Is Jesus Based on the Pagan Deity Horus?

Was Jesus based on the pagan deity Horus?

Some people claim that, a long time ago, there was a god.

This god was born of a virgin on December 25th.

He was baptized.

He had twelve disciples.

He healed the sick and raised the dead.

But he was betrayed and crucified, and on the third day he was raised from the dead.

And according to the people who claim this, this god was not Jesus Christ.

Instead, he was the god Horus.

And, since Horus was worshipped before Jesus Christ, they claim that Jesus Christ is just a rip off of the god Horus.

Are they right?

That’s what we look at in this episode of the Jimmy Akin Podcast.

If you’re reading the blog by email, click here to watch the video or listen to the audio-only version.

Use the links below to listen to or download the audio version.

What Now?

If you like the information I’ve presented here, you should join my Secret Information Club.

If you’re not familiar with it, the Secret Information Club is a free service that I operate by email.

I send out information on a variety of fascinating topics connected with the Catholic faith.

In fact, the very first thing you’ll get if you sign up is information about what Pope Benedict said about the book of Revelation.

He has a lot of interesting things to say!

If you’d like to find out what they are, just sign up at www.SecretInfoClub.com or use this handy sign-up form:

Just email me at jimmy@secretinfoclub.com if you have any difficulty.

In the meantime, what do you think?

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

3 thoughts on “Is Jesus Based on the Pagan Deity Horus?”

  1. This podcast was very helpful, thank-you Jimmy.
    I have also noted that some skeptics (I don’t know if they are mythicists) make similar claims about G-d as revealed in the Old Testament, say, comparing Him to Ahura-Mazda. There do seem to occasionally be similarities in the concepts of some of these dieties: Oneness, Eternal, etc. My own theory regarding this is that as Man drifted from the worship of the One True G-d, they still, in certain places, retained a memory of what they had been taught originally, and retained those attributes for their new religions. I have noted that Abram did not not ask about the identity of G-d when He spoke to Abram, even though worship of the somewhat similar Ahura-Mazda seemed to be active in the region at that time. Thus, worship of the One True G-d must have still been maintained, at least in his immediate family, while others were drifting from or outright rejecting G-d. Just a theory.

  2. Thanks so much, Jimmy. I was glad to see a podcast on this topic. It reflects my own study on the subject, which is nice. The only problem (if it is a problem) is that while nothing in the Horus myth *exactly* fits the story of Jesus, it (and many other myths) share many general elements. I can see where this would trouble people. “Most nature-based religions celebrate the winter solstice.” What should this mean to us and our celebration of Christmas? “Most religions have some sort of ritual washings,” or “Gods do miracles. If you can’t do miracles, you’re a pretty wimpy god.” As good as it is for people to know that there are no *exact* parallels, the *general* ones can be problematic for some people too, and we can’t quite get away from those. .

Comments are closed.