| Summary: | This article discusses mystery religions and how they influenced the New Testament
and early Christianity. It is a library research and is descriptive in nature. 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.
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