Table of Contents
On MythVision, Derek Lambert talks with Egyptologist Kara Cooney about Egyptian creation stories and Christian narrative. Egyptian myth kept changing for three millennia, so a human Jesus later dressed in borrowed divine plots does not shock that training. A demand for one finished truth is, in her reading, a habit of opposition. Polytheist worlds could let many versions stand. Scriptural religion tries to prove the rest false and then freeze a winner. The biblical opening, they note, is simpler and later than Egyptian cosmogony, which lets gods die, conceive, and meet mortals. The wine wonder sits in a long Dionysus pattern. Death and return sit near Osiris, a seasonal god of grain, and near Horus, whom Isis conceives so the father reproduces himself as the royal son. Osiris can die in more than one telling. Dionysus, Osiris, and Jesus differ, and calling that gap fatal to every parallel is treated as an apologist move. The hours wander, but the spine is that Christian images grew in an old mythic neighborhood, above all an Egyptian one.
Key points
- Kara Cooney treats Egyptian myth as a tradition that kept changing, so a later divinized Jesus built from several plots fits that habit.
- She contrasts polytheist comfort with many versions against a scriptural drive to declare rival traditions false.
- Egyptian creation, as she presents it, is older and more bodily than Genesis, with gods who die, conceive, and meet mortals.
- Wine wonders are set beside Dionysus, and the dying king beside Osiris as a god of grain and the farming year.
- Isis conceiving Horus is read as Osiris producing a future self, a succession tale rather than a one-off Christian plot.
- Differences among Dionysus, Osiris, and Jesus are admitted, and sameness is not required for the comparison to count.
- The argument is shared mythic furniture and influence, not a claim that one Egyptian text was copied out as the gospels.
Short quotes
one story can morph into a slightly different story which can morph into another story
Kara Cooney, Egyptian myth and Christian origins
Egyptian myth, she says, is flexible, and one telling can turn into the next. Watch at 3:43
if you're embedded in the polytheistic world all of those Traditions can work with one another
Kara Cooney, Egyptian myth and Christian origins
Inside polytheism, she says, different sacred traditions can operate together. Watch at 8:13
Jesus connects to Osiris and to festivals of seasonality and these are agricultural gods
Kara Cooney, Egyptian myth and Christian origins
She ties Jesus to Osiris through the seasonal rites of farming gods. Watch at 16:07
the Divine birth mythology is nothing more than a masculine God creating another masculine god without using the woman as a creative element
Kara Cooney, Egyptian myth and Christian origins
Divine birth, in her reading, is a male god producing another male god while the woman serves only as a vessel. Watch at 28:45
there's this version and there's that version so there's many ways of killing Osiris
Kara Cooney, Egyptian myth and Christian origins
She says there are several accounts of how Osiris was killed. Watch at 48:01
you have a Divine element that is able to reproduce himself when Isis conceives of Horus
Kara Cooney, Egyptian myth and Christian origins
When Isis conceives Horus, she says, that divine element is bringing forth its own successor. Watch at 57:57
Video by MythVision Podcast. Watch on YouTube.