spamandham

In an interview on the infidel guy (I think it was her first interview on the show if I recall), Achyra S states that the birth story in Matthew/Luke is actually based off a similar story regarding the birth of Horus, and has the following in common (going from memory here, so I may screw this up):

- Horus was born of a virgin, visited by 3 wise men, his mother's name (Isis) is equivalent to Mary in Hebrew, his father's name, Seph is equivalent to Joseph in Hebrew, a star in the east pointed the way, ...and several other similarities I can't recall.

In her "Christ Conspiracy" book, she refers to an Egyptian story that is the parallel to the story about Jesus (Horus) raising Lazarus (el-Osiris) from the dead. I was able to somewhat confirm that this story really does exist in pyramid texts (via google searches, but nothing that would stand up in court).

So, I thought I would put this forth to those here who are generally more than up to the task of picking apart bogus claims.

Is there any substance to the claims she is referring to, and if so, where can I find more info? What I really want to find are the translations of the actual pyramid texts (or whatever) this story is rooted in.

Toto

This is one can of worms. Acharya S is not always very critical of her sources or careful. There probably are some parallels between Jesus and Horus, but the particular ones you list sound dubious.

Richard Carrier has an essay Brunner's Gottkoenigs & the Nativity of Jesus: A Brief Communication regarding some inscriptions at Luxor that were used to claim some parallels with the gospel birth stories.

mojuang

indeed her views sound bogus at fist glance.Horus in Egyptian mythology was a product of the god Osiris and his sister wife Isis. this seems to be the first Shamrock later to be called trinity. but this jesus after his infant life is threatened by Herod flees with his parents to Egypt where he seems to have stayed till we meet him arguing with priests in the temple(12years).This fellow seems to have imbibed a dose of the horus story.What does not add-up in your query is why she refers to jesus' father as seph when its osiris?
Osiris does mean rise again as his body is reputed to have been chopped into some mystical number of pieces and later put together.Lzarus on the other hand means rise up in ancient egyptian.So you have it:When jesus said"Lazarus rise up!" he merely said "rise up rise up"! in two languages.....

gstafleu

Doherty makes some extensive comments on this in The Mystery Cults and Christianity, Part Four. Scroll down to A Conjunction of Nativity Stories: Massey, Acharya, and Carrier. There even is a picture of the engraving on which this is based.

Gerard Stafleu

Malachi151

Eh, I find this all dubious. I doubt there is any direct or intentional parallel here.

There might be similarities due to common cultural themes.

spamandham

This one was particularly helpful I think, since Doherty compares and contrasts Achyra S' position with others (particularly Carrier), in addition to providing the source material on which her position is based. Her position seems to be a bit off, but not dramatically. I probably screwed up listening to the show somewhat, and I think I confused seph with kneph or something like that.

nomoremyths

I found an excellent comparison on the Egyptian myth and Jesus, "Ancient Egypt - the Light of the World" by Gerald Massey, go to:


http://www.theosophical.ca/AncientEgyptAppendix.htm

spamandham

I'm not sure it's enough to show vague similarities, unless you can demostrate Egyptian influence in the NT. I think such influence is possibly suggested by the story of Jesus' family fleeing to Egypt, but I would want to see more, since that seems likely just to be an allusion back to Daniel leaving to Egypt.

An alternative route would be to show that these ideas were common in the pagan culture of Hellenistic Judaism, since, IMHO it can be reasonably well proven that Christianity is a syncretization of Judaism and pagan ideas.

nomoremyths

The possibility that stories of Jesus were copied, at least in part, from the myths and legends of other ancient religions has been raised by historians. The similarities in that comparison between Ancient Egypt writings (I believe these are translations of the ancient hieroglyphics and texts) and many verses of the New Testament applied to Jesus (the way he's depicted) is quite blatant. There's no doubt in my mind that many things were copied and added to the writings of the New Testament. It's simply the same old mythology that has been around for thousands of years (in disguise of different names but basically the same.

spamandham

{emphasis mine}

I suggest the word "constructed" rather than "copied". The overall theme appears to be an attempt to set pagan ideas to the tune of the old testament. Whoever wrote the original story was, IMHO, straddling the fence between Judaism and paganism (which might not have been much dissimilar in the first century), possibly for political reasons, but not necessarily.

Regarding the birth story specifically, I guess I'm trying to determine if this was something that period paganism promulgated, or if it really is evidence of direct Egyptian influence. If it is not known among period pagans, then I think Achyra S has a strong case on this point.