Thread by @travisdon1981

Was #Mary, the #mother of #Jesus, based on the #Egyptian #Goddess #Isis?
Um, #NO, and here is why.

Isis was a major goddess in the ancient world, being first worshipped before 3000 BC. Her cult died out during the Christian era, though she has made a comeback in neo-pagan circles. Her cult later became one of the “Mystery Religions” during the Christian era, one of the

competitors of early Christianity. She was often depicted holding her infant son Horus (though Horus in ancient Egypt was most often depicted as an adult).
It is believed by scholars that her cult and some of her iconography (mother and child depiction) was adopted by

Christianity to a certain extent, though instead of venerating Isis, of seeing her as the ideal mother, they venerated Mary and saw her as the ideal mother. This would have been a very useful tactic to lure pagans in the Isis cult away (Just as St. Patrick took the Irish pagan

sun symbol (a circle), put it with a cross, and thus made the Celtic Cross, a symbol the Irish could rally behind (remember, the symbol of the cross in no way derived from the Irish Sun Symbol). However, it must be stressed that Mary was not considered a goddess.
We must also

remember that it is one thing to say that the early Church used Mary as a replacement for Isis, but quite another to say that she was actually based on her. Indeed, do we say that Jesus was based on Jupiter (the King of the Roman Gods), because the church, through evangelism,

made Jesus a replacement for him? Do we say that the cross was an invention of the pagan Irish, because it was used by St. Patrick to replace their simple circle of the sun symbol? Are we going to say that the Bible was based on the works of Homer and Plato, because it replaced

them as THE texts of the western world (The Bible is not one book, but a library of ancient texts)?
Indeed, why would a devout Jewish sect take a pagan goddess and turn it into a first century Jewish woman?
Still, Jesus Mythicists will insist that Mary was a fictional character

based on Isis.
Well, let’s see how wrong they really are, and to do so, we need to compare both.
Isis was a mother goddess who, like an angel, was depicted with wings. She was the daughter of the god Geb and the Goddess Nut, one of a set of quadruplets or quintuplets, depending

on the version of the myth (her siblings being Osiris, the Elder Horus (not to be confused with the more popular Horus. In some versions he is not her brother), Nephthys and Seth). Isis and Osiris had SEX…while still in the womb.

You heard me, Ron.

In some accounts, this is how the elder Horus was conceived and born. Isis eventually married Osiris (while outside the womb) and…well, what happens on a wedding night? What do married couples um, do now and again.
Hint:

Later, Seth kills Osiris, only for Isis to resurrect him. While he is resurrected, Isis and Osiris have (guess. GUESS!)...SEX!
Who would have thought?
Thus, Horus the younger, the more famous Horus…was conceived.

In another account, Isis conceived Horus by means of a divine fire, but this still doesn’t change the uncomfortable fact that Isis and Osiris had sex before they were ever born, and no doubt would have sex while married.
Jesus Mythicists will protest, saying that a relief on

the Luxor Temple in Egypt shows that Isis was a virgin. Well…no. There is no such inscription.
They also try to make a connection between Isis and the constellation Virgo (or virgin) but this also fails. Because, you see, though Isis was connected to the constellation Virgo…

the reason why we call Virgo “The Virgin” is because the Greeks thought it was the goddess Astraea, the Virgin goddess of justice. She grew tired of humanity’s sinful ways and decided to leave the world behind, thus rising into the heavens and becoming the constellation Virgo.

To say that Isis was a virgin, because she was associated with a constellation that the Greeks thought represented one of their virgin goddesses, would be like saying that Osiris was a giant hunter, because he was associated with the constellation Orion, whom the Greeks

identified with the giant hunter named …Orion! So I guess we are free to fudge the facts and combine Osiris and Orion into a hybrid known as “Osirion”, the giant hunter god who is killed by a conspiracy of Seth and Artemis (using a scorpion, in some versions an arrow

), only to physically resurrect and become the constellation Orion!. Trying to take aspects of a Greek goddess identified with the constellation Virgo and apply them to Isis makes a grave, grave error (especially when we consider the fact that both are from different religious

traditions).
Indeed, the Greeks didn’t identify Virgo with just Astraea : they also identified it with Dike (a goddess of justice who, to be fair, was identified with Astraea and who was also claimed to be a virgin, though in another version of her myth, she was the mother of

the goddess Hesykhia) and Persephone, who of course was NO virgin (she was the wife of Hades. Oh and BTW: in the Orphic tradition, Zeus raped her while in the form of a snake).
So…are we going to say that Isis was a goddess of justice who was kidnapped by Hades (who married her

(she was already married to Osiris, making our hypothetical Isis a bigamist) and was raped by Zeus in the form of a serpent?
Most would consider this to be an absurd description of Isis.
Therefore…why borrow mythological details from Astraea and give them to Isis, especially

when the Egyptian myths make clear that Isis was having sex before she was even born???
Thus, Isis was no Virgin.
She was however a great teacher, helping to civilize Egypt and teaching people the art of medicine. She even brought the concept of marriage to humanity.

Now…let’s look at Mary.
Mary was a peasant Jewish woman who lived from the late 1rst century BC to the early 1rst century AD. Like other Jewish women, when she was a girl, her marriage would have been arranged by her family and that of her potential groom (in this case Joseph).

Jewish marriages would have been generally arranged while the potential couple was still young. Once the arrangement was made, the couple was betrothed, which was more binding than our modern engagements (if you wanted to break off a betrothal in ancient Israel, you had to get

a divorce (Matt 1:19)). Once a girl had her first period, wedding planning would commence (remember this point). Girls usually got their first periods around 13-14, though considering that the legal age for marriage in ancient Israel was 13 for boys and 12 for girls, sometimes

this happened even earlier.
Considering that Mary went through an entire pregnancy during her betrothal, and that she had been betrothed to Joseph before she became pregnant (Luke 1:26-30), this would lead us to the startling conclusion that Mary hadn’t had her period yet when

she became pregnant. Thus the virgin aspect of Christ's conception wasn't the only miracle being done at the time. Indeed, Rashi, a Medieval rabbi, noted that some scholars believed that the Virgin birth passage in Isaiah 7 (quoted in the New Testament) is describing

the impregnation of a girl too young to have kids.
Thus, Mary could have been in her teens, or even 11 or 12, when she became pregnant with Christ (remember, the legal age of marriage was 12, not the legal age of betrothal).

And remember, even at the time of Jesus’ birth, Mary and Joseph were still betrothed (Luke 2:1-7).
Mary would have been considered one of the great heroes of faith. Later, she was said to appear in visions and perform other miracles, but these beliefs and reports post-dates the

New Testament (Mary performs no miracles in the New Testament).
So…what do Isis and Mary have in common?

Having children at an early age?

Only in some versions of her myth is Isis claimed to have gotten pregnant with the elder Horus while still in the womb. In others, she only gave birth to Horus the Younger, and this occurred after Isis and Osiris were adults. Mary certainly had Jesus at an early age, but this

parallels Isis only in some myths, and nowhere (I repeat NOWHERE) near enough to show that Mary was based on Isis.

Virgin mother?
Mary was a virgin mother. Isis was not. Even in accounts where she was impregnated with Horus by means of a divine fire, she still had a track record

of having something we like to call SEX.
Were both winged?
No. Mary wasn’t a mutant.
Both goddesses?
No. Mary was mortal.
Both performed miracles?
Mary was said to have performed miracles…in tales and reports that post-date the New Testament.

Did Mary teach civilization, medicine and institute marriage?
No, these things happened long before Mary was born.
One of a set of quadruplets or quintuplets?
We have no evidence showing that Mary was one of a set of quadruplets or quintuplets.
Resurrected the dead?
No, Mary did

not. Her son, however did.
Both called "Mary"?
Though Jesus mythicists will claim that Isis was also called "Meri" or "Isis Meri", there is no evidence of this.

Immortality?
Like every other human, only Mary’s spirit or soul is immortal. Her body was not, and she passed away in the first century AD. Isis, being a goddess, was considered immortal.

Oh, and keep in mind: Mary is from a Jewish Background, while Isis is from a far older

Polytheistic background. We need to consider Christianity’s Jewish context, not pagan myth, in order to better understand it.
So…what do they really have in common???
Hardly anything.

Now remember: the novella “Futility/Wreck of the Titan had numerous, numerous similarities with the Titanic disaster, which occurred 14 years later. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket” has numerous similarities with the Mignonette sinking, and of

course, Alexander the Great has more than thirty similarities with the mythic Achilles. Nobody honestly believes that Alexander the Great, the Mignonette disaster and the Titanic disaster were fictional tales based on earlier works of fiction.

And yet…we are supposed to believe that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was based on the Egyptian Goddess Isis, when their so-called parallels are practically non-existent?

No, Mary wasn’t based on Isis.
She was the flesh and blood historical mother of the historical flesh and blood Jesus Christ, the savior of mankind.
Nuff said.

Sources:
Plutarch’s “Isis and Osiris” 12
penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman…
“The Way to Eternity” by Fergus Fleming, Alan Lothian and Dr, Joann Fletcher (consultant), 24-25, 58-59
“The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology” by Arthur Cotterell and Rachel Storm, 290 (see also 74-75, 79

tektonics.org/copycat/osy.php
“Titans and Olympians” by Tony Allan, Sarah Maitland and Dr. Michael Trapp (consultant), 79-80
“The Penguin Dictionary of Classical Mythology” by Pierre Grimal, 64, 314

“The Story of Christianity: 2000 Years of Faith” by Michael Collins and Matthew A. Price, 38-39
owlcation.com/stem/the-const…
space.com/17021-virgo-co…
theoi.com/Titan/Astraia.…
theoi.com/Daimon/Hesykhi…
theoi.com/Ouranios/HoraD…

Nonnus, Dionysiaca, Dionysiaca 5. 562
theoi.com/Text/NonnusDio…
“In the Footsteps of Jesus” (A National Geographic Book) by Jean-Pierre Isbouts, 86-87, 90
“Nelson’s Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Bible” edited by John Drane, 96

“Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, Volume Three: Messianic Prophecy Objections” by Michael L. Brown, 29-30
“Miracles of Mary: Apparitions, Legends, and Miraculous Works of the Blessed Virgin Mary” by Michael S. Durham.
coldcasechristianity.com/writings/is-je…

learnreligions.com/who-was-the-eg…
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1172309…
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1179861…
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1176083…

@thethreadreader untoll please