Was the resurrection of Jesus similar to Lazarus's resurrection ?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Was the resurrection of Jesus similar to Lazarus's resurrection ?

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Jul 07, 2020 2:55 pm
Joseph D. L. wrote: Tue Jul 07, 2020 2:44 pm Of course if you want to be technical, Osiris could not have been resurrected before 72 days, as it was the time it took to be mummified. But there are indeed sources, textual, and ritual, that do indicate a period of four days, from the day of his death to the day of his resurrection.
I guess what is making me hesitate is the messiness of it, at least so far.

For example, you quoted a line of Faulkner's from the Pyramid Texts as "the three-day festival," yet your other translation of that same line comes out as "the three beginnings (of the divisions of the year)," putting me in mind of the three Egyptian seasons (Flooding, Growing, and Harvesting), not three days. I do not know the relevant language, so I cannot determine which is the correct translation. Besides this, the number in question is three, not four. The number in Plutarch is four. Do those adjacent numbers describe the same length of time, expressed differently? Maybe, but I am not sure. You mention other primary sources, but so far I have not been able to examine them.
I quoted Mercer because I can copy/paste the entire Utterance so you can see the surrounding context, but Faulkner's translation is the most accurate. (As is Allen's). The festival mention in the above quoted Utterance is a New-Moon festival, celebrated monthly over the span of the New moon phase, which lasts three days. Osiris dies on the day prior to the festival, and is resurrected on the last day of the festival. So a period of 96 hours from death to resurrection.

The same scenario is in the Ikhernofret Stela. Osiris dies on the day before the Procession of Wepwawet, and rituals are divided up into their own respective day, with Osiris's resurrection taking place on the last day, four days after his death. And again with the Festival of Khoiak at Denderah and Abydos, where Osiris dies, or "goes missing", and is mourned for three days afterward, only to "be found", or resurrected, at the end of he third day.

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Osiris diesDay of MourningDay of MourningOsiris rises!
Waning moonNew moonNew moonWaxing moon

Is it a matter of language games? I guess that's one way of looking at it. After all, I remember reading about a dispute in the Talmud as to what year Jubilee fell on, the 49th year or the following year? And this question extends to Jesus. Do you count each day or do you count the hours?

This also covers Attis too and the Festival of Hilaria. Attis dies on the 22nd when the tree is brought to the square, and Attis doesn't resurrect until the 25th. 22, 23, 24, 25, four days. Or do you only start with the 23rd? Again, it's a matter of language games. (And for any naysayers reading this, Attis WAS resurrected).
I am quite open to the notion that Lazarus is based on Osiris; I think that the gospel of John probably shows other signs of a similar syncretism, as well (water into wine being Dionysian, for example), so the pattern would fit. But I would like to make sure the evidence is secure before getting too excited about it, if that makes sense.
Read Boswell's blog, or if you can read his book. The amount of erudition he has is staggering. Even though I'm not a proponent that paganism is the true vine of Christianity, it definitely has a deep influence.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Was the resurrection of Jesus similar to Lazarus's resurrection ?

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Joseph D. L. wrote: Tue Jul 07, 2020 4:11 pmIs it a matter of language games? I guess that's one way of looking at it. After all, I remember reading about a dispute in the Talmud as to what year Jubilee fell on, the 49th year or the following year? And this question extends to Jesus. Do you count each day or do you count the hours?
Well, with Jesus (especially since I do not have to figure out how long he was "historically" in the tomb) it is the number itself that seems to matter, and that number is three. "On the third day" and "three days and three nights" are not literally compatible periods of time, but what they have in common is the number three. If anybody ever said, "He rose before the fourth day," or, "He rose after two days," it must have been very rare. What seems to have counted is the number three itself, however that number might be interpreted timewise.

This must not be the case for Osiris, which is part of why I am trying to get my bearings.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Was the resurrection of Jesus similar to Lazarus's resurrection ?

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Well, there's no text that I know of that says succinctly "Osiris was dead three days and three nights". Even in regards to Jesus, which makes mentions specifically to three days, was not himself dead for three days. Three days is just an all around average. With Osiris it's a rounding down, and for Jesus it's a rounding up.

Also, keep in mind that Jews and Christians would be able to witness the festivals that took place in honour of Osiris and Attis, and thus would note the four day period between Osiris's death and his eventual resurrection. If Lazarus and Jesus are based on the Osirian cycle then it doesn't add up why one would be dead four days and the other three days. Also, kind of a curiosity that Lazarus's feast day is the 17th of December, which corresponds to the the 22nd of Khoiak when the Alexandrian calendar was implemented, the 22nd being when Osiris was declared dead at the festival at Denderah. Spooky.
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Re: Was the resurrection of Jesus similar to Lazarus's resurrection ?

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Joseph D. L. wrote: Tue Jul 07, 2020 5:04 pm Well, there's no text that I know of that says succinctly "Osiris was dead three days and three nights". Even in regards to Jesus, which makes mentions specifically to three days, was not himself dead for three days. Three days is just an all around average. With Osiris it's a rounding down, and for Jesus it's a rounding up.

Also, keep in mind that Jews and Christians would be able to witness the festivals that took place in honour of Osiris and Attis, and thus would note the four day period between Osiris's death and his eventual resurrection. If Lazarus and Jesus are based on the Osirian cycle then it doesn't add up why one would be dead four days and the other three days.
Well, to be clear, I do not think that the burial period for Jesus preceded the three days; I think that the three days were symbolic, derived (probably) from Hosea 6.2 or (possibly) from other scriptural precedents. But that period of three days could be, and was, interpreted as different spans of concrete time.

I do not think that the death and resurrection of Jesus has anything directly to do with Osiris. Lazarus is the one I am examining at the moment in that connection. And the question presses itself: would Lazarus having been dead for four days be a good and recognizable connection to the Osiris festivities? Was the reader supposed to make that connection? If so, is it strong enough? If not, at what level of the text did the connection come into play? Did the writer know of it and not care whether the reader could figure it out or not? Was the writer him/herself unaware of what the four days meant, and was merely passing on the story as he/she received it?
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Re: Was the resurrection of Jesus similar to Lazarus's resurrection ?

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Jesus has far more similarities with Osiris's death, especially adding in the dd-pillar, which Osiris was ritualistically placed on during festivals.

Image

Image

Image

And Jesus, like Osiris, has women who mourn for him at the cross, two of which are sisters.

So the soldiers did these things, but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!”

Image

Image

An effuse of blood and water pours from Jesus.

But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.

Just as what happened when Osiris died:

Your water is yours, your flood is yours, your efflux which issued from the putrefaction of Osiris is yours.

///

I have quenched my thirst with the efflux of my father Osiris. O Isis, I have quenched my thirst with the high Nile, with the flood of Osiris.

///

The river is (as) filled (with) thickets as (is) the flood with the efflux that came forth from Osiris. May I gain access to water, may I have abundance of water, like this god who is in the mound of water.

And like Osiris, Jesus is taken away to be buried with ritualistic herbs and burial cloth.

So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews.

Just as Osiris was mummified with cloth and spices and entombed in a garden/under a shade tree.

Image

Jesus is more so directly tied to Osiris. More so than Lazarus even.
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Re: Was the resurrection of Jesus similar to Lazarus's resurrection ?

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The three most direct parallels, the three for which you gave quotes from the gospels to match, all come from the gospel of John, and I am actually quite open to that gospel having added details from pagan ritual.

What I am saying is that the death and resurrection of Jesus as a concept, as a "thing" supposed to have happened, did not derive from Osiris. It derived from the Hebrew scriptures, which are the proximal source.
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Re: Was the resurrection of Jesus similar to Lazarus's resurrection ?

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Jul 07, 2020 6:33 pm The three most direct parallels, the three for which you gave quotes from the gospels to match, all come from the gospel of John, and I am actually quite open to that gospel having added details from pagan ritual.

What I am saying is that the death and resurrection of Jesus as a concept, as a "thing" supposed to have happened, did not derive from Osiris. It derived from the Hebrew scriptures, which are the proximal source.
That seems like an artificial distinction to me. Judaism is itself pagan, with pagan influences and pagan rituals, most taken whole-cloth from other cultures, not the least of which is Egypt. Hell, they had a major Patriarch live and die in Egypt, marry an Egyptian, and was himself mummified.

As for John, yeah it has the most commonalities with Egyptian mystery rites, and I'm of the opinion that it is related to the first Gospel composed in Egypt. It even includes the concept of a celestial rebirth that was also applied in the Osirian cycle, as well as water turning to wine/blood, and the Eucharist is %100 Osirian.
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Re: Was the resurrection of Jesus similar to Lazarus's resurrection ?

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Joseph D. L. wrote: Tue Jul 07, 2020 6:55 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Jul 07, 2020 6:33 pm The three most direct parallels, the three for which you gave quotes from the gospels to match, all come from the gospel of John, and I am actually quite open to that gospel having added details from pagan ritual.

What I am saying is that the death and resurrection of Jesus as a concept, as a "thing" supposed to have happened, did not derive from Osiris. It derived from the Hebrew scriptures, which are the proximal source.
That seems like an artificial distinction to me. Judaism is itself pagan, with pagan influences and pagan rituals, most taken whole-cloth from other cultures, not the least of which is Egypt. Hell, they had a major Patriarch live and die in Egypt, marry an Egyptian, and was himself mummified.
It is a distinction, but it is far from artificial. A to B to C is definitely distinct and different from the combination of A to B and A to C. In the first, the middle term is B; in the second, the middle term is A.
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Re: Was the resurrection of Jesus similar to Lazarus's resurrection ?

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Jul 07, 2020 6:59 pm
Joseph D. L. wrote: Tue Jul 07, 2020 6:55 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Jul 07, 2020 6:33 pm The three most direct parallels, the three for which you gave quotes from the gospels to match, all come from the gospel of John, and I am actually quite open to that gospel having added details from pagan ritual.

What I am saying is that the death and resurrection of Jesus as a concept, as a "thing" supposed to have happened, did not derive from Osiris. It derived from the Hebrew scriptures, which are the proximal source.
That seems like an artificial distinction to me. Judaism is itself pagan, with pagan influences and pagan rituals, most taken whole-cloth from other cultures, not the least of which is Egypt. Hell, they had a major Patriarch live and die in Egypt, marry an Egyptian, and was himself mummified.
It is a distinction, but it is far from artificial. A to B to C is definitely distinct and different from the combination of A to B and A to C. In the first, the middle term is B; in the second, the middle term is A.
I was never good at algebra. lol

It's a false distinction because it says that Jews and Christians only looked to the Old Testament, when they were surrounded by other cults and religions with similar traits to theirs. Why bother hunting for obscure passages that don't even apply to Jesus to begin with? This indicates that Jesus came first and references to the Old Testament came later to try and justify why, for example, he was born of a virgin, even though there is zero OT or pseudepigrapha sources that supports that. Not even in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

But we do have OT and Apocrypha texts that do say that Jews were influenced by paganism, and historians like Diodorus and Plutarch state that Jews in their day still worshiped pagan gods, especially Dionysus/Bacchus. So the avenue for pagan influences on Christianity was right there from the start, never mind the OT. Even one of the (supposed) first Christian texts, 1 Clement, makes an outright blatant comparison between Jesus's resurrection and the resurrection of the Phoenix. He doesn't use OT sources for this, but pagan and agricultural comparisons for the resurrection.

So it is an artificial distinction, by assuming that Jews and Christians lived in a cultural vacuum, which historically is not the case at all. Jews and Christians took from everyone and everywhere, just as all cultures do. Jews even tried co-opting Platonism by saying Plato learned from Moses. So there is no distinction at all.
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Re: Was the resurrection of Jesus similar to Lazarus's resurrection ?

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Joseph D. L. wrote: Tue Jul 07, 2020 7:12 pmIt's a false distinction because it says that Jews and Christians only looked to the Old Testament, when they were surrounded by other cults and religions with similar traits to theirs. Why bother hunting for obscure passages that don't even apply to Jesus to begin with?
No, that is not my view at all. It runs much deeper than that, and I have posted probably dozens of times on the forum with material relevant to this issue. The obscure, poorly interpreted passages came late and were justifications after that fact; quite true! But the basis for the death and resurrection of the Messiah does not derive from those; it hails from a long history of interpretation ranging from the bare seeds present in the Law, through developments made in the Prophets and the Writings, and then on to the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha, the Qumran scrolls, the Targumim, and even Josephus (in a way). The rabbinical materials which came still later develop these central interpretations even further, and we can situate the Christian notion of a Messiah figure pretty comfortably in that spectrum of exegesis.

There is no illusion of a cultural vacuum, and the Jewish writers were definitely influenced by Greek, Egyptian, and other writers. What I argue for is not cultural (which cultures inspired it?), but rather textual (which texts inspired it?). Which culture those texts came from is of little direct relevance.

Honestly, though, I am not currently up for going through all of that; the range of materials to go through is immense, and much of it depends upon strong and perceptive interpretations, not so much of the Christian writings, but of the Jewish ones.
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