GakuseiDon

I've been reading Dr Robert M. Price's review of D.M. Murdock's "Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection (or via: amazon.co.uk)". In the review, he makes these statements:

First, I find it undeniable that, as Ignaz Goldziher (Mythology among the Hebrews (or via: amazon.co.uk)) argued, following the lead of “solar mythologist” Max Müller (yes, the great historian of comparative religion and world scripture), many, many of the epic heroes and ancient patriarchs and matriarchs of the Old Testament were personified stars, planets, and constellations. This theory is now ignored in favor of others more easily made into theology and sermons, but it has never been refuted, and I find the evidence overwhelming.

Are there many stories in the Old Testament where the heroes, patriarchs and matriachs are thought to be personified stars, planets and constellations?

And once you recognize these patterns in the Old Testament, you start noticing them, albeit to a lesser degree (?), in the New. Hercules’ twelve labors surely mark his progress, as the sun, through the houses of the Zodiac; why do Jesus circumambient twelve disciples not mean the same thing? And so on.

Goldziher and Müller are late 19th C / early 20th C authors. I thought that it was suspected that the twelve disciples reflected the Twelve Tribes?

The tale of Joseph and his brethren is already transparently a retelling of Osiris and Set. The New Testament Lazarus story is another (Mary and Martha playing Isis and Nephthys). And so is the story of Jesus (Mary Magdalene and the others as Isis and Nephthys). Jesus (in the “Johannine Thunderbolt” passage, Matthew 11:27//Luke 10:21) sounds like he’s quoting Akhenaten’s Hymn to the Sun. Jesus sacramentally offers bread as his body, wine as his blood, just as Osiris offered his blood in the form of beer, his flesh as bread. Judas is Set, who betrays him.

I've seen something similar claimed by Gerald Massey, but I have to say I'm VERY surprised to see Dr Price making these claims. In fact, he goes on to state:

Acharya S. ventures that “the creators of the Christ myth did not simply take an already formed story, scratch out the name Osiris or Horus, and replace it with Jesus” (p. 25). But I am pretty much ready to go the whole way and suggest that Jesus is simply Osiris going under a new name, Jesus,” Savior,” hitherto an epithet, but made into a name on Jewish soil.

That is the statement that made me think he was "jumping the shark". "Jesus is simply Osiris going under a new name"??? I wonder what Dr Price makes of Paul, then? No hints of Osiris in there AFAICS. Or the Gospels' heavy use of the OT?

I find myself in full agreement with Acharya S/D.M. Murdock: “we assert that Christianity constitutes Gnosticism historicized and Judaized, likewise representing a synthesis of Egyptian, Jewish and Greek religion and mythology, among others [including Buddhism, via King Asoka’s missionaries] from around the ‘known world’” (p. 278).

My next step is to read Murdock's book (if I can find it!), to see how well she has documented her case, to produce such a positive response by Dr Price. Perhaps she has finally found the primary sources to support her position, and this is what has convinced Dr Price so strongly. But personally I doubt it.

GakuseiDon

Plutarch's "Isis and Osiris" is an excellent source for the myths surrounding those gods prevalent in the 1st C CE. It can be found here:
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...Osiris*/A.html

Here is one version of the myth. Read this, keeping in mind Dr Price's statement that "Jesus is simply Osiris going under a new name":

One of the first acts related of Osiris in his reign was to deliver the Egyptians from their destitute and brutish manner of living.68 This he did by showing them the fruits of cultivation, by giving them laws, and by teaching them to honour the gods. bLater he travelled over the whole earth civilizing it69 without the slightest need of arms, but most of the peoples he won over to his way by the charm of his persuasive discourse combined with song and all manner of music. Hence the Greeks came to identify him with Dionysus.70

During his absence the tradition is that Typhon attempted nothing revolutionary because Isis, who was in control, was vigilant and alert; but when he returned home Typhon contrived a treacherous plot against him and formed a group of conspirators seventy-two in number. He had also the co-operation of a queen from Ethiopia71 who was there at the time and whose name they report as Aso. Typhon, having secretly measured Osiris's body cand having made ready a beautiful chest of corresponding size artistically ornamented, caused it to be brought into the room where the festivity was in progress. The company was much pleased at the sight of it and admired it greatly, whereupon Typhon jestingly promised to present it to the man who should find the chest to be exactly his length when he lay down in it. They all tried it in turn, but no one fitted it; then Osiris got into it and p37lay down, and those who were in the plot ran to it and slammed down the lid, which they fastened by nails from the outside and also by using molten lead. Then they carried the chest to the river and sent it on its way to the sea through the Tanitic Mouth...

As they relate, Isis proceeded to her son Horus, who was being reared in Buto,86 and bestowed the chest in a place well out of the way; but Typhon, who was hunting by night in the light of the moon, happened upon it. 358Recognizing the body he divided it into fourteen parts87 and scattered them, each in a different place. Isis learned of this and sought for them again, sailing through the swamps in a boat of papyrus...

Of the parts of Osiris's body the only one which Isis did not find was the male member,91 for the reason that this had been at once tossed into the river, and the lepidotus, the sea-bream, and the pike had fed upon it;92 and it is from these very fishes the Egyptians are most scrupulous in abstaining. But Isis made a replica of the member to take its place, and consecrated the phallus,93 in honour of which the Egyptians even at the present day celebrate a festival.

show_no_mercy

Well, keep in mind that "Jesus" is the Greek rendering of "Joshua", and Joshua is a mythological character...

Toto

Samson is universally regarded as a solar deity. The golden calf is a solar deity. I haven't studied this much, but I do know of those examples.

Astrotheologists have a tendency to find patterns and declare them to be significant, just because they obviously are; their Christian detractors then pick at the patterns and say "no, no, it's different in these details." I don't see a method for resolving the dispute. We all know that the human brain likes to see patterns, whether they are there or not. At some point, the pattern may be so overwhelming that everyone has to admit that it is there.

...

Astrotheologists see the 12 tribes as representing the 12 symbols of the zodiac. There is no historical evidence of 12 tribes.

I'm sure you can find some reason to reject the thesis.

The book is available at amazon, Christ in Egypt (or via: amazon.co.uk), or on Acharya's site, and can be previewed on google books.

GakuseiDon

I found this in Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson

Some modern academics have interpreted Samson as a solar deity, as a demi-god (such as Hercules or Enkidu) somehow enfolded into Jewish religious lore, or as an archetypical folklore hero, among others.[31]

The [31] reference is to:

Mobley, Gregory (2006) Samson and the Liminal Hero in the Ancient Near East, Continuum International Publishing Group, p. 5.

I used Google books to find that reference, which can be seen here. It does indeed start on p. 5, and finishes on p. 7. The relevant passages:

(p. 5) The nineteenth-century solar theorists compared Samson to Herakles and Gligamesh, each representing humanized sun gods whose every action personified solar activity...

(p. 7) Suffice it to say that, apart from the imaginative but forced allusions to astral activity--Samson's hair as the rays of the sun, the donkey jawbone as lightning; Delilah as a lunar goddess--the evidence for solar ideas in the narrative is minimal. The "Samson"--"sun" connection, the instance where fire and images of heat are mentioned, and the general setting of the story in the vicinity of Beth Shemesh, "Temple of the Sun" (though this towm does not appear in the story), are hardly enough to justify reading the narrative as a solar myth.

So the Wiki article refers to a book for support, and the book actually disagrees with the statement being made by the Wiki article.

Where do you get "Samson is universally regarded as a solar deity" from?

I know I've asked you before, but: What does it matter what Christian detractors think? Must the world be divided between astrotheologists and Christians? Wouldn't it be better to look at the academic view (if any) of the topic?

Why do you mention Christian detractors here?

Well, that's nice, but the missing step here is whether there is any evidence that the 12 tribes represent the 12 symbols of the zodiac.

What would be a good reason to reject the thesis, in your opinion?

Thanks for that.

Rick Sumner

"Universally?" Really? Do you have a source for such a claim? Because Gregory Mobley (Samson and the Liminal hero in the Ancient Near East, The Empty Men: The Heroic Tradition of Ancient Israel) seems unaware of the universality of this conviction.

I would be extremely reluctant to use the term "universally," when such recent scholarship espouses different views.

Indeed, I'd think the case is stronger for a common origin between Samson and Heracles than to suggest that Samson is a direct representation of a solar deity, but that's neither here nor there for now, if you'd like we could start another thread and investigate, but at the very least we should retract "universally" from anything suggested.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

ETA

Should have read the thread first. GDon beat me to the reference.

Toto

I don't think you read the Wiki statement carefully enough. It refers to a variety of theories on Samson, and the book lists a variety of theories, although that book does not endorse the solar deity theory (the author, associate professor of Old Testament studies at Andover Newton Theological School, has his own interpretation of Samson as a wild man.)

I take back universally - let's just say widely. That is the view promoted by Joseph Campbell, who may be outdated, but still has many followers, including Tim Callahan in his Secret Origins of the Bible (or via: amazon.co.uk).

Because Christian detractors seem to be about the only people interested in this question, or at least passionately interested.

As I think I have pointed out before, Richard Carrier notes that I think that part of Robert Price's appreciation of Murdock is that she is reviving interest in the 19th century schools of comparative religion.

Sigh. For astrotheologists, this coincidence is enough evidence, especially given that there is no other explanation for the symbolic number of 12.

You reject the thesis if the offered proof does not convince you.

I don't think this thesis will ever be proven or disproven beyond a reasonable doubt, but when there are similar themes coming out of a shared environment, you decide for yourself if there is probably a common origin or not, based on the pattern of similarities and other evidence.

If I thought that this was a really decisive issue, I would spend more time on it. But since I don't think that there is a chance in Hades that the gospels are remotely based on history, this thesis would not change my mind one way or another if I accepted or rejected it.

Rick Sumner

Then astrotheologists are misinformed. Sumerians divided the calendar into 12 lunar months long before the existence of the 12 signs of the Zodiac. If we're going to look for causality, the line's much clearer on that front.

Why would we assume that twelve are more likely to represent signs of the zodiac than anything else, other than the misguided notion that since both are ancient they must be causal?

Regards,
Rick Sumner

lpetrich

I'm not impressed by astrotheology -- it seems to me to be reading too much into various ancient mythologies. There are some cases where astrotheology is likely correct, however.

Samson's story being a sort of solar allegory is at least half-plausible. Samson's name sounds like the Hebrew word for Sun (shemesh), and Delilah's name sounds like the Hebrew word for night (laila). When Delilah gets a servant to cut his hair, he weakens, like the Sun looking less rayed as it sets.

But can one find anything similar for the twelve tribes of Israel? Etc.

dog-on

I seem to recall something about the 12 tribes being connected to the 12 sons of El.

I cannot remember where I read this.