Was the Jesus myth plagiarized from pagan religions?

A question from William H

I have a question and I hope that someone can answer it for me. I have heard that the story of Jesus was basically stolen from earlier pagan religions and films such as The God Who Wasn't There and Zeitgeist have both made these claims.

This knowledge did much to help me in my de-conversion process, but now I am hearing people claim that Christianity didn't plagiarize older pagan religions the way many people claim. It seems like there is kind of a battle going on right now at least from what I have seen online as to whether or not this is the case.

I was wondering if someone who actually knows something about ancient history could please tell me what the truth is regarding this matter. Is the Jesus myth actually copied from earlier pagan religions, and if so to what extent? Any accurate sources of information such as links to websites would also be greatly appreciated.

I was just about to come out to my fundamentalist Christian family regarding my unbelief and I wanted to have my facts straight because I know they will try everything they can think of to reconvert me. Many of them do nothing but read book after book of apologetic arguments and a few of them have been to Bible college. I want to make sure that any information that I give them as reasons for my unbelief are accurate, beyond the common sense stuff in which case they are oblivious anyway.

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