Osirus from PhD Carrier using original source text (Pyramid text):
Osiris. Clearly raised from the dead in his original, deceased body, restored to life; visiting people on earth in his risen body; and then ruling from heaven above. And that directly adjacent to Judea, amidst a major Jewish population in Alexandria, and popular across the whole empire. But as Plutarch said in
On the E at Delphi 9,
many religions of his day “narrate
deaths and
vanishings, followed by returns to life and
resurrections.” Not just that one. Plutarch names Dionysus as but an example (and by other names “
Zagreus, Nyctelius, and Isodaetes“). And we know for a fact this Dionysus wasn’t the only example Plutarch would have known. Plutarch only names him because he was so closely associated with Osiris, and the most famous.
Not only does Plutarch
say Osiris
returned to life and was
recreated, exact terms for resurrection (
anabiôsis and
paliggenesia:
On Isis and Osiris 35; see my discussion in
The Empty Tomb, pp. 154-55), and also describe his
physically returning to earth after his death (Plutarch,
On Isis and Osiris 19), but the physical resurrection of Osiris’s corpse is
explicitly described in pre-Christian
pyramid inscriptions!"
The pagan gods are Hellenized versions of each religion. This myths started with the Greeks. Features include:
Not in ancient Asia. Or anywhere else. Only the West, from Mesopotamia to North Africa and Europe. There was a very common and popular mytheme that had arisen in the Hellenistic period—from at least the death of Alexander the Great in the 300s B.C. through the Roman period, until at least Constantine in the 300s A.D. Nearly every culture created and popularized one: the Egyptians had one, the Thracians had one, the Syrians had one, the Persians had one, and so on. The Jews were actually late to the party in building one of their own, in the form of Jesus Christ. It just didn’t become popular among the Jews, and thus ended up a Gentile religion. But if any erudite religious scholar in 1 B.C. had been asked “If the Jews invented one of these gods, what would it look like?” they would have described the entire Christian religion to a T. Before it even existed. That can’t be a coincidence.
The general features most often shared by all these cults are (when we eliminate all their differences and what remains is only what they share in common):
- They are personal salvation cults (often evolved from prior agricultural cults).
- They guarantee the individual a good place in the afterlife (a concern not present in most prior forms of religion).
- They are cults you join membership with (as opposed to just being open communal religions).
- They enact a fictive kin group (members are now all brothers and sisters).
- They are joined through baptism (the use of water-contact rituals to effect an initiation).
- They are maintained through communion (regular sacred meals enacting the presence of the god).
- They involved secret teachings reserved only to members (and some only to members of certain rank).
- They used a common vocabulary to identify all these concepts and their role.
- They are syncretistic (they modify this common package of ideas with concepts distinctive of the adopting culture).
- They are mono- or henotheistic (they preach a supreme god by whom and to whom all other divinities are created and subordinate).
- They are individualistic (they relate primarily to salvation of the individual, not the community).
- And they are cosmopolitan (they intentionally cross social borders of race, culture, nation, wealth, or even gender).
You might start to notice we’ve almost completely described Christianity already. It gets better. These cults all had a common central savior deity, who shared most or all these features (when, once again, we eliminate all their differences and what remains is only what they share in common):
- They are all “savior gods” (literally so-named and so-called).
- They are usually the “son” of a supreme God (or occasionally “daughter”).
- They all undergo a “passion” (a “suffering” or “struggle,” literally the same word in Greek, patheôn).
- That passion is often, but not always, a death (followed by a resurrection and triumph).
- By which “passion” (of whatever kind) they obtain victory over death.
- Which victory they then share with their followers (typically through baptism and communion).
- They also all have stories about them set in human history on earth.
- Yet so far as we can tell, none of them ever actually existed.
The resurrection of Jesus was predicted as early as the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah, not copied from pagan religions.
The Resurrection: “According to the Scriptures”?
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RESURRECTION OF THE MESSIAH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
While there is a generally agreed-upon theology of resurrection in the Old Testament (cf. Job 19:25–27; Ps 49:15; 73:23–28; Isa 25:8; 26:19; Ezek 37:1–14; Hos 13:14; Dan 12:1–4 etc.), connections between Psalm 16:10 and Psalm 22, and Isaiah 53:10–11 and Daniel 12:2–3 reveal that the Messiah, in particular, would be raised from the dead.
Psalm 16:10
David’s prayer of trust in Yahweh climaxes with the confidence, “For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption” (Ps 16:10). Some contest the idea of resurrection in this verse in favor of salvation from mortal danger. But the verb “abandon” (עזב) along with the preposition “לְ” refers to leaving someone behind (cf. Jb 39:14). David’s hope is that he would not be left in the realm of the dead. He doesn’t merely want to be saved from an immediate physical danger but to overcome death. In other words, David envisioned resurrection.
The way this verse relates to the Messiah is first through the messianic promise of the Davidic Covenant (2 Sam 7:12–16), which functions as the basis for David’s trust (cf. 16:1). The word “your holy one” (חֲ֝סִידְךָ) is a unique Messianic title in the Hebrew Bible that never refers to David.
The parallelism between David and God’s holy one in Psalm 16:10 is similar to Psalm 4:3 (Heb., v. 4). God hears David’s prayer because He set apart the holy ones (חָסִ֣יד) for Himself. David is one of the holy ones who benefits from God’s actions for them. In the same way, Psalm 16 argues that David’s resurrection is guaranteed by God’s raising of His holy one, the Messiah. Psalm 16:10 is an explicit text in the Old Testament that brings together the concepts of resurrection and the Messiah. Psalm 22 is proof that this kind of thinking was not isolated but interconnected. The promise of the Messiah’s resurrection is set into motion in Psalm 22.
Psalm 22
There is a confident hope that neither David nor the Messiah would be forsaken (עזב) or given over to experience the corruption in Psalm 16:10. But Psalm 22 presents a situation which endangers that hope, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken (עזב) me?” But for the logic of Psalm 16 to work, the forsaking must refer to being abandoned in Sheol—the psalmist or the referent of Psalm 16:10b (the Messiah) has to die. Psalm 22 describes that death in detail (22:12–21). However, Psalm 22 advances to life after death (22:22-31). That is only explainable by the resurrection.
David’s life does not fulfill the details of this psalm, which speak of execution and death. It must refer to the Davidic Messiah. The Messiah’s resurrection was David’s confidence for his own, and by extension, the hope of all of Israel. Isaiah writes about the Messiah carrying the destiny of all of Israel and the world in his death and resurrection.
Isaiah 53:10–11
The Davidic Messiah who suffers, dies (Ps 22:12–21), and is raised (Ps 16:10; 22:22–21) is Isaiah’s suffering Servant. Building on previous revelation, Isaiah 53:10–11 describes his death and resurrection as part of Yahweh’s will. It pleased Him to crush the Servant. That this crushing led to death is made explicit in 53:9, “And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death” —he was buried; burial confirms death in addition to the crucifixion. Isaiah, along with the Psalms, confirms that the Messiah would die. However, the Davidic Covenant would fail if the Messiah stays dead (cf. 2 Sam 7:12–13). His resurrection becomes critical to fulfilling God’s promises.
Therefore, Isaiah also prophesies his resurrection—“he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand” (Isa 53:10b). How can he “see” his offspring if he is executed unless he is resurrected? The verb “prolong” (אָרֵך) is sometimes used to refer to an everlasting (resurrected) afterlife (Ps 23:6; 91:16), and portrays the Servant’s resurrection here. In fact, this verse echoes Psalm 22:30 (Heb., v. 31) where the “seed” (זֶרַע) are mentioned in connection to his resurrection.
Verse 11 posits that the Servant’s death and resurrection will justify many as righteous. This tie between the Messiah’s resurrection and the people’s justification in Isaiah 53:10–11 leads us to perhaps the clearest passage in the Hebrew Bible about the resurrection—Daniel 12:2–3.
Daniel 12:2–3
Once a connection is established between Isaiah 53:10–11 and Daniel 12:2–3, a strong case emerges for the resurrection of the Messiah himself. Daniel 12:3 refers to the saints as “those who are wise” (הַ֨מַּשְׂכִּלִ֔ים), just as the Servant is said to “act wisely” (יַשְׂכִּ֖יל) in Isaiah 52:13. The Servant is said to make people righteous (צַדִּ֛יק Isa 53:11), and the saints turn many to righteousness (מַצְדִּיקֵי Dn 12:3).
The Servant in Isaiah who is also the one like a son of man in Daniel is inseparably attached to his people. Daniel has a theology of corporate solidarity between the one like a son of man (Dn 7:13) and the saints of the Most High (Dn 7:18). Whatever is true of the son of man figure is true of the saints—dominion was given to the one like a son of man (Dn 7:14), but the angel interprets the dream to mean the saints receive the dominion (Dn 7:18). The saints benefit from the work of the Servant/Son of Man. Therefore, the resurrection of the saints in Daniel 12:2–3 is made possible by the death and resurrection of the Messiah.
To say that the Davidic Covenant plays an important role in the Hebrew Bible would be an understatement. It follows, then, that the resurrection of the Messiah, which is critical to the Davidic Covenant as seen in the Psalms, Isaiah and Daniel, occupies a major role in the messianic expectations of the Old Testament Scriptures."