How Christianity Plagiarized Judgment Day
From Persian fire pits to Greek underworlds, the church plagiarized the end of the world and called it prophecy.
Many of its followers today believe Judgment Day is Christianity’s exclusive property. Fire raining from the sky, angels blasting trumpets, the dead dragged out of graves for roll call. But if you think they came up with that from scratch, you’ve been had. Christianity plagiarized the whole damn thing. The ideas were already on the shelf — in Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Greek thought — centuries before Jesus’ fan club, a.k.a. John of Patmos, stitched together Revelation.
Zoroastrians Were First in Line
Long before a Galilean carpenter was preaching doom, the Persians had it mapped out. Zoroastrianism, an ancient faith going back to at least 1200 BCE, laid down the blueprint: a cosmic showdown between good and evil, a final judgment where souls get weighed, the dead get resurrected, and the wicked get roasted.
Sound familiar? It should. Christianity ripped that page straight out of the Persian holy book. Heaven and hell weren’t original either — Zoroastrians already had them. Even the idea of a messiah figure who defeats evil and ushers in eternal life? Yeah, that’s Zoroastrian too. Christians didn’t invent Judgment Day; they imported it.
Jews Picked It Up in Exile
Here’s where the copying shows. The ancient Israelites had no heaven-and-hell doctrine, nor did they believe in an end-of-days blockbuster. The early books of the Hebrew Bible barely mention life after death at all. You just went to Sheol, a dark pit, and that was it.
But after the Babylonian exile in the 6th century BCE, Jews found themselves rubbing shoulders with Persians — and suddenly their scriptures started talking about final judgment, angels, demons, and the righteous rising from the dust. Books like Daniel (written during Persian and Greek domination) are loaded with apocalyptic visions: beasts, fiery thrones, resurrection.
Christians Took the Hand-Me-Downs
By the time Jesus came along, Jews were already arguing about end times. The Pharisees preached resurrection, while the Sadducees stuck with the old idea of Sheol. Apocalyptic groups like the Essenes were screaming about cosmic battles and waiting for God to nuke the wicked.
Christians jumped right into this atmosphere and turned the volume to eleven. Jesus himself is quoted predicting that “this generation will not pass away before the Son of Man comes in glory.” His followers genuinely thought the world was about to end — soon. When that didn’t happen, the early church had to spin the story harder, and books like Revelation went full Hollywood with stolen imagery: beasts, trumpets, fiery pits, a final battle.
Revelation Is a Mash-Up, Not a Vision
Open Revelation and you’ll see a patchwork quilt of recycled ideas. A seven-headed beast? Straight out of Babylonian and Greek monster lore. Trumpets blasting to mark cosmic disasters? That’s Persian ritual symbolism. A final lake of fire? Zoroastrian punishment zone with new branding.
John of Patmos didn’t “see” the future — he stitched together myths floating around the Mediterranean world. Slap Jesus on the throne, throw Satan in the fire, and call it prophecy. Christians still pretend it’s divine when it’s clearly a remix.
Greeks Added Spice Too
Persians weren’t alone. Greeks handed Christianity some apocalyptic flavor as well. The idea of separating pure souls from corrupt ones, or a fiery underworld where the wicked suffer — that’s Plato’s philosophy and Homer’s mythology. Hades, Tartarus, judgment after death — all of it predates Christian theology.
So when Paul preached about the dead being raised incorruptible, he wasn’t pulling divine secrets from heaven. He was blending Jewish apocalyptic hopes with Greek soul-immortality talk. Christianity sold it as a new recipe, but the ingredients were borrowed from everyone else’s kitchen.
Selling Fear Was the Point
Why copy all this? Because fear sells. Tell people their bodies rot in the ground and that’s the end, and they’ll shrug. Tell them they’ll be dragged in front of God, their secrets exposed, angels and demons fighting over their souls, and eternal torture waiting if they screw up — now you’ve got their attention.
Judgment Day wasn’t about truth; it was about control. Preachers needed leverage to keep followers obedient. Borrowing Zoroastrian fire pits and Greek underworlds gave Christianity the fear factor it needed.
What the Scholars Say
Historians have been pointing this out for ages. Bart Ehrman, an expert on early Christianity, shows how apocalyptic thinking shaped the earliest Jesus movement, built on Jewish borrowings from Persia. Elaine Pagels has traced how Revelation is less about prophecy and more about coded political rage against Rome, imitating a borrowed myth. Robert P. Jones and other sociologists show how fear of judgment kept Christian communities tightly controlled — and still does.
Even conservative scholars can’t deny the Persian fingerprints. They may try to spin it as “parallel revelation,” but that’s just a pious way of admitting plagiarism.
Before You Go
If Judgment Day was plagiarized, what does that say about Christianity’s “eternal truths”? It says they’re not eternal at all. They’re recycled campfire stories marketed as prophecy. Heaven and hell aren’t revelations from God — they’re hand-me-downs from Zoroastrians and Greeks. The “Son of Man coming on clouds” is just another cultural remix, not divine fact.
And the saddest part? Billions of people have been scared stiff for centuries by an idea that wasn’t even original. Kids have nightmares about hell. Adults waste lives in fear of judgment. Whole cultures get bent around the promise of paradise or the threat of eternal fire — all because Christianity plagiarized old myths and called them gospel.
It’s your turn now. Drop a comment, follow for more unholy truths, and tell the world what you think.
Sources and Further Reading
Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife — Bart D. Ehrman (2020)
Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium — Bart D. Ehrman (1999)
The Gnostic Gospels — Elaine Pagels (1979)
Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation — Elaine Pagels (2012)
Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices — Mary Boyce (2001)
Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls — John J. Collins (1997)
The Apocalypse: A Brief History — Martha Himmelfarb (2010)
Fear, ah, yes...As a Catholic child, my stomach churned and my heart palpitated so much that it's a wonder I'm not at the doctor's every week as a result. But then I saw through the whole thing by age 30, none too soon.
Hopefully, we’re one of the last generations to have observed that kind of fear. No child should grow up watching religion terrify people into obedience.