Already in the Old Kingdom fragments of the story of how Osiris was drowned and his body found by his sister-wife Isis, were known. By the Middle Kingdom it is stated that Set is the murderer, and Isis´ impregnated with Horus, the son of Osiris. During the New Kingdom the funerary texts tell of a close connection between the deceased and Osiris, outlining the parts of the story of Osiris.
The most coherent recounting of the myth comes from the Greek historian Plutharch. Please note that there are many additives to the original Egyptian myth, which are however impossible to retrace from Egyptian sources. There are also Greek deities mixed into the story. Below is a version based on Plutharch, for reasons of continuity...
There are many striking similarities between the stories surrounding Osiris and Horus and those surrounding Jesus. I will first describe the similarities between their stories and then I will talk about the similar themes and imagery used in the stories. Horus was born to the virgin Isis as Jesus was to Mary. Horus was born in Annu, the place of bread, where a star announced his birth. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the house of bread, with an eastern star leading the Magi to his birthplace. Horus was baptized with water by Anup the Baptizer at the age of thirty just as Jesus was baptized at thirty by John the Baptist. Horus had twelve followers known as Har-Khutti and Jesus had his twelve followers known as disciples. Horus was carried off by Set to the summit of Mount Hetep where they did battle. Jesus was carried off by Satan to the Mount where Jesus was tested by Satan...
Akhenaten was a philosopher and a thinker, much more so than his forebears. His father Amenhotep III had recognised the growing power of the priesthood of Amun and had sought to curb it - Akhenaten however took matters a lot further by introducing the new "monothesitic" cult of worship to the sun-disc Aten. This was not a new idea, as a minor aspect of the sun god Ra-Horakty, the Aten had been somewhat venerated in the Old Kingdom. A large scarab belonging to Tuthmosis IV (Akhenaten's grandfather) has a text that mentions the Aten.
The major religious innovation of this reign was the worship of the sun disc Aten to the exclusion of the rest of the Egyptian gods, even Amun. Art took on a new distinctive style - the reliefs and stelae in the tombs and temples of Akenaten's reign show Akhenaten, his wife Nefertiti and the royal princesses worshipping and making offerings to the Aten, which was displayed as a sun-disc with radiating arms and hands stretched downwards (see pictures above). The names of other deities were removed from temple walls in an attempt to reinforce the idea of the Aten as a single supreme deity...
 |
 |
||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||||
 |
 |
  |
|
||||||||||||||
 |
|
||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
