Q. In both the past and the present, people have often drawn
parallels between Jesus and Apollonius of Tyana, a real person
who lived some 50 years after Jesus’ day, and had a biography
written about him by Philostratus which considerably post-dates
our canonical Gospels. As you point out, even when we compare
these two historical figures, or, for example compare Jesus to
some of the lives of the Caesars, we have no stories in pagan
literature about a virgin who becomes pregnant without sex or a
story about a crucified messiah or divine figure. Why do you
think it is that parallelomania seems to be such a popular modus
operandi for mythicists who want to explain away the existence
of Jesus, especially when various of the supposed parallels are
in fact made up? And one more thing—- why shouldn’t we think
that the pre-existing Gospel stories may have influenced the way
the story of Apollonius of Tyana was later told, rather than
vice versa? A. There are several points that need to be made, I
think, about all th