Some years ago, a so-called documentary called Zeitgeist circulated YouTube, supposedly exposing the myth of Jesus. It said that He was nothing more than a copy of various gods from ancient mythology: Horus, Osiris, Dionysus, Mithras, even Krishna. So-called comedian Bill Maher, host of the HBO series Real Time With Bill Maher used it as the basis of his satire, Religulous. But how true is this, really? We’ll start with the supposed connection to Osiris and Horus.
First of all, the date’s wrong. Horus was not born in December, he was born in October. And even if it was December, the Bible does not give an exact date for Jesus’s birth, because we don’t have one.
Second, Isis, Horus’s mother, was not a virgin she conceived him. She was impregnated as a bird flying over Osiris’s corpse. (Yeah, mythology is weird, but fascinating) The text of the myth implies a sexual union, not what we see with the virgin Mary.
Horus did not have 12 disciples. He had followers, yes, but followers are not the same as disciples. And they were more than 12.
Nor was Horus crucified. Crucifixion was not only practiced by the Romans, they also invented it. And their civilization comes AFTER Egyptian civilization, not before it.
This is not the only god that is brought up in the movie. I’ll deal with the others in future posts. For now, you might be wondering why people believe this, especially when it’s actually an old lie! Yes, this was actually proposed in the 1800’s and even then it was laughed at. It’s because the skeptics think they can get mileage out of anything, even some slight similarities that Jesus supposedly has. Similarity does not imply descent. Yes, there was a time when the Egyptians even practiced a monotheistic religion, but that doesn’t matter.
Next up: Dionysus.
Aspie Catholic 