Jesus, a Mithras Ripoff.

The "Jesus" Sun-God is part of a process of memetic evolution, by which myths draw from earlier versions, earlier stories, to form their structure. We should therefore expect that the "Jesus" myth would draw most heavily from a recent messiah, which it does. This messiah was called Mithra, the object of Roman worship. Mithra was born of a virgin on December 25th, had twelve companions, was "the way, the truth and the light", could redeem the souls of the dead, was celebrated with baptism, anointing, bread and water, and consecrated wine, was risen after three days, had a sacred day on Sunday, etc.

Another way we know that myths are evolutions of each other is through their shared attributes : passover, virgin births, blood sacrifices, the winter solstice, crucifixion and resurrection. Myths originate from Sun Worship - all messiahs are fundamentally Sun-Gods.

From: http://www.graveyardofthegods.org/apologetics/jesusmyth.html