Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 04-08-2004, 10:56 PM

The greatest myth ever told

Tom Harpur, former Anglican Priest, professor, and religious journalist,

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argues that most of the Christ story was borrowed by the early church from ancient religions, which the church then suppressed in "the greatest cover-up of all time."

The chief religion to be ransacked was that of Egypt, already 3,000 years old when Christianity was founded. Egypt, he writes, supplied the "virgin birth, a star in the east, three wise men bearing gifts, the evil power that tries to take a special child's life, and angelic messengers." The Egyptian hieroglyph KRST, meaning the anointed one, was applied to the deity Horus, who was born of a mortal woman and later crucified between two thieves.

And yet -- for all this -- Harpur is still a believing Christian. "I'm not interested in debunking," says the white-haired 70-plus Harpur, who has already been attacked by an assortment of prominent fundamentalists. "I want to help see the church through this century. Right now it's in crisis. The book tries to provide a fresh vision."

He considers the popularity of Mel Gibson's Passion movie a demonstration of how unhealthily dependent people have become on a historic Jesus who never existed.

Harpur has also written For Christ's Sake which appears to take a completely different view of the question. The Pagan Christ is not yet available through Amazon US.

Harpur seems to rely on the work of Dr. Alvin Boyd Kuhn, Ph.D. (1880-1963), an Egyptologist and comparative religions scholar, in concluding that Christianity borrowed heavily from Egyptian religion.

An excerpt is here.

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When I first began my investigation, I thought to myself, Can any of this be true? Several months later, I found myself asking instead, What if it is true? The implications were enormous. It meant, you see, that much of the thinking of much of the civilized West has been based upon a "history" that never occurred, and that the Christian Church has been founded on a set of miracles that were never performed literally. Finally, though, I said to myself, because of the sheer weight of the evidence before me, Yes, of course it's true. And that has made all the difference, a huge and immensely positive difference for my understanding of my faith and my own spiritual life. Simultaneously, it has transformed my view of the future of Christianity into one of hope..

This is similar to the attitude of the Jesus Mysteries, but very much opposed to the attitude of most skeptics, such as Doherty.

GakuseiDon · 04-09-2004, 01:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Egypt, he writes, supplied the "virgin birth, a star in the east, three wise men bearing gifts, the evil power that tries to take a special child's life, and angelic messengers." The Egyptian hieroglyph KRST, meaning the anointed one, was applied to the deity Horus, who was born of a mortal woman and later crucified between two thieves.

None of that is true, or at least I'd like to see evidence for this from the source. Isn't this is the guy who called Kelsey Graves a "scholar?

What do you think of his claims, Toto?

Toto · 04-09-2004, 01:48 AM

Kersey Graves was a scholar for his time. Harpur does not seem to have relied solely on him, but does mention him here.

But I was more interested in the Egyptian angle. I don't know enough about Egyptian religion. I posted it to find out if anyone else did.

He seems to be the Canadian Spong.

GakuseiDon · 04-09-2004, 03:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Kersey Graves was a scholar for his time. Harpur does not seem to have relied solely on him, but does mention him here.

But I was more interested in the Egyptian angle. I don't know enough about Egyptian religion. I posted it to find out if anyone else did.

He seems to be the Canadian Spong.

I've seen this argued on other boards. From what I remember looking the mythology myself:

virgin birth
There was no virgin birth. Osiris was torn apart, his wife Isis finds the penis and uses that to impregnate herself. Horus is born as a result. It was a miraculous conception, but Isis wasn't a virgin.

a star in the east
I can't remember this one.

three wise men bearing gifts
"Three"? This isn't even Biblical! IIRC there are no related stories about Horus.

the evil power that tries to take a special child's life
It was a snake or scorpion, sent by one of the gods, so this is true. It's also true about Danny Kaye's great movie "The Court Jester".

angelic messengers
I don't think the ancient Egyptians had "angels".

The Egyptian hieroglyph KRST, meaning the anointed one, was applied to the deity Horus
A student of Egyptology looked into this. "KRST" is on a memorial and doesn't mean "annointed" (It means "good" IIRC). The memorial has nothing to do with Horus.

Horus was born of a mortal woman
No, Horus's mother was Isis, a goddess.

Horus later crucified between two thieves
No, there are no legends remotely like that. I don't think there are of any where he dies.

Most of this type of information came out of the 19th century, in Graves time. JP Holding has a series of articles here which are pretty good:
http://tektonics.org/tekton_04_02_04.html

It seems that the only people actually critical (by which I mean actually look into these claims) are theists. It'd be nice to see a non-theist actually look into these claims, so at least couldn't be accused of that kind of bias.

Any takers here?

Layman · 04-09-2004, 07:50 AM

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Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

It seems that the only people actually critical (by which I mean actually look into these claims) are theists. It'd be nice to see a non-theist actually look into these claims, so at least couldn't be accused of that kind of bias.

Any takers here?

Takers, please provide the primary evidence for these supposed parrallels. And please note that quoting "scholars", especially dead 19th century scholars, who make conclusory statemtents about what these other religions believed is not primary evidence.

joedad · 04-09-2004, 08:19 AM

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Originally Posted by Layman

Takers, please provide the primary evidence for these supposed parrallels. And please note that quoting "scholars", especially dead 19th century scholars, who make conclusory statemtents about what these other religions believed is not primary evidence.

No taker here, only a question: How exactly are these parallels important?

Is their credibility or lack thereof indicative of christianity's uniqueness and therefore its legitimacy, maybe historicity? If so, are there not unique attributes in other and earlier mythologies?

Layman · 04-09-2004, 09:17 AM

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Originally Posted by joedad

No taker here, only a question: How exactly are these parallels important?

This question would better be directed at those making the claims that such parallels exist.

joedad · 04-09-2004, 09:40 AM

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Originally Posted by Layman

This question would better be directed at those making the claims that such parallels exist.

Some of the parallels are bogus and some are not. So I direct the question to both camps.

spin · 04-09-2004, 09:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Layman

Takers, please provide the primary evidence for these supposed parrallels. And please note that quoting "scholars", especially dead 19th century scholars, who make conclusory statemtents about what these other religions believed is not primary evidence.

Oh, the irony, the irony. The great opinion quoter!? Is this a sign of reform? Or is "19th century" the key to the statement? "20th century" is alright perhaps. It still raises the wry smile.

spin

Layman · 04-09-2004, 10:32 AM

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Originally Posted by spin

Oh, the irony, the irony. The great opinion quoter!? Is this a sign of reform? Or is "19th century" the key to the statement? "20th century" is alright perhaps. It still raises the wry smile.

spin

I believe in discussing the primary evidence and seeing what experts have to say about them.

People who engage in parallelomania seem to find a few quasi-scholars long dead and cite them as establishing what the evidence says. I'd rather see what the evidence has to say for itself, then see what the experts have to say about it.

I will clarify that if they have secondary evidence repeates the contents of the primary evidence, of course I would be interested in that.

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04-09-2004, 01:48 AM	#3
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	Kersey Graves was a scholar for his time. Harpur does not seem to have relied solely on him, but does mention him here. But I was more interested in the Egyptian angle. I don't know enough about Egyptian religion. I posted it to find out if anyone else did. He seems to be the Canadian Spong.

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