Welcome to Joseph Campbell's Monomyth.
Really, the thing is everywhere, from Avatar, to the Bible, to Star Wars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth
Really? The Bible has a mother goddess? Any of the characters has went into the underworld? Which ones refused the call?
The trick is that because you HAVE to stretch it to apply to everything all you have to do is relax the elements.
And once you relax the elements you just get a basic plot layout that applies to almost anything.
Character sees something, character does something, Character sees someone, something bad happens, something good happens, the end... In any order
Above is the monomyth boiled down to all the details people look at.
They do say "Very few myths contain all 17 of the stages". Which makes it even easier to fit vastly different stories into the framework, of course. I still think it's a fun exercise and highlights common elements in most stories.
Well, until I actually read the steps and Campbell's comments on them. Wow. Not only are these steps metaphorically (even misleadingly) named, they're tied to some disturbing, obsolete concepts. It's understandable since he was talking about ancient myths I guess, but even then he's shoehorning them into meanings I'm not sure match the original intent. And the overuse of metaphor to stretch the connections makes it hard to take seriously.
I was going to say that the Virgin Mary is a Mother Goddess, and that Jesus goes to the underworld. But the Goddess step isn't about a goddess at all! It's about unconditional love, usually from the love interest, which unites the spiritual hero with the worldly world. Campbell just calls the step "The Meeting with the Goddess", presumably because unconditional love is a divine trait in a woman.
But just... read his comments on that section. Again, he's talking about ancient myths, but... ugh. He did specifically try to fit Jesus into these somehow. It can work if you consider "The Queen Goddess of the World" to be his apostles, which I think highlights the absurdity of his metaphors. I don't know if that's what he claims, or if he just made a bunch of assumptions about Mary Magdalene.
This touches on at least two topics with high derail potential... If that happens I'll make a Monomyth thread.