Dying-and-rising deity in the context of "Demeter"

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 accounts 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 fulfil expectations about the Messiah.

The Gospel of John bears some influences from Platonism, and may also have been influenced in less obvious ways by the cult of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, though this possibility is still disputed. Later Christian traditions about Jesus were probably influenced by Greco-Roman religion and mythology. Much of Jesus's traditional iconography is apparently derived from Mediterranean deities such as Hermes, Asclepius, Serapis, and Zeus and his traditional birthdate on 25 December, which was not declared as such until the fifth century, was at one point named a holiday in honour of the Roman sun god Sol Invictus. At around the same time Christianity was expanding in the second and third centuries, the Mithraic Cult was also flourishing. Though the relationship between the two religions is still under dispute, Christian apologists at the time noted similarities between them, which some scholars have taken as evidence of borrowing, but which are more likely a result of shared cultural environment. More general comparisons have also been made between the accounts about Jesus's birth and resurrection and stories of other divine or heroic figures from across the Mediterranean world, including "dying-and-rising gods" such as Tammuz, Adonis, Attis, and Osiris, although the concept of "dying-and-rising gods" itself has received scholarly criticism.

A liminal deity is a god or goddess in mythology who presides over thresholds, gates, or doorways; "a crosser of boundaries". In Hindu traditions, liminal deities are also associated with tirthas, or holy crossing places, which function as spiritual thresholds in physical geography. These sites—often river fords, pilgrimage crossings, or transitional boundary zones—are linked to multiple gods and serve as sacred locations where the earthly and divine realms intersect. These gods are believed to oversee a state of transition of some kind; such as, the old to the new, the unconscious to the conscious state, the familiar to the unknown.

Types of liminal deities include dying-and-rising deities, various agricultural deities, psychopomps and those who descend into the underworld: crossing the threshold between life and death. Vegetation deities mimic the annual dying and returning of plant life, making them seasonally cyclical liminal deities in contrast to the one-time journey typical of the dying-and-rising myth. Anthropologist Victor Turner expanded the modern theoretical understanding of liminality by emphasizing the role of shamans, guides, and ritual specialists who facilitate transitions between states of being. These ritual figures occupy liminal positions themselves and mirror mythological deities who guide individuals across cosmic or social thresholds.