Mythology

[AndrewA]

You’re not crazy for asking, OP. There is not a single element in the mythological framework of Christ’s life which was not also found in earlier pagan deities. Usually more than one. The foretelling of their coming, the birth under a special star, visitation by wise men, virgin birth, a John the Baptist figure who was himself inevitably executed. Disciples (often, not always 12), miracles, healings, exorcisms, death on a piece of wood for humanity’s benefit. Resurrection.

Every major Christian holiday and many lesser feast days, are thinly veiled overlays of pre-existing pagan traditions. Christmas? Winter Soltice. Not even the church’s best speculation on the date of Jesus’s birth suggest midwinter. Easter? Beltane. All Souls Day (Samhain). That was a particulary weak and contrived overlay. There’s room for scholarly disagreement on the degree of parallels and details of course, but attempts to deny the whole thing are simply revisionist history.

It works because the people who could tell the other half of the story were usually put to death or “found” the light at the end of a sword. The interface between late paganism and early Christianity is far, far more complex than modern Christians, or pagans, are willing to allow. Even Christianity was not as monolithic as today’s church fathers would like you to believe. Early on, there were hundreds of radically different concepts of who and what Christ was. They too were silenced or killed in due course. Victors always get to declare their truths “inerrant.”

Be this all as it may, this does not mean Christianity had NOTHING original. The interpretation of what their god’s sacrifice meant are radically different. They assigned a real and universal value to individual life and freedom in a unique way, even if they rarely lived up to the ideal themselves.

Acknowledging the ancestry of one’s own tradition does not have to lessen it in any way. In fact there’s a school of thought which holds that Christians could reclaim the real power and beauty of myths if they reinterpreted their faith in the light of timeless metaphorical truths rather than literal facts which are often contradictory and scientifically absurd. I am not an advocate of this movement. I am pagan and have my own myths and gods and understandings. I merely put it forward for your consideration. You may also want to check out Tom Harpur’s “The Pagan Christ,” which is no doubt the source material for much of what you have been reading on that website. There is plenty of criticism of the scholarship underlining the book, but it explores the ideas at hand in some depth.

The best advice I can give you is to develop some critical thinking and research skills. Think for yourself. Don’t take what other posters or websites say at face value. Certainly don’t take my bull as gospel. You’ve chosen the path of the seeker. It’s all rocky and uphill, but very rewarding.

To embrace pagan theology in the way you suggest would go against the entirety of the Bible. The Jews believed in one God, as did the early Christians following the one they believed to be the *Jewish *Messiah.

 

[TheQuestioner]

Well…if you are so ready to take up another opinion on a subject you care so little about, why bother to ask us. Clearly you do care about the subject otherwise you wouldn’t be asking. So then why not go and look? We’re not asking you to look up every single pantheon that ever existed. Only to look up the Egyptian pantheon. That’s literally 1 picture book. And for Horus, probably 2 or 3 pages in the picture book, maybe even with very large pictures.

You don’t seem to understand our particular issue here. This “I’m not interested enough to research it myself” but willingness to accept the information of a website is a symptom of society that has led many Christians astray. Their unwillingness to seek the truth. They would rather have it spoon fed to them. And even if they receive a lie they believe it as truth, and even when knowing it is a lie they do not want to do the work of finding the truth themselves.

but, here youtube.com/watch?v=bg42JsMGsUc&feature=related

This is fairly accurate.

 

[TheQuestioner]

And here…though I think the source is protestant so keep that in mind. (It matters when talking about Dec. 25th)

youtube.com/watch?v=JuyIxKrw2Yk&feature=related

 

[Faith1960]

Well…if you are so ready to take up another opinion on a subject you care so little about, why bother to ask us. Clearly you do care about the subject otherwise you wouldn’t be asking.
but, here youtube.com/watch?v=bg42JsMGsUc&feature=related

This is fairly accurate.

I said I didn’t care about learning about mythology, meaning I’ve had a limited study of mythology in high school and it was a difficult subject I had no interest in. I do, however wish to learn why the Biblical stories about Christ aren’t stolen from Osirus and Horus.
You know, everybody here has been so nice to me up until now, one would have to wonder why the sudden hostile attitude.

 

[1ke]

. I do, however wish to learn why the Biblical stories about Christ aren’t stolen from Osirus and Horus.

To learn *why *the biblical stories about Christ aren’t stolen from stories of Osirus and Horus requires you to *know something about *Osirus and Horus. Which requires you to *read *about them.

Once you have read the stories of Osirus and Horus you will then be able to say to yourself “well, that’s nothing like the story of Christ.”

 

[kenofken]

I said I didn’t care about learning about mythology, meaning I’ve had a limited study of mythology in high school and it was a difficult subject I had no interest in. I do, however wish to learn why the Biblical stories about Christ aren’t stolen from Osirus and Horus.
You know, everybody here has been so nice to me up until now, one would have to wonder why the sudden hostile attitude.

The sudden hostile attitude comes from the fact that you asked a question for which they have no good answer, and that murkiness deeply threatens the “either-or/black or white” apologetics many of the respondents hold dear. The dismissiveness you hear is a very old debate trick. “That’s so absurd I shan’t bother to refute it” or “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” said the Wizard of Oz…

I don’t think you need to have a doctorate-level background in mythology or ancient languages and cultures to approach this question. It would certainly help, but you’d also find your life consumed by the quest. That said, you do need to possess a certain amount of curiosity, tenacity and skepticism. You need to also surrender to the fact that “the truth” on this question is going to be much more nuanced and complex than any one forum poster or book can provide.

The scope of the question itself is flawed. You seem to be asking “Is Christianity really just Paganism 2.0 in a different package, or is that idea all a tissue of lies?” Most posters have been formulating their answers accordingly. We’ve just tuned out to the 99% of the field where the real truth almost certainly lies. You might consider these as starting points, not ends of your inquiry. The fact that key pieces of mythology overlap between Christianity and earlier faiths does not prove ancestry. But this overlap comes up an awful lot, doesn’t it? Let’s say the match is somewhere between 50 and 90% in the details. Not enough evidence for a conviction, but certainly enough for a search warrant and indictment, yes?

So what if it is more than coincidence. Does that mean Christianity “stole” it’s mythology wholecloth and slapped new names on it? Maybe, but not necessarily. Everything, and I mean everything in the human endeavor is derivative of what has come before. Art, politics, engineering, medicine, mythology. Even when ideas take revolutionary turns, they are still rooted in older ideas even if only to refute them. At a minimum, Christianity needed to find ways to speak to the pagan world in terms they could relate to. You have to remember that at the start, Christianity was a movement within Judaism. There was considerable debate over whether non-Jews had any business in the faith or whether they could legitimately become Christians. For that matter, Judaism itself was not always a One-God operation. They had dozens of tribal deities, of which Yahweh was only one, a storm/sky god of modest standing at that. The notion of the angels and demons and Satan figure now prominent in Christianity is very clearly derivative of Zoroastrianism and other old Middle Eastern religions.

So maybe the early missionaries found they had to recast the Christ story in cultural terms people were familiar with. Maybe Christ really did live and die the way he did because the formula was so effective at touching the human imagination and heart. Maybe, as Harpur contends, the whole Christ mytology is really just an evolution of timeless stories which were changed (or distorted) radically by their move from metaphorical to literal understanding.

Remember too that the Church was overwhelmingly built by men who had never personally known Jesus or any of his immediate followers. They were, almost to a man, pagans. Yes they outwardly refuted those beliefs in favor of their new messiah, but you can’t simply erase the habits of mind, the assumptions about man and the divine, the culture. The old gods and mythology never left the imagination. In the Renaissance, there was an explosive revival of those myths from religions which had not been practiced in a thousand years in the West. Cathedrals all over Europe are shot through with motifs and designs which are 110% pagan in origin. Many are laid right over top of Roman temples. That doesn’t make the RCC a modern-day Horus or Dionysis or Mithras cult, but don’t try to tell me there’s no connection.

 

[1ke]

The sudden hostile attitude comes from the fact that you asked a question for which they have no good answer, and that murkiness deeply threatens the “either-or/black or white” apologetics many of the respondents hold dear.

Uh, no. It comes from the OP’s laziness. I mean, go read an short article about Horus and then come back and talk intelligently about the similarities and/or differences. Don’t expect someone here to type out everything about Horus here on CAF that is already available to go read.

Also note that *hundreds *of posts have already been expended refuting this garbage and the OP doesn’t seem inclined to go read those either. Someone on here already refuted these supposed similarities on the first couple of posts on this thread and the OP completely ignored them.

The dismissiveness you hear is a very old debate trick. “That’s so absurd I shan’t bother to refute it” or “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” said the Wizard of Oz…

No one has stated that they aren’t willing to refute it. The OP hasn’t asked any specific questions or made any assertions to refute. Linking to a website does not count as asking a question. The OP expects us to carry on a conversation with a website? Uh, I don’t think so.

I don’t think you need to have a doctorate-level background in mythology or ancient languages and cultures to approach this question…

Nope. But you do have to know some basic info on Horus. Which is not an unreasonable expectation as a prerequisite to having an intelligent conversation *about * Horus and the similarities and/or differences between Horus and Christ.

otherwise the conversation goes like this:

A: Let’s discuss the Horus myth
B: OK, what do you know about Horus
A: Nothing
B: Well then, this will be a short conversation

 

[TheQuestioner]

I said I didn’t care about learning about mythology, meaning I’ve had a limited study of mythology in high school and it was a difficult subject I had no interest in. I do, however wish to learn why the Biblical stories about Christ aren’t stolen from Osirus and Horus.
You know, everybody here has been so nice to me up until now, one would have to wonder why the sudden hostile attitude.

The links are videos. Spend 20 min of your time watching someone refute the claims. Especially the second video I sent.

 

[EricFilmer]

The article in question (from this thread’s initial post) ignores the obvious Jewish roots of Christianity and tries to assign pagan ones. For example, there is the claim that Jesus had 12 disciples because Horus had 12 disciples (or possibly had 12 disciples, as there is a discrepancy among sources). This ignores the fact that there were 12 Hebrew tribes, and therefore the number 12 for Jews was symbolic for “the people of God”.

Furthermore, the earliest known date assigned to Christmas comes from Clement of Alexandria’s Stromata (I.21). According to this document, in the year 200 A.D. Egyptian Christians were celebrating Christmas on 25 Pachon, which corresponds to May 20. This was an Egyptian Church Father (Alexandria is in Egypt) writing about other Egyptian Christians. Therefore, Egyptian Christians initially did not celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25.

Later the Church selected the winter solstice (Dec. 25) for the date of Christmas because, like pagans, they appreciated the fact that the winter solstice marks the turning point when the hours of daylight start to increase. Everybody in the world can witness this solar event and use it to symbolize whatever they want. That’s why it is an important date to many of the ancient people, even though they prescribe different meanings to it.

Christians saw the winter solstice (and how daylight grows after it) as a beautiful symbolic representation of the Gospel of John’s description of the coming of Jesus into the world: “…and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4-5).

Finally, here is a cut & paste of my comment from the Jesus & Horus thread which likewise addresses this discussion:

The first converts to Christianity came from Judaism. Likewise, for 2000 years there have been Jewish converts to Christianity on a regular basis. I think it is safe to say that for many of them, they would first have to have been convinced of Christ’s fulfillment of Old Testament messianic prophecies before completing their conversion into the Christian Faith. If the essence of Christian theology and symbolism were derived from Egyptian mythology (and not Judaism) they would not have converted. As a matter-of-fact, Egyptian origins would have been more reason for them to reject Christian beliefs. I’m guessing that in light of historical Jewish-Egyptian relations (i.e., the Book of Exodus) having a religion based on Egyptian mythology would not be a good “plug”.

 

[Faith1960]

Uh, no. It comes from the OP’s laziness. I mean, go read an short article about Horus and then come back and talk intelligently about the similarities and/or differences. Don’t expect someone here to type out everything about Horus here on CAF that is already available to go read.

Also note that *hundreds *of posts have already been expended refuting this garbage and the OP doesn’t seem inclined to go read those either. Someone on here already refuted these supposed similarities on the first couple of posts on this thread and the OP completely ignored them.

Okay, well then maybe I’m just not very intelligent – sue me. I did read some of the previous threads on CAF about this topic the threads dragged on, veering way off topic or it the discussions went over my head. The specific points about the parallels between Horus and Osiris vs Christ were lost on me after a few posts. Better to be succint than to just ramble on.
If I’ve missed some threads discussing this that are to the point, no tempers flaring, no insults being thrown around, staying on topic and are written so someone without a college degree can read them, link them please. I’d be more than thrilled to read them.

 

[Faith1960]

The sudden hostile attitude comes from the fact that you asked a question for which they have no good answer, and that murkiness deeply threatens the “either-or/black or white” apologetics many of the respondents hold dear. The dismissiveness you hear is a very old debate trick. “That’s so absurd I shan’t bother to refute it” or “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” said the Wizard of Oz…

:sad_yes: That’s the nature of message boards.

 

[Faith1960]

The article in question (from this thread’s initial post) ignores the obvious Jewish roots of Christianity and tries to assign pagan ones. For example, there is the claim that Jesus had 12 disciples because Horus had 12 disciples (or possibly had 12 disciples, as there is a discrepancy among sources). This ignores the fact that there were 12 Hebrew tribes, and therefore the number 12 for Jews was symbolic for “the people of God”.

Furthermore, the earliest known date assigned to Christmas comes from Clement of Alexandria’s Stromata (I.21). According to this document, in the year 200 A.D. Egyptian Christians were celebrating Christmas on 25 Pachon, which corresponds to May 20. This was an Egyptian Church Father (Alexandria is in Egypt) writing about other Egyptian Christians. Therefore, Egyptian Christians initially did not celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25.

Later the Church selected the winter solstice (Dec. 25) for the date of Christmas because, like pagans, they appreciated the fact that the winter solstice marks the turning point when the hours of daylight start to increase. Everybody in the world can witness this solar event and use it to symbolize whatever they want. That’s why it is an important date to many of the ancient people, even though they prescribe different meanings to it.

Christians saw the winter solstice (and how daylight grows after it) as a beautiful symbolic representation of the Gospel of John’s description of the coming of Jesus into the world: “…and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4-5).

Finally, here is a cut & paste of my comment from the Jesus & Horus thread which likewise addresses this discussion:

The first converts to Christianity came from Judaism. Likewise, for 2000 years there have been Jewish converts to Christianity on a regular basis. I think it is safe to say that for many of them, they would first have to have been convinced of Christ’s fulfillment of Old Testament messianic prophecies before completing their conversion into the Christian Faith. If the essence of Christian theology and symbolism were derived from Egyptian mythology (and not Judaism) they would not have converted. As a matter-of-fact, Egyptian origins would have been more reason for them to reject Christian beliefs. I’m guessing that in light of historical Jewish-Egyptian relations (i.e., the Book of Exodus) having a religion based on Egyptian mythology would not be a good “plug”.

I did read your comment from the other thread. Thanks for your reply.

 

[1ke]

I did read your comment from the other thread. Thanks for your reply.

And, so, what do you think about Eric’s post?

 

[Faith1960]

Well…if you are so ready to take up another opinion on a subject you care so little about, why bother to ask us. Clearly you do care about the subject otherwise you wouldn’t be asking. So then why not go and look? We’re not asking you to look up every single pantheon that ever existed. Only to look up the Egyptian pantheon. That’s literally 1 picture book. And for Horus, probably 2 or 3 pages in the picture book, maybe even with very large pictures.

You don’t seem to understand our particular issue here. This “I’m not interested enough to research it myself” but willingness to accept the information of a website is a symptom of society that has led many Christians astray. Their unwillingness to seek the truth. They would rather have it spoon fed to them. And even if they receive a lie they believe it as truth, and even when knowing it is a lie they do not want to do the work of finding the truth themselves.

but, here youtube.com/watch?v=bg42JsMGsUc&feature=related

This is fairly accurate.

Did you read any of the posts following the video? One of them calls the narrator an “imbicile” and an “idiot,” stating that hieroglyphics “is where the sources supporting those claims [that the Bible pattered Jesus’ birth and life from mythology] come from.” He/she also says that the video’s narrator hasn’t done any research in kemetic history and is simply lying.
Now, I know nothing about kemetic history, in fact, I never heard the word “kemetic” until just now, which is why I’m here asking questions. The OP in the video’s post points out things I’ve also read, which makes it seem very much like the story of Jesus.

 

[EricFilmer]

Did you read any of the posts following the video? One of them calls the narrator an “imbicile” and an “idiot,” stating that hieroglyphics “is where the sources supporting those claims [that the Bible pattered Jesus’ birth and life from mythology] come from.” He/she also says that the video’s narrator hasn’t done any research in kemetic history and is simply lying.
Now, I know nothing about kemetic history, in fact, I never heard the word “kemetic” until just now, which is why I’m here asking questions. The OP in the video’s post points out things I’ve also read, which makes it seem very much like the story of Jesus.

Well, if I were to weigh in on this, I read a lot of mythology in my younger days, but I only had a passing interest in Egyptian mythology specifically. So I have to admit that I don’t know much about Egyptology. Having said that, if someone in a YouTube comment is claiming that there is a hieroglyphic saying that the mother of Horus was a virgin named Mary, all I’ve got to say is that must be one “helluva” hieroglyphic.

 

[TheQuestioner]

Did you read any of the posts following the video? One of them calls the narrator an “imbicile” and an “idiot,” stating that hieroglyphics “is where the sources supporting those claims [that the Bible pattered Jesus’ birth and life from mythology] come from.” He/she also says that the video’s narrator hasn’t done any research in kemetic history and is simply lying.
Now, I know nothing about kemetic history, in fact, I never heard the word “kemetic” until just now, which is why I’m here asking questions. The OP in the video’s post points out things I’ve also read, which makes it seem very much like the story of Jesus.

What I don’t get is that you would take the opinions of posters on the video’s seriously because they use words like “kemetic” (Kemet is another word for Egypt) but not listen to the opinion of me, someone who has read on the Egyptian pantheon for a long time and recommended the video to you to help you out.

I’ll admit i’ve been a bit short with you, and for that I am sorry. In light of our conversations things however, I would then suggest at the end of the day your best bet is to just go to the local library and take out 1 or 2 or 3 books on Mythology and read the sections on Horus. You may not find any sections comparing Horus and Jesus specifically, but all you really need to do is look at the stories surrounding Horus (i assume you know about the stories of Jesus well enough) and make comparisons. This wont be done in those books mainly because there was never any need to since there is no connection, and most of the ‘connections’ are mere fabrications. Check it out yourself.

 

[Faith1960]

I’ll admit i’ve been a bit short with you, and for that I am sorry. In light of our conversations things however, I would then suggest at the end of the day your best bet is to just go to the local library and take out 1 or 2 or 3 books on Mythology and read the sections on Horus. You may not find any sections comparing Horus and Jesus specifically, but all you really need to do is look at the stories surrounding Horus (i assume you know about the stories of Jesus well enough) and make comparisons. This wont be done in those books mainly because there was never any need to since there is no connection, and most of the ‘connections’ are mere fabrications. Check it out yourself.

You know, not everybody who comes here is a troll or here to be a pain – some, like me, are truly seeking for infomation, so thank you for your apology.
Tonight I ordered Shattering The Christ Myth, by James Patrick Holding, for starters.
After that, I’ll see if I need to read more or if that book answers addresses all these issues.

 

[Hesychios]

You know, not everybody who comes here is a troll or here to be a pain – some, like me, are truly seeking for infomation,

You have a right to good information, some of which will come from non-Catholic sources (that does not mean it will be inaccurate). If you want to be informed, good for you!

That means you will not be blindsided by anti-Christian accusations in the future, you will be well grounded in your Faith and you will be realistic about it.

Most priests do study these things (ancient mythology and philosophy as well) for precisely that reason.

 

[Faith1960]

You have a right to good information, some of which will come from non-Catholic sources (that does not mean it will be inaccurate). If you want to be informed, good for you!

That means you will not be blindsided by anti-Christian accusations in the future, you will be well grounded in your Faith and you will be realistic about it.

Most priests do study these things (ancient mythology and philosophy as well) for precisely that reason.

I asked if priests study this on the other thread and someone said he’s familiar with the curriculum and they don’t study mythology. I certainly think they should.

 

[Faith1960]

I just received my copy of Shattering the Christ Myth, Did Jesus Not Exist, by James Patrick Holding. Most of the book is over my head and, really, seems to show that there are lots of parallels between Jesus and a large number of pagan Christs.

1. Are there any books you all can recommend that are pretty basic, easy to understand and just explain definitively that the Bible has not copied anything about Jesus from mythology?
2. I know Jesus is a live historical figure, I’ve no doubt He truly walked the face of the Earth. Were any of the stories of pagan gods based on real people?