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In following articles we will examine in detail both Solstices and the Equinoxes and how primitive man fashioned a "theology" around what he both saw in the Heavens and experienced in Nature. His impressions and thoughts in these areas were later "personified" as shown in concepts regarding the birth and death of the Sun and it's representative "Osiris." Osiris is the first of these "personifications" of the dying/rising Sun. But in order to understand the "Osiris Myth" and its influence upon subsequent Gentile nation, as well as the Jewish nations and the Essenes, we have to throughly understand the "Osiris Theology." I can remember my amazement when I discovered, through intense study, the "Osiris Pattern" through almost all world religions in some form or fashion. Judaism is not immune either. Therefore we find in almost all cultures the residue of such "Solar Myths" and "Sun-Worship" which again find their origin with Astro-theology and the "Osiris Myth." These "theological myths" which later came to be "personified" in the person of Osiris and others find their origin in cosmic influences in the Heavens as seen in the changing of the seasons and the agricultural cycles of nature. One must remember that the changing of the seasons is influenced by the heavens, in particular, the Sun. We must begin our study of such primitive theology with primitive man and the nation of Egypt which leaves for us ample records of their worship of Osiris. For our purpose, as you will later come to see in further study, the Essenes of Alexandria Egypt, were involved heavily in "Osiris theology."
It is important for us to note right away that the original Godman-Savior/Soter was Osiris of Egypt. More on him later.
I said in a previous article that The broad appeal of Christianity stems from the fact that it is a synthesis of the most important religious doctrines which had already been developed in the great pre-Christian cultures over a period of centuries.
Answer for yourself: Can Pastor Craig prove the above statement? Yes I can but not without your help. You will need to read sufficient information to familiarize yourself with the various mystery religions and the variety of savior godmen as found in order to verify what I am saying it truthful.
This fact, that the broad appeal of Christianity is due to it being a religious synthesis of the most important religious doctrines of pre-existing, pre-Christian cultures, can be no better proven than by examining in detail the original savior-god of mankind since time immemorial and taking note of the "unique pattern" for such a savior godman throughout the Gentile nations since time immemorial.
To do so one must start at the beginning of the "pattern" for this godman and turn his attention to Sun-Worship and the nation of Egypt for the earliest records of the great Osiris, the original Godman which would serve as the "universal pattern" for all other godman saviors. Osiris, an Egyptian deity, plays a preponderant role in religious history, not only of the Nile Valley, but also of the entire area which finally became the Graeco-Roman Empire. In fact, Osiris provides the pattern for all of Godmen or Savior concepts. The facts, the legend, the myth, and the soteriology (salvation doctrines) surrounding this majestic but also pathetic figure stretch back into the very roots of western culture and civilization. Millions today believe and adhere to this "Osiris salvation myth" never knowing the origin for such doctrines of salvation; believing them to be a Divine revelation and never aware of the origin for their religious beliefs.
A powerful force of Aryans from Mesopotamia, conquered the much less developed Nilotics, about 4,000 or 3,500 B.C. These Sumerians superimposed their own economy, jurisprudence, architecture, agriculture, and general way of life upon the conquered, first, by intertwining their own Aryan religious concepts with those of the natives; and, second, by making their own religious concepts the active and preponderant force. This was a long and complicated process, in the course of which cannibalism and other primitive practices were outlawed, and the flood waters of the great river placed under control; and roads, temples, and cities were constructed. Scientific agriculture was instituted, an elaborate code of equitable law established, an elevated moral code adopted, and a popular and powerful religious system perfected. The result was the greatest civilization yet known, which continued substantially intact for nearly forty centuries.
It is at least probable that Osiris was an historical personage who had married his sister, became king of Egypt, and conquered many nations; that he was murdered by a group of conspirators headed by his brother; and that Osiris was finally transformed into the god-man savior by the priests of a great cult which became dominant in Egypt and later proliferated into adjacent lands and ultimately into almost all the known world!
According to the Osirian myth, the sun-god
Ra detected his wife Nut in the embrace of Seb, the earth-god. He
therefore decreed that her offspring could not be born on any day of the
year, which then consisted of 360 days. Nut, however, appealed for help to
Thoth, the God of Wisdom; and, by playing at draughts with the
moon,
he won from her a seventy-second portion of each day. Thus, five
intercalated days were added to the year, on each of which the curse of Ra
was ineffectual. Successively, on these, Nut bore quintuplets
(immaculate conception since not
human conception) Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis, and Nephthys.
Osiris, born on or about the
25th of December,
symbolized the rebirth of the sun;
in due course, he married Isis, who bore the Younger Horus, who, with his
parents, made up the Egyptian Holy Family; Set married Nephthys, who
became the mother of Anubis. The Elder Horus remained the celibate and
intellectual Scribe. These five personalities,
born of earth and heaven (types of incarnations),
were equally human and divine
(types of Christologies), mortals with a capacity for
immortality.
Osiris became the supreme god-man and Isis the
ultimate mother-goddess,
whose role and importance expanded over the centuries in the Osirian cult
and who finally emerged as a supreme divinity in her own right.
After conferring a superior culture upon the Egyptians Osiris set out at the head of his beneficent armies to do the same for other nations; he marched all the way to India and later in Europe to the Straits of Gibraltar. Finally, according to the legend, laden with the gifts of many grateful peoples, he returned home in triumph.
In his absence, however, the evil Set conspired with the seventy-two displaced reactionary priests to seize the throne for himself. Having constructed a coffin, he induced his brother to lie down in it: whereupon the conspirators welded the lid shut with molten lead, so that Osiris died of suffocation. Thrown into the Nile, the coffin floated across the Mediterranean to Byblus (modern Jebeil), in Syria, where the body of Osiris became encased and fixed in a tree (a type of a wooden stake or cross).
Escaping the rage of Set, Isis took refuge in the Delta Swamps, where Horus was born. Leaving her child to be reared at Buto, she set out in search of her husband; finding his body at last, she returned with it to Egypt. The implacable Set, however, hacked this into fourteen pieces (body broken for you) and buried one in each of the nomes or provinces of the country.
Now began the incomparable passion of Isis, which ultimately made of her the supreme mother-goddess of the ancient world. Up and down Egypt she went, seeking and searching (Luke 24:1; women were the first to seek out the body of Jesus), until she found all the dismembered portions and reconstituted the body; then, with the help of Thoth and Horus, she resurrected Osiris into a second and immortal life. Risen from death (Mark 16:6), he could never again be subject to its power [Heb. 10:10]; (immortal-Eternal life). In due course, he entered his solar ship, which transported him to the Elysian Fields (Acts 1:9; ascension), the realm of Khenti-Amenti, where he became and forever remains the judge of all who die (2 Tim. 4:1) and the ruler of the blessed.
Osiris, then, symbolized the reborn sun; as Apis, the Bull, he was the emblem of sexual virility; but, most of all, he was the god of agriculture. This, more than anything else, elevated the Egyptians from savagery and cannibalism into civilization. Isis, meanwhile, who was identified with the moon and the cow, was the great and nurturing Mother, who taught mankind to transform the wheat into the bread of life, the barley into the joyous and invigorating ale. Osiris gave men virility; Isis made motherhood possible and even delightful. Osiris gave mankind agriculture and Isis gave them civilized food. These two divinities gave humanity "life and life more abundantly."
The sexual, astronomical, and agricultural symbolism woven into the Isis-Osiris myth reflects the deepest needs and desires of mankind. The offspring of Nut and Seb were conceived at the time when Sirius the Dog Star appeared in the East, as it did then on the first of June, when also the waters of the Nile begin to rise, augmented, so the people believed, by the tears of Isis, weeping for Osiris, who was called the Morning Star who brings the waters, as well as the Great Bull, and the Reborn Sun. Deeply significant is the fact that the dismembered god was buried throughout Egypt on the very day when the grain was planted; only one part of Osiris' body could not be recovered...his phallus; and Osiris' resurrection occurred when the green shoots first emerge from the soil. The great rituals and festivals of Osiris were celebrated with the planting and the sprouting of the grain. In countless images of the god found in Egyptian tombs, his body lies on its bier with the tendrils of wheat growing from his body.
The ritual of Osiris consisted primarily in the celebration of a eucharistic rite, in which the believers and followers of Osiris ate the flesh of the god in the form of wheat-cakes and drank his blood in the form of barley-ale (Matt. 26:26, Mark 14:22, Luke 22:19, I Cor. 11:24). By "eating the God" in the form of the Eucharist as a type of communion in leavened cakes, Osiris' divinity and immortality became their own through becoming one with their Godman (John 10:38); and this divinity and immortality was diffused through their members; and they became portions of him in spirit, and the heirs of immortality (Rom. 6:5) in his eternal kingdom.Osiris gave mankind through the Eucharist the heavenly bread that came down from heaven (John 6:33); he died that men might have life and have it more richly (John 5:40, John 10:10, John 20:31); he gave his body to his followers to eat and his blood to drink that men and women might make the ultimate identification with himself, rise from the grave, divine and immortal. Through the Eucharist one was "in Osiris, and Osiris in them".
Answer for yourself: Does any of this sound familiar to what the New Testament teaches concerning Jesus?
Answer for yourself: Does not Christianity profess itself to be a Divine revelation? Should we rethink that?
This, in brief, was the central core of the Osirian mystery.
This basic pattern of the "God-man" will be reproduced through succeeding nations on a chronological basis and will find it's ultimate home in the Essene-Christian faith which will be inherited by Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
It is important for our studies to understand that for millennia, the Egyptian was the principal culture of the ancient world. That being so it follows naturally that a reconstituted and "modified" Osiris myth penetrated many nations and countries, especially throughout Asia Minor and the eastern Mediterranean. Nation after nation was eventually influenced by the Osirian myth:
Various mysteries spread throughout the Graeco-Roman world, especially after the Trojan War; but the cult of Isis finally outstripped all others in popularity, magnificence, power and influence. These religious groups were wonderful for their number and diversity; and by the first century C.E., they had achieved dominion over the masses and little has changed today due to the influence of Christianity world-wide.
Almost all the mysteries had one element in common: the worship of an atoning, sacrificial, and immortalizing savior-god, substantially the replica of the great Osiris.
This "pattern" of the Osiris-Godman served the Essene/Qumran sect well in their rejection of Biblical Judaism and through them laid the foundation for the planting of the Essene-Christian faith as the world-wide religion known today as Christianity!