Freethought Nation

Dying and Rising Gods

Now here's a big subject that is widely and wildly debated within the world of Christian apologetics. Naturally, the goal of the apologists is simply to dismiss the fact that pre-Christian savior gods died and rose from the dead. Of course, they do this without scholarship on their side and in an attempt to remove the debate from view by merely denying the evidence.

For example, in order to deny the death and resurrection of Osiris, apologists split hairs and try to make it appear as if the concept is very different from that of Jesus Christ. It is not. It is exactly the same thing: The god dies and rises from death. The whole goal of the Egyptian mortuary/funerary literature is to allow for the deceased to rise from the dead, in a glorified body, which is virtually the same concept as found in Christianity. The idea of death and resurrection was constant in the Egyptian religion. The hundreds of millions people who followed the religion undoubtedly interpreted this death-and-resurrection in precisely the same was as the Christians do today. The denial of this major aspect of Egyptian religion is simply a form of ignorance and bigotry, frankly.

In reality, we possess thousands of Egyptian texts designed for the precise reason of allowing for the deceased - called "the Osiris" - to rise from the dead. By the time of the Coffin Texts - First Intermediate Period (2181-2041 BCE) - even non-royals were expecting to rise from the dead, in a physical but glorified body. Eventually, ALL followers of the Egyptian religion anticipated being "the Osiris" and rising from the dead - exactly as had their god before them.

Osiris's death and resurrection were undoubtedly emulated by the creators of the Christian myth. Apologetics will simply dishonestly squirm around this one, in a desperate attempt to demonstrate that Christianity is not plagiarized in large part from the Egyptian religion. As my book Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection demonstrates, the major contentions regarding Horus/Osiris as found here and in my other works are true and accurate, and can be discovered in the Egyptian primary sources, which long predate the Christian era.

In any event, we also find this concept of the dying-and-rising god in the Bible itself. At Ezekiel 8:14, we read:


Concerning this Pagan god Tammuz, for whom the Israelite women are weeping, Christian commentator Matthew Henry remarks:


Notice: "...anon rejoiced in its returning to life again." Note also the comparison of Tammuz with Adonis and Osiris. It appears obvious to this Christian commentator Henry that Osiris's death and resurrection were much the same as that of Tammuz - a return to life.

Regarding the same passage, Christian commentators Jamieson, Fausset & Brown also remark:


Note: "the disappearance of Adonis" and "the finding of Adonis."

Fast forward to the modern era, the esteemed Christian Pastor Chuck Smith comments on Ezekiel 8:14:


Now, how about that? Not only do we have a dying-and-rising savior god centuries prior to the Christian era, but it's HIS resurrection that is celebrated at "Easter," not that of Jesus!

According to the Bible, then, the Pagans and Israelites very much celebrated the death and resurrection of a god, centuries before Christianity was created!

Poor Pastor Smith is flummoxed by this parallel, as he next says, "I am not certain what the Lord thinks about that. I wonder." He then raises the issue in Ezekiel (8:16) of the Israelites worshipping the sun.


Obviously, the Israelites like their neighbors the Babylonians, Canaanites and Egyptians, were very much engaged in astrotheology.

There is much more to this story, and the blanket apologist denials from ignorance will not suffice to make it disappear.

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Acharya, your work on this particular sector of the "god myths" is, to my way of thinking, so eye-opening I cannot see how anyone could not be convinced lacking, of course, childhood brainwashing.

When I first read "The Christ Conspiracy," I was particularly taken by this facet of your work. Being a specialist in military history, I had never taken much of a look into the history of myth. Your work here is astounding and anyone with an open mind and a half-dozen working brain cells can see the truth it portends.

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All great truths begin as blasphemy

So common was the belief in resurrection that the dying-and-rising motif in Egypt serves as the basis for their religious beliefs, much as it does within Christianity. Indeed, with study it becomes evident that Christianity is a poorer rehash of the Egyptian religion, which I demonstrate quite abundantly in my book Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection.

The concept of resurrection, renewal and rebirth can be found throughout the ancient Egyptian texts, based on the myth of Osiris himself being resurrected by Horus. As such, the priest in the texts often plays the role of Horus raising the deceased, who is "the Osiris," "Osiris N" (where "N" is the name of the deceased) or just plain "Osiris."

Regarding the Pyramid Texts, Dr. Carol Andrews, Curator of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, remarks:


As Dr. James Allen states in The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, "The Pyramid Texts contain three major groups of such spells: the Offering and Insignia Rituals, the Resurrection Ritual, and the Morning Ritual." (Allen, 5.)

Allen also says, "The Resurrection Ritual served to release the ba [soul] from its attachment to the mummified body, and the personal spells gave it the means to overcome the hazards of the nightly journey to rebirth and to join the gods in the new life." (Allen, 8.)

The expectation of the ancient Egyptians was very similar to that of Christians, who believe that they will receive a spiritual or "glorified" body in order to live eternally: "Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven." (1 Cor 15:49)

As part of "The Resurrection Ritual," the priest/Horus says to the deceased/Osiris, "Ho, Unis! You have not gone away dead: you have gone away alive." (Allen, 31.) The subtitle of this spell is "Invocation to a New Life." This resurrection to a new life appears in a PRIMARY SOURCE text some 4,000 years old.

Here "Unis" is the name of the deceased king/pharaoh of this particular Pyramid Text. The ritual continues at length and is designed to revere the king/pharaoh/Osiris as an "imperishable star."

There is much more about the RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD in the Pyramid Texts, as can be seen from page 217 of Allen's book.

Here the priest/Horus exhorts the deceased/Osiris to "Stand up!" which is the terminology for rising from the dead.

Regarding the Book of the Dead, Egyptologist Dr. Ogden Goelet states:


Faulkner, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, p. 18.

Goelet also says:


Faulkner, EBD, 15.

Concerning the first chapter/spell of the Book of the Dead, Sir Peter le Page Renouf, a Keeper of the Egyptology Department at the British Museum, says in reference to "Words which bring about Resurrection and Glory," as rendered in the rubric of the chapter, "The 'raising up" or 'resurrection' here spoken of is said not only of the soul but of the body of the deceased person." (Renouf, 3.)

Chapter/spell 177 in the BD is entitled, "Chapter for raising up a spirit and causing a soul to live in the God's Domain." (Faulkner, EBD, 131.)

Chapter/spell 178 in the BD is entitled, "Chapter for raising the corpse..." (Faulkner, EBD, 131.)

Regarding his translation of the Book of the Dead, Sir Dr. E.A. Wallis Budge relates that his work is an attempt "to illustrate from native Egyptian sources the religious views of the wonderful people who more than five thousand years ago proclaimed the resurrection of a spiritual body and the immortality of the soul." (Budge, EBD, vi.)

In a section entitled, "Persistence of the legend of Osiris and the belief in the resurrection," Budge remarks that "we find that the doctrine of eternal life and of the resurrection of a glorified or transformed body, based upon the ancient story of Osiris after a cruel death and horrible mutilation, inflicted by the powers of evil, was the same in all periods..." (Budge, EBD, xlviii.)

Budge also says that "in texts of all periods, the life, sufferings, death and resurrection of Osiris are accepted as facts universally admitted." (Budge, EBD, xlix.)

Osiris's resurrection represents the hope for the same fate for the deceased, and he is thus called "Lord of Resurrection," "Lord of Resurrections" and "the god of the resurrection." (Budge, EBD, liv.)

Concerning the example of Osiris's resurrection, Budge also says:


Budge, EBD, lviii-lix

The Egyptian religion was every bit as profound and spiritual as Christianity - in fact, far more so, as Christianity represents a watered-down form designed to appeal to the masses at large.

By the time of Christianity was created, some one half a BILLION Egyptians had been mummified, presumably many of them receiving the last rites using the many, ubiquitous spells and hymns from the Pyramid Texts, Book of the Dead and Coffin Texts designed to resurrect the deceased into eternal life.

We are thus talking about hundreds of millions of Osirises raised from the dead. Again, the denial of this massive religious history of Egypt constitutes ignorance and cultural bigotry.

[Added 6/29/2012]

As concerns the hairsplitting apology that attempts to differentiate Osiris from Jesus because Osiris's resurrection took place in the underworld, and he did not return to Earth, the mythological fact is that Osiris most assuredly does return to the land of the living, on a regular basis in precisely the same manner as Jesus allegedly "visits" people to this day, both in visions and, on occasion, it is claimed, in the flesh. Indeed, in Plutarch (De Iside 19) we learn that after his death Osiris instructs his son, Horus, on how to destroy his murderer, Seth:


The original Greek is:


The Greek word here for "other world" is Ἅιδου or Hades, the land of the dead from which a number of other heroes were said to have emerged back into "real life." We can name Orpheus and Persephone, among others, who emerged or rose from the underworld/Hades. In Christian tradition too, Jesus is said to descend into HADES before reemerging into the "real world" to train his disciples for spiritual battle. (See the Apocryphon of John and Gospel of Nicodemus) Like these figures, Jesus brings others out of the underworld as well.

Since this story constitutes myth, not "history," it is irrelevant whether or not Osiris "really" came from the other world and whether or not it was "only" in a vision or in the flesh. The bottom line is that Osiris, once dead, is alive again, that he contacts humanity from the "Great Beyond" or heaven and that he emerges from Hades, precisely as in Christian tradition concerning Jesus. The "Jesus Christ" character of the New Testament is significantly Osiris Judaized. This sort of priestcraft has happened continually since time immemorial and is not difficult to fathom when examining the ancient myths of other cultures.

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Notice Achrya still has failed to produce PRIMARY SOURCE EVIDENCE for her claims before AD 150. She can claim all she wants. Produce the evidence!

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And every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist [1 John 4:3]

Dates of Ancient Egyptian Texts

In their ignorance of history, Christian apologists appear to be oblivious to the obvious fact that the ancient Egyptian texts predate the common era by hundreds to thousands of years. Note that I start this thread with a discussion of the BIBLICAL passage regarding Tammuz. The Old Testament both predates the common era and is considered a "primary source." Naturally, those who have not studied the subject will continue to repeat falsehoods denying these pre-Christian primary source texts.

Pyramid Texts - c. 2000 BCE at the latest
Coffin Texts - c. 2000 BCE
Book of the Dead - c. 1600 BCE

In these voluminous texts, which number over 1,000 chapters, spells or hymns, appears continual talk about RESURRECTION from the dead, as we can see from my previous post - in which I quote PRIMARY SOURCES from 4,000 years ago. I even linked to the original text so that others can read it. The translation of the Pyramid Texts, for example, is by one of the most respected Egyptologists of all time, Dr. James P. Allen.

Notice how this post - and the thousands of other pages I have produced on the same subject - has been completely ignored by the desperate Christian apologist. And that is the only way that such individuals can operate: To ignore every bit of evidence and to keep repeating the same falsehoods. We also note how the apologist does not know my work to be making such entirely erroneous claims about it.

As we can see from this example, Christian apologists do not even read the responses to their robotic requests but plow along as if no response was forthcoming. Obviously, we can see the dishonesty and shamelessness here - a prime example, in fact, as it is quite evident this person did not even read the posts in this thread before making erroneous remarks. This person provides a perfect example demonstrated all over the internet of the fallacies and inability to examine the evidence demonstrated as it is provided. He has not read what I provided but merely repeated the same falsehoods.

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Here is an illustration of the very ancient myth of Horus raising Osiris from the dead. This illoe is from Budge's OSIRIS AND THE EGYPTIAN RESURRECTION, II, p. 83.



Here is another ancient Egyptian image of Horus raising Osiris from the dead, this time from Rev. Dr. J.P. Lundy's Monumental Christianity, p. 403.

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

I've got to get my hands on those texts. sigh. I do have the Book of the Dead waiting for me to buy on Amazon. However, now is not a good time to snag it. Too many things that are more stressing at this time. Of course, if the economy starts to suck anymore than what it is now, I don't think anyone is going to be getting non-necessities for a while. Even my Trek collection has ceased to populate.

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Mriana

Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man. ~ Gandhi

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. ~ Thomas A. Edison

TND Mettinger is not even a Christian. Obviously you have not read his book "THE RIDDLE OF RESURRECTION," where he states that it is the consensus of scholars today, nearly universal, that there were no dying and rising god's that preceeded Christianity. They all post date the first century.

No one disputes the antiquity of Egyptian texts. What we dispute is the claim that there are any primary sources before Christ showing a dying and rising god in those texts.

Show us a passage in Scripture (chapter and verse) that shows Tammuz dying and rising.


Yes, but none of those sources have dying and rising god's.


Show us just one primary source text and quote of a dying and resurrected god that pre-dates the Christian era.


The original text says nothing about a dying and rising god.


The fact of the matter is that you don't know anything about me. You don't know what I have or have not read. If you think your case is so powerful, why not make money and take the Zeitgeist challenge at Zeitgeist.com?


No, actually the opposite is true. It's that I DID read your comments but I didn't see any primary sources. You still have an opportunity to produce just one.

As I said before, the first account of a dying and rising god that somewhat parallels Christ, dates to about A.D. 150 (Adonis). The next is 3rd century A.D. (Attis).

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And every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist [1 John 4:3]

What does this text date to? It dates to the late second century A.D.

Osiris never died.

"Osiris knew no resurrection, but was resusitated to be a ruler of the netherworld." [See Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Mystery Religions, p. 261].

French scholar Ronald de Vaux, was director of the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem. He said Osiris:

"Will never come again among the living and will reign over the dead." [Vaux, The Bible and the Ancient Near East, p. 236].

Dr. TND Mettinger is a senior Swedish scholar, professor at Lund University and a member of the Royal Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities of Stockholm. He stated:

"Osiris was zombified, not resurrected. And he is the status of god of the netherworld -- a gloomy, shadowy place of semi-consciousness. [ Metttinger, The Riddle of Resurrrection].

The evidence of Osiris resucitation -- not resurrection -- date to prior to the middle of the late 2nd century AD. [see Habermas, Replies to Evan Fales: The Appearances of Jesus, Philosophia Christi, Series 2, 3.1 (2001), 79].

EDIWN YAMAUCHI'S CREDENTIALS

Knows 22 languages, including Akkadian, Aramaic, Greek, Hebrew, Chinese, Comanche, Coptic, Egyptian, Mandaic, Syriac, and Ugaritic.

He has received eight fellowships from Brandeis, Rutgers, and elsewhere; delivered eighty-eight papers on Mithraism, Gnosticism and other topics at scholarly societies; published nearly 200 articles and reviews in professional journals, lectured at more than a hundred colleges and universities, including Cornell, Princeton, Temple, Yale, and the University of Chicago; and participated in archaeological expiditions, including the first excavation of the Herodian temple in Jerusalem. He has been called "a scholars, scholar." He hold's a Ph.D. in Mediteranean Studies from Brandeis University.

Read his book "Persia and the Bible."

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And every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist [1 John 4:3]

Achrya, have you seen this Youtube response to your response?

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmUGPbNkFeU)

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And every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist [1 John 4:3]

Where are you getting your dates? They are simply not accurate. Attis was definitely BCE not CE and Adonis was also BCE. Adonis cult was long about 600 BCE

I hate using Wickedpedia, but for I will since it so late and I should be sleeping...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adonis

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Mriana

Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man. ~ Gandhi

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. ~ Thomas A. Edison

GreekOrthodoxy,

Is your only tactic here to DENY & LIE? You rigidly adhere to repeating outdated and false apologist arguments while you've never studied these issues for yourself.

I asked this question of you in the other thread and you skirted around it - I'll ask again.

What other languages do you speak, read and/or write? What are you going to do with an ancient Egyptian hieroglyph from 4,000 years ago? What credentials do you have? What formal training do you have in this area of expertise? Are you a biblical scholar? An archaeologist? A Preacher or what? Where are you coming from beyond just age-old tiresome Christian apologetics?

You're going to have to be honest & sincere here. Why couldn't you answer such a basic question about yourself? What are you trying to hide?

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2013 Astrotheology Calendar
The Mythicist Position
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
Stellar House Publishing at Youtube

You're wasting your time, Mriana. This guy didn't read Acharya's writings, and he just keeps repeating the same LIES.


What text? You don't even know where that image came from, but you just make up a date.

Osiris "never died?" Where are YOUR primary sources to prove this ridiculous lie? As people who've actually read Acharya's posts above can see, you are just repeating absurd hair-splitting arguments that are false. Who do you think you're kidding?


Acharya thoroughly addressed this debate in her posts above, where she posted information about the Egyptian RESURRECTION, both spiritual and physical. You are lying about having read her posts - that is obvious.


That's not accurate, as we can see from Acharya's long posts above. Again, where are YOUR PRIMARY SOURCES to make this assertion about "a gloomy, shadowy place of semi-consciousness?" That's just this guy's OPINION, and it's not based on the Egyptian texts.


Osiris is hacked into pieces - you mean he wasn't dead? What nonsense. Again, where are YOUR primary sources that state Osiris was "resucitated" not resurrected?


That's nice for him. But he's a biased Christian who isn't looking at the data clearly. And if he's like you, he isn't even looking at the data at all - hes just denying it and lying about knowing it.

Read Acharya's books The Christ Conspiracy, Suns of God, Who Was Jesus? and Christ in Egypt.

I won't be holding my breath.

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2013 Astrotheology Calendar
The Mythicist Position
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
Stellar House Publishing at Youtube

Why do you keep spelling Acharya's name wrong? You can't even get that detail right, when it's right in front of you.

Yes, she's seen it, and she's refuted it - she refuted their nonsense before they even made these "challenges" - her books that came out *BEFORE* the Zeitgeist movie was ever made refutes their videos. But they, like you, know nothing about Acharya's work.

And, if the ZG Challenge kids are so confident why can't they come up with some *REAL MONEY* for their challenge? Why a mere $100 at first and then only later $250 - why not at LEAST $10,000 - if they're so confident why not get the church involved to put up $100,000 or $1,000,000? Surely all Christians would be up for such a challenge, RIGHT???

They don't do this because they can't meet their own requirements of proof - they themselves can't provide any valid primary source evidence for even a historical Jesus, let alone the biblical Jesus who was the son of god who did and said all of those things the bible claims. You can't get more hypocritical than that - they couldn't meet a Jesus Challenge if their life depended on it.

Oh, and it's obvious that they are like you - in fact, I wonder if you aren't one of them - and they will just ignore everything she brings up and keep repeating the same lies.

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2013 Astrotheology Calendar
The Mythicist Position
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
Stellar House Publishing at Youtube

Osiris, the Dying and Rising Savior God

"Osiris never died."

According to professor of Classics and Egyptology Dr. John Gwyn Griffiths:


In the Pyramid Texts and elsewhere, we find this phrase "lying on his side," which refers to someone who is dead. We also find the phrase "Stand up!," usually said by the Horus-priest attempting to resurrect the deceased Osiris-King.

As Dr. Claas Jouco Bleeker, a professor of Religious History at the University of Amsterdam, says:


Egyptologist Dr. Samuel Mercer's rendering of Pyramid Text Pyr. 1339a is:


Dr. James P. Allen translates the same utterance (P 492) thus:


"Pepi" is the name of the deceased in this particular Pyramid Text, who takes the role of Osiris for the precise reason that Osiris died and was resurrected.

At Pyramid Text 606:1683a-1685b/M 336, Horus is vividly described as raising Osiris from the dead and avenging him:


The Osiris-King is also vividly resurrected by Horus at PT 662:1878a-1879b:


Death and resurrection is an ongoing theme throughout the funerary/mortuary literature. The expected resurrection of the deceased is essentially the entire purpose of the funerary/mortuary literature, which consists of well over 1,000 chapters, spells, hymns and prayers.

The Coffin Texts - obviously named because they deal with DEAD PEOPLE - consist of some 1185 spells, most of which are designed to raise the Osiris-King from the dead. The speaker in the Coffin Texts is often the priest, representing Horus.

All of these FACTS are clearly laid out in the ancient Egyptian texts, for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

The rest of these fallacious contentions can be readily dealt with in the same way, as I have been doing for years now.

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it: