
A cartoonish depiction of “religion theft theory”, namely the hypothesis that early Christians, generally speaking, went over to Egypt, e.g. into the Library of Alexandria or College of Heliopolis, and “stole” their religion, such as found in The Egyptian Book of the Dead, carried it away secretly to Rome, and reformulated it into the version we now call Christianity.

A cartoonish depiction of “religion theft theory”, namely the hypothesis that early Christians, generally speaking, went over to Egypt, e.g. into the Library of Alexandria or College of Heliopolis, and “stole” their religion, such as found in The Egyptian Book of the Dead, carried it away secretly to Rome, and reformulated it into the version we now call Christianity.

In religio-mythology, religion theft theory, aka “pagan theft thesis” (Holding, c.2014), akin to “plagiarism theory” (Kwesi, 2011) (Ѻ), refers to []

Overview
When one begins to learn of the overlapping parallels between their own religion and an earlier religion, those new to the subject of religio-mythology, will often tend to proclaim, in knee-jerk fashion, that the founders of their religion “stole” its basic tenets and storyline from the former, earlier religion. This, however, is not the case. When one looks at the rise and falls of empires and corresponding religions from the big picture histomap perspective, that when a new empire begins to grow in power and land mass, that the state religion more often than not gets an overhaul. This is called recension theory.

Secondly, when an empire is large and dominate, it tends to have the biggest libraries. Students from outside countries, e.g. the Greeks who travelled abroad to study in the Egyptian colleges, will desire to learn the methods of those dominate countries, and take back with them what they learned. To say, however, that this knowledge is “stolen” is like saying that when American Willard Gibbs went to study abroad in the leading schools of Europe, that the knowledge he took back with him was stolen.

Thirdly, when empires begin to fall, people tend to migrate out of those decaying cultures into new lands, and therein, accordingly, take their traditions and religions with them. When the arrive at the new lands, their old religions are implanted into the new lands, albeit with modifications, e.g. via a melting pot religions effect or where old defunct religious ideas and traditions are discarded. It is well documented, e.g., how the Christmas tree tradition was imported into America, from German and other settlers.

A cartoonish depiction of “religion theft theory”, namely the hypothesis that early Christians, generally speaking, went over to Egypt, e.g. into the Library of Alexandria or College of Heliopolis, and “stole” their religion, such as found in The Egyptian Book of the Dead, carried it away secretly to Rome, and reformulated it into the version we now call Christianity.

In 1791, Constantin Volney, in his The Ruins, after talking about how the ancient Egyptians made gods and religions out of the animal and human shapes seen in the stars, explained how this Egyptian religion passed outward to other countries, as follows: [2]

“This language, understood by every one, was attended at first with no inconvenience; but in the course of time, when the calendar had been regulated, the people, who had no longer any need of observing the heavens, lost sight of the original meaning of these expressions; and the allegories remaining in common use became a fatal stumbling block to the understanding and to reason. Habituated to associate to the symbols the ideas of their archetypes, the mind at last confounded them: then the same animals, whom fancy had transported to the skies, returned again to the earth; but being thus returned, clothed in the livery of the stars, they claimed the stellary attributes, and imposed on their own authors. Then it was that the people, believing that they saw their gods among them, could pray to them with more convenience: they demanded from the ram of their flock the influences which might be expected from the heavenly ram; they prayed the scorpion not to pour out his venom upon nature; they revered the crab of the sea, the scarabeus of the mud, the fish of the river; and by a series of corrupt but inseparable analogies, they lost themselves in a labyrinth of well-connected absurdities.

Such was the origin of that ancient whimsical worship of the animals; such is the train of ideas by which the character of the divinity became common to the vilest of brutes, and by which was formed that theological system, extremely comprehensive, complicated, and learned, which, rising on the borders of the Nile, propagated from country to country by commerce, war, and conquest, overspread the whole of the ancient world; and which, modified by time, circumstances and prejudices, is still seen entire among a hundred nations, and remains as the essential and secret basis of the theology of those even who despise and reject it.”

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Quotes
The following are related quotes:

“Herodotus upon this occasion says, that the whole romance of the soul and its transmigrations was invented by the Egyptians, and propagated in Greece by men, who pretended to be its authors. I know their names, adds he, but shall not mention them (lib. 2). Cicero, however, has positively informed us, that it was Pherecydes, master of Pythagoras. Tuscul. lib. 1, sect. 16. Now admitting that this system was at that period a novelty, it accounts for Solomon's treating it as a fable, who lived 130 years before Pherecydes.”
— Constantin Volney (1791), The Ruins (Ѻ)

“The Christians took the whole Christian Bible – the Old Testament and the New Testament – out of the Egyptian Book of the Dead.”
— John Jackson (c.2009) (Ѻ)

“Lloyd Graham’s book Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (Citadel Press, 1975), is partly standard "pagan theft" thesis, partly ‘new age’ material, and partly conspiracy theory. It is filled with incomprehensible diagrams, polemic, and what can only be charitably be called semantic evasions; it was a regular feature in catalogs sent to me (as a librarian) by Barnes and Noble, suggesting that it still sells well.”
— James Holding (c.2014) [2]

“I went to Kemet (now called Egypt) and the Bible is stolen off the walls of Kemet egyptology. The Bible is pagan.”
— Aset Kemet (2017), comment (Ѻ) on John Jackson talk

References
1. Volney, Constantine. (1791). The Ruins: Mediation on the Revolutions of Empires (translators: Thomas Jefferson (§1-20) and Joel Barlow (§21-24)) (propagated, §22:108) (txt) (Amz) . New York: Dixon and Sickles, 1828.
2. Holding, James. (2014). “Lloyd M. Graham’s Deceptions and Myths of the Bible: a Critique” (Ѻ), Tektonics.org.

Further reading
● James, George G. (2017). Stolen Legacy: with Illustrations. XinXii.