Mythological Continunity
  by William Edelen

Anthropologists and religious historians estimate that in the last 150,000 years, since Neanderthal times, there have been at least 100,000 distinctly different religious traditions. Religions do not just pop into existence. They are a spin off from preceding cultures and they borrow, steal and plagiarize from the preceding culture and reuse the material to suit their own purposes. For instance, scholars know today that the Old Testament names of the Hebrew patriarchs had been around for 1000 years prior to Hebrew Old Testament times. Scholars know today that nothing in the Gospels is historical or biographical but is legend and folklore and a perfect example of mythological diffusion or mythological continuity.

As Carl Jung writes: "The Osiris myth was clearly superseded by the Christ myth." The Osiris myth, in the beautiful trinity of Isis and Horus, lasted for 4500 years in Egypt. Even 500 years after the death of Jesus, Christians worshipped in Alexandria before statues of the virgin mother Isis suckling her divine child in a stable.

The genealogical table of Christ in the book of Matthew (1:1-17) consists of 3 X 14 names. The greatest festival in Egypt was the Heb-Sed celebration to reaffirm the Pharaoh as God's son. In the processional, statues of 14 of the Pharaoh's ancestors were carried before him. There had to be 14. Celebrated every 3 years, it had to be 3 X 14, or exactly the same mythological formula found in the book of Matthew, the genealogy of Jesus.

Of all the resurrected savior gods that were worshipped before and at the beginning of the Christian myth, none contributed so much to the Christ mythology as the Egyptian Osiris. Osiris was called "Lord of Lords," "King of Kings," "the good shepherd." He was called "the resurrection and the life," the god who "made men and women to be born again." He was the "god man" who suffered, died, rose again and lived eternally in heaven. Egyptian scripture reads: "as truly as Osiris lives, so truly shall his followers live also."

The coming of Osiris was announced by Three Wise Men. His flesh was eaten in the form of communion cakes of wheat. Only through Osiris could one obtain eternal life. The much loved 23rd Psalm of the bible is only a modified version of an Egyptian text appealing to Osiris, "the good shepherd," to lead the dead "to green pastures and still waters," "to restore the soul" to the body and to give protection in "the valley of the shadow of death."

An outstanding television series on religion for PBS a few years ago documented human religious experiences. On this, Dr. Grace Cairns, who holds a doctorate in religion from the University of Chicago, wrote: "the resurrection myth of Osiris and Isis prepared the Greco-Roman world for the resurrection myth of Jesus in early Christianity." Like Attis and Mithra, Jesus was sacrificed at the spring equinox, rose again from the dead on the third day and ascended to heaven. And like Mithra, Osiris and all the other gods, he celebrated his birthday nine months later at the winter solstice.

I like knowing how our rituals fit into the larger picture of our human family. Knowing the origin of our celebrations enriches their dimensions and places us...and our time...within a historical perspective, religiously.

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