Parallels between Jesus and Horus, an Egyptian God

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Quotations:

• "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, 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

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	"I am Horus in glory...I am the Lord of Light...I am the victorious one...I am the heir of endless time...I, even I, am he that knoweth the paths of heaven." 12 "I am Horus, the Prince of Eternity." "I am Horus who stepeth onward through eternity...Eternity and everlastingness is my name." "I am the possessor of bread in Anu. I have bread in heaven with Ra."	"I am the light of the world....I am the way, the truth and the life." "Before Abraham was, I am" "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today and forever." "I am the living bread that came down from heaven." (From the Gospel of John)

Was Horus born of a virgin?:

Acharya S. quotes priest and author Joseph McCabe's:

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 his essay on Horus. _14.

James Frazer's 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.

Again, Gasque's survey came up blank on the matter of Horus' disciples as well.

References:

1. Gerald Massey, "The Natural Genesis," Black Classic Press, (Reissued 1998). Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store.
2. Tom Harpur, "The Pagan Christ; Recovering the Lost Light," Thomas Allen, (2004), Page 5. Read reviews or order this book.
3. "Egyptian god Horus, The Louvre, Paris," at: http://ancienthistory.about.com/
4. Information taken from essays linked to "Horus - Egyptian God," at: http://ancienthistory.about.com/
5. 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.
6. Op Cit., Tom Harpur, Page 69.
7. Ibid, Page 85.
8. Ibid, Page 80. Items as seen in the Temple of Luxor, built by Amenhotep III, a pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty, before 1700 BCE.
9. Ibid, Page 89.
10. Ibid, Pages 128 to 136.
11. 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.
12. "The Ritual: The Egyptian Book of the Dead."
13. Joseph McCabe, "The Story of Religious Controversy," Stratford Co, (1929). Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store
14. Acharya S., "Born of a Virgin on December 25th: Horus, Sun God of Egypt," at: http://www.truthbeknown.com/
15. 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
16. Les Carney, "Krishna born of a virgin?," at: http://www.lescarney.com/
17. James Patrick Holding, "Comparing Osiris, Horus and Jesus," at: http://tektonics.org/

By "ReligiousTolerance.Org"

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Notes On Fear And Fearlessness

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“They are afraid of Nature
They are afraid of reasoning
They are afraid of eroticism
They are afraid of the truth
They are afraid of joy
They are afraid of the Gods
They are afraid of man
They are afraid of antiquity
They are afraid of thought
They are afraid of freedom
They are afraid of variety
They are afraid of quest
They are afraid of their end
and for that purpose, they sow
fear in the souls of their slaves.”

I
The human violence, hatred, anger aggressiveness, superstition are deeply rooted in fear and insecurity. The last two notions are the greatest obstacles for every man who seeks to pursue freedom, internal tranquility, autarky and bliss.

II
In turn, fear is rooted in the ignorance and the self-deceit of a non-existing, egotistical individualism (ie: atomistic soul) that deceives us by making us believe that we are separated from the universe, its processes and its Substance, separated and alienated from the notion of the Whole.

III
Fear is rooted into an arbitrary cluster of personality characteristics that the philosophy aversive (non philosophical) humans consider as their “ego.” A finite and shallow “ego” completely deprived of any kind of unifying relationship that comes to experience the natural World as something incomprehensible, alarming, impenetrable and threatening. The feelings of alienation and differentiation constitute the basic precondition of fear.

IV
Fear and insecurity are synonyms. Individuals (and systems) become phobic when they realize that they are unable to form a cohesive image of their real “selves” which shouldn’t be shrunk in a non-existing “ego.”

V
Whoever feels insecure, he backfolds himself towards his atomistic personality, frightfully takes cover behind the fortress of his “ego” and ends up becoming an egoist. A classical example of such a “fortress” that the insecure use, is Christianity that steers and directs the faithful individual towards exclusively saving only his very own soul.

VI
This not only applies to ordinary people but also to nations, religions and/or other forms of collective human actions. The notion of egoism in religions is expressed through “dogmatic malevolence”, in other words, the determining definition of the supposed orthodoxies and the persecution of the supposed unorthodoxies. Christianity, which is not only alienated from the natural world but also its declared enemy, officiates at this procedure as well.

VII
The basic and final fear is the fear for the unknown (which often is pictured as darkness where the human mind can imagine almost everything, good or bad). The fear for the unknown is in reality the fear felt for everything outside of the sphere of “ego” or outside “ego’s” traceable parts. The fear for the unknown is the corridor leading to heterophobia (fearing everything different from yourself).

VIIΙ
The heterophobic individual or collectivized group feels “threatened” by unknown situations or unknown people. Racial hatred, religious intolerance and all forms of unprovoked attacks are rooted in this threat illusion.

IX
The phobic is scared by the per excellence normal, that is the notion of the world as pure motion. He gets scared towards the idea of an eternal transformation of everything and refuses to accept it by denouncing everything that scares him as being or related to the “unknown”. The fear for this “unknown” includes the primary fear, the greatest fear of all, the ultimate fear of losing one’s “ego”, the fear of death.

X
Fear floods people with a double, contradictory emotion and pushes them towards a form of schizophrenia, where the full detachment from reasoning and reality correlates with an absorption in delirium and delusion. Fear abolishes reasoning and distorts perception. Thus, it can only be fought off through Knowledge and familiarization with the natural world or with Recta Ratio, in other words, with respect towards Nature or philosophical cogitation.

XI
Every egotistical individual and every egoistic collectivized group are destined to waste endless amounts of energy, thought, time and materials to secure a delusional sense of external insecurity.

XII
Every back-folding towards the atomistic personality is fatefully full of delusions. The fear of losing “ego” (which is one way or another, one more delusion) provokes an attraction to every form of further delusions.

XIII
Every denudation of people from their collective support of their identity, every detachment of theirs from the -deified and political in its dimension- organic collectivity that had been established by the pre-Christian world leads them to the deprivation of every substance as well as the deprivation of their very own existence’s background. The void is transformed into fear and then into hatred for the extraneous (these two last forms constitute what we previously called “heterophobia”). The phobic individuals (and the phobic collectivized groups) detest the truth, the objective reality, the direct contact with the internal and external nature and in general, they hate everything extraneous and different from their internal void that haunts them.

XIV
Whoever has fear, fatefully ends up exporting fear.

XV
The oppressors use Religions that propagandize fear as well as Mass Media dedicated to form consciences, aiming at increasing the distrust, the weakness feeling and the fear among the oppressed.

XVI
Fear is an inexhaustible source from where each system of oppression and exploitation of life draws energy. The most devious forms of fear are the ones who distribute fear equivalently, so as to be considered as a natural condition of humans.

XVII
The mediation of fear distribution mechanisms makes the phobic individuals to be classified according to their form of fear: the ones suffering from “self-generated” fear and the others who are “fear-programmed.”

XVIII
The flow of fear seems (without necessarily being) endless. At the same time, however, it is absolutely certain that it is fragile. Most of the “fear-programmed” phobic individuals fear the simple possibility of experiencing a Fear Void (lack of fear) and from the realization of the tragic fragility of what they have been programmed to consider their supposed “natural” condition.

XIX
The “fear programmed” phobic individuals are in a brace of shakes when facing either a mandatory self- responsibility or the possibility of having their languor terminated.

XX
In general, whoever fears ends up a fanatic.

XXI
A part of fanaticism results from the fear of the fanatic who is afraid of being wrong. The fanatic is destined to support in fits and starts an (usually non-existing) identity while he worships it almost fetishistically.

XXII
The fanatic attempts to reassure himself that what he believes is supposedly right by having the illusion that the more people believe the same things, the more correct and right these things are. The fanatic is haunted by a missionary spirit, a spirit of conversion.

XXIII
The phobic individual and the phobic collectivized groups almost never have the courage to try something completely new or completely unknown. On the contrary, they stubbornly remain attached to their familiar habits and ways. Their lives are deprived of the element of evolution, they are boring, cyclical, dormant, tasteless, and meaningless. For that purpose, the phobic turns to illusion and attempts to escape through daydreaming.

XXIV
This phobic attachment to only familiar matters shouldn’t be confused with the natural respect towards Tradition which is a system of values and consuetude that someone follows as an organic part of a living nation. Culturally, nations belong to Paganism, in other words to the part of human civilization that clings to an overall view of matters, as well as fearlessness, complaisance and openness.

XXV
The amplitude of nations, the Ethnosphere, incarnates polymorphism and Paganism blesses and secures it. Polymorphism is the sole element that serves communication and tolerance.

XXVI
One truly loves only when he tolerates others and simultaneously fights against those who do not tolerate others. Indeed, tolerance can be expressed both passively (by tolerating others) and actively (by fighting against those who don’t tolerate others).

XXVII
Besides its pompous declarations, Christianity both as a collective system and as groups of separate and distinct individuals that comprise it, due to its phobic nature and insecurity, is completely incapable of tolerating others and contributing to the social well-being. On the contrary, it is always attempting to make copies of itself while it simultaneously makes grand efforts to grab material goods and human souls. Complaisance is a completely unknown notion to the phobic individual. The real complaisance is something incomprehensible to Christianity.

XXVIII
It is impossible for someone to be open or feel internal balance, amenity, tranquility and joy when he is afraid of every sort of threats from the world surrounding him, from different people, from people that belong to different religions or from a supposed… “Satan.”

XXIX
Tolerance requires good knowledge of the cosmic and human matters and trust towards BEING. Only the powerful exposure to the Very Being and the acceptance of the sanctity of nature (either through the Hellenic Philosophy and Humanism or through a healthy polytheistic religiosity) can strengthen the limits of tolerance of every man towards the others and towards life itself.


By Vlassis G. Rassias

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