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Is Jesus Simply a Retelling of the Horus Mythology?

Is Jesus Simply A Retelling Of The Horus Mythology
Image Credit: Nicole_N

What if I told you there was once an ancient religion whose God was conceived by a virgin named Meri and had a stepfather named Seb (Joseph)? What if I told you this God was born in a cave and his birth was announced by an angel, heralded by a star and attended by shepherds? He attended a special rite of passage at the age of twelve (although the ancient texts describing this God are silent about His life from the age of 12 to 30). At 30 years of age, this God was baptized in a river (His baptizer was later beheaded). He had 12 disciples, performed miracles, exorcized demons, raised someone from the dead, and even walked on water. They called Him “Iusa”, the “ever-becoming son” and the “Holy Child”. He delivered a “Sermon on the Mount”, and his followers recounted his sayings. He was transfigured on a mount and eventually crucified between two thieves. He was buried for three days in a tomb and rose from the dead. His followers called Him “Way”, “the Truth the Light”, “Messiah”, “God’s Anointed Son”, “Son of Man”, “Good Shepherd”, “Lamb of God”, “Word made flesh”, “Word of Truth”, “the KRST” or “Anointed One”. He was also known as “the Fisher” and was associated with the Fish, Lamb and Lion. According to this ancient religion, this God came to fulfill the Law and was supposed to reign one thousand years. Sounds a lot like Jesus doesn’t it? According to those who deny the existence of Jesus, however, this description is of a mythological precursor to Christianity, the Egyptian God named Horus. Skeptics sometimes use ancient deities like Horus, Mithras or Osiris as examples of dying and rising precursors to Jesus. They claim the mythology of Jesus was simply borrowed from pre-existing examples such as these.

Was Horus really like Jesus in all the ways skeptics often describe him? These similarities are startling. For many Christians (especially young believers who encounter this objection while in college) similarities such as these cast doubt on the historicity of Jesus. It’s important, therefore, to examine the truth of these claims to see what the real mythologies tell us about characters such as Horus. While it’s true there are a number of pre-Christian mythologies with dying saviors, they aren’t much like Jesus once you start to examine them closely. They often merely reflect the expectations and yearnings of ancient people for the God who truly did come to earth. A significant portion of what we just described about Horus is simply false and lacks any Egyptian historical or archeological support whatsoever. Much of what I described about Horus is simply a reflection of the effort of atheists to make Horus look as much like Jesus as possible.

Horus was worshiped principally in two Egyptian cultural centers (Bekhdet in the north and Idfu in the south). Little remains at the northern location, but there is still a large and well preserved Ptolemaic temple at Idfu; most of our information about Horus comes from this southern temple. Horus was usually represented as a falcon. He was the great sky God and the Son of Isis and Osiris. Let’s take a look at the claims we’ve already described and separate truth from fiction (for a more in depth examination of Horus and many other alleged Christian precursors, please visit David Anderson’s excellent website. I’m condensing much of his work in this brief blog post). We’ll also look at some of the reasonable expectations and motivations causing these mythologies to resemble Jesus:

Claim: Horus was conceived by a virgin mother named Meri, and had a stepfather named Seb (Joseph)
Truth: Horus was NOT conceived of a virgin. In fact, mural and textual evidence from Egypt indicates Isis (there is no evidence that “Meri” was ever part of her name) hovered over the erect penis (she created) of Osiris to conceive Horus. While she may have been a virgin before the conception, she utilized Osiris’ penis to conceive. She later had another son with Osiris as well. There is no evidence of three wise men as part of the Horus story at all. Seb was actually the “earth god”; He was not Horus’ earthly father. Seb is not the equivalent of Joseph and, in most cases, Seb is described as Osiris’ father.

Claim: Horus was born in a cave, his birth announced by an angel, heralded by a star and attended by shepherds.
Truth: There is no reference to a cave or manger in the Egyptian birth story of Horus. In fact, none of these details are present in the ancient Egyptian stories of Horus. Horus was born in a swamp. His birth was not heralded by an angel. There was no star.

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Claim: Horus attended a special rite of passage at the age of twelve and there is no data on the child from the age of 12 to 30.
Truth: There is no continuous effort in the Horus mythology to account for all these years, so there are no real gaps in the chronology. Horus never taught in any temple at twelve (as did Jesus).

Claim: Horus was baptized in a river at the age of 30, and his baptizer was later beheaded.
Truth: Horus was never baptized. While conspiracy theorists often point to “Anup the Baptizer” (claiming he was later beheaded), there is no such person in Horus’ story.

Claim: Horus had 12 disciples.
Truth: Horus had only four disciples (called ‘Heru-Shemsu’), but at some point in his story there is reference to sixteen followers and a group of unnumbered followers who join Horus in battle (called ‘mesnui’).

Claim: Horus performed miracles, exorcized demons, raised someone from the dead, and walked on water.
Truth: Horus certainly performed miracles (he was, after all, described as a god). But there was no mention of exorcizing demons, raising people from the dead or walking on water.

Claim: Horus was called “Iusa”, the “ever-becoming son” and the “Holy Child”.
Truth: No one in Egyptian history was ever called “Iusa” (the word does not exist) nor was anyone called “Holy Child”.

Claim: Horus delivered a “Sermon on the Mount”, and his followers recounted his sayings. He was transfigured on the Mount.
Truth: Horus never delivered a “Sermon on the Mount”, nor was he transfigured.

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Claim: Horus was crucified between two thieves, buried for three days in a tomb, and was resurrected.
Truth: Horus is not reported to have died at all in the vast majority of Egyptian narratives. There is also no crucifixion story. Instead, Horus is usually described as eventually merging with Re (the Sun god) after which he “dies” and is “reborn” every day as the sun rises. There is a parallel account describing Horus’ death and detailing how he was cast in pieces into the water, later fished out by a crocodile at Isis’ request.

Claim: Horus was called “Way”, “the Truth the Light”, “Messiah”, “God’s Anointed Son”, “Son of Man”, “Good Shepherd”, “Lamb of God”, “Word made flesh”, “Word of Truth”, “the KRST” or “Anointed One”.
Truth: None of these titles are in Egyptian history, but Horus is called by several names you might expect for any god in mythology: “Great God”, “Chief of the Powers”, “Master of Heaven”, and “Avenger of His Father”. Horus was not called “the Krst”. This word in Egyptian means “burial” (it wasn’t a title at all).

Claim: Horus was “the Fisher” and was associated with the Fish, Lamb and Lion.
Truth: Some of conspiracy theorists associate Horus with fish (by virtue of the fact that Horus was a fish in some portion of the ancient narrative), but there is no evidence Horus was ever called a “fisher” or was ever associated with the Lion or the Lamb.

Claim: Horus came to fulfill the Law, and was supposed to reign one thousand years.
Truth: There was no Egyptian “law” for Horus to fulfill, and there is no mention of a thousand year reign in Egyptian mythology.

On closer examination, Horus isn’t much like Jesus after all. It’s not unusual for the characteristics of ancient pre-Christian deities to be exaggerated in an effort to make them sound like Jesus. The first step in refuting such claims is to simply investigate the attributes carefully. Beyond this, we must also recognize the expectations and yearnings people have related to the existence of God. The Bible rightly describes this yearning and the innate knowledge each of us has related to God’s existence (Romans 1:18-20 and 2:12-16). We shouldn’t be surprised ancient people (created in the image of God) would think deeply about the nature of this God. Many alleged similarities between pre-Christian mythologies and Jesus are extremely general in nature and would be expected from anyone considering the existence of a Divine Creator. Primitive cultures interested in God’s nature reasoned He would have the ability to perform miracles, teach humans and form disciples. These universal expectations fail to invalidate the historicity of Jesus. As Paul recognized on Mars Hill (Acts 17:22-31), men thought deeply about the nature of God prior to His arrival as Jesus. Sometimes they imagined the details correctly, sometimes they didn’t.

In the end, similarities between Jesus and mythological precursors fail to invalidate the historicity of Jesus. The historical veracity of Jesus is determined from the evidence supporting the reliability of the eyewitness accounts. Jesus is not simply a retelling of the Horus myth. While Horus worship is now a dead religion, Christianity continues to thrive. Why? Because the Christian records are reliable (for more on this, please refer to Cold-Case Christianity). Skeptics sometimes portray Horus as something he isn’t in order to keep us from believing in Jesus as something He is. But the reliable Biblical record establishes the Deity of Jesus in a way no other ancient mythological text could ever hope to achieve.

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For more information about the reliability of the New Testament gospels and the case for Christianity, please read Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels. This book teaches readers ten principles of cold-case investigations and applies these strategies to investigate the claims of the gospel authors. The book is accompanied by an eight-session Cold-Case Christianity DVD Set (and Participant’s Guide) to help individuals or small groups examine the evidence and make the case.

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Written By

J. Warner Wallace is a Dateline featured cold-case homicide detective, popular national speaker and best-selling author. He continues to consult on cold-case investigations while serving as a Senior Fellow at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. He is also an Adj. Professor of Christian Apologetics at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, and a faculty member at Summit Ministries. He holds a BA in Design (from CSULB), an MA in Architecture (from UCLA), and an MA in Theological Studies (from Gateway Seminary).

42 Comments

42 Comments

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  16. Ben

    August 16, 2020 at 11:17 am

    Do you know what happened to David Anderson’s website?

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  23. Andre Hines

    December 8, 2020 at 4:34 am

    You do know that Jesus can’t in any historical way in any timeline ever could come before Horus, so to say Horus is like Jesus is completely false and retarded and denying real Kemet history not (Egypt). There is nothing older then KEMET (Egypt)✌🏽🤦🏽‍♂️

    • Mancito Telfort

      January 9, 2021 at 7:10 am

      Andre Hines you made a great point. But if you look online and in many circles people compare Horus to Jesus which shows that they are zeroing in on Jesus. He is the most talked about individual ever and that is because the devil or dark forces whatever you want to call it would do whatever he could to try to discredit the Holy Christ. If you look historically no religion has been able to predict future outcomes as that which coincides with the Bible. The Old Testament which the Jews are built upon and the New Testament which Christianity is founded on (which is still founded on the Old Testament) have been able to provide more info about life and the future we will endure than any other mythological legend can ever dictate. That’s because God is involved with that book and the truth is there. If you feel otherwise lets talk about it email me at info@MancitoTelfort.com

    • Cc

      May 30, 2021 at 8:42 pm

      Egyptian mythology was here way before christianity. Furthermore the romans invaded Egypt, stole many artifacts and books. No one said the stories were exactly the same but similar. When you plagiarize something you usually switch it up.

    • Daryl Smith

      October 3, 2021 at 2:25 am

      ASÉ!!

    • Antonio Webb

      July 11, 2022 at 12:42 am

      Exactly

    • Jason H

      February 20, 2023 at 8:14 am

      Andre, he’s not claiming that Jesus’ time on earth came before Horus. Over and over again he calls the Horus mythology “pre-Christian”. He’s saying that the false claims by people in the past 100 years about Horus are modeled after Jesus.

  24. Jessica J. Tabor

    February 2, 2021 at 3:50 am

    Pleasant! The data I got past this blog has truly helped me in understanding this is That was something, I was frantically searching for, fortunately I discovered this at the correct time.

  25. Cesar mora

    April 28, 2021 at 9:13 am

    So in The bible is there anything about God or jesus as rising in the sun or the moon and anything in relation to the eye of horus in the sun with God or jesus?

  26. Angela | 6

    June 8, 2021 at 6:51 am

    Interesting take.

  27. JMR

    November 29, 2021 at 12:04 pm

    ofcourse he doesnt have the exact same story as horus. but he is obviously a spinoff story of much older pagan son god. people are so enticed with amazing stories, and add more stuffs like heaven and hell to the mix and people will blindly follow and a chance to save their soul from eternal damnation.

  28. Edwin Paques

    January 16, 2022 at 1:05 am

    Does one not too easily overlook the fact that Egyptian mythology rests on a multi-goddom with (typically!) always depicted gods?
    The unseen, unimagined “God” of the Bible is precisely a religion-fighter in that respect.

    What cannot be emphasized enough in our time is that ‘atheism’ – just the word and all it stands for as a belief! – is actually no older than the 17th century…. so not even 500 years old!

    What believers as well as non-believers in our time no longer see through to the Bible is that that ancient Judaism in particular was uniquely outside of all other religions precisely because it had a ‘God’ who fought all religion for the sake of the men

    What is not too well understood about the Bible even in Judaism and Christianity is that the scripture tells the story of how ‘God-the-Invisible’ (in this He differs from all other gods in all other polytheistic as monotheistic religions!) came into the world to ‘liberate’ man and humanity from the subjugation that all religion always was and is.

    precisely that the Bible is, at its deepest, a religion-fighting scripture that breaks down into two volumes of text: the Old (Tenach) and New Testaments.

    However, both collections (bundles of texts) combat a different aspect of religion; the Old Testament (the Hebrew Tanakh) opposes ‘image worship’ (note however: Moses does not forbid images of gods or God as such… but only ‘images for worship’… and for example ‘cartoons’ are not ‘images for worship’ and were never forbidden by the Torah!).

    The New Testament comes to liberate man and mankind from the compulsion of the sacrificial cult: ‘God’ sets Himself up as the Last (replacing all sacrifices definitive) Sacrifice…so that no sacrifices as ransom for any approach to God or heaven or whatever else is needed.

    The Old Testament (Tanakh) therefore puts an end to image worship and the New Testament puts an end to the Sacrifice cult, ‘sacrifice for the higher’.

    Without image worship on the one hand and sacrificial cult on the other, no religion can survive.
    In this the Bible differs from ANY other religion on earth. There is only one ‘God’ who has fought all religion…and that is that of the Bible.

    However, both collections combat a different aspect of religion; the Old Testament (the Hebrew Tanakh) opposes ‘image worship’ (note: Moses does not forbid images of gods or God as such… but only ‘images for worship’… and for example ‘cartoons’ are not images for worship and were never forbidden by the Torah!).

    The New Testament comes to liberate man and mankind from the compulsion of the sacrificial cult: ‘God’ sets Himself up as the Last (replacing all sacrifices definitive) Sacrifice…so that no sacrifices as ransom for any approach to God or heaven or whatever else is needed.

    The Old Testament (Tanakh) therefore puts an end to image worship and the New Testament puts an end to the Sacrifice cult, ‘sacrifice for the higher’.

    Without image worship on the one hand and sacrificial cult on the other, no religion can survive.
    In this the Bible differs from ANY other religion on earth. There is only one ‘God’ who has fought all religion… and that is still the one and only God of the Bible.
    Translated from Dutch with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator

  29. Amanda

    February 18, 2022 at 1:54 am

    Horus definitely was Crucified, it shows what you actually know. Horus is the resurrection of Osiris. They are meant to be one and the same, so when speaking of Horus, you must include Osiris. If she only hovered over the penis, it still makes her a virgin, for the record. Penetration is what seals the deal, wow. Osiris was crucified to a tree, and resurrected 3 days later by Isis. Both Jesus and Horus were born on December 25. The Ankh and the cross are extremely similar, minus the loop at the top. Egyptians worshipped the “one sun god.” and Jesus was the “one son of god.” Isis WAS called “Isis-Meri” Meri was a titled which meant “beloved” and was added to either the front, or back, of the name of the most important Egyptian figures.

  30. je

    April 16, 2022 at 9:17 am

    BUDDHA is the real life jesus story

    • je

      April 16, 2022 at 9:21 am

      Buddha teaching life story even the geography and religion is all illegally copied from BUDDHISM. It is sad to say the bible has more than 64K errors.

  31. Richard Hopkins

    May 21, 2023 at 7:58 am

    Consider this. On 21st December Orion rises in the SE. The 3 stars in the centre, now known as ‘The Belt’ were originally known as ‘The Three kings’. At the same time the brightest star in our sky, Sirius, rises in the E, in a direct line drawn through the 3 kings. On this day, the Sun is at it’s lowest in the year. To the ancients, it had died, but was seen to rise again 3 days later. So, three days later, sees off Dec22,23,24 and The Son has risen on 25th. Hence throughout the world’s religions, you will find celebration on 25th December.

  32. David West

    July 11, 2023 at 6:51 pm

    Why were so many books left out of the Bible

  33. Sam

    October 27, 2023 at 6:33 am

    God should not be Capitalized when referring to Horus, who is not a god at all. (Parag. 3 Sentence 3);Just saying. 🙂 I love this article by the way. Stay close to Jesus, nothing can separate us from him if we acknowledge he’s the one we need to identify in. Every “good” argument crumbles in front of the True Living God.

  34. Grampa Lamb

    December 6, 2023 at 8:52 am

    There would be no comparison or anyone trying to compare Yahshua Messiah to anyone in the generation of the Hebrew people if the translators had of left his name of Hebrew origin instead substituting Yahshua Original name with a Greek Roman name connected to the Roman gods like Horus, and Isis, Iesus, Iesous!

    And because of these uncouth translators under the dictatorship of the Catholic Church mandates, they also forget that the Hebrew scriptures that were translated by the 70 Heleins of the Septuagint there was no mention of a jesus or an Iesous Father almighty in those Greek translations! There is always a way to double check the truth of a transliteration of on language to another with names.

  35. Grampa Lamb

    December 7, 2023 at 12:27 pm

    The confusion is in the Name. Yahshua was the name of the Messiah that was Crucified for the sins of the world. Any time a name for an important figure is changed, or replaced, years later this causes great concern. Because jesus, Iesous, Iesus, Cristos, instead of Messiah, it makes people search Greek and Roman history to see who he really was.

    But Yahshua was a Hebrew who spoke Hebrew to Saul on the road to Damascus, and if Yahshua had of spoke a Roman or Greek name to him he would have known the voice was the voice of an imposter! In Isaih 9:6 it tells us that the Messiah was to be named by his fathers name not some greek name from some other gods of a gentile nation.

    Isa 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty Yah, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

    7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of Yah of hosts will perform this.

    And that is how the people when the Messiah came was to know him because he would have his Fathers name and not another from some greek god of the Romans!

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