God's Will Hunting

Does anyone recall the final verdict on the similarities between the myth of horus paralleling the story of jesus? Was this debunked or is it indeed valid?

In a nutshell:
Father: Only begotten son of a God
Mother: Meri
Foster father: Joseph
Birth location: In a cave.
Annunciation: By an angel
Birth heralded by: the morning star.
Birth announcement: By angels.
Birth witnesses: Shepherds.
Birth celebrated: winter solstice dec 21-25
Death threat during infancy
Rite of passage ritual: at age 12
Break in life history: No data between ages of 12 & 30.
Baptism location: In the river.
Age at baptism: 30.
Baptized by: the Baptiser.
Subsequent fate of the baptiser: Beheaded.
Temptation: Taken from the desert up a high mountain
by his arch-rival (Satan)
Result of temptation: resists temptation.
Close followers: Twelve disciples.
Activities: Walked on water, cast out demons, healed the sick,
restored sight to the blind. He "stilled the sea by his
power."
Raising of the dead
Transfigured: On a mountain.
Key address(es):Sermon on the Mount.
Method of death By crucifixion.
Accompanied by: Two thieves.
Burial In a tomb.
Fate after death: Descended into Hell; resurrected after three days.
Resurrection announced by: Women.
Future:Reign for 1,000 years in the Millennium.

Table here:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa5.htm

Evoken

This is something I worked on myself and had it on my hard drive. Hopefully it will help you clarify the issue.

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Parallels of The Legend of Osiris in Christianity?

A claim commonly made by many is that Christianity borrowed many if not all of its beliefs and practices from the Egyptian myths, specialy the life of Jesus who is said to be nothing but a remake of the life of Horus. Having examined the evidence for the Egyptian myths, we now have a better picture of what (if any) was borrowed by the Christians.

For this comparission I will use a list of similarities that is very popular made by Acharya S and I will answer the questions myself:

-Horus was born of the virgin Isis-Meri on December 25th in a cave/manger with his birth being announced by a star in the East and attended by three wise men.
Horus was the first born of Isis(not of Isis-Meri), so yes she was a virgin when she got pregant with him. But her virginity is not even mentioned in any of the text nor it is given any importance unlike the importance the virginity of Mary has in the Christian doctrine. The only important aspect is that Horus is the first born of Osiris the first born of Ra and because of this he is the heir to the throne. Also he was born in a swamp and not in a cave after Isis had regular sex with Osiris. His birth was not announced by a star nor was he attended by three wise men. As for the date of his birth, it has no relevance whatsover, the birth of Jesus is not the 25th of December nor it is the one of Horus which is November 15th. Both dates where later moved as the cultural and religious exchange arose between competing religions.

-His earthly father was named "Seb" ("Joseph".
There is no "Seb" in the Legend of Osiris but a Geb who was the father of Osiris and not of Horus. Horus had no "earthly" father, his father was Osiris the husband of Isis.

-He was a royal descendant.
Well, yes Horus was the first born of the king and the heir to the throne, but this parallel is too generic.

-At the age of 12, he was a child teacher in the Temple, and at 30 he was baptized, having disappeared for 18 years.
This claims are not true about Horus. No age is ever mentioned in any of the texts nor anything is mentioned about baptism, teaching at a temple or his dissapearence for 18 years.

-Horus was baptized in the river Eridanus or Iarutana (Jordan) by "Anup the Baptized" ("John the Baptist"), who was decapitated.
Again a false claim. There is no "Anup" in the story but Anu, which is a place and not an acutal diety.

-He had 12 disciples, two of whom were his "witnesses" and were named "Anup" and "Aan" (the two "Johns".)
As in the previus question, Anup is not found in any of the texts, what is found is Anu and it is a place. As for Aan, it is not found either, the only word containing Aan is "Sekhet-Aanru" in the Papyrus of Any and has nothing to do with Horus or a disciple. Also Horus joined with blacksmiths (not disciples) who joined him in battle and their numbers is not given.

-He performed miracles, exorcised demons and raiosed El-Azarus ("El-Osiris"), from the dead.
Horus performed miracles but very diferent from the ones of Jesus and this is also a very generic parallel, nearly all messiahs performed miracles. His mother Isis was the one who knew magic and performed spells. There is no mention of "El-Osiris" or "El-Azarus" in any of the texts and it was Isis not Horus who resurrected Osiris.

-He walked on water.
No reference for this. Osiris is linked with the flooding of the Nile but other than that there is no reference of any of them walking on water.

-His personal epithet was "Iusa", the "ever-becoming son" of "Ptah" the "Father". He was thus called "Holy Child".
Again no reference for this in any of the texts. The titles of Horus where "The Jackal of Upper Egypt", "The Opener of The ways", "The Firstborn" and "The Son of Osiris".

-He delivered a "Sermon on The Mount" and his follower reconted the "Sayings of Iusa".
Another unsuported claim, Horus never gave a sermon and never was refered to as "Iusa".

-Horus was transfigured on the Mount.
No reference to a transfiguration or of a mount in the story.

-He was crucified between two thieves, buried for three days in a tomb, and ressurrected.
No mention of Horus death is found in the texts and crucifiction was not practiced by the Egyptians. They turned their dead into mummies and made rituals to help the soul transmigrate to the Netherworld where it would go to be judged by the "King of the Dead" Osiris.

-He was also the "Way, the truth, the light" "Messiah" "God's Anointed Son, "Son of Man" the "Good Shepherd" the "Lamb of God" the "Word made flesh" "Word of Truth,"etd.
This titles like in the same case pointed above are not found in the Egyptian texts and the titles given to Horus were pointed above.

-He was "the fisher" and was associated with the Fish ("Itchthys") Lamb and Lion.
Horus was not refered to with that title neither associated with the fish, lamb or lion. He was associated with the falcon in the sense that he was a Falcon Headed God.

-He came to fulfill the law.
He didn't come to fulfill the law but to bring peace to the land by reconciling Upper and Lower Egypt. His motive was to avenge his father's death and not to fulfill any law.

-Horus was called "the KRST" or "Anointed One".
No reference to these titles either. The word "KRST" is not found anywhere either.

-Like Jesus, "Horus was supposed to reing one thousand years."
The time of Horus reing is not mentioned in the story and it is evident that the reing of Horus lasted as long as the Pharaoh's life in which when he died he was transformed into the new Osiris and the new Pharaoh into the new Horus. Both reinged at the same time Horus as the "King of the Living" and Osiris as the "King of the Dead".

Toto

Debunked. Search for Harpur in this forum. The last thread was http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=104372

God's Will Hunting

Thank you both. Toto, once again a master with the links! :notworthy

Evoken

No problem man :thumbs:

JoeWallack

JW:
After doing a few searches for "Gerald Massey" on the Internet and purchasing all of his books, as near as I can tell I Am currently the world's foremost authority on Gerald Massey. What's going on with Amateur Skeptics like Acharya is a tendency to present conclusions from Skeptics they are copying from like Massey without adequately presenting the support for the conclusions. Now Acharya does have a huge advantage over respected believer scholars such as Brown, Fitzmeyer, Meier, Bede El All in that she starts with the correct assumption that the Impossible is Impossible and therefore still deserves more respect than they do.

I see lots of Skeptics make an inadequate presentation of what Massey had to say like the quote above. The problem with understanding what Massey's support for his conclusions were is that some of his shorter works only make the same type conclusions that Acharya make without any detailed support or reference to detailed support. Some of his shorter works though do refer to his detailed support in his longer works such as "Ancient Egypt". Even his longer works though are disorganized so it can be difficult to put together an organized argument. Massey had the problem of dealing with Blasphemy Laws in England at the time so generally he couldn't publicize his writings during his life and get proper scholarly feedback.

If you read all of his books though its clear that his argument that "Horus was born of the Virgin Isis" is an astrological argument. Massey doesn't claim that it says "Horus was born of the Virgin Isis" in Egyptian text. Massey has reproductions of Egyptian Horuscopes in his books that show Isis is connected with Virgo. Massey's position is that historical virgin births are Impossible so the real origin must be Mythical and is probably astrological. I always get a kick out of Apologists who dismiss Massey's work as "garbage" as unlike their belief in an Impossible literal virgin birth, Massey's astrological explanation is actually possible.

I suspect that Acharya knows that Massey's argument was primarily an astrological one and she has just been too lazy to properly present it.



Joseph

"Rah Row." - Astro

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Errors...yguid=68161660

http://hometown.aol.com/abdulreis/myhomepage/index.html

Evoken

In other words she begs the question and seeks to prove the conclusion(unsupported assertions) she makes.

No, the prolem with Massey and Acharya S is that their claims find no support in the Egyptian texts. Neither the Papyrus of Ani, Coffin Texts, Pyramid Texts, Shabaka Stone, none of what they assert is supported by these texts.

Then he is speculating, simply because Isis was connected with Virgo does not means that she was a virgin and more since Isis virginity had no relevance in Egyptian Mythology nor was it ever mentioned in any of the texts I listed above.

Or are you refering to the Luxor incription? That too has been dealt with.

The history of Osiris, Isis and Horus had to do with the regular flodding of the Nile and the succession of Pharaohs.

Simply asserting that virgin birth is impossible does not makes Masseys' claims or Acharya's any more true, it just begs the question at best and distract from the lack of support for their claims at worse.