How do you explain the similarities between the Egyptian god Horus and Jesus. Horus suffered the same tribulations. It could be said that the jesus story was plagiarized.


Apparently you have been reading the claim that the Christian Jesus is a myth, borrowed from various Greek, Egyptian or Persian gods.   This well-worn claim is completely bogus.  It is based on a pre-conceived notion and it falls apart when one looks at the claims carefully.

The idea that the Jewish Christian movement would borrow its description of Jesus of Nazareth from an Egyptian pagan myth is absurd on its very face.  Can anyone believe that Jewish Christians would borrow their theology from ancient pagan worship?   Even if one can accept this idea as being reasonable (I certainly do not), the facts of the case do not work at all, unless one rather blatantly cherry-picks and does not actually look at the Egyptian beliefs about Horus.  To give you a feeling for the Egyptian myth about Horus, here is a description of that myth as taken from Wikipedia (obviously, this is not the last word, but it can at least be a starting point):

Horus was born to the goddess Isis after she retrieved all the dismembered body parts of her murdered husband Osiris, except his penis which was thrown into the Nile and eaten by a catfish, or sometimes by a crab, and according to Plutarch’s account (see Osiris) used her magic powers to resurrect Osiris and fashion a golden phallus to conceive her son (older Egyptian accounts have the penis of Osiris surviving).   Once Isis knew she was pregnant with Horus, she fled to the Nile Delta marshlands to hide from her brother Set who jealously killed Osiris and who she knew would want to kill their son. There Isis bore a divine son, Horus.   Since Horus was said to be the sky, he was considered to also contain the sun and moon.  It became said that the sun was his right eye and the moon his left, and that they traversed the sky when he, a falcon, flew across it. Later, the reason that the moon was not as bright as the sun was explained by a tale, known as the The Contendings of Horus and Seth. In this tale, it was said that Set, the patron of Upper Egypt, and Horus, the patron of Lower Egypt, had battled for Egypt brutally, with neither side victorious, until eventually the gods sided with Horus.  As Horus was the ultimate victor he became known as Harsiesis, Heru-ur or Har-Wer (ḥr.w wr ‘Horus the Great’), but more usually translated as Horus the Elder. In the struggle Set had lost a testicle, explaining why the desert, which Set represented, is infertile. Horus’ left eye had also been gouged out, then a new eye was created by part of Khonsu, the moon god, and was replaced.  Horus represented the eclipsing binary Algol in the Calendar of Lucky and Unlucky Days of papyrus Cairo 86637.   Horus was occasionally shown in art as a naked boy with a finger in his mouth sitting on a lotus with his mother. In the form of a youth, Horus was referred to as Neferhor. This is also spelled Nefer Hor, Nephoros or Nopheros (nfr ḥr.w) meaning ‘The Good Horus’.   The Eye of Horus is an ancient Egyptian symbol of protection and royal power from deities, in this case from Horus or Ra. The symbol is seen on images of Horus’ mother, Isis, and on other deities associated with her.  In the Egyptian language, the word for this symbol was “Wedjat”. It was the eye of one of the earliest of Egyptian deities, Wadjet, who later became associated with Bast, Mut, and Hathor as well. Wedjat was a solar deity and this symbol began as her eye, an all seeing eye. In early artwork, Hathor is also depicted with this eye. Funerary amulets were often made in the shape of the Eye of Horus. The Wedjat or Eye of Horus is “the central element” of seven “gold, faience, carnelian and lapis lazuli” bracelets found on the mummy of Shoshenq II. The Wedjat “was intended to protect the king [here] in the afterlife” and to ward off evil. Ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern sailors would frequently paint the symbol on the bow of their vessel to ensure safe sea travel.  Horus was also said to be a god of war and hunting. The Horus falcon is shown upon a standard on the predynastic Hunters Palette in the “lion hunt”.   Thus he became a symbol of majesty and power as well as the model of the pharaohs. The Pharaohs were said to be Horus in human form.   Furthermore, Nemty, another war god, was later identified as Horus.   Horus was told by his mother, Isis, to protect the people of Egypt from Set, the god of the desert, who had killed his father Osiris.  Horus had many battles with Set, not only to avenge his father, but to choose the rightful ruler of Egypt. In these battles, Horus came to be associated with Lower Egypt, and became its patron.  According to Papyrus Chester-Beatty I, Set is depicted as trying to prove his dominance by seducing Horus and then having intercourse with him. However, Horus places his hand between his thighs and catches Set’s semen, then subsequently throws it in the river, so that he may not be said to have been inseminated by Set. Horus then deliberately spreads his own semen on some lettuce, which was Set’s favorite food. After Set had eaten the lettuce, they went to the gods to try to settle the argument over the rule of Egypt. The gods first listened to Set’s claim of dominance over Horus, and call his semen forth, but it answered from the river, invalidating his claim. Then, the gods listened to Horus’ claim of having dominated Set, and call his semen forth, and it answered from inside Set.    However, Set still refused to relent, and the other gods were getting tired from over eighty years of fighting and challenges. Horus and Set challenged each other to a boat race, where they each raced in a boat made of stone. Horus and Set agreed, and the race started. But Horus had an edge: his boat was made of wood painted to resemble stone, rather than true stone. Set’s boat, being made of heavy stone, sank, but Horus’s did not. Horus then won the race, and Set stepped down and officially gave Horus the throne of Egypt. But after the New Kingdom, Set still was considered Lord of the desert and its oases.  In many versions of the story, Horus and Set divide the realm between them. This division can be equated with any of several fundamental dualities that the Egyptians saw in their world. Horus may receive the fertile lands around the Nile, the core of Egyptian civilization, in which case Set takes the barren desert or the foreign lands that are associated with it; Horus may rule the earth while Set dwells in the sky; and each god may take one of the two traditional halves of the country, Upper and Lower Egypt, in which case either god may be connected with either region. Yet in the Memphite Theology, Geb, as judge, first apportions the realm between the claimants and then reverses himself, awarding sole control to Horus. In this peaceable union, Horus and Set are reconciled, and the dualities that they represent have been resolved into a united whole. Through this resolution, order is restored after the tumultuous conflict.  Egyptologists have often tried to connect the conflict between the two gods with political events early in Egypt’s history or prehistory. The cases in which the combatants divide the kingdom, and the frequent association of the paired Horus and Set with the union of Upper and Lower Egypt, suggest that the two deities represent some kind of division within the country. Egyptian tradition and archaeological evidence indicate that Egypt was united at the beginning of its history when an Upper Egyptian kingdom, in the south, conquered Lower Egypt in the north. The Upper Egyptian rulers called themselves “followers of Horus”, and Horus became the patron god of the unified nation and its kings. Yet Horus and Set cannot be easily equated with the two halves of the country. Both deities had several cult centers in each region, and Horus is often associated with Lower Egypt and Set with Upper Egypt. Other events may have also affected the myth. Before even Upper Egypt had a single ruler, two of its major cities were Nekhen, in the far south, and Naqada, many miles to the north. The rulers of Nekhen, where Horus was the patron deity, are generally believed to have unified Upper Egypt, including Naqada, under their sway. Set was associated with Naqada, so it is possible that the divine conflict dimly reflects an enmity between the cities in the distant past. Much later, at the end of the Second Dynasty (c. 2890–2686 BCE), King Peribsen used the Set animal in writing his serekh-name, in place of the traditional falcon hieroglyph representing Horus. His successor Khasekhemwy used both Horus and Set in the writing of his serekh. This evidence has prompted conjecture that the Second Dynasty saw a clash between the followers of the Horus-king and the worshippers of Set led by Peribsen. Khasekhemwy’s use of the two animal symbols would then represent the reconciliation of the two factions, as does the resolution of the myth.

If we go through this entire account, we might be able to find one or two small bits that can be seen to have some sort of parallel to what Christians say about Jesus.  But this would only work if the little bit was taken completely out of context. In any ancient myth, if we read enough pages, we will find something which, taken out of context, could be at least somewhat similar to the Christian idea of Jesus.  For example, one thing said above is that “The Pharaohs were said to be Horus in human form.”  OK, I suppose that is like the Christian “myth” of Jesus, because he is God who took a human form.  But is this really evidence that Matthew or Luke or John read an Egyptian account of Horus and used that as the basis for claiming that Jesus was God-made-flesh?  Really?  Can any rational person actually believe this?  Nearly all ancient cultures have some sort of god/man myth.  This appears to be an unconscious human expectation–that God will come down to earth to make himself known.  This does not mean that Christians borrowed the idea from myths about Krishna or Mithra or Osiris.

Where did this idea come from that Jesus in fact never claimed deity, that his resurrection is a fictionalized account, stolen from the Greek myth of Osiris, etc…?  It comes from atheists who reject the very idea of there being a God and who have no interest in actually reading the Bible and looking at history and asking what is reasonable implied by the facts of history.  They assume that the resurrection could not possibly have happened.  The result, naturally, is that they conclude that it in fact did not happen, and therefore look for another explanation of where the idea came from.   Even if we accept the outrageous idea that the early Christians made up the crucifixion or the resurrection of Jesus or the fact that he claimed deity, the idea that Jewish Christians would have borrowed their conspiracy from pagan Egyptian sources is really quite ludicrous.

So, what are these supposed parallels between Horus and Jesus which were incorporated into the gospels?  Let us look at one of their web sites.

Claim: Horus was conceived by a virgin mother named Meri, and had a stepfather named Seb (Joseph)

This is an outright fabrication.  Evidence from Egyptian inscriptions and bas-relief sculptures is that the common idea of Horus is that he was the son of Isis, not Meri.  Isis was no virgin in Egyptian myth!  This is a complete fabrication.  The myth is that Isis hovered over an erect phallus of Osiris and Horus was conceived.  This is the source of the virgin birth of Jesus from Mary?  Hmmm…..   Seb is in the Horus myth, but not as the father of Horus.

Claim: Horus was born in a cave, his birth announced by an angel, heralded by a star and attended by shepherds.

Again, this is a complete fabrication.  There is not a single Egyptian source which supports these claims, yet the Jesus myth people quote one another on this time and again.  Horus was born in a swamp, according to the myth, not in a cave, and there were no angels present at his birth.

Besides, Horus obviously was not a real person.  He has no history.   We cannot give a date for when he was here on the earth because he was never here.  He has no earthly descendants.  He was not born in any particular real city.  Horus is a myth, and absolutely nothing about Jesus was derived from Horis.  We need to learn to be more skeptical about such nonsense.

Jesus was a real person.  We know where he was born and we know where he was raised.  We know the names of his mother, his father, two of his brothers and a number of his closest friends.  Both Christian and non-Christian sources inform us about Jesus, where he lived and how he died.  The New Testament writers got their “story” of Jesus’ suffering because he actually suffered, as recorded by the Jewish historian Josephus.  Jesus is not a myth.  His resurrection was believed by his followers in the immediate time and place where we know he was killed.  Even if we reject the reality of the resurrection, we know that his immediate followers actually believed in the resurrection.  This is historical fact.  The idea that they created this belief out or whole cloth from an Egyptian myth is so fantastically unbelievable that one wonders how anyone can be duped into this idea.  Only dyed-in-the-wool atheists who are so set in their preconceptions can be fooled by this, but even rational atheists obviously do not accept this, as it is truly ridiculous.

So, you should not be intimidated by these claims that the Jesus story is stolen from Horus.  It does not stand up in the least in the light of any fair analysis.

John Oakes


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