The Truth about Jesus : Is He a Myth?Mangasarian, M. M. (Mangasar Mugurditch)
Religion
The Truth about Jesus : Is He a Myth?
Mangasarian, M. M. (Mangasar Mugurditch)
Jesus Christ -- Historicity; Rationalism
Sharpe in his Egyptian Mythology, page 19, gives the following
description of the Luxor picture, quoted by G. W. Foote in his _Bible
Romances,_ page 126: "In this picture we have the annunciation, the
conception, the birth and the adoration, as described in the first and
second chapters of Luke's Gospel." Massey gives a more minute
description of the Luxor picture. "The first scene on the left hand
shows the god Taht, the divine Word or Loges, in the act of hailing
the virgin queen, announcing to her that she is to give birth to a
son. In the second scene the god Kneph (assisted by Hathor) gives life
to her. This is the Holy Ghost, or Spirit that causes conception....Next
the mother is seated on the midwife's stool, and the child is supported
in the hands of one of the nurses. The fourth scene is that of the
adoration. Here the child is enthroned, receiving homage from the gods
and gifts from men." [Footnote: Natural Genesis. Massey, Vol. II, P.
398.] The picture on the wall of the Luxor temple, then, is one of the
sources to which the anonymous writers of the Gospels went for their
miraculous story. It is no wonder they suppressed their own identity
as well as the source from which they borrowed their material.
Not only the idea of a virgin mother, but all the other miraculous
events, such as the stable cradle, the guiding star, the massacre of
the children, the flight to Egypt, and the resurrection and bodily
ascension toward the clouds, have not only been borrowed, but are even
scarcely altered in the New Testament story of Jesus.
[Illustration: The Nativity of the God Dionysius, Museum of Naples. ]
That the early Christians borrowed the legend of Jesus from earthly
sources is too evident to be even questioned. Gerald Massey in his
great work on Egyptian origins demonstrates the identity of Mary, the
mother of Jesus, with Isis, the mother of Horus. He says: "The most
ancient, gold-bedizened, smoke-stained Byzantine pictures of the
virgin and child represent the mythical mother as Isis, and not as a
human mother of Nazareth." [Footnote: Vol. ii, P. 487.] Science and
research have made this fact so certain that, on the one hand
ignorance, and on the other, interest only, can continue to claim
inspiration for the authors of the undated and unsigned fragmentary
documents which pass for the Word of God. If, then, Jesus is stripped
of all the borrowed legends and miracles of which he is the subject;
and if we also take away from him all the teachings which collected
from Jewish and Pagan sources have been attributed to him--what will
be left of him? That the ideas put in his mouth have been culled and
compiled from other sources is as demonstrable as the Pagan origin of
the legends related of him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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