WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Cult of Osiris, Part 2 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:08.760 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:09.880 is Robert Lamb. 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:12.559 And I am Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. We are 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:15.160 heading into the vault for an older episode of Stuff 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:17.280 to Blow Your Mind. This is part two of our 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:22.160 series on Osiris. This episode originally published April fourth, twenty 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:22.759 twenty four. 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:24.320 All right, let's jump bright in. 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:31.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:39.839 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:40.760 name is Robert. 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:43.640 Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:48.000 part two of our discussion of Osiris, the ancient Egyptian 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:53.200 god of fertility, an embodiment of kingship, especially dead kingship 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.000 and the lord and judge of the dead. 0:00:56.640 --> 0:01:01.160 Yeah, also in agricultural god. There's there's a lot of 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:04.480 complexity to Osiris, and so in the last episode we 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:09.920 basically talked about who this figure of Osiris is, where 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:12.959 and when he emerges from as much as we can 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:17.240 answer that question, and the basic canon of myths surrounding him. 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:19.560 And the fact that you were inspired to do this 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:23.720 topic because we covered the movie Doctor Phibes Rises again. 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:26.960 Yeah, yeah, like seventy five percent Doctor Five's maybe twenty 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:30.320 five percent Easter. So props to Doctor Phibes and Jesus 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:33.920 for inspiring this episode. Now, before we get into some 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:37.319 we are going to get into some additional questions that 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:41.200 we tease last time about comparisons to be made between 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:46.880 the figure of Osiris and other deities and other religions. 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:49.279 But before we do that, I want to come back 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:53.240 to a deity that I mentioned in the last episode 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:56.160 towards the end of it, and that is the Greco 0:01:56.200 --> 0:02:02.040 Egyptian syncretic deity Serapists. This is the deity that is 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:05.880 established under the rule of the Ptolemies in Egypt, a 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:10.640 god that combines elements of Osiris and APIs the Sacred Bull. 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:14.639 These are both again Egyptian deities, along with various Greek 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:18.720 deities like Zeus and Hades. So I just wanted to 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:20.959 add a little more context on this because I don't 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:23.640 think I explained the scenario as well as I could have, 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:25.840 or didn't go into as much detail as I could 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:28.720 have in a way that I think benefits our understanding. 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:31.240 Because we get into this idea again of kind of 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:34.400 like an amalgam god that is to a certain degree, 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:38.560 kind of built by committee with a certain purpose in mind. 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:40.640 And that purpose is not just like, oh, I have 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:42.320 to figure out who you know, what God is real, 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:45.000 and I must convene with it and get its blessings. 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:48.160 Robin our outline. You have attached a photo of a 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.960 sculpture of Serapis seated on a throne or at least 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:56.000 on a chair, sort of dressed in a robe and 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:58.960 holding up some kind of wand or maybe a scroll 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:01.679 of a toon of some some sort of cylindrical object. 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:04.560 But under his other hand, Oh, there's a very good boy. 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:08.040 It is the three headed hound of Hades, Cerberus. 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:11.679 That's right, looking very loyal and very domesticated right there 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:15.200 by his side. There are various You can easily do 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:18.359 a Google search on Sirapis that's se r A Pi 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:22.480 s and you'll find various images that basically fit this. 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:25.240 Sometimes it's just the head, sometimes you see the full body. 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:29.520 Sometimes Cerberus is there, sometimes not. But I do have 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:32.400 to drive home like the utter greekness of this image, 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:34.720 because this will be important to come back to later, 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:37.200 Like this is a very Greek looking god. If you 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:40.480 didn't know exactly what deity this is or what figure 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:43.640 this is. You wouldn't have to know much at all 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:49.000 about iconography and sculpture and depictions of the divine to say, oh, 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:50.640 this looks very Greek to me. 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:52.920 Yeah, it's certainly a Greek art style. 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:55.920 Yeah, and of course ye. And then the three headed 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:58.640 dog right out of Greek mythology. So come back to 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:02.640 Sirapis here in a set. But just to back up 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:04.000 a little bit, I do want to drive home that 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:09.400 Egypt experienced foreign rule at various points throughout its long history. 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:12.680 There were the Hixos, which I believe we've talked about 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:14.840 a little bit on the show before. This is a 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:18.240 term that means rulers of foreign lands, and they controlled 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:21.360 the Delta region of Egypt during the seventeenth century BCE. 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:25.600 These were the first foreigners to rule over part of Egypt, 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:28.120 and there's much that's not known about them, with various 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:31.280 theories about their exact origin, though it seems that some 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:34.520 sort of Canaanite origin is possible, and there has also 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:37.720 been some evidence to suggest that it was perhaps not 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:41.600 an outward invasion but an uprising of peoples who had 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:44.400 previously immigrated to the region. So there's a lot of 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:47.920 scholarly dispute on exactly who these people were and what 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:53.479 this time period consisted of. Now, subsequent invasions by the Nubians, 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:57.440 the Assyrians, the Persians, and the Greeks also occurred, but 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:00.680 pertinent to our discussion here is that in three point 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:05.719 thirty two BCE, Macedonian King Alexander the Great conquered Egypt 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:09.960 from the Persians, and after his death. After Alexander's death 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:14.200 in three twenty three BCE, likely by either poison or disease, 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:16.360 he was only thirty two at the time, so there's 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:18.799 a lot of a lot of arguments for the poison 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:23.240 theory here. But after he dies, a Macedonian general that 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:26.359 had served under Alexander by the name of Ptolemy, declared 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:29.320 himself ruler of Egypt, and the Ptolemy family would rule 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:33.400 Egypt for three centuries. So in her book Egyptian Mythology 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:35.960 that I cited in the last episode, Jeraldin Pinch writes 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:37.520 a little bit about this and points out that the 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:41.599 Ptolemy's ruled from Alexandria, and that is of course where 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:44.520 they built the Great Library of Alexandria. Though most of 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:47.839 its contents, she points out would not have concerned Egyptian culture, 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:51.560 Egyptian history, and Egyptian mythology. You know, Greek culture was 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:54.960 very much the focal point of the lost contents of 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:58.640 this place. Most of the Ptolemies apparently never learned to 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:02.480 speak Egyptian, but the they did, she says, recognize the 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:07.640 challenges of governing a multicultural society and keeping powerful Egyptian 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:11.800 factions content. And this is ultimately where the invention of 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:14.720 Sirapis comes into play, which she describes as quote a 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:18.960 symbol of cultural fusion. So Sirapis is often described as 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:23.240 a patron deity for the Ptolemy capital of Alexandria, so 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:27.760 again a unifying entity. And also in combining all these elements, 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:31.360 Serapis becomes a god of not only fertility and the underworld, 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:35.040 which if you were already loaded in our concept of Osiris, 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:38.680 but also he becomes the god of the sun in 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:42.360 the sky, and he sometimes credited in this role as 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:47.000 Zeus Serapis. And it's interesting that by absorbing these various powers, 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:50.320 he essentially becomes a god of everything, sort of a 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:53.360 monotheism by monopoly or something like. 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:59.560 That, one god among many, increasingly absorbing more and more responsibilities. 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:01.800 Yeah, Like I was trying to think of it in 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:04.880 terms of, like what's a secular example of like have 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:09.200 have have team mascots ever been merged into single mascots 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:11.560 for you know, like the unification of sports teams. Have 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:15.680 the mascots of of uh? Oh, I don't I don't 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:19.120 know fast food chains ever been utilized in this fashion, 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:22.200 like well, you know, the shones has been taken over 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:24.760 by McDonald's, and now the Shonese boy or the Shoneese 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:29.320 Bear must be combined with elements of of uh, you know, 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:31.679 the Ronald McDonald or Grimace or something. 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:35.200 You know like that that is funny, but that that 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:38.600 does kind of imply a necessary competition, like between sports 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:42.160 teams or between competitors within a market space, whereas that 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:44.520 wasn't always the case for gods. I mean, like you could, 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:48.280 you know, worship multiple gods and that wasn't usually a problem. 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:55.160 Yeah, But but here we see this this intentional attempt 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:59.440 to create a deity and create a followship of this 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:06.280 deity that has stabilizing political objectives behind it. Oh and 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:08.240 real quick, just because this plays in something we talk 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:10.239 about in the last episode is we're stressing that Isis 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:12.400 remains a separate entity, So it's not like they just 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:15.680 took everything and threw it into this concept of the god. 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:20.600 That would be too much, I imagine, But distinct gods 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:24.840 are combined into this entity now. According to Lauren Murphy 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:28.920 and Beware Greeks bearing God's Serapis as a cross cultural deity, 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:32.360 published in the journal Amphora in twenty twenty one, the 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.600 invented God doesn't seem to have unified the people in 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:38.160 any meaningful way as far as we can tell, but 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:40.440 it does stand as an example of the diversity that 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:43.200 was present in Egypt at the time. But it was 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:46.600 the religion of the ruling class of foreigners and those 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:50.560 wishing to mix with that ruling class of foreigners. And 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:53.640 also it seems like there were possible connections to an 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:59.760 inspiration via a pre Ptolemaic cult of Osiris APIs Is. 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:03.520 One can see in images of Serapis, he's predominantly depicted 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:05.600 as a Greek deity. But it does sound like there 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:10.920 might have already been some fusion of Osiris and APIs previously. 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:13.720 This would not it would seem not be out of 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:19.920 character with Egyptian religion. Prior to outside influence. Now, the 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:23.080 Ptolemaic line would of course end with its last ruler, 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:27.280 Cleopatra in thirty BCE, as it was, and after this 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.400 point it was absorbed by the Roman Empire. Worship of 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:34.360 Serapis lived on under Roman rule, but experienced eventual decline 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:37.680 with the spread of Christianity during the fourth century CE. 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:40.760 I should say like the top down mandated spread of 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:45.160 Christianity in particular is the death blow to the cult 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:49.640 of Serapis. So if Serapis is a kind of monotheism 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:54.640 by monopoly, he's eventually replaced by actual monotheism. And I 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:56.840 think there's some discussion of whether the worship of a 0:09:56.880 --> 0:10:01.040 figure like Siapis helped pave the way for the of Christianity. 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:04.120 I've seen that discussed, But at the very least, it 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:06.959 seems like there are other factors involved here within the 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:10.520 Roman Empire and regions affected by the Roman Empire. 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:11.360 Interesting. 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:22.120 But anyway, that's enough on si Rapist. Let's get back 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:25.439 to the original deity, but then also into some of 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:30.640 these conversations about Osiris's possible connection with other cultural traditions. 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:35.720 Let's return to Osiris right, So, rob when we were 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:39.559 Initially looking at this topic, I was asking is there 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:42.080 anything you wanted me to look into? And what you 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:44.960 suggested was a question that I had read a little 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:48.120 bit about before, but I was quite intrigued to go 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:51.240 deeper into. And this is a question that has been 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:55.880 widely explored in the comparative study of religion, the connecting 0:10:55.960 --> 0:11:01.000 principle or lack thereof, between Osiris and other gods from 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:04.839 the ancient world, most controversially the Christian Jesus, who are 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:09.280 believed to in some way die and then rise again, 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:14.920 so resurrected gods. This question will take us back to 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:19.120 our old friend James G. Fraser and his incredibly popular, 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:23.520 influential and controversial work The Golden Boo, which this was 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:25.880 a book published in several volumes over the course of 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:29.840 a couple of decades beginning in eighteen ninety. Fraser was 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:33.640 a Scottish scholar of religion in folklore who lived eighteen 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:36.880 fifty four to nineteen forty one, and The Golden Bao 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:41.280 is his best known work. In this book, Fraser catalogs 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:45.760 and analyzes a huge number of myths, rituals, and magical 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:49.920 beliefs from cultures around the world. So He sources these 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:54.120 observations both from like records of things believed in the 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:57.960 ancient world and you know, ancient myths and practices in 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:00.400 the Greco Roman world and so forth. All so he 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:06.000 sources this from ethnographic observations that people have made of 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:09.880 just beliefs and magical practices in cultures all around the globe, 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:15.559 using these observations ultimately to support his broader thesis, which 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:20.160 include the idea that the ritual and mythic elements shared 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:24.480 by most ancient religions point back to an originating cult 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:29.720 practice that involved the ritual sacrifice of a holy king 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:34.559 or guardian figure, often when his fertility was waning, and 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:39.200 the linkage of that practice to the seasonal rebirth of 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:42.720 nature and the crops. So his framework has a core 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:47.240 of this sacrifice of a divine figure, often a divine king, 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:51.160 and a cycle of death and rebirth that has some 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:54.440 implications for nature. You can see why this would be 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:58.240 relevant to the question at hand. Now, before we get 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:02.240 into the specifics of Resz directed gods, a couple of 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:05.719 general notes on Fraser and the Golden Bough. I am 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:08.920 not at all an expert in religious anthropology, but my 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:11.679 personal take on The Golden Bough is that it is 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:17.040 on one hand worth reading because it's important in understanding 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:21.080 the history of Western scholarship on comparative religion, and it's 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:25.600 also just a very absorbing and fascinating text. But on 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:28.520 the other hand, this is like one hundred tow one 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:31.240 hundred and thirty year old book making the case for 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:35.520 a sweeping theory of world religions, and it should be 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:38.320 read with the caution you might expect for that kind 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.439 of work. So I would not take any of its claims, 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:46.280 specific or general, at face value without checking for confirmation 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:49.360 and other sources. I would also be skeptical of his 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:53.080 core theoretical framework, and I would just warn that from 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:55.840 research we have done on this book in the past, 0:13:55.960 --> 0:14:00.640 I recall discovering that some of Fraser's presentation of ethnographic 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:05.520 information about religious practices seems often tailored or cherry picked 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:09.440 to fit his theories. Now the next general note, I 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:12.120 don't know if what I'm about to say is completely fair, 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:15.920 because Fraser doesn't say the following exactly, but I think 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:20.040 one of the informal conclusions that a reader is likely 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:22.800 to take away from The Golden Bough is that when 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:25.720 it comes down to it, all religions are basically the 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:30.280 same and the differences between them are incidental and superficial, 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:33.960 which I would argue is not correct. And even if 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:37.120 that's just an unintended takeaway that people would get from 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:39.480 this book, I think that's a thing that's a conclusion 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:43.200 that I would really stress people should resist. I do 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:46.600 think there are common themes that you will find popping 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:49.960 up again and again in many religions, but not all. 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:54.480 And I also think that the differences between religious beliefs 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:57.520 and practices around the world and throughout history do go 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:01.680 quite deep. Those differences are significan They're not just superficial 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:05.240 variations on the same thing, and some religions end up 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:09.440 serving profoundly different purposes. So personally, I wonder if the 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:15.360 desire to locate so much sameness or commonality between different 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:19.360 religions is something that really is. It is not something 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:22.200 that comes out of the religions themselves, but more emerges 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:25.760 from the need of scholars to have a theory that 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:29.440 explains how religions work and where they come from, when 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:33.120 in fact, it's a very just like, messy, complicated, variegated 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:36.360 phenomenon that you know, lots of different factors are at work, 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:38.720 and so it's hard to have a very simple theory 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:40.720 that explains where they come from. 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:43.680 Yeah, I mean, even like the discussion we just had 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:47.680 about Serapis and Serapis's origins and all. I mean, that 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:51.960 doesn't fully capture what this entity may have meant and 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:54.640 the various additional complexities that may have been involved in 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:58.040 the genesis of this figure. So, yeah, when you get 0:15:58.080 --> 0:15:59.840 into religion, when you get into belief, and you get 0:15:59.880 --> 0:16:03.760 in to these into a process that often you know, 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:07.280 you're talking about a tradition that goes for centuries and 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:10.160 therefore has all sorts of room for change and alteration 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:13.000 and transformation and so forth. 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.560 That's right, exactly exactly. But anyway, to come back to 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:20.600 these resurrected gods, A big part of Fraser's model was 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:24.240 that many religions of the ancient world commonly shared a 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:30.760 dying and reviving god, usually a male deity associated with fertility, 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:34.960 who undergoes a divine marriage to a fertility goddess, who 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:39.320 is then killed or sacrificed sometimes when his fertility wanes 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:42.520 in some way, and then rises from death to live again. 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:46.800 And this resurrection is linked to cycles of loss and 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:50.640 return in the natural and political world, such as the seasons, 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:53.520 the death of plants in winter and the rebirth in 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:56.840 spring and summer, the seasonal inundation of the nile, and 0:16:56.880 --> 0:17:01.040 other natural cycles and political cycles, the death of kings 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:04.760 and the coronation of their errs. So the question is 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:08.680 do we really find these dying and rising gods all 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:13.359 throughout the ancient religions. Unfortunately, if you look into this question, 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:17.080 I think you find the topic horribly polluted by a 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:21.399 lot of motivated argumentation, primarily tracing back to the question 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:25.520 of whether Jesus of Nazareth should be thought of as 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:28.840 one of these dying and rising deities. So this topic 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:34.200 is infected by both Christian apologetics and anti Christian polemics. 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:37.520 So you've got, you know, people who don't like Christianity, 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:42.280 anti Christian polemicists arguing, look, see how stupid Christianity is. 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:44.639 Jesus is just a copy of these other dying and 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:48.439 rising deities. And then you've got Christian apologists arguing that no, 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:52.160 Christianity is totally unique, it is unlike any other religion 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:55.080 on earth because it is the one true religion and 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:59.800 all such comparisons are spurious, so caveat that there is 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:02.240 a lot of that kind of garbage floating around in 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:05.320 both directions. I'm trying to do my best to put 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:08.480 together a clear and what seems to me relatively unbiased 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:12.040 answer to the question of what similarities exist between these 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:16.199 alleged dying and rising gods and to what extent Osiris 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:17.879 and Jesus fit into that mold. 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:20.600 Yeah, the real tragedy is that it just makes it 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:22.800 almost impossible for these two to ever hang out. 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:27.000 Yeah. Well, all of Jesus's friends are saying Osiris is 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:29.080 just trying to be like Jesus, and all of Jesus 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:31.359 Osirius's friends are saying Jesus is just trying to be 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:31.800 like him. 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:32.240 Yeah. 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:37.359 Will the accusations of copying never stop? But anyway, So, 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:41.120 of course, the dying and reviving Deity's framework was popular 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:43.359 with Fraser and his allies, so I think in the 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:46.520 early twentieth century were sort of associated with Cambridge University. 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:48.879 So I want to go through a couple of the 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:52.720 examples that Fraser cites and then we'll get into critiques 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:57.080 of them. So one example is the god Adonis, a 0:18:57.280 --> 0:19:00.920 figure in Greek myth thought to have been derived from 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:05.119 other ancient Near Eastern deities, such as the Mesopotamian god 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:10.280 of agriculture, Tamus or Demuzi. Adonis, in many tellings, began 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:13.879 as a mortal man famed for his beauty. He was 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:16.760 sort of the pinnacle of hotness, and he was so 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:20.520 handsome that when he was young, the goddesses Aphrodite and 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:24.120 Persephone fought bitterly over whether he would live with one 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:26.600 of them or the other. More on that myth in 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:29.960 a minute. But then another story is that later in 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:34.199 his life Adonis was the lover of Aphrodite until he 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:38.359 was tragically impaled by a wild bore wild hunting, so 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:41.879 it gets the tusk right in the guts, and so 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:44.520 he's out there dying in the in the wilderness on 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:48.080 the hunt, and the goddess Aphrodite comes and weeps over 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:51.800 his body, and as her tears fall and Adonis's blood 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:55.679 runs down into the earth, the ground produces delicate flowers. 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:59.000 Sometimes a specific type of flower is named, so like 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:01.800 you know you've got. In some understandings of the story, 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:05.639 the body fluids of these divine lovers combine upon the 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:08.399 young man's death and bring forth the fruits of the earth, 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:11.640 and to try to understand the significance of this figure, 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:16.760 Fraser starts looking at celebrations of the death of Adonnas. 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:17.240 There was a. 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:20.879 Festival or a commemoration of the death of Adonnas that 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:26.200 was celebrated in the summertime, and Fraser looks at accounts 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:30.480 of this ritual. So Fraser says, quote, at Alexandria, images 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:34.640 of Aphrodite and Adonis were displayed on two couches. Beside 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:38.360 them were set ripe fruits of all kinds, cakes, plants 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:42.200 growing in flower pots, and green bowers twined with Annis. 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:45.560 The marriage of the lovers was celebrated one day, and 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:49.280 then on the morrow, women attired as mourners, with streaming 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:52.639 hair and bared breasts, bore the image of the dead 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:55.920 Adonnas to the seashore and committed it to the waves. 0:20:56.400 --> 0:20:59.320 Yet they sorrowed not without hope, for they sang that 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:03.640 the lost would come back again. And after describing more 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:08.560 of these rituals, Fraser says, summarizing quote, we may therefore 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:12.200 accept as probable an explanation of the Adonis worship, which 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:15.359 accords so well with the facts of nature and with 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:19.119 the analogy of similar rights in other lands. Moreover, the 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:23.600 explanation is countenanced by a considerable body of opinion amongst 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:27.159 the ancients themselves, who again and again interpreted the dying 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:31.640 and reviving God as the reaped and sprouting grain. Fraser 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:35.879 also cites Temus, the Mesopotamian god from which Adonis is 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:40.280 probably derived. Tamus was the consort of the goddess Inana 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:45.000 and was also linked to crop cycles and apparently images 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:49.200 of death and rebirth. Among many gods Fraser offers as 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:54.159 displaying death and resurrection. He also cites the Egyptian god Osiris. Now, 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.360 of course, we already went over the basic myth of Osiris, 0:21:57.359 --> 0:21:59.840 But what does Fraser have to say about the meaning 0:21:59.840 --> 0:22:02.000 of Osiris here? So I'm going to read a couple 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:05.040 of lengthier quotes from Fraser here on Osiris. 0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:06.160 Quote. 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:09.320 In the resurrection of Osiris, the Egyptians saw the pledge 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:13.120 of a life everlasting for themselves beyond the grave. They 0:22:13.160 --> 0:22:15.960 believed that every man would live eternally in the other 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:19.600 world if only his surviving friends did for his body 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:23.480 what the gods had done for the body of Osiris. Hence, 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:27.000 the ceremonies observed by the Egyptians over the human dead 0:22:27.280 --> 0:22:30.719 were an exact copy of those which Annibis, Horus and 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:34.000 the rest had performed over the dead god. And then 0:22:34.000 --> 0:22:36.800 he goes on. At every burial there was enacted a 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:41.000 representation of the divine mystery which had been performed of 0:22:41.119 --> 0:22:45.280 old over Osiris, when his son, his sisters, his friends 0:22:45.280 --> 0:22:48.760 were gathered round his mangled remains and succeeded by their 0:22:48.800 --> 0:22:52.600 spells and manipulations in converting his broken body into the 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:57.080 first mummy, which they afterwards reanimated and furnished with the 0:22:57.200 --> 0:23:00.959 means of entering on a new individual life beyond the grave. 0:23:01.680 --> 0:23:05.320 The mummy of the deceased was Osiris. The professional female 0:23:05.320 --> 0:23:09.800 mourners were his two sisters, Isis and Nepthis Annibis Horas, 0:23:09.960 --> 0:23:13.720 all the gods of the Osirian legend gathered about the corpse. 0:23:14.320 --> 0:23:18.280 In this way, every dead Egyptian was identified with Osiris 0:23:18.320 --> 0:23:21.359 and bore his name. From the Middle Kingdom onwards, it 0:23:21.400 --> 0:23:24.520 was the regular practice to address the deceased as Osiris 0:23:24.560 --> 0:23:27.400 so and so, as if he were the god himself, 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:31.400 and to add the standing epithet true of speech, because 0:23:31.560 --> 0:23:36.159 true speech was characteristic of Osiris. The thousands of inscribed 0:23:36.160 --> 0:23:38.520 and pictured tombs that have been opened in the Valley 0:23:38.560 --> 0:23:41.440 of the Nile prove that the mystery of the resurrection 0:23:41.720 --> 0:23:44.840 was performed for the benefit of every dead Egyptian. As 0:23:44.880 --> 0:23:48.440 Osiris died and rose again from the dead, so all 0:23:48.520 --> 0:23:51.960 men hoped to arise like him from death to life eternal. 0:23:52.400 --> 0:23:55.760 So there's a kind of in what Fraser is implying here, 0:23:55.760 --> 0:23:59.520 there's a kind of special role for Osiris, especially when 0:23:59.560 --> 0:24:04.200 compared to some of these other examples of allegedly dying 0:24:04.240 --> 0:24:08.480 and reviving gods, where Osiris not only in Fraser's mind, 0:24:08.840 --> 0:24:12.080 dies and then is brought to life again, but by 0:24:12.400 --> 0:24:16.600