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This website is mostly aimed at providing arguments and evidence for the non-Christian, the Christian who may be struggling with what he or she believes, or those Christians who are interested in reaching out to others.
My opinions may contradict what other Christians believe, but many of my arguments are also based on arguments given by a variety of Christian sources. I especially owe a debt of gratitude to the writings of Glenn Miller, J.P. Holding, Paul Maier, Grant R. Jeffrey, Lee Strobel, and Gerald Schroeder.
Please feel free to borrow ideas or arguments of mine (since many of them were not mine to begin with). I do ask that if you quote from my site directly, to please credit me.
Tat Tvam Asi's 'Evidence' - Page 2
Continued from this page
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Tat Tvam Asi says:
9. Performed miracles, exorcised demons and raised the dead
Bread: "In the gospels of Matthew (15:34, 36; 16:10) and Mark (8:5-6) much is made about Jesus multiplying the seven loaves of bread. Meanwhile, centuries to millennia earlier, a similar fuss occurred over the “seven loaves” in the Book of the Dead, as in chapter 52 and 53b. In the Pyramid Texts (PT 437:807a/P 31; PT 675:2006b/ N 410), the god offers the deceased “thy thousand (loaves) of bread…”
- CIE 288/9
Water: "In BD 62, for example, the deceased, who is Re or Osiris, pleads to have “command of the water,”6 saying, “May I be granted power over the waters…”7 Spells 57, 58 and 59 of the BD are titled chapters for “command of water” or “having power over water,” ... as was said of Jesus in Matthew 8:24-26.
Walking on water: "In BD 64, the speaker says, “‘I know the deep waters’ is my name…. I travel on high, I tread upon the firmament...”8 Since the firmament is ostensibly Nu—indeed, T. George Allen notes that the firmament in this scripture is “watery”—it appears appropriate to say that the Osiris was to trod across the celestial waters, as in BD 15: “Osiris N….thou crossest the (watery) firmament.”9 As another example, in BD 145/6, according to Birch, the deceased, as Horus, says, “I navigate the water, fording it.”10 The traditional water-control refers not only to treading in it but also to trodding upon it."
"...the theme of “walking on water” is old and non-Christian, found in Buddhist tales, for example, such as in the legend of Buddha’s disciple Savatthi Sariputta,2 as well as in the stories of Indian yogis. Also, in The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark, Claremont Graduate University professor of Theology Dr. Dennis R. MacDonald sees in the story of Hermes and Zeus in The Iliad (2.4) a pre-Christian instance of “walking on water.”3 In the end, the supposed miracle of Christ’s walking on water would be neither original nor, we maintain, historical, but, rather, reflects the astrotheological motif concerning the sun god, e.g., Re, Osiris and/or Horus."
- CIE 293-7
Spit: "Like Jesus, who cures the blind man with his spit, Horus heals wounds using his spittle (PT 455:850a/P 50) ... In CT Sp. 1113, the deceased as Horus says, “I am one who spits on wounds which will heal..."
Resurrection/raising the dead: "The resurrection of Osiris by Horus occurs in many ancient Egyptian texts and is often the primary focus of the deceased’s bid for immortality in like kind. At PT 606:1683a-1685b/M 336, for example, Horus is vividly described as raising Osiris from the dead and avenging him.
"In Horus in the Pyramid Texts, T. George Allen summarizes the resurrection account, rolling into one entry the events as found in separate utterances, demonstrating how composite myths are made."
1 Allen, J., AEPT, 226; Mercer, 257; Faulkner, AEPT, 250.
2 Allen, T., HPT, 40; Mercer, 124, 127, 171, 266, 318; Allen, J., AEPT, 80, 82, 129, 242, 303; Faulkner, AEPT, 119, 122, 164, 257, 306.
3 Allen, T., HPT, 43; Mercer, 90; Allen, J., AEPT, 49; Faulkner, AEPT, 77. Again, the ka is the second material body or “double” that must be purified in order to receive the immortal ba or soul.
4 Faulkner, AEPT, 38; Allen, T., HPT, 43; Mercer, 142; Allen, J., AEPT, 86.
"The Greek name “Lazarus” or “Lazaros” equals “Eleazar” in Hebrew and, per Strong’s [Concordance] (G2976), means “whom God helps.” It is a strange coincidence firstly that the person whom Jesus resurrects happens to be named “whom God helps,” and secondly that “Eleazar”—or, breaking down its original components in Hebrew, El-Azar—closely resembles a combination of the Semitic word for God, “El,” with the Egyptian name for Osiris, “Ausar.”
- CIE 297-304
Exorcizing demons: "the Book of the Dead exists in order to purify the Osiris, such as is expressed at BD 30B, which essentially opens the sacred text: “The vindicated Osiris Ani is straightforward, he has no sin, there is no accusation against him before us…”2 If the deceased were found unworthy, he could be sent back to earth as a pig, whereas those whose sins were redeemable would take part in the Resurrection. Indeed, in the Coffin Texts appears a suggestion of the miracle of Jesus driving the demons into the swine and killing them (Mt 8:32; Mk 5:13; Lk 8:33), in a spell (CT Sp. 440) entitled, “Spell for Driving off Pigs.”
- CIE 313
While Horus did indeed perform miracles, Tat's attemps to prove “raised the dead” and “exorcised demons” do not stand up to scrutiny. The only evidence he provides for “raised the dead” is Acharya's insistence that this “occurs in many ancient Egyptian texts”, yet Tat clearly cannot find even one. This is because this doesn't occur in any Egyptian texts at all. While Osiris is resurrected in some versions of the story, it's always before Horus is even born.
As for “exorcised demons”, all he offers in Acharya saying that some people were reincarnated as pigs (even though this relates to Osiris, not Horus himself), and tries to draw a parallel between this and Jesus driving demon-infested swine off a cliff. There is no version of the story in which Horus himself exorcises demons or even drives demon-infested swine off a cliff.
Tat also tried to prove "walking on water", but since that's the focus of the next parallel, I will respond to it after.
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10. Walked on water.
Walking on water: "In BD 64, the speaker says, “‘I know the deep waters’ is my name…. I travel on high, I tread upon the firmament...”8 Since the firmament is ostensibly Nu—indeed, T. George Allen notes that the firmament in this scripture is “watery”—it appears appropriate to say that the Osiris was to trod across the celestial waters, as in BD 15: “Osiris N….thou crossest the (watery) firmament.”9 As another example, in BD 145/6, according to Birch, the deceased, as Horus, says, “I navigate the water, fording it.”10 The traditional water-control refers not only to treading in it but also to trodding upon it."
"...the theme of “walking on water” is old and non-Christian, found in Buddhist tales, for example, such as in the legend of Buddha’s disciple Savatthi Sariputta,2 as well as in the stories of Indian yogis. Also, in The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark, Claremont Graduate University professor of Theology Dr. Dennis R. MacDonald sees in the story of Hermes and Zeus in The Iliad (2.4) a pre-Christian instance of “walking on water.”3 In the end, the supposed miracle of Christ’s walking on water would be neither original nor, we maintain, historical, but, rather, reflects the astrotheological motif concerning the sun god, e.g., Re, Osiris and/or Horus."
- CIE 293-7
I agree that "walking on water" does precede Christianity, and was apparently applied to Buddha in pre-Christian times. However, the feat is also mentioned in the Bible's Book of Job (Job 9:8), which is older than the story of Buddha walking on water, which seems to date to around the 5th century BC. The Book of Job dates to at least 1000 years prior to that.
Of course, the issue at hand is whether the feat was applied to Horus in particular, and all Tat could come up with was a reference to him saying, "I navigate the water, fording it". Nothing about Horus walking upon it. Even Acharya's reference to T. George Allen has the scholar saying nothing about Osiris walking on water, though she tries quite hard to put the words into his mouth.
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11. His personal epithet was "Iusa," the "ever-becoming son" of "Ptah," the "Father." He was thus called "Holy Child."
"As concerns the peculiar epithet “Iusa,” it should be noted that “Jesus” in the original Greek is Iesous or Iasous,1 while in Arabic the name is Issa. In Croatian and other Slavic languages “Jesus” takes the forms of Isus, Isusu or Isusa, while in Irish and Gaelic the name is Iosa. "... Iusa is a combination of the Egyptian word iu ... correctly stated by him to mean “to come,”4 and sa, rightly defined as “son.”5 Hence, Iu-sa would be “the coming son,” which would refer to Horus on a daily and annual basis..." "In an Egyptian text, the term iu sa refers to the evening sun god ...”
"During the Middle Kingdom, the god Shu became popular enough to warrant what is modernly called a “Shu Theology,” as exemplified in the Coffin Texts. CT Sp. 75, for instance, is specifically devised “for the soul of Shu and for becoming Shu.”6 In the same spell, Shu is the “one who foretells him when he ascends from the horizon,” whom Faulkner suggests is the sun god, while “Shu is the god of air” and the “‘foretelling’ of the sunrise may refer to the atmospheric hues which announce the coming dawn.”7 Shu is also “he who despatches the word of the Self-created to the multitudes,”8 like Jesus in his role as the Word of the Creator appearing to the masses. And we also hear that Shu is “one invisible of shape” and is “merged in the Sunshine god,”1 reminding us both of the Ineffable God the Father and his “Sun of Righteousness” Jesus Christ."
- CIE 322-327
Malachi 4:2, "But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings."
Zeitgeist Part 1 Sourcebook Transcript & sources (2010)
Rebuttal to Dr. Chris Forbes concerning 'Zeitgeist, Part 1'
Zeitgeist Part 1 & the Supportive Evidence
Once again, Tat puts for quite a bit of evidence, none of it supporting the claim at hand. His source, Acharya, talks about how the phrase "Iu Sa" would mean "the coming son", but notice that she never gives any evidence that this phrase was applied to Horus, much less that it was his "personal epithet". She also never provides evidence that Horus was called the "Holy Child".
Thus, of the eleven claims that Tat Tvam Asi attempts to prove, he either fails to provide any evidence for the claim at hand, or his sources do not meet the terms of the challenge (university-level scholars, actual stories, pre-Christian images, etc.) for ten of them, only getting a single point for the one I already agree has evidence to support it.
This exchange is a perfect example of why I risked $1000 of my own money to start the Copycat Challenge. When mythicists see my challenge, they usually find excuses to avoid meeting it, as they've been doing repeatedly over the last three and a half years. I had over a dozen mythicists promise to meet my challenge, never to respond with evidence. And when a mythicist finally does attempt to meet the challenge, as Tat Tvam Asi did, people can clearly see how weak and unconvincing the mythicist "evidence" is.
For the vast majority of the mythicist claims, no one can find the stories where these things happen, pre-Christian images clearly showing these details, university-level scholars who concur, peer-reviewed journals that have agreed, or even mainstream mythology books or websites that give these details. Their only "evidence" for most of the claims is simply quoting other mythicists who claim the parallels are true, which is not evidence to anyone who is even remotely skeptical.