ZALMOXIS WAS A JESUS BEFORE JESUS?

Herodotus wrote about an obscure faith based around Zalmoxis.  This man was a figure like Jesus who the latter was probably based on.

Here is the relevant information from Herodotus's Persian Wars 4.94-6.

The belief of the Getae in respect of immortality is the following. They think that they do not really die, but that when they depart this life they go to Zalmoxis, who is called also Gebeleizis by some among them. To this god every five years they send a messenger, who is chosen by lot out of the whole nation, and charged to bear him their several requests. Their mode of sending him is this. A number of them stand in order, each holding in his hand three darts; others take the man who is to be sent to Zalmoxis, and swinging him by his hands and feet, toss him into the air so that he falls upon the points of the weapons. If he is pierced and dies, they think that the god is propitious to them; but if not, they lay the fault on the messenger, who (they say) is a wicked man: and so they choose another to send away. The messages are given while the man is still alive. This same people, when it lightens and thunders, aim their arrows at the sky, uttering threats against the god; and they do not believe that there is any god but their own.

I am told by the Greeks who dwell on the shores of the Hellespont and the Pontus, that this Zalmoxis was in reality a man, that he lived at Samos, and while there was the slave of Pythagoras son of Mnesarchus. After obtaining his freedom he grew rich, and leaving Samos, returned to his own country. The Thracians at that time lived in a wretched way, and were a poor ignorant race; Zalmoxis, therefore, who by his commerce with the Greeks, and especially with one who was by no means their most contemptible philosopher, Pythagoras to wit, was acquainted with the Ionic mode of life and with manners more refined than those current among his countrymen, had a chamber built, in which from time to time he received and feasted all the principal Thracians, using the occasion to teach them that neither he, nor they, his boon companions, nor any of their posterity would ever perish, but that they would all go to a place where they would live for aye in the enjoyment of every conceivable good. While he was acting in this way, and holding this kind of discourse, he was constructing an apartment underground, into which, when it was completed, he withdrew, vanishing suddenly from the eyes of the Thracians, who greatly regretted his loss, and mourned over him as one dead. He meanwhile abode in his secret chamber three full years, after which he came forth from his concealment, and showed himself once more to his countrymen, who were thus brought to believe in the truth of what he had taught them. Such is the account of the Greeks.

I for my part neither put entire faith in this story of Zalmoxis and his underground chamber, nor do I altogether discredit it: but I believe Zalmoxis to have lived long before the time of Pythagoras. Whether there was ever really a man of the name, or whether Zalmoxis is nothing but a native god of the Getae, I now bid him farewell. As for the Getae themselves, the people who observe the practices described above, they were now reduced by the Persians, and accompanied the army of Darius.

MY THOUGHTS:  Like Jesus, this is a god who can relate to the poor for he is a poor god.  Why does piercing by sharp points matter so much?  What is being pictured?  Are the victims killed in this way to unite them to Zalmoxis in his own death?  Has to be.  The similarity between nailing to a cross and this is startling. 

Like Jesus, this god disappears.  Jesus was a corpse that vanished from the tomb and showed up again.  The risen Jesus like this god could just vanish.  He had a place under the ground to go like Jesus' tomb and buried himself in it for three years and appeared just to give faith to his disciples.

Critics scoffed at Zalmoxis going to the cave to die and rise again years later and said he was a manipulator pretending to come alive miraculously again.  So they clearly did not regard the story as a mere religious legend.  Those who supported the story then were saying it was literally true.  It is untrue that Jesus who really died and rose again according to the Christian faith, is not to be compared to such tales as it unlike them was reported as history.

While Christians say the return of Jesus is central to their faith, is that true?  What did he rise for?  They say it was so that he could be with us and bring us to place of eternal happiness.  So the blessed never-ending afterlife is actually what is central.  The resurrection is only important for trying to highlight it.  You see Zalmoxis promising similar everlasting rewards.  His promise that his followers would never perish should be taken to refer to them being raised from the dead to everlasting life for it is evident that everybody perishes in this world.  Zalmoxis dies by vanishing.  With Jesus, it is the risen body that vanishes in the ascension.  It is merely assumed by the New Testament that this did not annihilate him.  Why should we care what it assumes?  An assumption is just an assumption.

Another thing said about Zalmoxis is that he was born wearing the skin of a wolf.  The motif of divine beings who can't just be born normally is there.  Nothing like that is said of the infant Jesus but the birth is described as being marked by signs from God.

The followers are so sure that Zalmoxis alone is divine they insult other gods! 

Is it too much to ask if Zalmoxis was behind the first organised religion?

FINALLY

It is a fact that the Zalmoxis veneration or worship, was mocked by outsiders. They even ridiculed the cave story though there was nothing in itself absurd about it.  They took the claim that he was said to have died and risen from the dead as being meant literally. So they, particularly the Greeks, set about offering natural explanations such as that he didn’t really die but hid in a cave and then emerged saying that he died and rose again.  The respect given by his devotees to his resurrection shows they were getting meaning from it.  It made them feel they could rise like him.  Celsus a long time after Jesus indicated that the story of Zalmoxis was important in his day.  He thought that Jesus was just another resurrected being yarn like the Zalmoxis one.  Celsus suspected that Christianity was a lego set made up from other religions and superstitions ---