Posted: Mar 02, 2010 9:49 pm
TimONeill wrote:tnjrp wrote:Anyhow, on the subject itself I'm not entirely sure if the general idea is to make the entire Osiris story parallel to Jesus' but rather to fit out and if necessary to shoehorn the similar details in them to bolster up the case that the mythology surrounding Jesus borrows from other sources
Exactly. So anything happening to a god or hero after their death is classed as "resurrection", even if (as in Osiris' case) it's nothing of the sort. Ditto for any kind of miraculous birth story being classed as a "virgin birth", even if sex is involved and, therfore, virginity clearly isn't. And any followers or attendants suddenly get reclassified as "disciples" and their number magically becomes 12, even if there are actually 2, 4 or 15 of them.
Near enough is good enough in this "parallels with Jesus" game, and a bit of fiddling with words, numbers and details is the key to the whole thing. Never let the facts get in the way of a nice, silly New Age idea. After all, if it's on the internet it must be true, right?
First things first. Glad to see you are here. I would have missed your insights on myth and your debunking the attempts to compare Pagan myths and Christian myths.
As I mentioned once over on that other board, even E. Wallis Budge never claimed the Jesus myth borrowed from the Osiris myth though he did say that the Egyptians were well-prepared to accept Christianity because of the Osiris myth. In fact, accepting the Jesus myth likely freed them from all the drudgery of mummification and rituals while feeling they were latching onto something similar in terms of meeting their needs regarding belief in an afterlife.