Bible – Page 30 – Jimmy Akin

Is Jesus a knockoff of the Egyptian god Horus?

jesus-vs-horus-300x232 — Horus, Bill Maher, and Gerald Massey

My buddy Jon Sorensen is out visiting this weekend, so he’s not around to stop me from posting the beginning of his awesome article on how Jesus is not a knockoff of the Egyptian god Horus. (Take that, Bill Maher!)

Here goes . . .

Horus Manure: Debunking the Jesus/Horus Connection

This article was published in the Nov-Dec 2012 issue of Catholic Answers Magazine.

Many atheists, neo-pagans, and other disbelievers of Christianity claim the story of Jesus Christ was borrowed from earlier mythologies. In recent years, a claim has been making the rounds that Jesus is based on the Egyptian god, Horus.

Who was Horus?
Horus is one of the oldest recorded deities in the ancient Egyptian religion. Often depicted as a falcon or a man with a falcon head, Horus was believed to be the god of the sun and of war. Initially he appeared as a local god, but over time the ancient Egyptians came to believe the reigning pharaoh was a manifestation of Horus (cf. Encyclopedia Britannica, “Horus”).

What about Jesus?
The skeptical claims being made about Jesus are not always the same. In some versions he was a persuasive teacher whose followers later attempted to deify him by adopting aspects of earlier god-figures, while in others he is merely an amalgamation of myths and never really existed at all. Both versions attempt to provide evidence that the Gospel accounts of the life of Christ are rip-offs.

In the 2008 documentary film Religulous (whose name is a combination of religion andridiculous), erstwhile comedian and political commentator Bill Maher confronts an unprepared Christian with this claim. Here is part of their interaction.

Bill Maher: But the Jesus story wasn’t original.
Christian man: How so?
Maher: Written in 1280 B.C., the Book of the Dead describes a God, Horus. Horus is the son of the god Osiris, born to a virgin mother. He was baptized in a river by Anup the Baptizer who was later beheaded. Like Jesus, Horus was tempted while alone in the desert, healed the sick, the blind, cast out demons, and walked on water. He raised Asar from the dead. “Asar” translates to “Lazarus.” Oh, yeah, he also had twelve disciples. Yes, Horus was crucified first, and after three days, two women announced Horus, the savior of humanity, had been resurrected.

Maher is only repeating things that are and believed by many people today. Similar claims are made in movies such as Zeitgeist and Religulous and in pseudo-academic books such as Christ in Egypt: The Jesus-Horus Connection and Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth.

Often Christians are not prepared for this type of encounter, and some are even swayed by this line of argumentation. Maher’s tirade provides a good summary of the claims, so let’s deconstruct it, one line at a time.

KEEP READING.

P.S. Don’t forget to subscribe to Jon’s awesome blog and to Catholic Answers’ awesome Magazine.

The Dark and Difficult Passages of Scripture

This is a post linking to pieces that are part of an ongoing series I’m working on about the “dark passages” of Scripture–passages that tend to take modern readers aback (for example, because of the violence contained in them).

I’m also including passages that some find difficult even if they aren’t “dark.”

Here I’ll link to the individual posts in the series at their current locations. That will make it easier for me to link each one of those posts individually back to this one to provide a continually-updated post to help people find what they’re looking for.

Here are what I’ve written so far:

Did Matthew Invent A Prophecy About Jesus?

basilica_of_the_annunciation — The Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth

Matthew 2:23 says that Jesus was raised in Nazareth “that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He shall be called a Nazarene.'”

But this statement does not appear in anywhere in the Old Testament.

Does this mean that Matthew just invented the prophecy?

Recently a Muslim author responded to me by claiming just this.

Let’s look into the matter . . .

The Background

Recently I made a video posing the question “Did the New Testament Authors Feel Free to Make Stuff Up?” (click here to watch it).

I looked at several lines of evidence showing that they did not feel free to simply invent material about Jesus, unlike the authors of the Gnostic gospels that were written in the second and third centuries.

The British blogger and convert to Islam Paul Williams posted a response on his blog, Exploring Life, the Universe, and Everything (he’s also apparently a Douglas Adams fan, which I can appreciate), where he wrote:

Yes Jimmy, there is evidence they did [make stuff up] from time to time. Consider Matthew 2 for example:

“There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He will be called a Nazorean.’”

There is no such prophecy anywhere in the Bible [emphasis in original].

Lost Prophecies?

I became aware of Matthew 2:23 when I read through the New Testament at age 20. The Bible I was reading had footnotes revealing where various quotations from the Old Testament could be found, and I was surprised to see that there was no Old Testament reference for the prophecy given here.

What did this mean?

What was Matthew quoting?

Was it a source that had been lost?

We know that there were many prophets in ancient Israel who genuinely spoke for God, even though their prophecies are not recorded in the Old Testament. 1 Kings even indicates that there were as many as a hundred prophets at once!

And Ahab called Obadi’ah, who was over the household. (Now Obadi’ah revered the LORD greatly; and when Jez’ebel cut off the prophets of the LORD, Obadi’ah took a hundred prophets and hid them by fifties in a cave, and fed them with bread and water) [1 Kings 18:3-4].

Could it be that some of this material was passed down in the form of oral tradition, and this is what Matthew was referring to?

Possibly, but there is another option . . .

KEEP READING.

Did the Gospel Writers Feel Free to Make Stuff Up?

KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA — Did the gospel writers feel free to make stuff up?

Some people hold the view that the writers of the four gospels felt free to basically make stuff up, to freely shape the narratives they were writing about Jesus’ life by either manufacturing stories about his deeds or making up teachings and putting them on his lips.

The idea is that they used the figure of Jesus as a vehicle for their own ideas, and they made up material to serve the perceived needs of their local Christian communities.

It’s easy to show that by the second century there were a lot of people identifying themselves as Christians who did exactly this. That’s why there were so many Gnostic gospels dating from the second to the fourth century.

But what about the first century, canonical gospels?

Let’s take a look . . .

What We’re Talking About

I should say a word about what I mean and what I don’t mean.

I’m talking about making stuff up out of whole cloth–the kind of things that the authors of the Gnostic gospels did, telling stories and making up sayings that have absolutely no relation to the historical Jesus and what he said and did.

I’m not talking about paraphrasing what Jesus said–using different words to express the same thing. Or simplifying a story by choosing not to record certain details about what happened. Or telling a story from a certain point of view or bringing out an implication, nuance, or meaning that others might not have brought out. Or using a bit of literary artistry or reorganization in how the material is presented.

The gospel authors did all of those things, as is easy to show. John did a bit more of them than the other three.

What I’m talking about is fundamentally different. I’m talking about making stuff up.

While the Gnostics may have been into that kind of thing, there are very good reasons to think that the authors of the canonical gospels weren’t.

Let’s look at two reasons why . . .

Watch the video for more!

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE.

What Now?

If you like the information I’ve presented here, I’d invite you t to check out 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 says 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?

If the Number of the Beast is 666, what is the Number of Jesus?

666-number-of-the-beast — The number of the beast is 666, but what is the number of Jesus?

We’ve all heard that, in the book of Revelation, the number of the Beast is 666.

Whatever does this mean?

And if the Beast has a number, do others?

Does the name of Jesus have a number?

Does the name of God have a number?

Here’s the story. . . .

Modern Numbers

Today we are used to having a different set of characters to represent letters and numbers.

Our alphabet of letters runs from A to Z, and our system of numbers–or basic numbers–runs from 0 to 9.

But in the ancient world they didn’t have two sets of characters for these. Instead, the letters of their alphabets doubled as characters representing numbers.

Latin Numbers

That’s why, for example, Roman numerals are composed of letters.

In Latin, some of the letters did double duty as numbers, so I meant 1, V meant 5, X meant 10, L meant 50, C meant 100, D meant 500, and M meant 1,000.

To get other numbers you had to combine these in various ways, like using II for 2, III for 3, and IV for 4.

What about the number of the Beast and the number of Jesus?

Watch the video for more!

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE.

What Now?

If you like the information I’ve presented here, you might want to check out 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 says 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?

Did the Catholic Church “Change the Sabbath”?

issundaytherealsabbath — Did the Catholic Church "Change the Sabbath"?

You sometimes encounter the charge that the Catholic Church wrongly “changed the sabbath” from Saturday to Sunday. This claim is often made by Seventh-Day Adventists, for example. But even if one isn’t accusing the Church of wrongdoing, the question can still arise: Why do Catholics worship on Sunday rather than Saturday? Here’s the story . . .

What Day the Sabbath Is

First, let’s clear away a potential source of confusion. While it’s true that people sometimes speak of Sunday as “the Christian sabbath,” this is a loose way of speaking. Strictly speaking, the sabbath is the day it always was–Saturday–though it should be noted that traditionally Jewish people have celebrated the sabbath from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. Sunday is a distinct day, which follows the sabbath. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains:

2175 Sunday is expressly distinguished from the sabbath which it follows chronologically every week; for Christians its ceremonial observance replaces that of the sabbath. In Christ’s Passover, Sunday fulfills the spiritual truth of the Jewish sabbath and announces man’s eternal rest in God. For worship under the Law prepared for the mystery of Christ, and what was done there prefigured some aspects of Christ.

Why We Celebrate Sunday

That same paragraph explains why we celebrate on Sunday. For Christians the ceremonial observance of Sunday replaces that of the sabbath. Properly speaking, we’re not celebrating the sabbath on Sunday. We’re celebrating something else, but it’s something that the sabbath points toward. As the Catechism says, the Jewish sabbath announces man’s eternal rest in God and prefigures some aspects of Christ. Sunday thus fulfills what the sabbath pointed toward.

KEEP READING.

One of the Most Beautiful Stories I Know . . .

john_the_apostle — St. John: Apostle of Love

There are many gems in the writings of the Church Fathers. Some are valuable because of their insight into faith, others are valuable because they fill in things not mentioned in the Bible, and some are valuable because of their spiritual beauty.

Here is one about the Apostle John, who is sometimes called the Apostle of Love. This story alone would earn him that nickname.

It records an incident late in his life, and it is found in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, who wrote only a hundred years afterward and who obtained it from earlier sources.

It may well be true, but whatever degree of historical reliability it has, it touches on powerful human emotions, and it is undeniably beautiful.

The following account is taken from section 42 of Clement of Alexandria‘s work Who Is the Rich Man That Shall Be Saved? It begins with John helping a young man out by entrusting his care to a bishop in Asia Minor. . . .

KEEP READING . . .

Revelation: Solving the mystery of the Nicolaitans

revelation of john — The Revelation of John contains many mysteries, like: Who were the Nicolaitans?

The book of Revelation contains a lot of things that are mysterious. Some are mysterious because of the symbolism John uses, but others are mysterious because what he is referring to is simply unfamiliar to us.

For example, he refers to a mysterious group of heretics known as the “Nicolaitans.”

Who were they?

Fortunately, this is a mystery it’s possible to shed some light on . . .

What Revelation Says

The book of Revelation first refers to the Nicolaitans in the message to the church of Ephesus, where we read:

Yet this you have, you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate [2:6].

That doesn’t give us a lot to work with. There is apparently a group of people known as the Nicolaitans who do things (works) that are rightly hated by the Ephesians.

Revelation’s second reference to them is more informative, however. In the message to the church of Pergamum we read:

But I have a few things against you: You have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice immorality. So you also have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans [2:14-15].

Here the teachings of the Nicolaitans are linked to the teaching of Balaam. (The word here translated “so” is houtos, which carries the idea of explanation: “thus.”)

There may even be a play on words here: As we will see, the Fathers link the Nicholaitans to a man named Nicholaus, which can be understood in Greek to mean “conqueror of the people,” and “Balaam” can be understood in Hebrew as meaning “he conquers/destroys the people” (though it can be understood other ways also).

The Teaching of Balaam

We meet the figure of Balaam in Numbers 22-24, where we learn that he is a seer who was hired by the king Balak to put a curse on the people of Israel as they were threatening to move into the Holy Land.

Balaam, however, was unable to do so. (God wouldn’t let him!)

If you read only Numbers 22-24, Balaam can come off as a good guy. It seems, though, that he went bad.

Later in Numbers, Moses is criticizing the actions of the Israeliets with regard to the women of Midian, and he says:

Behold, these caused the people of Israel, by the counsel of Balaam, to act treacherously against the LORD in the matter of Pe’or, and so the plague came among the congregation of the LORD [Num. 31:16].

What precisely the Midianite women did that caused the sons of Israel to betray the Lord is not spelled out here.

It is, however, discussed in some extra-biblical writings.

KEEP READING.

The final, crushing, humiliating, DEATH-BLOW to that “miracle of sharing” nonsense

FEEDING THE FIVE THOUSAND — Did Jesus really feed more than 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish?

The multiplication of loaves is the most prominent miracle of Jesus’ earthly ministry. It is the only miracle–other than his Resurrection–mentioned in all four gospels.

This even ranks the raising of Lazarus.

But despite this, we’re subjected to countless homilies in which the priest seems bent on explaining away this grand miracle, in which Jesus fed 5,000 men (plus women and children) with just five loaves and two fish. Instead, we’re told, it was just a “miracle of sharing” whereby Jesus encouraged people to share the food they had in secret selfish stashes.

I’ve written about it before, including comments from Pope Benedict and John Paul II, but here’s the final, crushing, humiliating death-blow to the idea . . .

KEEP READING.

Are the German Bishops Just Greedy?

german_bishops325 — Did the German bishops make the right decision?

That’s certainly the impression you would get from some discussing a recent decree issued by the German bishops’ conference.

It’s being characterized as a “pay to pray” policy, whereby the Church will deny you the sacraments if you don’t give it money.

One news source headlined the story “German Bishops To Catholics: Pay Up Or Die Without Absolution.”

That seems to be about as misleading a headline as you could want, because the decree in question expressly refers to the possibility of people receiving the final sacraments.

But let’s look at the matter . . .

KEEP READING.