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This seminal book (see also The White Goddess) attempts to define what almost all primitive religions share with each other—and with "modern" religions such as Christianity. Its thesis is that ancient religions were fertility cults that centred around the worship of, and periodic sacrifice of, a sacred king, the incarnation of a dying and reviving god, a solar deity who underwent a mystic marriage to a goddess of the earth, and who died at the harvest and who was reincarnated in the spring. It claimed that this legend was central to almost all of the world's mythologies. It was the scandal of the book from the first date of sale to the innocent public that Frazer included the ChristianChristian cross and its many variations are widely recognized as an ancient Christian symbol. Christianity is an Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as described in the New Testament. Although Christians generally chara story of Jesus Christ in his book, thus inviting an agnostic lèse majesté against the Lamb of GodThe title Lamb of God may refer to: Lamb of God (religious), one of the titles given to Jesus Christ in Christianity. Lamb Of God (band), a thrashcore quintent formed in Richmond, Virginia in 1994. Lamb of God (music), a chant in the Roman Catholic mass.. Frazer removed his analysis of the CrucifixionJesus typically, and inaccurately, show him supported by nails through the palms. Crucifixion is an ancient method of execution, in which the victim was tied or nailed to a large wooden cross ( Latin: crux and left to hang there until dead. Crucifixion ha to a speculative appendix for the third edition, and it was entirely missing from the single-volume abridged edition.

"If the test of truth lay in a show of hands or a counting of heads, the system of magic might appeal, with far more reason than the Catholic Church, to the proud motto, Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus ["Always, everywhere, and by all" - ed.], as the sure and certain credential of its own infallibility." (Chapter 4, "Magic and Religion".)

Parts of the book, most notably its discussion of the symbolismFor an account of the late 19th-century movement in poetry and the arts, known as Symbolism see symbolism (arts). Symbolism is the systematic use of symbols to represent or allude to something. In the most literal sense, all language is symbolic. In a nar of magicMagic (also called magick to distinguish it from stage magic) is a supposed way of influencing the world through supernatural, mystical, or paranormal means. This article provides an overview of specific magical traditions and practices. It also discusses, and its elucidation of the concept of sympathetic magic, remain well accepted by scholars today. The larger thesis about dying and reviving gods has not fared as well in the world of anthropology and comparative religionComparative religion is a field of religious study that analyzes interpretive differences of common themes and ideas among the world's religions. This field of study relies upon the examination of myth, deriving essential themes from religious metaphor, a; most contemporary anthropologists have concluded that Frazer overinterpreted his evidence to fit it into the system.

Frazer often reveals a confidence in a linear intellectual progress of mankind to a superior position which anthropologists no longer share. As cultural anthropology has expanded and deepened, many individual conclusions of Frazer's have required revision within local and historical cultural contexts. Modern anthropoligists conclude that Frazer placed too much weight on what he called "the essential similarity of man's chief wants everywhere and at all times" (ch. lxix).

The title was taken from an incident in the Aeneid, illustrated in this painting The Golden Bough by the British artist Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851): Aeneas and the Sibyl present the golden bough to the gatekeeper of Hades to gain admission.