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 | "The Christian myths were first related of Horus or Osiris, who was the embodiment of divine goodness, wisdom, truth and purity...This was the greatest hero that ever lived in the mind of man -- not in the flesh -- the only hero to whom the miracles were natural because he was not human." 1 |
| "...I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me." Hosea 13:4, King James Version. This passage may have an additional and completely different meaning from that usually assigned. |
Background:
About Yeshua of Nazareth: He is commonly referred to as Jesus
Christ, although Joshua would be a more accurate translation of his first
name. "Christ" is not his last name; it is simply the Greek word for
"Messiah," or "anointed one." Theologians have discovered about 50 gospels which were widely used
by Jewish, Pauline and Gnostic groups within the early Christian movement.
Only four of these were chosen by the surviving group, Pauline Christianity,
and were included in the Bible. Those four Gospels describe Jesus as a
Jew who was born to a virgin in Palestine circa 4 to 7 BCE. He is portrayed as a rabbi, teacher,
healer, exorcist, magician, 18 prophet, and religious leader who had a one year
(according to Mark, Matthew and Luke) or a three year (according to John) ministry in Palestine,
starting when he was about 30 years old. Most Christians believe that he was
executed by the Roman occupying army, visited the underworld, was resurrected,
spent 40 days with his disciples, and then ascended to
heaven. Most Christian denominations view Jesus as God, and as the Son of
God, the second person in
the Trinity.|
Conservative Christians view the Gospels as being
inerrant whose authors were
inspired by God. The Gospels and other passages
in the Bible are mostly interpreted
literally. Muslims revere Jesus as a great prophet -- next only to Muhammad
in importance. They regard the assertion that Jesus is God to be blasphemy.
About Horus: Various ancient Egyptian statues and writings tell of
Horus, (pronounced "hohr'-uhs;"
a.k.a. Harseisis, Heru-sa-Aset (Horus, son of Isis), Heru-ur (Horus the
elder), Hr, and Hrw), a creator sky God. He was worshipped thousands of
years before the first century CE -- the time when
Jesus was ministering in Palestine. 2
Horus was often represented as a
stylized eye symbol, symbolizing the eye of a falcon. He was also presented
"in the shape of a sparrow hawk or as a man [or lion] with a hawk's head."
3 He is often shown as an
infant cradled by his mother Isis. He was considered to be
the son of two major Egyptian deities: the God Osirus and and the Goddess Isis.
In adulthood, he avenged his
father's murder, and became recognized as the God of civil order and justice.
Each of the Egyptian
pharaohs were believed to be the living embodiment -- an incarnation -- of Horus.
4
Isis with Horus 5 Horus 5
"A list of the names of all the gods of Egypt would fill pages. But all these gods were only forms, attributes or phases of Ra, the solar god, who himself was the supreme symbol or metaphor for God....Horus, the son of Osirus and Isis, is himself an aspect of Ra." 6
Life events shared by Horus and Jesus
Stories from the life of Horus had been circulating for centuries before Jesus birth (circa 4 to 7 BCE). If any copying occurred by the writers of the Egyptian or Christian religions, it was the followers of Jesus who incorporated into his biography the myths and legends of Horus, not vice-versa.
Author and theologian Tom Harpur studied the works of three authors who have written about ancient Egyptian religion: Godfrey Higgins (1771-1834), Gerald Massey (1828-1907) and Alvin Boyd Kuhn (1880-1963). Harpur incorporated some of their findings into his book "Pagan Christ." He argued that all of the essential ideas of both Judaism and Christianity came primarily from Egyptian religion. "[Author Gerald] Massey discovered nearly two hundred instances of immediate correspondence between the mythical Egyptian material and the allegedly historical Christian writings about Jesus. Horus indeed was the archetypal Pagan Christ." 7
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Comparison of some life events of Horus and Jesus:
| Event | Horus | Yeshua of Nazareth, a.k.a. Jesus |
| Conception: | By a virgin. There is some doubt about this matter | By a virgin. 8 |
| Father: | Only begotten son of the God Osiris. | Only begotten son of Yehovah (in the form of the Holy Spirit). |
| Mother: | Meri. 9 | Miriam (a.k.a. Mary). |
| Foster father: | Seb, (Jo-Seph). 9 | Joseph. |
| Foster father's ancestry: | Of royal descent. | Of royal descent. |
| Birth location: | In a cave. | In a cave or stable. |
| Annunciation: | By an angel to Isis, his mother. | By an angel to Miriam, his mother. 8 |
| Birth heralded by: | The star Sirius, the morning star. | An unidentified "star in the East." |
| Birth date: | Ancient Egyptians paraded a manger and child representing Horus through the streets at the time of the winter solstice (typically DEC-21). | Celebrated on DEC-25. The date was chosen to occur on the same date as the birth of Mithra, Dionysus and the Sol Invictus (unconquerable Sun), etc. |
| Birth announcement: | By angels. | By angels. 8 |
| Birth witnesses: | Shepherds. | Shepherds. 8 |
| Later witnesses to birth: | Three solar deities. | Three wise men. 8 |
| Death threat during infancy: | Herut tried to have Horus murdered. | Herod tried to have Jesus murdered. |
| Handling the threat: | The God That tells Horus' mother "Come, thou goddess Isis, hide thyself with thy child." | An angel tells Jesus' father to: "Arise and take the young child and his mother and flee into Egypt." |
| Rite of passage ritual: | Horus came of age with a special ritual, when his eye was restored. | Taken by parents to the temple for what is today called a bar mitzvah ritual. |
| Age at the ritual: | 12 | 12 |
| Break in life history: | No data between ages of 12 & 30. | No data between ages of 12 & 30. |
| Baptism location: | In the river Eridanus. | In the river Jordan. |
| Age at baptism: | 30. | 30. |
| Baptized by: | Anup the Baptiser. | John the Baptist. |
| Subsequent fate of the baptiser: | Beheaded. | Beheaded. |
| Temptation: | Taken from the desert of Amenta up a high mountain by his arch-rival Sut. Sut (a.k.a. Set) was a precursor for the Hebrew Satan. | Taken from the desert in Palestine up a high mountain by his arch-rival Satan. |
| Result of temptation: | Horus resists temptation. | Jesus resists temptation. |
| Close followers: | Twelve disciples. There is some doubt about this matter as well. | Twelve disciples. |
| Activities: | Walked on water, cast out demons, healed the sick, restored sight to the blind. He "stilled the sea by his power." | Walked on water, cast out demons, healed the sick, restored sight to the blind. He ordered the sea with a "Peace, be still" command. |
| Raising of the dead: | Horus raised Osirus, his dead father, from the grave. 10 | Jesus raised Lazarus from the grave. |
| Location where the resurrection miracle occurred: | Anu, an Egyptian city where the rites of the death, burial and resurrection of Horus were enacted annually. 10 | Hebrews added their prefix for house ('beth") to "Anu" to produce "Beth-Anu" or the "House of Anu." Since "u" and "y" were interchangeable in antiquity, "Bethanu" became "Bethany," the location mentioned in John 11. |
| Origin of Lazarus' name in the Gospel of John: | Asar was an alternative name for Osirus, Horus' father, who Horus raised from the dead. He was referred to as "the Asar," as a sign of respect. Translated into Hebrew, this is "El-Asar." The Romans added the prefix "us" to indicate a male name, producing "Elasarus." Over time, the "E" was dropped and "s" became "z," producing "Lazarus." 10 | |
| Transfigured: | On a mountain. | On a high mountain. |
| Key address(es): | Sermon on the Mount. | Sermon on the Mount; Sermon on the Plain. |
| Method of death | By crucifixion. | By crucifixion. |
| Accompanied by: | Two thieves. | Two thieves. |
| Burial | In a tomb. | In a tomb. |
| Fate after death: | Descended into Hell; resurrected after three days. | Descended into Hell; resurrected after about 30 to 38 hours (Friday PM to presumably some time in Sunday AM) covering parts of three days. |
| Resurrection announced by: | Women. | Women. |
| Future: | Reign for 1,000 years in the Millennium. | Reign for 1,000 years in the Millennium. |
Comparison of some characteristics of Horus and Jesus:
| Characteristics | Horus | Yeshua of Nazareth, a.k.a. Jesus |
| Nature" | Regarded as a mythical character. | Regarded as a 1st century CE human man-god. |
| Main role: | Savior of humanity. | Savior of humanity. |
| Status: | God-man. | God-man. |
| Common portrayal: | Virgin Isis holding the infant Horus. | Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus. |
| Title: | KRST, the anointed one. | Christ, the anointed one. |
| Other names: | The good shepherd, the lamb of God, the bread of life, the son of man, the Word, the fisher, the winnower. | The good shepherd, the lamb of God, the bread of life, the son of man, the Word, the fisher, the winnower. |
| Zodiac sign: | Associated with Pisces, the fish. | Associated with Pisces, the fish. |
| Main symbols: | Fish, beetle, the vine, shepherd's crook. | Fish, beetle, the vine, the shepherd's crook. |
Comparison of some teachings of Horus and Jesus:
| Characteristics | Horus | Yeshua of Nazareth, a.k.a. Jesus | ||||||||||||||||
| Criteria for salvation at the place of judgment: | "I have given bread to the hungry man and water to the thirsty man and clothing to the naked person and a boat to the shipwrecked mariner." 11 | "For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me..." Matthew 25:35-36 (KJV). | ||||||||||||||||
| "I am" statements |
|
(From the Gospel of John) |
Was Horus born of a virgin?:
Acharya S. quotes priest and author Joseph McCabe:"Whatever we make of the original myth…Isis seems to have been originally a virgin (or, perhaps, sexless) goddess, and in the later period of Egyptian religion she was again considered a virgin goddess, demanding very strict abstinence from her devotees. It is at this period, apparently, that the birthday of Horus was annually celebrated, about December 25th, in the temples. As both Macrobius and the Christian writer [of the "Paschal Chronicle"] say, a figure of Horus as a baby was laid in a manger, in a scenic reconstruction of a stable, and a statue of Isis was placed beside it. Horus was, in a sense, the Savior of mankind. He was their avenger against the powers of darkness; he was the light of the world. His birth-festival was a real Christmas before Christ. 13,14
Acharya S. mentions a number of other references to Egyptian virgin births in her essay on Horus. 14.
James Frazer writes in The Golden Bough: 15
"The ritual of the nativity, as it appears to have been celebrated in Syria and Egypt, was remarkable. The celebrants retired into certain inner shrines, from which at midnight they issued with a loud cry, "The Virgin has brought forth! The light is waxing!" The Egyptians even represented the new-born sun by the image of an infant which on his birthday, the winter solstice, they brought forth and exhibited to his worshippers. No doubt the Virgin who thus conceived and bore a son on the twenty-fifth of December was the great Oriental goddess whom the Semites called the Heavenly Virgin or simply the Heavenly Goddess." 16
On the other hand, Christian theologian Ward Gasque surveyed twenty contemporary Egyptologists. He asked them about the relationship whether Horus experienced a virgin birth. Ten responded; they all agreed that there is no evidence that Horus was born of a virgin 2
Did Horus have 12 disciples?
Glenn Miller wrote:
"...my research in the academic literature does not surface this fact. I can find references to four 'disciples'--variously called the semi-divine HERU-SHEMSU ('Followers of Horus'). I can find references to sixteen human followers. And I can find reference to an unnumbered group of followers called mesniu/mesnitu ('blacksmiths') who accompanied Horus in some of his battles. ... But I cannot find twelve anywhere." 17
Of course, the early Christian movement might have imported the concept of disciples from Egypt and changed the number so that the number of Jesus' disciples matched the number of the tribes of Israel.
Gasque's survey came up blank on the matter of Horus' disciples as well.
Amazon.com lists the following entries on the topic of "Pagan Christ:"
References:
- Gerald Massey, "The Natural Genesis," Black Classic Press, (Reissued 1998). Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store.
- Tom Harpur, "The Pagan Christ; Recovering the Lost Light," Thomas Allen, (2004), Page 5. Read reviews or order this book.
- "Egyptian god Horus, The Louvre, Paris," at: http://ancienthistory.about.com/
- Information taken from essays linked to "Horus - Egyptian God," at: http://ancienthistory.about.com/
- Images copied from the web site of the Dark Forest of Ulcron, a supplier of Pagan and New Age items, from Athames to Tarot Cards. See: http://www.ulcron.com/ Images used by permission.
- Op Cit., Tom Harpur, Page 69.
- Ibid, Page 85.
- Ibid, Page 80. Items as seen in the Temple of Luxor, built by Amenhotep III, a pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty, before 1700 BCE.
- Ibid, Page 89.
- Ibid, Pages 128 to 136.
- Ibid, Page 74. From the confession that humans made in the presence of Horus at the Hall of Maat -- the place of judgment for all.
- "The Ritual: The Egyptian Book of the Dead."
- Joseph McCabe, "The Story of Religious Controversy," Stratford Co, (1929). Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store
- Acharya S., "Born of a Virgin on December 25th: Horus, Sun God of Egypt," at: http://www.truthbeknown.com/
- James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion." Oxford University Press, (1998). Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store
- Les Carney, "Krishna born of a virgin?," at: http://www.lescarney.com/
- James Patrick Holding, "Comparing Osiris, Horus and Jesus," at: http://tektonics.org/
- The term "magician" has multiple meanings. It is used here to refer to a person capable using supernatural forces to perform works of wonder, like walking on water, curing people who could not hear, walk, or see, etc. He allegedly brought people back to life, and left Earth by ascending towards Heaven.
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Copyright © 2004 to 2008 by Ontario Consultants on
Religious Tolerance.
Originally written: 2004-APR-25
Latest update: 2008-APR-20
Author: B.A. Robinson
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