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Having been requested by several of our readership at Bet Emet Ministries to share information we might have on the similarities between Jesus and the Egyptian God-man Osiris I thought this might be a good time to share some of the unique similarities between both these “godmen.” You, the reader, will have to evaluate and study it out for yourself if the truth as been told concerning the Jesus of the New Testament or if “copies” of pagan gods have found their way into the Jesus story of the New Testament. Let us not be confused to believe that such a “similar pattern” only existed in Egypt because such similarities of various “godmen” found their way down through the path of Gentile history until it finally culminated in Rome and its final expression of Gentile Christianity. Now, let us look at the similarities.
What form the details of the history of Osiris took in the early dynasties it is impossible to say, and we know not whether Osiris was the god of the resurrection to the predynastic or prehistoric Egyptians, or whether that role was attributed to him after Mena began to rule in Egypt. There is, however, good reason for assuming that in the earliest dynastic times Osiris occupied the position of god and judge of those who had risen from the dead by his help, for already in the 17th dynasty, about B.C. 3800, king Men-kau-Ra (the Mycerinus of the Greeks) is identified with him, and on his coffin not only is he called “Osiris, King of the South and North, Men-kau-Ra, living for ever,” but the genealogy of Osiris is attributed to him, and he is declared to be “born of heaven, offspring of Nut, flesh and bone of Seb.” It is evident that the priests of Heliopolis “edited” the religious texts copied and multiplied in the College to suit their own views, but in the early times when they began their work, the worship of Osiris was so widespread, and the belief in him as the god of the resurrection so deeply ingrained in the hearts of the Egyptians, that even in the Heliopolitan system of theology Osiris and his cycle, or company of gods, were made to hold a very prominent position. Osiris represented to men the idea of a man who was both god and man, and he typified to the Egyptians in all ages the being who by reason of his sufferings and death as a man could sympathize with them in their own sickness and death. The idea of his human personality also satisfied their cravings and yearnings for intercourse with a being who, though he was partly divine, yet had much in common with themselves. Originally they looked upon Osiris as a man who lived on the earth as they lived, who ate and drank, who suffered a cruel death, who by the help of certain gods triumphed over death, and attained unto everlasting life. But what Osiris did they could do, and what the gods did for Osiris they must also do for them, and as the gods brought about his resurrection so they must bring about theirs, and as they made him the ruler of the underworld so they must make them to enter his kingdom and to live there as long as the god himself lived. Osiris, in some of his aspects, was identified with the Nile, and with Ra, and with several other “gods” known to the Egyptians, but it was in his aspect as god of the resurrection and of eternal life that he appealed to men in the valley of the Nile; and for thousands of years men and women died believing that, inasmuch as all that was done for Osiris would be done for them symbolically, they like him would rise again and inherit life everlasting. However far back we trace religious ideas in Egypt, we never approach a time when it can be said that there did not exist a belief in the Resurrection, for everywhere it is assumed that Osiris rose from the dead; sceptics must have existed, and they probably asked their priests what the Corinthians asked Saint Paul, “How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?” But beyond doubt the belief in the Resurrection was accepted by the dominant classes in Egypt.
The centre and home of the worship of Osiris in Egypt under the early dynasties was Abydos, where the head of the god was said to be buried. It spread north and south in the course of time, and several large cities claimed to possess one or other of the limbs of his body. The various episodes in the life of the god were made the subject of solemn representations in the temple, and little by little the performance of the obligatory and non-obligatory services in connection with them occupied, in certain temples, the greater part of the time of the priests. The original ideas concerning the god were forgotten and new ones grew up; from being the example of a man who had risen from the dead and had attained unto life everlasting, he became the cause of the resurrection of the dead; and the power to bestow eternal life upon mortals was transferred from the gods to him. The alleged dismemberment of Osiris was forgotten in the fact that he dwelt in a perfect body in the underworld, and that, whether dismembered or not, he had become after his death the father of Horus by Isis (immaculate conception). As early as the XIIth dynasty, about B.C. 2500, the worship of this god had become almost universal, and a thousand years later Osiris had become a sort of national god. The attributes of the great cosmic gods were ascribed to him, and he appeared to man not only as the god and judge of the dead, but also as the creator of the world and of all things in it. He who was the son of Ra (son of God) became the equal of his father, and he took his place side by side with him in heaven (forming a type of coequality with God & basis for the Egyptian Trinity).
We have an interesting proof of the identification of Osiris with Ra in Chapter XVII. of the Book of the Dead. It is a noticeable fact that even at his meeting with Ra the soul of Osiris preserves the human face, the sign of his kinship with man.
Now Osiris became not only the equal of Ra, but, in many respects, a greater god than he. It is said that from the nostrils of the head of Osiris, which was buried at Abydos, came forth the scarabaeus which was at once the emblem and type of the god Khepera, who caused all things to come into being, and of the resurrection. In this manner Osiris became the source and origin of gods, men, and things, and the manhood of the god was forgotten (human nature deemphasized and Divinity emphasized). The next step was to ascribe to him the attributes of God; thus we see how a man became a God and served as the “prototype” for all other Godmen which would come after in the “image” of Osiris..the first Godman.