In this series of articles, I am responding to the claim that the story of Jesus is merely a recapitulation from a different ancient myth. All that I am doing in these is giving a report on the traits and narrative of these myths with very little comment. I leave it to the reader to determine if, in fact, these stories are mirrored in the account of Jesus Christ.  If you are unfamiliar with the account of Jesus Christ, I recommend any or all of the 4 gospels accounts – Matthew, Mark, Luke and/or John.

Two common candidates are Osiris and/or Horus.

I took this from various websites, but most appreciated the first two listed at the bottom of this page.

I used Wikipedia to help me as a “Cliff’s notes” guide some as well, and to help me find more academic articles.

Osiris and his son, Horus are two of the most popular of the ancient religious figures linked to the account of Christ… and certainly make the most sense, given that the Hebrew people were closely linked to the Egyptians.  

Unless you believe the Egyptians (at least some of whom deny ever having any slave in their entire history), the Israelites spent 400 years enslaved within their culture.

It would make sense that some of the religious icons and traditions of the Egyptians culture might infect the Jewish faith and thus, eventually, the early Christians… and of course, the account of Jesus’ childhood also includes a trip down toe Egypt-land.

Also, one of the first people to make some of these kind of alleged connections was Gerald Massey, the poet, spiritualist and a non-professional Egyptologist… and his claimed connections were Horus and Christ.

Others have added Osiris into this mix as a potential connection as well, so I went ahead and told his story here as well. 

Osiris
As is typical of Egyptian and Indian myths, there are many versions of his story.

Much of what we have about Osiris was written by Plutarch who lived from AD46-120).

He became the God of the afterlife.
He was green skinned with Pharaoh beard.
He had mummy wrapped legs.

He was the son of Geb (Earth god) and Nut (sky goddess).

Horus was his son.

He was the judge of the dead and the keeper of the source for all life.
He was called the Lord of Love and The Lord of Silence

He was killed by his brother, Set.  Being the first living thing to die, he became the god of the dead.

His wife (and sister), Isis, rejoined the broken pieces of Osiris all except the penis (it was eaten by a catfish, apparently), so she fashioned a golden one for him.  She brought him back to life just long enough to be impregnated by him.  She conceived Horus.

The Egyptians believed that the sun spent the night in the underworld and was reincarnated every morning.  Sometimes this was connected to Osiris.  This was understood to the the way that plants died and came back each year.

Sometimes, Osiris’ soul was worshipped almost distinctly from him.

He was worshipped as a fertility god, and as lord of the underworld through whom the dead live in the afterlife.  Only those who satisfied him of their goodness could gain admission.  Many prayers and spells have been found in hopes of securing his blessings.

Or Horus (His son)…

His story, too, is complicated and variable, as is typical of Egyptian myth.

The symbol for Horus is the Falcon – which has been worshipped in Egypt for a very long time. 

He was probably originally thought of as the “Sky god”… His right eye was the sun and the left the moon and his wings the sky.

He was most often portrayed as a man with the head of a falcon.
He also became seen as the god of the East… the King was reborn each day as the sun again.  This was a common teaching about sun gods… or more often, the sun itself.

Later, another version of Horus arose, as “the eye of Horus.”

Horus is the son of Osiris and Isis – two gods.  One version is that he was born on the 31^st day of the Egyptian month of Khoiak.

Horus had a consort, Hathor, and they had a son, Harsomptus.

Horus also had an uncle – Set.  The two vied for the throne of Osiris (see more about Osiris above) after Osiris’ death at the hands of Set (transformed into a monster)…

Set challenged Horus to a contest.  Set cheated in each event, but his mother, Isis, caught him in cheating.  Mercifully, Isis let him live.  Horus got angry with his mother, which motivated the other gods to set up one more challenge – a boat race.

Set foolishly made his boat of stone and it sank.  He turned himself into a hippo and attacked Horus, who fought him off.

The other gods sought insight from the dead Osiris, who said that Horus should be the rightful king since Set had become king through murder. 

Finally the gods decided that Horus should be king.

http://www.laits.utexas.edu/cairo/teachers/osiris.pdf
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/horus.htm
http://www.tektonics.org/lp/massjc.php