[Editor’s Note: It was my intent to have a reply ready before posting this, but I’ve found myself putting it off due to a busy weekend so I’m going to go ahead and post it as is. I’ll address it properly in the comments as soon as I have the opportunity though I’m sure there are several regulars who will probably be more than capable of addressing it first.]
I’ve heard repeated here several times that Horus, an Egyptian god, is carbon copy of Jesus. The obvious implication by those that have made this statement is that Jesus is a copycat version of an earlier Egyptian deity. The purpose of this entry is to disembowel that proposition once and for all.
When I first heard that Horus was the inspiration for Jesus several years ago, I didn’t give it much credence because I couldn’t establish any source material for the claims. I still can’t, but the internet is as adept at allowing anybody and everybody to pass on misinformation.
Upon further research, I’ve concluded that this theory originated with Gerald Massey, an English poet, born 1828, died 1927. He published primarily poems, but had an interest in Egypt. He parlayed that interest in Egypt into several books and lectures in which he set forth the proposition that Horus was in essence the first Jesus, and Jesus was a cheap imitation. The primary basis for his writing is the Egyptian Book of the Dead. This is available on-line and you can easily look it up to read it yourself. Be forewarned that forced reading of this would be an extremely efficient form of torture.
It should be noted that Massey’s actual proposition was that Jesus was a copycat from more than just Horus. According to Massey, Jesus was a compilation of an innumerable number of Egyptian deities. There were over 2,000 deities who had every human and godlike characteristic one can think of, excepting Superman’s power to stop a speeding bullet.
Since Massey, there is a dearth of anybody with any credentials that has adopted a straight Horus=Jesus theory. There is a one individual that has adopted some of Massey’s thoughts and incorporated them into a book-The Christ Conspiracy. This appears to be the basis for the claims that I see. The author is Acharya S. Her website is http://www.truthbeknown.com I note that Richard Price, a noted Christ Myther, and one that I take much more seriously then Acharya, said the following:
“Those of use who uphold any version of the controversial Christ Myth theory find ourselves immediately the object not just of criticism, but even of ridicule. And it causes us chagrin to be lumped together with certain writers with whom we share the Christ Myth butt little else…..
His other criticism, like mine, is that she uses very dated sources (19th Century) who were in Price’s words “eccentrics, freethinkers, and theosophists.“
Les, I am using your post from 1/3/05 as an example of the claims because you carry more credibility than most. That said here are the claims and what I have found:
Claim #1-Horus and Jesus are born from a virgin.
Horus’s mother is Isis. Isis was married to Osiris. We do not know for what length of time, but presumably the marriage was consummated. Whether it was or wasn’t doesn’t matter though. After Osiris is killed, Isis puts him back together again (he was hacked into 14 pieces) except for his penis which was tossed in a river or a lake. Iris fashions a substitute penis for him, humps him and here comes Horus. There is nothing virginal about that.
Claim #2-Both Horus and Jesus were born to a Mary and Joseph. (Seb)
As noted Isis is Horus’s mother’s name not Mary. In addition, Seb is not Horus’s father, Osiris is. Seb is Osiris’s father. Further, Seb is a distinct name from Joseph. Putting them side by side does not make them synonyms, and that appears to be what was done here.
Claim #3-Both were born of royal descent.
This is accurate.
Claim #4-Both births were announced by angels and witnessed by shepherds.
I can find nothing that mentions that the birth of Horus was announced by an angel or witnessed by shepherds. I have found that Horus was born in a swamp, which is a pretty unlikely place for shepherds. In addition Acharya mentions that Horus was born in a cave. Massey makes no mention of this, although he does represent that Mithra was born in a cave.
Claim #5-Both were heralded by stars and angels.
There is no star that heralded Horus’s birth nor is there any angel announcing it. Archarya in a footnote in The Origins of Christianity indicates that that there are three stars named the three kings in Orion and then relates this to the birth of Jesus. When we look to the stories regarding Horus, we find no star or angel announcing his birth. To the extent that Acharya S relies upon Massey and Massey relies upon what is depicted in the panels at Luxor see (from an atheist) further regarding virgin birth and pronouncement by angels http://www.frontline-apologetics.com/carrier_luxor_inscription.htm
Claim #6-Both had later visitors (Horus-3 deities and Jesus-3 wisemen.)
There is no indication that there ever were 3 wisemen. The bible never mentions the number of wisemen, nor is there any document that reflects 3 deities at the birth of Horus. See the website referenced in Claim #5.
Claim #7-Both had murder plots against them.
There is mention that Seth did want to kill Horus, and Herod wanted to kill Jesus. so this is accurate.
Claim#8-Both came of age at 12, were baptized and their baptizers were executed.
There is no indication that Horus was preaching in a temple when he was 12. In fact, Massey indicates that Hours the child was depicted as a “weakling.” That doesn’t jive with story of Jesus preaching in the temple. Again this appears to have been a confabulation from Acharya and repeated by others.
Horus was never baptized in any of the Horus stories. In addition, Acharya mentions that John the Baptist is actually Anup the Baptizer. This individual is never mentioned anywhere in any Horus account. There is not even a footnote in Archaya’s on-line work The Origins of Christianity to support this. There is nothing.
Claim #9-Both had 12 disciples.
According to the Horus accounts, Horus had four semi-gods that were followers. There is some indication of 16 human followers and an unknown number of blacksmiths that went into battle with him. Horus did not have 12 disciples. Jesus reportedly did. Acharya failed to give a footnote to support this.
Massey points to a mural in the Book of Hades in which there are twelve reapers. Horus is not present in this scene. For Massey to make this connection he goes to a different scene within the same mural. In this scene there is a picture of a god whose name is the Master of Joy. Horus is never depicted although in other murals the artists do depict Horus. Had the artists ascribed 12 reapers in any relation to Horus all they had to do was put Horus at the scene. They did not.
Claim #10-Both walked on water.
Horus didn’t, or at least there is no record that I can find that he did. Massey does not maintain that Hours did. Massey uses wild conjecture to connect the story of fish man, Oannes, not Horus, to Jesus. Oannes came out of the sea during the day, and went back into the sea at night. Massey makes the two analogous because by his calculations, Jesus walked on water during the day.
As to Acharya, she as usual provides nothing to substantiate this.
Claim #11-Both performed miracles.
This is true although the miracles were different in scope and nature.
Claim #12 Both exorcised demons and raised Lazarus.
The actual claim is that Horus raised Osiris from the dead and that the name Osiris morphed to Lazarus. It doesn’t matter because Horus did not bring Osiris back to life. There is no mention of this in any document regarding the story. Horus did avenge Osiris’s death, but that did not raise Osiris from the dead.
Claim #13-Both held a Sermon on the Mount; both were transfigured on a mountain, died by crucifixion along with two thieves and were buried in tombs where they paid a quick visit to Hell and then rose from the dead after 3 days time, both resurrections were witness by women, and both will supposedly reign for 1,000 years in the Millennium.
These are the most damning claims if they were proven true in my opinion. Yet, I can locate none of this. No sermon, no transfiguration, certainly no crucifixion w/ two thieves, no trip to hell and no resurrection. There was an incident in which Horus was torn to pieces and Iris requested the crocodile god to fish him out of the water he was tossed into, which was done, but that’s it. I am at a loss to refute this because I can not find anything to support it.
Massey does compares a story about the Autumn Equinox related to Osiris, not Horus, as the symbolic crucifixion. There is no indication that Horus is involved in any way. There is no mention by Massey of any Sermon on the Mount. No mention or any actual crucifixion, no two thieves, no burial in a tomb. Massey does not maintain that anything of the sort occurred with Horus.
In short, of the claims outlined in this entry, I find the comparison between Horus and Jesus to consist of the following: they were of royal descent, they allegedly worked miracles and there were murder plots against them.
Posted on 01/27/2008 at 09:21 AM 
Posted on 01/28/2008 at 07:08 PM 
Turns out I was right, all these True Believers are the same. I loved how he goes on to use a lot of false quotes to try and prove his point. For example:
Napoleon, another misspelling on Hamish’s part, never said that. Paul F Boller in his book They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions
sets the record straight:
The Jesus-is-not-a-man statement, which Napoleon is supposed to have made to General H.G. Bertrand during his exile on St. Helena, 1815-21, has appeared for years in various forms in books of spiritual uplift, but is almost certainly apocryphal. The Frenchman who reported it, according to biographer Vincent Cronin, never even met the Great Conqueror. Napoleon did, indeed, believe in God and in an afterlife; he also thought morality rested on religion and retained a sentimental attachment to the Catholic faith in which he had been reared. But he “considered Christ merely a man,“ according to Cronin, and thought of the Gospels as “beautiful parables.“ Once, in a conversation about religion in 1817, he declared: “If I had to have a religion, I should adore the sun, for it is the sun that fertilizes everything; it is the true god of the earth.“
On to the next one…
As near as I can determine, Churchill never said anything like the above. It’s quite doubtful he would say such a thing considering that, according to the Churchill Centre which would likely know best, he was most likely an “optimistic agnostic” and was never devout. He once wrote of himself that he was “not a pillar of the Church but more of a flying buttress—I support it from the outside.“
Yeah, he was shot by a firing squad along with his mistress and most of the people on the train he was fleeing on by “Colonel Valerio.“ Seems to me there’s absolutely nothing divine about that form of death. People get shot all the time. Doesn’t take God for that to happen.
Ah, the classic Darwin quote taken out of context and mined—it’s two separate quotes from two different chapters—for something that sounds like an admission that the theory falls flat. Which, when taken in context, we can see is not what Darwin said at all. Let’s start with the first part and then proceed to the second:
But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? It will be more convenient to discuss this question in the chapter on the Imperfection of the Geological Record; and I will here only state that I believe the answer mainly lies in the record being incomparably less perfect than is generally supposed. The crust of the earth is a vast museum; but the natural collections have been imperfectly made, and only at long intervals of time.
As we can see, Darwin was setting things up for the chapter in which he discusses objections to the theory and has already given us a hint as to what the answer might be.
The second part of the quote comes from the explanation itself, which is quite lengthy:
By the theory of natural selection all living species have been connected with the parent-species of each genus, by differences not greater than we see between the natural and domestic varieties of the same species at the present day; and these parent-species, now generally extinct, have in their turn been similarly connected with more ancient forms; and so on backwards, always converging to the common ancestor of each great class. So that the number of intermediate and transitional links, between all living and extinct species, must have been inconceivably great. But assuredly, if this theory be true, such have lived upon the earth.
The rest of the Chapter 10 goes on to give the explanation in full and is summarized in the following quotation:
These causes [the imperfection of the fossil record, the limited exploration of the record, poor fossilization of certain body types, etc.], taken conjointly, will to a large extent explain why—though we do find many links—we do not find interminable varieties, connecting together all extinct and existing forms by the finest graduated steps. It should also be constantly borne in mind that any linking variety between two forms, which might be found, would be ranked, unless the whole chain could be perfectly restored, as a new and distinct species; for it is not pretended that we have any sure criterion by which species and varieties can be discriminated.
It’s clear from all of the above that Darwin was thinking very hard on his theory and what possible objections might be raised about it and had some sound answers to said objections. Answers that have largely been borne out over the years.
Hamish once again demonstrates his ignorance as he’s clearly cut and pasting from Creationist websites and hasn’t actually read the material he’s using as proofs.
It’s ironic that you should choose to use Thomas Edison’s quotes as an argument in your favor considering that Thomas Edison was an atheist:
“I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God.“—Thomas Edison, Columbian Magazine “I cannot believe in the immortality of the soul…. No, all this talk of an existence for us, as individuals, beyond the grave is wrong. It is born of our tenacity of life—our desire to go on living—our dread of coming to an end.“—Thomas Edison, interview in The New York Times (October 2, 1910)
Above and beyond the irony involved, the fact that Edison said we don’t know much about anything doesn’t in any way, shape, or form lead credence to your assertion that there is a God. If anything it’s an argument against it for your assertion is a claim of knowledge of God’s existence.
Again the quote has little to support your argument—it’s more an indictment of man than an argument for God—and it’s yet another ironic choice as George Bernard Shaw considered himself an atheist for the first 30 or so years of his life. Then, in the 1890’s, he renounced atheism and declared himself a… wait for it… mystic. Not finding much to like about the traditional Christian religions, Shaw decided to begin spreading what he called “the Gospel of Shawianity.”
In Shawianity, God was a work in progress, not a fait accompli. In a 1909 letter to Leo Tolstoy, Shaw explained: “To me God does not yet exist; but there is a creative force struggling to evolve an executive organ of godlike knowledge and power; that is, to achieve omnipotence and omniscience; and every man and woman born is a fresh attempt to achieve this object. We are here to help God, to do his work, to remedy his whole errors, to strive towards Godhead ourselves. ” In its odyssey to achieve fruition, the life force would create ever-higher forms of humanity—supermen, super-supermen, supermen to the third power: “When one instrument is worn out, I will make another, and another, and another, always more and more intelligent and effective.” Shaw fused the life force with the instrument. In “The New Theology,” he prepped his audience: “When you are asked, ‘Where is God? Who is God?’ stand up and say, ‘I am God and here is God, not as yet completed, but sill advancing towards completion, just in so much as I am working for the purpose of the universe, working for the good of the whole society and the whole world, instead of merely looking after my personal ends.’” God “would provide himself with a perfectly fashioned and trustworthy instrument. And such an instrument would be nothing less than God himself.”
Not exactly the sort of person you’d be likely to call a True Christian.
John Adams did write something along those lines to Thomas Jefferson, he was a Unitarian after all, but he tended to hold views of Christianity that most Christians would claim mark him as “not a true Christian.“ For example he didn’t accept the divinity of Christ or the idea of an interventionist God and wasn’t fond of many of the various Christian denominations. He wrote many things such as the following:
As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?—John Adams, letter to FA Van der Kamp, December 27, 1816 When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it.—John Adams, from Rufus K Noyes, Views of Religion Indeed, Mr. Jefferson, what could be invented to debase the ancient Christianism which Greeks, Romans, Hebrews and Christian factions, above all the Catholics, have not fraudulently imposed upon the public? Miracles after miracles have rolled down in torrents.—John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, December 3, 1813
Hamish may want to rethink which quotes he wants to use in the future. The majority of the ones he’s supplied so far don’t really support his position very well.
Still, fucking funny to those of us who have actually done the research.