The raising of Lazarus and baptism/initiation?
Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2020 10:55 am
I came across two sources that compare the raising of Lazarus to baptism/initiation and I'm wondering if anyone knows of any other scholars that make this connection?
The Baptismal Raising of Lazarus: A New Interpretation of John 11, Bernhard Lang, Novum Testamentum 58 (2016) 301-317
https://www.academia.edu/33654784/The_B ... 16_301-317
And the other source:
Intolerance, Polemics, and Debate in Antiquity: Politico-Cultural, Philosophical, and Religious Forms of Critical Conversation(BRILL, 2019), George H. van Kooten, Jacques van Ruiten
I've always suspected that themes of initiation are to be found throughout the texts of the NT.
Notice that in one of the rituals that is described in the article by Bernhard Lang, the initiate is wrapped like a mummy. Some of the earliest initiation texts that we have are ancient Egyptian. The ritual resurrection of the deceased was considered to be an "initiation into the netherworld" according to Jan Assmann in Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt(Cornell University Press, 2003).
Notice Assmann says that the rituals centered on Osiris and the sun god Re were especially cloaked in "mystery". Those are the two Egyptian deities that died and resurrected or conquered death. You find constant ritual identification with those two deities throughout Egyptian texts.
The deceased being initiated is ritually identified with the death and resurrection of Osiris. Part of the initiation ritual was:
The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts(SBL Press; Second edition, 2015), James P. Allen:
So "Unis", or the deceased king who is ritually identified with Osiris, is told to raise himself and to remove his shroud and ties. Compare that to Jesus raising Lazarus in John 11:
Another aspect of the initiation ritual was the purification of the deceased by water. This water was said to be the water that came out of the wound of Osiris when he was killed. This water was also associated with the Nile waters and the primordial waters and it purified you of your sins and gave you a new life or rebirth. Just like baptism.
Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt(Cornell University Press, 2003), Jan Assmann
Compare that to what Paul says about baptism in Romans 6:
In the following quote Pharaoh is being baptized with the water that came out of the wounds of Osiris. He's also ritually identified with the Sun god Re who dies and resurrects every night/morning. Re is reborn/resurrected after entering the primordial waters, and so is Pharaoh during his baptism.
"Conceptions of Purity in Egyptian Religion", Joachim Friedrich Quack in * Purity and the Forming of Religious Traditions in the Ancient Mediterranean World and Ancient Judaism*(BRILL, 2012), Christian Frevel, Christophe Nihan
In the Pyramid Texts the person being resurrected/deified is said to drink the bodily fluids of Osiris in the form of beer. This was all part of the deification process.
Compare the water that comes out of the wound of Osiris to what Craig R. Koester says about the water that comes from Jesus' wound in gJohn:
Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community(Fortress Press, 2003)
Notice in the article by Bernhard Lang that I linked to at the beginning of this post it says: "The second phase means death: the baptismal candidate is killed—symbolically, but not actually drowned by being forced under water. This “drowning” is the actual rite of baptism"
He refers to baptism as a symbolic "drowning".
For the Living and the Dead: The Funerary Laments of Upper Egypt, Ancient and Modern(I. B. Tauris, 2010), Elizabeth Wickett
"Baptism and initiation in the cult of Isis and Sarapis" by Brook Pearson, in Baptism, the New Testament and the Church: Historical and Contemporary Studies in Honour of R.E.O. White, edited by Stanley E. Porter, Anthony R. Cross
Corresponding Sense: Paul, Dialectic, and Gadamer(BRILL, 2001), Brook W. R. Pearson
So it seems very likely that this death/rebirth initiation ritual that was performed on the deceased in ancient Egypt eventually became an initiation ritual that was performed during one's lifetime when joining the mysteries. In ancient Egypt we already have an example of the Pharaoh performing a death and resurrection/rebirth ritual while he was alive.
Amenhotep III: Egypt's Radiant Pharaoh(Cambridge University Press, 1992-2012 ), Arielle P. Kozloff
Temples of Ancient Egypt(Cornell University Press, 1997), Dieter Arnold, Gerhard Haeny, Lanny Bell, Ragnhild Bjerre Finnestad
All throughout Egyptian texts you find ritual identification with a deity that dies and is resurrected/reborn. The person shares in the deities resurrection/rebirth just like in Christian baptism.
Becoming Divine: An Introduction to Deification in Western Culture(Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2013), M. David Litwa
The Baptismal Raising of Lazarus: A New Interpretation of John 11, Bernhard Lang, Novum Testamentum 58 (2016) 301-317
https://www.academia.edu/33654784/The_B ... 16_301-317
Though well hidden, the theme of baptism informs the whole story of the raising of Lazarus (John 11). The note about Jesus’ sojourn at the very place where John the Baptist had previously been active (John 10:40-42) forms the introduction to the Lazarus story. Just as a musical clef dictates pitch, this passage announces the theme: baptism. Once readers are set on this track, they cannot miss the hidden point. Ritually, the person being baptised is pushed into the realm of death, so that he can emerge to a new life...
Episodes that involve apparent death and an empty tomb are quite common in ancient Greek novels. In almost every ancient novel, the author has “his hero or heroine die and rise again.” Later, “one comes to realise that the dead person was only thought dead, or that a different but similar looking person died, or that the death was only apparent; nevertheless, the person found alive was greeted as someone who has returned from death"...
Stereotypical plots such as the one found in Callirhoë may bore the modern reader, because he fails to understand their twofold religious meaning. On the surface, they indicate that the novel’s heroes are accompanied by the gods; these protect the pious and guide them through their adventures to a happy ending. In the case of Callirhoë, the heroine’s singular devotion to, and protection by, the goddess Aphrodite is particularly striking. But this is not the end of it, for the ancient readers also pick up the deeper meaning of such scenes. For them, they imply a reference to the ritual movement from death to life in the context of the mystery initiations...
Unfortunately, our ancient sources on mystery religions tell us very little about how the “second birth” was ritually staged, for initiates were required to remain silent about it. Nevertheless, some hints found in ancient sources give an indication. The magic papyrus of Paris provides a good example. Around eleven o’clock in the morning and in the presence of the magician, the candidate is supposed to mount the roof of a house and spread out a piece of cloth. Naked he places himself upon it. His eyes are blindfolded, the entire body wrapped like a mummy. With closed eyes turning to the sun, he utters a spell that addresses the god Typhon, king of the gods. The spell is pronounced three times, anticipating a divine sign. When this occurs, possibly in the form of a draught of air felt by the candidate, the latter stands up. He dons a white garment, burns incense and again utters a spell. The rites completed, he descends from the roof. Now he knows that he has acquired immortality. Similar rites and symbolic representations of death and resurrection can be found in all ancient mystery cults. “When the candidate of the mysteries of Isis applies for initiation, he chooses the ritual death in order to gain true life,” explains Reinhold Merkelbach. In fact, according to the ancients, each initiation ritual involves the death of the old and the birth of a new person; there are no exceptions.
Early-Christian baptism divides the lives of those baptised in a sequence of three phases. In the first phase, the human being is enslaved to sin and the world. The second phase means death: the baptismal candidate is killed—symbolically, but not actually drowned by being forced under water. This “drowning” is the actual rite of baptism
Episodes that involve apparent death and an empty tomb are quite common in ancient Greek novels. In almost every ancient novel, the author has “his hero or heroine die and rise again.” Later, “one comes to realise that the dead person was only thought dead, or that a different but similar looking person died, or that the death was only apparent; nevertheless, the person found alive was greeted as someone who has returned from death"...
Stereotypical plots such as the one found in Callirhoë may bore the modern reader, because he fails to understand their twofold religious meaning. On the surface, they indicate that the novel’s heroes are accompanied by the gods; these protect the pious and guide them through their adventures to a happy ending. In the case of Callirhoë, the heroine’s singular devotion to, and protection by, the goddess Aphrodite is particularly striking. But this is not the end of it, for the ancient readers also pick up the deeper meaning of such scenes. For them, they imply a reference to the ritual movement from death to life in the context of the mystery initiations...
Unfortunately, our ancient sources on mystery religions tell us very little about how the “second birth” was ritually staged, for initiates were required to remain silent about it. Nevertheless, some hints found in ancient sources give an indication. The magic papyrus of Paris provides a good example. Around eleven o’clock in the morning and in the presence of the magician, the candidate is supposed to mount the roof of a house and spread out a piece of cloth. Naked he places himself upon it. His eyes are blindfolded, the entire body wrapped like a mummy. With closed eyes turning to the sun, he utters a spell that addresses the god Typhon, king of the gods. The spell is pronounced three times, anticipating a divine sign. When this occurs, possibly in the form of a draught of air felt by the candidate, the latter stands up. He dons a white garment, burns incense and again utters a spell. The rites completed, he descends from the roof. Now he knows that he has acquired immortality. Similar rites and symbolic representations of death and resurrection can be found in all ancient mystery cults. “When the candidate of the mysteries of Isis applies for initiation, he chooses the ritual death in order to gain true life,” explains Reinhold Merkelbach. In fact, according to the ancients, each initiation ritual involves the death of the old and the birth of a new person; there are no exceptions.
Early-Christian baptism divides the lives of those baptised in a sequence of three phases. In the first phase, the human being is enslaved to sin and the world. The second phase means death: the baptismal candidate is killed—symbolically, but not actually drowned by being forced under water. This “drowning” is the actual rite of baptism
And the other source:
Intolerance, Polemics, and Debate in Antiquity: Politico-Cultural, Philosophical, and Religious Forms of Critical Conversation(BRILL, 2019), George H. van Kooten, Jacques van Ruiten
A similarly playful combination of cognate forms... also occur in the Gospel of John, not only with regard to the pupils who are perfected and initiated into one, and with regard to Lazarus, but also with respect to Jesus himself: he loves his pupils "till the end", as the author notes in his description of the last symposium, and it is at this symposium that he talks about his pupils' perfection and initiation into one (17:23) before he finishes his life by exclaiming, again in marked difference from the Synoptic Gospels: "It has been finished, it has been perfected" (19:30). Both Lazarus's and Jesus's deaths are described in the ambiguous terminology of finishing, perfection, and initiation, and thus understood as initiations into a death that is followed by a resurrection, just as in the mystery religions. It seems that Jesus's final exclamation, "It has been finished", signals the end of such an initiation, thus putting the event of his death on a par with the place of intitiation at the Euleusinian mysteries, which--as becomes clear in Plutarch's description of the building of the Eleusinian sanctuary--is called a place for initiation..
This is by no means the only allusion to the Eleusinian mysteries in John's Gospel. Just before his death, at the beginning of the last festival that he attends in the Jerusalem temple, it is the very Greeks who wish to see Jesus whom he answers with a reference to his approaching death, cast in a hidden allusion to the Eleusinian mysteries, which revolve around the contemplation of an ear of wheat that was seen as the fruit of the resurrection of Aphrodite/Kore: "unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit"(12:24)
This is by no means the only allusion to the Eleusinian mysteries in John's Gospel. Just before his death, at the beginning of the last festival that he attends in the Jerusalem temple, it is the very Greeks who wish to see Jesus whom he answers with a reference to his approaching death, cast in a hidden allusion to the Eleusinian mysteries, which revolve around the contemplation of an ear of wheat that was seen as the fruit of the resurrection of Aphrodite/Kore: "unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit"(12:24)
I've always suspected that themes of initiation are to be found throughout the texts of the NT.
Notice that in one of the rituals that is described in the article by Bernhard Lang, the initiate is wrapped like a mummy. Some of the earliest initiation texts that we have are ancient Egyptian. The ritual resurrection of the deceased was considered to be an "initiation into the netherworld" according to Jan Assmann in Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt(Cornell University Press, 2003).
In accordance with the image of death as mystery, the deceased not only crossed over, or returned, to the netherworld, he was initiated into it. In their rubrics, many spells of the Book of the Dead identify themselves as initiations into the mysteries of the netherworld. The following rubric, for instance, accompanies a whole series of spells:
'The mysteries of the netherworld,
initiation into the mysteries of the realm of the dead'...
In any event, the Egyptian texts say one thing clearly enough: that all rituals, and especially those centered on Osiris and the sun god, were cloaked in mystery. And it is also clear that there is a relationship between initiation into these (ritual) mysteries and life in the next world. He who knew these things overcame the dangers of the realm of death and managed the passage into Elysium and the “going forth by day”...
There is good reason to think that ancient Egyptian burial customs lived on in the Hellenistic Isis mysteries, though in the latter case, they were enacted and interpreted not as a burial of the deceased but as an initiation of the living.
'The mysteries of the netherworld,
initiation into the mysteries of the realm of the dead'...
In any event, the Egyptian texts say one thing clearly enough: that all rituals, and especially those centered on Osiris and the sun god, were cloaked in mystery. And it is also clear that there is a relationship between initiation into these (ritual) mysteries and life in the next world. He who knew these things overcame the dangers of the realm of death and managed the passage into Elysium and the “going forth by day”...
There is good reason to think that ancient Egyptian burial customs lived on in the Hellenistic Isis mysteries, though in the latter case, they were enacted and interpreted not as a burial of the deceased but as an initiation of the living.
Notice Assmann says that the rituals centered on Osiris and the sun god Re were especially cloaked in "mystery". Those are the two Egyptian deities that died and resurrected or conquered death. You find constant ritual identification with those two deities throughout Egyptian texts.
The deceased being initiated is ritually identified with the death and resurrection of Osiris. Part of the initiation ritual was:
- The deceased in the role of Osiris
- Another person in the role of Horus resurrecting Osiris
- Two women in the role of the mourning sisters of Osiris, Isis and Nephthys
The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts(SBL Press; Second edition, 2015), James P. Allen:
Recitation 194: This Teti’s sister (Wadjet), the Lady of Pe, is the one who cried for him, and the two attendants, (Isis and Nephthys), who mourned Osiris have mourned him...
Recitation 152: Isis, this Osiris here is your brother, whom you have made revive and live: he will live and this Unis will live, he will not die and this Unis will not die, he will not perish and this Unis will not perish; Nephthys, this Osiris here is your brother, whom you have made revive and live: he will live and this Unis will live, he will not die and this Unis will not die, he will not perish and this Unis will not perish; Horus, this Osiris here is your father, whom you have made revive and live: he will live and this Unis will live, he will not die and this Unis will not die, he will not perish and this Unis will not perish
Recitation 526: Raise yourself, clear away your dust, remove the shroud on your face. Loosen your ties...
Recitation 152: Isis, this Osiris here is your brother, whom you have made revive and live: he will live and this Unis will live, he will not die and this Unis will not die, he will not perish and this Unis will not perish; Nephthys, this Osiris here is your brother, whom you have made revive and live: he will live and this Unis will live, he will not die and this Unis will not die, he will not perish and this Unis will not perish; Horus, this Osiris here is your father, whom you have made revive and live: he will live and this Unis will live, he will not die and this Unis will not die, he will not perish and this Unis will not perish
Recitation 526: Raise yourself, clear away your dust, remove the shroud on your face. Loosen your ties...
So "Unis", or the deceased king who is ritually identified with Osiris, is told to raise himself and to remove his shroud and ties. Compare that to Jesus raising Lazarus in John 11:
When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
Another aspect of the initiation ritual was the purification of the deceased by water. This water was said to be the water that came out of the wound of Osiris when he was killed. This water was also associated with the Nile waters and the primordial waters and it purified you of your sins and gave you a new life or rebirth. Just like baptism.
Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt(Cornell University Press, 2003), Jan Assmann
This was the place where the life juices flowed out of Osiris and flooded Egypt, giving rise to all the means of life. When it was offered to him in the cult, the water of the inundation, which had flowed out of the body of the slain god, made it possible to restore life to him, as well as to all the dead, who were equated with him...The inundation water that flowed from the wound of the god produced new life; it was a veritable elixir of life that brought forth and nourished all living things in the land. Thus, in many representations of water flowing out of a libation vessel, the water is depicted as a chain consisting of hieroglyphs for “life”... Whoever immersed himself in the primeval water escaped death and gained strength for new life...
we live again anew,
after we enter the primeval water,
and it has rejuvenated us into one who is young for the first time.
The old man is shed, a new one is made ...
we live again anew,
after we enter the primeval water,
and it has rejuvenated us into one who is young for the first time.
The old man is shed, a new one is made ...
Compare that to what Paul says about baptism in Romans 6:
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
In the following quote Pharaoh is being baptized with the water that came out of the wounds of Osiris. He's also ritually identified with the Sun god Re who dies and resurrects every night/morning. Re is reborn/resurrected after entering the primordial waters, and so is Pharaoh during his baptism.
"Conceptions of Purity in Egyptian Religion", Joachim Friedrich Quack in * Purity and the Forming of Religious Traditions in the Ancient Mediterranean World and Ancient Judaism*(BRILL, 2012), Christian Frevel, Christophe Nihan
O Water, may you abolish all bad defilement of the pharaoh,
O inundation, may you wash off his errant demons...
[Come] that you [erase] all evil in him.
Any taboo he did, [...] at the lake!...
Pharaoh is purified with this water which came out from Osiris...
Pharaoh is Re, arising in the primeval ocean,
[His] purity is [the purity of... in the] water,
With big flame...
O inundation, may you wash off his errant demons...
[Come] that you [erase] all evil in him.
Any taboo he did, [...] at the lake!...
Pharaoh is purified with this water which came out from Osiris...
Pharaoh is Re, arising in the primeval ocean,
[His] purity is [the purity of... in the] water,
With big flame...
In the Pyramid Texts the person being resurrected/deified is said to drink the bodily fluids of Osiris in the form of beer. This was all part of the deification process.
THE OFFERING RITUAL: Unis, accept the foam that comes from Osiris. 1 BLACK QUARTZITE BOWL OF BEER.
Compare the water that comes out of the wound of Osiris to what Craig R. Koester says about the water that comes from Jesus' wound in gJohn:
Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community(Fortress Press, 2003)
When he died later that afternoon,"one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water"(19:34-35)... Earlier in the Gospel Jesus promised that the living water, which signified the Spirit, would flow "out of his heart" or "belly"(7:37-39), and the water issuing from his wound confirms this promise, identifying the crucified Jesus as the source of the Spirit... On one level the water imagery helps convey the cleansing effect of Jesus' death... Connections between water, purification, and Jesus' death were established early in the narrative... Given these connections, readers are prepared to see the water flowing from Jesus' side as a way of conveying the purifying effect of his death... in the eyes of the evangelist, the crucified Christ is a source of cleansing for sin. The water from Jesus' side is not primarily a baptismal symbol, but when related to the comments about baptism earlier in the Gospel, it shows that baptism becomes significant through association with the Spirit that engenders faith in Jesus, who was "lifted up" in death (3:5, 14-15, 22-30)... Jesus previously invited those who were thirsty to come and drink from him (John 4:13; 6:35; 7:37)... The Jesus who thirsted was the fountain of living water. He gave life to others at the expense of his own. The speat that pierced Jesus' side demonstrated that he was dead; yet the water that came forth revealed that in death he was the source of life.
Notice in the article by Bernhard Lang that I linked to at the beginning of this post it says: "The second phase means death: the baptismal candidate is killed—symbolically, but not actually drowned by being forced under water. This “drowning” is the actual rite of baptism"
He refers to baptism as a symbolic "drowning".
For the Living and the Dead: The Funerary Laments of Upper Egypt, Ancient and Modern(I. B. Tauris, 2010), Elizabeth Wickett
... deceased king and subsequently all deceased, male or female, are to become 'the god Osiris' and are symbolically 'drowned' (Pyr 24d, 615d, 766d). Osiris was believed to embody the source of the inundation: "You have your water, you have your flood, the fluid which issued from the god, the exudation which issued from Osiris(Pyr 436)"
"Baptism and initiation in the cult of Isis and Sarapis" by Brook Pearson, in Baptism, the New Testament and the Church: Historical and Contemporary Studies in Honour of R.E.O. White, edited by Stanley E. Porter, Anthony R. Cross
Because of the interest New Testament scholars have had in Rom. 6.1-11, the question of baptism in the Isis/Sarapis cult has received a certain amount of attention from this group. This has primarily been for the purpose of either 'proving' or 'disproving' the existence of this act in the initiatory practices of the Isis/Sarapis cult as a parallel to Christian baptism, specifically in it's formulation by Paul Rom. 6.1-11...This material from Apuleius provides us with more than enough evidence to suggest that the connection between baptism, death(symbolic, actual or simply the possibility thereof) and initiation into the cult of Isis would have existed in at least the popular mind...This mosaic is connected with Isis and depicts a scene of the Nile Valley in flood. On it (center, left) is the representation of a temple with what looks much like a bath or, as Witt styles it, 'a kind of baptismal font'. In his rather more full discussion of the archaeology of the 50 or so sites of centralized worship in the Isis and Osiris cult, with specific reference to the water-related facilities, Wild suggests that 'they appear to have a significant function within the cult'. Wild is, however, in some disagreement with Salditt-Trappmann, who suggests that the 'crypt' of the Iseum at Gortyn on Crete was used for actual baptism. While he does not fully share Salditt-Trappmann's extended views on Isiac baptism, he does support this aspect of her interpretaion: 'That individuals entered basins in these crypts'- here referring to the widespread existence of crypts in Graeco-Roman Isea- 'to undergo a ritual drowning appears somewhat...credible.'...It does not seem that Wild has actually inspected the evidence at Gortyn about which he speaks, while Salditt-Trappmann's discussion of the site seems to be based not only on published details of the archeology of the sites, but also upon first-hand investigation...However, it would appear that he does stray into the realm of 'their nature and meaning' in his theory that the crypts found in many Isea and Serapea were 'places in which [the Nile] flood symbolically but "really" recurred from time to time', which would then 'preserve this sacred water for the need of the cult.'...
In ancient times, the Osiris myth was the basis for what are perhaps the first mysteries- the lawful succession of the pharaohs, their burial and eventual union with Osiris in the afterlife. This 'mystery' eventually became something in which not only kings but other Egyptians could partake, and, in time, spread across the known world, along with the worship of Isis and Sarapis. For our purposes here, both of these elements separately and in combination suggest that the Isis initiate did indeed go through a process of identification with the god Osiris, and that this fact would have been the assumption behind the entire initiation process. In the first place, the ancient form of the Isis-Osiris mysteries clearly has the kings, and later normal people, identifying with the god Osiris in the hope of unification with him in the afterlife (and even, possibly, in his resurrection). This is indisputable.
In ancient times, the Osiris myth was the basis for what are perhaps the first mysteries- the lawful succession of the pharaohs, their burial and eventual union with Osiris in the afterlife. This 'mystery' eventually became something in which not only kings but other Egyptians could partake, and, in time, spread across the known world, along with the worship of Isis and Sarapis. For our purposes here, both of these elements separately and in combination suggest that the Isis initiate did indeed go through a process of identification with the god Osiris, and that this fact would have been the assumption behind the entire initiation process. In the first place, the ancient form of the Isis-Osiris mysteries clearly has the kings, and later normal people, identifying with the god Osiris in the hope of unification with him in the afterlife (and even, possibly, in his resurrection). This is indisputable.
Corresponding Sense: Paul, Dialectic, and Gadamer(BRILL, 2001), Brook W. R. Pearson
Are Hellenistic mystery religion initiatory rites parallel to Paul's interpretation of baptism in Rom. 6:1-11? And, how and why might they be parallel? Following some of Wagner's critics, my assessment is that the evidence does indeed suggest that Paul's interpretation of baptism in Rom. 6:1-11 is parallel to elements in the mystery religions, especially the Isis cult, which was located in many different Hellenistic centres throughout the Greco-Roman world. In my opinion, the most important element of this similarity is the language of identification utilized by Paul of the individual Christian's 'sharing' (Rom. 6:5) in the activities of Jesus by participation in a ritual reenactment of Christ's death. As we shall see, the language used in Romans 6 to describe this participation, in addition to the similarities of Paul's equation of baptism and death with the similar equation in the Osiris myth, clearly evokes a connection with Rom. 1:23, and stands in developed contrast to typical Jewish use of similar language.
So it seems very likely that this death/rebirth initiation ritual that was performed on the deceased in ancient Egypt eventually became an initiation ritual that was performed during one's lifetime when joining the mysteries. In ancient Egypt we already have an example of the Pharaoh performing a death and resurrection/rebirth ritual while he was alive.
Amenhotep III: Egypt's Radiant Pharaoh(Cambridge University Press, 1992-2012 ), Arielle P. Kozloff
The royal jubilee, or heb-sed, was a festival of renewal rooted in Egypt's most ancient history...The Sed festival traditionally took place during the thirtieth year of the reign...Timing was crucial for the climax of the festival deep inside the royal tomb. There Pharaoh faced the images of the gods represented on his tomb walls and remained for a period of time before going to his funeral bed, where he "died" and was "reborn" in a series of rituals, incantations, and offerings...This resurrection was the culmination of a process of deification that had began with Amenhoteps III's coronation. At the time, like all Egyptian kings, he was the representative and high priest of each god on earth.
Temples of Ancient Egypt(Cornell University Press, 1997), Dieter Arnold, Gerhard Haeny, Lanny Bell, Ragnhild Bjerre Finnestad
This ceremonial regeneration of the king's divine powers was carried out, ideally, thirty years after his coronation or appointment as official successor to the throne. Apparently the rites of this renewal of the royal reign were also performed in the fortress of the gods, where the gods again arrived in the boats that play an important role in this ceremony...These powerful rites, which influenced the nature of Egyptian kingship until the end of pharaonic rule, could culminate in a ceremonial death and rebirth of the aging king...
During the Sed-Festival, the living king, as part of his eternal cycle, underwent a ritual death and rejuvenation. In the rite's critical climax, the king experienced the nadir of his strength...
During the Sed-Festival, the living king, as part of his eternal cycle, underwent a ritual death and rejuvenation. In the rite's critical climax, the king experienced the nadir of his strength...
All throughout Egyptian texts you find ritual identification with a deity that dies and is resurrected/reborn. The person shares in the deities resurrection/rebirth just like in Christian baptism.
Becoming Divine: An Introduction to Deification in Western Culture(Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2013), M. David Litwa
After his rebirth, the king entered a long hall oriented east-west with twelve pillars. The twelve columns may have represented the twelve hours of the Sun God's journey through the netherworld. By processing through the colonnade, the king imitated the voyage of the Sun God in his journey by night in the underworld. Now seething with divine energy, the king finally reappeared as if from a divine womb into the sunny court...When the Pharaoh emerged from the shadows, he reflected the bright Sun with his robe of shining gold and silver. The people roared at the sight of the regenerated divine king, splendidly crowned and glorious in triumph...As the living manifestation of the Sun God, the people adored their transformed king as the source of their own life.