just describe the religions but attempts to give the cultural and religious trends that contributed either to the popularity or decline of a particular religion. Samuel Angus (a somewhat controversial scholar who was accused of heresy) is not afraid of pointing out similarities between Christianity and the mystery cults but is in no way a proponent of the Jesus myth theory. In fact, in his last chapter, Angus does a good job of comparing and contrasting Christianity with the mystery religions. It is interesting that despite any similarities, according to Angus, the main difference is that the mystery religions understood their stories as myth but the Christians saw their story as rooted in history. This is a bit of truth that many need to be reminded of.
