Mystery Religions and their Influence on the New Testament and Early Christianity

Abstract

This article discusses mystery religions and how they influenced the New Testament and early Christianity. It is library research and is descriptive. Data was gathered from books, journal articles, and internet sources. The research findings reveal that mystery religions influenced the New Testament to the extent that the knowledge derived from it sheds more light on the background of some New Testament texts, such as John 12:24 and Matthew 17:1-13. Also, some practices in the New Testament times, such as baptism, meal fellowship, the veiling of women, and other early Christian practices, were influenced by mystery religions. Both the mystery religions and New Testament contain the same linguistic form. Therefore, this article recommends that mystery religions be studied to gain background knowledge of particular texts in the New Testament. Also, the language in mystery religious texts can be examined since it can aid the understanding of New Testament writings at times. Keywords: Mystery, Religions, Influence, New Testament