# Cecils answer why H in J H Christ **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 29, 2005, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419 "2005-10-29T03:34:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ea5d25/32.png) [@Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419/41 "2005-11-02T16:44:22Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > Simply restating it and saying it’s true repeatedly is fairly empty and meaningless. Is not. ::d&r:: ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419/42 "2005-11-02T19:46:01Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > Hey, **Doc** , as much as I loved your running with it, any chance you can get in here and post on the God-prefixes in Hebrew? No. You want a Doper more knowledgable in Hebrew than I, somebody who can speak with true certainty and authority. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419/43 "2005-11-02T22:10:52Z")
> [@](#): > > I cut your irrelevent ramblings of emotion that you used in place of a valid argument after that statement. Ahh! I see. You prefer to substitute your own emotional attachment to hoaxes written by someone with no knowledge of the topic. I defy you to produce evidence from any independent source (anyone from James Frazier to Kent Weeks or Donald Redford or a person of similar stature) that supports the imaginary claims that you quote from Blavatsky. IHC is the Greek abbreviation for Jesus and you have provided no evidence that this is not true while proposing a wild story of someone “changing” it to mean something different. Where is your evidence? ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Norder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419/44 "2005-11-02T23:26:14Z")
> [@DavidWaite](#): > > An earlier account of the story may well have been then that an idol of the water cow goddess derived from Meri was used to lead celebration and given credit for closing the waters and that goddess was curseded by Moses’s jealous god. Nonsense. > [@DavidWaite](#): > > second the Chi symbol is an x shape and that shape represented the sun god Utter nonsense, except perhaps in some much, much later Egyptian symbols (or Roman revivals of Egyptian symbols making things up as they go along) lifting features off of Tammuz or Christ. If you claim that the cross was already a sub symbol, please provide evidence of such. Your earlier link to a blurry photo was not a cross. > [@DavidWaite](#): > > My assertion was that the reason S was replaced with C was to change it from an abbreviation to initials thus indicating there was a name for Jesus that started with an H, the other two initials being for Jesus and Christ. :rolleyes: > [@DavidWaite](#): > > All the regions were inspired ultimately by Egyptian religion. I’m afraid that’s a rather simplistic view of things, and one unsupportable by the evidence. > [@DavidWaite](#): > > The dieing rising godman theme which led to Jesus ultimately derives from Horus-Osiris. Actually, no. The stories of Osiris and Horus that you are talking about are rather late additions to the religious beliefs of the Egyptians. The culture was around for thousands of years and involved various subgroups of cultures and foreign influence, and the beliefs changed and evolved. You can’t just pick any feature from those thousand years and claim it was a standard belief. They dying and rising god was a feature in pretty much all religions, directly copied off the setting and rising of the sun. The Egyptians had beliefs in the sun for a long, long time, but the specific Horus-Osiris myths you are referring to are quite late, and actually probably came from influence from the Mid-East. > [@DavidWaite](#): > > The entire Nativity comes from the Meh Seb Horus and Herrut depiction. Nonsense. The Meh/Seb/Horus depiction is something invented up out of nowhere with no logical supposrt. Isis and Horus, however, was the famous mother and daughter pair of the Egyptians. Certain features of this could have been adopted by Christians. But the details you try to use to support yourself are just plain wrong, and obviously so to anyone who has looked into early religious beliefs. > [@DavidWaite](#): > > The dying rising godman comes from the Osiris-Horus story. The crucifix comes from the cross symbol of the sun. The 153 fishes from Pythagorus. Even before Jesus, 7 of the ten commandments from the book of the dead. The golden cow the Israelites drank from the water cow goddess Meh. Yahweh of Samaria and his consort Asherah from Baal gods. Where isn’t it paaganism?. Well, I suppose if you are going to toss out unsupported assumptions and illogical conclusions, you might as well toss out as many as you can. Already dealt with the first two. The third I don’t get, but Pythagorus, wtf? “The Book of the Dead” didn’t have anything like the ten commandments, it had hundreds of things that the dead pharaoh was supposed to “negatively confess” (deny doing) and if you can only find seven of them to twist around and make up to look like one of the versions of the ten commandments, that shows they really weren’t that closely related. And “even before Jesus” when it comes to the ten commandments is just so laughable of a statement that it’s phenomenal, as the Hebrew ten commandments were around a long, long, long time before Jesus. The golden cow the Israelites dealt with could have been Baal or Hathor or some other deity, but to claim Meh (an extremely minor regional variant) specifically so you can use incredibly poor understanding of linguistics to invent up a “Merri” version of the name is just absurd. And the whole consort bit isn’t quite right (you can’t take titles and assume they are names and try to come up with a cause-effect relationship, as cultures using the same language for different beliefs will use the same titles for different beliefs). Frankly you are just embarassing yourself with your utter ignorance here. ---
**Author:** ![Othersider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/cab0a1/32.png) [@Othersider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Othersider)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419/45 "2005-11-03T04:55:30Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > You want…somebody who can speak with true certainty and authority. Ask this **DavidWaite** feller, he claims to know a lot. Oh, wait… :smack: 😃 ---
**Author:** ![DavidWaite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cc9497/32.png) [@DavidWaite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidWaite)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419/46 "2005-11-03T13:48:41Z")
Emotional attacks across the board and no logical rebuttles. Ok how about this interpretation. According to the book of the dead Meh whose identity was latter absoarbed into Isis synchetistically was the right eye of Horus and Seb was his left. IHS I = ISIS H = Horus S = Seb This is then the portrait of Horus and H does stand for _ **Horus** _! Do a google search on +IHS +SUN +horus ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419/47 "2005-11-03T14:24:46Z")
> [@David Waite](#): > > According to the book of the dead Meh whose identity was latter absoarbed into Isis synchetistically was the right eye of Horus and Seb was his left. Could you define “synchetistically”? ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419/48 "2005-11-03T14:33:15Z")
> [@DavidWaite](#): > > Emotional attacks across the board and no logical rebuttles. Ok how about this interpretation. According to the book of the dead Meh whose identity was latter absoarbed into Isis synchetistically was the right eye of Horus and Seb was his left. > IHS > I = ISIS > H = Horus > S = Seb > This is then the portrait of Horus and H does stand for _ **Horus** _! > Do a google search on > +IHS +SUN +horus No logical rebuttles? You’ve been asked to produce cites to support your claim and have failed to do so. Instead you simply assume your claim to be true without providing evidence and the extent of your evidence seems to be “I know a lot about this stuff” Is that your example of logic? I did as you suggested and found [this](http://altreligion.about.com/library/glossary/symbols/bldefsihs.htm) > [@](#): > > The IHS is a symbolic monogram of Christ used by the Roman Catholic Church. > Some evangelicals have theorized that the initials stand for “Isis, Horus, and Seb,” and are related to Egyptian sun worship, **but this is a spurious claim that has never been supported by any solid evidence**. Meager as it is, I have provided _some_ evidence. Would you care to supprt your claim with any? ---
**Author:** ![DavidWaite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cc9497/32.png) [@DavidWaite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidWaite)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419/49 "2005-11-03T14:37:04Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Could you define “synchetistically”? but to make a long story short, it is melding and apologizing disparate traditions. Its like saying Christian trinity worshipers and Muslim Allah worshipers really worship the same god under different names just because they have this or that religious tradition in common. This may be done for political or peacemaking agendas or for conversions building on a common belief in order to more easily absoarb the other population into ones own congregation. For all those doubting Egyptian influence, check this out: [http://www.theosophical.ca/AncientEgyptAppendix.htm](http://www.theosophical.ca/AncientEgyptAppendix.htm) ---
**Author:** ![DavidWaite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cc9497/32.png) [@DavidWaite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidWaite)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419/50 "2005-11-03T14:39:03Z")
> [@DavidWaite](#): > > but to make a long story short, it is melding and apologizing disparate traditions. Its like saying Christian trinity worshipers and Muslim Allah worshipers really worship the same god under different names just because they have this or that religious tradition in common. This may be done for political or peacemaking agendas or for conversions building on a common belief in order to more easily absoarb the other population into ones own congregation. > For all those doubting Egyptian influence, check this out: > [http://www.theosophical.ca/AncientEgyptAppendix.htm](http://www.theosophical.ca/AncientEgyptAppendix.htm) And still I see that there are no logical rebuttles or valid evidence offered to the contrary. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419/51 "2005-11-03T14:47:08Z")
> [@DavidWaite](#): > > Emotional attacks across the board and no logical rebuttles. Ok how about this interpretation. According to the book of the dead Meh whose identity was latter absoarbed into Isis synchetistically was the right eye of Horus and Seb was his left. > IHS > I = ISIS > H = Horus > S = Seb > This is then the portrait of Horus and H does stand for _ **Horus** _! > Do a google search on > +IHS +SUN +horus Wrong, but even so, so what? You were claiming some strange origin for JHC, not IHS. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419/52 "2005-11-04T02:43:55Z")
> [@DavidWaite](#): > > but to make a long story short, it is melding and apologizing disparate traditions. Its like saying Christian trinity worshipers and Muslim Allah worshipers really worship the same god under different names just because they have this or that religious tradition in common. This may be done for political or peacemaking agendas or for conversions building on a common belief in order to more easily absoarb the other population into ones own congregation. > For all those doubting Egyptian influence, check this out: > [http://www.theosophical.ca/AncientEgyptAppendix.htm](http://www.theosophical.ca/AncientEgyptAppendix.htm) And is this a scholarly work widely accepted by historians and other Egyptian scholars? Hmmmmmmm? Finding it posted on the web does not \*credible - evidence make. Please note I found a page that called your assertion spurious and without solid evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419/53 "2005-11-04T03:57:36Z")
The “logical rebuttal” you are asking about is this: Helena P. Blavatsky ran together a whole conglomeration of facts, half-facts, and errors assembled from various religious traditions, produced a system called Theosophy out of it, and began spreading it as though it were some great revelation. Check out L. Sprague DeCamp’s masterly dissection of the Atlantis legend and similar material, _Lost Continents_, for some excellent and easy-to-read background on Mme. Blavatsky and her charlatanry. Now, Diffusionism has a slightly more respectable pedigree, but is demonstrably in error when one gets into detail about it. In particular, the brand of Diffusionism that says that all civilizations, myths, etc., derive from Ancient Egypt adduces a bunch of “evidence” that is misreported and misrepresented. It is some of that which you have bought into here, and presented by the Canadian Theosophical group to boot. Yes, the Osiris myth _as we have it today_ plays off the dying-and-resurrecting god archetype. Whether this was part of the original Osiris myth, and how important it was to the dynastic Egyptians if it was, is debatable. It seems to have been influenced by the Tammuz/Adonis cycle of myths from north and east of Egypt. To what extent they played into the Christ story is anyone’s guess. (C.S. Lewis, a modern lay theologian and popular Christian writer, was an Oxford don who was very familiar with the “corn god” mythos referred to here _before_ he converted to Christianity; you might enjoy reading his interpretation of how they interface, if only for the widening of your viewpoint.) In any case, **tomndebb** ’s exegesis of the IHC symbol is known to be accurate. Just look the name “Jesus” up in any Greek New Testament (there are several on the Web) and you will find something like IESOUV – and I am sure you can see how the V could be easily represented as a C in uncial writing, where making letters with minimal strokes was important. Further, the “Jo-” prefix you cite was a shortening of the old Hebrew “Ieho-” drawing on the first half of the Tetragrammaton to produce “theophoric” names. And Egypt was already on the decline before Israelite culture emerged from the dark ages of the period of the Judges. So it’s exceptionally unlikely that the Egyptians would have borrowed the “Jo-” prefix at all, even if they were prone to borrowing, which they were in general very averse to doing. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419/54 "2005-11-04T04:23:04Z")
Hmmm… the “Symbol” font no longer works on SDMB. Anyway, that should be IH#OY$, where what I represented as # is the “Medial sigma,” the S character in modern use as the summa in calculus which looks like an M turned on its side, and the is the "Terminal sigma," which looks like a C with cedilla or an S where the top semicircle is about four times the size of the bottom one -- and easily representable as a C. Only since about the time the U.S. was founded are I and J considered distinct letters; they used to be two ways of writing the same letter, which was used both as consonant (with a /y/ sound; the /dzh/ sound of English is quite late) and vowel. Therefore IHS (from \*\*IH\*\*#OY\*\*\*\*) and JHC are merely two different ways of writing the same monogram, and have nothing to do with Jesus (with or without a H.) Christ, which would have begun with an X, the Greek chi. Abbreviating a name by using first and last letter was common through much of history; look at the signatures on the Declaration of Independence for fairly modern examples. ---
**Author:** ![DavidWaite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cc9497/32.png) [@DavidWaite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidWaite)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419/55 "2005-11-04T11:41:24Z")
And still no valid rebuttles I see, just apologist defence and hurt feelings. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419/56 "2005-11-04T11:54:44Z")
> [@DavidWaite](#): > > And still no valid rebuttles I see, just apologist defence and hurt feelings. What are you nattering on about? You have not provided a single shred of evidence for any of your silly claims beyond your Theosophy sources. You have not provided a single reputable outside source to support their silly claims. If any of the stuff the Theosohy people have claimed is trrue, then we should be able to find confirmation in the works of other independent researchers in Egyptology. That is not an expression of hurt feelings, it is a notation that you are simply witnessing for a non-factual anti-religious belief system. You claim to be demonstrating the weakness of religion, yet you hold to your faith as tenaciously as any biblical literalist. ---
**Author:** ![DavidWaite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cc9497/32.png) [@DavidWaite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidWaite)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419/57 "2005-11-04T13:11:11Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > What are you nattering on about? > > You have not provided a single shred of evidence for any of your silly claims beyond your Theosophy sources. You have not provided a single reputable outside source to support their silly claims. If any of the stuff the Theosohy people have claimed is trrue, then we should be able to find confirmation in the works of other independent researchers in Egyptology. > > That is not an expression of hurt feelings, it is a notation that you are simply witnessing for a non-factual anti-religious belief system. You claim to be demonstrating the weakness of religion, yet you hold to your faith as tenaciously as any biblical literalist. I did produce proof. You just refused to look at it. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419/58 "2005-11-04T13:22:51Z")
> [@DavidWaite](#): > > I did produce proof. You just refused to look at it. No, I asked for independent proof that confirms the views of the Theosophy group. Posting more of their stuff just shows that you have a limited reading circle, not that they have a clue about ancient beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419/59 "2005-11-04T15:13:37Z")
> [@DavidWaite](#): > > I did produce proof. You just refused to look at it. No. “Proof” is evidence **supporting** a contention made. You referenced a website that makes those contentions. If they’re valid, there’s evidence out there supportive of them: a piece of papyrus from the XX Dynasty saying “Jo-Seb” in hieratic script; a Gnostic Gospel discussing the descent of Joseph and Mary from Osiris and Horus; **something** bolstering your case. And by the rules of this forum and message board, if **you** make a claim, the onus is on **you** to support and defend it, not on others to refute it. Though we’ve been trying to show you how you’re in error. By your standards, someone opposed to gay marriage or the income tax could point to **his/her own** post on another message board, stating, “Gay marriage is condemned by God’s will,” or “Income tax is unconstitutional because {insert 20 paragraphs of pseudo-Constitutional-law blather here}” and demonstrate conclusively that gay marriage or the income tax is wrong: It’s a statement to that effect. It’s posted on the Internet. Therefore it **must** be true, right? ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419/60 "2005-11-04T16:04:38Z")
**David** , Although I haven’t jumped into this conversation before now, let me propose this: Imagine that you are wrong–that there is some document or piece of evidence out there (perhaps recently discovered, or just unknown to you until now) that proves that you are wrong (or at least strongly suggests it enough to make you seriously reconsider). What would this piece of evidence have to look like? What sort of proof, if it existed, would be enough to make a serious rebuttal to your claims? If _nothing_ could cause you to reconsider your claims, then–well, there’s no point in having a debate if _both_ parties aren’t willing to consider changing their minds. On the other hand, if you can imagine what that piece of evidence or new argument might look like, then consider it from our standpoint. **That’s what we would need from you** to change **our** minds. Not just more claims or new suggestions, but the same sort of hard evidence that (presumably) would make you change your mind. Since you came in here to do that–to challenge our previously held ideas and beliefs–you need to come up with that sort of evidence, or else you’re unlikely to do more than start an argument which, if only because of the sheer numbers on each side, you won’t win. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-answer-why-h-in-j-h-christ/328419.md?page=4)