Well, the Egyptians were the first to practice Monotheism.
There seem to be no further detailed links, however.
And of course there is the Egyptian God Amen Amen and Amen-Ra, Egyptian Gods
And Christians sign off on prayers with “Amen”. Do Jews sign off that way, I don’t remember, but seem to recall they do?
we do but we pronounce ah Main.
Reading through these articles:
I believe that the idea isn’t so much that there are striking similarities, and more that at that particular period of time, people were making stuff up left and right. The Mystery cults, for instance, were largely just fantastic social clubs like you might see in Eyes Wide Shut. There wasn’t a strong goal to create something deep and philosophical, but rather to have ornate rituals and symbolism mixed together in a fanciful way. So starting with Dionysus and Osiris, they began coming up with various stories that further and further ceased having any close kinship with the originals, picking up new names as time went on and the histories diverged too much. Amongst all of that, certain commonalities are there–perhaps only by virtue of scattershot–but the point is that you could find just as complicated mythologies sharing anywhere from all or none of the same elements, though in specific detail all quite different at the same time, and all apparently descended from Osiris and Dionysus.
To give example, there is no real close link between Saint Nicholas and Saint Nicholas. So though there might be some Egyptian stuff in there, it might not be readily recognizable as such without passing it through a couple of transitions and combinations with other stories.
That’s right. These elements post-date the time of JEsus, rather than predating them. If anything, it’s Christianity which influenced Mithraism, not the other way around.
Therein lies the problem. People tend to grab whatever similarities they see without considering which religion influenced which. In addition, they tend to lump various mythologies together – conflating Horus and Osiris, for example.
In addition, people tend to seize some very tenuous similarities and exaggerate them. For example, much has been said about how Mithra was born of a virgin, just like Jesus was. Well, only in the sense that Mithra was born out of solid rock, and rocks can’t have sex. Sadly, these distinctions tend to be missed by people who get all excited about these supposed parallels.
[Undecided] Adrian writes:
> Well, the Egyptians were the first to practice Monotheism.
Many scholars argue that the worship of Aten was not monotheism but instead was henotheism. In other words, Aten was not the only god tn that system. He was the supreme god and the only one who should be worshipped.
The story of Moses’ birth and adoption into the royal house of Egypt (ie., stuffed in a basket and floated down the Nile to be found by the pharoah’s daughter Batya) is remarkably close to the story of Horus’ birth - he was shoved into a basket by his mother, Isis, and hidden from Seth among bulrushes by the Nile.
I always wondered if that was simply a case of one myth borrowing from another or if mom actually thought ‘I will hide my baby in a basket among the bullrushes. Those darn Egyptians will associate it with the myth of Horus and take it as a sign’
There’s no mention of any such intent in the KJV Bible, and I’d say there’s a 99.999% chance that the story is aprocryphal anyway.
I have yet to find any independent sources that make this claim regarding Horus. The only places where I’ve ever seen this are various websites that push the alleged Jesus-Horus connection. As far as I can tell, not even D. M. Murdock (who used the pseudonym “Acharya S” in publishing these theories) makes that particular claim.
I suspect that people who push this Moses-Horus parallelism are actually thinking of Osiris, not Horus. According to the legend, the evil god Set locked Horus in a coffin and threw it into the nile. This wasn’t an attempt by Isis to save Osiris; quite the contrary; it was a death plot!
The Hebrews too were henotheists rather than monotheists. The God of the Pentateuch is one among many gods, the tribal god of the Hebrews.
If one would like to learn more about how much like Osiris worshiped was like Christianity, they could read; Osisis & The Egyptian Resurrection 2 volumns Written by E.A. Wallis Budge,.
This is a writing about pre-Dynasty times.
The comparison to Jesus is uncanny. Osiris was called God, Son of God, The good shepard, Osiris wasn’t crucified but he was choped apart and Isis his sister-wife Found his parts and put him back together, she couldn’t find his penis so to conceive Horus she took the form of a dove and conceived Horus in that manner.The Egyptians also had a bread and wine sacrifice, one woman said there is still a small Osiris cult in Egypt.
Monavis
You misunderstand “late Mithraism” if you think ['m supporting your claims. I’m referring to the mystery cult of Mithras, as opposed to the Ahura Mazda Mithraism of Persia. As far as i know, the elements I cite aree part of the pre-Christian late Mithraism.
Woo! Uncanny. I’ll convert immediately.
Not according to the citations that I provided, though.
i see your cite debunking the extensive list of parallels proposed by others, but not the ones I note. I also observe that your cite approvingly quotes Ulansey, my source.
The birthday of the Invincible Sun was a Roman holiday, long predating Christinity, and set on Dec. 25. That it became associated with Mithras wouldn’t be surprising, since (as ulansey notes) Mithras was associated with the Invincible Sun. Inconsistencies like having a birth story that had him coming from solid rock doesn’t bother some people.
Huh. Ignorance fought.
I didn’t even bother to double-check that; it was in my history textbook.
Except that it was not set on Dec 25th, it was set on the Solstice, which makes sense. Of course the date of the Solstice has moved around a bit.
That, and the fact that the early church did NOT regard December 25th as the birthdate of the Messiah.
No it wasn’t. The festival wasn’t created until the third century at the earliest, and the first reference to it comes from a fourth century document. There were Roman holidays predating Christianity from around that time period, most notably Saturnalia, but that, as you can guess from the name, was in honor of Saturn.