Expert: Marvin Howard - 11/23/2008

Question
QUESTION: "I only recently became aware of the similarities between the historical Jesus and the Egyptian God Horus. While I've long been aware that Christian missionaries strategically co opt holidays and traditions of the local native populations, I do not quite know how to reconcile the idea that the very history of Jesus Christ may not be historically accurate and unique. Can you expound on this topic and perhaps recommend some further reading I might do to shed some additional light on this topic?"

ANSWER: Hi!

Bill, I understand your quandary. Personally, I realized something like this a few years past, and I had to seek information to satisfy both curiosity and concern. Let's see what we can do to clarify this for you; thank you for the opportunity. In your question, you gave a very basic answer, but it is so basic that it allows you to see potential for a faulty premise (that Jesus is possibly historically inaccurate or not unique). We need to understand the source of the native populations you mentioned. To understand this, we must begin at the beginning; literally.

Genesis 3:9-15, "And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."

What we have in this passage is the aftermath of the first sin. Man was no longer safe from eternal destruction. Man was in danger, but the love of God, as He approached man, is made evident. In verse 15, a savior is promised.

Much of God's dealing with mankind was not recorded for our use. What we have is more than sufficient. This is especially true prior to the advents of Moses and Abraham. There is a reason for this which I will give at a later time in this answer. From Genesis 1 through Genesis 11, we have the genealogies to prove Christ, creation, sin, the flood, and the start of civilization. These events are given in great detail for our understanding. It is the start of civilization (and nationalism) and the remedy for sin that will be the crux of this answer.

Genesis 11:1-9, "And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth."

Nimrod is only the great-grandson of Noah. This is only two generations of births after the destruction of the rest of the population. It is likely that a third or even fourth generation were already born, but Nimrod was only middle aged.

We must remember that somewhere in the neighborhood of 1750 years (if my math is correct) have lapsed, since the creation and the fall of man, to this point. This is one and three fourths millennia (almost the same length of time we have observed since the advent of Messiah) of relaying the promise of a savior by no other means than word of mouth. Moreover, we do not have recorded any additional details of the promise revealed as being given to the intermediate patriarchs. Likewise, we have no recorded conclusions of man as to how this would be fulfilled. Now, let's place ourselves just two generations after the flood, and consider how the events of Babel appeared to the common man.

To this point, even though God had commanded the people to replenish the earth, the people remained in one, general location. The people knew a savior was coming. They had many ideas of what this would entail (some accurate and some not). The leader of the people (Nimrod) was engaged in a massive project. Suddenly, a miracle is performed. No one can understand anyone else. The people are forced to separate into different corners of the earth by a lack of cooperation. The last thing they saw as a unit was this mighty miracle. Without the aid of inspiration, each of these told (again by word of mouth) of the tale that a savior came.

Promises of the savior were improperly applied to Nimrod, as the people improperly credited this miracle to his doing. He became the source of all idolatry. He became Ba'al, and all the other idolatrous gods known to man by whatever name was given in the new language. Likewise, Semiramis (the mother of Nimrod) is the source of all goddesses. These would include Ashtaroth, Isis, Ishtar, and so forth. Drawings of Semiramis, holding Ba'al (supposedly the reincarnation of his father after 3 days of death), show the same halos that appear in the catholic depictions of Mary and Jesus. Whether the god under discussion is Horus or any other, the same, basic information is useful in understanding the general concept: all false gods are based upon the true God and the incarnation of Jesus.

Bill, I normally do not recommend sources for information outside of the Bible or Christian authors. The reason is simple; there is a chance that religious error might be mistaken for truth. After all, I do not know your level of Biblical knowledge or soundness. However, in this case, I must make an exception. Before I do, I offer this admonition. The author of this work is not a member of the church. He has some ideas about the true God that are so twisted, no Christian from the first century would recognize them. Anything, and I will say that again; anything, this man says about correct religion should be absolutely ignored. Nevertheless, he is a historian more than the theologian he professes to be. His history is (as far as I can determine) accurate. Here is a link where you may find this work (I believe it is complete at this location):

http://cbcg.org/twobaby/twobaby.htm

You may need to copy and paste that address into your browser, as I am unsure whether hyperlinking is enabled in these answers. I would appreciate it greatly if you would post me a follow-up question detailing the particulars of this function. The title of this work (if you would rather read from a hard copy) is, "The Two Babylons," by Alexander Hislop.

Bill, every prophecy of Christ is falsely applied to the wrong person; either real or imagined. Many twists to these prophecies are also in the mix. The problem is that none of the prophecies are applied en masse. It is piecemeal with the false gods, while Jesus fulfilled every prophecy fully. What makes Jesus unique is He is the only Being, ever to exist, to whom these prophecies (333 recorded) alone apply truthfully and completely. The odds of this happening with any one person are 840,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (that is 84 times 10 to the 123rd power) to 1. This is far more than the number of people to ever inhabit the earth, and the possible time frames for fulfillment of some of these have now passed. This is more than enough to prove that the history and accuracy of Jesus are sure and intact.

This is where the reason for God allowing the misapplications of events to continue comes into play.

2nd Thessalonians 2:10-12 "And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."

God wants us to love Him enough to find the truth. God wants us to love Him enough to apply the truth to Him; with no substitute. If we do not, He allows us to believe the lie. It is not what God wants, but it is allowed.

Bill, Christians meet and partake of the Lord's Supper on the first day of the week. Mythology, the practice of following the same false gods, calls this the day of the sun (Sunday). Israelites met and worshipped on the seventh day of the week. Mythology calls this the day of Saturn (Saturday). My final point to you is that it matters not what pagans do or believe, as far as our salvation is concerned, provided we know and do the truth.

After you read the book on pagan history I suggested, if you still have further questions on this topic, please do not hesitate to ask. If I can be of further service to you in another area of study, please let me know.

In His Service,
Marvin Howard

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Marvin,

Perhaps you did not understand my dilemma.

Several thousands of years before the birth of Christ. There was an Egyptian deity named Horus. According to Egyptian history/mythology, long since recorded, Horus was born at on Dec 25th, of a virgin mother. At age twelve he showed his talents and then disappeared till his thirtyth year. He spent his time preaching and performing miracles till in his thirty-third year he was put to death. The parallels do not end there.

You may read more about Horus and Jesus here:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa5.htm

Thank You

Bill Rodgers

Answer
Hi!

Bill, I did understand the situation. The similarities are the same with Ba'al. Each nationality had a "national god" taken from the same "legends." The thing is, those "legends" are derived from the true prophecies of the Christ. They were based on the same promises, but with some misunderstandings.

Saturn was also supposedly born on December 25th. The book reference I gave you explains this (and gives reasons) in far greater detail than I can. Here is one point the false gods differ with Jesus. Using the Bible, I can surely deduce that Jesus was either born on April or September (based upon the temple service times of His second cousin, Zacharias), and logically, I can deduce from a combination of this information and history, that Jesus was actually born on Friday April 1 (catholicism's April Fool's Day), 5 B.C.

I would only be worried if the majority of false gods were not emulating the truth of Jesus in so many respects. They got their information from somewhere, and I believe I see that link. Horus is a national name for Ba'al. Saturn is a national name for Ba'al. Every false god wears a national name for Ba'al.

Likewise, Ashtaroth is a national name for Semiramis. Astarte is a national name for Semiramis. Ishtar, Eastare, and Easter are national names for Semiramis.

Each and every one of the idolatrous gods, regardless of name, will have similarities with Jesus and/or the Father; usually Jesus. Some will have more similarities than others due to differing sophistications in language or other factors. They are copies, even if they are protocopies (if you will allow me to coin that expression based on the foreknowledge that comes from prophecy), of the real thing. The ones that came first took errant interpretations of God's promises, and tried to force his hand in the matter. Perhaps they wanted the national pride of saying they brought the savior into the world. Perhaps there are other reasons. We may never know of motives lost in antiquity. Let it be sufficient to know they are imposters, regardless of when they were first imagined, EVEN if that date was BEFORE Christ. (Capitals for emphasis, rather than shouting, MRH)

In His Service,
Marvin Howard