rebirth. After an examination of the evidence, Ronald Nash declares: We find that there was no pre-Christian doctrine of rebirth for the Christians to borrow.… The claim that pre-Christian mysteries regarded their initiation rites as a kind of rebirth is unsupported by any evidence contemporary with such alleged practices. Instead, a view found in much later texts is read back into earlier rites, which are then interpreted quite speculatively as dramatic portrayals of the initiate’s “new birth.”